Gates buys offsets to cancel out his personal private emissions, to the tune of about $9 million a yr, he stated on the roundtable, however doesn’t count on a lot of these offsets to make a major dent in local weather progress on a broader scale: “That stuff, most of these applied sciences, are an entire useless finish. They don’t get you low-cost sufficient to be significant.
“Carbon sequestration at $400, $200, $100, can by no means be a significant a part of this sport. When you have a know-how that begins at $400 and might get to $4, then hallelujah, let’s go. I haven’t seen that one. There are some now that seem like they will get to $40 or $50, and that may play considerably of a job.”
Will AI be excellent news for innovation?
Through the dialogue, I began a tally within the nook of my pocket book, including a tick each time Gates talked about AI. Over the course of about an hour, I received to 6 tally marks, and I positively missed making a number of.
Gates acknowledged that AI goes so as to add electrical energy demand, a problem for a US grid that hasn’t seen internet demand go up for many years. However so too will electrical automobiles and warmth pumps.
I used to be stunned at simply how positively he spoke about AI’s potential, although:
“AI will speed up each innovation pipeline you’ll be able to title: most cancers, Alzheimer’s, catalysts in materials science, you title it. And we’re all attempting to determine what meaning. That’s the greatest change agent on the planet right now, shifting at a tempo that could be very, very speedy … each breakthrough power firm will have the ability to transfer sooner due to utilizing these instruments, some very dramatically.”
I’ll add that, as I’ve famous right here earlier than, I’m skeptical of massive claims about AI’s potential to be a silver bullet throughout industries, together with local weather tech. (In the event you missed it, try this story about AI and the grid from earlier this yr.)
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