I though Gates made a few bloopers, and the one you quote is one of them.<p>Solar power filling in the daytime energy peaks in places like Arizona is the low hanging fruit, something we can achieve with today&#x27;s technology and even today&#x27;s politics (mostly). It marks the point where, even without externalities priced correctly and fossil fuel subsidies not yet removed, where clean energy can get a foothold in the market and be installed even by people who do not care about climate change, just saving money. And it therefore supercharges the positive  feedback loop where more solar deployed makes the next panel cheaper.<p>Gates describes a world where people are complacent about this being an easy problem to solve, I see a world where powerful vested interests push the line of &quot;fuck it, its too late to do anything anyway, and solar is a communist scam that doesn&#x27;t work anyway&quot;.<p>He makes the same mistake about EV cars, undermining people&#x27;s enthusiasm because in many US states the power comes from coal. I assume anyone that brings that up and doesn&#x27;t immediately say &quot;of course the solution is to shut the coal stations, even just shifting to natural gas, never mind a mix of solar&#x2F;wind&#x2F;hydro&#x2F;nuclear&#x2F;gas, is a big improvement&quot; is part of the problem, not the solution. I&#x27;ll have to hope Gates was poorly quoted here as its such a poi tless gotcha.<p>He also mangles the negative pricing thing, which he should be celebrating as a valid price signal to encourage more flexible fossil fuel plants, storage and demand management.<p>All in all, I&#x27;m pretty disappointed, it feels like he&#x27;s been reading some biased sources and not seen through their spin. Which, considering he clearly understands there&#x27;s a problem here that needs solved, is a great shame.