How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge:

How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What if we could not only harness the power of the sun, but actually use it to run the entire planet? Concentrated solar power (CSP) has the potential to do just that — using arrays of revolving mirrors called heliostats, light is reflected into a massive receiver. Thanks to recent advancements in technology, the cost to replicate these Sunlight Refineries™ is dropping. Soon solar energy will be cleaner and cheaper than using fossil fuels, which could mean adoption on a global scale. Heliogen, a company founded by Bill Gross and backed by Bill Gates, wants to eliminate all uses of fossil fuels. Using cameras, AI, and machine learning, they are working to make these CSP systems smarter and much more efficient. This episode is from Hard Reset, a Freethink original series about rebuilding the world from scratch and reimagining everything from first principles. Catch more Hard Reset episodes on their channel: https://www.freethink.com/shows/hard-reset ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: NARRATOR: This might look like a death ray, but it's not. It's actually... One enormous, very accurate magnifying glass. NARRATOR: This magnifying glass has a technical name, a sunlight refinery. To use it, find somewhere really sunny, plop down a bunch of mirrors, bounce the sunlight into a single spot and you can melt just about anything. Okay, so it is kind of death ray-ish. Why do this? Because manufacturing steel or cement requires a lot of heat and making something super hot has historically meant burning dinosaurs. STEVE SCHELL: You look at the massive carbon footprint that is associated with these industrial applications and it can't be ignored. NARRATOR: Twenty percent of global carbon emissions to be precise. And because this technology is so good, it might just change the entire energy industry. And prevent World War III in the process. This is "Hard Reset," a series about rebuilding our world from scratch. Just east of Six Flags and north of LA is a place called Lancaster, which is very flat, very hot and a perfect place to test a takeover of the world's energy supply. [dramatic music] Yeah, that sounded more Bond villain-y than I thought it would. Anyway, these are called heliostats and the reason this solar refinery works so well is that under these mirrors and shot glasses are pretty simple motors that they can control remotely. And this allows the mirrors to change angles throughout the day, depending on where the sun is. How do they know where the sun is? Interns. No, AI, of course. BILL GROSS: You need to take each of thousands of mirrors and point them very, very precisely, accurate to about 1/10 or 1/20 of a degree. NARRATOR: That's Bill Gross, genius visionary and founder of over 150 companies. Also super nice guy. GROSS: Thank you, I really appreciate it. NARRATOR: At the top of the tower, high-resolution cameras monitor the position of the mirrors below. SCHELL: You can actually see the two at the top are the easiest to pick out 'cause they're on booms above the receiver. NARRATOR: So Heliogen gets all those mirrors to reflect sunlight into that big target at the top. SCHELL: So what we've got just above us is the solar receiver. So you can see that's what we saw from ground level. That's where that concentrated sunlight is focused when the field is operating. NARRATOR: The cameras know if the mirrors are bouncing into the sun because those cameras are assessing the quality of the sky's blue. Let's break that down with Steve, who has cool tattoos. SCHELL: This is my robot battle armor and what I have here is a jungle on an alien planet with robots tending the garden. NARRATOR: And is in charge of the technology stuff here. SCHELL: What these cameras see is the reflection of the sky close to the sun. Close to the sun, the sky appears very bright from the scattered sunlight coming through it and the further away from the sun you look, the darker or less bright that patch of sky appears to be. NARRATOR: So the cameras look at the color blue and the AI uses that information to assess the distance from the sun, deduce the orientation of the mirror and therefore, where the beam is going. SCHELL: So every few seconds, we get a measurement of where that beam is going and we can command the heliostat to make small corrections to optimize its tracking. In this industry, that is a complete game changer 'cause now we don't rely on the hardware to be so precise, we have software to make it precise. So it really changes everything about how that plant... To read the full transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/concentrated-solar-power

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Despite the fact that women are half the world’s population, male leaders still outnumber female leaders by four to one. By harnessing the power of data, we can identify pathways for women to

Despite the fact that women are half the world’s population, male leaders still outnumber female leaders by four to one. By harnessing the power of data, we can identify pathways for women to pursue leadership, along with the positions they currently hold and the power they are able to exercise in those positions. We can then leverage that data to help change the institutions, systems and practices to put more women into leadership roles. Gwen Young is an international development specialist and advocate. She also has worked as a lawyer to develop exploitation- and sexual- and gender-based violence guidelines, and has trained women in human rights and economic empowerment. Gwen Young has devoted her career to humanitarian relief, international development, and human rights. As an attorney and public policy professional, Gwen has advocated for the role girls and women play in political, social, and economic development. She has trained women in advocacy, networking, management, and entrepreneurship in her roles with the International Rescue Committee, CARE, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. While working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Gwen developed guidelines to deal with sexual- and gender-based violence and exploitation. She has lived for over 10 years on the African continent, in a variety of conflict-ridden zones. Today, Gwen works to advance the role of women in government as the Director of the Wilson Center’s Global Women’s Leadership Initiative. The Initiative aims to ensure 50% representation of women in public-service leadership in governments across the globe by 2050. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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The unprecedented level of economic inequality in America is undeniable. In an extended essay, Bill shares examples of the striking extremes of wealth and poverty across the country, including a video report on California's Silicon Valley. There, Facebook, Google, and Apple are minting millionaires, while the area's homeless -- who've grown 20 percent in the last two years -- are living in tent cities at their virtual doorsteps.

Social equality illustration by Brandon Cripps.

Published on Apr 11, 2013

 

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NOTE FROM TED: TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here:

NOTE FROM TED: TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf Dr. Bill Weihl shares his perspective on how companies can change the game on climate by advocating for stronger public policy. Through his non-profit initiative, ClimateVoice, Dr. Weihl aims to mobilize the workforce to encourage companies to go "all in" on climate -- especially by using their voice and influence to support public policy, everywhere they operate. Note: References to "John" and "Hal" throughout the talk are to John Doerr and Hal Harvey, whose Countdown talk was featured before this one at the TEDxClimateChangeAI event. The referenced talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Cy16uOdLM Bill Weihl is the Founder and Executive Director of ClimateVoice, a non-profit initiative launched in February 2020 that is mobilizing the workforce to encourage companies to go “all in” on climate - especially in their use of their voice and influence to support public policy, everywhere they operate. Previously, Bill was Director of Sustainability at Facebook, leading work on sustainability across the company; Green Energy Czar at Google, where his team pioneered Google’s work to buy clean energy for its data centers, among other initiatives; a Professor of Computer Science at MIT; a researcher at Digital's Systems Research Center; and CTO of Akamai Technologies. Bill is on the board of directors of the Sierra Club Foundation and of Acterra, and also on the boards of WeSpire and Common Energy. He has received numerous awards, including Time Magazine's Hero of the Environment (2009), the Global Green Award for environmental leadership (2016), and the VERGE Vanguard Award (2018). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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About doing public good as a private citizen.

Former President Bill Clinton (SFS'68) told an audience in Georgetown's

About doing public good as a private citizen.

Former President Bill Clinton (SFS'68) told an audience in Georgetown's historic Gaston Hall that being a good citizen in the 21st century "requires every thoughtful person to try to do some public good...We are on an unsustainable path to the future...the world is awash in too much in inequality and unsustainability." He ends with "If you want to serve you must begin with the stories."  Published on May 2, 2013

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Interviewed by Bill Moyers. Born on a Native American reservation, Sherman Alexie has been navigating the cultural boundaries of American culture in lauded poetry, novels, short stories, screenplays, even stand-up comedy for over two decades. Alexie joins Bill to share his irreverent perspective on contemporary American life, and discuss the challenges of living in two different cultures at the same time, especially when one has so much dominance over the other.

Published on Apr 12, 2013

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Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) shared some of the outlines of the anticipated Kerry, Graham, Lieberman climate bill today, telling Clean Skies News that the comprehensive bill will be unveiled sometime soon. (February 2010)

carbon  Tax  Clean  Skies  News  Clear  Act  climate  bill  comprehensize  Edison  Electric 

 

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The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021 has been reintroduced into the House by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL-22) and 28 original cosponsors. Join this training by Mark Reynolds, Citizens'

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021 has been reintroduced into the House by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL-22) and 28 original cosponsors. Join this training by Mark Reynolds, Citizens' Climate Lobby's Executive Director, Madeleine Para, CCL's President, Dr. Danny Richter, CCL's Vice President of Government Affairs, and Lesley Beatty CCL’s Director of Marketing for an overview of the new bill, it's legislative details, action steps, and messaging recommendations. Skip ahead to the following section(s): (0:00) Overview (3:01) Legislative Details (14:29) Action Steps (19:26) Messaging Recommendations Helpful resources: Use our Action Tools to write to your members of Congress: http://cclusa.org/write Send a postcard to President Biden about this policy: http://cclusa.org/postcard Write a letter to the editor about this bill: http://cclusa.org/lte Amplify the news on social media: http://cclusa.org/facebook Check out the current cosponsors of the bill here: http://energyinnovationact.org Learn more about how the bill works here: http://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/ The bill is a “carbon fee and dividend” approach to carbon pricing. You can learn more about that idea here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/price-on-carbon/ Check out Columbia University’s assessment of this legislation: https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/assessment-energy-innovation-and-carbon-dividend-act Noah Kaufman’s “Nature Climate Change” paper that Danny referenced: https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/article/near-term-net-zero-alternative-social-cost-carbon-setting-carbon-prices You can sign up for our text alerts here: http://cclusa.org/text You can join our Monthly Calling Campaign here: http://cclusa.org/mcc You can contribute to CCL by visiting: http://cclusa.org/donate Tonight’s Reintroduction Presentation Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MpKiPwHlIg71PwfpQ-c53Z59Wf9RaquerGTMVVmXf8U CCL Community page on the bill: https://community.citizensclimate.org/topics/energy-innovation-act Comparison between the new bill and the one from last Congress: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/486 Q&A on the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act: https://community.citizensclimate.org/resources/item/19/285

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