Bill Gates continues… “Energy innovation is not a nationalistic game. If tomorrow some other country invented cheap energy with no CO2 output, would that be a bad day or a good day? For anybody who’s reasonable, that would be, like the best day ever. If all you care about is America’s relative position, every day since the end of WWII has really been bad for you. So when somebody says to me, ‘Oh, the Chinese are helping to lower the cost of it, or creating something that emits less CO2′, I say, great! The Chinese are also working on new drugs. When your children get sick, they might be able to take those drugs.”

Jeff Goodell asks,”Let’s say President Obama comes to you and says,’We need to make this energy transition quicker. Bill, you are going to be my energy guy.’ What are the two or three things you would tell him we should do right now, politics aside?” BG’s reply,” The first is a pretty dramatic increase in research and development – about $10 billion a year extra. The US government has an annual budget of 3.5 trillion so that’s not a lot of money percentage wise. To pay for it you could tax energy usage at a very modest level, between one and two percent. That would make it budget neutral.

Then you need a real energy plan. One example: If you’re going to get sun and wind power out of the center of the country, you have to do some amazing transmission stuff out to the coasts. But if off shore wind is going to be gigantic, then the need for transmission is less imperative. Building transmission takes decades,  so you’ve got to really have a plan that considers each option based on the likelihood of success.  You have to write down the probabilities so you can shift resources as the probabilities shift.”

Mr. Gates continues: “Part of the beauty of the nuclear path, compared to all the energy farming approaches, is you don’t have a problem with location and storage. Wind and Solar, anything where you’re just collecting natural flux is problematic. The trouble with energy farming is that the energy isn’t always where you want to use it and it isn’t always when you want to use it. So, you have a tough transmission problem-tough as in not being able to invent the solution.”

Mr. Goodell, the author of this article asks, “Does the work of climate deniers play a part in preventing action?” B.G.’s answer is, ” People are at so many places on this problem, it’s hard to get a dialogue going. There are people who don’t even know there’s something important here at all- people who think, geez, is this real? That’s unfortunate. The fact that we’re still arguing over Is It Real? has clouded the debate. The real issue is, wait a minute, how soon and how big are these effects, and what does mitigation look like?”

“In regards to China beating us in the alternative energy race, the US has to do the right things for the long term. It appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humility. Sputnik helped us fund good science -the semiconductor came out of it. And in the 80’s, we were driven by state-sanctioned racism- the idea that Japan was going to take over everything. Just look at consumer electronics today- it’s Xbox, iPhone. Sometimes you overestimate your rival and that can actually help.”

May I comment here: I am not a fan of nuclear anything because of the huge waste issues and astronomical cost to build and operate a nuclear plant. Having said that, I am open to a brilliant mind giving an explanation of his own solution to a cataclysmic problem we all face. Personally, if Bill Gates sheds some awareness that we are facing an enormous task and we all must wake up and get the coffee cookin’, I’m OK with that….DL

Mr. Gates continued… “There are a few places on the planet that can produce tidal energy but that wont ever be gigantic. Geothermal, because of the formations and the amount of heat that comes through, is also going to be pretty minor. So what you’re left with is: Can you make fossil fuels carbon-free? That”s important to pursue but very hard to achieve.

America’s Power, a coal-industry PR group, has these ads that talk about clean coal. But there are a number of steps required to do that, and they really aren’t being done. For instance: the government has got to take responsibility for the long-term waste. They messed up on nuclear waste at Yucca Mt. and the long term waste from clean coal would be a billion times larger. The issue of where to put the waste is the hardest because of the consensus that’s required.

The nuclear approach I am involved in is called a ‘traveling-wave reactor, which uses waste uranium for fuel. There’s a lot of things that have to go right for that dream to come true- many decades of building demo plants, proving the economics are right. If it does, you could have cheaper fuel with zero CO2 emissions.” To be continued…

“It’s really hard for people to get their minds around the amount of reduction required,” says Mr. Gates. “Every year we’re increasing the amount of CO2 we put out, and yet we’re talking about an 80% reduction. To make that happen, the rich world is going to have to be way down – way down – in energy use.

To have the kind of reliable energy we expect, and to have it be cheaper and zero carbon, we need to pursue every available path to achieve a really big breakthrough. Our probability of success is much higher if we’re pursuing many, many paths.

The odds against them (those working on solutions) are higher than they realize. The world needs all these people trying things out and believing in them. In IT, there were tons of dead ends-but there was enough of a success rate to have an unbelievable impact.”

Part One
Bill Gates is investing millions to halt global warming by creating an inexhaustible supply of carbon-free energy. Jeff Goodell writes in RollingStone a concise and accurate account of our $50 billion dollar man’s visions for our Planet. “His voice carries enormous credibility about how technology can be used to solve global warming,” says Fred Krupp, head of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Gates is a radical consumerist. In his view, energy consumption is good- it just needs to be clean energy. As he sees it, the biggest challenge is not persuading Americans to buy more efficient refrigerators or trade in their SUV’s for hybrids; it’s figuring out how to raise the standard of living in the developing world without wrecking the climate. Achieving that, he argues, will require an “energy miracle”- a technological breakthrough that creates an inexhaustible supply of carbon-free energy. Although he doesn’t know what form that miracle will take, he knows we need to think big. “We don’t really grasp the scale of the problem we are facing.” “The right goal is not to cut our carbon emissions in half. The right goal is zero.” ” A really big breakthrough,” Gates says, is knowing that our best hope lies in pursuing many, many paths.”

The thing that really changed in civilization- only about 250 years ago- was an intense use of energy. It changed everything: transportation and food and appliances and communication.. I’m interested in making sure the poorest countries don’t get left behind, so figuring out how they can get cheap energy is very, very important. Whether it’s fertilizing crops or building, alot of it comes down to energy.

It’s the poorest people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change- as well as ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

Bill is a man of Compassion. Please stay tuned for Part Two….DL

Living in Hawaii for 15-years has conditioned me to its climate, culture and literally, the airborne spores that one breathes.

I was reminded by my acupuncturist friend that it took her two years to acclimatize when she moved to Hawaii 10-years ago. Now coincidentally, she is back in LA and just treated me for symptoms she called “trapped wind”. My memory was jarred to the time when I lived in Pacific Palisades for ten years and always felt a damp cold chill in my back which led me to sleeping in a bed jacket. Nights in Hawaii are much more mild; in fact, the change of temperature from day to night is only 10 or 15 degrees. Then I remembered that it actually took me two years to really adjust to Hawaii and now I am recalibrating to LA!

It’s a process. It’s not just the weather, but the massive increase in population and electricity. When I started out in Hawaii, I lived for seven years in a rural community of about 3000 residents. The electrical current flowing in the atmosphere was minimal. Many lived ‘off the grid’ so that accounted for at least 10 or 15% – not much demand –  so imagine the quietude and lack of ‘buzz’ in the environment! When I would fly to LA or NYC from my home in the country, I was shocked into major stimulation. Moving from Kohala on the Big Island to Honolulu was an improvement in that respect; it’s a small city, less than a million population but there’s much more electrical current buzzing around than in the country. So it was much less shocking to go to LA or NYC from Honolulu. Maybe it’s me, but my sensibilities were challenged, big time.

So here I am again, back in the big city. Although my little mountain retreat here is neatly tucked beneath an old grove of oak trees, still the air is different. Actually, I love where I am living and after only being here for one month, feel like this is an anchor for me and my beloved Jered. I am slowly adapting and today I’m baking in the California sun. Oh, I miss the sun in Hawaii – and the sea on The Big Island with the soft, clear sand between my toes. A ritual Jered and I had was joining the sun as it was setting. We walked the shore and sometimes replaced a shower with a long swim. Now, if I want to immerse my body in healing waters I have to drive to a nearby hot springs. Believe it or not, there is a natural hot spring near the La Brea Tar Pits. Makes sense that healing waters are nearby. This is now my “ocean”.

Even a deeper layer of recalibration is the call to reactivate my career. This makes me dizzy; I’ve shed so many skins in my life and now I’m growing a whole new one. Patience and perseverance.

WOW! Summer was a blink and whoosh… September already!!!

I really pride myself on being mindful of how living in the present is a conscious and spiritually fulfilling lifestyle. Usually a major distraction like moving might persuade one to slip into a state of anxiety. The move I have actively been planning began in mid June. August 26th was the day all of my possessions, at least the remainder of my entire adult life’s acquisitions that would fit into a 20ft. container, were packed tight as sardines with my piano sandwiched between queen size mattresses. My home had an echo; you know how an empty room sounds.

Timing the departure came down to an estimate from Royal Hawaiian Movers that a realistic arrival date would be 4 weeks. They were indeed accurate. Now September 23rd, on a beautiful full moon and the Fall Equinox, Bekins, the affiliate mover in California skillfully backed their truck, hitched to the 20 ft. container, down our rural canyon road. Their greatest moment quelled my anxiety when, through a second story window two brave young men named Baldo and Alex maneuvered a four poster bed frame into the master bedroom. The climactic moment came when the entire team of six men rolled out the red carpet for my piano…literally. 42 brick stairs awaited the journey of my piano to her destination. Success!

Surrendering a lifetime of collecting precious belongings to the handling of virtual strangers was transformed in a few hours to a bond of gratitude   and are all richer for the experience. A residue of tension from the time the decision was made to this moment of realization nags at my shoulders. In Hawaii, my friend the Ocean relieved my aches. The City of Angels offers Beverly Hot Springs, an actual natural hot spring in the heart of the city. Ooh, help is on the way. I think I’d better do some unpacking before soaking in soothing baths. It’s time to remain in the now from Now On!

“We are rapidly approaching the time that the Hopi’s have called ‘The time of never ending peace.’  This peace is not merely the absence of wars, conflicts, struggles and suffering, but the very experience and the real presence of spirit, of the divine oneness of our being. It happens that the weekend of July 17-18 this year is what those who have studied the Mayan calendar and other ancient prophecies are calling the Second Harmonic Convergence or Conscious Convergence, the inauguration of the final major collective shift of consciousness into that of an undivided being-ness, or oneness. It marks the beginning of the end of living a schizophrenic, self conflicted existence and moving into the miracle of Spirit. In human societal terms, we are as a race evolving from an egocentric/intellectual species into a more fully soul-centered/intuitive one.”
This is a quote from Michael J. Tamura, award winning author of “You Are The Answer”.