Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm la and both
Speaker 1: of us have a sunny disposition today because we're talking
Speaker 1: about solar panels. Lauren is already shaking her head into
Speaker 1: the appointment. It's a Thursday, all right. So this actually
Speaker 1: comes to us as a suggestion from listener Kirk via Facebook,
Speaker 1: and the request is not sure if you've covered this
Speaker 1: particular technology yet and one of your podcasts or that
Speaker 1: and forward thinking it's an excellent show you should all
Speaker 1: be watching that. That's that's that's a little aside from me.
Speaker 1: But since it just it's just getting turned on near here,
Speaker 1: and I've heard seeing this technology has been used in
Speaker 1: northern Europe some time, I thought it would make a
Speaker 1: pretty cool podcast, and then sent us a link to
Speaker 1: an article about a solar thermal farm that's being set up.
Speaker 1: So we thought, you know what, it's been a while
Speaker 1: since we've done an episode about solar panels. Yeah, since
Speaker 1: August two thousand eleven, I believe, in fact, back when
Speaker 1: Chris Palett was on the show. Yep, So we did
Speaker 1: an 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 those solar panels
Speaker 1: actually work. Your basic solar panels tend to be made
Speaker 1: out of silicon, and the dope silicon dopey, impure, purposefully
Speaker 1: impure silicon. Right, that silicon is dope, you know. So
Speaker 1: uh and there's another Oh, I got the hands over
Speaker 1: the face this time, guys. Awesome, that's a that's our
Speaker 1: pure wind. No, okay, so silicon. The reason why we're
Speaker 1: using silicon in solar panels is that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you remember your illustrations of atoms, they have the electron
Speaker 1: shells on the outside of the atom, and those electron
Speaker 1: shells can hold a certain number of electrons depending upon
Speaker 1: what which energy shell you're talking about. Now, silicon has
Speaker 1: some free A electrons in its outermost shell, meaning that
Speaker 1: not every single space that can hold an electron has
Speaker 1: an electron. And when I say space, I just mean
Speaker 1: the number of electrons that can inhabit at outer shell. Uh.
Speaker 1: Since they're they are free, then silicon can bond with
Speaker 1: something else like other silicon atoms. So if you can
Speaker 1: have it bond with lots of silicon atoms, you then
Speaker 1: create a silicon crystal. If you then bombard this silicon
Speaker 1: crystal that has been doped in various ways, either with
Speaker 1: ions that have a negative charge or ions have a
Speaker 1: positive charge, you can then induce electrons to flow. Now,
Speaker 1: in our article on how stuff Works dot Com about
Speaker 1: how solar panels work, there's an helpful analogy there. Right.
Speaker 1: It's about uh kind of talking about hills, right. It's
Speaker 1: saying that essentially when when you create when you create
Speaker 1: one of these cells with a with the negative side
Speaker 1: and a positive side, it's going to create an electron
Speaker 1: flow that's downhill, right, meaning that like if you were
Speaker 1: to have a rock and you pushed it down the hill,
Speaker 1: it would roll down the hill, but it wouldn't roll
Speaker 1: back up the hill. There there'd be that blocking mechanism
Speaker 1: to keep it from going up the hill. Uh. The
Speaker 1: in the case of silicon based solar cells, the photon
Speaker 1: is kind of that initial push that gets the rock rolling.
Speaker 1: So if the photon is strong enough to push the
Speaker 1: rock and get it moving, everything's cool. You're actually you're
Speaker 1: gathering energy through solar power. So the photon hits the
Speaker 1: silicon crystals that are doped so that you're it's not
Speaker 1: just a pure silicon crystal all the way through. That
Speaker 1: gives energy to allow electrons to break clear of what
Speaker 1: is called the band gap. That allows the electrons to
Speaker 1: break free of their bonds and flow through a pathway.
Speaker 1: Now they want to get to the negatively charged electrons
Speaker 1: want to get to a more positively charged environment. But
Speaker 1: if you have a barrier there so that they can't
Speaker 1: just crossover, they you know that you get this potential
Speaker 1: in your g but you don't have any real energy.
Speaker 1: But if you make a pathway from negative to positive,
Speaker 1: then the electrons will travel that pathway to get to
Speaker 1: that positive site because that's really really want to be.
Speaker 1: That's that's the awesome place for them. And if you
Speaker 1: make them do work along the way, you get a
Speaker 1: benefit from it. So like that work might be lighting
Speaker 1: a light bulb, or it might be opening the doors
Speaker 1: on the enterprise. I've been reading a lot about star
Speaker 1: Trek recently. Um anyway, the work could be whatever you
Speaker 1: could imagine an electronic circuit, and the electrons are going
Speaker 1: to go and do it because it means they get
Speaker 1: to be on the positive party on the other side.
Speaker 1: It's just like me. If you tell me there's a
Speaker 1: positive party on the other side, I'm willing to do
Speaker 1: a lot of work to get there. I'm not on
Speaker 1: a lot of lists anyway. So this is the basic
Speaker 1: premise of a solar panel. You have the photons providing
Speaker 1: the initial energy. Now, not all photons are created equally.
Speaker 1: We have lots of different uh 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 the
Speaker 1: example I used in the old podcast, if you want
Speaker 1: to go back and listen to that, is that let's
Speaker 1: say that I'm capable of lifting a hundred ten pounds.
Speaker 1: I'm actually able to lift more than that just then,
Speaker 1: you know, but for the purposes of this example, hundred
Speaker 1: ten pounds of my limit. If you put a hundred
Speaker 1: pound weight in front of me, no problem, I can
Speaker 1: lift it up. You put to one pound weights in
Speaker 1: front of me, I can lift one or the other,
Speaker 1: but not both at the same time. However, you know,
Speaker 1: you sit there and you look at that from an
Speaker 1: energy perspective, I'm capable of lifting a hundred ten pounds.
Speaker 1: I lift a hundred pound weight. That means ten pounds
Speaker 1: of my lifting power are going to waste. I can't.
Speaker 1: It's not being utilized. I'm not capturing it in some
Speaker 1: useful way. And in the case of traditional photovoltaics, if
Speaker 1: Jonathan were that photon and you put to fifty pound
Speaker 1: weights in front of him, he wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: lift them both, only one. Yeah, So we have to that.
Speaker 1: This is where we're starting to get into some of
Speaker 1: the challenges that we face with solar power. The big
Speaker 1: one there is efficiency. Uh, Maximizing efficiency in solar panels
Speaker 1: is no easy task, and in fact, it's something that
Speaker 1: we've seen. If you were to look at it from
Speaker 1: a big picture perspective, it looks like really minor increases
Speaker 1: over the last couple of decades. But in fact, every
Speaker 1: tiny increase means that you get quite a bit of
Speaker 1: return on your investment, simply because when we're talking about
Speaker 1: solar panels, were usually talking about big arrays of solar
Speaker 1: panels where a little improvement means a lot of output
Speaker 1: in the in the long run, and they've been so inefficient. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, je early about five of the potential energy
Speaker 1: of the sun is captured by them. In fact, according
Speaker 1: to some sources, your typical commercial solar cell will get
Speaker 1: you about nineteen return. So of all the potential energy
Speaker 1: you could be gathering based upon the photons that hit
Speaker 1: that panel is what you're actually capitalizing on. Right, the
Speaker 1: theoretical maximum for silicon wave for cells is about fifty
Speaker 1: percent efficiency, right, we just don't get there. In fact
Speaker 1: that the current world world record in a lab is
Speaker 1: only forty four point seven percent efficiency, reached just this
Speaker 1: year by German and French researchers with a four junction
Speaker 1: cell and more on multijunction cells later on in the podcast.
Speaker 1: But but that's but that's an elaborator. That's a 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, not the field. Well, you know, in
Speaker 1: my mind, there's there's one field and everything else is
Speaker 1: just a pathetic copy. I'm talking about a field of dreams.
Speaker 1: What I'm not sure what I built it. They came,
Speaker 1: that's all I'm saying. So then, uh, yeah, that so
Speaker 1: we're talking about really low efficiencies when it comes to
Speaker 1: how much energy is hitting it versus how much you
Speaker 1: are actually gathering. On top of that, you have to
Speaker 1: 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 needs 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 what.
Speaker 1: So then you've got a and moving moving towards to
Speaker 1: something like thirty six cents per what. Right, And we're
Speaker 1: also going to talk about some alternatives that might get
Speaker 1: that even lower. But we're seeing, we're seeing the cost
Speaker 1: of solar panels drop year over year, and that's, uh,
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 at making them with
Speaker 1: cheaper materials, 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 uh 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: if you have yourself installed any kind of solar panels,
Speaker 1: you are saying a dollar per what I wish, um.
Speaker 1: And that's because for private use, installation costs will cost
Speaker 1: anywhere from like three to six bucks these days. And
Speaker 1: per what per what? Right? And and that's um, that's
Speaker 1: a huge improvement over the eight to ten that it
Speaker 1: was a few years back. But in fact, I remember
Speaker 1: seeing one report and it was based out of the UK,
Speaker 1: which is already kind of interesting because the UK is
Speaker 1: not necessarily the ideal spot to have solar panels. They
Speaker 1: don't have as much it's a little bit cloudier 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
Speaker 1: use the a seven years, you would essentially be offsetting
Speaker 1: that cost of installation. After the seven years, you would
Speaker 1: essentially have recaptured those costs, and apart from maintenance fees
Speaker 1: for whatever purposes you would need, your energy production at
Speaker 1: that point forward would be free, so you would then
Speaker 1: you know, be be at a surplus, which is fantastic
Speaker 1: and the same thing is generally true throughout the world.
Speaker 1: Um And as we see these costs go down, both
Speaker 1: installation manufacturing, both all of the costs installation manufacturing and
Speaker 1: maintenance going down, then that will mean you don't have
Speaker 1: to wait as long for this investment to pay off.
Speaker 1: Part of this is depending on the market. Currently there
Speaker 1: is more supply than there is demand for photovote takes
Speaker 1: and that's only because it has been so expensive. And
Speaker 1: so I think that as this price comes down, it's
Speaker 1: going to be interesting to see how the market adjusts
Speaker 1: and whether we're going to see a flattening, a plateau
Speaker 1: prices or or what's going to go on. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean this also has to do with rare and
Speaker 1: toxic materials, which you know, rare earth metals are a
Speaker 1: big component and component and China is the chief producer
Speaker 1: of rare earth metals. We've talked about that in a
Speaker 1: previous episode of tech Stuff as well about you waste right, yeah,
Speaker 1: well e waste yes, that was one of the yeah
Speaker 1: in particular was the waste but rare earth metals and
Speaker 1: I think We have a specific episode just about rare
Speaker 1: earth metals because we we wanted to explain what what
Speaker 1: they were, why they're important, and why is it that
Speaker 1: China is the main producer. And the main reason that
Speaker 1: China is the main producer is because it's super cheap
Speaker 1: to get it from China, because China does not I'm sure,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they have fewer. The problem with bare earth
Speaker 1: metals is that they all contain certain radioactive elements, and
Speaker 1: also getting them out can um can release a lot
Speaker 1: of toxic stuff and there, and in general, if you're
Speaker 1: doing that, you tend to incur lots of expenses, except
Speaker 1: in China where they don't care as much. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you have fewer regulations, the it's a lot cheaper, but
Speaker 1: a lot more dangerous for the people who are doing
Speaker 1: it and for the environment, because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: there are other places on Earth that are rich relatively
Speaker 1: speaking in rare earth metals. But it's the term rare
Speaker 1: earth metals doesn't mean that there are very few of
Speaker 1: them in the earth. That generally means that there are
Speaker 1: very few of them concentrated in a single area, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the mining process is very different than you know,
Speaker 1: striking a vein of say iron and being able to
Speaker 1: mind it. So and of course that's going to play
Speaker 1: into the other podcasts that we're going to record next
Speaker 1: but has already published, I believe. So if you've listened
Speaker 1: to our Minecraft episode, just know that we haven't recorded
Speaker 1: it yet. You yeah, you're you've actually traveled. I don't
Speaker 1: even know where you are now anyway. So we've got efficiency,
Speaker 1: we've got cost, we have the fact that there's these
Speaker 1: rare materials toxicity those that's another challenge. Uh And another
Speaker 1: one is just the and we talked about this briefly
Speaker 1: with the UK. It's just the how how practical is it?
Speaker 1: Is it practical depending upon where you are in the world,
Speaker 1: because if you are someplace that does not get a
Speaker 1: lot of sun exposure, then you're not going to reap
Speaker 1: the benefits of solar power. However, if you live pretty
Speaker 1: near to say, the Majabi Desert, you're in a decently
Speaker 1: good spot right exactly. And you know, I've that we
Speaker 1: live in Atlanta, and I've seen homes in Atlanta that
Speaker 1: have solar panels. In fact, there's some that are very
Speaker 1: close to where I live that have solar panels installed. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's something that I've thought about too, But it's
Speaker 1: another one of those things where I would really need
Speaker 1: to have a kind of study done about how much
Speaker 1: sun does my home really get? Would I would I
Speaker 1: be doing? Would I be getting a good return on
Speaker 1: my investment, Meaning that if it's going to be one
Speaker 1: of those things where I'm only barely offsetting my energy costs,
Speaker 1: I might be doing more harm than good by adding
Speaker 1: solar panels, especially when you figure in maintenance fees and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff in the in the process. So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know your mileage will vary depending upon how much
Speaker 1: sun you get. So those are the basic challenges. Now
Speaker 1: what's great is about solar panels is that we see
Speaker 1: lots of different companies and engineer and scientists looking to
Speaker 1: address these challenges in different ways. So people are coming
Speaker 1: at this problem from all different directions, not just from
Speaker 1: solar panels, but from huge collections of solar panels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's speaking of the Majave Desert. Actually, there is a
Speaker 1: large solar thermal farm being built in California right near
Speaker 1: the Nevada border called ivan Pa. I didn't look up
Speaker 1: the pronunciation. We're going to go with that. Um. But
Speaker 1: so it's like ivan ho. Yes, Um, it's on some
Speaker 1: four thousand acres, which is about sixteen square kilometers, which
Speaker 1: is something like six square miles for anyone else who
Speaker 1: doesn't know what on earth an acre is and what's hecktears. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Um. And so solar thermal farms, as
Speaker 1: opposed to classic solar farms, which are just large collections
Speaker 1: of these photopol take plates, use mirrors a k. A
Speaker 1: heliostats if you want to use the technical science term
Speaker 1: for it, um to concentrate sunlight into a tower, which
Speaker 1: then boils water to create steam to turn a turbine
Speaker 1: to create power or not create power, I'm sorry, generate energy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this, this particular Ivan Pope is using some one
Speaker 1: D seventy thousand mirrors in fact, to concentrate the sunlight
Speaker 1: onto three large like fo 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. I guess it's online too. That's great. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, but coal ocation 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, solar Mars will not be hurting
Speaker 1: for that although they don't know you don't know about
Speaker 1: 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 and seventy seven net mega watts of
Speaker 1: power in uh as opposed to the three two it's
Speaker 1: capable of total You're you're always going to lose some
Speaker 1: in a system like this, and which is about the
Speaker 1: same as a medium sized fossil fuel plant, it's kind
Speaker 1: of sort of and yeah, the two of the towers
Speaker 1: are going to be selling to p G and E
Speaker 1: and the third is going to be selling to southern
Speaker 1: California Edison And supposedly the whole system is going to
Speaker 1: power some hundred forty homes. Right. So here we're looking
Speaker 1: at a system that, while it does have a huge
Speaker 1: initial cost, Uh, they are going to be able to
Speaker 1: start selling to customers. I don't know how long it
Speaker 1: will take them to recapture the costs of building that place.
Speaker 1: I mean that's gonna take a while. You're two point
Speaker 1: two billion dollars. It's no chump change, right. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had the investments from people like Google, and they were
Speaker 1: working partially on a federal government loan. So some of
Speaker 1: that some of that is offset. Some of the offset sure,
Speaker 1: and then uh, but on top of that, you're looking
Speaker 1: at a much lower environmental impact in the long run
Speaker 1: compared to the carbon dioxide emissions you would get from
Speaker 1: from a fossil fuel plant. Right. And there has been
Speaker 1: some research on the brook Haven National Laboratory released to
Speaker 1: study saying that UM, regardless of the technolog of the
Speaker 1: specific technology being used in photovoltaics, they generate fewer harmful
Speaker 1: gas emissions, like some fewer UM than anything fossil fuel related.
Speaker 1: So well, and related to this is the concept of
Speaker 1: solar trackers. This is something else that you can find
Speaker 1: at solar farms where uh, in this case, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about your more traditional solar panels that are using photons
Speaker 1: to convert it to electricity as opposed to this approach
Speaker 1: where you're using the solar the solar energy to heat water.
Speaker 1: But solar trackers are kind of what they sound like.
Speaker 1: These are devices that can track the movement of the Sun.
Speaker 1: Although of course we know the Sun's movement is relative
Speaker 1: to the Earth and there's spin and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: At any rate, we're just gonna go with the movement
Speaker 1: of the sun across the horizon, across the sky, the
Speaker 1: pathway across the sky. So you've got these solar panels.
Speaker 1: Not all the solar panel panels are going to be
Speaker 1: angled at a way where they're going to capture as
Speaker 1: much 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, they don't move throughout the day,
Speaker 1: but the trackers, these enormous mirrors that can move in
Speaker 1: relation to the way the sun's path takes it across
Speaker 1: the sky, can continuously adjust so that the sunlight is
Speaker 1: directed back to the solar panels, thus maximizing the number
Speaker 1: of hours when you can collect sunlight. Because that's another
Speaker 1: one of those challenges that we didn't really mention. Sometimes
Speaker 1: 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 periods. Yeah. Well, you know, back in my day,
Speaker 1: hours used to be sixty three minutes long. But you
Speaker 1: know the kids, Uh no, you get you'll have longer
Speaker 1: times when you'll be able to collect sunlight. So these
Speaker 1: are just little strategies to try and maximize that as
Speaker 1: much as possible, so that even if the solar panel
Speaker 1: efficiency is low, if you can maximize the amount of
Speaker 1: time that they receive sunlight, you still generate more power. Now,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit about improving the solar
Speaker 1: panels themselves and some of the crazy technologies and easy
Speaker 1: inspirations people have drawn from in order to make this possible.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Alright, so let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about improving solar panels. Um, not just making solar
Speaker 1: farms more efficient, but the actual panels themselves. Now, right,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of interesting materials, science and even
Speaker 1: quantum science that's going on in this. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: we can we can always confuse refuse things by adding
Speaker 1: the word quantum in there. So, uh. One of them
Speaker 1: is one of the things we can do is look
Speaker 1: at introducing some sort of film to put upon solar
Speaker 1: panels so that it reflects less light. That's one of
Speaker 1: the problems with solar panels is that some some photons
Speaker 1: when they hit the panel, we'll just bounce right off again.
Speaker 1: Filicon specifically, it is very shiny, and so so you're
Speaker 1: going to lose more photons than you really want to
Speaker 1: in this process of reflection. Right, So one way to
Speaker 1: increase efficiency is to make sure those photons don't get away.
Speaker 1: And there are different ways of doing this, and one
Speaker 1: of them is to copy a certain insect, the moth,
Speaker 1: the moth. Right, I had heard about this, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: moth eyes. Now, let's talk a little bit about moth eyes.
Speaker 1: If you were to get a microscope and look at
Speaker 1: a moth's eye, you know, you borrowed it from the moth.
Speaker 1: Maybe the moth has flown off a little eye patch
Speaker 1: and hook and it's gone to be a piratical moth. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you're looking at the moth's eye, you're gonna see there
Speaker 1: are these little micro structures, and those micro structures in
Speaker 1: the eye are they have a specific purpose. They reflect
Speaker 1: light back to the back of the moth's eye so
Speaker 1: that the moth can perceive more light. And a lot
Speaker 1: of animals have this, but moth eyes in particular are
Speaker 1: extremely efficient at doing so. Yeah. And if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen like like a photograph of a cat and the
Speaker 1: eyes are glowing at you, that's because of a reflective
Speaker 1: layer at the back of the eye, which is which
Speaker 1: is reflecting light back into the right now. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, we can really say that there are
Speaker 1: probably two big reasons for moths to have this particular
Speaker 1: micro structure in their eyes. One is so that they
Speaker 1: see more light. They can perceive more light because they're
Speaker 1: flying around often at night. And the other is that
Speaker 1: they reflect less light so that potential predators can't see
Speaker 1: them and gobble them up. So it's a survival mechanism
Speaker 1: on two fronts. How we can take advantage of it
Speaker 1: is by making uh kind of a model of those
Speaker 1: same micro structures designs in such a way so that
Speaker 1: when light hits it, more of the light gets reflected
Speaker 1: down to the surface of the solar panel, the the
Speaker 1: actual collection surface, and fewer photons bounce off and we
Speaker 1: thus increase efficiency. Now there's a fellow named Noboru Yamada
Speaker 1: who came up with this idea along with a team
Speaker 1: of scientists. Uh he is a scientist at Nagoaco University
Speaker 1: of Technology in Japan. And I'm sure I butchered all
Speaker 1: of that. But but other than that, yes, yes, well, okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough. Uh So he what he did was he
Speaker 1: took some molds made out of a note porous alumina
Speaker 1: to create the micro structures that were similar to those
Speaker 1: of you would find in the moth's eyes, and uh
Speaker 1: put that into acrylic resin. So, if you're wondering what
Speaker 1: that actually means, a notic is another, you know, anode.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the positively charged electrode in a in
Speaker 1: a system. Porous, of course, just means it's got little
Speaker 1: bity holes and holes or spaces within it. And alumina
Speaker 1: is actually a type of aluminum oxide, which is an
Speaker 1: electrical insulator but also has a high thermal conductivity, so
Speaker 1: it conducts heat really well, but it insulates electricity. Um
Speaker 1: they found that this film could boost the efficiency of
Speaker 1: solar panels by around five percent, so, which again sounds
Speaker 1: really small until you consider that that a five pcent
Speaker 1: efficiency rate is the that's the average. So let's say
Speaker 1: let's say that we have it on close to the
Speaker 1: high end, so somewhere around which is pretty high. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially 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 twenty efficiency at that point.
Speaker 1: And when you multiply that across an entire array of
Speaker 1: solar panels, like I said, that equals a lot more electricity.
Speaker 1: So while it might be tiny in comparison to one
Speaker 1: solar cell, when you're talking about an array of solar panels,
Speaker 1: it makes a huge difference. So, uh, that's one way
Speaker 1: that we've seen solar panels get some improvements. Now, this
Speaker 1: is just a film you would put over a solar panel.
Speaker 1: It doesn't replace the panel itself. We have some other
Speaker 1: technologies that would actually either improve solar panel silicon or
Speaker 1: replace it. So, for example, University of New South Wales.
Speaker 1: So New South Wales, it's in Australia. Uh and uh
Speaker 1: the what now? She's shaking her head and you ver
Speaker 1: saying Australia. That was a that was a terrible accent.
Speaker 1: My Australian accent is amazing. It's almost as good as
Speaker 1: my news Eland accent, which is the same accent. I
Speaker 1: can't wait for all of our friends down under to
Speaker 1: yell at me, but I won't understand them, so it's okay.
Speaker 1: So the University of New South Wales, some engineers, some
Speaker 1: scientists decided to take a look at using hydrogen atoms
Speaker 1: to try and correct deficiencies in silicon crystals. Now, the
Speaker 1: deficiencies in silicon would mean that normally it would decrease
Speaker 1: 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: of the photons toward the silk the silicon. That would
Speaker 1: actually help transfer that into electric electric energy so or
Speaker 1: electricity as we sometimes call it. So it was it
Speaker 1: was one of those improvements that doesn't necessarily mean we're
Speaker 1: going to have mega, super powerful new silicon based solar
Speaker 1: panel again, It's going to be a small improvement, right. Instead,
Speaker 1: what 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 or a lot more of a lot more of
Speaker 1: it 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 excited as many
Speaker 1: as seven electrons per per photon photon. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's where you're getting that crazy boost in efficiency
Speaker 1: right right in Researchers at the University of Buffalo found
Speaker 1: that they could reach a efficiency and also because you've
Speaker 1: got fun quantum physics, mucking up this business um, that's
Speaker 1: how I call it. Yeah. Recently, an international team discovered
Speaker 1: that that these quantum dots can self assemble into nano
Speaker 1: wires that will more efficiently carry that current 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 barrier,
Speaker 1: and then you have to create a path and and
Speaker 1: all of this takes work on your part, but hypothetically,
Speaker 1: this quantum stuff can can do it for you. Yeah,
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 parov 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, yea,
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 on a hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: micrometers thick. Hundred micrometer is one millionth of a meter um.
Speaker 1: That sounds pretty thin, but a but one made of
Speaker 1: this other material can be less than one micrometer thick,
Speaker 1: so the manufacturing process could be much simpler. It ends
Speaker 1: up being you need less of this material than you
Speaker 1: would of silicon material. Stuff is already cheaper. The sheets
Speaker 1: that you wind up with are more applicable to two
Speaker 1: different objects. They can be thin and bendy and and right,
Speaker 1: which means that you're not stuck with that one form
Speaker 1: factor that you would be with a a solar panel,
Speaker 1: where you have a more rigid, thicker material, uh, which
Speaker 1: you depending upon what you're trying to coat, could be
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's sort of this pigmented stuff, and uh, it's,
Speaker 1: like I said, very cheap and could eventually lead to
Speaker 1: solar panels that cost ten to twenty cents per what.
Speaker 1: And I remember we're talking now around between fifty cents
Speaker 1: and 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 fuels 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 Uh. Scientists think that they might be
Speaker 1: able to get get it to about twenty or twenty
Speaker 1: five percent efficiency, so much lower than some of these
Speaker 1: other ones we're talking about. But if the cost is
Speaker 1: much lower, then it may make sense. If it's cheaper
Speaker 1: to to churn these out than silicon ones, even if
Speaker 1: the silicon ones are better, it may make more financial
Speaker 1: sense to go with this material it's cheaper in the
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: chance because we're still seeing silicon based solar panels, we're
Speaker 1: seeing those prices go down over time. There is a
Speaker 1: chance that this won't make a big impact, simply because
Speaker 1: if silicon ends up being as cheap or only a
Speaker 1: little more expensive than this alternative solar panel, people are
Speaker 1: going to say, well, why would I sacrifice performance for
Speaker 1: just a tiny savings. Plus, you're talking about not just people,
Speaker 1: but entire companies that would have to create their own
Speaker 1: manufacturing processes to build these these panels. It would require
Speaker 1: a big change in infrastructure, and it may not be
Speaker 1: worth that investment to change the infrastructure, although for certain purposes. Again,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the rigidity of the final product,
Speaker 1: you might wind up, yeah, finding finding benefit and using
Speaker 1: something that's a little bit less. Some Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: have around building, for example, and you want to have
Speaker 1: part of that building like a column where there's not
Speaker 1: any 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 panels, 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
Speaker 1: panel as opposed to bouncing off and going Willy Nelly
Speaker 1: to not do anyone any good, those lazy bums. So
Speaker 1: those are those are some other alternatives. Do you have
Speaker 1: any others you want to talk about? Before we talk
Speaker 1: about 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
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. You've probably tried Hulu dot com. Now.
Speaker 1: With Hulu Plus, you can watch your favorite shows anytime, anywhere.
Speaker 1: Hulu Plus lets you watch thousands of hit TV shows
Speaker 1: in the selection of acclaimed movies on your television or
Speaker 1: on the go with your smartphone or tablet, and it
Speaker 1: all streams an HD for the best viewing experience. With
Speaker 1: Hulu Plus, you can watch your favorite current TV shows
Speaker 1: like Community, South Park, and Parks and Recreation. You can
Speaker 1: also check out exclusive content, including Hulu originals like The
Speaker 1: Awesome starring s N. L. Seth Myers and moon Boys
Speaker 1: starring christ Odald from Bride'smates. Hulu Plus also offers a
Speaker 1: great selection of acclaimed films for only seven dollars and
Speaker 1: nine cents a month. You can stream as many TV
Speaker 1: shows and movies as you want wherever you want. Right now,
Speaker 1: you can try whu Plus free for two weeks when
Speaker 1: you go to Hulu plus dot com Forward slash Tech.
Speaker 1: That's a special offer for our listeners. Make sure you
Speaker 1: use Hulu Plus dot com Forward slash Tech so you
Speaker 1: get the extended free trial and they know we sent you.
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. Uh, the I T crowd
Speaker 1: is way up there, so you'll hear lots of I
Speaker 1: T 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: if you're in the UK. That that was where I
Speaker 1: got the UK information right that Lauren just shook her
Speaker 1: fist for those who were 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 who be. So Ikea is
Speaker 1: looking at carrying solar panels too. For customers to purchase
Speaker 1: solar solar panel kits. Flat pack Ikea style solar panel
Speaker 1: can go in you buy a flat pack of ike
Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll have some sort of Swedish name that
Speaker 1: will be hilarious and um, you'll you know, in the
Speaker 1: UK you can purchase these and then go and have
Speaker 1: them installed at your home. Uh. It sounds like if
Speaker 1: it's a successful program that it will roll out to
Speaker 1: other parts of the world, the United States included, and
Speaker 1: it's 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 to provide energy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they essentially are powering their their buildings with solar energy
Speaker 1: as much as they possibly can. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: now they're looking at instead of just using it on
Speaker 1: a corporate level, to actually offer it as a product.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see if this ends up
Speaker 1: being successful because then we'll see it rolled out to
Speaker 1: other whether whether it's really is you know, in grand
Speaker 1: Ikea style, cheaper and easier to install. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: can as a customer right now. I mean, if if
Speaker 1: you're a consumer, you can go out and buy solar
Speaker 1: panels and have them installed in your home. There are
Speaker 1: hardware stores like Lows that that sell solar panels. It's
Speaker 1: not like i Kea is the first business to come
Speaker 1: out and say we're finally making solar panels available to customers,
Speaker 1: but it's probably the first place that you can get
Speaker 1: Swedish meatballs and also solar panels. Yeah, at least from
Speaker 1: a reliable source. There is a guy outside of my
Speaker 1: local Lows who sells what he call switch 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. Yes,
Speaker 1: so a pair of University of Maryland professors sk Gupta
Speaker 1: and Hugh Bruck came up with along with their students,
Speaker 1: the robo raven, which is a robotic bird. It's a
Speaker 1: little robot that can fly, and flying takes up a
Speaker 1: lot of energy. It takes up a lot of energy
Speaker 1: for birds, and it takes up a lot of energy
Speaker 1: for robots, as it turns out, And so they were
Speaker 1: trying to think of ways to extend a robot's flying
Speaker 1: life so that it would be useful. Otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: your typical robotic flying device is going to have a
Speaker 1: fairly small range and half batteries are going to run
Speaker 1: down fuel source of money. So yeah, it's it's roaming
Speaker 1: range is going to be about half of what you
Speaker 1: would want just based on the battery life alone, because
Speaker 1: if you have it go all the way out to
Speaker 1: its battery life, then you have to go to retrieve it.
Speaker 1: You wanted to be able to come back, right, So
Speaker 1: they were thinking, well, how could we build something that
Speaker 1: could recharge its batteries while it's out in the field
Speaker 1: sometimes literally and uh 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 ravens. 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 flight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would have to land and recharge batteries and then
Speaker 1: fly because I think it would generate something like gather
Speaker 1: like three points six watts and it needs thirty wats
Speaker 1: to fly, and like it's just it cannot you know,
Speaker 1: it would just it would just crash if you were
Speaker 1: to try and fly it beyond its battery life. So thought, yes, now,
Speaker 1: the robo raven that plays into the podcast, we did
Speaker 1: not that long ago about drones, uh, in this case,
Speaker 1: the robo ravens just it's a robotic bird. It's not
Speaker 1: designed to be anything specific apart from a robotic bird.
Speaker 1: But you could easily see this kind of technology being
Speaker 1: used in things like environmental uh monitors, you know, looking
Speaker 1: for things like changes in climate, changes in environment, exploration
Speaker 1: of areas that might be difficult to get to on
Speaker 1: foot or otherwise, or you know, surveillance. You know, there's
Speaker 1: that fun version to whether birds are spying on you
Speaker 1: and the robots. I don't want that. I don't want
Speaker 1: bird shaped robots spying on me. I want that even
Speaker 1: less than I want other robots spying on me. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why I have this strong emotion, but
Speaker 1: that sounds like i've I mean, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's watched too much Alfred Hitchcock or something. I recommend
Speaker 1: you don't turn around then, I'm just your back is
Speaker 1: to the window. Yeah, we have an exciting new window
Speaker 1: in the podcast, Yes, which I can look out of
Speaker 1: and Lauren cannot because of the way we sit. I
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 technology. You know, it's going to constantly be
Speaker 1: this quest to eke out as much efficiency as possible
Speaker 1: to make solar panels a true competitor when it comes
Speaker 1: to generate electricity. Uh. And you also have to offset
Speaker 1: the downsides to solar panels. So, for example, if you
Speaker 1: were to try and go off the grid and just
Speaker 1: use solar panels for your home, you would also need
Speaker 1: some sort of energy storage device for those times when
Speaker 1: the sun is not out and you would be able
Speaker 1: to tap into that, so batteries essentially as what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, so you could have your own on site
Speaker 1: generator that runs on something else, but you're talking about
Speaker 1: some other fuel. Maybe pair it with a with a
Speaker 1: wind generator or something like that, or not a wind generator,
Speaker 1: but the wind harvesting wind driven. Yeah, that would if
Speaker 1: you if you live in a very sunny, windy place,
Speaker 1: that would work out well for you. If you don't,
Speaker 1: then uh, you know, that probably probably be marginal improvement
Speaker 1: over just solar panels alone. But anyway, it was fun
Speaker 1: to go back and look at this old topic and
Speaker 1: kind of updated. As Lauren and I have both discovered
Speaker 1: in our extensive work in the field of technology, stuff
Speaker 1: don't stay the same you It more or less changes
Speaker 1: before we can even publish our podcast episodes. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if there are any topics that you want to hear
Speaker 1: more about, whether it's something we have never covered before,
Speaker 1: or maybe there's a topic that we Maybe you heard
Speaker 1: an old episode of tech Stuff and thought, whatever happened
Speaker 1: to such and such or has that changed or has
Speaker 1: it evolved or did it go away? And you're just
Speaker 1: curious and you want to hear us talk about it.
Speaker 1: Let us know, get in touch with us. It's just
Speaker 1: us an email or addresses tech Stuff at Discovery dot
Speaker 1: com or try us down on social media. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler. Our handle is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff hs W and Lauren and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: m