Welcome to Zero. I am Aksha Trati. This week Bill Gates, Nuclear Power and Donald Trump. Hi atua hi miily.
I am not Bill Gates.
I can tell it's a bummer.
I am the producer of Zero. We had a busy couple of days and I thought listeners might want to know that this conversation with Bill Gates was recorded in Stratford upon Avon, of all places, where we were in town to see the opening night of a new play about climate change put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
And the play is called Kyoto, and it is a play about international climate negotiations. Things that I've attended. They have drama, but I never thought somebody could make a play about it. So I was very excited to see what they've done, and we'll be bringing a review very soon.
But you were also very excited to talk to Bill Gates, so excited that we missed the first ten minutes of the play while the kind folks at the Royal Shakespeare Company found a quiet place to record a conversation with Bill. Why were you so excited to talk to him?
Bill Gates isn't just one of the richest people on the planet. He's also somebody who takes climate change quite seriously. He's been thinking about it for nearly two decades, and
he's investing serious sums of money in technology development. And so given we're in the hottest year, given climate technologies aren't scaling as quickly as we would want them to, it's always nice to hear how he's thinking about this moment, both from a technology perspective and how the politics of this year, where there are so many elections happening, will shape the future.
And he's been in the news the last couple of weeks because of a new nuclear plant that he broke ground in in Camera, Wyoming. I was interested in this because it's a tiny historical town population less than three thousand people. The coal plant there is due to close in twenty thirty six. I've been reading about it and they're very excited that Bill Gates is coming to open this new nuclear plant with his company, Terra Power. But it's also notable because of the design of the plant.
Right, that's right. Among the very first investments that Bill Gates made as he got into investing in climate was founding this company called Terra Power. It was founded in two thousand and eight and His goal was to try and develop a new type of reactor to overcome the problems of the previous generation of reactors that used water as a way to cool and that required very complex engineering to try and deal with what happens to water
when you heat it in an enclosed space. There's a lot of heat and a lot of pressure involved, and to try and deal with the safety issues that came along. The design of previous reactors just became more and more complex.
So what's the approach that this plant is taking. Instead of using water.
In this case, they use sodium, which means that the engineering challenge becomes easier to deal with. And if he's able to build many, many of the sodium reactors, he'll also be able to make them more cheaply than the current class of reactors. So, in an ideal world, if Terra Power succeeds, nuclear power could become cheaper and safer, and that would be a boost for the climate technology set that we have.
This is a long time coming for Bill Gates and for terror Power, isn't it.
Very much so? Founded in two thousand and eight? And if all the things go as he hopes they would, the plant won't be ready until twenty thirty. Initially, they couldn't get the regulatory approvals they wanted in the US, so they started exploring an option to building China. Then under the previous Donald Trump administration, the US government blocked that from happening because they didn't want technology transferred to happen to China, and so then they started exploring an
option to do it in the US. And now they do have a site, but they still do not have the regulatory approvals needed to build that plant.
So it's an exciting moment for Bill Gates and something that you wanted to talk to him about. You said, he is one of the few billionaires who's really engaged with questions about climate change. Where did these plans with teara power and nuclear energy fit into his broader thinking about the energy transition?
So Bill Gates's one line answer to any big problem is innovation, and he's been thinking a lot about how bringing new technologies to bear on the problem will make it easier to solve those problems. He also acknowledges that's
not the only route. We do need a lot of policies, etc. But his focus is very much on creating the solution set we need, and that's what he's doing with Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which now has funds that are more than three billion dollars worth that are all focused on investing in climate technologies.
And we'll be going to the Breakthrough Energy Summit soon and recording with some of those companies and bringing zero listeners those conversations later this summer. But first let's hear your conversation with Bill Gates.
I'm speaking to you just days after Terra Power broke ground for a new nuclear power plant in Wyoming. You've said over the years that nuclear fission, the power generated from splitting atoms, has to be a part of the clean energy mix. And the work you've put into Terra Power has been to overcome the challenges of old reactors, both on cost and on safety. You've invested a billion dollars. You say you will invest billions more as needed. Did you think it would take so long?
Well, I am a patient investor, and Boss lov Smiel has said that people who come from the Digital revolution software industry are kind of spoiled and we don't understand the practicalities, and he's right. It's been a great learning curve. It's exciting that the perseverance in the case that tear powers are now paid off in getting that first plant started, some things you really have to step back and start
with a new approach. And in that case, if you cool with sodium versus water, you avoid high pressure, you avoid all the complexity that third generation reactors have for the after heat problem, and so it really gives you the ability to generate competitive election Christy, which unfortunately the third generation has not achieved that. And you know, neither investors nor utilities are enthused about third generation reactors for
purely economic reasons. So, you know, adding fission and later adding fusion to the mix of electricity generation to compliment you know, wind and solar, which we love and we, like everyone in the clean energy space, want to see the acceleration of those installations, which you know we're falling behind our ambitious goals there, but nuclear would help a lot in terms of the need for reliability.
Yeah, and the challenge that we have is we have to reach net zero as soon as possible, ideally by twenty fifty. Now, if this plant is running in twenty thirty and is deemed a success, do you think it'll leave enough time to build more plants like it around the world, not just in the US, not just overcome all the regulations that need to be overcome in other countries and make a meaningful difference in reducing emissions.
The reason I invested over a billion and why I'll be investing even more. You know, I didn't do it because it's some great way of making money. Although we succeed, you know, the investors will get a return. We're already looking at many international partnerships South Korea, Japan, UK, France. You know, they're all very excited. They'll come in and shadow the NRC regulators as they look through this thing. And so yes, if we don't build one hundred, we
won't make significant contribution to climate. So that's you know, the whole point. I'd also love over time to see those reactors able to help electrify Africa, where the shortage of electricity there is super painful in terms of their need for economic development. So it's ambitious. But you know, because we have this one standard design, then we use digital design, it should be very different than previous reactors.
Now, coming to the summit, you've been investing in climate technologies for nearly two decades now and Since you've built breakthrough energy ventures, you've been able to scale the amounts you are able to invest in, scale the number of startups you're able to invest in. But as you sit here in twenty twenty four and look across the landscape of energy transition sectors, what types of technologies are getting too much investment and what types of technologies are getting too little?
Well, you know, electricity is plinal to this thing, and you know, so we have like in the grid, we have a thing called TS conductor that you just change the wires and you can run twice as much electricity through them. You know, that's kind of thing I had. I was kind of amazed. You really can do that, and you know they're ramping up their capacity in order to do that. You know, some people might say we have too many fusion companies. We have about sixteen, and
Breakthroughs got a relationship with five of them. But given the scientific uncertainties and challenges involved, I don't think that's too many. I think it's amazing that private investors are coming in like that. You know, we started with just incredible individual investors who I talk to, and to raise the beeB one money. We've added institutional investors that actually are helping us. So people like Harvard and Tamassic are you know, as these things are maturing, they're huge help
to us. And even though you know, some risk capital has been affected over the last year as the macroeconomic policy has changed in the area of claimant, partly because we have the tech investors who care about these issues, we're not seen systemically a problem and raising capital. You know, we have sectors like you know, meat where okay, they've had challenges and so now we have to strengthen those
strategies and get a next generation of approaches there. But you know, the the you know, it's it's the projects that we're rolling out that is, we've gotten companies to this maturity that they really just want to build things, and yet they're not ready for like a brook Field where you know, you know exactly who the buyer is and exactly what the efficiency is. You know, we have to build probably the first ten plants or so before
you get to that. Hey, it's just normal finance people who are running a spreadsheet on this thing, so that that value of works in the life app really well, Okay, let's make steal, Let's make cement, let's go do this. That's partly the meetings, you know, to really get those partnerships accelerated, and many of which depend on government policies. That'll be one of the metrics we have for how successful the meeting is.
Now moving on to AI, I'm going to give you a little bit of a preamble. So big companies have to be a part of the climate solution. Tech companies such as the one you found at Microsoft have taken the lead to show how to set ambitious goals, layout clear plans, and hopefully meet them. But most of these tech companies have now embraced the race for artificial intelligence, and that means almost all of them are falling behind
on their emissions goals. So Microsoft wants to be common negative by twenty thirty, but instead last year it's emissions with thirty percent higher than in twenty twenty, and that's mostly down to the emissions from building data centers, not really from its energy use, because Microsoft says it matches
all of its energy with renewables. So if the richest companies with the most thoughtful climate plans aren't able to keep up with reducing emissions in the short term and most importantly, don't appear confident that they will meet end of the decades goals. That's what Brad Smith when we spoke to him, the President told us, how do you think big companies can be a part of solution to tackle climate change.
Well, the whole breakthrough energy approach is that you stimulate innovation. You get the brightest minds all over the world, first at the lab level and then at the early project level to push forward approaches that can achieve no green premium, no extra cost for the output, whether that's electricity or steel or cement. And we have our big event next week in London where people see what I think can
be amazing progress in all these areas of emission. The electricity is fundamental because not only is it a big part of present emissions, by electrification is how you take passenger cars and buses and drop the emissions to zero. And so you're going to more than double your electricity demand. And as you say, the demand for data centers driven
by AI type execution adds to that load pattern. Now, those data centers, because of optic fiber connection, can be located in many places around the world, but there's a
lot of reasons. Those companies want to put a lot of their data centers if they can access the green electricity in the United States, and so you'll see them help push forward all these technologies, you know, whether it's googleedd a purchasing agreement with Fervo for that geothermal energy, which was great to see you Microsoft's you know, huge leader in this, and also making sure the accounting is done in a correct way, which is harder than you
might think, but you know that the increased maturity there is fantastic. They've been talking with CFS even about a power agreement with them, you know, terror powers meeting both of the companies in individually, and now there's this clean buyers group that's come together, which was a great development
and a really good team running that group. So it's fantastic the tech companies primarily for electricity, but also for their air travel, their steel, their cement, will be buyers willing to pay a green premium and help therefore scale the technologies up.
So one of the things that President Bradsmith told us was Microsoft things, the contribution that AI will make to humanity is going to outweigh the emissions that may come from it from the development, at least in the short term. But if we leave large humanity question apart, do you see any skepticism on AI AI's offer right now and especially as it comes to helping us on the climate problem.
Well, AI, whether it's health or education or climate science things is extremely promising. You know, it's so promising people worry about. Wow, that can provide you know, such rapid productivity advances that we haven't haven't seen in the past. But you know, you saw like this Aurora model that Microsoft announced for weather prediction, and you know, Gates Foundation will take tools like that so that small hold of farmers understand and when to plant, which is more challenging
in the face of climate providing better seeds. So climate adaptation, which doesn't get enough visibility, you know, will benefit just like climate mitigation from these AI tools. You know, the net balance in terms of climate is that AI will be a very good thing, whether it's the material science part of the thing or managing plasmas and fusion reactors, it's going to accelerate the innovation and even like how
do why do props guides not last over time? How do we make you know, solar panels even cheaper and higher productivity than we have today. So AI, you know that extra five percent of demand is not the thing that prevents our climate goals. You know, I certainly wouldn't want to take a out of this picture. It makes
me more optimistic. But you know the main thing that makes me optimistic is that as we went from twenty fifteen, where green tech of fashion and the bench model didn't look like it could even work in this space, you know, here we are with over one hundred companies and the attendance by in our summit next week by big companies who want to partner with these companies, governments who want to get their policy right. It's way beyond what I expected.
And so it doesn't say we'll hit our ambitious goals, but it says we'll be able to come close, which in twenty fifteen I wasn't even sure I'd be able to say that.
After the break, I asked Bill Gates what happens if Donald Trump is elected president again? And by the way, if you've been enjoying this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show on Spotify or Apple. It helps other listeners find it.
Actually, before we get back to your conversation with Bill Gates. I thought it might be helpful to remind listeners of the last time he was on the podcast, which was two years ago, when you spoke to him about the Inflation Reduction Act. Something that's kind of coming full circle because if Donald Trump is elected, he has indicated that he will be interested in dismantling the IRA.
Yes, that's right. When he spoke to him in twenty twenty two, he told us about his involvement among so many other people who were trying to lobby the politicians to support the Inflation Reduction Act. It did go through. It became the largest climate bill that the US has passed, and it has already unlocked billions of dollars of investment
in climate technologies. But if there is a change in the administration, there is a real risk that many of the remaining billions of dollars that are set to come into climate technologies may never get invested.
So Bill Gates was among the billionaires lobbying Joe Biden to enact i'm A policy. But we've also seen some recent reporting from Bloomberg about billionaires supporting Trump because they like the sound of the tax cuts he's promising in the regulations he's promising to dismantle.
That's right. My colleagues Amanda Gordon and Srida Natrajan wrote a story just after Donald Trump was convicted in a New York court about some Wall Street billionaires who are now becoming Trump supporters and weren't in the past. And it's about money, it's about taxes, it's about dismantling regulations. And they named a few people in the story, such as Howard Lutnik, ahmid Malik, and the co founder of Blackstone, Stephen Schwartzman.
So let's hear what Bill Gates had to say about the election.
So, now, private investments are key to making technology scale, but so are government policies. Now, there are many many elections around the world this year. Many have happened, many will happen, and we are bound to see swings, some steps forward, some steps backward. But the election that it will make the biggest difference to the global climate, right is the US election. Now, I'm not going to ask you to make a prediction, but the stakes are quite
clear between the two parties. If anything, Donald Trump increasingly is making it clear that he wants to roll back a lot of climate policies and promote the fuel industry. So how should climate startups prepare if Trump is elected.
It's hard to predict US politics, both in terms of you know, who's going to win and how dramatic the changes might be. You know, if Trump is elected, we may see more change and therefore the whole business environment you may have to deal with a lot of uncertainty. And you know, I do think that as we've taken these projects, and you know, for example, Form you know is building their factory in West Virginia, talked about you know, terror Powers building a plant Wyoming. You know, we have
you know, Lux Walls building in Michigan. We have lots of companies like Electra that are going down to Texas. Texas actually may have the most of these projects. So as you actually start the projects, create the jobs around the projects, you know, the normal political process which is not just a single individual, but it's politicians seeing the jobs in their communities. You know, I'm hopeful that the
degree of change can be modest. You know, the idea of the US being more energy secure and US innovation allowing us to export, you know, those things are still somewhat by partisan in nature, and look, this cause is too important to you know, not deal with whatever setbacks take place. You know, I think voters who care about climate will tend to vote a certain way. But I've said that trying to make these issues as bipartisan as
possible is super important. The innovation framework helps a lot, because if you're paying huge green premiums, then some voters are really against that, either because they don't think they should be the one to pay, or they don't think anyone should pay. It's a problem even in Europe, which are the most climate committed voter bases. Even there, if you push too hard on you must buy an electric key pump, or we're going to end gasoline cars even there.
Unless we innovate, we're going to push beyond what voters are willing to do. And so the basic theory of breakthrough energy, which is make this stuff not cost more, although between here and there we need a lot of risk taking and government help. I'd say that theory is stronger today because of the political situation we face in many many countries than ever before. And so thank goodness, it's going well, but we would have to adjust. And if investors think tech catch credits are going to come
and go. That is tough because when you build a plant that's a thirty year plant, you're kind of making assumptions. You know, I'd rather have a modest level of support constant for thirty years. Then it comes and goes in even larger amounts. So you know how we work with the Congress to maintain as much of the climate support as possible, and to try and get predictability and to adapt a challenge breakthrough. We'll face as much as we need to.
Thank you so much.
All right, great talking to you and look forward to seeing you.
Thank you for listening to Zero. If you like this episode, please take a moment to rate or review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Share this episode with a friend or with someone job hunting in Wyoming. You can get in touch at zero pod at bloomberg dot net. Zero's producer is Mithy Lee Rau. Bloomberg's Head of Podcasts is Sage Bauman and head of Talk is Brendan Nunan. Our theme music is composed by Wondering Special thanks to
Kira Bendram, Alicia Clanton and the Royal Shakespeare Company. I am Akshatrati Bakson