On March 1, local time, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said at IHS CERAWeek that he has invested about $2 billion in developing clean technologies and is optimistic about the development potential of technologies such as green hydrogen and carbon capture. There are many surprising technological advances expected over the next 10 years, with the electric vehicle premium falling to zero and the carbon capture cost dropping below $100 per ton.
This year's CERAWeek focuses on how to achieve global emission reduction targets, namely, achieve net zero carbon emissions worldwide by 2050. As a conversation guest on the first day of the conference, Gates shared his views on global emission reduction efforts and introduced the green technologies he is optimistic about and invested in.
Gates’ prediction in of TED speech in 2015 that the world will face another pandemic crisis after the Ebola epidemic, which is fulfilled in 2020. But what someone may not know is that earlier in 2010, he warned in another TED speech that climate change will bring heavy disasters to mankind.
Gates said on CERAweek that for a long time after 2010, governments lacked sufficient political will in addressing climate change. As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, although many countries have participated in the Mission to Innovation global initiative, pledging to double government funding for green energy innovation over the next five years and encourage the private sector to take leadership in this regard. But it was not until recent years that governments were truly willing to develop specific plans for achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Nevertheless, Gates still believes that the actions taken by countries are not sufficient. "I only see short-term indicators, and I pay too much attention to the parts that are easy to achieve emission reduction, such as passenger cars and power generation." In his opinion, fields such as cement, steel, aviation, etc. are the real hard bones, and a large number of innovative solutions are urgently needed. "People should know the real challenge of achieving net zero."
Gates said cheap green hydrogen will play a major role in energy transformation and is widely used in industrial applications such as fertilizer manufacturing and steel decarbonization, but he added that the so-called "green premium" will become a key factor restricting its use. Green hydrogen is a renewable energy source (such as wind power, hydropower, solar power), and other hydrogen production process has no carbon emissions at all.
"Green Premium" is an additional fee paid by consumers to purchase fuel or technology that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. This is particularly important in the promotion of sustainable aviation fuels and emission reductions in industries such as cement, Gates said. "Green premium is an important criterion for measuring the realization of the emission reduction process in 2050." He pointed out that the lower the green premium, the more mature the green technology is, the easier it is to be accepted and used by people.
Gates pointed out that at present, there is a green premium in the process of emission reduction in all industries. For example, buying and driving electric vehicles will be more expensive than ordinary cars. However, with the expansion of production scale and the introduction of incentives, "the green premium may drop to zero in the next 10 to 15 years, and the government will require everyone to use electric vehicles." General Motors in the United States has announced that it will suspend production of all fuel vehicles by 2035 and will fully switch to the manufacturing of pure electric vehicles.
Recently, Gates also said in an interview that he hopes to cooperate more with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to support costly early green and environmentally friendly alternative technologies. He said when the prices of these new technologies are too high for the average consumer or government, wealthy people like them can use their funds to stimulate demand and lower prices to levels that everyone can afford.
Gates' cleaning technology layout
Capital investment plays a crucial role in the development of green industries. Gates pointed out that in the entire innovation process, from R&D to verification, early deployment, and then to large-scale deployment, a large amount of capital is needed in all aspects. The initial stage is mainly government investment, and a large amount of corporate capital, or even government subsidies are needed in the later stage. "You need someone to buy these green products, even if they are at a higher price." He said that his original intention of establishing the "Breakthrough Energy" venture capital fund was to provide support in the development of green technology at all stages.
In 2015, Bill Gates took the lead in establishing the "Breakthrough Energy" venture capital fund, aiming to support the development of new energy innovative technologies. Other investors in the fund include: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos , Viking Group founder Richard Branson , Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg , LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman, Bloomberg , Michael Bloomberg, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma and other billionaires. At present, the fund has completed two rounds of US$1 billion in fundraising.
Gates said he has invested about $2 billion in developing clean technology, some of which are successful, such as solid-state battery company Quantumscape, but others have already gone bankrupt. In November last year, QuantumScape went public as a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) through a merger and acquisition of Kensington Capital. The company is developing lithium battery technology, which has received a $300 million investment from Volkswagen.
In Gates' view, carbon capture, utilization and storage technology (CCUS) is the key to carbon negative technology. If carbon emissions cannot be eliminated from the source, carbon reduction must be reduced in an indirect way. He said the direct air capture system developed by Swiss Climeworks can store carbon dioxide underground, but the problem is that it is expensive, with a cost of up to $600 per ton of carbon removal.
In his opinion, in the future, the cost of carbon capture will need to be reduced to at least $100 to be widely used, which is possible in ten years. The possibility has been confirmed in theory by the Canadian energy company "Carbon Engineering", which received investment from Gates, is collaborating with oil giants such as Occupy.
Gates calculated the calculation: there are 51 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide every year. Assuming the cost of carbon capture can be reduced to $100, the cost of carbon capture in a year is $5 trillion. With the development of green technology, if the green premium can be reduced by 95%, it means that the world only needs to subsidize US$250 billion for emission reduction every year, "this becomes feasible."
is optimistic about the prospects of the nuclear power industry
Gates also founded Terra Energy, focusing on the research of the fourth-generation nuclear reactor . The company had established a joint venture with China National Nuclear Corporation, but was later stopped by the Trump administration. However, recently, Terra Energy received $4 billion in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and will build a new reactor demonstration project in the next five years.
Gates has always been a fan of nuclear fission technology, believing that nuclear energy has guaranteed both cost and safety, although the public is skeptical of this. "Even the current third-generation nuclear power plant is safer than natural gas or coal." He stressed that the fourth-generation nuclear reactor that Terra Energy is studying will be safer.
In his opinion, the real reason why the United States has not made any progress in the nuclear power industry in recent years is that the construction cost is too high and the regulations are complex. Therefore, the United States needs a brand new reactor design to supplement wind and solar power generation. He said that solar and wind energy cannot yet become energy sources for uninterruptible power sources, and this function can only be undertaken by nuclear power.
But he also admitted that because people have bias against nuclear power plants, even if the engineering problem is solved, it will be very difficult to get people to accept nuclear power plants.
Gates' personal carbon offsetting plan
Gates admitted his super high carbon footprint in his new book "How to Prevent Climate Disasters" and introduced his efforts to offset carbon emissions, including: using clean biofuels, purchasing electric heat pumps, paying carbon removal costs to Climeworks, etc.
Gates said on CERAweek that he spent $7 million a year to offset his personal carbon footprint, part of which is buying biofuel for his own private jets. As the largest customer of American aviation biofuels, he said these low-carbon fuels cost three times as much as traditional aviation fuels.
"I want to see how biofuels can scale up and let the green premium drop from the current 300%. " He believes that for the aviation industry, if biofuel is used, air ticket prices must be set higher.
For personal carbon footprints outside of aviation fuel, Gates pays Climeworks a $600 carbon removal cost per ton.
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