1 00:00:06,131 --> 00:00:09,426 [dramatic music playing] 2 00:00:14,639 --> 00:00:18,226 [Gates] It's kind of this crazy thing that there's this energy source 3 00:00:18,309 --> 00:00:21,771 that's wildly cheap, you know, that has powered our society. 4 00:00:21,855 --> 00:00:24,941 Our society is based on hydrocarbons. 5 00:00:25,025 --> 00:00:26,818 Gasoline, natural gas, and coal. 6 00:00:26,901 --> 00:00:28,445 [dramatic music continues] 7 00:00:29,029 --> 00:00:34,075 [Gates] At the same time, the phenomena of energy release is going to CO2, 8 00:00:35,577 --> 00:00:39,664 then the CO2 is like a mirror that's reflecting the heat back in, 9 00:00:39,748 --> 00:00:42,834 which has all these traumatic weather effects. 10 00:00:42,917 --> 00:00:43,960 [electronic zap] 11 00:00:44,044 --> 00:00:46,129 [wind whooshing] 12 00:00:49,215 --> 00:00:53,136 [Gates] Total emissions is over 50 billion tons a year. 13 00:00:53,219 --> 00:00:55,013 You know, it's just a mind-blowing number. 14 00:00:55,096 --> 00:00:56,765 [plane engine whirring] 15 00:00:56,848 --> 00:01:00,268 [Gates] We know for sure that if you keep using hydrocarbons, 16 00:01:00,351 --> 00:01:02,645 then things get very bad. 17 00:01:04,314 --> 00:01:06,775 So, we have to give up hydrocarbons 18 00:01:06,858 --> 00:01:08,526 almost entirely. 19 00:01:08,610 --> 00:01:09,986 [reporter 1] 20 00:01:10,070 --> 00:01:14,824 This year is now tied for the most days over 110 degrees recorded. 21 00:01:15,784 --> 00:01:18,536 You believe this is the toughest challenge humanity has ever faced? 22 00:01:18,620 --> 00:01:19,621 Absolutely. 23 00:01:19,704 --> 00:01:21,790 [water whooshing] 24 00:01:21,873 --> 00:01:24,167 [Gates] There's no reason to let it happen. 25 00:01:25,418 --> 00:01:27,629 We have solutions. 26 00:01:28,922 --> 00:01:32,050 [opening theme music playing] 27 00:01:38,473 --> 00:01:39,724 [music fades] 28 00:01:42,352 --> 00:01:45,480 [machinery clanking] 29 00:01:45,563 --> 00:01:47,857 [woman 1] Practically every activity that we engage in 30 00:01:47,941 --> 00:01:50,193 involves fossil fuels in some way. 31 00:01:50,902 --> 00:01:53,488 Looking at our phones, charging our phones, you know, 32 00:01:53,571 --> 00:01:56,908 to, uh, going to the ice skating rink, going to the swimming pool, you know. 33 00:01:56,991 --> 00:01:59,577 All these things are being heated and cooled. 34 00:01:59,661 --> 00:02:02,872 So, the scale of the solution has to match the scale of the problem, 35 00:02:02,956 --> 00:02:05,166 and that's very hard to even imagine. 36 00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:08,002 [inquisitive music playing] 37 00:02:08,086 --> 00:02:10,213 We are addicted to fossil fuels, right? 38 00:02:10,296 --> 00:02:14,300 And going cold turkey… wouldn't work. 39 00:02:15,176 --> 00:02:16,427 [switches clicking] 40 00:02:16,511 --> 00:02:21,057 [Gates] The electricity system would fail. You wouldn't be able to drive to work. 41 00:02:21,141 --> 00:02:23,101 Farmers wouldn't have any fertilizers. 42 00:02:23,184 --> 00:02:25,436 You couldn't build new buildings and roads. 43 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:27,689 People would be freezing to death. 44 00:02:27,772 --> 00:02:30,775 You know, there's almost nothing that doesn't draw 45 00:02:30,859 --> 00:02:33,361 on a massive amount of hydrocarbons. 46 00:02:33,444 --> 00:02:35,446 [inquisitive music playing] 47 00:02:37,031 --> 00:02:39,325 [Gates] Particularly because of my travel, 48 00:02:39,409 --> 00:02:42,871 my carbon footprint would be one of the highest. 49 00:02:45,582 --> 00:02:52,172 But I can afford to buy technologies that zero out my emissions. 50 00:02:54,382 --> 00:02:56,718 I also buy carbon credits. 51 00:02:57,927 --> 00:03:00,889 Obviously, you know, I can afford to do that, 52 00:03:00,972 --> 00:03:03,641 so that's not really being part of the solution. 53 00:03:07,270 --> 00:03:08,479 [music fades] 54 00:03:09,689 --> 00:03:11,733 [man 1] Bill Gates, welcome back. 55 00:03:11,816 --> 00:03:13,776 Now you're talking about climate change. 56 00:03:13,860 --> 00:03:17,405 In your new book, you talk about how to avoid a climate disaster. 57 00:03:17,488 --> 00:03:20,658 [Gates] We all need to get rid of our footprint 58 00:03:20,742 --> 00:03:24,829 by driving innovation faster than it would normally take place. 59 00:03:25,538 --> 00:03:28,833 You know, I… I have a life of seeing human innovation at work. 60 00:03:28,917 --> 00:03:32,420 You know, the digital revolution that I was lucky enough to be part of 61 00:03:33,004 --> 00:03:35,215 took people very much by surprise. 62 00:03:36,341 --> 00:03:38,426 What is the essence of Microsoft? 63 00:03:38,509 --> 00:03:40,970 Well, a computer on every desk and in every home. 64 00:03:41,054 --> 00:03:43,932 -I don't have one at home or my desk. -We're working on that. 65 00:03:44,015 --> 00:03:45,225 [camera shutter clicks] 66 00:03:45,308 --> 00:03:47,101 [man 2] I remember when I read the book. 67 00:03:47,185 --> 00:03:49,729 You could tell his approach was a systems approach. 68 00:03:49,812 --> 00:03:51,773 I always tell people about that book. I go, 69 00:03:51,856 --> 00:03:54,025 "That book is just a pie chart, okay?" 70 00:03:54,108 --> 00:03:55,860 It's the world's best pie chart book. 71 00:03:55,944 --> 00:03:58,321 It tells you the pie chart of all the causes. 72 00:03:58,404 --> 00:04:01,491 You're not a worthy cocktail party contestant unless you know the pie chart. 73 00:04:01,574 --> 00:04:03,952 [inquisitive music playing] 74 00:04:04,035 --> 00:04:07,205 [Gates] So, emissions come from many sectors of the economy. 75 00:04:07,288 --> 00:04:09,707 The manufacturing or industrial piece, 76 00:04:09,791 --> 00:04:12,835 making steel, making cement, making chemicals. 77 00:04:12,919 --> 00:04:14,504 That is so hidden to people. 78 00:04:14,587 --> 00:04:18,549 They're surprised that, globally, it's bigger than any of the others. 79 00:04:19,509 --> 00:04:23,137 Then there's producing electricity, burning coal, natural gas, 80 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:26,933 and then you have agriculture, where you have use of fertilizers, 81 00:04:27,016 --> 00:04:30,603 and you have the fact that cows generate natural gas. 82 00:04:32,939 --> 00:04:34,482 Then there's transportation. 83 00:04:34,565 --> 00:04:38,653 Passenger cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, boats. 84 00:04:39,988 --> 00:04:44,367 And then finally, you have buildings, where we heat and cool the buildings. 85 00:04:44,450 --> 00:04:46,119 To get to zero emissions, 86 00:04:46,619 --> 00:04:52,709 you literally have to zero out all the emissions in those five categories 87 00:04:52,792 --> 00:04:54,794 in every single country, 88 00:04:55,503 --> 00:04:56,796 and so it's… 89 00:04:56,879 --> 00:04:58,423 You know, it's very daunting. 90 00:04:58,506 --> 00:05:02,635 [birds tweeting faintly] 91 00:05:03,594 --> 00:05:07,015 [woman 2] I do have the great fortune of growing up in Montana. 92 00:05:08,474 --> 00:05:10,977 There's a river that runs right through town right by my house. 93 00:05:11,060 --> 00:05:13,021 We spend all of our time outside. 94 00:05:13,104 --> 00:05:15,398 The impacts are visible everywhere, 95 00:05:15,481 --> 00:05:17,150 but they're much more obvious 96 00:05:17,233 --> 00:05:19,944 when you're constantly interacting with the outdoors. 97 00:05:20,028 --> 00:05:21,237 [joyful music playing] 98 00:05:21,321 --> 00:05:24,365 [Gibson-Snyder] Wildfire smoke settles into the valley where I live, 99 00:05:24,449 --> 00:05:26,451 and it's hard to breathe. 100 00:05:26,951 --> 00:05:30,788 I also saw the glaciers in Glacier National Park melting. 101 00:05:30,872 --> 00:05:33,082 [wind whooshing] 102 00:05:33,166 --> 00:05:36,169 [woman 3] Yeah, pretty much doomed if we don't make any changes soon. 103 00:05:36,669 --> 00:05:38,921 People are dying. People are being affected, and I… 104 00:05:39,005 --> 00:05:41,966 It's getting closer and closer to us in Western societies. 105 00:05:42,050 --> 00:05:44,844 [clock ticking] 106 00:05:44,927 --> 00:05:47,680 Climate change growing up is… is just something that was there. 107 00:05:47,764 --> 00:05:50,600 I… I have known no world before climate change. 108 00:05:50,683 --> 00:05:53,061 Even if we want to do something around the climate crisis, 109 00:05:53,144 --> 00:05:55,438 it's not clear what we could even do to address it. 110 00:05:55,521 --> 00:05:57,607 [machine whirring] 111 00:05:57,690 --> 00:05:59,359 -[girl 1 chuckling] -[boy 1] That's crazy. 112 00:05:59,442 --> 00:06:00,693 -[all chuckling] -Yes. 113 00:06:00,777 --> 00:06:03,821 Wait, so it should be part of college orientation. 114 00:06:03,905 --> 00:06:06,074 [Gates] Well, the climate cause benefits immensely 115 00:06:06,157 --> 00:06:08,659 by having lots of young activists. 116 00:06:09,243 --> 00:06:12,663 You know, they're a super important part of the movement. 117 00:06:12,747 --> 00:06:13,873 -[Gates] Hi. -[Gibson-Snyder] Hello. 118 00:06:13,956 --> 00:06:15,750 -[Goel] Hello. -[girl 2] Nice to meet you. 119 00:06:15,833 --> 00:06:17,043 -Isaac. -[Gates] Hi, Isaac. 120 00:06:17,126 --> 00:06:18,628 -Grace. Nice to meet you. -[Gates] Hey. 121 00:06:18,711 --> 00:06:20,296 -I'm Jamie. -Hi, Jamie. 122 00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:21,923 [Gates] I learn from them 123 00:06:22,006 --> 00:06:25,426 just like I do from the scientists coming up with the breakthroughs. 124 00:06:25,510 --> 00:06:29,472 The highest temperature ever, they almost broke it. 125 00:06:29,555 --> 00:06:31,099 They were hoping they would break it, 126 00:06:31,182 --> 00:06:36,020 so a bunch of people wanted to be in Death Valley when it broke the record. 127 00:06:36,521 --> 00:06:39,107 That's like the dinosaurs wanting to pose with the asteroids. 128 00:06:39,190 --> 00:06:40,733 [all laugh] 129 00:06:40,817 --> 00:06:41,818 Like… 130 00:06:41,901 --> 00:06:44,070 I don't consider myself a climate optimist, 131 00:06:44,153 --> 00:06:46,989 but at the same time, I don't consider myself a pessimist. 132 00:06:47,073 --> 00:06:48,241 I don't think that's helpful. 133 00:06:48,324 --> 00:06:52,036 We need a diversity of tactics to face, you know, this climate crisis. 134 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:55,373 The crisis doesn't care if we're not ready for it. 135 00:06:55,456 --> 00:06:59,252 You can't disengage from the knowledge that, as we are now, 136 00:06:59,836 --> 00:07:01,963 it's not looking so great in the future. 137 00:07:02,046 --> 00:07:02,922 Um… 138 00:07:03,005 --> 00:07:07,969 They have a more bleak view of the world and the difficulties of getting there 139 00:07:08,052 --> 00:07:11,013 than I do or that I expected they would have. 140 00:07:11,681 --> 00:07:15,977 I want to make sure they get exposed to some of these innovations. 141 00:07:16,060 --> 00:07:19,480 You know, gasoline costs less than bottled water, 142 00:07:19,564 --> 00:07:21,357 and so people are kind of spoiled. 143 00:07:22,024 --> 00:07:27,155 Hydrocarbons, except for the fact they emit CO2, they are miraculous. 144 00:07:27,238 --> 00:07:32,702 We're trying to make a battery that's a tenth as energy-dense as gasoline, 145 00:07:32,785 --> 00:07:35,371 but there's so much we have to do in the next ten years. 146 00:07:35,455 --> 00:07:37,582 Across every area of emission, you know, 147 00:07:37,665 --> 00:07:41,294 "zero" is this demanding number that doesn't let you pick, 148 00:07:41,377 --> 00:07:44,922 "Okay, let's do this one but not… not this one." 149 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:48,634 [man 3] The climate issue is a classic stakeholder problem. 150 00:07:48,718 --> 00:07:52,847 The people who will be most affected by climate change 151 00:07:53,764 --> 00:07:55,266 are our unborn children, 152 00:07:55,850 --> 00:08:00,563 and it's very hard to get a generation living today 153 00:08:00,646 --> 00:08:05,151 to make major sacrifices for a generation yet to be born, 154 00:08:05,234 --> 00:08:08,029 and that's why you also need the profit motive. 155 00:08:13,326 --> 00:08:14,744 Hi. Welcome. 156 00:08:14,827 --> 00:08:17,830 [woman 4] We'll do some Q and A and have some discussion from there. 157 00:08:17,914 --> 00:08:19,373 Thank you. Take it away. 158 00:08:19,457 --> 00:08:22,668 [man 4] Breakthrough Energy Ventures is an investment firm led by Bill Gates, 159 00:08:22,752 --> 00:08:26,047 designed to tackle the production of greenhouse gases. 160 00:08:26,797 --> 00:08:31,552 Strategic investments can show the world that there's a better way to do this, 161 00:08:31,636 --> 00:08:33,221 and then I can go to you and say, 162 00:08:33,304 --> 00:08:35,056 "It doesn't matter what your politics are." 163 00:08:35,139 --> 00:08:37,099 "It doesn't matter what you think about any of it." 164 00:08:37,183 --> 00:08:40,520 "This is objectively a better way of doing it, so let's do it." 165 00:08:40,603 --> 00:08:43,064 [woman 5] If you look at steel, grey hydrogen, and chemical, 166 00:08:43,147 --> 00:08:45,066 which are the three targeted industries we look at. 167 00:08:45,149 --> 00:08:49,153 Right now, fossil ethylene is produced in a very carbon-intensive way. 168 00:08:49,737 --> 00:08:55,326 We need business-as-usual solutions to making things, getting electricity, 169 00:08:55,409 --> 00:08:59,205 driving around, flying around, you know, our buildings, our homes. 170 00:08:59,288 --> 00:09:00,581 Where… What do we eat? 171 00:09:00,665 --> 00:09:02,625 So we wanna replace those things 172 00:09:02,708 --> 00:09:06,170 at the same standard, at least, with no emissions, all right? 173 00:09:06,254 --> 00:09:10,758 So the only way you can do that is if you're coming up with new technologies. 174 00:09:10,841 --> 00:09:13,844 Dioxycle is a carbon emissions recycling company. 175 00:09:14,887 --> 00:09:18,057 [Friedman] Climate change is a scale problem. 176 00:09:18,140 --> 00:09:20,226 If you don't have scale, 177 00:09:20,309 --> 00:09:23,396 there's no way you can change the climate. 178 00:09:23,479 --> 00:09:26,399 I would not try to change the climate as a hobby, 179 00:09:26,983 --> 00:09:30,486 and therefore, you need a solution that offers scale. 180 00:09:30,570 --> 00:09:33,781 And there's only one thing as big as Mother Nature, 181 00:09:33,864 --> 00:09:36,826 and that's Father Greed, the marketplace. 182 00:09:36,909 --> 00:09:40,788 We are getting ready to move on to our one-ton-per-day pilot. 183 00:09:40,871 --> 00:09:42,748 I'm showing you really just the shell here. 184 00:09:42,832 --> 00:09:45,793 [Kolbert] I think it's commendable he's putting his money where his mouth is. 185 00:09:45,876 --> 00:09:47,878 Most of us don't have the capital 186 00:09:47,962 --> 00:09:51,882 to invest in, you know, multi-million dollar startups, 187 00:09:51,966 --> 00:09:54,594 most of which will not pan out, but some of which may. 188 00:09:54,677 --> 00:09:57,013 [man 5] …require clean hydrogen going into the future… 189 00:09:57,096 --> 00:09:59,682 [Gates] You end up funding a lot of things that are a dead end, 190 00:09:59,765 --> 00:10:05,438 but the few that become the equivalent of Apple or Microsoft or Google 191 00:10:05,521 --> 00:10:07,732 in this clean-tech area, 192 00:10:07,815 --> 00:10:12,403 there will be many companies that achieve that type of impact. 193 00:10:13,029 --> 00:10:15,031 [man 6] Climate is, in many ways, a systems problem. 194 00:10:15,114 --> 00:10:18,242 We think software has an interesting role to potentially help solve that. 195 00:10:18,326 --> 00:10:22,038 You have amazing entrepreneurs with all sorts of ideas coming at you. 196 00:10:22,121 --> 00:10:26,000 So, we're super over-minded in terms of thinking about what could be. 197 00:10:26,083 --> 00:10:29,795 [man 7] We've really been able to explore this new cement production process. 198 00:10:29,879 --> 00:10:32,340 [Roberts] Now, you may think what you're doing at that moment 199 00:10:32,423 --> 00:10:34,925 is investing in a thing that's not the thing, 200 00:10:35,009 --> 00:10:39,305 but in fact, a thing that's not the thing can quickly become the thing. [laughs] 201 00:10:39,388 --> 00:10:41,390 As long as we can hit a certain current density, 202 00:10:41,474 --> 00:10:44,477 the capital cost could be comparable to a kiln. 203 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:49,023 And the heat you're getting from natural gas or electricity… 204 00:10:49,106 --> 00:10:52,401 [Gates] Now, Breakthrough Energy has over a hundred companies. 205 00:10:52,485 --> 00:10:55,988 You've got agriculture. You've got buildings. 206 00:10:56,072 --> 00:10:59,533 Cement is one where we have some great companies. 207 00:10:59,617 --> 00:11:00,951 [inspiring music playing] 208 00:11:03,245 --> 00:11:07,291 [man 8] Someone from Bill Gates's fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, 209 00:11:07,375 --> 00:11:10,586 came to Caltech and gave a talk. He said, "Look, 210 00:11:10,670 --> 00:11:13,381 there's all these huge climate problems that no one's working on." 211 00:11:13,464 --> 00:11:15,174 "There's no money going into them." 212 00:11:15,257 --> 00:11:18,260 "That's a huge problem because they're as important as cars." 213 00:11:18,344 --> 00:11:20,638 [machinery whirring] 214 00:11:20,721 --> 00:11:22,973 [inquisitive music playing] 215 00:11:23,057 --> 00:11:25,810 [Finke] Concrete's the most consumed human-made material on the planet. 216 00:11:25,893 --> 00:11:29,438 We use more concrete than anything except for water. 217 00:11:29,522 --> 00:11:30,981 [inquisitive music continues] 218 00:11:31,065 --> 00:11:33,651 It's almost magic, right? It's… It's liquid rock. 219 00:11:33,734 --> 00:11:36,237 A few minutes to a few hours to a few days, it becomes hard. 220 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:37,238 It becomes a structure. 221 00:11:37,321 --> 00:11:39,407 It's this incredible thing that has allowed us 222 00:11:39,490 --> 00:11:43,869 to build everything from skyscrapers to bridges to dams. 223 00:11:44,370 --> 00:11:46,747 [reporter 2] as it comes from the pipes 224 00:11:46,831 --> 00:11:48,791 is a job called "punning." 225 00:11:49,291 --> 00:11:51,627 [Finke] The same thing has been done in the cement industry 226 00:11:51,711 --> 00:11:54,755 for a hundred-plus years. 227 00:11:54,839 --> 00:11:56,799 [inquisitive music playing] 228 00:11:58,259 --> 00:12:01,804 Some people know for a very long time that cement is a huge polluter, 229 00:12:01,887 --> 00:12:03,514 and no one's been doing anything about it. 230 00:12:03,597 --> 00:12:05,975 [machinery whirring] 231 00:12:06,058 --> 00:12:10,229 [Finke] Concrete is a mixture of cement, sand, gravel, and water. 232 00:12:10,312 --> 00:12:13,691 The CO2 emissions associated with producing cement 233 00:12:14,316 --> 00:12:15,693 is a chemistry problem. 234 00:12:15,776 --> 00:12:17,653 [water dripping] 235 00:12:17,737 --> 00:12:19,864 [Finke] We need to make the exact same material. 236 00:12:19,947 --> 00:12:22,032 And the reason we need to make the exact same material 237 00:12:22,116 --> 00:12:25,745 is because there is so much risk associated with building a building 238 00:12:25,828 --> 00:12:28,998 and so much money that no one wants to specify a material 239 00:12:29,081 --> 00:12:31,167 that's never been used to build a building before. 240 00:12:32,126 --> 00:12:34,336 [Leandri] The way to make cement today is the process 241 00:12:34,420 --> 00:12:36,672 where you use limestone, which has carbon in it. 242 00:12:36,756 --> 00:12:39,508 So, when you burn it, you release the CO2. 243 00:12:39,592 --> 00:12:40,593 But at Brimstone, 244 00:12:40,676 --> 00:12:43,596 we use calcium silicate rocks that don't contain CO2. 245 00:12:43,679 --> 00:12:46,182 [rocks clacking] 246 00:12:46,265 --> 00:12:48,809 [Finke] Cement is a calcium-based material. 247 00:12:48,893 --> 00:12:52,897 You need to get calcium out of the rock in order to make cement. 248 00:12:52,980 --> 00:12:54,273 [inquisitive music playing] 249 00:12:54,356 --> 00:12:58,527 [woman 6] So, I'll pour in the liquid that we usually use as our leaching agent. 250 00:12:58,611 --> 00:13:01,238 We'll pour in this first. 251 00:13:01,322 --> 00:13:03,324 [Finke] That leaching agent will react with the rock 252 00:13:03,407 --> 00:13:05,034 and remove the calcium from the rock. 253 00:13:05,117 --> 00:13:09,538 We then take that calcium, and we put that rock into a kiln, 254 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:12,249 which produces cement. 255 00:13:12,333 --> 00:13:14,293 [inquisitive music continues] 256 00:13:21,342 --> 00:13:24,762 [Finke] In our facility, we send it over to our concrete lab for testing. 257 00:13:24,845 --> 00:13:30,059 We then basically take that cube, put that into a press, crush the cube, 258 00:13:30,142 --> 00:13:33,187 and measure how much force we needed to apply to that cube 259 00:13:33,270 --> 00:13:34,855 in order to get it to crack, 260 00:13:34,939 --> 00:13:36,857 and that tells us how strong the cement is. 261 00:13:36,941 --> 00:13:41,612 General-use cement would be like 4,000 to 5,000 pounds per square inch. 262 00:13:41,695 --> 00:13:45,825 Large skyscrapers, right, you may need to use very, very high-strength cements 263 00:13:45,908 --> 00:13:50,162 and get to, you know, 10,000, even 20,000 pounds per square inch. 264 00:13:50,246 --> 00:13:52,248 [crackling] 265 00:13:53,707 --> 00:13:54,625 [Leandri] Ooh. 266 00:13:55,292 --> 00:13:56,335 That's sick. 267 00:13:56,418 --> 00:13:57,962 [inquisitive music playing] 268 00:13:58,045 --> 00:14:00,339 [Gates] There's a lot of cement factories in this world, 269 00:14:00,422 --> 00:14:05,845 so this is not going to be, you know, like making a faster computer chip. 270 00:14:05,928 --> 00:14:09,598 If you say to India, "Okay, make your cement a new way," 271 00:14:09,682 --> 00:14:13,352 there are thousands of concrete plants in India alone. 272 00:14:14,436 --> 00:14:18,607 It's a long distance between inventing a new way to make cement 273 00:14:18,691 --> 00:14:23,070 and getting every cement kiln in all of India 274 00:14:23,153 --> 00:14:27,366 to no longer have huge CO2 emissions. 275 00:14:27,992 --> 00:14:30,119 [Finke] There's still some big things on the to-do list. 276 00:14:30,202 --> 00:14:31,871 So, we have to build a plant. 277 00:14:31,954 --> 00:14:33,497 Then we have to build 3,000 more plants. 278 00:14:33,581 --> 00:14:34,456 [all chuckle] 279 00:14:34,540 --> 00:14:36,667 [Finke] Then we have to decarbonize the entire industry. 280 00:14:36,750 --> 00:14:38,502 There's big, big to-do list items. 281 00:14:38,586 --> 00:14:41,422 There's no question, right? [chuckles] Anyway, awesome job, everyone. 282 00:14:41,505 --> 00:14:43,132 [all applauding] 283 00:14:43,215 --> 00:14:44,466 [Finke] Great work, team. 284 00:14:44,550 --> 00:14:47,803 [inquisitive music continues] 285 00:14:47,887 --> 00:14:49,889 -[music halts] -[bubbling] 286 00:14:49,972 --> 00:14:52,558 [soft music playing] 287 00:14:54,018 --> 00:14:58,731 The first big published paper on the greenhouse gas issue 288 00:14:58,814 --> 00:15:00,733 was published in the 1800s. 289 00:15:00,816 --> 00:15:02,776 So, we've had a sense of the fact 290 00:15:02,860 --> 00:15:07,114 that greenhouse gases could trap heat in the atmosphere for quite some time. 291 00:15:07,615 --> 00:15:10,284 Why don't you try a tankful? Try it and let me know. 292 00:15:10,367 --> 00:15:11,619 Okay, fill it up. 293 00:15:11,702 --> 00:15:14,622 [Worland] It was really in the post-war era, after World War II, 294 00:15:14,705 --> 00:15:18,292 that emissions just started to increase dramatically. 295 00:15:20,127 --> 00:15:24,048 By the 1960s, President Johnson had a paper on his desk that said, 296 00:15:24,131 --> 00:15:26,383 "This is a big issue that you need to be concerned about 297 00:15:26,467 --> 00:15:27,968 from a national security perspective." 298 00:15:29,053 --> 00:15:33,599 The fossil fuel industry did have a sense of what their product was causing. 299 00:15:33,682 --> 00:15:36,644 They conducted a lot of research looking at the effects of their product 300 00:15:36,727 --> 00:15:38,103 on the global climate. 301 00:15:40,189 --> 00:15:44,193 The biggest emitters are the Gulf countries that produce the stuff, 302 00:15:44,276 --> 00:15:46,612 but then after that are countries like the U.S. 303 00:15:48,572 --> 00:15:52,701 In the West, we have really high-carbon lifestyles. 304 00:15:52,785 --> 00:15:54,078 Hey, it's Criss Angel. 305 00:15:54,161 --> 00:15:58,082 I wanna welcome you to my 22,000-square-foot estate 306 00:15:58,165 --> 00:16:00,167 known as Serenity. 307 00:16:00,250 --> 00:16:01,168 [birds tweeting] 308 00:16:01,251 --> 00:16:05,631 So, everything that we think about in terms of a modern economy 309 00:16:05,714 --> 00:16:08,217 is intertwined with fossil fuels, and you can look at that 310 00:16:08,300 --> 00:16:10,928 if you're thinking about, you know, our… our electricity system. 311 00:16:11,011 --> 00:16:13,305 [inquisitive music playing] 312 00:16:13,389 --> 00:16:14,974 [Gates] The electric grid 313 00:16:15,057 --> 00:16:18,686 is not only a source of about a third of the emissions, 314 00:16:18,769 --> 00:16:24,316 it's also the only source of energy that we know how to make clean. 315 00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:26,276 [inspiring music playing] 316 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:30,948 [Guidero] Solar and wind, you know, the prices come down dramatically. 317 00:16:31,031 --> 00:16:32,700 The problem with it is they're intermittent. 318 00:16:32,783 --> 00:16:34,660 The sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow, 319 00:16:34,743 --> 00:16:36,453 but you always wanna be able to plug in your phone. 320 00:16:37,746 --> 00:16:42,459 [Gates] We don't yet have a way to store the energy they create inexpensively 321 00:16:42,543 --> 00:16:45,504 to have it available whenever we need it, 322 00:16:45,587 --> 00:16:47,756 but also, demand for electricity 323 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:50,843 will only get higher as we move into the future. 324 00:16:51,969 --> 00:16:57,391 In the future, we need to use electricity to now power cars, to power our buildings. 325 00:17:00,394 --> 00:17:01,478 [Gates] And so, weirdly, 326 00:17:01,562 --> 00:17:03,856 not only do we have to make the grid green, 327 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:10,154 we also have to make it 2.5 times as large. 328 00:17:10,237 --> 00:17:14,324 In my view, the most promising solution is nuclear energy. 329 00:17:15,826 --> 00:17:19,163 Either nuclear fusion or nuclear fission. 330 00:17:21,123 --> 00:17:25,210 Fusion, we don't have an economic fusion plant, 331 00:17:25,294 --> 00:17:28,380 and even some of the science is a bit uncertain. 332 00:17:29,006 --> 00:17:32,885 So, I think it's very important that we keep working on fission. 333 00:17:33,927 --> 00:17:37,848 I'm a huge investor in a company called TerraPower 334 00:17:37,931 --> 00:17:40,601 that's trying to do a next-generation reactor. 335 00:17:41,810 --> 00:17:46,774 The reactors that we use today cool things off by using water. 336 00:17:46,857 --> 00:17:48,484 Water can't hold much heat, 337 00:17:48,567 --> 00:17:51,403 so as it heats up, it gets to be very high pressure. 338 00:17:52,738 --> 00:17:56,325 For many decades, they've talked about switching away from water 339 00:17:56,408 --> 00:17:59,244 to use liquid metal like sodium, 340 00:17:59,328 --> 00:18:01,747 and that's the approach TerraPower's taken. 341 00:18:02,331 --> 00:18:04,541 There's no pressure inside the reactor. 342 00:18:04,625 --> 00:18:08,337 Also, all the issues of afterheat, 343 00:18:08,420 --> 00:18:12,007 you know, which caused both Fukushima and Chernobyl, 344 00:18:12,091 --> 00:18:13,342 those are gone. 345 00:18:14,009 --> 00:18:17,971 So, TerraPower's nuclear power plants will be far safer, 346 00:18:18,055 --> 00:18:20,516 but, you know, you actually have to build a demo plant, 347 00:18:20,599 --> 00:18:26,021 get the U.S. regulator to look hard at how you've done the designs. 348 00:18:27,356 --> 00:18:29,900 [airplane whirring] 349 00:18:32,653 --> 00:18:34,655 [soft music playing] 350 00:18:40,702 --> 00:18:44,039 [Gates] TerraPower has picked this as the place to build 351 00:18:44,123 --> 00:18:47,251 the first of the next-generation reactors. 352 00:18:49,128 --> 00:18:52,131 [soft music continues] 353 00:18:55,259 --> 00:18:58,470 [Gates] The current biggest employer here, which is this coal plant, 354 00:18:58,554 --> 00:19:01,932 that will be shut down for environmental reasons. 355 00:19:07,020 --> 00:19:11,567 The skills of the workers there match what we needed at the new plant. 356 00:19:13,777 --> 00:19:17,114 So, it's kind of a textbook example of what you'd like, 357 00:19:17,197 --> 00:19:22,161 which is the clean economy to go to wherever the jobs are being lost, 358 00:19:22,661 --> 00:19:26,582 uh, as the dirty economy is phased out. 359 00:19:30,419 --> 00:19:32,504 [woman 7] J.C. Penney's home is behind us. 360 00:19:32,588 --> 00:19:36,341 Uh, that's the Victory Theater. It opens three nights a week. 361 00:19:36,425 --> 00:19:41,597 And they're redoing this to become the new law office and the, um, bakery. 362 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:43,432 -[Gates] Wow. -Isn't that great? 363 00:19:43,515 --> 00:19:44,766 -[Gates] Nice. -[woman 7] Okay. 364 00:19:44,850 --> 00:19:46,268 [indistinct chatter] 365 00:19:46,351 --> 00:19:48,896 Is the bakery yours, or they'll be a tenant of yours? 366 00:19:48,979 --> 00:19:51,190 So, it'll be ours. We have a bakery in the back right now. 367 00:19:51,273 --> 00:19:52,941 [Gates] Okay, and the law office? 368 00:19:53,025 --> 00:19:55,027 Well, I have two law firms. 369 00:19:55,110 --> 00:19:55,944 Oh, you're kidding. 370 00:19:56,028 --> 00:19:58,071 -[woman 8] So we're expanding here. -That's eclectic. 371 00:19:58,155 --> 00:19:59,907 -[all chuckle] -[Gates] It's very synergistic. 372 00:19:59,990 --> 00:20:02,326 You can eat cupcakes, drink coffee, and sue people. 373 00:20:02,409 --> 00:20:04,119 [woman 8] I mean, it's a law firm. 374 00:20:04,203 --> 00:20:07,372 [Gates] Well, it's my first time here, and I was looking forward 375 00:20:07,456 --> 00:20:11,001 to coming and seeing where we're building this first-of-a-kind plant. 376 00:20:11,084 --> 00:20:14,713 You know, we were just out on the site. It's just a bunch of land. 377 00:20:14,796 --> 00:20:19,801 I mean, all the billions I'm putting into TerraPower will be lost 378 00:20:19,885 --> 00:20:20,886 if it doesn't work, 379 00:20:20,969 --> 00:20:22,763 but the breakthrough would really 380 00:20:23,263 --> 00:20:26,016 make a huge difference in helping us solve climate. 381 00:20:26,099 --> 00:20:28,060 [inquisitive music playing] 382 00:20:35,525 --> 00:20:38,445 [Gates] A fusion reactor potentially could be 383 00:20:38,528 --> 00:20:40,864 a very cheap source of electricity 384 00:20:40,948 --> 00:20:44,034 with almost no environmental problems. 385 00:20:44,117 --> 00:20:47,287 You know, today, the science, we don't even know how to make one, 386 00:20:47,371 --> 00:20:49,456 and, you know, could it come in time? 387 00:20:49,539 --> 00:20:51,541 [Jamie] If you think of our addiction to fossil fuels 388 00:20:51,625 --> 00:20:53,418 and the way that we're going about 389 00:20:53,502 --> 00:20:55,420 attempting to wean off of it, we're losing. 390 00:20:55,504 --> 00:20:58,257 The fossil fuel industry is making record profits. 391 00:20:58,340 --> 00:20:59,675 Emissions are going up. 392 00:20:59,758 --> 00:21:03,053 People are right to be incredibly skeptical and disillusioned. 393 00:21:03,136 --> 00:21:07,391 There's part of the movement that I don't fully agree with, 394 00:21:07,474 --> 00:21:12,062 which is that you denigrate the current way of doing things 395 00:21:12,145 --> 00:21:13,981 before we have a replacement. 396 00:21:14,564 --> 00:21:18,026 I wish there was as much emphasis on the 397 00:21:18,110 --> 00:21:20,988 But, you know, I'm… I'm an optimist, and I… 398 00:21:21,071 --> 00:21:24,992 You know, I think we will limit temperature increase. 399 00:21:25,742 --> 00:21:30,580 I feel like optimism has to come from realistic action. 400 00:21:30,664 --> 00:21:34,042 Like, if we just sit here and are like, "Wow, I'm optimistic," 401 00:21:34,126 --> 00:21:36,086 then that does a counter service. 402 00:21:36,169 --> 00:21:40,841 There are certain levels of blind optimism that can be a form of climate denial. 403 00:21:43,260 --> 00:21:46,179 -[clock ticking] -[bell tolling] 404 00:21:49,808 --> 00:21:52,019 [Worland] The Paris Agreement set the goal 405 00:21:52,102 --> 00:21:55,731 of holding temperatures well below two degrees Celsius, 406 00:21:55,814 --> 00:21:58,608 cut emissions in half between 2015 and 2030, 407 00:21:58,692 --> 00:22:01,778 and then by 2050, have net-zero emissions. 408 00:22:01,862 --> 00:22:03,488 How are we doing? [chuckles] 409 00:22:03,572 --> 00:22:07,075 Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit record levels in the spring, 410 00:22:07,159 --> 00:22:09,745 the highest in more than four million years. 411 00:22:09,828 --> 00:22:11,955 Bad. [laughs] Bad. We're doing very badly. 412 00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:12,873 [dramatic sting] 413 00:22:12,956 --> 00:22:17,961 [Worland] The long-term trend is that we are not seeing a decline in emissions. 414 00:22:19,046 --> 00:22:21,048 [soft music playing] 415 00:22:21,757 --> 00:22:25,719 [Gates] We may miss the two-degree goal, 416 00:22:25,802 --> 00:22:30,891 and so the amount of damage is going to be very substantial. 417 00:22:30,974 --> 00:22:33,852 [glacier rumbling] 418 00:22:33,935 --> 00:22:36,396 [Kolbert] You know, two degrees seemed like a long way off. 419 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:38,815 Now here we basically are at 1.5. 420 00:22:38,899 --> 00:22:42,152 This past summer was a taste of how destructive that is. 421 00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:46,365 Two degrees, there are projections of parts of the world 422 00:22:46,448 --> 00:22:48,200 that are gonna become unlivable. 423 00:22:48,700 --> 00:22:52,662 Whole cities with millions of people will become very difficult to live in. 424 00:22:53,872 --> 00:22:55,749 It's beyond depressing, yeah. 425 00:22:55,832 --> 00:22:57,417 [soft music continues] 426 00:22:57,501 --> 00:22:58,752 [Toone] It's a continuum, right? 427 00:22:58,835 --> 00:23:03,507 So, is there a single tipping point? No, there is not a single tipping point. 428 00:23:04,758 --> 00:23:08,512 The last time the surface of the planet was as warm as it is today, 429 00:23:08,595 --> 00:23:10,680 it was 120,000 years ago, 430 00:23:10,764 --> 00:23:13,683 and sea level was 25 feet higher than it is today. 431 00:23:15,018 --> 00:23:17,604 Average elevation above sea level in New York City? 432 00:23:18,188 --> 00:23:19,439 Thirty-three feet. 433 00:23:19,981 --> 00:23:22,484 Average elevation above sea level of Miami? 434 00:23:22,567 --> 00:23:23,527 Six feet. 435 00:23:24,111 --> 00:23:26,238 When is Miami not gonna be inhabitable? 436 00:23:26,321 --> 00:23:28,073 Uh, you know, decades? 437 00:23:28,156 --> 00:23:30,992 So, there's a bunch of stuff that's kind of baked-in right now. 438 00:23:31,076 --> 00:23:33,954 -[thunder rumbles] -[dramatic music playing] 439 00:23:34,037 --> 00:23:37,666 [wind whooshing] 440 00:23:37,749 --> 00:23:40,419 The biggest problem is 441 00:23:40,502 --> 00:23:43,547 if you're near the equator and you work outdoors, 442 00:23:43,630 --> 00:23:46,383 so, particularly farmers in Africa, 443 00:23:46,967 --> 00:23:49,761 this can be horrific for them. 444 00:23:54,641 --> 00:23:58,437 Well, agriculture's, you know, a pretty basic human activity. 445 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:02,274 Most of us used to be farmers, uh, 'cause we had to be, 446 00:24:02,357 --> 00:24:07,154 and it is a significant source of greenhouse gases. 447 00:24:11,616 --> 00:24:14,870 [Kolbert] 20%, or somewhere around there, of our emissions are agriculture-related. 448 00:24:14,953 --> 00:24:16,788 Those are really hard to get rid of. 449 00:24:18,039 --> 00:24:20,459 Cows burping methane. 450 00:24:20,542 --> 00:24:25,547 You know, tilling the soil can mobilize carbon that was in the soil. 451 00:24:25,630 --> 00:24:28,717 Nitrogen fertilizer is made with natural gas. 452 00:24:29,342 --> 00:24:30,802 And all the ways that we farm. 453 00:24:30,886 --> 00:24:34,598 When you pull that combine over the field, that's using a lot of fossil fuels. 454 00:24:34,681 --> 00:24:37,100 So, there's all sorts of ways in which agriculture 455 00:24:37,184 --> 00:24:38,935 is contributing to climate change. 456 00:24:40,187 --> 00:24:42,772 -[indistinct chatter] -[inquisitive music playing] 457 00:24:42,856 --> 00:24:46,359 [man 9] It takes a lot of energy, land, water to grow our food. 458 00:24:46,985 --> 00:24:49,988 We have to fertilize the crops. We have to get the crops to our grocery stores. 459 00:24:51,031 --> 00:24:53,074 And then it goes from our grocery stores to our homes. 460 00:24:53,158 --> 00:24:57,162 And then we have to refrigerate it in our homes, only to throw out 40% of it. 461 00:24:58,914 --> 00:25:03,043 [Goel] What a lot of people don't know is that food waste is a huge methane emitter. 462 00:25:03,126 --> 00:25:05,170 There's a lot of food waste, especially in landfills. 463 00:25:05,253 --> 00:25:07,047 It gets compressed between other trash, 464 00:25:07,130 --> 00:25:10,634 and that means that it can't decompose as it would just in the soil or something. 465 00:25:11,551 --> 00:25:14,638 That means that methane is being released from that food waste. 466 00:25:14,721 --> 00:25:18,308 Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, 467 00:25:18,391 --> 00:25:20,644 so it has much more warming potential. 468 00:25:23,146 --> 00:25:26,441 If food waste was a country, it'd be the third-largest country by emissions. 469 00:25:26,525 --> 00:25:29,277 China, U.S., food waste. 470 00:25:30,529 --> 00:25:32,489 But at Mill, we've created a new system 471 00:25:32,572 --> 00:25:35,116 that is the easiest way to get food back to farms. 472 00:25:36,243 --> 00:25:39,204 Now that the enclosure is a lot tighter and cinched on the device, 473 00:25:39,287 --> 00:25:41,289 it actually acts as a nice little coarsening effect, 474 00:25:41,373 --> 00:25:44,292 so that you're, like, able to kind of, like, keep everything together, 475 00:25:44,376 --> 00:25:46,461 and you don't have a bunch of parts shifting. 476 00:25:46,545 --> 00:25:48,463 That's something I think is a user-experience win 477 00:25:48,547 --> 00:25:49,965 if we can solve that. 478 00:25:51,675 --> 00:25:54,135 [inquisitive music playing] 479 00:25:54,219 --> 00:25:56,930 [Rogers] It feels like a trash bin, and everyone knows how to use it. 480 00:25:57,556 --> 00:25:59,558 You step on the pedal, and it opens up. 481 00:26:00,350 --> 00:26:02,060 And you scrape your dinner scraps in. 482 00:26:02,561 --> 00:26:04,020 That's really where your job ends. 483 00:26:04,104 --> 00:26:06,356 On the inside is where all the magic happens. 484 00:26:06,439 --> 00:26:10,735 Overnight and automatically, we dry and grind all the food you put in. 485 00:26:11,319 --> 00:26:12,529 Food is 80% water. 486 00:26:12,612 --> 00:26:15,448 And what's cool is when you take the water out, it gets very small. 487 00:26:15,532 --> 00:26:17,284 It becomes pretty much odorless, 488 00:26:17,367 --> 00:26:18,743 but it locks in the nutrients. 489 00:26:18,827 --> 00:26:20,579 [mechanical whirring] 490 00:26:20,662 --> 00:26:23,206 [Rogers] After the bin fills up, which takes weeks, 491 00:26:23,290 --> 00:26:25,083 you leave it on your doorstep, and we pick it up 492 00:26:25,166 --> 00:26:27,085 to then get it back to our facilities. 493 00:26:27,168 --> 00:26:29,504 You know, think like Uber but for… for waste. 494 00:26:30,422 --> 00:26:32,841 -[woman 9] Okay. We're opening the box. -Let's open it up. 495 00:26:34,134 --> 00:26:35,468 [woman 9] Take the bag out. 496 00:26:37,095 --> 00:26:38,722 [Rogers] We load them up into our machine, 497 00:26:38,805 --> 00:26:42,017 which sifts and sorts them and can pull out any contaminants 498 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:44,185 like fruit stickers that sometimes get in there. 499 00:26:44,269 --> 00:26:46,438 It does a heat treatment step for food safety reasons. 500 00:26:47,897 --> 00:26:49,691 Then we then bag up that material, 501 00:26:49,774 --> 00:26:52,819 and then we send it back to farms as food for our livestock. 502 00:26:52,902 --> 00:26:55,030 [chickens clucking] 503 00:26:55,113 --> 00:26:57,991 [Rogers] For a poultry farmer, 60% of their emissions 504 00:26:58,074 --> 00:26:59,409 is the feed they buy. 505 00:26:59,492 --> 00:27:01,369 So, if you're growing chickens, 506 00:27:01,453 --> 00:27:04,664 Mill is creating a carbon-reduced feed ingredient. 507 00:27:05,624 --> 00:27:07,167 It was food we were gonna throw out. 508 00:27:10,337 --> 00:27:12,464 [inquisitive music playing] 509 00:27:15,592 --> 00:27:17,886 What I'm beginning to appreciate about innovation is 510 00:27:17,969 --> 00:27:20,305 that it's a very hopeful side of things. 511 00:27:20,388 --> 00:27:24,517 But I'm noticing just how much systemic resistance there is still. 512 00:27:24,601 --> 00:27:28,313 Waiting for people who have grown up with this 513 00:27:28,396 --> 00:27:31,399 as part of their goals and as part… part of their moral compass 514 00:27:31,983 --> 00:27:34,778 to be in those positions of power, 515 00:27:34,861 --> 00:27:36,946 I don't see as a feasible way forward. 516 00:27:37,530 --> 00:27:42,202 [Gates] I don't fully understand people who are against this issue, 517 00:27:42,285 --> 00:27:44,663 but it's easier to ignore than most. 518 00:27:44,746 --> 00:27:46,706 People do respond to activism. 519 00:27:46,790 --> 00:27:50,043 The status quo is so powerful. 520 00:27:50,126 --> 00:27:51,836 I don't know how to think about 521 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:56,549 the benefit of keeping climate in mind as an emergency 522 00:27:56,633 --> 00:27:59,678 versus angering people. 523 00:27:59,761 --> 00:28:01,179 [dramatic music playing] 524 00:28:01,846 --> 00:28:03,598 -[man 10] Whoa! -[woman 10] Whoa! 525 00:28:03,682 --> 00:28:05,433 What is worth more? 526 00:28:05,975 --> 00:28:07,852 Art or life? 527 00:28:09,604 --> 00:28:13,566 How hardcore should the activism become, and who is it aimed at? 528 00:28:14,234 --> 00:28:17,195 You know, I hope the dialogue between activists 529 00:28:17,278 --> 00:28:22,158 and hands-on people doing the work stays constructive. 530 00:28:22,242 --> 00:28:24,619 [woman 11] I'm trying to put my beak on and get it… 531 00:28:24,703 --> 00:28:25,620 [woman 12 laughs] 532 00:28:25,704 --> 00:28:27,914 [woman 11] We're sounding the alarm as canaries. 533 00:28:27,997 --> 00:28:29,207 [indistinct chatter] 534 00:28:29,290 --> 00:28:32,752 [Gates] There was a group in the UK called Extinction Rebellion, 535 00:28:32,836 --> 00:28:35,922 and, you know, I was driving to go to an appointment, 536 00:28:36,005 --> 00:28:37,382 and they blocked the road. 537 00:28:37,465 --> 00:28:39,050 [women shout] Extinction! 538 00:28:39,134 --> 00:28:40,552 [men shout] Rebellion! 539 00:28:41,594 --> 00:28:43,763 You know, they certainly created awareness. 540 00:28:43,847 --> 00:28:45,557 It is a political world. 541 00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,269 The problem is and, sadly, it's the case for all these things, 542 00:28:49,352 --> 00:28:52,313 if the clean way is super expensive, 543 00:28:52,397 --> 00:28:53,898 then who's gonna pay for that? 544 00:28:56,359 --> 00:29:00,029 We can't expect other countries to get to zero if we don't do it first, 545 00:29:00,113 --> 00:29:01,698 but then it goes way beyond that too. 546 00:29:01,781 --> 00:29:06,578 It's also that we have a lot more money than other countries do, 547 00:29:06,661 --> 00:29:11,916 and we cannot expect Brazil, India, Indonesia, 548 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,754 these major emerging economies to decarbonize 549 00:29:15,837 --> 00:29:18,923 by spending a lot more money on clean solutions. 550 00:29:19,007 --> 00:29:22,260 [inquisitive music playing] 551 00:29:22,343 --> 00:29:26,055 [Kolbert] We really actually do need to make fossil fuels more expensive, 552 00:29:26,139 --> 00:29:29,100 but every time we get any kind of rise in the price of gas, 553 00:29:29,184 --> 00:29:30,727 it's a huge political crisis. 554 00:29:30,810 --> 00:29:36,524 And the word "tax" is, uh, an anathema in this country. [laughs] 555 00:29:36,608 --> 00:29:38,860 You know, it doesn't even get talked about, really. 556 00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:41,237 [inquisitive music continues] 557 00:29:41,321 --> 00:29:43,239 [Gates] You know, government plays a huge role 558 00:29:43,323 --> 00:29:47,035 because it's their regulations, their tax incentives 559 00:29:47,118 --> 00:29:52,165 who accelerate these things into the lab, out of the lab, into the big scale-up. 560 00:29:52,832 --> 00:29:56,628 Eventually, the clean technology is as cheap or cheaper. 561 00:29:58,254 --> 00:30:02,884 We have a moral obligation, and we have the economic resources 562 00:30:02,967 --> 00:30:04,803 to make those investments 563 00:30:04,886 --> 00:30:07,514 that will create the technological breakthroughs, 564 00:30:07,597 --> 00:30:10,934 and then drive them down the cost-volume curve 565 00:30:11,017 --> 00:30:15,688 so those solutions will be available to everyone on the planet. 566 00:30:16,898 --> 00:30:19,859 [Gates] The solar power and wind power achieved that, 567 00:30:19,943 --> 00:30:23,780 and that's why you see, even in parts of the country 568 00:30:23,863 --> 00:30:27,617 where the legislatures are not very climate-oriented, 569 00:30:27,700 --> 00:30:29,619 you know, for example, in Texas, 570 00:30:29,702 --> 00:30:33,414 they're benefiting incredibly by doing wind and solar. 571 00:30:33,498 --> 00:30:36,167 It's a huge part of their energy mix. 572 00:30:36,751 --> 00:30:39,254 [Haq] You couldn't have done that without tax incentives 573 00:30:39,337 --> 00:30:41,548 that were put in place for solar and wind. 574 00:30:41,631 --> 00:30:43,341 So the policy helped drive that, 575 00:30:43,424 --> 00:30:45,343 but you couldn't have those incentives in place 576 00:30:45,426 --> 00:30:48,096 if you didn't have the technology at a place where it was ready. 577 00:30:48,972 --> 00:30:51,516 There are technologies on the shelf right now. 578 00:30:51,599 --> 00:30:56,187 We need those to get into communities today, right now, and move fast. 579 00:30:56,271 --> 00:30:58,022 [dramatic music playing] 580 00:31:01,985 --> 00:31:05,822 [Gates] Flying accounts for over 3% of all emissions, 581 00:31:06,364 --> 00:31:08,533 but a solution that works today 582 00:31:09,033 --> 00:31:12,328 is to take fuels that were made from plants 583 00:31:12,912 --> 00:31:15,039 and making what we call biofuels. 584 00:31:16,124 --> 00:31:18,418 Unfortunately, today, 585 00:31:18,501 --> 00:31:24,132 the fuel you make costs over double what normal aviation fuel costs. 586 00:31:25,425 --> 00:31:29,596 You know, as I'm buying that for my air travel, it creates demand. 587 00:31:29,679 --> 00:31:31,306 And as that volume of demand goes up, 588 00:31:31,389 --> 00:31:34,309 there's new ideas to get the cost of that fuel 589 00:31:34,392 --> 00:31:37,770 to be very close to the cost of current jet fuel. 590 00:31:38,897 --> 00:31:43,985 The extra cost of an electric car is going down over time. 591 00:31:44,068 --> 00:31:47,447 Passenger cars are only 8% of all emissions, 592 00:31:47,530 --> 00:31:51,784 but if you can get everybody to buy these new passenger cars, 593 00:31:51,868 --> 00:31:54,871 then you've got 8% solved. 594 00:31:57,707 --> 00:31:59,792 [man 11] We need hydrogen to be in a high-density state 595 00:31:59,876 --> 00:32:02,545 so that you can economically deliver it from where it's produced 596 00:32:02,629 --> 00:32:03,796 to where it's used. 597 00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:07,300 [man 12] We've got our first-ever vehicle powered by Verne cryo-compression. 598 00:32:07,383 --> 00:32:10,470 Our beachhead market is in Class 8 trucking, heavy-duty trucking. 599 00:32:10,553 --> 00:32:14,098 That's because that's where we're getting the most, uh, commercial interest. 600 00:32:14,182 --> 00:32:17,769 [man 11] Battery electric trucks today can go about 250 miles or so, 601 00:32:17,852 --> 00:32:20,480 and a truck with our storage could go a thousand. 602 00:32:20,563 --> 00:32:23,149 Which is what diesel trucks can travel today. 603 00:32:23,232 --> 00:32:25,443 Do you have IP involved in this? 604 00:32:25,526 --> 00:32:26,694 There's not a lot of materials 605 00:32:26,778 --> 00:32:29,822 that can do both the cryogenic and the high pressure, 606 00:32:29,906 --> 00:32:32,992 so the heat exchanger's a creep part. That's where we have IP. 607 00:32:34,369 --> 00:32:36,871 [inquisitive music playing] 608 00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:40,541 [airplane engine whirring] 609 00:32:47,298 --> 00:32:49,258 [Gates] Well, we're moving as fast as we can 610 00:32:49,342 --> 00:32:53,096 to get emissions from all the five categories down to zero, 611 00:32:53,846 --> 00:32:56,140 but before we get there, 612 00:32:56,224 --> 00:32:59,394 we will have released a lot more CO2. 613 00:32:59,978 --> 00:33:02,063 Very good to see you. Thank you again for doing this. 614 00:33:02,146 --> 00:33:03,439 -[Gates] You bet. -We're thrilled. 615 00:33:03,523 --> 00:33:05,858 Yeah, no, it should be fun. 616 00:33:06,567 --> 00:33:10,196 [Haq] If you actually believe we need to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius, 617 00:33:10,279 --> 00:33:14,075 then you have to be in favor of carbon removal technology, 618 00:33:14,158 --> 00:33:16,911 where you suck carbon out of the air, put it under the ground, 619 00:33:16,995 --> 00:33:21,082 and do that for about ten gigatons a year for 50 years to 2100. 620 00:33:21,666 --> 00:33:22,500 That's mind-boggling. 621 00:33:22,583 --> 00:33:24,919 Nobody's actually thinking about that or talking about that. 622 00:33:25,795 --> 00:33:27,839 -There we go. Here we go. -Gentlemen. 623 00:33:27,922 --> 00:33:31,426 [audience applauding] 624 00:33:31,509 --> 00:33:34,762 [Gelles] How do you think about carbon capture and its role? 625 00:33:34,846 --> 00:33:38,766 If in the Breakthrough Energy portfolio, we have a number of companies 626 00:33:38,850 --> 00:33:42,145 that are trying to bring the cost of carbon capture down. 627 00:33:42,228 --> 00:33:45,148 Today, I'm the biggest individual customer in Climeworks, 628 00:33:45,231 --> 00:33:48,693 which does carbon capture at over 300 dollars a ton. 629 00:33:48,776 --> 00:33:51,154 What does it mean that you're the single biggest customer? 630 00:33:51,237 --> 00:33:52,697 What does that look like? What kind-- 631 00:33:52,780 --> 00:33:54,991 -I write them a check. Uh… -Yeah? 632 00:33:55,074 --> 00:33:57,702 But… But are you offsetting your own personal emissions with that? 633 00:33:57,785 --> 00:33:58,619 Yeah. 634 00:33:58,703 --> 00:34:01,873 [soft music playing] 635 00:34:02,665 --> 00:34:03,750 [sheep bleats] 636 00:34:18,890 --> 00:34:22,101 [man 13] I'm working for a company that actually addresses climate change. 637 00:34:22,185 --> 00:34:23,895 For me, at the root cause, 638 00:34:23,978 --> 00:34:26,689 the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere, right? 639 00:34:26,773 --> 00:34:28,733 That is… That is heating up the planet. 640 00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:35,239 What Climeworks is doing is removing CO2 from the atmosphere. 641 00:34:35,948 --> 00:34:38,743 To filter that out, it's actually quite challenging 642 00:34:38,826 --> 00:34:42,455 because it's the most diluted source of CO2 that is available. 643 00:34:44,332 --> 00:34:49,462 We are pulling an enormous amount of air through a… a filter. 644 00:34:50,463 --> 00:34:52,090 If the air passes this material, 645 00:34:52,173 --> 00:34:56,385 the CO2 molecules react and stay inside the filter material. 646 00:34:57,261 --> 00:34:58,763 -We close it off… -[steam hisses] 647 00:34:58,846 --> 00:35:00,389 [Willemse] …and we heat that chamber up, 648 00:35:01,224 --> 00:35:03,226 which then reverses the chemical reaction… 649 00:35:06,062 --> 00:35:09,899 and then we suck that CO2 to our plant. 650 00:35:13,027 --> 00:35:17,323 We also… We link ourselves to only sustainable energy sources, 651 00:35:17,406 --> 00:35:19,408 like geothermal energy here in Iceland. 652 00:35:19,951 --> 00:35:22,078 [water bubbling] 653 00:35:24,330 --> 00:35:27,792 [Willemse] Overall, the process is actually not that complex, 654 00:35:27,875 --> 00:35:31,671 but to technologically execute and do it efficiently 655 00:35:31,754 --> 00:35:33,381 is, of course, a challenge. 656 00:35:36,092 --> 00:35:37,885 They really are removing carbon. 657 00:35:37,969 --> 00:35:41,055 Not only do they pull it out, but it gets mineralized 658 00:35:41,681 --> 00:35:43,432 in that Iceland plant. 659 00:35:46,644 --> 00:35:49,313 Here, I'm actually sitting next to an injection well. 660 00:35:49,397 --> 00:35:54,110 So, this is one of our injection wells where we are actually injecting the CO2, 661 00:35:54,193 --> 00:35:59,323 and this is actually the world's first injection well for this process. 662 00:35:59,407 --> 00:36:01,033 [inspiring music playing] 663 00:36:01,117 --> 00:36:04,412 [Snæbjörnsdóttir] So, we inject water and CO2, 664 00:36:04,495 --> 00:36:08,833 and at a certain depth, we release the CO2 into the water stream. 665 00:36:08,916 --> 00:36:10,209 And at this depth, 666 00:36:10,293 --> 00:36:14,505 the pressure is high enough for this SodaStream effect to take place. 667 00:36:16,007 --> 00:36:18,843 We are pushing the CO2 into the water, 668 00:36:18,926 --> 00:36:24,640 and then the CO2 gets carried into the bedrock, turning CO2 to stone. 669 00:36:26,309 --> 00:36:28,853 This essentially doesn't require much energy. 670 00:36:28,936 --> 00:36:32,899 We make use of the water that is already in the ground 671 00:36:32,982 --> 00:36:34,775 to put pressure on the CO2. 672 00:36:34,859 --> 00:36:36,777 [inspiring music continues] 673 00:36:39,530 --> 00:36:40,656 [music fades] 674 00:36:41,532 --> 00:36:47,580 A four-kiloton plant divided by the 40 gigatons that we emit in a year, 675 00:36:47,663 --> 00:36:51,000 you get to zero point, and then ten zeros, 676 00:36:51,083 --> 00:36:57,298 one percent of the total emission annually that we are removing at the moment. 677 00:36:58,007 --> 00:37:01,677 That's why it's so essential that we scale up this technology. 678 00:37:03,471 --> 00:37:06,557 Of course, we want to be almost like a utility company. 679 00:37:06,641 --> 00:37:09,810 Instead of collecting the garbage every week from your home, 680 00:37:09,894 --> 00:37:11,604 we are cleaning up the atmosphere. 681 00:37:12,730 --> 00:37:17,568 But direct air capture is not here to solve current emissions. 682 00:37:17,652 --> 00:37:21,280 It's really here to clean up the historical emissions 683 00:37:21,364 --> 00:37:22,490 that are already out there. 684 00:37:24,700 --> 00:37:25,785 [Gates] Right now, 685 00:37:25,868 --> 00:37:30,915 the biggest capture plants in the world are below 100,000 tons a year. 686 00:37:30,998 --> 00:37:34,502 There are some being built that are in the millions, 687 00:37:34,585 --> 00:37:37,797 but unless you get it up into the billions, 688 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:39,340 it's kind of a rounding error. 689 00:37:39,423 --> 00:37:41,133 It doesn't really have an impact. 690 00:37:43,844 --> 00:37:48,266 [Kolbert] It's kind of an insane idea to take CO2 out of the air 691 00:37:48,349 --> 00:37:51,560 that you've put up there by generating energy. [laughs] 692 00:37:51,644 --> 00:37:54,647 You should just generate your energy in a different way. 693 00:37:54,730 --> 00:37:58,985 The fact that very serious people are talking about this is, like, you know, 694 00:37:59,068 --> 00:38:02,280 suggests how desperate we are to keep doing what we're doing 695 00:38:02,363 --> 00:38:06,659 and find some workaround, you know, that's going to make it all go away. 696 00:38:07,576 --> 00:38:09,161 [gentle music playing] 697 00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:15,126 [Kolbert] A lot of these conversations, they're completely human-centric. 698 00:38:16,419 --> 00:38:18,421 The other species that we share the planet with 699 00:38:18,504 --> 00:38:21,007 are really victimized by climate change. 700 00:38:21,090 --> 00:38:23,134 -[inquisitive music playing] -[crickets chirping] 701 00:38:23,217 --> 00:38:24,051 [whale sings] 702 00:38:24,135 --> 00:38:28,139 [Kolbert] Will the ocean become a place where we can basically dump our carbon? 703 00:38:28,639 --> 00:38:32,977 You know, are forests places we can store as much carbon as possible? 704 00:38:33,477 --> 00:38:36,105 Can we genetically modify trees? 705 00:38:36,689 --> 00:38:38,816 Well, that's exciting. There's all this potential there. 706 00:38:38,899 --> 00:38:41,277 And another way to look at it would be, well, 707 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,696 the tree that's there now is probably important 708 00:38:43,779 --> 00:38:46,157 to a lot of species that are living in it. 709 00:38:47,658 --> 00:38:49,493 So, there's no free lunch here. 710 00:38:50,286 --> 00:38:51,996 There is no magic bullet. 711 00:38:54,290 --> 00:38:59,086 If that's all done with electrolysis, we may need as many as 140 factories, 712 00:38:59,170 --> 00:39:01,672 all making the core technology, the stacks. 713 00:39:02,173 --> 00:39:04,300 Each of them five times the size 714 00:39:04,383 --> 00:39:06,927 of the largest factory we have in existence today 715 00:39:07,511 --> 00:39:10,097 in order to support that kind of production. 716 00:39:11,432 --> 00:39:16,103 I… I would say that absolutely the thing that's come home to me in a very real way 717 00:39:16,187 --> 00:39:18,606 is the challenge of scale in this space, 718 00:39:18,689 --> 00:39:22,276 of how hard it is to deploy these innovations at scale. 719 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,904 To run into it and understand viscerally 720 00:39:24,987 --> 00:39:28,032 just how hard it is to build these things out. 721 00:39:28,115 --> 00:39:30,743 We have to go fast because it's gonna take a long time. 722 00:39:31,827 --> 00:39:37,458 This is gonna be an arduous, bumpy, dirty, messy journey, 723 00:39:37,541 --> 00:39:40,336 and it's gonna have times where it's precarious 724 00:39:40,419 --> 00:39:42,630 and looks like things are gonna go off a cliff. 725 00:39:43,422 --> 00:39:46,425 So I'm already predisposed to understand this is crazy. 726 00:39:46,509 --> 00:39:48,636 We're going down a crazy path. 727 00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,554 [inquisitive music playing] 728 00:39:52,848 --> 00:39:54,809 I mean, I want to be optimistic. 729 00:39:54,892 --> 00:39:57,269 I don't like being a doomsday prophecist 730 00:39:57,353 --> 00:40:01,524 or… or trying to be contrarian for the sake of it. 731 00:40:01,607 --> 00:40:04,193 It's more of just looking at where we're at. 732 00:40:04,276 --> 00:40:07,029 We're literally on a five, ten-year timeline here 733 00:40:07,113 --> 00:40:08,531 for getting to zero. 734 00:40:08,614 --> 00:40:10,199 I won't say I'm not an optimist. 735 00:40:10,282 --> 00:40:12,201 I think there's a solid chance we figure this out. 736 00:40:12,284 --> 00:40:16,038 And you've brought up great examples, but I won't say that I operate from hope. 737 00:40:16,122 --> 00:40:19,917 I think I operate from love of my home, 738 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,670 and the people, and everyone involved in this, 739 00:40:22,753 --> 00:40:24,547 and a healthy dose of fear. 740 00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,342 God, I cry every time I talk about this. [chuckles] 741 00:40:28,426 --> 00:40:30,928 You know, when I hear your passion, I think, "Wow, 742 00:40:31,011 --> 00:40:33,556 we are not going as fast as you want us to." 743 00:40:33,639 --> 00:40:34,974 It's not easy. 744 00:40:35,057 --> 00:40:38,811 This is the entire physical infrastructure. 745 00:40:39,562 --> 00:40:43,107 The scale of… of building that new way is… It's gonna take time, 746 00:40:43,190 --> 00:40:47,278 but it pushes me to… to think harder about how we can move faster. 747 00:40:48,154 --> 00:40:49,155 So, thank you. 748 00:40:49,989 --> 00:40:52,241 So, we've got a lot of work to do, 749 00:40:52,324 --> 00:40:55,202 and the sooner, the better. 750 00:40:55,286 --> 00:40:58,164 [clock ticking] 751 00:40:58,247 --> 00:41:01,083 [inquisitive music playing] 752 00:41:03,335 --> 00:41:05,129 [inquisitive music continues] 753 00:41:31,489 --> 00:41:33,282 [music fades]