Bill Gates on Energy Innovation

The Fukushima nuclear disaster notwithstanding, technology entrepreneur Bill Gates would still bet on nuclear power as the energy source of the near future.

In a timely and interesting conversation from the 2011 WIRED Business Conference Wired, Gates points out that the nuclear plants of the future are not even remotely similar to the obsolete Fukushima design. There will be entirely new ways of ensuring plant safety.

It is now possible to simulate on a supercomputer all the possible scenarios: earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters in order to design and construct flawless systems.

The problem is that these "perfect" technologies -- some of them funded by Gates himself -- are not quite available for deployment. Not today, and not for many years to come.

So, what do we do in the meantime?

Bill Gates is speaking here with WIRED Magazine editor Chris Anderson.

Bill Gates is chairman of the computer software giant, Microsoft Corporation. Since 2008, Gates no longer has a day-to-day role in the company, spending more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Chris Anderson is editor in chief of WIRED magazine, a position he's held since 2001. He is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, "The Long Tail" and "Free: The Future of a Radical Price". He is also one of the founders of Booktour.com, a free online service that connects authors on tour with potential audiences.

In 2007, he was named in Time Magazine's annual Top 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Before joining WIRED, Anderson served as US business editor, Asia business editor, and technology editor at The Economist. He began his media career as an editor at the two premier science journals, "Nature" and "Science".

From the ABC's Big Ideas program. A free MP4 is available here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/10/04/3331828.htm

My blog: http://ianmcpherson.com/blog/

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