10th World Water Forum Keynote
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (2)
Transcript
0:14Elon MuskHello, everyone. Well, I must say I'm very impressed with this. This meeting room is amazing. I feel like I'm in a waterfall. It's really lovely here. And that was incredible, incredible performance.
0:26Elon MuskSo I must say I'm quite delighted to be here this morning talking to you and to experience this wonderful event and everything that Indonesia has to offer. It's amazing being here in Bali and Indonesia.
0:40Elon MuskSo. And hopefully everyone saw the mangrove forests because those are very impressive. It's several hundred thousand acres of, of mangroves that I think have been replanted, if I recall correctly.
0:56Elon MuskSo there are a lot of great things happening in Indonesia and the rest of the world. And overall, I would say I'm quite sort of optimistic for the future.
1:08Elon MuskI think the, you know, we should never be complacent or entitled, but I do think that if we are not complacent and entitled that the future will actually be great for the world.
1:18Elon MuskAnd I think we're headed to a bright future overall. So. And with respect to water, I've always thought we call Earth Earth, but actually earth is 70% water by surface area.
1:36Elon MuskSo technically, I think if aliens came here, and a lot of people think aliens have come here because they're always asking me, they're always asking me about aliens, they would name us water because we are 70% water and only 30% land.
1:54Elon MuskSo what that means is the potential for solving any given water issue is extremely good because there is so much water. There's obviously desalination required at times and the transport of water.
2:12Elon MuskBut desalination, as I think most people know, has become very inexpensive. And so really the availability of fresh water is simply about energy and transport. So that's when I talk to even very well read, very smart people in the United States, they will often think, well, the water crisis is unsolvable, but in fact it is very solvable.
2:41Elon MuskAnd we are continuing breakthroughs in the efficiency of desalination. And I think we've got a great water future ahead of us and I think a great sustainable energy future ahead of us.
3:00Elon MuskYes. So anyway, hopefully that is, I'm basically kicking things off on a positive note, but I think with good basis for doing so. Yeah, with that, I think the next section is really just some questions or Q and A if anyone would like to ask me anything about anything.
3:20Elon MuskI suppose we should generally stick to the topic of water, given that it's the water conference, but I'm happy to answer other questions as well. Not quite sure how the logistics of question posing works, but you Just say a question.
3:40Elon MuskSure.
3:51Elon MuskIf I heard correctly, what is the most important thing for solving the water crisis? Okay, well, the exact solution will vary depending upon country and even region within a country.
4:03Elon MuskBut the, as I mentioned, because the cost of desalination has dropped so much. If you're just talking about water for individual consumption or water in, say, a hydroponics facility, some kind of, you know, where you're not simply putting, putting it on the ground for crops, but actually have some sort of contained facility that minimizes the amount of evaporation, I think you can basically turn any part of the world green, including the entire world.
4:32Elon MuskSo it just begs the question of where does the energy come from? And here's where I think solar energy is very much underestimated in terms of its capability. So if you think about what would the Earth be without the sun?
4:50Elon MuskThe Earth would be a frozen dark ice ball at, at roughly 3 degrees above absolute zero. It would be quite unpleasant, so, you know, very cold and dark. But because of the sun, we're at quite a nice temperature, quite pleasant.
5:10Elon MuskSo roughly 300 degrees above absolute zero, and the sun powers almost the entire ecosystem. Is solar powered? When you say, like, well, how much electricity, how much land would it take to generate electricity?
5:27Elon MuskThere's a gigawatt per square kilometer of solar radiation that reaches the surface. So for every square kilometer, there's a peak power of roughly a gigawatt, which is comparable to a power station.
5:48Elon MuskThe sun doesn't shine all the time, obviously. So when you net all of that out and say, well, how much energy per day does 1 square kilometer yield? It's roughly 1 gigawatt hour per square kilometer per day, which is still a lot.
6:10Elon MuskAnd if you do the rough math, to power the United States, which is a heavy user of electricity, would only take. Would take less than a 200 kilometer by 200 kilometer solar array power, the entire United States.
6:25Elon MuskAnd if you drive through the United States, there's plenty of sections of, of the United States where there is basically no people. Or another way to think of it is a small section of the Sahara could power all of Europe or the world.
6:41Elon MuskNow, I'm not saying you would be so concentrated in the placement of solar power because it's better to be more distributed. But the sheer magnitude of solar power that is available is often not quite understood, but the math of it is very clear.
6:58Elon MuskSo I really would strongly recommend sort of a solar plus battery combination or wind plus solar can solve all of the world's energy needs by a lot.
7:29Elon MuskOf.
7:29ModeratorBecause.
7:34ModeratorThe interest of developing countries needs also R and D to reduce the price of desalination or desalinated cubic meter of water by 90%. Like what happened with the PV.
7:46ModeratorWho is going to support the R and D in this era? Not the developing countries, of course. How we are going to support the researchers.
7:57Elon MuskYeah. It's so something I would encourage everyone in the room to look at is, and you touched on that briefly, is that the cost of solar power has dropped dramatically over the years.
8:09Elon MuskSo if you were to, say, look at the cost of solar power five years ago or 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, it would have seemed cost prohibitive.
8:18Elon MuskBut the cost of solar power today is extremely low. And. And the cost of batteries to store the energy has also dropped dramatically. The cost of battery storage of electricity has dropped by a factor of 10 in the past five years.
8:38Elon MuskSo many of the studies that were done were done in times past when batteries were very expensive and solar power was very expensive. I would just encourage everyone to basically take another look at the cost of solar and the cost of batteries, and I think you'll find that you're pleasantly surprised.
9:02Elon MuskSo. All right, time to wrap it up. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Well, it's an honor to be here and thank you very much for listening to my words and I hope you have a fantastic conference.
9:18Elon MuskThank you. Thank you, Mr. Villamas. Please return to respective search.