Clean energy visionary Lei Zhang loves the Gobi Desert — the most Mars-like place on Earth. Why? Because of the promise it holds to provide the free, abundant solar and wind energy to fuel humanity’s next leap forward. Sharing the story behind one of the world’s largest green hydrogen projects, Zhang shows how Earth’s harshest landscapes could unlock more energy reserves than the world consumes today, and encourages us all to get a little more creative in how we think about the future.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Clean energy visionary Lei Zhang says clean energy is bringing about an age of possibility.
In this talk, he brings us to the Gobi Desert, a massive desert that stretches across northern China and southern Mongolia, where one of the world's largest green hydrogen projects can be found. He shares how this and other barren landscapes hold more energy reserves than the world consumes today and reminds us all to get a little more creative. Where others see emptiness, he sees abundance.
My favorite place is in the Mongolia Gobi Desert.
It's most Mars-like in the planet. Barren and empty. Wind blows all year round. Sandstorms happen often. In the winter, temperature is as low as minus 40 degrees. In the summer, it reaches 40 degrees. It's useless. but it's my most favorite place. I come to Gobi with a belief. I believe this could be the new space for our civilization.
When people see useless, barrenness, emptiness, I see abundance. Abundance? If you look at the Bering Desert, it is filled up with abundant renewable energy. The strong wind and the shining sun, they are infinite and never end. I found out the important equation between energy and our prosperities. Two thousand years before the Industrial Revolution, our global GDP only grew five times. Why?
Because we are only able to use five times energy. Natural energy, agriculture, then transferred to muscle power. Since the revolution, our global GDP expanded 100 times because we are using 100 times more energy. So abundant fossil fuel energy has been turned and created forces to drive the machines, created materials like steel, created fertilizer to improve the food production.
Today, it's even creating tremendous intelligence for humanity. So how can we unlock such a big potential from desert to push humanity to a next level of prosperity? Because when our solar radiation is able to meet our entire annual demand of energy, it is free and it is green. In front of Gobi, we have to solve three challenges.
The first one, how can we capture the rough and the raw wind energy? Just as steam engine is able to turn coal energy into motion, we end up with wind turbine to capture wind energy to turn into electricity. Most importantly, is to really design a wind turbine that is able to survive in extreme wind conditions in the desert.
Secondly, how can we avoid building long-distance or thousand-mile transmission lines, which are costly and extremely expensive? We end up with the largest off-grid renewable system by integrating wind turbine, solar panel storage with AI orchestrations. Okay, then the last remaining challenge. How can we utilize such abundant locally made electricity?
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