Here’s Bill Gates’ Zero Carbon presentation from TED2010. It was one of my favorite talks at the event.
From my report last week on Gates’ talk:
“A molecule of uranium has a million times more energy than a molecule of coal.” He and Nathan “Mosquito Zapper” Myrhvold are backing a nuclear approach. It’s called Terrapower, and it’s different from a standard nuclear reactor. Instead of burning the 1% of uranium-235 found in natural uranium, this reactor burns the other 99%, called uranium-238. You can use all the leftover waste from today’s reactors as fuel. “In terms of fuel this really solves the problem.” He showed a photo of depleted waste uranium in steel cylinders at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky — the waste at this plant could supply the US energy needs for 200 years (woah!), and filtering seawater for uranium could supply energy for much longer than that.
TED Talk: Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero