Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says now, I
Speaker 1: don't want you back for the weekend, not back for
Speaker 1: a day. No, no no. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren
Speaker 1: Fock Obama, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about solar power and the solar economy. It was
Speaker 1: a subject that I researched to do a video episode
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking that that published previously, and we kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to to take the opportunity to go into a
Speaker 1: little more detail about solar power because we've touched on
Speaker 1: it in some previous episodes, but we haven't really dedicated
Speaker 1: a full episode to solar power. We we we've talked
Speaker 1: about related stuff though, so we're going to really concentrate
Speaker 1: on it um. One of the reasons this is even
Speaker 1: coming up is that recently, relatively recently, Bill and Melinda
Speaker 1: Gates released their annual letter. And this is a letter
Speaker 1: that they publish publicly. It's like an open letters, pictures
Speaker 1: of their cats and say what all their grandkids are doing,
Speaker 1: like a Christmas letter, I hope you are well. This
Speaker 1: year the Gates family saw something. No, it's not like that,
Speaker 1: it's it's really more about they like to tackle specific
Speaker 1: issues and address what they think needs to happen in
Speaker 1: order to solve problems around the world. And often these
Speaker 1: are really really big issues, things like access to clean
Speaker 1: water would be an example example. But and and this year,
Speaker 1: one of the topics that they covered was what was
Speaker 1: the importance of of getting our carbon emissions lower, like
Speaker 1: to zero exactly if possible. The letters said, hey, look,
Speaker 1: according to all studies, carbon emissions are something we absolutely
Speaker 1: have to get control over. And if we don't uh this,
Speaker 1: this climate change is going to continue to escalate. Even
Speaker 1: if we were to get to zero right now, we
Speaker 1: would still see some escalation because it's not like it's
Speaker 1: an immediate uh fix. But if we don't do it,
Speaker 1: we're in real trouble. So we've got to find a
Speaker 1: way to get to carbon zero. Yeah, they even or
Speaker 1: well a Bill specifically even took some time out of
Speaker 1: his very busy schedule to talk to our colleagues, Josh
Speaker 1: and Chuck of stuff you shouldn't know that episode, I
Speaker 1: believe published a couple a couple of weeks ago, late
Speaker 1: late February. UM, so if you guys don't already listen
Speaker 1: to stuff you should know, then go check out that episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so I actually got to sit down and
Speaker 1: interview him, which is pretty incredible. And as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: we've talked about solar power it kind of tangentially in
Speaker 1: several episodes on We published a podcast called is the
Speaker 1: power Wall a wonder uh? And that is related to
Speaker 1: solar power. The power wall being a type of rechargeable
Speaker 1: battery that one's marketed by Tesla and UH. It's designed
Speaker 1: to to store electricity when so that you can use
Speaker 1: it when you when the surge prices are lowest. So
Speaker 1: for places like Hawaii and California, makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense because you could rely upon solar panel energy throughout
Speaker 1: the day when the expense for electricity is high. You
Speaker 1: could rely on the battery at night, assuming you had
Speaker 1: enough charged up. But if you uh were using it
Speaker 1: in the daytime and you didn't have enough just from
Speaker 1: the solar panels themselves, you could use the battery and
Speaker 1: then just use the grid when prices are lowest. Because
Speaker 1: the cost of electricity fluctuates pretty widely, and especially in
Speaker 1: California and Hawaii. Uh. Here in Georgie, it's not as
Speaker 1: big a deal. We talked about that in that episode,
Speaker 1: about how it all really depends upon where you live
Speaker 1: whether it makes economic sense. But we also chatted about
Speaker 1: solar power in an episode called can Artificial Photosynthesis Save
Speaker 1: the Planet? That was also in May of two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen video episode I believe, Yeah, I think that might
Speaker 1: have even been sort of what Bill Gates was touching
Speaker 1: on when he was talking about the stability of using
Speaker 1: sunlight to generate fuel. Artificial photosynthesis is one of the
Speaker 1: ways we could do that, either by creating a means
Speaker 1: of separating hydrogen from ox oxygen and water and that
Speaker 1: way we get pure hydrogen for a hydrogen based fuel,
Speaker 1: or even using artificial photosynthesis in a process to create
Speaker 1: uh well, was essentially rubbing alcohol to use as a fuel. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: tasty rubbing alcohol. Don't drink rubbing alcohol. No, it's not
Speaker 1: a bodily fuel. No. Yeah, he's just just used for
Speaker 1: for actual engines, not you. Uh. And then we also
Speaker 1: looked at the solar Impulse aircraft. We talked about flying
Speaker 1: solar in April two thousand fourteen. That, of course is
Speaker 1: the uh the aircraft making its way around the world
Speaker 1: using solar power as its only means of generating electricity,
Speaker 1: you might add, slowly making its way around the world.
Speaker 1: It is a it is it is a gradual process. Um.
Speaker 1: But now are really going to tackle it? And in
Speaker 1: order to really talk about solar power, one of the
Speaker 1: most important things you have to address are the challenges
Speaker 1: of solar power. Yeah, you might, without knowing anything about
Speaker 1: the subject, just assume, well, yeah, I mean, sunlight's free.
Speaker 1: Why don't we just why doesn't everybody have solar panels
Speaker 1: on everything? Put it on them? Coated with him? Right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, why why why don't we just instantly convert
Speaker 1: to this? Seems like a no brainer. Put them on
Speaker 1: your house, put them on your cat. Just just go
Speaker 1: for it, right, A solar powered could he get? Actually,
Speaker 1: that's kind of true. They like to find that little space.
Speaker 1: But they're also powered by the warmth of your laptop
Speaker 1: and also just by sheer hate. I guess what cats
Speaker 1: really thrive off of the inside themselves? They don't. They
Speaker 1: don't like it if you hate them. If only we
Speaker 1: could power our grid with hate, that would be excellent
Speaker 1: energy surplus for days. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of the challenges are are related to solar power,
Speaker 1: because why don't you put solar panels on everything? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we we have to say this so that we
Speaker 1: can actually make a uh, you know, an informed decision
Speaker 1: further down the line about whether or not it makes
Speaker 1: sense in our individual cases. So one of the big
Speaker 1: issues for a very long time and still to some
Speaker 1: extent today is just the cost. It's they're expensive, right,
Speaker 1: So the sunlight is free, but the device you used
Speaker 1: to harvest the sunlight is not. Right. And it's not
Speaker 1: just the cost of materials, although that's a large part
Speaker 1: of it. For one thing, solar panels usually have a
Speaker 1: fair share of rare earth minerals as part of the
Speaker 1: process of generating these solar panels, and right now we
Speaker 1: get those from China. There are there present in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world, but China uh minds them at
Speaker 1: an incredibly low rate because well, an incredibly low cost.
Speaker 1: A high rate on the low cost, and the low
Speaker 1: cost is because they do so uh with extreme disregard
Speaker 1: for the safety and comfort of all of the people
Speaker 1: involved and also nearby, yes, very well. Put yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and apparently that ends up being uh. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: an issue in certain parts of the world where people
Speaker 1: have brought that up and said, we really seriously have
Speaker 1: to uh examine this, especially as we start to see
Speaker 1: more and more of those materials used in the technology
Speaker 1: we rely upon day after day. But it's still pretty
Speaker 1: much the status quo. Sure, sure, yeah, and and researchers
Speaker 1: are to be clear making headway into finding alternate materials
Speaker 1: or or making less stuff work more efficiently, right right.
Speaker 1: So so there's that, But beyond the cost of the materials,
Speaker 1: there's also the cost of installation, which can be expensive
Speaker 1: depending upon where you are and who you know, what
Speaker 1: sort of contractor you get to do it, And it's
Speaker 1: not something that the general you know, do it yourself,
Speaker 1: is necessarily going to be comfortable with. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are people who installed their own solar panels and they're
Speaker 1: perfectly confident and competent at doing such. I would be
Speaker 1: terrified that I would mess things up, and so I
Speaker 1: would end up hiring somebody who knows what they're doing. Uh.
Speaker 1: I would not rely upon my own abilities. So there's that.
Speaker 1: There's also the cost of maintenance, typically solar panels tend
Speaker 1: to the quote you usually here is that they have
Speaker 1: an expected lifespan of about twenty years. So even if
Speaker 1: you are maintaining them properly and making sure that they're
Speaker 1: not suffering due to exposure to the elements and other things,
Speaker 1: after twenty years, you're gonna have to replace them. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you start looking at all of these elements, you
Speaker 1: also have to think about, all right, how much money
Speaker 1: would I spend in that twenty years span, let's say,
Speaker 1: on electricity if I were to rely solely upon the
Speaker 1: power grid, assuming that the prices UH throughout that twenty
Speaker 1: year period remain relatively stable. And you figure that up
Speaker 1: and you say, all right, here's how much I would
Speaker 1: spend in that twenty year period. Okay, how much would
Speaker 1: it cost me to get enough solar panels to provide
Speaker 1: the electricity I need for my house? Uh, knowing that
Speaker 1: in twenty years I would have to replace them, And
Speaker 1: if that amount is lower than the amount you would
Speaker 1: spend on electricity, otherwise you could say, all right, at
Speaker 1: least on this level, economically, solar panels would make sense.
Speaker 1: But of course, for a lot of people it's not
Speaker 1: just a cost saving feature. There are reasons to adopt
Speaker 1: solar panels. Yeah, there there's the you know, the very
Speaker 1: strong argument of I want a more environmentally friendly approach
Speaker 1: to generating electricity. I want to be independent of the
Speaker 1: power grid. If something were to happen to the power grid.
Speaker 1: I want my house to still be capable of of
Speaker 1: generating electricity when the zombies are out on the porch.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to watch the NFL, right,
Speaker 1: or The Walking Dead and then at that point is
Speaker 1: just a documentary series. Right, So that would be, uh,
Speaker 1: some of the examples that I think people would cite
Speaker 1: for their reasons beyond just the economic factor. Right. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people who are early adopters of
Speaker 1: solar panels did so because they saw it as a
Speaker 1: more green option and also this idea of independence from
Speaker 1: from a larger system that if it were to go
Speaker 1: down for whatever reason, they would no longer be vulnerable
Speaker 1: to that same problem. So we've got that to keep
Speaker 1: in mind as well. Now cost is just one of
Speaker 1: those challenges, right. Uh. We we also have the problem
Speaker 1: of efficiency now with solar panels. When we're talking about efficiency,
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily talking about all right, how much electricity
Speaker 1: does a solar panel generate. It's really about how much
Speaker 1: of the solar energy hitting that panel actually gets converted
Speaker 1: into electricity. That's what we talk about with efficiency. So
Speaker 1: there's a basic amount of solar radiation energy that's falling
Speaker 1: on the Earth at any given time. Now you have
Speaker 1: some external reasons for that. Some would be like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, weather like cloud cover and things like that.
Speaker 1: But then also you have internal reasons to the solar
Speaker 1: panels themselves that they can't get of that energy turned
Speaker 1: into electricity. Yeah, I mean, even under ideal conditions, a
Speaker 1: solar panel cannot convert all of the energy that's hitting
Speaker 1: it into electricity. And that's really what we're getting at here.
Speaker 1: And like you, any solar panel, no matter how efficient,
Speaker 1: is obviously going to generate less electricity. On a day
Speaker 1: where there's you know, partly cloudy skies, it's going to
Speaker 1: have you know, it'll be less effective. It will be
Speaker 1: not effective at all at night. Simple simple thing there.
Speaker 1: But even with the most efficient solar panels possible, even
Speaker 1: theoretically possible, you can't convert all of the solar energy
Speaker 1: into electricity. In fact, the theoretical limit is uh, eight
Speaker 1: six percent efficiency. Now, six percent efficiency is incredibly high,
Speaker 1: especially compared to what we see with solar panels right now.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and especially out of the lab. That's that's
Speaker 1: basically not not a possibility, right. Uh. When I say theoretical,
Speaker 1: I really do mean theoretical, as in, it is not
Speaker 1: a possible thing to do in reality. Why not, because
Speaker 1: you would require an infinite number of layers of solar
Speaker 1: panels in order to make this happen. Well, let's just
Speaker 1: get working on them. How close we are too infinite?
Speaker 1: I think we're eleven off. It's not like that uh
Speaker 1: so soo of these theoretical solar panels, the energy hitting
Speaker 1: them would be lost and not be converted. But again,
Speaker 1: you can never build it in the first place. It's
Speaker 1: it's something that the math works out that is physically
Speaker 1: the the best you could ever expect under unrealistically ideal circumstances.
Speaker 1: And that's just because of the of the mere process
Speaker 1: of converting uh photons into usable energy, like some of
Speaker 1: that gets lost. Yeah, and the fact that that you
Speaker 1: can't have a uh perfectly non reflective solar panel, so
Speaker 1: some of that light's going to bounce off with with
Speaker 1: an infinitely large surface area. Yeah, it's just strangely enough,
Speaker 1: whenever the word infinite comes up, it really gets beyond
Speaker 1: our capacity to make it. Okay, well, so we can't
Speaker 1: get up to eighty six percent efficiency, how what percent
Speaker 1: efficiency can we get today? So average consumer panels tend
Speaker 1: to hover between eleven and fifteen percent efficiency, significantly lower
Speaker 1: than in other words, so because of that. Now, again
Speaker 1: this doesn't necessarily this doesn't relate directly to uh, the
Speaker 1: amount of electricity produced. This is again how much of
Speaker 1: the Sun's energy gets converted into electricity. But that does
Speaker 1: mean that in order for you to generate enough electricity
Speaker 1: for your home, you may need lots of surface area
Speaker 1: to generate that electricity, because each individual solar panel is
Speaker 1: only going to be eleven to fifteen percent efficient under
Speaker 1: good circumstances like you know, direct sunlight as opposed to
Speaker 1: again a cloudy day or something along those lines. Um,
Speaker 1: a typical solar panel will produce around two d wats
Speaker 1: of electric city. Keep in mind that solar panels are
Speaker 1: made up of lots and lots of solar cells. So
Speaker 1: you have tons of solar cells that are in an
Speaker 1: array together that make up a solar panel. Uh. So
Speaker 1: one solar panel would produce about twos of electricity, So
Speaker 1: to produce five kilowatt hours of electricity, you would need
Speaker 1: twenty five of these panels. Uh. And that of course
Speaker 1: assumes that you are getting good solar exposure in that area. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you live in a place where there are a
Speaker 1: lot of tall trees that cast shadows throughout part of
Speaker 1: the day, that's going to affect the amount of electricity
Speaker 1: you can generate through solar panels. So we might suggest
Speaker 1: if that's the case, that's probably not where you should
Speaker 1: put your solar panels, right, But if you don't have
Speaker 1: the choice, I mean, like it's the roof of your
Speaker 1: house is sometimes shaded. Uh, you know, you might have
Speaker 1: to just you may have to come to the conclusion
Speaker 1: of solar panels just aren't a reliable option. I've got
Speaker 1: a solution to our world carbon problems. We can just
Speaker 1: cut down all the trees on the planet so they
Speaker 1: would never block any of the solar panels. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to move on without acknowledging that. Now. Obviously,
Speaker 1: another challenge we've alluded to it is that you're dependent
Speaker 1: upon when the sun is out in order to generate electricity.
Speaker 1: These panels do not generate electricity unless they're solar energy
Speaker 1: hitting the panels, So anytime it doesn't, it doesn't hang
Speaker 1: out in the panel. There's not there's not like a
Speaker 1: lag time where electricity is still coming up. So if
Speaker 1: it's nighttime or if there's a sufficient cloud cover that
Speaker 1: there's not enough solar energy hitting the panels, you're not
Speaker 1: generating electricity at that point. And electricity is a use it,
Speaker 1: store it, or lose it kind of thing, right, So
Speaker 1: this is true with any type of electricity generation, like
Speaker 1: your big coal power plants. You only you only want
Speaker 1: to generate as much electricity as there is demand, because
Speaker 1: you can't do anything with the excess and unless you
Speaker 1: put it into batteries, which we don't, right, So are
Speaker 1: our current power grid structure is based solely upon demand.
Speaker 1: When the demand increases, production increases. When the demand goes down,
Speaker 1: production goes down. Otherwise you'd be wasting resources generating electricity
Speaker 1: that no one is using. So same thing is true
Speaker 1: with solar panels. If you don't use it immediately, then
Speaker 1: you have to have a way to store it or
Speaker 1: else you're you're just losing. Now, this is where one
Speaker 1: of the previous topics we've talked about in this subject
Speaker 1: area came in when we did the podcast about the
Speaker 1: power wall, the Tesla power Wall, which is this proposed
Speaker 1: product that would be a home storage system for your
Speaker 1: own energy independence. Right, So this would be an important
Speaker 1: part of anyone's strategy if they wanted to switch to
Speaker 1: solar power. Uh, you're not necessarily the power wall, but
Speaker 1: some system like it, right, the power wall. I think
Speaker 1: what the power wall managed to really do, which was
Speaker 1: really important, is it started to usher in a more
Speaker 1: affordable class of rechargeable batteries for home use, for for
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Because batteries are also made with
Speaker 1: some rare elements that are are not rare elements rather,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not that they're rare in the ground,
Speaker 1: they're just difficult to get ahold of um and uh
Speaker 1: and and yeah. That makes them very expensive and can
Speaker 1: be very carbon footprint heavy to uh to produce. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: with Tesla creating their Gigga factory where they're producing tons
Speaker 1: of batteries, literally tons of batteries when it's finished, Uh,
Speaker 1: that could mean that we'll see these prices go down
Speaker 1: even more because of just the economy of scale, where
Speaker 1: you're able to ramp up manufacturing, increase efficiency in the
Speaker 1: manufacturing process, and past the savings on to you. But
Speaker 1: the cool thing here is that if you look at
Speaker 1: the history of solar energy for the home, batteries were
Speaker 1: some of the most expensive elements in those in those
Speaker 1: conversion kits. So some people might have said, while I'll
Speaker 1: use solar panels, but I'm just going to use the
Speaker 1: solar panels to provide electricity during daylight hours. At night,
Speaker 1: I'll rely on the power grid, or on cloudy days,
Speaker 1: I'll rely on the power grid because I can't afford
Speaker 1: to install the battery system that will allow me true independence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and this. You know, batteries can certainly help, but
Speaker 1: the sheer sun factor can make it really not worthwhile
Speaker 1: to install solar panels in certain geographic areas, not even
Speaker 1: if your personal house doesn't it has too much tree
Speaker 1: cover or something like that. But you know, it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that works really great if you live
Speaker 1: in like l a or the desert, like the kind
Speaker 1: of place where if someone sees a rain drop that
Speaker 1: like Instagram and immediately um. But but it works less
Speaker 1: well if you live in like Seattle or London or something.
Speaker 1: I think if you're in a subterranean cavern, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: it works less well for gallum or then perhaps Yeah
Speaker 1: the Morlocks. Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole population
Speaker 1: that we're not serving here, but there are the Morlocks.
Speaker 1: Are the Warlocks really concerned with with with their carbon footprint?
Speaker 1: They are? But the Morlocks use geothermal energy. Good on you, Morlocks.
Speaker 1: So at any rate, boy, I gotta just keep on
Speaker 1: top of this cat. Uh. So anyway, let's say that
Speaker 1: you are at home and you're considering switching over to
Speaker 1: solar power. How do you know if it's actually a
Speaker 1: a an intelligent choice for you to make. Let's I mean,
Speaker 1: environmental concerns are definitely a big part of it. And
Speaker 1: if you have enough money where you are comfortable investing
Speaker 1: in something that may or may not pay off in
Speaker 1: the long run, depending upon your own situation, I applaud
Speaker 1: you for moving off of a system that relies heavily
Speaker 1: on fossil fuels. But not everyone has that luxury, right,
Speaker 1: Not everyone has enough money where they can arbitrally make
Speaker 1: that decision. They might have enough where they can say
Speaker 1: if in twenty years I will have saved money over
Speaker 1: that course of time, then I can afford to do this.
Speaker 1: That's a different story. Sure, sure, it's It's like when
Speaker 1: we were in the early stages of electric electric and
Speaker 1: hybrid cars in this country, where it was a it
Speaker 1: was an environmental choice that you were making, not a
Speaker 1: not a personal savings choice. Definitely an early adopter person
Speaker 1: with a lot of a lot of capital to be
Speaker 1: able to spend on that sort of thing, big green heart. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which again I mean that those are the people that
Speaker 1: we depend upon in order to bring these technologies to
Speaker 1: a point where the rest of us can afford them.
Speaker 1: So questions you have to answer, does your home get
Speaker 1: enough solar exposure not just with the the shadows like
Speaker 1: the tall trees or whatever, or or how much cloud
Speaker 1: cover do you get on average per year? But you know,
Speaker 1: the further away you are from the equator, the more
Speaker 1: time your home is going to have exposure to non
Speaker 1: sunlight hours. Right, So like if you're really way up
Speaker 1: there in Alaska, there's gonna be some stretches of time
Speaker 1: where you're not going to get very much sunlight at all.
Speaker 1: And during that time, of year, you will not be
Speaker 1: able to rely solely upon solar power to generate the
Speaker 1: electricity you need. Uh So, fortunately you don't have to
Speaker 1: spend much energy on air conditioning that you would think so.
Speaker 1: But the one time I visited Alaska, they were having
Speaker 1: a record breaking heat wave and everyone was going crazy
Speaker 1: because no one could sleep. So, boy, they were some
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how you Alaskans are normally,
Speaker 1: but you were a little ornery when I visited at
Speaker 1: any rate. Uh So, other questions you should ask, does
Speaker 1: does your area offer tax incentives or rebates for switching
Speaker 1: to solar because a lot of places do have these
Speaker 1: incentives in place, and if you can take advantage of that,
Speaker 1: that removes some of that upfront cost for the purchase
Speaker 1: and installation of solar panel systems. So that's an important
Speaker 1: question to ask. Also, how much does electricity cost in
Speaker 1: your area? Yeah, you mentioned this cost different things in
Speaker 1: different places. So in Georgia, again, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where if you switch to solar power, it may
Speaker 1: be more of an altruistic approach because generally speaking, our
Speaker 1: electricity rates are pretty low in the state compared to
Speaker 1: other places in the United States. Uh. So, then you
Speaker 1: can gure out how many years will it take for
Speaker 1: you to pay off your solar power panels based upon
Speaker 1: the savings you make and electricity use, and as long
Speaker 1: as that number is less than what it would take
Speaker 1: for you before you have to replace them, it may
Speaker 1: be a good choice. And if this sounds like it's
Speaker 1: all a lot of math and difficult number looking up
Speaker 1: that you might not have, you know, at access to
Speaker 1: that kind of of data. There are companies that are
Speaker 1: trying to our projects, that are trying to make it easier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one of the ones that I think is super
Speaker 1: cool is actually a spinoff company that started as a
Speaker 1: project at m I T and it's called map Dwell.
Speaker 1: So map Dwell what they want to do is create
Speaker 1: solar powered communities where you actually have neighborhoods that rely
Speaker 1: on solar power and that can support one another. So
Speaker 1: in other words, you have your own kind of mini
Speaker 1: solar powered power grid that's neighborhood based as opposed to
Speaker 1: UH city based or whatever. So they've started developing a
Speaker 1: tool called solar System that is designed to help people
Speaker 1: figure out if solar power would make sense for their
Speaker 1: personal home or in some case like a building owner
Speaker 1: whether or not it makes sense to put solar panels
Speaker 1: on the top of the building. And they add a
Speaker 1: really interesting way of going about this. First they sent
Speaker 1: out aircraft equipped with lidar, which is essentially a laser
Speaker 1: version of radar. And the basically what does is it
Speaker 1: it fires down a laser and looks for the reflection
Speaker 1: to bounce back as a sensor that that collects that
Speaker 1: data and by measuring those minute changes, it can create
Speaker 1: the topography for an area. Can it can accurately map
Speaker 1: the topography, And so they get those measurements back for
Speaker 1: all the tops of buildings in an urban area, and
Speaker 1: that starts the basis of the three D model they create.
Speaker 1: After that, they end up combining that with data from
Speaker 1: other sources like geographical sources and weather sources to determine
Speaker 1: how much sun a particular rooftop would get in an
Speaker 1: average here. So they go with that and then they
Speaker 1: start plotting dots on the rooftops showing where what areas
Speaker 1: of the rooftops get the most sun exposure. So that way,
Speaker 1: if you were to invest in solar panels, it would
Speaker 1: show you where you should concentrate those solar panels, not
Speaker 1: just you know, don't just put them on your roof.
Speaker 1: This is exactly where on your roofs you should put them.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool idea. Uh. And then the dots are
Speaker 1: color coded to let you know how suitable that area
Speaker 1: is for solar panels. By the by the way, all
Speaker 1: these dots when they're combined, it just looks like gradations
Speaker 1: of color, but essentially yellow, very bright yellow indicates this
Speaker 1: is primo landscape for solar panels. And then it starts
Speaker 1: to go from yellow to orange to brown. When you
Speaker 1: get to brown, it's like, this is probably not a
Speaker 1: good place to put your solar panels because you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get enough solar exposure for it to be worthwhile. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to take a look at, uh, installing
Speaker 1: solar panels on your own home, assuming that apped Well
Speaker 1: has actually mapped out your home. They've only got eight
Speaker 1: cities in the US mapped out as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast, but they're hoping to have all major
Speaker 1: urban areas in the United States mapped out before the
Speaker 1: end of twenty six UM. If you wanted to check
Speaker 1: out your own home, you could either highlight areas of
Speaker 1: the map where you want your solar panels to go
Speaker 1: on your actual on the roof of your house, or
Speaker 1: you could use an automated function which would then plot
Speaker 1: what the algorithm has determined are the the best spots
Speaker 1: for your solar panels. Yeah, and and it will also
Speaker 1: look into other regional data for you, like like whether
Speaker 1: or not there are any tax breaks that you can
Speaker 1: take into consideration. Yeah, all those little factors that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, mapp Dwell has decided to include that information
Speaker 1: so that you can see how much expense you would
Speaker 1: be burdened with upfront, how how long it would take
Speaker 1: you to pay off the panel investment um, and other
Speaker 1: information like that. So, in other words, they collected all
Speaker 1: those little bits and pieces we talked about earlier for
Speaker 1: you on your behalf. So it makes it much easier
Speaker 1: for you to see if it makes financial sense for
Speaker 1: you to switch. If you're like well, according to this,
Speaker 1: in seven years, these solar panels are going to pay
Speaker 1: for themselves. And that's just assuming that the prices price
Speaker 1: for electricity remains constant during that time period. I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: making an investment. I'm going to stay in this house
Speaker 1: at least seven more years. Or maybe you're thinking, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sell this house before that, but this is going
Speaker 1: to add to the value of my home. Either way,
Speaker 1: that could guide your decision going down this path. But
Speaker 1: if it says something like eighteen years, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: then I get essentially two years of use of this,
Speaker 1: where I am I've paid everything off essentially before I
Speaker 1: have to do it again. That might not make sense
Speaker 1: for you, and you may choose not to do it,
Speaker 1: but so useful tools so you can quickly assess the
Speaker 1: suitability of your your rooftop for solar panels. And if
Speaker 1: you could create these communities, then you again would have
Speaker 1: like at least many power grids, so if if you
Speaker 1: need to, you might be generating more electricity than what
Speaker 1: you require for your home, so you could actually uh
Speaker 1: use that electricity to help some of your neighbors in
Speaker 1: case they have greater requirements at that time. So, since
Speaker 1: you've all made the investment for the solar panels in
Speaker 1: the first place, it's not like anyone is losing money
Speaker 1: on this. Although I guess you could even create an
Speaker 1: economy based on this if you really wanted to, I
Speaker 1: think that would require a lot more thought to go
Speaker 1: into it with meters and everything to figure out, all right,
Speaker 1: who generated the electricity I used to dry my clothes
Speaker 1: this morning. I owe you a coke. But it is
Speaker 1: it is the possibility of a solar economy. That's this
Speaker 1: idea of we actually can harness the Sun's power, not
Speaker 1: just for our own electricity needs, but actually to make money,
Speaker 1: um through these the smaller community based solar networks. Although
Speaker 1: you can already do that in some to some extent
Speaker 1: in some areas by selling any excess electricity back to
Speaker 1: the power grid. Um. That that's not true everywhere, but
Speaker 1: in some places that is allowed. So that's another possibility.
Speaker 1: All right, that's really cool. But let's say that we
Speaker 1: want to think bigger than this, bigger than someone's own
Speaker 1: personal property. Uh, and using solar panels there, What if
Speaker 1: we wanted to create a solar farm that could generate
Speaker 1: enough electricity to supply a thousand houses are more with electricity?
Speaker 1: And of course we all we already do have solar
Speaker 1: farms out there, but they're not as efficient as we
Speaker 1: would like them to be. For one thing, they are
Speaker 1: they're still reliant upon the sun being out. So even
Speaker 1: if you put them out in the desert where they're
Speaker 1: going to get great solar exposure through the entire year.
Speaker 1: Once it's nighttime, you're not generating any more electricity from
Speaker 1: your traditional solar farm because you have to have that
Speaker 1: sunlight to hit the pan als to generate the electricity.
Speaker 1: But what if you harnessed electricity from the sun in
Speaker 1: a different way, using heat rather than the sunlight as
Speaker 1: the basis for the electricity generation. And that's the idea
Speaker 1: of the solar tower. So I've heard this explained. Is
Speaker 1: solar thermal or thermal solar? Yeah, yeah, thermal being heat.
Speaker 1: It's exactly the way this works. I specifically concentrated on
Speaker 1: a US company called Solar Reserve because they've built a
Speaker 1: solar tower as a as a sort of proof of
Speaker 1: concept to show how this thing would work. But basically,
Speaker 1: the way it works is that you can you can
Speaker 1: generate electricity day or night because you're storing heat and
Speaker 1: using that heat to do work. In this case, the
Speaker 1: work is the same you would see with a lot
Speaker 1: of other types of solar or rather electricity generators, which
Speaker 1: is you take our good friend h two oh, you
Speaker 1: turn it into steam. That steam under pressure moves the
Speaker 1: turbine the turbine generates electricity. Uh. Now normally we use
Speaker 1: like coal fired plants, oil based plants, uh, nuclear reactions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are all different ways that we use to heat
Speaker 1: water up to a really high temperature, so it creates
Speaker 1: steam and then turns turbines. So this is a similar thing,
Speaker 1: except instead of using fossil fuels reusing or nuclear fuel,
Speaker 1: we're using solar radiation. I guess technically we're using nuclear fuel.
Speaker 1: It's just nuclear fuel. That's the Sun. So it's really
Speaker 1: through the radiation of its energy that we're we're harnessing
Speaker 1: this because as we all know, the sun is a
Speaker 1: mass incandescent gas. Yeah, gigantic nuclear furnace. UM. So the
Speaker 1: solar reserve. The way that the way they've designed theirs
Speaker 1: is they've got a tower that's in the middle of
Speaker 1: kind of a field of mirrors, essentially, and their tower
Speaker 1: is six ft tall, which is about and at the
Speaker 1: very top of it they have what they all the receiver.
Speaker 1: This is a series of panels. They use fourteen panels
Speaker 1: um and in groups of seven, and each panel consists
Speaker 1: of sixty six thin wall straight tubes. So essentially you
Speaker 1: can think of it as as these areas where it
Speaker 1: can trap heat and and conduct the heat from the
Speaker 1: outside to the inside of the tower. And they're coated
Speaker 1: with special material to be as uh uh to to
Speaker 1: raise the absorptivity so that you make them they absorbed
Speaker 1: so much of that heat they're very little of it
Speaker 1: gets lost. So all those mirrors are pointing light up
Speaker 1: to the top of the tower. These panels are designed
Speaker 1: to absorb heat at high efficiency and transfer that heat
Speaker 1: to the inside. And on the inside you have pipes,
Speaker 1: and inside the pipes are is liquid salt. So you've
Speaker 1: got liquid salts circulating through the pipes, and the pipes
Speaker 1: kind of go through a heat ext change and it's
Speaker 1: not that different from the sort of stuff you would
Speaker 1: see in like a refrigerator um or or an air conditioner.
Speaker 1: So it's imagine this pipe making kind of a a
Speaker 1: criss cross pattern across seven of those fourteen panels. They
Speaker 1: have two different pathways, one for each group of seven.
Speaker 1: And as the pipes pass along these panels, on the inside,
Speaker 1: they're absorbing the heat that's coming from the sun and
Speaker 1: that's starting to turn the liquid salts molten, so super
Speaker 1: high temperature here really pretty steamy stuff. We're talking that
Speaker 1: they keep it. Like the low level for the molten
Speaker 1: salts is five fifty degrees fahrenheit, which is two degree celsius.
Speaker 1: The high level is a thousand fifty degrees fahrenheit or
Speaker 1: five sixty six degrees celsius. Yeah, that's warm, and it
Speaker 1: according to them, like the way once it's heated to
Speaker 1: the right temperature, they put it in a storage tank.
Speaker 1: According to them, they only lose about a degree of
Speaker 1: fahrenheit of temperature per day in that search. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: just leave it there, and that's why they can generate electricity. Chemistry.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's pretty really excited about the melting
Speaker 1: point of salt. So fascinating. Well, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because again you can generate electricity day or
Speaker 1: night because you're not relying upon the sunlight. You're relying
Speaker 1: upon that heat that's been stored and use that those
Speaker 1: molten salts. You can pass it through another heat exchange
Speaker 1: which then passes the heat from the salts into water.
Speaker 1: Keeping mind the salts and water don't make contact with
Speaker 1: each other. It's essentially that you have another series of
Speaker 1: pipes that go through a huge tank of water converts
Speaker 1: that water into steam, steam turns a turbine, the steam
Speaker 1: goes through a condenser, turns back into water, and the
Speaker 1: salts that had been used to heat that water then
Speaker 1: go into a separate tank to be pumped back up
Speaker 1: to the tower to be reheated on the next day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most of the time, the actual substance that you're making
Speaker 1: warm is it's not the substance that touches the water literally, right,
Speaker 1: Uh see see above recal plants, Like, you're not dropping
Speaker 1: hot coals into waters, and you're not not dropping hot
Speaker 1: nuclear rods directly into water on purpose anyway. Yes, that
Speaker 1: has happened accidentally. It's considered bad when that happens. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about a pretty big operation. Even for the
Speaker 1: solar Reserve proof of concept, they have ten thousand mirrors
Speaker 1: covering a fifteen hundred acre field, so you need a
Speaker 1: lot of surface area for this um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the liquid salts there, they say
Speaker 1: that five thousand, eight hundred gallons of liquid salts passed
Speaker 1: through the receiver circuits every minute, So lots of power
Speaker 1: going on there. The nice thing is they can use
Speaker 1: their own electricity to power the pumps right, They don't
Speaker 1: have to pull power from somewhere else in order to
Speaker 1: do that. So once it's primed and ready to go,
Speaker 1: you've got a self sufficient system. Now, according to Solar Serve,
Speaker 1: each plant would have a an expected lifespan of thirty years.
Speaker 1: So again you have to look at the amount of
Speaker 1: electricity it will generate in that thirty year span and
Speaker 1: determine whether or not that makes financial sense to support
Speaker 1: that kind of system as opposed to again relying on
Speaker 1: more traditional methods of generating electricity. UH. And as for
Speaker 1: how much electricity you can generate, well, depending upon the
Speaker 1: size of the plant, it can generate between fifty and
Speaker 1: two hundred megawatts of electricity. One megawatt is enough to
Speaker 1: power uh one thousand homes more or less, so between
Speaker 1: fifty thousand to two hundred thousand homes could be powered
Speaker 1: by one of these types of solar towers. Now, when
Speaker 1: you think about the average city size, obviously you're going
Speaker 1: to need more than just one of the size in
Speaker 1: order to power it. But it's a good way to
Speaker 1: offset some of the electricity needs for a community. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really a city. And so UH they say that
Speaker 1: they've got one point eight billion dollars worth of contracts
Speaker 1: active worldwide right now, and they hope to continue to
Speaker 1: expand in the future, so much so that they retweeted
Speaker 1: me yeah, because they saw that the that I did
Speaker 1: the video about them, and so they said, hey, there's
Speaker 1: actually I didn't retweet, they mentioned me and say, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a great forward thinking video that you should watch
Speaker 1: because they totally talk about us. But I think it
Speaker 1: is a really cool idea and an interesting way to
Speaker 1: work around that limitation of your only generating electricity when
Speaker 1: the sun is out. Yeah. And and furthermore, just upsetting
Speaker 1: those those materials that can get that can that can
Speaker 1: get so expensive in multiple ways for solar panels, yes,
Speaker 1: uh so uh. And then they're very careful to explain
Speaker 1: that the way they generate electricity is fundamentally different from
Speaker 1: a solar panels approach, but that they both ultimately rely
Speaker 1: on the sun for the source of energy. It's just
Speaker 1: they go about generating electricity in very different ways. Before
Speaker 1: we move on, though, I do want to correct my
Speaker 1: prior lyric statement because I believe they might be giants.
Speaker 1: Has has changed the song now to a miasma of
Speaker 1: incandescent plasma. That is correct. They did go back to
Speaker 1: to UH because so many people were writing in to say,
Speaker 1: you know, your song is really gas not so accurate.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, that song was a cover that
Speaker 1: came from an educational album because I owned the vinyl
Speaker 1: album that came from. And Schoolhouse Rock is not schoolhouse
Speaker 1: Rock but the original, the original, the original version. The
Speaker 1: guy who sings it sounds like this. The song is
Speaker 1: a mass of incandescent guess a gigantic nuclear furness. Are
Speaker 1: you gonna keep singing? No? But that's that's he hits
Speaker 1: those ers real hard. This is what's so charming about it. Anyway. UH.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the future solar panels.
Speaker 1: So we've already mentioned about the the peak level of
Speaker 1: efficiency that's theoretically possible and that will never hit that
Speaker 1: right where even when we see the ideal solar panels
Speaker 1: being used in UH in labs right now, with perfect conditions,
Speaker 1: you don't get significantly higher than what we're seeing UH.
Speaker 1: In the field. I mean, you hear about forty. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll hear even as high as fifty. But that's like
Speaker 1: real pie in the sky conditions, like in a laboratory
Speaker 1: controlled with like such expensive equipment. And then yeah, and
Speaker 1: and perfect solar exposure, Like there's essentially every single part
Speaker 1: of the panel is being exposed to the perfect light. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it's something that would never happen in any
Speaker 1: practical sense. But that doesn't mean that we're stuck with
Speaker 1: the status quo forever. I mean, efficiency might be a
Speaker 1: very limiting factor and only very slowly increase over time,
Speaker 1: But there are other ways that we can see solar
Speaker 1: panels changing in the future. And a big part of
Speaker 1: that is the expense of solar panels. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 1: so many researchers are working on so many different aspects
Speaker 1: of this problem. A few things that have been in
Speaker 1: the news recently. M I T announced to prove of
Speaker 1: concept material that's so thin and so light that you
Speaker 1: can put a panel of it on top of a
Speaker 1: soap bubble and it will work without bursting the bubble.
Speaker 1: And I mean, of course, this is not what We're
Speaker 1: not trying to put all of our new solar panels
Speaker 1: on soap bubbles. That wouldn't really be the best choice,
Speaker 1: I don't think, for multiple reasons. It could be a
Speaker 1: really energetic foam party. Though, why don't we keep talking
Speaker 1: about foam parties on the show. It's been a it's
Speaker 1: been a while, okay, but uh, but yeah, so one
Speaker 1: of the problems of solar panels is that the weight
Speaker 1: of them restricts how you can install them and where
Speaker 1: you can install them. And traditional cells that use glass,
Speaker 1: uh produced some like fifteen watts of power per kilogram
Speaker 1: of weight, and these cells output more like more like
Speaker 1: six watts per gram, which is like a four hundred
Speaker 1: times improvement. That's not shabby. UM, They're they're they're working
Speaker 1: though on making the manufacturing process scalable. Right now it's
Speaker 1: you know, enormously expensive because they just invented it. The
Speaker 1: process that is really interesting to UM. All the layers
Speaker 1: of the cell can be grown simultaneously in a single
Speaker 1: vacuum chamber. By growing, I mean deposited through fun physics
Speaker 1: that I don't understand extremely well. But but but yeah,
Speaker 1: so if they work at the scaling thing, the material
Speaker 1: could be used in places where we've where we've had
Speaker 1: trouble installing solar panels, like on on weather balloons and
Speaker 1: Internet balloons in the case of like Google Loon project
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. UM, or even like personal items
Speaker 1: like clothing or bags. I bet that would be a
Speaker 1: much better solar panel system than that back pack I
Speaker 1: used to have. Oh yeah, yeah, I have a solar
Speaker 1: panel embedded in it. I remember when I got that one.
Speaker 1: It was really heavy because it was not one of
Speaker 1: these types of solar cells. And for another, it was
Speaker 1: not terribly practical because you would read that in order
Speaker 1: to recharge your device, you would need to have the
Speaker 1: backpack placed in direct sunlight for twelve hours. How how
Speaker 1: long are days here in Georgia's well, even on a
Speaker 1: twelve hour long day, I can't imagine ever being like, well,
Speaker 1: hang on, I gotta go move my backpack again. Attached
Speaker 1: the backpack to the cat. The cat will auto find
Speaker 1: the best sunlight. Yeah, I did that, but the cat
Speaker 1: wasn't able to move very much. Should have unloaded the backpack.
Speaker 1: First lessons for the future, Yeah yeah. There's other research
Speaker 1: UM some some out of Washington State University and the
Speaker 1: University of Tennessee, which we're collaborating with the U s
Speaker 1: S National Renewable Energy Laboratory. UM are are working on
Speaker 1: a manufacturing process to improve one type of solar cells
Speaker 1: called cadmium teleide cells, and in comparison to silicon cells,
Speaker 1: they perform a lot better in a lot of real
Speaker 1: world scenarios, like like if you've got low light and
Speaker 1: high humidity in an area, but but they've been less
Speaker 1: efficient overall. Um that that scent I believe refers to
Speaker 1: silicon cells, not to not to other types of cells,
Speaker 1: which in silicon are the gold standard for the best
Speaker 1: possible efficiency right now. Um other types of cells just
Speaker 1: had like a poor life expectancy in general. But this
Speaker 1: new process improves the conductivity and the carrier lifetime of
Speaker 1: cadmium teleide materials and and could eventually challenge silicon cells
Speaker 1: like hold on the commercial market. That would be a
Speaker 1: great uh thing to something that could have that big
Speaker 1: of a potential impact, and especially with elements that are
Speaker 1: a little bit less difficult to deal with than silicon,
Speaker 1: that that are less expensive to mine and less polluting
Speaker 1: to the environment to to purify um. Speaking of which,
Speaker 1: advances in recycling are another another concept that people are
Speaker 1: working with. There's research out of the Technical University of
Speaker 1: Denmark that's improving the process of breaking down old solar
Speaker 1: cells to reclaim all of these expensive materials, which will hopefully,
Speaker 1: like a prevent those materials from damaging the environment and
Speaker 1: landfills and be help offset the cost of obtaining more
Speaker 1: of them. The process involves burning old cells instead of
Speaker 1: using chemical baths, and the heat energy given off could
Speaker 1: even be cycled back into the processing plant to help
Speaker 1: power itself, so you get some thermal energy from just
Speaker 1: the process of recycling these solar cells. That's a great
Speaker 1: idea because, like we said, with the average lifespan being
Speaker 1: around twenty years, knowing that you're going to have to
Speaker 1: replace these at some point because that efficiency we talked
Speaker 1: about over the lifetime of the solar cell that's going
Speaker 1: to decline as well, is just going to become less
Speaker 1: efficient over time. Just as all all systems must obey entropy,
Speaker 1: eventually things breakdown. So having a system of recycling to
Speaker 1: help offset what we would need to create a new
Speaker 1: batch of solar cells as well as making very clever
Speaker 1: use of that excess heat. I like that idea a lot.
Speaker 1: I hope that we see that. First of all, I
Speaker 1: hope we see that it's truly successful, and secondly, I
Speaker 1: hope that we can see it adopted by by more nations.
Speaker 1: In the future. Now, do you think we're ever going
Speaker 1: to reach a time when all of our energy needs
Speaker 1: could be met by solar No, not directly right now,
Speaker 1: because well, there are a couple of different things to consider.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of them is the abundance of solar energy,
Speaker 1: which truly is quite abundant. I mean, we were able
Speaker 1: somehow to harvest all of the solar energy that fell
Speaker 1: on the surface of the Earth, I think that would
Speaker 1: be more than enough to do all the stuff we
Speaker 1: need to do, But that would also be a kardachief
Speaker 1: of one SI stations. We are nowhere near that yet, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we for pretty obvious reasons, we can't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of lots of very good reasons, Like we can't
Speaker 1: cover the entire surface of the planet in solar panels
Speaker 1: or mirrors. We can't cut the entire surface of the
Speaker 1: Sun in solar panels or mirrors. Yeah, if we did that,
Speaker 1: we'd go we'd be jumping ahead to yeah, which would
Speaker 1: be awesome. But yeah, we cannot build our our dicen
Speaker 1: sphere yet. So um, yeah, it's it. I don't think
Speaker 1: we're going to see a time where solar energy will
Speaker 1: provide our electricity needs. But I certainly think it could
Speaker 1: heavily offset our needs, and that with other renewable sources
Speaker 1: we could perhaps make up the difference. So everything from
Speaker 1: geothermal to hydro power, to wind power, uh, that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. I think Jor on a bicycle, yes, never
Speaker 1: let him off that bike. I think. I think with
Speaker 1: the combination of these it could be possible for us
Speaker 1: to meet of all of our electricity needs. The question
Speaker 1: is does it make First of all, does it make
Speaker 1: enough of an environmental impact to warrant that change, because
Speaker 1: as we pointed out, a lot of these technologies require
Speaker 1: us to do other work that emits that you know,
Speaker 1: has pretty significant carbon emissions. It's just they're on the
Speaker 1: there on a different side of the uh, the energy
Speaker 1: equation than where you would think of on a something
Speaker 1: like liquid fuel. Right, the burning of liquid fuel creates
Speaker 1: carbon emissions. Obviously sunlight doesn't create carbon emissions, but the
Speaker 1: production of the technology that allows you to harness the
Speaker 1: sunlight does. So you have to look at that. You
Speaker 1: have to look at the economic side of it, obviously,
Speaker 1: because it's very hard, I think, to lead to lay
Speaker 1: down the argument, hey, stop using fossil fuels which are
Speaker 1: cheap and plentiful to you right now, and start using
Speaker 1: this technology which is relatively expensive to you right now,
Speaker 1: because we don't want you ruining the planet. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say that, especially to nations that are are just
Speaker 1: catching up to where a lot of other countries were
Speaker 1: fifty years ago. You know, it's very difficult to make
Speaker 1: that argument in a way that doesn't come across as
Speaker 1: purely hypocritical. Um. But I think it's really nice that
Speaker 1: the tools we mentioned with mapped well, and there are
Speaker 1: other sources out there as well, can let people make
Speaker 1: their own personal decisions as to whether or not it
Speaker 1: makes sense to at least look into solar panels as
Speaker 1: a way to offset their own electricity needs, possibly meet
Speaker 1: all of their needs. Uh. I would love the idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the idea of of doing that
Speaker 1: at my house. UM. I don't know that I could
Speaker 1: do it. I'd have to look at the h o
Speaker 1: A agreement. But I would love the thought of being
Speaker 1: able to do that at my house, again, partially as
Speaker 1: a way of being independent of a larger power it
Speaker 1: should things go terribly wrong for whatever reason, or if
Speaker 1: another transformer just blows because I had one of those.
Speaker 1: Happened over the weekend. Yeah, just exploded over you were
Speaker 1: you at home by yourself with no power? I was
Speaker 1: not by myself, I know, that was before before my
Speaker 1: wife left on her trip. I was, but she was
Speaker 1: asleep and did not wake up. But yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was actually on my computer and then I heard
Speaker 1: a distant popping noise and then all the power went out.
Speaker 1: So it was not a transformer that was close to
Speaker 1: my house. But still that sort of thing does happen,
Speaker 1: and it would be nice to be independent of all that.
Speaker 1: At any rate, this was kind of It was kind
Speaker 1: of fun to to really dive into this topic since
Speaker 1: we hadn't really spent a huge amount of time on
Speaker 1: it directly before. So, guys, if you have any questions
Speaker 1: about solar power, or you have any other topics that
Speaker 1: you would like us to tackle in the future. You
Speaker 1: want to know what the future of whatever is right
Speaker 1: us unless no our email addresses f W thinking at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com, or you can drop us
Speaker 1: a line on Twitter or Facebook. We are fter you
Speaker 1: thinking on Twitter search f you thinking on Facebook, We'll
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