tonight so make sure you join me. i'm don lemon, at the cnn headquarters. a gps road map for powering america begins next. >> welcome to global lessons, the gps road map for powering america. and a recent talk at the ted conference, bill gates let us in on a secret, if he could have anything, this is what the world's richest man wants, an energy source that is cheaper than coal and has zero carbon dioxide emissions. he said this would be the best thing for the human race more than anything he could imagine.

why does he say that? because he knows the world is going to consume a lot more energy ahead. overall we'll consume 50% more energy. why? well, americans and our suvs are partly to blame, but really, it's about the rise of the rest. the world will add 1 billion people over the next two decades. if these people in fast growing companies like china and india, have dreams like the american dream, houses, cars, tvs, big macs, and then as the "new york times"s columnist tom freedman says we will need another planet. today we power our lives with fossil fuels, oil, coal and natural gas provide 80% of our energy. but do we have enough energy to keep growing at this pace? and are we harming the ecosystem in which we live?

already sea levels are rising and scientists projections about climate change are becoming more alarming. that's why bill gates makes his wish for energy that is cheap and clean. in this article, a "time" magazine essay, we're going to see who's doing best at energy production around the world. we'll look at technologies of the future and best practices for today. we'll go to a country that gets 75% of its electricity from a source that emitts zero car bong dioxide and we'll introduce a new energy that's cheap, cleaner than coal and right in our own backyards. but we'll take you to a country that was almost totally dependent on oil ten years ago. now this nation is totally energy independent. how did they do it? let's find out.

in 1973, denmark was in big trouble. the yom kippur war led to an oil embargo and the days when most of europe was dependent on foreign energies. in america as well t 1970s brought a sense of crisis. >> i am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the united states. >> president jimmy carter encouraged conservation and installed solar panels on the roof of the white house. but those panels eventually came down and our resolve to go green faded. meanwhile denmark doubled down on green energy, and now, uncredibly, they are completely energy independent.

it helped greatly by discovering oil and gas in the sea. >> author of "that used to be us" tells the story of denmark in "hot, flat, and crowded". >> what was the striking thing about denmark? >> little denmark had produced a whole set of export industries around clean, renewable energy. >> after the oil crisis, the danish government subsidized renewable energy and levied big taxes on gasoline and fossil fuel. gasoline costs about $8 a gl listen these days. since 1973, denmark's economy has slightly outpaced the economies that now make up the euro zone. what you get is enormous innovation because you can sell -- once they do it for little denmark, they looked

around the world and said well, we can kill it in america and we can kill it in china and that's why two of the biggest energy companies in the world for wind and biofuels are danish. >> one danish company is the builder of almost 1/5 of the wind turbine capacity. investors produced green jobs before they were trendy. >> we learned that energy dependence is something you should take very, very seriously. >> the ceo notes that the danes get almost 30% of their electricity from the wind, more than any other developed nation. by 2020, they pledge to get half of their electricity from wind power and by 2050, they promise to be completely fossil fuel

free. >> it's not about what is possible from its ecological point of view, it's all down to leadership and determination. >> this is a sign of what's possible. a sleepy island between the north sae and the baltic sea where you might see as many cows as people. but don't let the rustic setting fool you, it's on the cutting edge of energy deficiencdeficie. all of its electricity comes from the wind and it actually has a negative carbon footprint. farmers like this are clean energy entrepreneurs. owning shares of the island's wind turbines. >> the wind turbines on the sea they produce 18 million kilo watt so that's the biggest export from the island.

>> the u.s. could be a wind power house too. think of those windy prairies in the great plains. >> when i discover that these resources are not being harvested, i really get amazed. because to me, that would be like going for instance to saudi arabia and not real forward. >> but despite it's potential, the concept of wind power isn't blowing everyone away. >> fundamentally, wind is still more expensive. >> denmark's author of "the skeptical environmentalist" says the dane's energy prices are the highest in the world. he also points out that vests has run into trouble, it also plans to cut out 4 million jobs in 2012. and wind power overall, he points out is still more expensive than the cheapest fossil fuels. >> as long as it's not competitive, i still think we should say let's invest more in getting the next generations of

wind turbines to be cheaper rather than putting up lots and lots of them that we know are inefficient right now. >> but people say that the only way you get the cost to go down is business deploying large amounts of -- >> another big challenge, storing wind power, to use when the wind isn't blowing. >> in fact all of the wind's capacity can store all of the energy demand according to bill gates. >> one company called better place already has charging stations all over denmark, connected to the grid, where you can swap out your dead battery for a live one in just minutes.

but with few electric cars on the road, that solution may take a while to catch on. denmark's wind driven approach to energy is compelling. but wind power can be intermittent, more expensive than fossil fuels and requires a big commitment. next we'll look at another carbon technology that has truly remarkable potential. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement.

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and stay asleep. so i wake up rested. [ male announcer ] unisom. fall asleep faster. sleep longer. take a look at the timer on your screen, when it reaches zero in 14 and a half seconds, the sun will have emitted enough energy to power the earth for an entire day. here's another way to look at it, we could power the entire world if we covered less than 3% of the sahara desert with solar panels. the power of the sun is truly remarkable. surprisingly, no country is better at harnessing that power than a cloudy and cold land, germany. how did that happen? we went there to shed some light on the subject.

may 25, 2012 was a historic day for germany and for the entire planet. at midday, solar panels in germany set a world record, supplying one-third of the nation's electricity demand. germany is certainly not known for its sunshine, yet the nation boasts 1/3 of the entire world's solar capacity. >> there's no other country in the world that comes anywhere close to that level. >> dr. thomas knife is the ceo of one of the world's leading energy companies, he says germany's -- due to the nuclear meltdown at chernobyl. >> i remember i was riding by bike as fast as i could and everyone told you don't get in the rain because there were toxic particles in it.

>> in the wake of the disaster, the. >> one of the key members for -- if you're a german homeowner with solar panels on your roof, you can feed your energy back into the great. >> was it after the feeding tariffs were active? >> they don't install solar systems all over the world, they install them because they give you a nice return on your investment. >> solar returns in new jersey has exploded 600,000. and even for some suburban

families. families like these who live outside of berlin. he gets about $3,000 every year for the energy that his rooftop panels feedback into the grid. in 7 years he'll have made enough money to cover the cost of buying the panels. after that, it's all profit. >> we were made a profit, but that's not the main reason, the main reason is that we are independent in the future from all these huge energy costs. >> as solar has become more and more popular in germany, the cost has plummeted and worldwiditis the same story. >> in the last 20 years, with double the capacity installed, the cost of solar has gone down 20%. and that has accelerated in the last two years. >> solar also has the advantage

of putting them where they're needed without having to lay power lines. but solar energy has its critics. >> germany is leading but it's not something they should be boastful about. >> other critics point out that solar energy still provides over 5% of germany's electricity and less than 1% of its total energy. remember that world record day i told you about when solar provided a third of germany's electricity? that was a very sunny day. solar is plamed for driving up energy for nonsolar customers. the problem is to do all these things, you need subsidies, you need taxes. some say this is going to produce lots of distortions and efficiencies. >> let's get rid of it all, let's get rid of all the subsidies for goal and for nuclear. >> still even in freen friendly

germany, solar subsidies have caused a political backlash. the main solar subsidy is gradually being phased out. some german solar companies have run into trouble in recent years, filing for bankruptcy. >> quite frankly there is not a single company that is making decent profits right now. >> one reason, chinese solar companies are major supplying the market with cheaper panels. and even some of them are taking big losses. >> china has made so lar losses. the fact is germany's actually using now so many solar energy. >> the potential for solar energy is huge, but it is still

expensive, limited in scale and like wind, you still need some way to store it when the sun isn't shining, what about nuclear power? doesn't it solve all these problems? next we'll visit a country that gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear and it's never had a major accident. now, that's what i call a test drive.

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we have looked at wind and sew lar energy. one country turned to nuclear energy before the 1973 oil crisis awakened the world. today, france generates 75% of its electricity by splitting apart atoms and it's no coincidence that france has cheap electricity, and as you'll see, the french are apparently so powerful they even recycle their nuclear waste. on august 6, 1945, the world was changed by a little boy, that was the code name for the first ever atomic bomb dropped on hiroshima. out of this terrible tragedy, an industry sprung up, one that has been surrounded in mystery and conflict. >> around nuclear, there is ideology and i would say even

religionings and there is a feeling that there is few people which are dealing with the life of the humanity. >> the head of generation and engineer for electricity to france, the state owned utility company thanks to nuclear energy, france makes $3 billion every year as the world's largest net exporter of electricity. >> the mass way of producing electricity. here in a traditional french town on the coast, here energy seems to be a part of life. that's just the way things are says this retired roofer. >> there are people who don't like it, it's great.

without them here, we would be dead. >> dead because the nuclear sector is the biggest employer here. it may be old france, but this town also represents the future for nuclear power. this is the site for the epr, the european pressurized reactor. a third generation reactor that edf says will be more powerful and safer than old models. >> we included a lot of new devices which came from feedback from the chernobyl accident and the fukushima accident. >> but the construction of this rethought reactor is running four years behind schedule and is set to cost almost twice it's original budget and contrary to popular opinion, it is that cost problem not safety that is at

the heart of the nuclear issue says "new york times" columnist tom freedman. >> there are a lot of people in the nuclear industry that look at nuclear with suspicion. >> if you want to build a one gig watt nuclear plant, it's at least a $10 billion proposition. that's really why it hasn't gone ahead. that said, i don't see how we could scale without a nuclear component in the mix. i think we have done it cleanly and safely so i am p not an appropriate of nuclear energy. the day to day operating costs are low and the french have extremely low up front costs. >> the key of the cost in industry is standardization. the edf program has been built at half the cost of the germany

juan and a third of the cost of the japanese one. >> the industry has used historically -- where we store our nuclear waste, france recycles it. >> once the spins rods are spent, it is unloaded and cooled. >> all of france's used fuel ends up in pools like this. >> 96% of fuel is recyclable. >> about 17% of the earth's electricity comes from reused

nuclear fuel. >> having only absorbed .005 the amount of radiation of a transatlantic flight, jordan makes it to the storage hole. >> i wish we didn't have to have nuclear, in an ideal world i would love to replace it with full renewable. >> but shutting down is exactly what the new french administration has talked about doing. >> the socialist president says

he's going to reduce the amount of nuclear from 15%. one of france's reactors is said to be -- >> if there's a future for nuclear power, there are promising new technologies that might do much better than the french model with the exception of cost and waste. but they're still on the drawing board. coming up next, we'll explore what is the biggest energy revolution right now, and it's happening right here at home. we'll be right back.

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we have tramed the world to see how other countries have focused on wind, solar and nuclear power. currently all those forms of energy have up sides and down sides. but what if we could innovate our world to a more effective energy technology right here at home. we may already have done that. down in louisiana off the gulf of mexico, something strange is happening. a few years ago as american natural gas supplies were

dwindling, a company built a facility to import liquid natural gas from other countries. now it's converting the facility to export gas. so you build this to export natural gas. >> a funny thing happens. >> in the next few years. >> it wasn't so funny. >> it wasn't funny for the ceo of shanier energy. the low levels of natural gas production in america suddenly gave way to a boom, that's because of shale gas. shale gas is -- hydraulic fracturing or fracing.

>> here's the kicker, when you burn natural gas to produce energy, it emitts roughly half as much greenhouse gas as coal. >> natural gas is the perfect complement to wind and solar. not only does it emitt half as much co 2rks as coal, but you can turn it on and off when the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing. but we can make tremendous inroads to reducing our carbon emissions. >> in 2011, greenhouse gas emissions in the u.s. were 9% lower than 2007 levels. one reason was that demand for transportation fuel was down,

but another major force according to the government was our switch from coal to natural gas. in 2000, natural gas accounted for only 22% of the electricity we get from fossil fuels. compared to 73% for coal. through july of 2012, it accounted for 46% and coal was down to 53%. that dramatic switch didn't happen because of our suddenly greener outlook on life. the main reason it happened is because natural gas now costs about the same as coal. fracing shows us that if we get the price below coal, everyone will adopt it, you will get a dramatic shift, you will get reductions in co2 emissions and you'll get cheaper prices. >> but there are definitely some downsides to shale gas and plenty of controversy. here's how fracing works,

millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals is shot down a well as deep as 10,000 feet below ground. the water hits the shale with a lot of pressure causing it to fracture and release natural gas back up the well. >> what you do with that water afterwards is very important. can you treat it, clean it again and reuse it? do you leave it in pools lying around? do you inject it into the ground in a way that can cause earthquakes which is a real problem or seep into automatqui. >> the oscar nominated dock numt try gas land famously portrayed how leaked gas caused people's water supplies to become flammable. many of these -- sometimes the gas that has ended up in people's water pipes comes from

wells that they dug in their back yars. this is an industry that needs regulation. >> i think it's very important that we get a grand bargain between the environmental community and the natural gas industry that says we're going to do this right, it's in the huge interest of natural gas industry, because if i turn on my tap and a flame comes out or i got natural gas coming up my toilet, they will shut this industry down. >> that will be a shame for our economy. shale gas is cheap energy and cheap energy fuels growth, from lowering heating bills to making things. and think about how cheap natural gas could lower car gbo

emissions in china and india where they are building five coal fire plants a week. >> what really matters is what china and india does. and they want more energy and they want it cheaper. so what we have to make sure is that we focus on innovation to make green energy sources so cheap they will switch. we have shown the way through the fracing of gas, we have gone further, we need to make green energy even cheaper. once they become cheaper than fossil fuels, everyone will buy them. >> once there's a natural gas terminal up and running, they'll be able to ship to china and india for a good profit and create jobs here at home. we have showed you many different approaches to energy this in this hour, but we are saving the best for last.

we'll show you what is the greenest, safest and most profitable form of energy. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva helps control my copd symptoms by keeping my airways open for 24 hours. plus, it reduces copd flare-ups. spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled copd maintenance treatment that does both. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, vision changes or eye pain, or problems passing urine. other side effects include dry mouth and constipation. nothing can reverse copd. spiriva helps me breathe better.

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here's what's happening right now, the main suspect in a mass shooting today is dead. police in brookfield, wisconsin say in man -- witnesses say the

gunman walked inside at opening time and shot seven people. three of them died. the numbers continue to rise in the meningitis functional outbreak. 23 people are now tied to the outbreak. there are 285 total cases including three total infections. most people got sick after using steroidal injections for back and neck pain. george mcgovern has died. he was elected to the house in the 1950s and then to the senate in the 1960s. he lost through richard nixon, george mcgovern was 90. i'm don lemon keeping you informed. cnn, the most trusted name in news.

we have explored a number of ways to create cheaper, greener energy, but experts often cite a fifth fuel as being just as important. efficiency. what if we could get more mileage, more bang for our buck, for every kilo watt of energy we used? one man shows us how we can save energy and money all from his banaa farm. welcome to the jungle. but we're not in the tropics, we're more than 1,000 miles north in the rocky mountains of western colorado. >> we have a tropical jungle in the middle that's just hatched his 43rdman banana crop. >> here near aspen, physicist

and environmentalist avery lemons cure rates tropical flora and fawna. this jungle is a sort of green house that acts as a furnace, for the 4,200 square feet home using integrated design concepts, it lets light in, stores heat and captures seven kinds of energy. >> heat, light, hot water, hot air, photo sen phthisis and the pure distilled water and the energy it took to evaporate it. >> there's no heating system in the house and yet crops sprout here even during the winter solstice. >> it's really fun to sit here when it's blizzarding outside and munch on tropical future and know you're not burning any remains of prime evil swamp

goop. >> he sells back any excess to the grid. fully charged batteries serve as backup in case the grid goes down. >> he knows that most people won't build homes like his, but he insists we can start to save the earth and save money just by being a little more efficient in our energy use. >> the u.s. could get completely off oil and coal. and eliminate nuclear energy as well and use a third less natural gas. $5 trillion cheaper than business as usual. not counting any costs like hydrocarbon emissions. >> henry lovens in the rocky mountain institute lay out a blueprint for how the u.s. can achieve that goal and he says there is no need for government intervention. because businesses would lead the effort and profit from doing it.

>> we found this would require no new investigations and no act of congress because it could be led by business for profit, the $5 trillion on the table is ample inducement. >> for example we can save money by putting our gas guzzlers on a diet. >> over the past quarter century, they have gained weight twice as fast as we have. 2/3 of the energy it takes to move a typical car is caused by its weight. >> trains planes and automobiles burn over 13 billion barrels of oil every day in the united states. and we spend over a billion dollars per day buying that oil, almost half of which comes from foreign countries, some of whom are considered national security problems. >> weaning ourselves off oil saves about $4 trillion net present value. that money then stays at home.

>> so lovens reasons what if we save more fuel getting gas to the wheels. he says by buying hide doe cars. it will be made of carbon fiber parts like this one. >> here's my carbon cap. it's made by a piece of carbon composite. >> you took a sledgehammer to it? >> yes. >> why? >> i wanted to see if it could actually hold up to a car accident. >> freedman's attempts to whack and demolish the parts were unsuccessful and he believes that the hydrocarbon is light enough to revolutionize the hydrocarbon industry. >> this is a light weight seat

frame. >> is taking that bet, manufacturing the type of carbon fiber parts that would ultimately be used in a hide droe carbon car. >> your cars not only are going to be lighter, they also will be safer. >> if hypocars sound like science fiction to you, volkswagen and bmw will start producing their kinds of cars next year. if america's 120 million buildings were a country, they would use more energy than every country in the world except for the united states and china. a lot of that comes from densely populated cities like new york where lovens have retrofit the empire state building. >> we were able to get the 6,514 windows remanufactured on site into superwindows that let light through to block heat and then

combining that with better lights and office equipment and so on, cut the maximum cooling load by a third. >> and all that energy savings also saved over $17 million. so no matter what your values are, emery lovens argues energy efficiency is simply a good deal. >> whether you care about profits and jobs or about national security, you don't need to believe the climate science, let's just focus on outcomes not motives and then we can turn gridlock and conflict into a unified solution to our energy challenge. >> we can't all turn our living rooms into tropical oasises. big business can make big profits, after all saving energy saves money that goes straight to the bottom line. consider the impact that just two steps could have. one move over to energy

efficient bulbs and appliances. a 1.8% reduction in our residential electricity use can save $40 billion annually. two, maximize energy efficiency in the industrial center. a 2009 mckinz si and company report says that an up front investment of $103 billion could -- between 2009 and 2020. overall mckenzie estimates that the united states can safe $130 billion annually and $1.2 trillion by 2020 just by maximizing efficiency. up next more of my thoughts on the whole energy debate. ♪ well, he's not very handsome ♪ to look at [ sighs ] ♪ oh, he's shaggy

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we cannot live without energy, it is what makes the modern world possible. for most of history, our only energy source was our labor and that of animals. that isn't enough. one example, a car uses the energy equivalent of the labor of 2,000 humans. another is a jet plane, it uses the energy equivalent of 700,000 humans. so the first thing to admit is that we need lots of energy. the second is to realize that for the foreseeable future, we will be dependent on fossil fuels. in 2010, the u.s. got 83% of its energy from fossil fuels. in 2035, despite great increases in efficiency, the u.s. government says we will still get 77% of our energy from fossil fuels. that leads to a few conclusions.

we need more renewable energy. today renewable energy gives us 10% of our electricity. by 2035. that will rise to 16%. we should try to move towards it faster. but even if we were to succeed, we could still need to use fossil fuels for the majority of our energy needs. governments around the world, including the united states have provied enormous health to the fossil fuel industry. ma in many ways from building out the infrastructure it needs even fracing was developed by the department of energy. it's sufficient to say that the government should provide some support to the technologies of the future as well. that support should mainly go towards research that would lead to technological breakthroughs, but we should also help these

industries wind and solar to achieve scale just as we helped the computer industries in the 1950s and 1960s. but having done all of that, it's clear we will still need fossil fuels for our energy for decades to come. that means choosing among them. and when natural gas replaces coal, you end up with a win/win. it emitts half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal. the conversation about fracing could not take place without considering what would happen if we did not get that energy from shale gas, we would get it from coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel in existence. we were all expecting a technological revolution in energy now. but not from renewables yet, but from the extraction of hiydrhyd

dons. fracing needs regulation, but we should also recognize that this might be the rich fuel that will get us to our goal, cheap energy emissions. there's one area where we should all be able to agree, energy efficiency, it's a no-brainer, it saves money and it involves no real sacrifice, when you go to a hotel in europe, chances are that as you leave the room and take the hotel key out of its slot, the light will go out. why can't we standardize that practice everywhere. an energy revolution would be great for the environment, but it would also be great for economic growth. energy permeates every aspect of our lives, even more so than something like information technology and you can see what a huge impact the information revolution has had on economic growth. an energy revolution would be the next big thing