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The Future of Renewable Energy, Featuring Bill Gates · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building
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Speaker 1: square Space. Build it beautiful. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's
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Speaker 1: Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know.
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Speaker 1: And this is a I from my perspective of pretty
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Speaker 1: awesome special stuff you should know. It is we uh,
0:36
Speaker 1: we don't normally have guests on the show. No, we
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Speaker 1: almost never do. It's a very select group, that's right,
0:44
Speaker 1: but this this maybe the topper. Yeah, what happened last week?
0:49
Speaker 1: Well last week, um, I was in Hawaii and I
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Speaker 1: got a text from you and it said, Buddy, I'm
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Speaker 1: sorry to bother you on vacation, but Bill Gates wants
0:58
Speaker 1: to be on Stuff you Should Know. And you went,
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Speaker 1: you mean old Billy Gates from elementary school, Billy bath Gate,
1:04
Speaker 1: And I said, no, Bill Gates, the entrepreneur, co founder
1:09
Speaker 1: of Microsoft and philanthropist, wants to be on our show.
1:14
Speaker 1: Because his personal communications person got in touch and said,
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Speaker 1: I know you don't normally do this, but would you
1:20
Speaker 1: consider making an exception for Mr Gates, right, and we
1:24
Speaker 1: were like, we really appreciate that you did the research
1:27
Speaker 1: to know that we don't normally have people on. That
1:29
Speaker 1: actually was very kind because we've had other people that
1:31
Speaker 1: just assume like, well, you'd want to have this person on, right, Well,
1:35
Speaker 1: do you even listen to the show. We don't have
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Speaker 1: guests normally. So we're like Bill Gates. Bill Gates like
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Speaker 1: played by Anthony Michael Hall once and it made for
1:42
Speaker 1: TV movie on T n T Bill Gates and they
1:45
Speaker 1: said that Bill Gates, that's right. We said, yes, watch,
1:48
Speaker 1: We're going to show up for the interview and it's
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Speaker 1: gonna be Anthony Michael Hall. That would blow my mind.
1:53
Speaker 1: So we're recording this first portion of the podcast on
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Speaker 1: renewal renewable energy, which is a topic very dear to
2:00
Speaker 1: Mr Gates's heart, um and something he knows way more
2:04
Speaker 1: about than we do. So we're recording this before we
2:06
Speaker 1: go talk to him in New York City next week. Um.
2:09
Speaker 1: But through the magic of editing, it will be as
2:11
Speaker 1: if this is one seamless day, like he's in the
2:14
Speaker 1: studio with us, right. So he wanted to talk about
2:16
Speaker 1: renewable energy. He's pretty jazzed about it, um, And you
2:19
Speaker 1: could say I'm pretty jazzed about renewable energy as well.
2:22
Speaker 1: It's amazing what's coming down the pike. And there's yes
2:25
Speaker 1: coming down the Pike's very important, right because, um, there's
2:29
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that's going on right now in
2:32
Speaker 1: the twenty one century and then coming in the next
2:34
Speaker 1: couple of decades that mean that we could really use
2:38
Speaker 1: renewable energy sooner than later. One is that, Um, it's
2:42
Speaker 1: predicted that energy consumption worldwide is going to increase by
2:49
Speaker 1: over two tho levels thirty years from hits. There's a
2:54
Speaker 1: lot more energy consumption than we're doing right now, and
2:57
Speaker 1: we consume a lot of energy. Yeah, in the world
3:02
Speaker 1: as a whole admitted thirty six billion tons of c
3:06
Speaker 1: O two and that is forty two percent more than
3:09
Speaker 1: we did, forty two percent more than we did in
3:11
Speaker 1: nine and the goal is below nine ls. So that's
3:18
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty that's what I said. Yeah, you
3:24
Speaker 1: got it right, A hundred swing as in the wrong direction. Yeah,
3:28
Speaker 1: we need to get to and try and achieve. And
3:30
Speaker 1: this is not just the US, this is this is
3:32
Speaker 1: a world problem exactly. So you've got a two fold.
3:36
Speaker 1: You have two conflicting issues here. You have increasing energy demand,
3:40
Speaker 1: but you also have a desire to reduce CEO two emissions.
3:44
Speaker 1: Right then then if you want to confound things further,
3:48
Speaker 1: and this is where um, Bill Gates's passions lie. Um,
3:52
Speaker 1: You've got a lot of people out there, something like
3:54
Speaker 1: one point three billion people around the world who just
3:57
Speaker 1: don't have electricity at all. Yeah, of the world's population
4:01
Speaker 1: without electricity at all, sevent of Sub Saharan Africa no electricity.
4:08
Speaker 1: Three million people in India alone with no electricity. And
4:11
Speaker 1: that's not just oh well, you don't have all the
4:13
Speaker 1: mod cons it's you know, you don't have light to
4:15
Speaker 1: read by um and educate yourselves, or to refrigerate your
4:20
Speaker 1: food and not catch food born diseases. I mean, we
4:24
Speaker 1: could name out a hundred reasons why you need electricity
4:26
Speaker 1: in the exactly. So, you've got a growing energy demand,
4:32
Speaker 1: you have a need to reduce c O two emissions,
4:36
Speaker 1: and then you have a whole segment of the human
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Speaker 1: population that needs access to energy, which means that if
4:43
Speaker 1: you can come up with some good renewable technologies, you
4:48
Speaker 1: can actually make all these things work together. But the
4:51
Speaker 1: key is so if it's renewable, it's automatically basically clean UM.
4:56
Speaker 1: And it has to come soon to offset that energy increase,
5:00
Speaker 1: energy consumption increase. But because we're factoring the developing low
5:05
Speaker 1: income world into this, it needs to also be cheap
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Speaker 1: and easily accessible and reliable. Yeah. Until and this is
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Speaker 1: something that I'm sure Bill Gates hammers home every time
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Speaker 1: he has a chance. If it's gotta it's gotta be viable,
5:19
Speaker 1: And if it's not cheaper and better then fossil fuel consumption,
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Speaker 1: then no one's ever gonna jump on board in a
5:26
Speaker 1: big way. Yeah. And if so from this point on, Chuck,
5:29
Speaker 1: because he is coming on as a personal guest to stuff,
5:31
Speaker 1: you should know, I think we can just refer to
5:33
Speaker 1: him as Bill our friend, Bill. Yeah, Bill our pal. Yeah.
5:39
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see a week from now. Uh,
5:43
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about UM. Who's contributing to
5:46
Speaker 1: the problem. China. They're the world's top CEO to admit
5:49
Speaker 1: her UM at least of global emissions, with the US
5:56
Speaker 1: number two at fifteen point five, followed by the EU
5:59
Speaker 1: at nine point I have an Indian at seven point two.
6:02
Speaker 1: But everybody agrees that let's there's a problem and let's
6:07
Speaker 1: try and reverse it. So they had a summit in
6:09
Speaker 1: Paris at the end of this past year where they
6:12
Speaker 1: all got together all these nations said you know what,
6:15
Speaker 1: let's set some goals here. Uh. In the US for
6:18
Speaker 1: their part, said you know what, let's try and cut
6:19
Speaker 1: national emissions by up to by the year from two
6:26
Speaker 1: five levels. Right. Um. And this is this is this
6:30
Speaker 1: whole Paris Accord, basically the Paris Climate Talks that came
6:34
Speaker 1: in November. Um, two hundred countries signed on to reduce
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Speaker 1: their emissions and um uh it was lauded as a
6:42
Speaker 1: huge breakthrough. You got all these people together and all
6:45
Speaker 1: these different countries and they hammered out a document that's
6:47
Speaker 1: legally binding. But there's also criticism of the document and
6:51
Speaker 1: that the emissions reductions are just totally voluntary. There's no
6:55
Speaker 1: teeth in the document to say, well, here's the bad
6:58
Speaker 1: things that happened to you if you don't meet your
7:00
Speaker 1: reductions goals. But as criticized as the document the Paris
7:05
Speaker 1: Climate Talks were, there's also like a real sunny side
7:09
Speaker 1: to the whole thing, and that came in some kind
7:12
Speaker 1: of um between the lines, uh message that came out
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Speaker 1: of it, and that was developed industrialized nations are ready
7:20
Speaker 1: to put down some serious coin into renewable energy technology. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: to the tune um of total one billion euros per
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Speaker 1: year UM to low income economies to try and build
7:34
Speaker 1: them up and give them robust economies which would help
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Speaker 1: the world as a whole. Right, So, um, this basically
7:41
Speaker 1: is this hundred billion euros a year. It's a sizeable
7:46
Speaker 1: chunk and it's it's it represents kind of a funnel
7:51
Speaker 1: through developing nations, from developed nations to developing nations. Two
7:57
Speaker 1: renewable tech companies. So it's a it's a roundabout investment
8:01
Speaker 1: in renewable tech um. And there's a lot of stuff
8:05
Speaker 1: that's being it that that just went from pine in
8:10
Speaker 1: the sky to oh now you're throwing some real money
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Speaker 1: at this. We can make this happen now because some
8:16
Speaker 1: stuff brand new, some stuff altering existing technologies. But it's
8:20
Speaker 1: all super exciting. Um. Should we talk about some of
8:23
Speaker 1: these What the first one I have to say? I
8:28
Speaker 1: love if you remember in the State of the Union
8:31
Speaker 1: address in January, President Obama said something about turning sunlight
8:37
Speaker 1: into liquid fuel. I thought he was having an acid
8:40
Speaker 1: flashback up and away in my beautiful But no, what
8:46
Speaker 1: he's talking about is a super promising UH process called
8:50
Speaker 1: artificial photosynthesis, and it's basically, well, it's exactly what it sounds.
8:56
Speaker 1: It's it's building machines that take CEO two emissions and
9:03
Speaker 1: that contribute the climate change and using that actually in
9:06
Speaker 1: the sunlight to make fuel. Right, So you're using CEO
9:10
Speaker 1: two emissions as a raw material for fuel. Unbelievable. So basically, UM,
9:15
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of UM stumbling blocks so far
9:18
Speaker 1: as far as the artificial photosynthesis industry is concerned. But
9:21
Speaker 1: they've also had some really good breakthroughs recently. One was
9:26
Speaker 1: it came out of the Department of Energy is Berkeley
9:28
Speaker 1: Lab where basically they took nano wire arrays they made
9:32
Speaker 1: what they call a synthetic forest of nano wires, right,
9:35
Speaker 1: and these nano wires collect solar energy and they transfer
9:39
Speaker 1: it to bacteria. And there's bacteria mixed in with carbon
9:43
Speaker 1: dioxide and water break down the CEO two, so they
9:48
Speaker 1: catalyze it into other components. Right. Then another bacteria takes
9:54
Speaker 1: those components and build them up into a usable fuel
9:57
Speaker 1: like methanol. And all this happened in basically Uh. A
10:03
Speaker 1: artificial photosynthetic fuel cell is what is what it is
10:07
Speaker 1: using sunlight to break c O two emissions down into
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Speaker 1: usable fuel. Amazing, amazing it is. Uh. Something else I
10:15
Speaker 1: got going is actually taking water c O two and
10:20
Speaker 1: splitting this stuff up into its individual elements and then
10:25
Speaker 1: essentially recombining them to form c H three oh h,
10:29
Speaker 1: which is methanol a k A wood spirits. Uh, but
10:33
Speaker 1: you don't want to drink a k A what you
10:36
Speaker 1: would get it's like the simplest form of alcohol, and
10:39
Speaker 1: what you would get when you would burn would well,
10:41
Speaker 1: it's the simplest usable form. Well, yeah, I guess the
10:45
Speaker 1: simplest form would be golden grain, right, although you could
10:49
Speaker 1: probably put that in an engine. I wonder what would appen.
10:51
Speaker 1: Think it would work probably So if you're out of
10:53
Speaker 1: fuel in the hills of Georgia, it'll work. It'll do
10:57
Speaker 1: the trick. So methanol is the simplest that you can
10:59
Speaker 1: you in an engine, and it's already being used on
11:01
Speaker 1: China is blending it into gasoline for regular cars at
11:05
Speaker 1: about or less right there at the pumps, and their
11:09
Speaker 1: taxis and busses are running on up to blend of
11:13
Speaker 1: methanol on gasoline. Right, So it's a real thing. It
11:16
Speaker 1: definitely is a real thing. And one of the big
11:18
Speaker 1: problems with artificial photosynthesis has been that UM, the the
11:24
Speaker 1: catalyst to break the CEO two down into constituent components,
11:29
Speaker 1: has required something like platinum. Platinum is a very efficient
11:32
Speaker 1: catalyst for that process, right, Platinum also cost an ounce
11:36
Speaker 1: and if you're coming up with tech that you can
11:38
Speaker 1: sell cheap to the developing world, platinum can't be a
11:42
Speaker 1: major component of the whole thing, Which is why that
11:44
Speaker 1: Berkeley Labs breakthrough using bacteria to catalyze and synthesize this
11:49
Speaker 1: stuff is huge because one of the one of the
11:52
Speaker 1: bacteria they're using, the synthetic bacteria synthesizing bacteria is E. Coli.
11:58
Speaker 1: You can find that anywhere man skill, grab a bunch
12:00
Speaker 1: of cilantro, throw it in there. You've got your your
12:04
Speaker 1: your synthesizing bacteria. Another big goal is to UM well,
12:09
Speaker 1: and this is this is a goal for anyone making
12:12
Speaker 1: any sort of renewable energy machinery is to make them
12:16
Speaker 1: last super long, because then you can amoritize that cost
12:19
Speaker 1: over many many years, thus driving the overall costs down.
12:23
Speaker 1: UM and so long lasting is a big key. Uh.
12:27
Speaker 1: And then you know it's not just about building the
12:30
Speaker 1: machine that will actually not in the case of the bacteria,
12:34
Speaker 1: that will actually split up in these elements. Um, you
12:38
Speaker 1: also need other machines around it. You can't just do
12:41
Speaker 1: that and say I throw it in the gas. Um.
12:44
Speaker 1: It has to be recombined into something usable. Well yeah,
12:46
Speaker 1: and not only that, but it's got to be I mean,
12:48
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of ancillary equipment that need to be
12:52
Speaker 1: used to make this whole thing work. Right, So I
12:54
Speaker 1: think the point is that you can't have a huge
12:57
Speaker 1: just this huge thing if you're going to try to
12:59
Speaker 1: sell to the consumer. Right, No, it has to be
13:02
Speaker 1: in the pumped gas. But you could create a huge
13:05
Speaker 1: thing if you're going to basically create a fuel refinery
13:08
Speaker 1: and artificial photosynthesis fuel refinery, and then you can just
13:13
Speaker 1: sell it to gas stations. That would work to Another
13:16
Speaker 1: problem here that you point out is they figured out
13:20
Speaker 1: how to split uh, water and CEO two in separate processes,
13:24
Speaker 1: but not in one unit. Right. That's where that Berkeley
13:28
Speaker 1: breakthrough is such a big deal. So I would say,
13:30
Speaker 1: just bolt those two machines together and you got one machine.
13:33
Speaker 1: Right exactly. But they use two different kinds of bacteria
13:36
Speaker 1: to do two different jobs in the same in the
13:39
Speaker 1: same machine. It's it's it's amazing. And one of the
13:44
Speaker 1: researchers points out that funding for this stuff is kind
13:47
Speaker 1: of a problem because funding doesn't um you don't get
13:51
Speaker 1: the same amount of money every quarter. Uh. Sometimes it's high,
13:54
Speaker 1: sometimes it's low, And that's really tough and it's a
13:57
Speaker 1: big challenge when you're trying to figure out these things.
13:59
Speaker 1: But because you might get a great idea one year
14:03
Speaker 1: where you need that dough and you don't have it um,
14:06
Speaker 1: So it's just a lot harder to manage when that
14:08
Speaker 1: the ebb and flow of funding comes and goes. But
14:10
Speaker 1: I think that's where this huge, the big that's where
14:14
Speaker 1: this big thing that came out of the Paris Climate
14:16
Speaker 1: Talks comes in. That Like, it's not like money is
14:20
Speaker 1: a thing in the past, But if you're creating something
14:23
Speaker 1: that really has legs as far as creating renewable energy
14:28
Speaker 1: is concerned, you're gonna be able to find a capital. Yeah.
14:32
Speaker 1: Right now, the U. S Energy Department is renewing a
14:35
Speaker 1: seventy five million dollar five year grant to cal techs
14:39
Speaker 1: UH Center for artificial photosynthesis. So that's not pocket change.
14:44
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll take more than that, but some you
14:46
Speaker 1: can you can do some research with that. So thumbs
14:49
Speaker 1: up to artificial photosynthesis. Thumbs up. We're both a little excited,
14:53
Speaker 1: so as is our custom, I think we should take
14:55
Speaker 1: a break, agreed, So chuck, Um, there's a there's this
15:15
Speaker 1: kind of this big issue right where we have wind
15:18
Speaker 1: power and we have solar power, and some places are
15:21
Speaker 1: sunnier than others in the United States, California or else
15:25
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, and some places are windier than others. Okay,
15:29
Speaker 1: So like Kansas can get all the wind it needs
15:32
Speaker 1: from wind farms if they wanted to, Probably California. Actually
15:36
Speaker 1: I looked up Reno, Nevada in Honolulu about the same
15:40
Speaker 1: amount of sunlight every year, did you know that? But
15:43
Speaker 1: very different places, very different. But um, so either one
15:47
Speaker 1: of them could subsist on solar energy technically, right. But
15:52
Speaker 1: you've got a place like Seattle it's not going to
15:54
Speaker 1: do very well for solar solar energy, or London not
15:56
Speaker 1: gonna do really well with solar energy. But if you're
15:59
Speaker 1: talking about out like say a national grid, and say
16:02
Speaker 1: the United States, if you step back and look at
16:04
Speaker 1: it rather than like Kansas is one region, in California
16:07
Speaker 1: is another, and say, actually, in Kansas in California are
16:13
Speaker 1: parts of this larger grid. We just have to figure
16:15
Speaker 1: out how to get the wind power that's constantly in
16:18
Speaker 1: Kansas over to Seattle, or the solar power that's you know,
16:22
Speaker 1: in Reno over to Boston. How do you do that?
16:26
Speaker 1: And they figured out all they have to do is
16:28
Speaker 1: use existing technology, which is just basically stepped up type
16:33
Speaker 1: of power line. Yeah, I think this is amazing. There
16:35
Speaker 1: was a guy named Alex Alex McDonald from the n
16:39
Speaker 1: O A A from Noah, that's right, and he kind
16:42
Speaker 1: of realized one day, Hey, the wind is always blowing somewhere,
16:46
Speaker 1: like we've got the wind, um, we got all these
16:49
Speaker 1: power lines. Why don't we do this. Let's think of
16:53
Speaker 1: things in a different way, and let's think of the
16:55
Speaker 1: US as one big, all encompassing, interconnected grid, which it
16:59
Speaker 1: is is, but we kind of don't think of it
17:02
Speaker 1: that way. No, he did exactly. He said, it's all connected,
17:05
Speaker 1: so why don't we do this, Let's switch over these
17:07
Speaker 1: power lines to direct current lines, which Edison apparently was right.
17:11
Speaker 1: So they suffer a lot less loss. Um. I looked
17:14
Speaker 1: up supposedly from power station to customer, there's about an
17:20
Speaker 1: eight to loss using current a C using what we
17:25
Speaker 1: have going now, and I believe if you switch over
17:28
Speaker 1: to the d c UH it would cut that in
17:31
Speaker 1: about half, not too bad. And beyond that, that means
17:37
Speaker 1: that you could transport electricity farther than you can now,
17:41
Speaker 1: which means you can look at a regional national grid.
17:45
Speaker 1: Is is something whole right, Um, But you also can
17:50
Speaker 1: take if you can connect these things better. If you
17:53
Speaker 1: can connect these regional grids into a comprehensive national grid,
17:57
Speaker 1: you can shuffle um wind power from one region of
18:01
Speaker 1: the country to another, solar power from one region of
18:04
Speaker 1: the country to another. Yeah. So what they did was
18:06
Speaker 1: they made this really cool computer model, and they said,
18:10
Speaker 1: let's figure this out. Let's divide the United States up
18:12
Speaker 1: into a hundred and fifty two thousand squares. All of
18:17
Speaker 1: these will are connected already, and let's input wind data
18:21
Speaker 1: from a couple of years two thousand six to two
18:23
Speaker 1: thousand eight nationally just to see where we're at. Let's
18:27
Speaker 1: see where the wind's blowing, Let's see where these grids are,
18:30
Speaker 1: and let's figure out demand where you need it most,
18:34
Speaker 1: less windy places obviously, uh, less sunny places maybe, and
18:38
Speaker 1: let's figure out what's the smartest way to lay this
18:41
Speaker 1: out and where the best places to invest in building
18:44
Speaker 1: these massive wind farms. Right. And they also were extremely
18:48
Speaker 1: cautious in um their inputs into this model. Right. They
18:52
Speaker 1: excluded national parks and mountain slopes where you can't put
18:55
Speaker 1: UM windmills or solar arras UM. They included uh, anticipated
19:01
Speaker 1: electrical demands in the future UM. And they basically used
19:06
Speaker 1: all of the low end figures they could find. And
19:08
Speaker 1: even with those low end figures, Chuck using these uh
19:12
Speaker 1: these DC power lines and putting new windmill and solar
19:17
Speaker 1: array outfits around the country in the right places, they
19:22
Speaker 1: came up with the idea that we could cut c
19:24
Speaker 1: O two emissions from power plants in the United States
19:28
Speaker 1: by of those by that's insane, which is the goal
19:36
Speaker 1: that we want less. And again they point out, we
19:40
Speaker 1: were really cautious in our projections here. So this is
19:42
Speaker 1: the low end, this is the least we could do
19:45
Speaker 1: by doing this, and this is using technology that's all
19:48
Speaker 1: available right now. Yeah, you point out the one big
19:50
Speaker 1: caveat is that if electric cars really take off, like, um,
19:55
Speaker 1: a lot of people hope they will. That um, they're
19:58
Speaker 1: gonna have to ramp up production because that they'll just
20:02
Speaker 1: be using a lot more power. Yeah, and they also
20:04
Speaker 1: said they in the United States, it's not necessarily a
20:07
Speaker 1: problem with um even finances or certainly not technology that
20:12
Speaker 1: It usually just political will, like say, one part of
20:15
Speaker 1: the country doesn't want to depend on another for its
20:16
Speaker 1: power for some weird reason. I could totally see some
20:20
Speaker 1: Georgia senator being like, we're not going to depend on
20:23
Speaker 1: Kansas for our wind our prest I could see that too.
20:26
Speaker 1: I could totally see it. But if you're taking this
20:28
Speaker 1: this concept of the high voltage grid right, uh, and
20:34
Speaker 1: in creating it from scratch in an area in the
20:37
Speaker 1: developing world that doesn't have a grid to speak of, yeah,
20:40
Speaker 1: they could really benefit exactly. Just build it, build it there,
20:44
Speaker 1: and that's just the way it is. Yeah, it's super
20:46
Speaker 1: I'm hyped about that one. That that one is. Which
20:49
Speaker 1: one is your favorite so far? Well, that one so far,
20:52
Speaker 1: This next one is neat, but it's uh, I just
20:55
Speaker 1: can't even wrap my brain around you know what photo
20:59
Speaker 1: voltae paint. Yeah, basically instead of a solar panel. How
21:03
Speaker 1: about solar paint, Jack, how about painting the painting your
21:08
Speaker 1: roof your roof with paint or with shingles that are
21:13
Speaker 1: made from this stuff, which they already have, but they're
21:16
Speaker 1: clumsy and cumbersome. This stuff. If you're using photovoltaic paint,
21:20
Speaker 1: you're using paint that's mixed with um colloidial quantum dots
21:25
Speaker 1: or some sort of nanoparticle, and there there are different
21:28
Speaker 1: types of nanoparticles that create an electrical charge when exposed
21:32
Speaker 1: to sunlight. Right, Well, if you have paint that's got
21:35
Speaker 1: a bunch of these mixed in with it, and you
21:37
Speaker 1: have a way to jack your house's power lines into
21:40
Speaker 1: said paint, you can generate electricity just from painting your house.
21:45
Speaker 1: And it's super flexible, it's easily transported, which is a
21:48
Speaker 1: big deal. And if they can get costs down, which
21:51
Speaker 1: it looks like they're starting to do um and get
21:53
Speaker 1: efficiency up. I think the record right now is somewhere
21:57
Speaker 1: around eight percent efficiency. So eight percent of the solar
22:01
Speaker 1: power that that hits these things is converted into electricity. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 1: still not enough, but it's it's substantial and it's growing.
22:09
Speaker 1: But if you can get these things up. This could
22:11
Speaker 1: be extremely helpful for not just people in developing countries,
22:14
Speaker 1: people in remote areas. Like, if you want to live
22:16
Speaker 1: off the grid, just paint your house with this stuff. Yeah,
22:19
Speaker 1: the whole side of your home, the roof of your home.
22:22
Speaker 1: You could you could paint your cell phone in theory,
22:25
Speaker 1: you can paint your car, paint your dog. How are
22:29
Speaker 1: your dog? Don't paint your dog? I probably shouldn't paint.
22:32
Speaker 1: This one is a bit mind blowing and it seems
22:35
Speaker 1: slightly more far fetched as far as making it the
22:39
Speaker 1: realistic way to go. Well, that's the thing. They found
22:43
Speaker 1: that it works. But can you make it like big
22:44
Speaker 1: and widespread and mass produced, right? I think I think so?
22:47
Speaker 1: And um so using colloial quantum dots. I'm not quite
22:51
Speaker 1: sure how handy those are, how easy to find those are.
22:54
Speaker 1: There's another group UM that's working on making plastic ones
22:59
Speaker 1: not a bad idea plastic solar cells, but like nanoparticles
23:03
Speaker 1: made out of plastic that are that react to solar
23:05
Speaker 1: energy and create electricity. Um and as we know, we
23:09
Speaker 1: love to mass produce things as plastic and we can
23:11
Speaker 1: do it cheaply, so that could definitely have a huge
23:13
Speaker 1: impact on it. Once you start making something out of plastic,
23:16
Speaker 1: that automatically means it's available for cheap. Good point, we're
23:20
Speaker 1: masters of plastic. That's I think the world needs a
23:24
Speaker 1: T shirt that says that masters a plastic. It's a
23:27
Speaker 1: good band name opening up for cloydal Quantum Dots nice,
23:31
Speaker 1: not bad. You got anything else on that? Uh? No,
23:35
Speaker 1: I guess yeah. I think the high voltage power lines
23:39
Speaker 1: are my favorite so far. Yeah, I'm still going with that.
23:42
Speaker 1: UM And here's one thing that I know. We're going
23:44
Speaker 1: to talk with Bill about our friend Bill because his
23:49
Speaker 1: people that we were talking to said Bill gets really
23:52
Speaker 1: excited about batteries and the future of batteries. UM, And
23:58
Speaker 1: I think everyone in Renewable Inner G's excited about batteries
24:01
Speaker 1: because batteries are awesome and they can they can do
24:05
Speaker 1: a lot of things. They could potentially solve one of
24:07
Speaker 1: the big problems that if we don't get those power
24:10
Speaker 1: lines hooked up, you could at least generate a bunch
24:13
Speaker 1: of wind and store them in a huge battery array
24:16
Speaker 1: for future use. UM or a solar field and store
24:20
Speaker 1: that in batteries. Right, So theoretically you could do all
24:24
Speaker 1: this now, but the problem is that the costs are
24:27
Speaker 1: so monumental in creating batteries that can that are big
24:31
Speaker 1: enough to back up a power grid that you are
24:34
Speaker 1: actually um in some cases, doubling or tripling the cost
24:38
Speaker 1: of electricity. UM. And Bill Gates actually wrote, like this
24:41
Speaker 1: guy's no shlub. He wrote a paper on energy bills.
24:45
Speaker 1: He's no slove. I don't know if you know this
24:47
Speaker 1: or not, but he wrote a paper on energy innovation.
24:50
Speaker 1: And he points out that so if if batteries double
24:54
Speaker 1: or triple the cost of electricity, if you somehow figured
24:57
Speaker 1: out a way to generate electricity for free, it would
25:00
Speaker 1: still cost two to three times what it does now
25:02
Speaker 1: if you're backing up the grid with the battery, which
25:05
Speaker 1: to him, into a lot of other observers says, we
25:07
Speaker 1: need a better battery. And again, one alternative to that
25:11
Speaker 1: is to get around the idea of batteries at all
25:13
Speaker 1: by creating that high voltage power grids that can spread
25:16
Speaker 1: wind and solar energy throughout an entire nation. But just
25:20
Speaker 1: like the consumer level, UM, I know that Mr Elon
25:24
Speaker 1: Musk and other really smart people are trying to develop
25:26
Speaker 1: these batteries that can just do a better job for
25:29
Speaker 1: your home solar setup, uh, because that there's so long
25:34
Speaker 1: way to go even you know now. But yeah, but
25:36
Speaker 1: if you can create a battery that that can store
25:40
Speaker 1: wind power solar power, then you don't have to have
25:43
Speaker 1: a fossil fuel UM plant to back up the solar
25:47
Speaker 1: wind power for cloudy days or at night or days
25:51
Speaker 1: when the wind just won't blow exactly no matter how
25:53
Speaker 1: hard you wish the days. Uh. So I believe musks is, uh,
25:59
Speaker 1: we're not really covering that. But weren't his uh lithium
26:02
Speaker 1: ion base the big announcement, Yeah, recently. Yeah, what's it
26:06
Speaker 1: called the Tesla Wall, the power wall, Tesla power Wall. So, yeah,
26:11
Speaker 1: they're lithium ion batteries that like you can um charge
26:14
Speaker 1: while you're hooked up to the grid or whatever, or
26:17
Speaker 1: if you you got solar whatever you're backing up your
26:20
Speaker 1: homes electricity. And I think each each battery lasts for
26:24
Speaker 1: eight hours. The point is they're huge, and they're expensive,
26:27
Speaker 1: and if you're extrapolating batteries onto helping the developing economies
26:32
Speaker 1: of the world, um, you need to have cheap and
26:36
Speaker 1: small and portable, right, um. And there's a lot of this.
26:40
Speaker 1: The idea of coming up with a better battery is
26:43
Speaker 1: essentially the holy grail as far as renewable energy goesblems.
26:47
Speaker 1: It underpins almost every renewable energy project. And that you,
26:52
Speaker 1: wind and solar are ephemeral. They don't happen all the time,
26:56
Speaker 1: so you need to find a way to store the
26:58
Speaker 1: excess m ounce that come to you when it is
27:01
Speaker 1: sunny and when the wind is blowing. So batteries are
27:04
Speaker 1: extremely important and there's a lot of people working on
27:07
Speaker 1: them right now. Yeah, the one that is super promising
27:10
Speaker 1: um that we're covering here. It's called the flow battery.
27:14
Speaker 1: And forget what you thought about your mom and dad's
27:18
Speaker 1: and your grandpa's batteries. Just throw them, throw them in
27:20
Speaker 1: the in the trash. Well, don't do that, I think,
27:23
Speaker 1: throw in the fire. No, no, no, I definitely don't
27:26
Speaker 1: do that, shoot it into space. But the flow battery,
27:30
Speaker 1: my friend, is where it's at I think as far
27:32
Speaker 1: as the future is concerned. So well, there's many different
27:37
Speaker 1: versions of flow batteries. There's actually one that UM I
27:40
Speaker 1: saw as brand new that uses lithium ion technology along
27:45
Speaker 1: with the flow system, which we're gonna talk about in
27:48
Speaker 1: a second. The one that's the lithium ion can actually
27:50
Speaker 1: store that. The combo can actually store ten times what
27:53
Speaker 1: a regular flow battery can, which is great. The downside is,
27:57
Speaker 1: there's always a downside, UH is it's power delivery is
28:01
Speaker 1: ten thousand times slower than conventional flow battery. That takes
28:05
Speaker 1: a while. The charge of phones. It's like, we got
28:07
Speaker 1: lots of power stored. They're like, uh, what's the bad news. Um,
28:12
Speaker 1: it's ten thousand times slower than what you're used to.
28:14
Speaker 1: But UM, once you break down that the standard UH
28:18
Speaker 1: flow battery, it's pretty ingenious. So UM, with a with
28:21
Speaker 1: a flow battery, you have UM. You have two receiving
28:25
Speaker 1: tanks and two holding tanks, right, and as this uh,
28:29
Speaker 1: the liquid inside, the fluid inside is an electrolyte fluid, right,
28:32
Speaker 1: So basically gatorade, it's UM. It's it's a fluid that
28:36
Speaker 1: contains an electrical charge, and as it flows from receiving
28:40
Speaker 1: tank to holding tank, it actually creates a charge where
28:43
Speaker 1: it transmits this charge and UM charges itself, right or
28:47
Speaker 1: powers whatever you want. The cool thing about flow batteries
28:50
Speaker 1: are well, one of the we should say one of
28:53
Speaker 1: the drawbacks is that they're big. They need to be big.
28:55
Speaker 1: I think about the smallest you could you could um
28:59
Speaker 1: come up with if this, say, the size of an aquarium. Yeah.
29:03
Speaker 1: Well it's also an advantage because they can be as
29:05
Speaker 1: big as you want. That is an advantage. Create one
29:08
Speaker 1: literally the size of a football stadium if you want,
29:11
Speaker 1: if you yeah, if you have enough gatorade, that could
29:13
Speaker 1: store all the energy of an entire solar field. So so,
29:18
Speaker 1: And the great thing about a flow battery is it
29:22
Speaker 1: will store this charge indefinitely like this the electro light
29:26
Speaker 1: is the fluid is never gonna lose its charge permanently.
29:30
Speaker 1: It can always be recharged by moving it from receiving
29:33
Speaker 1: tank to holding tank. Yeah. And I think the biggest
29:35
Speaker 1: advantages it's instantly recharged when you replace that fluid. There's
29:39
Speaker 1: I don't think there's even any lag time. It's just boom,
29:43
Speaker 1: it's going again, So Chuck, what we've been talking about
29:46
Speaker 1: so far as as far as batteries are concerned, is
29:48
Speaker 1: a way to store electricity. But there's actually other stuff
29:51
Speaker 1: you can store to to generate electricity from. And heats
29:55
Speaker 1: a big one, yeah, because we've talked again and again
29:58
Speaker 1: about how sort of archaic and weird it is that
30:01
Speaker 1: we still create heat to spend a turbine to create
30:05
Speaker 1: steam to spin a turbine, just like we did in
30:08
Speaker 1: the Industrial Revolution. As fancy as you want to get
30:11
Speaker 1: using nuclear clear rod, you're still generating steam to spin
30:17
Speaker 1: a turbine. That's the whole point, that's the end result, right.
30:20
Speaker 1: I love it. And if you're if that floats your boat,
30:22
Speaker 1: if that made your eyes just pop out of your head,
30:25
Speaker 1: go listen to our electricity episode, which is one of
30:27
Speaker 1: my all time favorites. Yeah, we did one on nuclear
30:30
Speaker 1: power to right, we did after Fukushima, So, uh, you
30:35
Speaker 1: can actually store that heat, correct in the future. Now,
30:39
Speaker 1: even there's condensing solar um power plants, then they take
30:45
Speaker 1: the heat from the sun, so they're not storing the energy.
30:49
Speaker 1: There's no way they're not storing the energy. I looked
30:51
Speaker 1: and and it seemed like everybody was just talking about
30:54
Speaker 1: the heat. But they also have to store the solar
30:56
Speaker 1: energy as well. What a waste, right, So at the
30:59
Speaker 1: very least they store the heat, and they usually store
31:02
Speaker 1: it as molten salt. But they found out that if
31:05
Speaker 1: you use a super critical fluid, which is a fluid
31:08
Speaker 1: that's heated to a point where it basically no longer
31:11
Speaker 1: recognizes the distinction between liquid or gaseous form, and it
31:15
Speaker 1: can do all sorts of crazy stuff. Um, if you
31:18
Speaker 1: take a supercritical fluid, you can take the heat, the
31:22
Speaker 1: thermal heat from the sun and store that heat in
31:25
Speaker 1: there and then use it later on by releasing that
31:29
Speaker 1: heat to heat water and generate steam to spin a turbine.
31:34
Speaker 1: Also another great band name, spin a turbine. No supercritical fluid.
31:38
Speaker 1: I agree. I think if you want to name your band,
31:40
Speaker 1: just look into renewable energy, as they're like cool names
31:43
Speaker 1: all over the place, or just call your band Bill Gates,
31:47
Speaker 1: our pal Bill. Not bad. Uh, you got anything else
31:51
Speaker 1: for now? No? I mean I could sit here and
31:54
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff forever, but let's talk to Bill
31:56
Speaker 1: Gates about it instead. Great idea, and Chuck, we will
31:59
Speaker 1: do that right for this break. Okay, everyone, we are back.
32:17
Speaker 1: We are in a hotel room in New York City
32:19
Speaker 1: with Mr Bill Gates, which is a little unusual for us,
32:23
Speaker 1: to say the least. It's an unusual Monday, for sure.
32:26
Speaker 1: It is. His folks reached out and asked if we
32:28
Speaker 1: would make an exception about having a guest on the show,
32:31
Speaker 1: and we thought about it for about point one seconds
32:34
Speaker 1: in staid of course, we'd love to have Bill Gates
32:36
Speaker 1: on the show, So thank you, sir for being here.
32:39
Speaker 1: And we already recorded the first part of the show
32:41
Speaker 1: on renewable energy UM, specifically a few different technologies UM
32:46
Speaker 1: in the future that are pretty exciting, and so I
32:49
Speaker 1: think Josh wanted to go ahead and kick it off
32:51
Speaker 1: with a relevant question. So we got kind of, you know,
32:54
Speaker 1: into the nuts and bolts of some of the tech.
32:56
Speaker 1: But one of the things we didn't cover and we
32:57
Speaker 1: wanted to hear from use what are some of the
32:58
Speaker 1: obstacles that this renewable tech that's just right there on
33:02
Speaker 1: the horizon. What's keeping them from being deployed now, especially
33:05
Speaker 1: in the developing world. Well, when we think about energy, uh,
33:11
Speaker 1: one of the key things is reliability. If you just
33:15
Speaker 1: have energy when the wind blows, when the sunshine, that's
33:18
Speaker 1: not very helpful. You know, if somebody's freezing in their
33:22
Speaker 1: apartment on a winter night, they need energy. If you're
33:26
Speaker 1: gonna build a factory, say to build cars that, because
33:31
Speaker 1: of your huge capital cost, needs to run twenty four
33:34
Speaker 1: hours a day, and so it's got to have reliable energy.
33:38
Speaker 1: And so the market isn't just for energy. The market
33:42
Speaker 1: is for totally reliable energy. Unfortunately, a lot of the
33:47
Speaker 1: breakthroughs we've had UH wind and sun, we don't have
33:53
Speaker 1: those directly generate electricity, and storing electricity is very, very hard.
34:00
Speaker 1: All the batteries in the world today would not store
34:04
Speaker 1: every laptop, every car, everything, would not store an hour's
34:07
Speaker 1: worth of global energy use. And batteries haven't improved much
34:13
Speaker 1: in the last hundred years. They're less than three times
34:17
Speaker 1: better than the battery that Edison, if he were revived,
34:21
Speaker 1: would recognize, which is a lead chemistry battery. It's really
34:25
Speaker 1: the lithium ion is has given us an improvement. But
34:29
Speaker 1: in order to really work for the grid, you need
34:33
Speaker 1: a factor of ten, which UH. Anyway, it's very tough
34:38
Speaker 1: to make that work. And so if we we need
34:41
Speaker 1: to pursue breakthrough paths that don't assume a storage miracle,
34:47
Speaker 1: UH like if you could take the sun directly and
34:50
Speaker 1: make liquid fuels just say gasoline, but any hydrocarbon UH
34:57
Speaker 1: that's liquid that's easy to store. You put it in
35:00
Speaker 1: a big metal tank, you put it in a pipe, UH.
35:03
Speaker 1: And the whole infrastructure is geared towards liquid. The transport
35:08
Speaker 1: UH infrastructure is geared towards liquid hydrocarbons, and so if
35:13
Speaker 1: you could possibly do that, it would have a big advantage.
35:18
Speaker 1: And we we talked about artificial photosynthesis technology and it
35:21
Speaker 1: doesn't quite promising. Yeah, and well, actually that brings up
35:25
Speaker 1: something that We've done quite a few podcasts on different
35:28
Speaker 1: technologies in the future for renewable energy, and I feel
35:31
Speaker 1: like every time we cover one, we both end up
35:33
Speaker 1: thinking why this is this is the one, This is fantastic.
35:37
Speaker 1: And I guess my question is, while different going down
35:41
Speaker 1: different paths is great for innovation, when should people start
35:45
Speaker 1: focusing on all? Right, now, this is the one that
35:48
Speaker 1: we should put our efforts into. Well, the capitalism is
35:54
Speaker 1: very good at this. UH. At the start of the
35:57
Speaker 1: auto industry, if you'd really handy hap things and looked
36:00
Speaker 1: at the steam cars, UH, the electric car and the
36:06
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine, you probably have guessed set the internal
36:13
Speaker 1: combustion would not succeed. The mechanics of all that explosion
36:18
Speaker 1: and those metal parts fatiguing, and it just seems so
36:22
Speaker 1: dangerous and so hard to get right. And the thing
36:26
Speaker 1: that made it win is the energy density of gasoline.
36:31
Speaker 1: Gasoline UH, one of my favorite books and this is
36:35
Speaker 1: called physics for future presidents. That has some basic things
36:40
Speaker 1: that that should be probably known. Gasoline is ten times
36:44
Speaker 1: as energy dens as are best batteries are, so you're
36:48
Speaker 1: you know, when you switch from a gasoline car to
36:51
Speaker 1: an electric car, that's why your range goes down a lot.
36:54
Speaker 1: And yet the weight of those batteries is way more
36:58
Speaker 1: than your cat seleme tank was before. So Uh, Henry
37:04
Speaker 1: Ford happened to bat on internal combustion. A few other
37:09
Speaker 1: people that on those others, and they had companies that
37:13
Speaker 1: were pricing their products and talking about the maintainability of
37:17
Speaker 1: their products. And over time, Uh, the interim commussion went
37:23
Speaker 1: out so dramatically that uh, it's hard to even remember
37:27
Speaker 1: that those things were there. All you go to the
37:29
Speaker 1: right newseum, those are still there. This energy thing will
37:33
Speaker 1: be the same way. I mean, you know, high wind
37:36
Speaker 1: sounds like the jet stream. You know, it sounds like
37:39
Speaker 1: a crazy idea. The solar fuels are what uh you're calling,
37:44
Speaker 1: um synthetic photosynthesis. If it doesn't want people say, well,
37:51
Speaker 1: of course that was silly. And if it does where
37:53
Speaker 1: people say, well, of course that was that was brilliant.
37:56
Speaker 1: When nuclear energy came along, Uh. There was a quote
38:00
Speaker 1: from the head of the Atomic Energy Commission that electricity
38:03
Speaker 1: will be too cheap to meet now. Unfortunately he underestimated
38:08
Speaker 1: the complexities of radiation containment, all of the safety things,
38:12
Speaker 1: which in my view means that we need a whole
38:15
Speaker 1: new generation of reactors whose safety characteristics are dramatically better
38:20
Speaker 1: and different than what we make today. Is called third generation.
38:24
Speaker 1: We need this fourth generation that that will be like that.
38:27
Speaker 1: So I think we need to go down about a
38:29
Speaker 1: dozen different paths. Uh. And even one that um uh
38:34
Speaker 1: it's still worth exploring, is called carbon capture and sequestration.
38:39
Speaker 1: So we're still during the hydrocarbon but uh, with a
38:42
Speaker 1: little bit of extra chemistry, you take that fluid gas
38:46
Speaker 1: which is about twelve c O two and you converted
38:50
Speaker 1: to liquids, and then of course you have to have
38:52
Speaker 1: to find some long term storage and you use that
38:55
Speaker 1: as a feedstock for artificial photosynthesis. I believe you can,
38:59
Speaker 1: or they're working on it now right. Greenhouses Uh have
39:02
Speaker 1: enhanced c O two, so plants love c O two. Uh.
39:07
Speaker 1: In fact, plants had a hard time CEO two got
39:11
Speaker 1: down to about a hundred and seventy parts per million,
39:16
Speaker 1: and plants you even saw plant chemistry change and uh,
39:20
Speaker 1: because that's very tough. That's when a photo senter the
39:24
Speaker 1: C four chemistry uh evolved, which may's corn happens to use.
39:29
Speaker 1: Right now, Now we're up at four ppm, but if
39:34
Speaker 1: you in a greenhouse, if you run it up to
39:37
Speaker 1: two two thousand ppm, then the plants, actually some plants
39:43
Speaker 1: actually go quite a bit faster. Um. We've we've done
39:47
Speaker 1: some episodes before. We did one specifically on how the
39:50
Speaker 1: automobile became the dominant form of transportation in the US, right,
39:53
Speaker 1: And from what I remember, it seemed like the answer
39:56
Speaker 1: was there was a lot of lobbying behind it, and
39:59
Speaker 1: government gotten evolved in now we all drive cars, right,
40:03
Speaker 1: gasoline powered cars. What's the role of government today? And
40:06
Speaker 1: getting renewables out there, especially in developing countries. Yeah, New
40:11
Speaker 1: York City actually couldn't figure out how they were going
40:14
Speaker 1: to deal with horse manure, and so, you know, cars
40:18
Speaker 1: had to compete with horses, but horses did have some
40:21
Speaker 1: serious drawbacks. You know, later we figured out that the uh,
40:26
Speaker 1: nitrous ox sides and things coming out of the tailpipe
40:30
Speaker 1: of the car, we're a problem. But at the time
40:32
Speaker 1: it was a dramatic improvement of what came out of
40:34
Speaker 1: the previous tailpipe renewable energy. When you get to say India,
40:42
Speaker 1: which is paradigmatic because they still are not giving their
40:48
Speaker 1: citizens even a tenth of the electricity per person that
40:51
Speaker 1: we provide. So the idea of lights at night, or
40:55
Speaker 1: refrigerating food or cooking with a skull that doesn't pollute
40:58
Speaker 1: your lungs, most of Indians don't have that, so on
41:03
Speaker 1: behalf of their citizens. They want to move to have
41:07
Speaker 1: what we have, which is an energy intense lifestyle. And
41:11
Speaker 1: if all Indians got everything we have, they want to
41:15
Speaker 1: admitted as much as many much greenhouse gas per person
41:19
Speaker 1: as we have until well after the end of this century.
41:23
Speaker 1: So in a certain just a sense that their electrifying
41:27
Speaker 1: their society will save lives and it's not a bad thing.
41:32
Speaker 1: And yet the world UH wants them to do it
41:38
Speaker 1: in a with a constraint that we didn't have, which
41:41
Speaker 1: is to not admit the greenhouse gases. So if we
41:45
Speaker 1: can do the invention, we can fund the R and
41:47
Speaker 1: D and maybe even the first few pilot plants to
41:50
Speaker 1: get the economies of scale and learning cur benefits. UH.
41:55
Speaker 1: Then if we can offer to them a form of
41:57
Speaker 1: electrification that's nonpollut rooting. Then you get the best of
42:01
Speaker 1: both worlds. If you can't do that, Uh, then they
42:06
Speaker 1: have a dilemma, which is the imperative of getting their
42:10
Speaker 1: citizens what we already have versus this this global problem.
42:15
Speaker 1: And so that's why we didn't have innovation. I wouldn't
42:18
Speaker 1: be very optimistic that the climate change problem would get solved.
42:22
Speaker 1: In fact, some people think it's easy to solve. Uh,
42:26
Speaker 1: and that you know that could hold his back from
42:28
Speaker 1: making these long term investments. Uh. One thing we often
42:33
Speaker 1: hear from listeners when we podcasts and stuff like this is, uh,
42:37
Speaker 1: what can I do just in my home? And I
42:40
Speaker 1: know that Uh, you made a point about just the
42:43
Speaker 1: the see the lightbulbs that people are using now, and
42:47
Speaker 1: little differences like that can help. But in a bigger picture,
42:51
Speaker 1: where does your average Joe fit in? Well, the United
42:55
Speaker 1: States uses twice as much energy per person as other
43:00
Speaker 1: rich countries do, so Europe and Japan would be less
43:04
Speaker 1: than half of US. Canada's a lot like US, uh,
43:07
Speaker 1: And it's partly the way we built up our infrastructure.
43:11
Speaker 1: We live further away from our work. Generally, we have
43:15
Speaker 1: more lighting around our house, more air conditioning. My favorite
43:18
Speaker 1: energy author, um who lives up in Canada, Boss lots Meal.
43:24
Speaker 1: When he shows a picture of what how doses look
43:27
Speaker 1: like in the fifties where there were many lights on
43:30
Speaker 1: at night, and what they look like now. You know,
43:32
Speaker 1: he looks at how big American cars are, so he
43:35
Speaker 1: would say, Hey, the US, for a lot of reasons, UH,
43:41
Speaker 1: should be more reasonable about resource usage. That alone is
43:47
Speaker 1: not going to solve climate change. Uh. You know, the
43:49
Speaker 1: idea of using as little as you can, it's it's smart,
43:53
Speaker 1: it's good discipline, it's good for the world. It allows
43:56
Speaker 1: those same resources to be used by other people. And remember,
44:01
Speaker 1: energy is still causing local pollution coal plants. The understanding
44:05
Speaker 1: of what particulate does to health and how that's about
44:09
Speaker 1: for our health that continues to increase. And so cutting
44:13
Speaker 1: down on energy usage is not just a good thing
44:17
Speaker 1: for globe warm and cutting down on water usage and
44:20
Speaker 1: it makes that water available for the ecosystem, for farming
44:25
Speaker 1: and lots of things. So being smart about hey, how
44:28
Speaker 1: much energy do we use? H? And why do we
44:31
Speaker 1: use so much? And did we pay attention to that
44:34
Speaker 1: funny label that Thank goodness, the government now requires uh,
44:39
Speaker 1: that appliances have energy usage labeling because people were uh
44:45
Speaker 1: wasting a lot of money buying a cheap refrigerator who
44:48
Speaker 1: would increase their electricity build dramatically over time. We still
44:52
Speaker 1: have that in terms of how we build houses that
44:55
Speaker 1: it would be worth putting more into the original building
44:58
Speaker 1: to have less heat leak eats in the in the
45:02
Speaker 1: winter or cooling benefits in the summer. Uh, we really
45:08
Speaker 1: should put more into that capital expense, which is easiest
45:11
Speaker 1: when you do the initial build instead of the retrofit.
45:14
Speaker 1: But even the retrofit is sometimes we're doing. So there
45:17
Speaker 1: is still a role for the average person in you know,
45:21
Speaker 1: fighting climate change, I guess, or being responsible with energy
45:25
Speaker 1: users beyond forming like a human chain blocking off a
45:28
Speaker 1: fossil fuel power plan or something. Well we're all complicit
45:32
Speaker 1: in using fossil fuels today. Um and so you know
45:37
Speaker 1: you it. If there was a choice of going cold Turkey,
45:42
Speaker 1: I don't think most people would choose that. The way
45:46
Speaker 1: people can contribute, they can set examples through their own
45:49
Speaker 1: use their voice about hey, we care about this issue
45:54
Speaker 1: and we want these long term investments to be made.
45:57
Speaker 1: That is super important. And if they can go to
46:00
Speaker 1: Africa and see what it's like to live without energy. Uh.
46:04
Speaker 1: Once you visit, that will become part of your value
46:07
Speaker 1: system to think how can we treat those lives as
46:13
Speaker 1: having equal value, whether that's health or energy or all
46:18
Speaker 1: the things that that that we take for granted. So, um,
46:23
Speaker 1: we got one last question. Yeah, just on a personal note.
46:26
Speaker 1: I was kind of wondering. I was. I was thinking
46:28
Speaker 1: the other day, I'm in my mid forties now and
46:31
Speaker 1: have my first baby, and I think that's the point, um,
46:34
Speaker 1: at least in my life where I start sort of
46:36
Speaker 1: looking at where I am and as I speed toward
46:38
Speaker 1: the grave, and what have I done with my life?
46:40
Speaker 1: And I was wondering, what was there a defining moment
46:43
Speaker 1: in your life where you kind of stopped and said,
46:45
Speaker 1: I'm Bill Gates, I've accomplished quite a bit and now
46:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on the future of the world.
46:51
Speaker 1: And did having kids have something to do with that
46:53
Speaker 1: or what? Well, it's what was that for you? Well,
46:57
Speaker 1: I've been super lucky and that my early exposure to
47:01
Speaker 1: computers and lots of great people uh around that. So
47:05
Speaker 1: the building microsoft to mean fanatical about that, Uh, you know,
47:10
Speaker 1: kept me busy and very happy. My twenties thirties. Then
47:15
Speaker 1: in my forties, UH, I had gotten married at thirty eight,
47:19
Speaker 1: my first child was born. When I was forty one,
47:22
Speaker 1: I started to gain more balance UH, and I knew
47:25
Speaker 1: that somebody younger than me UH should eventually take over Microsoft,
47:31
Speaker 1: So I started broadening my learning. I've always liked science,
47:34
Speaker 1: but during the Microsoft days, I couldn't keep track of
47:37
Speaker 1: the latest in math or biology because I was a
47:39
Speaker 1: fanatic about software. And I didn't believe in vacations. And
47:44
Speaker 1: that's why I even waited to UH start a family,
47:48
Speaker 1: because I knew I wouldn't UH have have enough time
47:52
Speaker 1: for it. So my forties I broadened my horizons a bit. UH.
47:56
Speaker 1: And then UH, when I was UH forty five was
48:02
Speaker 1: when Malinda and I UH started putting money in the
48:05
Speaker 1: foundation and saying, Okay, that would be the next career.
48:11
Speaker 1: And in the same way that I'd had two wonderful
48:15
Speaker 1: partners in Microsoft, Paul Allen in the early days and
48:18
Speaker 1: then Steve Bomber's we built it to be a large company,
48:22
Speaker 1: Melinda would be UH an even more equal partner. And
48:27
Speaker 1: this third UH partnership, which was making the foundation go.
48:32
Speaker 1: And so that's been a learning journey. Every year we
48:34
Speaker 1: get smarter about Okay, what should the foundation do bringing
48:39
Speaker 1: in great people to help us there? Uh. But it
48:43
Speaker 1: it was traveling to Africa. It was learning that, um,
48:48
Speaker 1: you know, all these resources really should go back to
48:50
Speaker 1: society in some way. Meeting Melinda, Uh, some of the
48:56
Speaker 1: things Warren Buffett talked about, we're leaving lots of money
48:59
Speaker 1: to your kids. It's not a good thing. Uh. I'd
49:02
Speaker 1: particularly highlight Melinda and the time we spent in Africa
49:05
Speaker 1: sort of opening my eyes that hey, there were things
49:08
Speaker 1: that could have a dramatic effect. Uh if we were
49:11
Speaker 1: smart about getting back the money the right way. Well,
49:14
Speaker 1: Bill Gates, thank you very much for being on stuff
49:17
Speaker 1: you should know much appreciated and honor. Thank you for
49:19
Speaker 1: talking with us. Hey, I'm honored to be your first guest.
49:21
Speaker 1: Thanks you. Um can we get a picture? Wow, that's
49:27
Speaker 1: gonna be tough to time. Holy cow. Yeah what a guy. Yeah,
49:31
Speaker 1: I was. I was nervous. Are you were fine? Do
49:34
Speaker 1: you think you liked me? I think he loved you.
49:37
Speaker 1: Do you think would you let you sit on his
49:38
Speaker 1: lap and stroke your beard? That's a clear sign that
49:41
Speaker 1: he was fond of Well. I thought he might get
49:42
Speaker 1: mad when I told him he had spinach and his teeth,
49:44
Speaker 1: but he seemed to take that well, he took it
49:46
Speaker 1: in stride. That was all off, Mike. That's behind the
49:49
Speaker 1: SCENESECT coming soon. No, that was that was amazing And
49:53
Speaker 1: thanks to them for reaching out and yeah, big thanks, Yeah,
49:56
Speaker 1: best of luck obviously that his efforts in the future. Yeah,
50:00
Speaker 1: go renewable energy. Rah. If you want to get in
50:03
Speaker 1: touch with us, we'd love to hear from you. You
50:05
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
50:08
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50:10
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
50:12
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50:14
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50:16
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this
50:24
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
50:26
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