WEBVTT - Solar Power: The Future or What? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.920 Hello, Maine and Greater New England. We're coming to see 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.520 you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:08.119 love to see you there. Yep. We'll be at the 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.280 State Theater on August. If you're interested. You can get 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:15.640 tickets and information at s y s K live dot com. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.440 There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:28.320 a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.400 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.400 Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. The sun is shining, 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.000 our collars are popped, tongues of our shoes are hanging out, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.400 and um, it smells really nice in here. That's right, 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.320 which must mean one thing. Chuck, It's time to talk 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:53.240 some stuff you should know? She is? Can I say that? Sure? 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:59.080 All right? Good? Well I just did, didn't you did? Uh? So? Uh? 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.720 We are at SLEE talking about solar power today, and 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.000 I'm a little psyched about this one because I was 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:09.840 putting this thing together over months. Dude, you would think 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.520 solar power is such a hot, sexy topic. You know 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.240 that there would be just reams and reams of just 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.760 stuff to research and there is, but it's all really 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.600 wonky and really technical, and there's a lot of stuff 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.600 that contradicts other stuff. And I get this feeling of 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:33.000 dread researching this, that the cheerleaders and champions of solar 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:39.319 power are losing their resolve to an extent. They'll still 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:41.480 sell you a solar panel, They'll still tell you a 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:43.920 solar is great, and I know that they truly believe that, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.199 but I think that they are worried that it's it's 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.360 not taking off like they expected it too. But then 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.880 let me just caveat that with one other thing, and 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:55.800 then we'll get started and I'll be quiet for the 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.120 rest of the podcast. If you look at the numbers 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:05.640 and the figures, solar has quietly um made a name 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.680 for itself and established itself, at least in the United States, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.480 to an astounding degree. So I'm not quite sure what 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.680 I'm picking up on when I get the sense that 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.200 they're worried, because if you look at it, it's actually 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.720 doing really, really well and growing all the time. Let's 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:28.239 discuss solar power. Yeah, power from the sun converted into electricity, right, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:34.240 so you can say screw you power company, yeah, or 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.400 pay me power company. You could say, take this power 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.440 bill and shove it. So the sun. Uh, this is 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.240 pretty neat here at the beginning of this that you 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.600 put together here, Um, the sun ray. The Sun's rays 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.959 give off about a thousand wats of energy per square meter. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.360 So if you pull the camera back a bit and 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.760 you look at Texas, let's say, a lot of sun 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.240 in Texas, a lot of land in Texas. There's a 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.239 lot of a lot of stuff from Texas. There really 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.480 is some stuff. No, that's true. I was gonna say 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:07.640 the good thing about Texas. You could completely cover it 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.079 with solar rays and no one but the people who 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.440 live in Texas would have a problem with it. Oh boy, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:19.120 oh boy, oh gear Goo Google. All right, Um, So 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.640 if you look at a mass land mass that's as 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.120 big as Texas, they receive a little under seven hundred 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.519 terra wats over the course of one hour on a 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:33.040 on a at noon on a sunny day. Seven terra wats. Yeah, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:34.800 it sounds like a lot, but is it a lot? 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.040 Who knows? Who could possibly know? If you want to 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.920 compare that, you're being coy uh. In that same hour, 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.200 the total amount of human mage energy energy production on 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.680 planet Earth. And this is all energy production that you 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.640 could possibly dream of is seventeen point seven terra watts 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.320 compared to seven hundred terra wats. That's forty times less 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:01.280 than what the sun delivered to Texas and in just 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.360 that hour. Yeah, right, And the Union of Concerned Scientists 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.600 happen in group who I love. Um, they say that 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.480 eighteen days of sunshine that hits across the entire Earth 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:17.600 contains the same amount of energy stored in the entirety 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.560 of the planet's reserves of coal, oil and natural gas. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.040 If you dug up and burned every bit of coal, 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.400 oil and natural gas, it would only produce as much 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.840 energy as eighteen days worth of global sunlight. That's astounding. Yeah, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.400 And these are you know, these are facts that have 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.720 fifty caveats beneath each of them, which we're going to 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.080 talk about. But it is a prime example, and I 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.080 think just a good way to kind of indicate just 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.919 how much energy potential energy there is coming from the 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.120 sun every day. Yeah, And just I mean to to 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.520 point out the obvious. The great thing about solar is 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:02.520 there is no greenhouse gas emissions when you use solar electricity. 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.760 It's just clean energy and it's free because it's from 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.360 the sun, that's right. And before you start typing, oh yeah, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.160 but what about you got a lot to make. These 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.360 things were made it to look on and then before 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:17.360 you do that, we're going to talk about all that stuff. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.360 But Josh very clearly said, once you have these things 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:26.560 set up, that's that's when the real benefit comes. Yes, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:28.880 And if I hadn't said it, I was going to 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.000 eventually well no, you basically said it, like you know, 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.080 when they're working, when they're active, they're not using fossil fuels. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.760 Thank you, Chuck. All right, so let's go back in 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.480 time a bit, because if you think solar power, you think, oh, well, 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.159 this stuff, you know, was invented in the nineteen seventies, 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.560 not so you have to go all the way back 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.279 to eighteen thirty nine, believe it or not. When a 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:59.000 French physicist name Alexandra Edmond, Uh, Josh says this back 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.520 quere I mean I practiced it a million times. Queriller, 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.040 I think be querillar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a tough word. 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.280 Yes it is. There's a couple of extra continants in that. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.120 It just shouldn't be there, that's right. So, uh, this 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.599 dude He's the one that first demonstrated the photo voltaic effect, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.640 which is basically the ability of a solar cell to 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.440 turn sun into electricity all the way back in right, 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.120 but no one knew exactly how this work. They just 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.200 knew that at work. He was burned at the stake 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:35.400 later on for his black magic. Right, So just about 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:40.040 forty about forty years later, there's a guy named Charles Fritz, 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.719 and he, in the eighteen eighties built the world's first 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:50.320 rooftop solar array. Coincidentally, just a year after Edison launched 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.839 the world's first coal fire power plant. UM. But this 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:59.560 early solar array was terribly inefficient. It didn't do very much. 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.600 It could bay basically power um. Jeez, I don't even 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.160 know what it could power a mouse trap? How about that, 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.600 which doesn't even need electricity. That's how little power that 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:15.120 this thing produced. Um. But it definitely demonstrated that it 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.880 was possible to generate an electrical current um from sunlight 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.520 in a way that it was a proof of concept, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.120 basically saying just give it like ninety years and we'll 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.840 understand this better. And who was that that was? Fritz? Ye, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.800 Fritz was a good guy, but he was no, Einstein, Uh, Einstein. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.640 It would take Einstein, that is, to really explain how 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.600 this all worked in nineteen o five, because he had 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:45.280 a knack for doing that. I'm not sure if people 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.560 realize that he was a good explainer, maybe the original explainer. 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:51.680 Well he would put it in terms that you could 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:56.600 really understand, like like consider the sandwich. Imagine the sandwich 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.320 is the sun, and then it just go from there 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.720 and you'd be like, you understand what he's saying. Yeah, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.520 And if you think, uh, Einstein, oh yeah, he won 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.120 a bunch of Nobel Prizes for relativity. Not so. He 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:13.040 won the Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining the photo 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:18.400 electric effect. He didn't win for relativity. No, I didn't 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.800 know that. Holy cow, what is unless I'm wrong? And 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:22.080 if i am, I'm gonna have a lot of egg 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.840 on my face. That's all right, Well we'll cook it 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:31.320 off with some good old solar electricity. Gross. It is gross, 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.280 but also so is the idea of cooked egg in 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:39.280 your beard. So Bell Labs in nineteen fifty four, if 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.800 you want to talk about the modern PV cell, that 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.040 was the and uh thanks to the US government really 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.080 in the US military, they funded a lot of this 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.280 early research, because if you've ever looked at a picture 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.920 of sky Lab or any of our great satellites, you'll 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:02.360 notice that they all have these big solar wings. Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.840 they're solar powered. And it was because of US government 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.800 research in the fifties that we were able to develop those. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:13.560 I think they launched the first solar powered satellite in 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:19.800 nineteen fifty four, no. Fifty eight, and then just six 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.840 years later they launched the first solar powered satellite whose 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.720 solar panels could track the Sun, which is still a 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.360 pretty whiz bang thing to have for your solar array. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.960 And this is nine sixty four. So the US government 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.640 invested in the earliest research and everything was going along 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.600 really smoothly. Um. But one of the things that's always 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.280 been a problem for solar is oil in natural gas 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.199 and coal are just so cheap, and our infrastructure is 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.040 set up to burn those things and get electricity for them. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.240 So solar has always been an upstart. But at one 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.480 point in nineteen seventy three, oil was not very cheap 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.880 all of a sudden because of the OPEC embargo that 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.120 created the energy crisis that made it really un cheap. 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.800 So much so that the United States looked around and said, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.959 we need to find other sources of energy, and they 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.920 really looked really hard at solar and it actually gave 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.439 solar technology a big old boost. Yeah, and that boost 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.520 came by way of offering tax credits for the first 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.559 time in the United States for businesses and residents. Said hey, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:28.040 if you want to put in solar power, and they 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.640 still do this today, we'll give you some tax credits. 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.240 It will make a lot cheaper for you. Um. There 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.600 has been I guess we could call it the the 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.760 solar Battle at the White House since nineteen seventy nine. 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.600 Jimmy Carter had very famously had solar panels installed on 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.000 the roof of the White House, uh to heat water 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.680 for for them and for the pools and for the 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.160 kitchen and stuff like that. And Uh, Reagan had them 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:57.040 taken down in eighties six. So there are a couple 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.720 of stories about how this went down. Um. The cynic 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.160 will say Reagan as a statement had them taken down 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.079 even though they were working fine, because he was all 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.640 for the fossil fuel industry and it was a very 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.280 symbolic gesture. Other people will say that's not what happened. 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:18.120 At all. The roof needed repair that the solar panels 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.360 were on, and they took down the solar panels to 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.360 repair the roof, and then the White House officially says 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:26.559 they did not put them back because it would be 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.480 very unwise based on cost. Is a direct quote. Uh 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.400 so that's you know, that's the party line right now. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.760 I've never heard that one. That sounds like a new 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.000 gingrich you are And if you ask me, well, that's 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:44.000 a direct quote. Um, George W. Bush put uh solar 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:49.400 power back into the White House. Say what what? Yeah? 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.320 I didn't know that. Yeah, he put solar for the 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.160 water heaters for the White House pool and then put 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.960 solar panels on top of the roof of the grounds 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.000 maintenance building to how out there. He did not have 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.679 them on top of the actual White House, but he 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.040 had solar solar power installed at various places around the 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.080 White House. This was w or h W. This is 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:15.120 w okay, Wow, that's really surprising. Yeah. Um. Carter's for 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.800 his part, one of his he has two on display. 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.240 One of them is at the Smithsonian and one of 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:21.880 them is right here in Atlanta at the Carter Center. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:23.720 You can go look at one of those solar panels. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.160 There's also like a Museum of Science in China that 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.760 got their hands on one. It's on display in China too. 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.440 Oh yeah, which makes sense because after after the U. S. 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.120 Government kind of turned its back on solar, China came 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.439 along and said, oh, we'll take that ball and ran 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.199 with it. Sure, going back to Reagan though he didn't. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.280 I don't want to let him up too easy with this. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:46.920 Um the fact that they just said it was unwise 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.040 based on costs because he gutted the Department of Energies 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:54.719 Renewable Energy research and Development budgets, like totally gutted him, 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.440 and he eliminated the tax breaks for wind and solar. Um. 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.920 I'm not sure for how long, but for a million years, 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.920 I would guess now, because they're back. Uh. And it 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.440 was Obama who came back and very publicly installed solar 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.840 panels back on the roof of the White House. And 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.280 of course the first thing I thought was that that 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.320 Trump probably went in there and smashed him with a 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.360 sledgehammer on his first day in office. But apparently they're 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.800 still there. They're still there, huh, still there and still working. 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.640 He didn't take them down. Wow, we so one of 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.280 the other things that UM the government did to help 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.920 solar along during the Carter era was to to offer 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.880 tax breaks, like you were saying, but because of the 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:41.959 really really high cost of installing a solar electric system, UM, 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.480 it was basically viewed as a sweetheart deal, tax break 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.720 for the rich. That's how the first solar tax credits 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:52.520 were viewed because solar was so expensive, so they were 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.040 a little bit before their time. But over the course 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.480 of those ensuing years from the early eighties on Moor 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.839 to today, a UM, because we've had breakthroughs and technology 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:09.280 UM of manufacturing, of creating new kinds of semiconductors, of 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.439 making traditional kinds more cheaply, the price of solar has 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.360 dropped eight percent in the past decade. Yeah, I mean 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.240 it's really to the point now where it's I mean 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:21.840 I looked at some of the prices and I was like, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.360 you know what, that's that's now I think fairly affordable 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.200 for for most kind of middle class Americans if they 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.560 want to put in solar power, because you know, eventually 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.760 it's going to pay for itself. That's the whole the 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.920 whole idea. Either you're either you're trying to pay this, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.400 you know, get cheaper bills and have it pay for 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.640 itself over the years, which is going to happen regardless, 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.720 or you're someone with some money that just wants to, um, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.200 do the right thing by the environment and get off 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:51.480 the grid as much as possible. Yeah, it's just that 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.760 upfront cost, not the cost over the life of the setup. 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.440 It's the upfront cost. But there are things like you 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:04.040 can there UM like energy saver, renewable energy, mortgages, home 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.920 loans basically you can take out they have UM really 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.520 special good financing and rates and stuff like that. Um, 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.080 there's a lot of things you can do that we'll 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.640 talk about to get around the upfront cost. But you 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.120 you hit the nail on the head, and it's really 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:22.520 worth saying again you can expect your solar um electrical 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.160 home system to pay for itself over the lifetime of 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.520 the setup. Yeah, and we'll talk more about price later, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.640 but just poking around like it's sort of an average 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:38.360 US household, you can plunk down about fifteen grand to 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:45.240 cover your electricity needs, which and that's I think after 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.440 the text credit if I'm not mistaken right, And again, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.400 you know, there are so many factors where you live, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.040 how much energy use, how big your house is, the 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.160 weather where you are. So this is a big, big 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.280 broad statement. But if you're just looking for a general range, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.880 it's not like it costs fifty or sixty dollars anymore 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.400 to do this, right, So you want to take a 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:07.280 you want to take a break and then come back 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.840 and talk about what actually is going on in those 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:40.520 solar cells. Let's do it, Chuck, okay, dude. So um, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.240 there are three ways as far as humans are aware 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.240 of right now, that you can get energy from the sun. 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.440 You can get it by converting it into electricity what 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.280 we're gonna talk about. Basically, you can turn it into 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.760 chemical energy, which is it's far out though, it's like 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:01.320 storing energy in the bonds of molecules, like through artificial photosynthesis. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.800 That's pretty cool. And then you can also convert it 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.720 into heat. But when you're talking about solar energy, most 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.760 people think of these solar into electricity, which is called 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.119 photovoltaic um energy, and that's basically what we're going to 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.199 be talking about. Yeah, Like when you drive to the 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.040 neighborhood and you see those shiny panels on a roof 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.800 and think, my god, those are ugly. That's true, man, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.720 it's true. We'll get to that too. Uh So, that's 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.440 what we're talking about. These photo voltaic cells. They are 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:38.800 made up of semiconductors, materials called semiconductors. And these days, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.080 and you know, we're talking a second about how this 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.280 might be changing in the future, but about all these 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:49.160 solar cells these days are using silicon as the semiconductor. Right. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.919 Silicon is a crystal, which means that it has a 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:57.920 really tight atomic composition. Right, it's not very it's extraordinarily 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:03.040 stable um, which is kind of a thing because you 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:08.720 want a somewhat unstable um arrangement of atoms or else 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:14.080 you won't get this electricity to work. But no, you can't. 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:19.359 But that's exactly right. The flow of electricity basically but 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.600 with um. The reason why they use silicon is because 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.120 it is a semiconductor, which means that it gives you 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.399 a large measure of control over where that electricity flows 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.360 and how it flows. So rather than just using pure silicon, 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.080 which um will will allow you to direct the control 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.119 of electricity but won't produce any electricity, they actually dope 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:45.600 it with other materials to produce two different types of 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:51.440 silicon film. UM, ND type and P type. That's right. So, uh, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.200 for the ND type, which is stands for negative, they're 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.160 gonna dope it. And I love that word in this 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.760 case with phosphorus that has five electrons, so it's gonna 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.120 bind to the silicon that has four electrons, and so 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.520 that leaves you I can even do this kind of 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:11.320 simple math with one free one extra electron leftover, just 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.520 dangling out there like it's wearing shorts that are way 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.120 too short. Yeah, it's looking for a place to go. Basically. Um, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.480 the way I sort of saw this was like a 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.639 couple of apartments next to each other. One has an 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.760 empty room and one has an extra roommate. Okay, that's 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.160 a great one. So the other type is this P type, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.119 the positive it's doped with boron has three electrons, and 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:34.920 so this is the other apartment. This is the one 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.160 it's gonna bind with silicon, and it leaves that unused 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.600 bond open. So that's where you have your extra space 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.280 where the electron can go. Right. So when you take 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.159 ND type silicon film and P type silicon film and 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.000 you put them up against one another, UM, you have 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:56.040 a situation where that extra electron wants to flow to 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.120 the other side and fill the unused bond, because again, 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.200 the universe is always moving towards homeostasis. Right. Yeah, that 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.159 roommates like, hey, you've got an next room, Can I 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.679 come crash in there? Yeah, And they say, wait, wait, 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.119 we need somebody to get you off of the couch. 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.520 And in this case, that somebody is sunlight, because sunlight 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.240 is made up of photons, which are energy carriers of 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:20.080 the electromagnetic spectrum. And when they hit this doped silicon, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.800 they come bursting into the room and they kick that 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.760 that lazy electron into the other apartment where there's an 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:32.120 open bedroom and everything is filled very nicely. That's right. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.320 So this electron flow, these electrons moving around and flowing 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:37.920 in this single direction. I think we said that yet 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:41.159 it only flows in one direction. Electricity does well, it 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.760 does in this one in this case. Yeah, that's the basis. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.959 This electron flow is the basis of electricity. And what 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.280 they do is they put these metal contacts on the 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.439 top and the bottom of the cell and then you 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.359 can direct that electron flow out of the cell to 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.640 be used as electricity in your home. Yeah, that's that's 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.480 the soul or cell and in a nutshell. And the 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:06.120 solar cell is the basic unit of the of what 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:07.840 you think of when you think of like a solar 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.600 panel or whatever, it's that one little square and that 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:14.239 square is connected to other squares um and and they 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:16.800 they form what's called a module. And when you put 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.119 like um a nice little uh frame around it and 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.639 put it on a stand or whatever, you have yourself 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.199 a solar panel. When you have a bunch of solar 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.040 panels together in a group, all working together, that's a 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.920 solar array. So technically, when you point at someone's roof 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.200 and you say, look at that solar panel, you're saying, 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.199 look at that solar array. And now you can correct 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.320 that person from the back seat and they'll make you 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.239 get out of the car. People say that, look at 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:46.560 that solar array, universe. I would think people would more say, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:51.240 look at those solar panels. Well, then that would make sense. 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:52.840 I had just set it up so it didn't make 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.720 any sense, so someone would swoop in incorrect. So the 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.879 person who knows what it's really called is around with 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.520 complete morons. We say things like look at that solar panel. 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.160 When they see a group of solar panels. All right, now, 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.160 I got you we're talking about right, all right, So 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.840 it's it's it sounds simple, and it is kind of simple, 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:17.040 and it's um complexity that makes no sense at all. 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.240 But it's a little more complicated because, like we said, 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.800 electricity in this case is only flowing in one direction, 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.439 which means it creates a direct current. And that's a 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:30.840 problem because uh we you know, if you we talked 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.400 about in the Bone Wars episode about the the uh 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.440 what they called not the power of Wars, the current 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.159 current wars, the War of current. That's right, d C 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:41.639 did not win. Um, So we have to convert that 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.080 d C current to a C current. So what the 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:48.560 solar panels need is something called an inverter. Yeah, and 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:50.840 the inverter is basically like the brains of the whole 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:53.520 set up. And there used to be a big problem 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:58.000 with inverters. Um. They were very clunky, and you would 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:03.359 basically have one inverter for an entire solar array, and um, 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.159 the solar inverter would would kind of modulate the amount 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.359 of electricity that was going through it out to the 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:12.400 house or the circuit panel, and it would base whatever 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:18.119 it was doing on whatever the lowest common denominator of 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.240 the whole array was giving it right. So if you 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:24.600 had one dirty solar cell, or there was a cloud 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.000 going over just one solar panel out of like twenty, 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:32.640 the inverter was basically delivering electricity based on that one 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:36.760 that one cloudy panel, or that one dirty cell. That's 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:41.360 not the case anymore, It really wasn't. The solar industry 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:43.480 wised up and they said, we can do better than this, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:45.919 and they came up with what are called micro inverters. 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.840 And now a micro inverter is responsible for um either 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.400 one panel or just a single cell, and so that 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:57.359