Bill Gates， Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

比尔·盖茨，比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会联合主席

Beating Nature at Its Own Game 世界首富与能源未来

The sun was out in full force the fall morning I arrived at Caltech to visit Professor Nate Lewis’s research laboratory. Temperatures in southern California had soared to 20 degrees above normal, prompting the National Weather Service to issue warnings for extreme fire danger and heat-related illnesses.

朝阳已喷薄而出，正释放出全部热力。在这样一个秋日的早晨，我到达了加州理工学院，参观内特·刘易斯教授的研究实验室。 南加州气温飙升，比正常温度高出了20度。这迫使国家气象局发出极端火灾预警，提醒民众注意与高温有关的疾病。

The weather was a fitting introduction to what I had come to see inside Nate’s lab—how we might be able to tap the sun’s tremendous energy to make fuels to power cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes.

天气成为我们在内特实验室内部寻访的再好不过的切入点 - 我们如何利用太阳的巨大能量来制造燃料，为汽车，卡车，轮船和飞机提供动力。

Stepping into the lab cluttered with computer screens, jars of chemicals, beakers, and other equipment, Nate handed me a pair of safety goggles and offered some advice for what I was about to see. “Everything we do is simple in the end, even though there’s lots of complicated stuff,” he said.

走进布满了电脑显示屏，化学品容器，烧杯和其他设备的实验室，纳特递给我一副安全护目镜，并对我想要了解的内容提出了一些建议。 “我们所做的一切最终都很简单，尽管过程中有很多复杂的东西，”他说。

What’s simple is the idea behind all of his team’s research: The sun is the most reliable, plentiful source of renewable energy we have. In fact, more energy from the sun hits the Earth in one hour than humans use in an entire year. If we can find cheap and efficient ways to tap just a fraction of its power, we will go a long way toward finding a clean, affordable, and reliable energy source for the future.

所谓简单是指他的团队研究背后的那个想法：太阳是我们拥有的最可靠，取之不尽的可再生能源。 事实上，地球在一个小时内接收到太阳的能量在比人类在一整年内消耗的能量还要多。 如果我们能找到廉价而有效的方法利用其能力的哪怕一小部分，我们将给未来寻找清洁，可负担和可靠的能源供给提供很大的帮助。

We are all familiar with solar panels, which convert sunlight into electricity. As solar panel costs continue to fall, it’s been encouraging to see how they are becoming a growing source of clean energy around the world. Of course, there’s one major challenge of solar power. The sun sets each night and there are cloudy days. That’s why we need to find efficient ways to store the energy from sunlight so it’s available on demand.

我们都熟悉太阳能电池板，它将阳光转换为电能。随着太阳能电池板的成本持续下降，当看到它们正在成为世界范围内不断增长的清洁能源的来源我们深受鼓舞。 当然，太阳能发电有一个主要的挑战。 每天晚上都会日落，云雨的日子也不少。这就是为什么我们需要找到有效的方法存储来自阳光的能量，以便按需取用。

Batteries are one solution. Even better would be a solar fuel. Fuels have a much higher energy density than batteries, making it far easier to use for storage and transportation. For example, one ton of gasoline stores the same amount of energy as 60 tons of batteries. That’s why, barring a major breakthrough in battery technology, it’s hard to imagine flying from Seattle to Tokyo on a plug-in airplane.

电池是一种解决方案，而太阳能燃料则是更棒的办法。 燃料的能量密度远高于电池，这使它易于存储和运输。 例如，一吨汽油储存的能量大约与60吨电池的相当。这就是为什么很难想象用充电飞机执行从西雅图飞往东京的飞行任务，除非电池科技取得重大突破。

I’ve written before about the need for an energy miracle to halt climate change and provide access to electricity to millions of the poorest families who live without it. Making solar fuel would be one of those miracles. It would solve the energy storage problem for when the sun isn’t shining. And it would provide an easy-to-use power source for our existing transportation infrastructure. We could continue to drive the cars we have now. Instead of running on fossil fuels from the ground, they would be powered by fuel made from sunlight. And because it wouldn’t contribute additional greenhouses gases to the atmosphere, it would be carbon neutral.

我曾经著文说，需要能源奇迹来阻止气候变化，同时为数百万生活在无电状态下的最贫困家庭提供电力接入。 制造太阳能燃料将是这些奇迹之一。 这将解决没有阳光时的能量存储问题。它将为我们现有的交通基础设施提供易用的能量来源。我们可以继续驾驶现在拥有的汽车。他们不是由地下的化石燃料驱动，而是由阳光生成的燃料提供动力。由于它不会向大气释放额外的温室气体，它又将是碳平衡的。

Imagining such a future is tantalizing. Realizing it will require a lot of hard work. No one knows if there’s a practical way to turn sunlight into fuel. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Energy, Nate and a group of other researchers around the U.S. are receiving research support to find out if it is possible.

想象这样的未来图景是诱人的。实现它则需要大量的辛勤工作。没人知道是否有一种将太阳光转化为燃料的切实可行的方法。多亏了美国能源部对于研究的支持，内特和美国各地的其他研究人员一道正在探索这是否可能？

We live in a time when new discoveries and innovations are so commonplace that it’s easy to take the cutting-edge research I saw at Caltech for granted. But most breakthroughs that improve our lives—from new health interventions to new clean energy ideas—get their start as government-sponsored research like Nate’s. If successful, that research leads to new innovations, that spawn new industries, that create new jobs, that spur economic growth. It’s impossible to overemphasize the importance of government support in this process. Without it, human progress would not come as far as it has.

我们生活在一个新发现和创新如此常见的时代，这很容易让大家以为我在加州理工学院看到的这些前沿研究是理所当然的。 但是，就像内特的项目一样，改善我们生活的大多数突破 - 从新的健康干预到新的清洁能源想法 - 都是从政府资助的研究开始的。 一旦成功，这项研究将带来新的创新，孕育新的行业，创造新的工作机会，刺激经济增长。在这个过程中不论如何强调政府支持的重要性都不为过。没有它，人类的进步不会达到目前这样的高度。

Nate and his team are still at the first stage of this process. But they have reason to be optimistic about what lies ahead. After all, turning sunlight into chemical energy is what plants do every day. Through the process of photosynthesis, plants combine sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to store solar energy in chemical bonds. At Nate’s lab, his team is working with the same ingredients. The difference is that they need to figure out how to do it even better and beat nature at its own game.

内特和他的团队仍然处于这个过程的第一阶段。 但他们有理由对未来前景保持乐观。 毕竟，植物每天都在把阳光转化为化学能。通过光合作用，植物将阳光，水份和二氧化碳结合在一起，将太阳能储存在化学键中。 在内特的实验室，他的团队正在使用相同的材料。不同的是，他们需要想办法做到青出于蓝而胜于蓝。

“We want to create a solar fuel inspired by what nature does, in the same way that man built aircraft inspired by birds that fly,” Nate said. “But you don’t build an airplane out of feathers. And we’re not going to build an artificial photosynthetic system out of chlorophylls and living systems, because we can do better than that.”

“我们创造太阳能燃料的想法受到了自然界启发，就像人们建造飞机的灵感来自于飞鸟，”内特说。 “但你不会用羽毛来建造飞机。我们不会用叶绿素和生物系统来建立人工光合系统，因为我们可以做得更好。

One of Nate’s students showed me how light can be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen—a critical first step in the path to solar fuels. The next step would involve combining hydrogen with carbon dioxide to make fuels. Using current technologies, however, it is too costly to produce a fuel from sunlight. To make it cheaper, much more research needs to be done to understand the materials and systems that could create a dependable source of solar fuel.

内特的一名学生向我展示了光是如何将水分解为氧气和氢气 - 通向太阳能燃料的关键的第一步。下一步将涉及氢气与二氧化碳组合以制备燃料。然而，使用当前科技，用阳光生成燃料太过昂贵。为了使它更便宜，需要做更多的研究，以便理解那些可以用来创造可靠的太阳能燃料来源的材料和系统。

One idea his team is working on is a kind of artificial turf made of plastic cells that could be easily rolled out to capture sunlight to make fuel. Each plastic cell would contain water, light absorbers, and a catalyst. The catalyst helps accelerate the chemical reactions so each cell can produce hydrogen or carbon-based fuels more efficiently. Unfortunately, the best catalysts are among the rarest and most expensive elements, like platinum. A key focus of Nate’s research is finding other catalysts that are not only effective and durable, but also economical.

他的团队正在努力的一个想法是用一种由塑料单元制成的人造草皮。它可以很容易地铺开来以便捕获阳光，制造燃料。每个塑料单元都含有水，阳光吸收剂和催化剂。催化剂有助于加速化学反应，这样每个单元可以更高效地产生氢或碳基燃料。不幸的是，最好的催化剂都是最稀有和最昂贵的元素，如铂。内特研究的一个重点就是寻找高效，耐用，而且具有经济性的替代催化剂。

Nate’s interest in clean energy research started during the oil crisis in the 1970s, when he waited for hours in gas lines with his dad. He says he knew then that he wanted to dedicate his life to energy research. Now, he is helping to train a new generation of scientists to help solve our world’s energy challenge. Seeing the number of young people working in Nate’s lab was inspiring. The pace of innovation for them is now much faster than ever before. “We do experiments now in a day that would once take a year or an entire Ph.D. thesis to do,” Nate said.

内特对清洁能源研究的兴趣始于20世纪70年代的石油危机期间。当时他和他的父亲在加油站排队等待了几个小时。 他说那是他就知道，他希望把自己的一生投入到能源研究。现在，他正在帮助训练新一代科学家，帮助解决世界能源挑战。看到内特实验室工作的年轻人的数量是鼓舞人心的。他们现在的创新步伐比以往任何时候都快。 “我们现在一天所做的实验以前需要一年时间完成或相当于整个博士学位期间的工作量“ 内特说。

Still, I believe we should be doing a lot more. We need thousands of scientists following all paths that might lead us to a clean energy future. That’s why a group of investors and I recently launched Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a fund that will invest more than $1 billion in scientific discoveries that have the potential to deliver cheap and reliable clean energy to the world.

不过，我相信我们应该做得更多。 我们需要数以千计的科学家沿着所有可能领导我们走向清洁能源未来的道路进行探索。 这就是一群投资者和我最近启动了“突破能源风险投资公司”（Breakthrough Energy Ventures）的原因。该基金将投资超过10亿美元用于那些有潜力向世界提供便宜，可靠的清洁能源的科学发现。

While we won’t be filling up our cars with solar fuels next week or next year, Nate’s team has already made valuable contributions to our understanding of how we might achieve this bold goal. With increased government and private sector support, we will make it possible for them to move ahead with their research at full speed.

我们还不能在下周或明年就用太阳能燃料加满我们的油箱，但内特的团队已经为我们理解如何实现这个大胆的目标做出了宝贵的贡献。随着政府和私营部门支持的不断增加，我们将创造条件让他们能够全速推进他们的研究。

This originally appeared on gatesnotes.com.

英文部分来自“Linkedin领英”。本译文是个人学习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝转载或用于任何商业用途。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。