Bill Gates’ Plan to “Innovate to Zero”: A World without CO2 Emissions

Bill Gates' vision of "Innovate to Zero" may be difficult but necessary

Everyone knows who Bill Gates is, and just about everyone is aware of his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – the world’s largest charitable organization. The Gates Foundation is famous for, among many other things, taking on global challenges like vaccination shortages and extreme poverty. But recently, the Microsoft founder has been focusing his energy on a new project, something he calls “innovating to zero”: the pursuit of a world with zero carbon-dioxide emissions. I’ll admit that even an eternal optimist like myself was sceptical; reduced emissions, sure. Greatly reduced emissions, definitely possible. But zero emissions? The idea of Shanghai taxi drivers plugging in their electric Prius’ to a wind power station just seems a bit far-fetched. At his TED appearance in L.A. last month, however, Gates gave a lengthy speech outlining just how we might achieve the lofty zero-CO₂ goal. His formula (after the jump):

The amount of CO₂ in our atmosphere =

(People) X (Services per person) X (Energy per service) X (CO₂ per unit of energy)

Gates argues that one of these factors must be reduced to zero in order to create a zero-carbon world, and because, of course, we cannot reduce the population to zero (even the notoriously ruthless Gates won’t consider it), and since people will always require services (defined here as anything people do that uses energy), the only options are to eliminate energy used per service or CO₂ emitted. While we can increase energy efficiency greatly, we can’t quite bring usage down to zero, so the only real option is to reduce the amount of CO₂ we emit all the way down to zero. But how?

Gates is frank about the challenges ahead. “We need energy miracles,” he says, suggesting that there are five possible solutions. In addition to the familiar renewable energy sources, which he says are not yet productive or efficient enough to be a significant clean energy source, Gates mentions a system of carbon capture and storage, but notes the many logistical problems of this method.

His real passion project, it seems, is the fifth solution: a new type of clean, entirely safe nuclear technology called a “traveling wave reactor,” also referred to as TerraPower. This technology would use old nuclear waste, currently an environmental nuisance, as fuel, and would work so efficiently that the waste stored in just one small town in Kentucky, USA, could power the US for more than 200 years. It’s still in the planning stages, of course, but Gates seems hopeful that this energy technology could lead us to a zero-CO₂ future.

While he talks about the technology specifics a lot, Bill Gates’ main point (and the one I found most inspiring) is that we need to get our smartest, hardest working people involved in coming up with a zero-carbon solution. “We need 100 or more separate companies working on this,” he says, suggesting that a spirit of competitiveness could help us achieve his initial goal of an 80% reduction of emissions by 2050. Of course, making CO₂ the sole enemy isn’t going to get everyone on board, and there are many very difficult challenges ahead, but when the wealthiest, most successful businessman on earth says it’s possible, even the most cynical among us finds it hard not to believe him.

You can see his talk in full here.

- Michael Hurwitz