Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. It is time for
Speaker 1: a classic episode. This episode originally published on October two.
Speaker 1: It is titled tech Stuff Shines Light on Solar Panels.
Speaker 1: So we get down to the technology of solar power
Speaker 1: and how it all works. And you know, whether or
Speaker 1: not it makes sense. It doesn't make sense for everybody,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, But let's listen in on this
Speaker 1: classic episode. You know what, it's been a while since
Speaker 1: we've done an episode about solar panels. Yeah, since August
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, I believe, in fact, back when Chris
Speaker 1: Paulette was on the show. Yep. So we did an
Speaker 1: episode back then and we thought we would update it.
Speaker 1: So here's the update. We're going to start off with
Speaker 1: a little bit of background on how all those solar
Speaker 1: panels actually work. Your basic solar panels tend to be
Speaker 1: made out of silicon and then dope silicon, dope impure,
Speaker 1: purposefully impure silicon. Right, that silicon is dope you so, uh,
Speaker 1: And there's another. Oh, I got the hands over the
Speaker 1: face this time, guys. Awesome, that's a that's a pure wind. No, okay,
Speaker 1: So silicon. The reason why we're using silicon in solar
Speaker 1: panels is that, you know, if you remember your illustrations
Speaker 1: of atoms, they have the electron shells on the outside
Speaker 1: of the atom, and those electron shells can hold a
Speaker 1: certain number of electrons depending upon what which energy shell
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Now, silicon has some free electrons in
Speaker 1: its outermost shell, meaning that not every single space that
Speaker 1: can hold an electron has an electron. And when I
Speaker 1: say space, I just mean the number of electrons that
Speaker 1: can inhabit at outer shell. Since they're they are free,
Speaker 1: then silicon can bond with something else, like other silicon atoms.
Speaker 1: So if you can have it bond with lots of
Speaker 1: silicon atoms, you then create a silicon crystal. If you
Speaker 1: then bombard this silicon crystal that has been doped in
Speaker 1: various ways, either with ions that have a negative charge
Speaker 1: or ions to have a positive charge, you can then
Speaker 1: induce electrons to flow. Now, in our article on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com about how solar panels work, there's
Speaker 1: an healthful analogy there, right, it's about uh kind of
Speaker 1: talking about hills, right. It's saying that essentially when when
Speaker 1: you create when you create one of these cells with
Speaker 1: a with the negative side and a positive side, it's
Speaker 1: going to create an electron flow that's downhill, right, Meaning
Speaker 1: that like if you were to have a rock and
Speaker 1: you pushed it down the hill, it would roll down
Speaker 1: the hill, but it wouldn't roll back up the hill.
Speaker 1: There there'd be that blocking mechanism to keep it from
Speaker 1: going up the hill. Uh. In the case of silicon
Speaker 1: based solar cells, the photon is kind of that initial
Speaker 1: push that gets the rock rolling. So if the photon
Speaker 1: is strong enough to push the rock and get it moving,
Speaker 1: everything's cool. You're actually you're gathering energy through solar power.
Speaker 1: So the photon hits the silicon crystals that are doped
Speaker 1: so that you're it's not just a pure silicon crystal
Speaker 1: all the way through. That gives energy to allow electrons
Speaker 1: to break clear of what is called the band gap.
Speaker 1: That allows the electrons to break free of their bonds
Speaker 1: and flow through a pathway. Now they want to get
Speaker 1: to the negatively charged electrons, want to get to a
Speaker 1: more positively charged environment. But if you have a barrier
Speaker 1: there so that they can't just crossover, they you know,
Speaker 1: you get this potential energy, but you don't have any
Speaker 1: real energy. But if you make a pathway from negative
Speaker 1: to positive, then the electrons will travel that pathway to
Speaker 1: get to that positive site because that's really where they
Speaker 1: want to be. That's that's the awesome place for them.
Speaker 1: And if you make them do work along the way,
Speaker 1: you get a benefit from it. So like that work
Speaker 1: might be lighting a light bulb, or it might be
Speaker 1: opening the doors on the enterprise. I've been reading a
Speaker 1: lot about star Trek recently. Um anyway, the work could
Speaker 1: be whatever you could imagine an electronic circuit, and the
Speaker 1: electrons are going to go and do it because it
Speaker 1: means they get to be on the positive party on
Speaker 1: the other side. It's just like b if you tell
Speaker 1: me there's a positive party on the other side, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to do a lot of work to get there.
Speaker 1: I'm not on a lot of lists anyway. So this
Speaker 1: is the basic premise of a solar panel. You have
Speaker 1: the photons providing the initial energy. Now, not all photons
Speaker 1: are created equally. We have lots of different frequencies of light. Right,
Speaker 1: And so some photons have a really low amount of
Speaker 1: energy and are only going to be able to excite
Speaker 1: certain types of electron. Maybe maybe they can excite an electron.
Speaker 1: If they don't have enough energy to equal what that
Speaker 1: band gap energy is, then they're not going to have
Speaker 1: the push needed to get the electron to break free.
Speaker 1: They might in fact flow right past that electron, which
Speaker 1: will come in handy later on. Um. But but high energy,
Speaker 1: high energy photons can either at a certain point, no
Speaker 1: matter how much energy it has, you can't. You're you're
Speaker 1: gonna lose a little bit if if it's got more
Speaker 1: than it needs, right. Yeah. So for example, the example
Speaker 1: I used in the old podcast, if you want to
Speaker 1: go back and listen to that, is that let's say
Speaker 1: that I'm capable of lifting a hundred ten pounds. I'm
Speaker 1: actually able to lift more than that just then, you know,
Speaker 1: but for the purposes of this example, pounds of my limit.
Speaker 1: If you if you put a hundred pound weight in
Speaker 1: front of me, no problem, I can lift it up.
Speaker 1: You put to one pound weights in front of me,
Speaker 1: I can lift one or the other, but not both
Speaker 1: at the same time. However, you know, you sit there,
Speaker 1: and you look at that from an energy perspective. I'm
Speaker 1: capable of lifting a hundred ten pounds. I lift a
Speaker 1: hundred pound weight. That means ten pounds of my lifting
Speaker 1: power are going to waste. I can't it's not being utilized.
Speaker 1: I'm not capturing it in some useful way. And in
Speaker 1: the case of traditional photovoltaics, if Jonathan were that photon
Speaker 1: and you put to fifty pound weights in front of him,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be able to lift them both, only one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have to that. This is where we're starting
Speaker 1: to get into some of the challenges that we face
Speaker 1: with solar power. The big one there is efficiency. Maximizing
Speaker 1: efficiency in solar panels is no easy task, and in
Speaker 1: fact it's something that we've seen. If you were to
Speaker 1: look at it from a big picture perspective, it looks
Speaker 1: like really minor increases over the last couple of decades,
Speaker 1: but in fact, every tiny increase means that you get
Speaker 1: quite a bit of return on your investment, simply because
Speaker 1: when we're talking about solar panels, were usually talking about
Speaker 1: big arrays of solar panels, where a little improvement means
Speaker 1: a lot of output in the in the long run,
Speaker 1: and they've been so inefficient. Uh, you know, generally about
Speaker 1: five of the potential energy of the sun is captured
Speaker 1: by them. In fact, according to some sources, your typical
Speaker 1: commercial solar cell will get you about nine return. So
Speaker 1: of all the potential energy you could be gathered based
Speaker 1: upon the photons that hit that panel is what you're
Speaker 1: actually capitalizing on. Right, the theoretical maximum for silicon wave
Speaker 1: for cells is about fifty percent efficiency, right, we just
Speaker 1: don't get there. In fact, the current world world record
Speaker 1: in a lab is only forty four point seven percent efficiency,
Speaker 1: reached just this year by German and French researchers with
Speaker 1: a four junction cell. And more on multijunction cells later
Speaker 1: on in the podcast. But that's but that's an elaborator lab,
Speaker 1: which means it's not it's not sunlight that you're doing.
Speaker 1: You're bombarding that with specific kinds of light to check
Speaker 1: on its on its efficiency levels when you get into
Speaker 1: the field. Sometimes literally in the field, it's much lower.
Speaker 1: In a field. Well, you know, in my mind, there's
Speaker 1: there's one field and everything else is just a pathetic
Speaker 1: copy field of dreams. What's I'm not sure what I
Speaker 1: built it they came, that's all I'm saying. So then yeah,
Speaker 1: that so we're talking about really low efficiencies when it
Speaker 1: comes to how much energy is hitting it versus how
Speaker 1: much you are actually gathering. On top of that, you
Speaker 1: have to talk about the actual financial cost of solar cells. Right.
Speaker 1: They're traditionally pretty expensive. And I think that you and
Speaker 1: I both managed to compile completely different figures because there's
Speaker 1: there's a few different ways that people talk about the
Speaker 1: cost of solar panels. You've got the pure manufacturing before
Speaker 1: they go into use, and then you've got the installation costs,
Speaker 1: and then you've got maintenance costs. Yeah, there's there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different costs associated with it. I was
Speaker 1: going from a report that m I T created about
Speaker 1: some improvements that people at m I T had made
Speaker 1: to solar panels, and that report they said that solar
Speaker 1: panels cost about seventy five cents per what of energy
Speaker 1: UH and that in order to be UH to be
Speaker 1: competitive against fossil fuels, it need to be closer to
Speaker 1: fifty cents per what. Now, that's just one method of
Speaker 1: figuring out the expense. And and in fact, the report
Speaker 1: did not say, like what which factors they took into account,
Speaker 1: whether that also includes installation in there and maintenance as well,
Speaker 1: or if that was purely from a manufacturing standpoint, The
Speaker 1: point being that creating silicon based solar panels is not cheap.
Speaker 1: It's getting less expensive over time. We're seeing improvements definitely.
Speaker 1: So some numbers that I was saying, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the pure manufacturing is of two thousand nine being over
Speaker 1: a dollar per what um as maybe fifty cents per
Speaker 1: what So, then you've got a and moving moving towards
Speaker 1: to something like thirty six cents per what right, And
Speaker 1: we're also going to talk about some alternatives that might
Speaker 1: get that even lower. But we're seeing we're seeing the
Speaker 1: cost of solar panels drop year over year, and that's
Speaker 1: that's because of a lot of different factors. One is
Speaker 1: that the materials are getting less expensive, We're getting better
Speaker 1: at making them, We're getting better and making them with
Speaker 1: cheaper material reels, we're getting better at installing them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's become more business as usual, and so more companies
Speaker 1: are more used to installing these for people. Therefore, you know,
Speaker 1: we have people with expertise in the field now that
Speaker 1: we didn't have five years ago because it was really new,
Speaker 1: and the manufacturing processes have become more streamlined over time.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of the same with what we saw
Speaker 1: with the computer industry and microprocessors initially. When you when
Speaker 1: a new microprocessor hits the market, it tends to be
Speaker 1: really expensive. And part of that is because the manufacturing
Speaker 1: cost to create something brand new that has a brand
Speaker 1: new architecture, it's using super sophisticated electronics that you know,
Speaker 1: to pay off for that, you have to have a
Speaker 1: pretty high price on your product. But as you get
Speaker 1: more money, you can invest more in the manufacturing process,
Speaker 1: make things more streamlined, you increase efficiency on the back end.
Speaker 1: That means that you have lower costs, so then you
Speaker 1: can actually lower the cost of the final product. Same
Speaker 1: thing we're seeing in the solar panel industry. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I did want to put in that those numbers. If
Speaker 1: you have yourself installed any kind of solar panels, you
Speaker 1: are saying a dollar per what I wish um. And
Speaker 1: that's because for private use installation costs will cost anywhere
Speaker 1: from like three to six bucks these days, and per
Speaker 1: per what right, And and that's um, that's a huge
Speaker 1: improvement over the eight to ten that it was a
Speaker 1: few years back, but in fact I remember seeing one
Speaker 1: report and it was based out of the UK, which
Speaker 1: is already kind of interesting because the UK is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the ideal spot to have solar panels. They don't
Speaker 1: have as much it's a little bit cloudier in general,
Speaker 1: they can get a lot a lot of cloud cover,
Speaker 1: just that's the climate in that region of the world.
Speaker 1: But the report found that after about seven years of use,
Speaker 1: the first seven years, you would essentially be offsetting that
Speaker 1: cost of installation. After the seven years, you would essentially
Speaker 1: have recaptured those costs, and apart from maintenance fees for
Speaker 1: whatever purposes you would need, your energy production at that
Speaker 1: point forward would be free. So you would then you know,
Speaker 1: be be at a surplus, which is fantastic and the
Speaker 1: same thing is generally true throughout the world. Um And
Speaker 1: as we see these costs go down, both installation manufacturing,
Speaker 1: both all of the cost installation manufacturing and maintenance going down,
Speaker 1: then that will mean you don't have to wait as
Speaker 1: long for this investment to pay off. Part of this
Speaker 1: is depending on the market. Currently there is more supply
Speaker 1: than there is demand for photovote takes and that's only
Speaker 1: because it has been so expensive, and so I think
Speaker 1: that as this price comes down, it's going to be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how the market adjusts and whether we're
Speaker 1: going to see a flattening a plateau prices or or
Speaker 1: what's going to go on. And also, I mean this
Speaker 1: also has to do with rare and toxic materials, which
Speaker 1: you know, rare earth metals are a big component and
Speaker 1: component and China is the chief producer of rare earth metals.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that in a previous episode of tech
Speaker 1: Stuff as well about you waste right, Yeah, well e
Speaker 1: waste yes, that was one of the yeah in particular
Speaker 1: was e ways, but rare earth metals. And I think
Speaker 1: we have a specific episode just about rare earth metals
Speaker 1: because we we wanted to explain what what they were,
Speaker 1: why they're important, and why is it that China is
Speaker 1: the main producer And the main reason that China is
Speaker 1: the main producer is because it's super cheap to get
Speaker 1: it from China, because China does not I I'm sure
Speaker 1: they have fewer. The problem with rare earth metals is
Speaker 1: that they all contain certain radioactive elements and also getting
Speaker 1: them out can can release a lot of toxic stuff
Speaker 1: and there, and in general, if you're doing that, you
Speaker 1: tend to incur lots of expenses, except in China where
Speaker 1: they don't care as much. Yeah, if you have fewer
Speaker 1: regulations then it's a lot cheaper, but a lot more
Speaker 1: dangerous for the people who are doing it and for
Speaker 1: the environment, because, as it turns out, there are other
Speaker 1: places on Earth that are rich, relatively speaking, in rare
Speaker 1: earth metals. But it's the term rare earth metals doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that there are very few of them in the earth.
Speaker 1: That generally means that there are very few of them
Speaker 1: concentrated in a single area, right, Yeah, So the mining
Speaker 1: process is very different than you know, striking a vein
Speaker 1: of say iron, and then being able to mind it. So,
Speaker 1: and of course that's going to play into the other
Speaker 1: podcasts that we're going to record next but has already published,
Speaker 1: I believe. So if you've listened to our Minecraft episode,
Speaker 1: just know that we haven't recorded it yet. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: actually traveled. I don't even know where you are now. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: it's Johnson from just breaking in here to say we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back so we've got efficiency, we've got cost, we have
Speaker 1: the fact that there's these rare materials toxicity those that's
Speaker 1: another challenge, h And another one is just the and
Speaker 1: we talked about this briefly with the UK. It's just
Speaker 1: the how how practical is it? Is it practical depending
Speaker 1: upon where you are in the world, because if you
Speaker 1: are someplace that does not get a lot of sun exposure,
Speaker 1: then you're not going to reap the benefits of solar power. However,
Speaker 1: if you live pretty near to say, the Majabi Desert,
Speaker 1: you're in a decently good spot right exactly. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've that we live in Atlanta, and I've seen homes
Speaker 1: in Atlanta that have solar panels. In fact, there's some
Speaker 1: that are very close to where I live that have
Speaker 1: solar panels installed. Uh. And it's something that I've thought
Speaker 1: about too. But it's another one of those things where
Speaker 1: I would really need to have a kind of study
Speaker 1: done about how much sun does my home really get?
Speaker 1: Would I would I be doing? Would I be getting
Speaker 1: a good return on my investment, meaning that if it's
Speaker 1: going to be one of those things where I'm only
Speaker 1: barely offsetting my energy costs, I might be doing more
Speaker 1: harm than good by adding solar panels, especially you know
Speaker 1: when you figure in maintenance fees and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff in the in the process. So uh, you
Speaker 1: know your mileage will vary depending upon how much sun
Speaker 1: you get. So those are the basic challenges. Now what's
Speaker 1: great is about solar panels is that we see lots
Speaker 1: of different companies and engineers and scientists looking to address
Speaker 1: these challenges in different ways. So people are coming at
Speaker 1: this problem from all different directions, not just from solar panels,
Speaker 1: but from huge collections of solar panels. Yeah, that's speaking
Speaker 1: of the Majave Desert. Actually, there is a large solar
Speaker 1: thermal farm being built in California right near the Nevada
Speaker 1: border called ivan Pa. I didn't look up the pronunciation.
Speaker 1: We're going to go with that, um, but so it's
Speaker 1: like ian hoe. Yes, um, it's on some four thousand acres,
Speaker 1: which is about sixteen square kilometers, which is something like
Speaker 1: six square miles for anyone else who doesn't know what
Speaker 1: on earth an acre is and heck tears, No, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding. Um. And so solar thermal farms as opposed
Speaker 1: to classic solar farms which are just large collections of
Speaker 1: these photovolt take plates use mirrors a k. A heliostats
Speaker 1: if you want to use the technical science term for it,
Speaker 1: um to concentrate sunlight into a tower, which then boils
Speaker 1: water to create steam to turn a turbine to create
Speaker 1: power or not create power, I'm sorry, generate energy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this, this particular Ivan Power is using some one
Speaker 1: D seventy thousand mirrors in fact, to concentrate the sunlight
Speaker 1: onto three large like four a k at seven towers.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's pretty impressive. They it's set to
Speaker 1: turn on this year. They first tower just went through
Speaker 1: a power power cycle test and they green lit it.
Speaker 1: They said good to go. So that's exciting. As at September,
Speaker 1: we are recording this on October something something there you
Speaker 1: go dates numbers only because it was right there on
Speaker 1: my screen. N I guess it's online too. That's great. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but co location this is this is an
Speaker 1: idea that we see in lots of different power strategies
Speaker 1: where almost in almost everything we talk about when it
Speaker 1: comes to power. In fact, I'll go so far as
Speaker 1: to say in every form of power, we're talking about
Speaker 1: heat is one of those factors that if you can
Speaker 1: harness the heat as well as whatever it is you're
Speaker 1: doing to generate the power in the first place, then
Speaker 1: you can end up generating more power that way than
Speaker 1: you would if you just let that heat dissipate into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. Sure, and these these thermal farms are a
Speaker 1: little bit a little bit tricky in that you have
Speaker 1: to have a really good location for them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's there aren't that many sixteen square kilometer areas just
Speaker 1: kind of hanging out where people are willing to let
Speaker 1: you completely disrupt an ecosystem in order to put down
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of mirrors and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: really hot water towers, um, in order to generate energy.
Speaker 1: Deserts are pretty good candidates, although part of the two
Speaker 1: point two billion dollar cost of building this thing out
Speaker 1: was a very expensive move of a threatened species of
Speaker 1: desert tortoise from this area to to a safe place
Speaker 1: where they wouldn't be boiled. Um. Yeah, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see where that would be a concern. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's we often will think about things like desert environments
Speaker 1: as being practically like but now it's not like, it's
Speaker 1: not like tattooing or Mars or Mars. Yeah, now, solar
Speaker 1: solar farms on Mars. The solar Mars will not be
Speaker 1: hurting for that, although they don't know you don't know
Speaker 1: about the Martians. Well, also I don't know about the storms.
Speaker 1: So the storms could also really block a lot of
Speaker 1: the soul. Now that I think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't make such sweeping statements. But you know
Speaker 1: there are of course, they're already solar panels on Mars. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's thanks thanks to a couple of rovers out there. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this, this particular one is is set to
Speaker 1: deliver some three seventy seven net mega watts of power
Speaker 1: in uh as opposed to the three it's capable of
Speaker 1: total You're you're always going to lose some in a
Speaker 1: system like this, and which is about the same as
Speaker 1: a medium sized also fuel plant. It's kind of sort
Speaker 1: of and yeah, the two of the towers are going
Speaker 1: to be selling to pgn E and the third is
Speaker 1: going to be selling to Southern California Edison. And supposedly
Speaker 1: the whole system is going to power some hundred forty homes. Right,
Speaker 1: So here we're looking at a system that, while it
Speaker 1: does have a huge initial cost, Uh, they are going
Speaker 1: to be able to start selling to customers. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long it will take them to recapture the
Speaker 1: costs of building that place. I mean that's going to
Speaker 1: take a while. You're two point two billion dollars. It's
Speaker 1: no chump change, right. Yeah, they had their investments from
Speaker 1: people like Google, and they were working partially on a
Speaker 1: federal government loan. So some of that some of that
Speaker 1: is offset, some of it's offset, sure, and then uh,
Speaker 1: but on top of that, you're looking at a much
Speaker 1: lower environmental impact in the long run compared to the
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide emissions you would get from from a fossil
Speaker 1: fuel plant. Right, And there has been some research on
Speaker 1: The brook Haven National Laboratory released a study saying that
Speaker 1: regardless of the technolog of the specific technology being used
Speaker 1: in photovoltaics, they generate fewer harmful gas emissions, like some
Speaker 1: fewer UM than anything fossil fuel related. So well, and
Speaker 1: related to this is the concept of solar trackers. This
Speaker 1: is something else that you can find at solar farms
Speaker 1: where uh, in this case, I'm talking about your more
Speaker 1: traditional solar panels that are using photons to convert it
Speaker 1: to electricity, as opposed to this approach where you're using
Speaker 1: the solar the solar energy to heat water. But solar
Speaker 1: trackers are kind of what they sound like. These are
Speaker 1: devices that can track the movement of the Sun. Although
Speaker 1: of course we know the Sun's movement is relative to
Speaker 1: the Earth and there's spin and all that stuff. At
Speaker 1: any rate, we're just gonna go with the movement of
Speaker 1: the Sun across the horizon, across the sky, the pathway
Speaker 1: across the sky. So you've got these solar panels. Not
Speaker 1: all the solar panel panels are going to be angled
Speaker 1: at a way where they're going to capture as much
Speaker 1: sunlight as possible throughout any particular part of the day.
Speaker 1: So what do you do. Well, you could mount the
Speaker 1: solar panels on some sort of pivoting system that would
Speaker 1: change throughout the day, or you create solar trackers that
Speaker 1: are enormous mirrors mounted on some form of of Essentially
Speaker 1: you're looking at something that can that can tilt so
Speaker 1: that it will direct sunlight back down to the panels. Right,
Speaker 1: So the panels are stationary that you don't move throughout
Speaker 1: the day. But the trackers, these enormous mirrors that can
Speaker 1: move in relation to the way the sun's path takes
Speaker 1: it across the sky, can continuously adjust so that the
Speaker 1: sunlight is directed back to the solar panels, thus maximizing
Speaker 1: the number of hours when you can collect sunlight. Because
Speaker 1: that's another one of those challenges that we didn't really mention.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the sun's not out, it might be you know, night,
Speaker 1: or sometimes it's in a different place. You know, if
Speaker 1: you if you cover say the west wall of your
Speaker 1: house with solar panels, which is a terrible plan overall,
Speaker 1: don't do that, but um, that's the least efficient way
Speaker 1: of going about anything. Yeah, you're you're only going to
Speaker 1: get the western facing sun. Yeah, and even then, like
Speaker 1: at different times of the year, you're not going to
Speaker 1: get as coverage exactly. Yeah. The the there will be
Speaker 1: sometimes the year where you will get more uh or
Speaker 1: you'll get longer hours, not longer hours, but longer time
Speaker 1: periods where the hours will stay the same, but you'll
Speaker 1: get longer period Yeah. Well, you know, back in my day,
Speaker 1: hours used to be sixty three minutes long. But you know,
Speaker 1: the kids, Uh no, you get you'll have longer times
Speaker 1: when you'll be able to collect sunlight. So these are
Speaker 1: just little strategies to try and maximize that as much
Speaker 1: as possible, so that even if the solar panel efficiency
Speaker 1: is low, if you can maximize the amount of time
Speaker 1: that they receive sunlight, you still generate more power. We
Speaker 1: have more to say about solar panels after this quick break,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's talk a little bit about improving
Speaker 1: solar panels um, not just making solar farms more efficient,
Speaker 1: but the actual panels themselves now, right, because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting materials science and even quantum science that's
Speaker 1: going on in this Yeah, you know, we can we
Speaker 1: can always confuse that confuse things by adding the word
Speaker 1: quantum in there. So, uh, one of them is one
Speaker 1: of the things we can do is look at introducing
Speaker 1: some sort of film to put upon solar panels so
Speaker 1: that it reflects less light. That's one of the problems
Speaker 1: with solar panels is that some some photons when they
Speaker 1: hit the panel, we'll just bounce right off. Again. Silicon
Speaker 1: specifically is very shiny, and so so you're going to
Speaker 1: lose more photons than you really want to in this
Speaker 1: process of reflection. Right, So one way to increase efficiency
Speaker 1: is to make sure those photons don't get away. And
Speaker 1: there are different ways of doing this, and one of
Speaker 1: them is to copy a certain insect, the moth, the moth, right,
Speaker 1: I had heard about this, Yeah, so moth eyes. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about moth eyes. If you
Speaker 1: were to get microscope and look at a moth's eye,
Speaker 1: you know you've borrowed it from the moth. Maybe the
Speaker 1: moth has flown off a little eye patch and hook
Speaker 1: and it's gone to be a piratical moth. Meanwhile, you're
Speaker 1: looking at the moth's eye, you're gonna see there are
Speaker 1: these little micro structures, and those micro structures in the
Speaker 1: eye are they have a specific purpose. They reflect light
Speaker 1: back to the back of the moth's eye so that
Speaker 1: the moth can perceive more light. And a lot of
Speaker 1: animals have this, but moth eyes in particular are extremely
Speaker 1: efficient at doing so. Yeah. And if you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: like like a photograph of a cat and the eyes
Speaker 1: are glowing at you, that's because of a reflective layer
Speaker 1: at the back of the eye, which is which is
Speaker 1: reflecting light back into the right. Now. Yeah, no, in
Speaker 1: this case, we can really say that there are probably
Speaker 1: two big reasons for moths to have this particular micro
Speaker 1: structure in their eyes. One is so that they see
Speaker 1: more light. They can perceive more light because they're flying
Speaker 1: around often at night, and the other is that they
Speaker 1: reflect less light so that potential predators can't see them
Speaker 1: and gobble them up. So it's a survival mechanism on
Speaker 1: two fronts. How we can take advantage of it is
Speaker 1: by making a kind of a model of those same
Speaker 1: micro structures designs in such a way so that when
Speaker 1: light hits it, more of the light gets reflected down
Speaker 1: to the surface of the solar panel, the the actual
Speaker 1: collection surface, and fewer photons bounce off, and we thus
Speaker 1: increase efficiency. Now there's a fellow named Noboru Yamada who
Speaker 1: came up with this idea along with a team of scientists.
Speaker 1: Uh he is a scientist at Nagoako University of Technology
Speaker 1: in Japan. And I'm sure I butchered all of that.
Speaker 1: But but other than that, yes, yes, well, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Uh So he what he did was he took some
Speaker 1: molds made out of a notic porous alumina to create
Speaker 1: the micro structures that were similar to those of you
Speaker 1: would find in a moth's eyes and uh, put that
Speaker 1: into a crylic resin. So if you're wondering what that
Speaker 1: actually means, a notic is another, you know, anode. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the positively charged electrode in a in a system.
Speaker 1: Poorous of course, just means it's got little bit of
Speaker 1: holes and holes or spaces within it. And alumina is
Speaker 1: actually a type of aluminum oxide, which is an electrical
Speaker 1: insulator but also has a high thermal conductivity, so it
Speaker 1: conducts heat really well, but it insulates electricity. Um They
Speaker 1: found that this film could boost the efficiency of solar
Speaker 1: panels by around five percent, so which again sounds really
Speaker 1: small until you consider that that a five percent efficiency
Speaker 1: rate is the that's the average. Let's say, let's say
Speaker 1: that we have it on close to the high end,
Speaker 1: so somewhere around, which is pretty high. I mean, especially
Speaker 1: if you're talking about commercial solar panels, that's really high.
Speaker 1: And then if you were to apply this film and
Speaker 1: get that five percent increase, knowing that it's up to
Speaker 1: five percent, you're not always going to get a five
Speaker 1: percent improvement either, But that's a tent of sittiency at
Speaker 1: that point, and when you multiply that across an entire
Speaker 1: array of solar panels, Like I said, that equals a
Speaker 1: lot more electricity. So while it might be tiny in
Speaker 1: comparison to one solar cell, when you're talking about an
Speaker 1: array of solar panels, it makes a huge difference. So, uh,
Speaker 1: that's one way that we've seen solar panels get some improvements. Now,
Speaker 1: this is just a film you would put over a
Speaker 1: solar panel. It doesn't replace the panel itself. We have
Speaker 1: some other technologies that would actually either improve solar panel
Speaker 1: silicon or replace it. So for example, University of New
Speaker 1: South Wales, So New South Wales, it's in Australia. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh the what now she's shaking her head, have
Speaker 1: you versus saying Australia that was a that was a
Speaker 1: terrible accent. My Australian accent is amazing. It's almost as
Speaker 1: good as my New Zealand accent, which is the same accent.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for all of our friends down under
Speaker 1: to yell at me, but I won't understand them, so
Speaker 1: it's okay. So the University of New South Whales, some engineers,
Speaker 1: some scientists decided to take a look at using hydrogen
Speaker 1: atoms to try and correct deficiencies in silicon crystals. Now,
Speaker 1: the deficiencies in silicon would mean that normally it would
Speaker 1: decrease the efficiency of a solar panel, so not you know,
Speaker 1: when you're doping silicon, you want it in a very
Speaker 1: specific way so that you can maximize its efficiency. But occasionally,
Speaker 1: through manufacturing processes or whatever mistakes happen, you'll get a
Speaker 1: deficiency and it will decrease that of the efficiency of
Speaker 1: that particular solar panel, and as a result, you'll get
Speaker 1: less energy out of it than you had anticipated. They
Speaker 1: found that by using hydrogen atoms and inserting them into
Speaker 1: silicon crystals, the hydrogen atoms would bond with the deficiencies
Speaker 1: inside the silicon and negate them and essentially help move
Speaker 1: the photons toward the silk the silicon. That would actually
Speaker 1: help transfer that into electric electric energy so or electricity
Speaker 1: as we sometimes call it. So it was it was
Speaker 1: one of those improvements that doesn't necessarily mean we're going
Speaker 1: to have mega, super powerful new silicon based solar panel again,
Speaker 1: It's going to be a small improvement, right. Instead, what
Speaker 1: it means is that we could actually use cheaper silicon,
Speaker 1: so By using cheaper silicon, we bring down the price
Speaker 1: of the solar panels in general, So yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: The problem with using cheaper silicon normally is that you
Speaker 1: get more defects and less efficiency, But if you have
Speaker 1: the hydrogen to correct those defects, then you can ignore
Speaker 1: that effectively and it would be cheaper than using the
Speaker 1: higher quality silicon exactly, So lower prices that means higher
Speaker 1: adoption rates and uh better used for solar power all around.
Speaker 1: Some researchers have also been using layering of different materials
Speaker 1: with different band gaps that this is that multi junction
Speaker 1: solar cell thing that I was talking about earlier to
Speaker 1: improve the efficiency of solar cells overall. And the way
Speaker 1: that these work is the top layers will absorb high
Speaker 1: energy photons and let low energy photons slip through to
Speaker 1: be absorbed by lower layers, which interesting and so originally
Speaker 1: this came out of like NASA and Space Tech, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty promising simulations is achieved fifty one eight percent
Speaker 1: efficiency that would be incredible, which even in a laboratory
Speaker 1: is amazing. So the interesting thing here is that and
Speaker 1: we talked about this in our older podcast about how
Speaker 1: if you go with the the lower energy band gaps,
Speaker 1: you can cast that net. But the problem with going
Speaker 1: with low energy band gaps is that you get a
Speaker 1: very low voltage out of it. So the work you
Speaker 1: can do with the electricity you generate is not necessarily
Speaker 1: better than what you would if you were just going
Speaker 1: for high energy. But by doing this multi tier approach,
Speaker 1: you can capture all of it, which is a great idea,
Speaker 1: or a lot more of a lot more of it
Speaker 1: efficiency in the simulation. But still right, they're they're working
Speaker 1: on matching current among the different sub cells because if
Speaker 1: one sub cell is is lacking, then it's going to
Speaker 1: throw off the entire device within this multijunction cell. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of one of those weakest link type Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so people are people are working on it. Um.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I'm really excited about is completely
Speaker 1: out there. This is quantum photovoltaics also called quantum dots
Speaker 1: our cells quantum dots. This takes me back, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so this is this is using matrix of finally
Speaker 1: tuned nanocrystals instead of the typical silicon crystals that you're
Speaker 1: that you're used to. And what's cool about these nano
Speaker 1: crystals is that they can be tuned to specific segments
Speaker 1: of the light spectrum um of of of these band
Speaker 1: gaps that we've been talking about, so that cells can
Speaker 1: capture more of the available light based on how different
Speaker 1: bits of it are tuned. And the really exciting part
Speaker 1: of this is that photons can hypothetically excite as many
Speaker 1: as seven electrons per per photon. So so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's where you're getting that crazy boost in efficiency right
Speaker 1: right in Researchers at the University of Buffalo found that
Speaker 1: they could reach a efficiency and also because you've got
Speaker 1: fun quantum physics mucking up this business um, that's how
Speaker 1: I call it. Yeah. Recently, an international team discovered that
Speaker 1: that these quantum dots can self assemble into nano wires
Speaker 1: that will more efficiently carry that current so into their
Speaker 1: into their own pathways, like like Jonathan was talking about
Speaker 1: earlier with when you create a pathway, you're allowing the
Speaker 1: electron flow to happen, right right, Because if you didn't
Speaker 1: have that barrier there to block the flow, then the
Speaker 1: electrons would just flow automatically from the more negative side
Speaker 1: towards the more positive side. You have to create a
Speaker 1: barrier and then you have to create a path, and
Speaker 1: and all of this takes work on your part, but hypothetically,
Speaker 1: this quantum stuff can can do it for you know.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty cool. I've got one other alternative to
Speaker 1: silicon based panels, and it may end up not being
Speaker 1: an alternative but rather an augmentation. But that's for pov skites.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if that's the right way to
Speaker 1: say it, but this is a material that apparently the
Speaker 1: Earth is just lousy with parov skites. This is incredibly plentiful,
Speaker 1: incredibly cheap material that may in fact be a valid
Speaker 1: alternative to silicon. You might have heard about this talked about.
Speaker 1: I believe these are also called thin film cells. Correct, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So this is a it's a material that's very good
Speaker 1: at absorbing light, and it's a semiconductor like silicon. It
Speaker 1: could transport electric charge when a photon hits it, just
Speaker 1: like silicon um and unlike silicon, which those panels can
Speaker 1: be as thin as a round a hundred eighty micrometers thick.
Speaker 1: Hundred micrometer is one millionth of a meter um. That
Speaker 1: sounds pretty thin, but a but one made of this
Speaker 1: other material can be less than one micrometer thick, so
Speaker 1: the manufacturing process could be much simpler. It ends up
Speaker 1: being you need less of this material than you would
Speaker 1: of silicon material. Stuff is already cheaper. The sheets that
Speaker 1: you wind up with are more applicable to two different objects.
Speaker 1: They can be thin and bendy and and right, which
Speaker 1: means that you're not stuck with that one form factor
Speaker 1: that you would be with a solar panel, where you
Speaker 1: have a more rigid, thicker material, uh, which you depending
Speaker 1: upon what you're trying to coat, could be a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's sort of this pigmented stuff. And uh, it's, like
Speaker 1: I said, very cheap and could eventually lead to solar
Speaker 1: panels that cost ten to twenty cents per what. And
Speaker 1: I remember we're talking now around between fifty cents and
Speaker 1: a dollar per what, depending upon how you define it.
Speaker 1: So this would be significantly less expensive and in fact
Speaker 1: more than comparable to fossil fuel on a per what basis.
Speaker 1: Knowing that this is not really apples to apples, so
Speaker 1: but anyway, Uh, they right now are only an efficiency
Speaker 1: of around fifteen percent. Uh. Scientists think that they might
Speaker 1: be able to get get it to about twenty or
Speaker 1: twenty five percent efficiency, so much lower than some of
Speaker 1: these other ones we're talking about. But if the cost
Speaker 1: is much lower, then it may make sense. If it's
Speaker 1: cheaper to to turn these out than silicon ones, even
Speaker 1: if the silicon ones are better, it may make more
Speaker 1: financial sense to go with this material it's cheaper in
Speaker 1: the long run. Kind of kind of idea. Now, right now,
Speaker 1: there's an effort to commercialize the product through a company
Speaker 1: called Oxford Photovoltaics, which is so far raised more than
Speaker 1: four million dollars in capital. And uh, there's also a chance,
Speaker 1: because we're still seeing silicon based cellar panels, we're seeing
Speaker 1: those prices go down over time, there's a chance that
Speaker 1: this won't make a big impact. So because if silicon
Speaker 1: ends up being as cheap or only a little more
Speaker 1: expensive than this alternative solar panel, people are going to say, well,
Speaker 1: why would I sacrifice performance for just a tiny savings.
Speaker 1: Plus you're talking about not just people, but entire companies
Speaker 1: that would have to create their own manufacturing processes to
Speaker 1: build these these panels. It would require a big change
Speaker 1: in infrastructure, and it may not be worth that investment
Speaker 1: to change the infrastructure. Although for certain purposes. Again, when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the rigidity of the final product, you
Speaker 1: might wind up, yeah, finding finding benefit and using something
Speaker 1: that's a little bit less some Yeah, if you have
Speaker 1: around building, for example, and you want to have part
Speaker 1: of that building like a column where there's not any
Speaker 1: windows facing out to be a solar gathering column. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to place a million tiny panels
Speaker 1: on it, right, this might be a way of doing that.
Speaker 1: It's also been discussed as a way to augment silicon
Speaker 1: based solar pans, where you would use the pigment to
Speaker 1: help reduce the reflectivity of the panels, just like we
Speaker 1: were talking about with the moth eyes. It would mean
Speaker 1: that more photons would be reflected down into the solar panel,
Speaker 1: as opposed to bouncing off and going willy nilly to
Speaker 1: not do anyone any good, those lazy bums. So those
Speaker 1: are those are some other alternatives. Do you have any
Speaker 1: others you want to talk about? Before we talk about
Speaker 1: some of the crazy fun stuff. That's all I've got.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, let's take a quick break
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Speaker 1: Go to Hulu Plus dot com Forward slash tech now
Speaker 1: and there are a ton of shows on there that
Speaker 1: are some of my favorites. The I T crowd is
Speaker 1: way up there. So you'll hear lots of I T
Speaker 1: crowd references in our episodes if you listen hard enough.
Speaker 1: But in order to get the references, you need to
Speaker 1: watch the show first, So go check it out. All right,
Speaker 1: this isn't that crazy fun. But I did run across
Speaker 1: an article about how solar panels are coming to Ikea
Speaker 1: that if you're in the UK, that that was where
Speaker 1: I got the UK information right, Lauren just shook her
Speaker 1: fist for those who are those who were curious, those
Speaker 1: who are listening in on say the radio. I shook
Speaker 1: my fist in the other solar panel episode and I
Speaker 1: announced it too, because so there's some things that just
Speaker 1: carry over. It doesn't matter. So Ikea is looking at
Speaker 1: carrying solar panels to for customers to purchase solar solar
Speaker 1: panel kits, So flat pack Ikea style solar panel can
Speaker 1: go in you buy a flat pack of ike I'm
Speaker 1: sure they'll have some sort of Swedish name that will
Speaker 1: be hilarious and um, you'll you know, in the UK,
Speaker 1: you can purchase these and then go and have them
Speaker 1: installed at your home. Uh. It sounds like if it's
Speaker 1: a successful program that it will roll out to other
Speaker 1: parts of the world, the United States included, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, they're no stranger to solar power. In fact,
Speaker 1: they use solar panels and several of their locations forty
Speaker 1: of their US locations have solar panels energy. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: essentially are powering their their buildings with solar energy as
Speaker 1: much as they possibly can. So, uh, you know, now
Speaker 1: they're looking at instead of just using it on a
Speaker 1: corporate level, to actually offer it as a product. So
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see if this ends up being
Speaker 1: successful because then we'll see it rolled out to other
Speaker 1: whether whether it's really is you know, in grand Ikea style,
Speaker 1: cheaper and easier to install. Yeah, because you can as
Speaker 1: a customer right now. I mean, if if you're a consumer,
Speaker 1: you can go out and buy solar panels and have
Speaker 1: them installed in your home. There are hardware stores like
Speaker 1: Lows that that sell solar panels. It's not like i
Speaker 1: Kea is the first business to come out and say
Speaker 1: we're finally making solar panels available to cut customers, but
Speaker 1: it's probably the first place that you can get Swedish
Speaker 1: meatballs and also solar panels. Yeah, at least from a
Speaker 1: reliable source. There is a guy outside of my local
Speaker 1: lows who sells what he calls the Swedish meatballs, but
Speaker 1: I just don't trust them. Uh So, that was one
Speaker 1: of the wacky things I want to talk about. But
Speaker 1: the other one is my favorite, which is the robo raven.
Speaker 1: Robo raven. Yes, so a pair of University of Maryland
Speaker 1: professors sk Gupta and Hugh Bruck came up with along
Speaker 1: with their students, the robo raven, which is a robotic bird.
Speaker 1: It's a little robot that can fly, and flying takes
Speaker 1: up a lot of energy. It takes up a lot
Speaker 1: of energy for birds, and it takes up a lot
Speaker 1: of energy for robots, as it turns out, And so
Speaker 1: they were trying to think of ways to extend a
Speaker 1: robot's flying life so that it would be useful. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, your typical robotic flying device is going to
Speaker 1: have a fairly small range and half batteries are going
Speaker 1: to run down fuel source of money. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's roaming range is going to be about half of
Speaker 1: what you would want just based on the battery life alone.
Speaker 1: Because if you have it go all the way out
Speaker 1: to its battery life, then you have to go to
Speaker 1: retrieve it. You wanted to be able to come back, right,
Speaker 1: So they were thinking, well, how could we build something
Speaker 1: that could recharge its batteries while it's out in the
Speaker 1: field sometimes literally dom and then make its way back home.
Speaker 1: And so they decided to use a special material where
Speaker 1: they were essentially weaving in solar panels along the wings
Speaker 1: of this robo raven. So the idea is that this
Speaker 1: little uh, this little device, this can the micro air
Speaker 1: vehicle can fly out. It would land when its power
Speaker 1: would get low, and it would recharge its battery. And
Speaker 1: now they point out that the solar panels are nowhere
Speaker 1: near efficient enough to power the bird's flight. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would have to land and recharge batteries and then fly
Speaker 1: because I think it would generate something like gather like
Speaker 1: three point six watts and it needs thirty wats to fly,
Speaker 1: and like it just it cannot, you know, it would
Speaker 1: just it would just crash if you were to try
Speaker 1: and fly it beyond its battery life. So I thought
Speaker 1: that was yes. Now, the robo raven that plays into
Speaker 1: the podcast, we did not that long ago about drones. Uh,
Speaker 1: in this case, the robo ravens just it's a robotic bird.
Speaker 1: It's not designed to be anything specific apart from a
Speaker 1: robotic bird. But you could easily see this kind of
Speaker 1: technology being used in things like environmental uh monitors, you know,
Speaker 1: looking for things like changes in climate, changes in environment,
Speaker 1: exploration of areas that might be difficult to get to
Speaker 1: on foot or otherwise, or you know, surveillance. You know,
Speaker 1: there's that fun version to whether birds are spying on
Speaker 1: you and the robots. I don't want that. I don't
Speaker 1: want bird shaped robots spying on me. I want that
Speaker 1: even less than I want other robots spying on me.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm not sure why I have this strong emotion,
Speaker 1: but that sounds like i've I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's watched too much Alfred Hitchcock or something. I
Speaker 1: recommend you don't turn around then, I'm just your back
Speaker 1: is to the window. Yeah, we have an exciting new
Speaker 1: window in the podcast, yes, which I can look out
Speaker 1: of and Lauren cannot because of the way we sit.
Speaker 1: I refuse to have my back to the window, all right,
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's that's kind of our our update on
Speaker 1: solar panel technolog g. You know, it's going to constantly
Speaker 1: be this quest to eke out as much efficiency as
Speaker 1: possible to make solar panels a true competitor when it
Speaker 1: comes to generate electricity. Uh. And you also have to
Speaker 1: offset the downsides to solar panels. So, for example, if
Speaker 1: you were to try and go off the grid and
Speaker 1: just use solar panels for your home, you would also
Speaker 1: need some sort of energy storage device for those times
Speaker 1: when the sun is not out and you would be
Speaker 1: able to tap into that. So batteries essentially is what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. So you could have your own on
Speaker 1: site generator that runs on something else, but you're talking
Speaker 1: about some other fuel. Maybe pair it with a with
Speaker 1: a wind generator or something like that, or not a
Speaker 1: wind generator, but a wind harvesting wind driven Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would if you if you live in a very sunny,
Speaker 1: windy place, that would work out well for you. If
Speaker 1: you don't, then uh, you know, that would probably probably
Speaker 1: be marginally improvement over just solar panels alone. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. If
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for future topics we should cover
Speaker 1: on the show, let me know. Send me a message
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle is text stuff HS w and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.