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