Bill Gates can be prescient. He famously predicted aspects of the current pandemic in a 2015 TED talk. And in his new book, published just before the recent power outages in Texas, he explains that in the United States, "There isn’t one power grid; there are many, and they’re a patchwork mess that makes it essentially impossible to send electricity beyond the region where it’s made.” For that reason, he mentions, almost casually, he is funding a computer model of all the power grids in the country.
His book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is easy to understand—Gates is a gifted explainer—but not easy to summarize, because there isn’t one “silver bullet” for the climate crisis. He thinks we need to do many different things at once and, being Bill Gates, he knows a lot about a lot of them, from why we need to plant more mangroves (“cheaper than building breakwaters”) to just how much money you can save by replacing your air conditioner with a heat pump if you live in Providence, Rhode Island ($2,755 over 15 years). And fixing that patchwork power grid is essential because, as he points out, we'll need to transmit power from places where wind turbines or solar panels operate efficiently to places where they don't.
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.