According to Bill Gates, climate change is the real issue and we don't want to experiment to see what happens if we don’t change our energy sources. He advocates for government-funded R&D with a long time horizon. Current solutions (solar, wind) are subsidized and have real intermittency issues. Nuclear also has real issues including waste and safety. We shouldn’t be content with where we are and we have to act now to find a mix of zero carbon solutions. He believes the government is actually very effective but just like private investors – many investments and research won’t be successful. U.S. can’t wait for other countries – it must be the leader in this.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an-energy-miracle/407881/?utm_source=SFFB
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.
LAWRENCE BERKELEY LABORATORY
Berkeley Lab is a member of the national laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through its Office of Science. It is charged with conducting research across a wide range of scientific disciplines. The Energy Sciences Area seeks solutions to the global energy-related challenges that impact our planet through a deeper understanding of the interactions between energy and matter. The Energy Technologies Area is an internationally recognized leader in energy-efficiency technologies, developing science and policy solutions to address the world's most critical challenges. The Earth and Environmental Sciences Area is tackling some of the most pressing environmental and energy challenges of the 21st Century in order to enable sustainable stewardship and judicious use of the Earth's subsurface energy resources.
ENVIROFIT
Envirofit is a global social enterprise that innovates smart clean cookstoves that enable families to live smarter and save money, while reducing climate change, and creating new economic opportunities.
SYKUE BIOenergya
Located in the northeastern state of Bahia, the $43 million thermoelectric plant built as a result of those initial talks has a year-round capacity of 30 megawatts (enough to power 200,000 Brazilian homes), generated entirely by a dedicated 4,000-hectare (9,884-acre) plantation of elephant grass.
www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx?num=946
BP ROSNEFT
INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY
household air Pollution and health
Around 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using open fires and simple stoves burning biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal. Over 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to the household air pollution from cooking with solid fuels.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR UNDER-SERVED HOUSEHOLDS
PUENTE HIlls Landfill
Biogas, generated during the decomposition of organic material managed in the landfills, is used to generate electricity. The energy recovery facilities at Puente Hills provides reliable and economic electrical power to help serve Southern California's increasing energy needs.
