Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft has recently stated that United States has lost the global leadership which it earlier held in the nuclear power and has urged them to invest more in the nuclear power research.
The story behind this
In the Gates Notes blog post, on the event of the annual year-in-review, Bill Gates had taken a note that the emission of the greenhouse gases around the world has gone up in 2018 even though there are huge consequences that are being faced by the people across the globe.
In his note, Gate wrote that there is a need for us to deduce breakthroughs in clean energy so as to curb the ever increasing global temperatures.
This is because when the fossil fuel burns, it releases carbon dioxide along with other gases which have heat trapping tendencies.
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels mainly comprise of oil, coal, natural gas etc which are derivatives of carbon and hydrogen. The energy which is generated from wind and sun does not emit carbon dioxide which is also same for nuclear energy.
He had said that the world so as to stop the climatic changes, the world needs to be working on various solutions for the same.
He further stated that one of the solutions is the advanced nuclear energy and that he hopes to persuade the leaders of the United States to get into the game.
The changing environment
If the temperature of the mother Earth climbs by 1.5 degrees or more above the pre-industrial level, the entire world will be facing catastrophic ramifications according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The world is on its track to hit that threshold of 1.5 degree level by 2040. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate has stated if there occurs a huge shift in the energy and economic systems of the world then that scenario could still reverse the trend.
Gates had also written that he is glad to see that the solar as well as the wind energies are becoming cheaper but according to him these sources are not sufficient to curb the energy requirements of the world.
The reason behind this that these energies are not viable when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. Contrary to this, the nuclear energy is available round the clock.
Source: Business Insider, USA Today
