By Ramishah Maruf, CNN Business
Updated 6:42 PM ET, Sat February 20, 2021
Editor’s notes: Watch Bill Gates tonight in conversation with Anderson Cooper at 9 p.m. ET Saturday.
New York (CNN Business)-In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Bill Gates said deaths during Texas’ winter freeze were preventable, caused by the state’s decision not to weatherize its energy.
Gates pushed back on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s claim that frozen wind turbines were to blame for the massive power failure. Gates said America’s dependence on renewable energy sources isn’t high enough to worry about their stability — the problem was natural gas plants that were not weatherized.
“This is not because of renewable dependency,” Gates told Cooper. “This is natural gas plants, largely, that weren’t weatherized. They could’ve been. It costs money, and the trade off was made, and it didn’t work out, and it’s tragic that it has lead to people dying.”
He argued that because climate change is the root cause of extreme weather events, green energy must be the future to prevent even worse disasters than the ones unfolding now across the globe.
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How to solve the climate crisis
The world needs a massive breakthrough, and Gates is looking for one. He said he’s faced many dead ends in his investments, which have an 80% failure rate.
“20% success rate when you are limiting yourself to things that have dramatic climate benefits — that would be very impressive,” Gates said. “I think we will achieve it, but that’s very hard.”
Gates sees a future where 80% of the world’s energy is from wind and solar and the remaining 20% comes from nuclear energy. He uses Texas as an example. Deep freezes reduce the ability to use wind energy, so the state would have to ramp up nuclear energy or draw from storage.
On the political front, Gates said his breakthrough energy team is in talks with President Biden’s administration, and that policy needs as much innovation as technology.
Le PDG d’Apple Tim Cook partage ses idées sur l’innovation avec un jeune blogueur chinois
Le PDG d’Apple, Tim Cook, a partagé ses idées sur l’innovation et a adressé ses meilleurs vœux au peuple chinois dans une interview accordée à un jeune blogueur chinois.
He Shijie, étudiant à l’université des Postes et Télécommunications de Beijing, a publié jeudi cette interview en ligne.
M. Cook a insisté sur le fait qu’il n’existait pas de formule unique pour stimuler l’innovation, mais qu’une culture de la créativité et de la collaboration pouvait y contribuer. Il a noté que la diversité jouait également un rôle important à cet égard. “On rassemble des gens qui ont des compétences différentes, qui voient le monde différemment. Peut-être qu’ils viennent d’endroits différents, qu’ils ont des origines différentes… Et c’est incroyable ce qui peut sortir de tout cela”, a-t-il indiqué.
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“J’aime l’histoire et les arts de la Chine. L’année dernière, je suis allé au Musée de la Cité interdite à Beijing. (Les Chinois) célébraient son 600e anniversaire. C’est incroyable pour moi, car il n’y a évidemment rien aux Etats-Unis qui ait 600 ans”, a ajouté M. Cook.
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