Gates: ?Cute? Tech Won?t Solve Planet?s Energy Woes
- By Dave Mosher
- May 3, 2011 |
- 11:53 am |
- Categories: People, WiredBiz, WiredBiz2011
Bill Gates attends the WIRED Business Conference Disruptive by Design in Partnership with MDC Partners at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 3, 2011 in New York City. Photo by Larry Busacca/WireImage.com
NEW YORK — Bill Gates has a simple plan for the future of energy: Don?t rely on the cute stuff.
Sure, attaching solar panels to roofs, building windmills in backyards or deploying other small-scale energy technologies is a fine idea, Microsoft’s co-founder told a packed auditorium at the Wired Business Conference: Disruptive by Design.
Trouble is, they can?t significantly aide developing nations thirsty for cheap energy, he said.
?The solutions that work in the rich world don?t even close to solving the [energy] problem,? said Gates, interviewed by Wired Magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. ?If you?re interested in cuteness, the stuff in the home is the place to go. If you?re interested in solving the world?s energy problems, it?s things like big [solar projects] in the desert.?
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is the largest public philanthropic organization in the world. Using an endowment of more than $36 billion, the organization supports research intended to serve humanitarian causes.
On his own, however, Gates heavily invests in dozens of technology efforts, from better batteries to safer nuclear reactors. He thinks governments like the U.S. spend too much money on subsidizing old technology rather than research that could lead to cleaner, safer and cheaper energy.
?Over 90 percent of subsidies are on deploying technology and not on R&D. You can buy as much old technology as you want, but you won?t get breakthroughs which only come out of basic research,? Gates said. ?If we don?t have innovation in energy, we don?t have much at all.?
During the discussion, Gates was especially enthusiastic about one nuclear energy company called TerraPower, in which he?s investing undisclosed millions. By using far less-toxic depleted uranium as fuel (instead of the enriched type), the on-paper reactors should produce one-one-thousandth of typical radioactive waste.
?The new nuclear design ? is quite amazing,? Gates said. ?Basically no human should ever be required to do anything.?
Despite Japan?s recent earthquake-induced nuclear disaster, Gates was resolute about the overall environmental safety of nuclear reactors. He said such high-profile disasters have shaken public support, and that nuclear waste disposal is a relatively small problem in the scheme of things (even if nuclear reactors powered the entire U.S., he said). Rather, it?s the security of nuclear materials and cost that pose problems.
?The good news about nuclear is that there has hardly been any innovation. The room to do things differently is quite dramatic,? he said.
Full Coverage: Wired Business Conference: Disruptive By Design | 2011
Dave Mosher is a science journalist who has covered NASA's space shuttle and astronomy programs, flown over the North Pole to catch a total solar eclipse and lived in a house full of Russian particle physicists. He dabbles in photography, video, web development, graphic design and other nerdery.Follow @davemosher and @wiredscience on Twitter.
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