Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!

At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.



Today Bill Gates talked about the nuclear reactor project, TerraPower, at TED 2010. As an investor in several promising energy projects, Gates said it is our responsibility to pursue technologies that achieve cheap energy with “zero carbon” emissions.

TerraPower determined a new type of traveling-wave reactor would be the best approach to meeting the world’s energy demand. Our team decided to pursue nuclear energy after investigating many different technologies and solutions. With advances in computing power in just the past few years, we are able to make radical contributions to science that weren’t possible a few years ago. We believe the traveling-wave reactor concept provides the kind of innovation that society needs.

This video explains the traveling-wave reactor and how it works.

[via Intellectual Ventures Lab]