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      "description": "Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Founder of Breakthrough Energy…"
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        "@type": "Article",
        "name": "How to power a clean tomorrow",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Bill Gates",
          "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates"
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        "articleBody": "Hello from Texas! I’m in Corpus Christi and Houston this week to meet with some of the remarkable innovators building America’s clean energy future. It’s going to be a great trip.If you want to see what the cutting edge of next-gen clean energy innovation looks like, it’d be hard to find a place better than Texas. Amazing companies are breaking ground not just here in Southeast Texas but across the state. Each one represents a huge boon for the local economy, America’s energy security, and the fight against climate change.The world is undergoing an energy transition right now, fueled by the development and deployment of new clean energy technologies. The pace of innovation at the heart of this transition is happening faster than many people (including me!) dared hope. The progress makes me optimistic about the future—and excited about the role that American communities will play, especially in places like Texas. Breakthrough Energy and I have invested more than $130 million into Texas-based entrepreneurs, institutions, and projects. It’s a big bet, but it’s one I’m confident in.Why? Because of the people. Nearly half a million Texans work in the oil and gas industry, and their skills are directly transferrable to next-generation industries. This workforce will help form the backbone of the world’s new clean energy economy, and it will cement Texas’s energy leadership for generations to come.Many of the companies I’m seeing on this trip already employ or plan to employ oil and gas workers. One of those companies is , which is working on next-generation clean fuels for trucks, ships, and even planes. I’m visiting their first demonstration plant in Corpus Christi, where they’re turning waste CO2 and renewable energy into electrofuels—or eFuels—for trucks. They’ve already signed a deal with Amazon, and sometime soon, if you live in the area, you might get a delivery supported by Infinium eDiesel.The key to Infinium’s approach is that their fuels can be dropped into existing engines. That’s huge. It means that companies won’t have to adapt their fleets, removing one of the biggest hurdles to transitioning to a new fuel. I’m especially excited about the work they’re doing on sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF—which could reduce emissions from air travel by as much as 90 percent, according to company estimates. Infinium is in the process of converting an old  plant in West Texas into a new facility that will increase the company’s capacity for producing eFuels ten-fold. Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program has invested in this first-of-its-kind plant, and I can’t wait to see it when it’s done.Another company I’ll see is . They’re a  project working on a different way to reuse CO2. The company is developing a clever technique for turning captured carbon into one of the key components in carbon fiber, an ultra-light, ultra-strong material that is used in everything from clothing to car frames. (If you’ve never played pickleball with a carbon fiber racket, I recommend trying it—you won’t believe how much power you get with your shots!) The Mars Materials team relocated from California to Texas in part because of the skilled oil and gas talent that they could access in the state, and they aren’t the first Breakthrough Energy company to do that. I’m going to check out their lab, where their scientists are hard at work optimizing the conversion process.Both of the companies I just mentioned are turning CO2 into useful products. Their business models assume that they’ll have access to lots of carbon. Fortunately for them, Texas is also in the process of becoming a capital for direct air capture. DAC is the process of removing carbon directly from the air. The captured carbon can either be sequestered underground or reused by companies like Infinium and Mars Materials. A  found that Texas has the greatest DAC deployment potential in the country and could create as many as 400,000 jobs by 2050.DAC is the fire extinguisher of clean energy technologies: It’s something you hope you will never need but should have ready if (and when) you do. In an ideal world, we’d adopt clean energy quickly enough that we wouldn’t need to remove carbon from the air. In reality, that hasn’t happened. We already have decades of legacy emissions that we’ll need to clean up, so we need a significant DAC industry.During my visit, I’ll meet with local business and community leaders involved in the development of a DAC Hub in Kingsville, Texas. The Hub is the brainchild of Occidental’s , and over the next five years, it will bring an estimated 2,500 jobs to the community. I was an early investor in direct air capture technology, and it’s super cool to see it evolve from a concept to real economic opportunity for a local community.The DAC project has been selected to receive a grant from the Department of Energy as a result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Having been involved in some of the early discussions of the clean energy bills a couple years ago, I’m amazed to see how much progress has been made since then—and eager to meet with the people moving it forward. The DAC Hubs are a perfect example of how innovation can and should work. Private investors take on risks in developing cutting-edge innovations, which are then scaled up through a mix of public and private investments.It’s going to be an exciting couple of days. I’m looking forward to catching up with leaders from many of the Breakthrough Energy-supported companies based in the area. I’ll talk about the tremendous potential I see in clean industries at CERAWeek, one of the biggest annual energy conferences in the United States. I’m also going to learn more about the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub being developed in the area, and I’ll tour ’s hydrogen facility in the town of La Porte. Their plant uses  to generate hydrogen fuel for industry, and it will be retrofitted in the coming years to eliminate its emissions. (As I’ve written before, .)All the companies I’ll see in Texas this week are at the heart of the energy transition. They’re driving innovation, bringing good jobs to their communities, and boosting the American economy. If you want to catch a glimpse of our country’s clean energy future, you should head on down to the Lone Star State.--You can join the conversation in the comments and become a  to get regular updates from Bill on topics like climate change, global health and innovation, to access exclusive content, participate in giveaways, and more.",
        "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-power-clean-tomorrow-bill-gates-ddckc"
      },
      {
        "@type": "Article",
        "name": "I found inspiration in India",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Bill Gates",
          "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates"
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        "articleBody": "Around this time last year, I wrote a  that began: “I just returned from my visit to India, and I can’t wait to go back again.”Last week, I got my wish and returned to India—and now that I’m home, I can’t wait to go back for another visit.My goal was to get an update on some of the world-changing ideas and inventions that are coming out of India, and that’s exactly what I got. I spent four days there, meeting with political leaders, government officials, scientists, philanthropists, women who are lifting their communities out of poverty, and many others. The Gates Foundation funds more work in India than in any other country (other than the United States), and it’s always uplifting and educational to be there in person and see the impact of the efforts we’re supporting. Here are a few photos from my visit.Late in my trip, I had the privilege of spending an hour with Prime Minister Modi and some of his cabinet ministers. We had a great conversation about how the Gates Foundation can continue to support India’s goals on digital technology, women-led development, and innovation in agriculture, health, and climate change.My trip got off to a great start on Tuesday in Hyderabad, where social media star  made me a delicious cup of chai. It was the perfect cure for jet lag! With me in the photo, in addition to Dolly, are Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, hosts of the podcast . They joined me for parts of the trip.In Hyderabad I also met with Infosys co-founder , whom I’ve known for years, and other experts who got me up to speed on the latest in digital public infrastructure, or DPI. That’s the system that is making it possible to use digital technology to provide all kinds of services, including digital payments, advice for farmers, education, and much more. India’s progress on DPI is a model that other countries are learning from.On Wednesday I was in Bhubaneswar, where I learned about a government program that’s providing things like electricity, paved roads, and playgrounds in Odisha state’s low-income communities. I got to hear from several local women who—after being trained in engineering and other skills—are leading construction projects to bring these services to their community. I loved hearing their inspiring stories about the challenges they’ve overcome—it’s a stunning before-and-after story.I got to see India’s DPI in action when I toured an agricultural monitoring center in Bhubaneswar. At this facility, government agriculture experts send advice and real-time updates to 6.5 million farmers via phone. Since this center opened, local farmers are losing 90 percent less of their crops to pests than they used to.I heard from Karthikeya Pandian (pictured walking with me) about the two government initiatives he runs in Odisha. One is designed to improve governance and public services, and the other provides villages with internet facilities, sports fields, training for , banking services, and digital connectivity.During his 24 years as Odisha’s Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik (pictured sitting at the table with me) has led a remarkable turnaround in the state. Its economy is growing and poverty is plummeting. He and I discussed Odisha’s accomplishments in agriculture, sanitation, and other areas.The Gates Foundation supports a lot of work on agriculture in India, so I was excited to attend a learning session in New Delhi on Thursday with experts on livestock and crops. I learned about the latest innovations in artificial insemination, buffalo breeding, climate-smart seeds, and much more.I joined India’s Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, at an event to highlight the problem of malnutrition. The Minister invited me to a Poshan Ustav—“nutrition festival”—to release a new book on India’s nutritional practices. We also had a great discussion about how the Gates Foundation can support her office’s efforts to improve life for women and children throughout the country.I love talking with college students, and my visit to the New Delhi campus of the Indian Institutes of Technology was no exception. The students and faculty were brimming with ideas and optimism about the innovations that will help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.On Friday, at Prime Minister Modi’s suggestion, I visited the Statue of Unity in Gujarat. It’s a tribute to Sardar Patel, one of the key figures in India’s independence movement. It’s an impressive site—at more than 597 feet, it’s the tallest statue in the world—but I was just as impressed by the government’s efforts to build a tourism-driven economy around it that benefits the local population. In the peak season, more than 60,000 tourists visit the statue every day.My trip was scheduled around the pre-wedding celebration of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. Here I am with Paula Hurd and Nandan and Rohini Nilekani.I came home with a deeper understanding of India’s vibrant innovation ecosystem and how it’s generating major advances in health, urban poverty, digital services, and much more. The world has a lot to learn from the ideas coming out of this country.",
        "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-found-inspiration-india-bill-gates-wghmc"
      },
      {
        "@type": "Article",
        "name": "India's innovations are still changing the world",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Bill Gates",
          "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates"
        },
        "articleBody": "I’ve been visiting India since the 1990s, and I’m on my way to visit again this week. Over the years, I’ve learned about its rich history and visited some of its stunning monuments, including the Taj Mahal.But when I think about India’s most important contributions to the world, these are not the first things that come to mind. India’s greatest gift is its ability to innovate.This country has a long history of important breakthroughs. (Mathematicians in ancient India are widely credited with introducing the decimal system for numbers.) More recently, India has made advances that are saving and improving millions of lives in India and around the world. The Gates Foundation has been a partner in some of these efforts, and I’m visiting this week to learn about how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live. This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Modi this week.Health is one area where India is making a big difference. This country is the world's largest producer of vaccines—it supplies more than 60 percent of all vaccines distributed by , the organization that has helped vaccinate more than 1 billion children in lower-income countries. Indian companies pioneered the creation of high-quality, low-cost vaccines and drugs, leading the world in making affordable treatments for diseases like HIV/AIDS as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal pneumonia, and COVID. The government has helped deliver huge supplies of vaccines to its own people and to other low- and middle-income countries, and now it’s looking to do the same for medical devices and diagnostics.Thanks in large part to India, developing countries now get new medicines and vaccines much faster than they used to. I rank these efforts as one of the most important health achievements ever. (We’ve made progress, but we’re not done. The world should still do more to shrink the gap between when a drug or vaccine becomes available in rich countries and when it reaches lower-income ones.)Another area where I admire India’s innovative spirit is what’s known as digital public infrastructure, or DPI. In short, DPI refers to the digital platforms and tools that help deliver various services. India’s biometric identity program, Aadhaar, covers more than 1.4 billion people, allowing them to take advantage of all kinds of government services without needing a photo ID. UPI, a digital payment system that ensures that the person you’re doing business with is who they say they are, processes more than 12 billion transactions a month.During my trip I’ll get to see India’s DPI in action. I’ll visit an agricultural monitoring center in the state of Odisha where government officials use DPI to give farmers real-time guidance. Thanks to Aadhaar, this center is able to maintain a registry of 7.5 million farmers—even if they don’t own land—and their crops, so officials can keep track of who is growing what (and, therefore, what kind of farming advice they need). It has also developed a chatbot that makes it easy for farmers to get the latest information about their crops, using AI to tailor content to their particular needs and in their local language.This service’s pest-management program now reaches more than 4 million farmers, and since it began in 2018, the volume of crops that participating farmers lose to pests every year has dropped by 90 percent. Now others—including other states in India as well as Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and the World Bank—are looking to learn from Odisha’s experience with this service as well as its biometric ID and digital payments systems.I'm also looking forward to learning more about how India is addressing urban poverty, especially among women. It has one of the fastest-growing urban populations in the world, and more than 100 million people there live in slums, where it’s hard and often impossible to get even basic services like health, education, and clean water. Women are particularly vulnerable because they face discrimination and violence.This week, I’ll visit a low-income community in Odisha where a government program is helping women get the skills to fulfill government construction contracts. Since 2018, this program has helped 22,000 groups of women deliver on more than 52,000 projects including building roads, drains, and toilets.This program could be a model for other countries that are facing similar challenges. The women who participate in it are partners in creating the projects: They get training in engineering, accounting, negotiating contracts, and other skills, and they’re involved in planning the project, making a budget, doing the construction, and doing maintenance on whatever they build. I'm looking forward to meeting a few women who are part of this program so I can hear about the challenges they face and the successes they’ve had.India’s capacity to innovate will also become increasingly important to stopping climate change. Indians are already being affected by higher temperatures and less-predictable weather, and eliminating the greenhouse gases that are causing the problem is a huge scientific challenge. So it’s great that India is ramping up its ability to invent, manufacture, and deploy climate breakthroughs. The government is investing in research to raise the productivity of crops and livestock even in a warmer climate, and it’s expanding its plans for clean energy.These are just a few of the ways in which India's innovations are changing the world. I could list many more, and I’m sure I’ll learn about a few new ones during my visit. I’m looking forward to speaking with government leaders, CEOs, and students who will drive innovation in India. This country has a lot to offer, and I'm optimistic that it will continue to lead the way in creating a more equitable world.",
        "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/indias-innovations-still-changing-world-bill-gates-uhwnc"
      },
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        "@type": "Article",
        "name": "Greasy—and good for the planet",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Bill Gates",
          "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates"
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        "articleBody": "Cheeseburgers are my favorite food. But I wish they weren’t, given the impact they have on the environment. I’ve tried many of the best meat and dairy replacements out there, and while I’ve had some great ones, nothing currently on the market would fool a burger lover completely. Even when the taste is close, there’s still something missing: the greasy, oily sizzle that brings the  together and makes it so delicious—and difficult to replicate.The secret ingredient is animal fat. It’s what gives so many foods their richness, juiciness, meltability, unique “mouthfeel,” and overall flavor. It’s what distinguishes butter from margarine, dairy ice cream from a plant-based frozen dessert, and a great burger from one made of soy protein or peas. Unfortunately, it’s also a disaster for the climate. Each year, the world emits 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases—and the production of fats and oils from animals and plants makes up seven percent of that. To combat climate change, we need to get the number to zero.Our plan can’t be to simply hope that people give up foods they crave. After all, humans are wired to want animal fats for a reason—because they’re the most nutrient-rich and calorie-dense macronutrient—in the same way we’re wired to crave sugar for an instant energy kick. What we need are new ways of generating the same fat molecules found in animal products, but without greenhouse gas emissions, animal suffering, or dangerous chemicals. And they have to be affordable for everyone.It might sound like a pipe dream, but a company called  (which I’m invested in) is in the process of doing it. They started with the fact that all fats are made of varying chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Then they set out to make those same carbon and hydrogen chains—without involving animals or plants. They ultimately developed a process that involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, heating them up, and oxidizing them to trigger the separation of fatty acids and then the formulation of fat. The result is real fat molecules like the ones we get from milk, cheese, beef, and vegetable oils. The process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good—like the real thing, because chemically it is.I’ve tasted Savor’s products, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter. (The burger came close, too.) The big challenge is to drive down the price so that products like Savor’s become affordable to the masses—either the same cost as animal fats or less. Savor has a good chance of success here, because the key steps of their fat-production process already work in other industries.The focus on animal fats is a priority because they have an outsized impact on climate—and play an outsized role in many beloved foods. But even if we could eliminate emissions from the production of all animal fats overnight, we’d still have a challenge: Even some plant-based fats and oils can be a problem for climate change. The worst culprit is palm oil.Today, it’s the most widely consumed plant-based fat in the world. It’s found in half of all packaged goods—everything from peanut butter, cookies, instant ramen, coffee creamer, and frozen dinners to makeup, body wash, toothpaste, laundry detergent, and deodorant to candles, cat food, baby formula, and so much more. It’s even used as a biofuel for diesel engines.The issue with palm oil isn’t necessarily how we use it but how we get it. That’s because the oil palm tree, a variety of palm that’s native to Central and West Africa, doesn’t grow everywhere. The opposite, actually—the tree will only grow well within five to ten degrees of the equator. That has led to slash-and-burn deforestation of rainforests in equatorial regions around the world, which are then converted to oil palm plantations.This process has been bad for biodiversity, putting entire ecosystems at risk. It’s also a one-two punch for climate change: The combustion involved in burning forests emits tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and as the wetlands they sit on are destroyed, the carbon they’ve been storing gets released too. In 2018, the devastation in Malaysia and Indonesia alone was bad enough to account for 1.4 percent of global emissions—more than the entire state of California and nearly as much as the aviation industry worldwide.Unfortunately, palm oil is hard to replace. It’s cheap, odorless, and abundant. While most plant oils are liquid at room temperature, palm oil is semi-solid, creamy, and easily spreadable. Since it acts as a natural preservative, it has an extremely long shelf-life. (It actually raises the melting point of ice cream.) It’s also the only plant oil with a near-equal balance of saturated and unsaturated fats, which is why it’s so versatile. If animal fat is the superstar of some meals, then palm oil is the team player that can work to make almost all foods—and non-edible goods—even better.For these reasons, companies like  are working hard on alternatives to palm oil. Since 2017, C16 (which I’m invested in) has been developing a product from a wild yeast microbe using a fermentation process that doesn’t produce any emissions. While it differs from conventional palm oil chemically, C16’s oil contains the same fatty acids, which means it can be used in the same applications. And it’s as “natural” as palm oil—it's just grown on fungi instead of trees. Like Savor’s, C16’s process is entirely agriculture-free; its “farm” is a lab in midtown Manhattan.The company’s consumer brand launched its first product last year. It plans to roll out more of its own products and work with existing brands—first in the beauty and personal care sectors and then in food—to replace the palm oil they’re currently using. Because fermentation is a relatively affordable, scalable, and quick process, especially compared to slash-and-burn deforestation, I’m betting that C16 will succeed.I hope they do. The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense. By harnessing proven technologies and processes, we get one step closer to achieving our climate goals.",
        "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/greasyand-good-planet-bill-gates-vrxmc"
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