Could thorium energy be this breakthrough Mr. Gates calls for? |
Bill Gates believes a discovery to solve the world’s energy problem is less than 15 years away. “The challenge we face is big, perhaps bigger than many people imagine. But so is the opportunity. If the world can find a source of cheap, clean energy, it will do more than halt climate change. It will transform the lives of millions of the poorest families. I'm so optimistic about the world’s ability to make a miracle happen that I’m willing to make a prediction. Within the next 15 years—and especially if young people get involved—I expect the world will discover a clean energy breakthrough that will save our planet and power our world.” Could Thorium Energy be this breakthrough Mr. Gates calls for?
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This energy breakthrough needs to be cheap because everyone must be able to afford it. It needs to be clean because it must not emit any carbon dioxide—which is driving climate change.
Climate change, i.e. the emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is the result of a simple equation as explained by Mr. Gates. “On the right side you have the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we put in the atmosphere. This is what we need to get to zero. It’s based on the four factors on the left side of the equation: the world’s population (P) multiplied by the services (S) used by each person; the energy (E) needed to provide each of those services; and finally, the carbon dioxide (C) produced by that energy. As you learned in math class, any number multiplied by zero will equal zero. So if we want to get to zero CO2, then we need to get at least one of the four factors on the left to zero.” |
Bill Gates Energy Equation.
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“The world’s population (P) is currently 7 billion and expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050. No chance it’ll be zero.
Next, services. This is everything: food, clothing, heat, houses, cars, TV, toothbrushes, Elmo dolls, Taylor Swift albums, etc. This is the number that I was saying earlier needs to go up in poor countries, so people can have lights, refrigerators, and so on. So (S) can’t be zero, either. Let’s take a look at (E). That’s the energy needed per service. There’s some good news here. Fuel-efficient cars, LED light bulbs, and other inventions are making it possible to use energy more efficiently. Many people, and you may be one of them, are also changing their lifestyles to conserve energy. They’re biking and carpooling to save gas, turning down the heat a couple degrees, adding insulation to their homes. All of these efforts help cut down on energy use. Unfortunately, they don’t get us to zero. In fact, most scientists agree that by 2050 we’ll be using 50 percent more energy than we do today. So none of the first three—population, services, and energy—are getting close to zero. That leaves the final factor (C), the amount of carbon emitted per each unit of energy.” So we essentially need an energy system that is generating no carbon dioxide per unit of energy. Several sources of zero emission energy have already been identified: solar, wind, hydro and nuclear. “The challenge is to shift to those sources without sacrificing reliability, and avoiding a huge increase in cost.” explains Mr. Gates in a video published by Quartz. |
“The challenge is to shift to those sources without sacrificing reliability, and avoiding a huge increase in cost.” |
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In fact, Mr. Gates doesn’t see any current clean-energy technology that will enable the world to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by 2100, partly because it’s not consistent or inexpensive enough. This means we’re going to need some new inventions.
Why are solar and wind not enough? The intermittency is explained by Mr. Gates in the annual letter of Bill and Melinda Gates. “Solar and wind power are reliable energy sources so long as the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. But people still need dependable energy on cloudy days, at nighttime, and when the air is still. That means power companies often back up these renewable sources with fossil fuels like coal or natural gas, which emit greenhouse gases. It would help, of course, if we had a great system for storing solar and wind power. But right now, the best storage option is rechargeable batteries, and they are expensive. Lithium-ion batteries like the one inside your laptop are still the gold standard. If you wanted to use one to store enough electricity to run everything in your house for a week, you would need a huge battery—and it would triple your electric bill. So we need more powerful, more economical solutions. In short, we need an energy miracle.“ |
Could Thorium Energy be this breakthrough Mr. Gates calls for?
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Watch Mr. Gates explain the energy equation
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