Hank explains the power of solar energy and describes how it may fit into our diversified energy future. Follow SciShow on Twitter: / scishow Like SciShow on Facebook: / scishow
i actually do work for a solar energy installation business and the price of solar has actually dropped 70% in the last 5 years, and each panel (roughly 3 feet by 5 feet) produces 285 watts, and the system pays itself off in about 4-6 years, and they last for more than 25 years.
120 at 100 amps is 12kW at 300 watts that per panel that is 40 panel at $10000 per panel that is $400,000. I know few people who spend $70,000 per year for electric try more like 60 years
nick parkin The avg US house hold has 110/120 voltage @ 100 amp service To go off grid you solar panels must be 110/120 @ 100 AMP The formula for is P = V * I(current use I in electricity) V = 120 I = 100 So P = 12kw The solar panels produce slightly less than 300w each per your statement so I round to 300w. 12000/300 = 40 panels. If you have better Idea of the price per panel multiply it times 40 for the price of the panels That doesn't include any other equipment need or installation charges. I was told that solar panels were 10000 each. For your figure to work they would have to be less than $1000 each. If you figure the house avg of 4 people that is 80, million homes and that is only residential service. with as few as 20 nuclear plants and 30 for redundancy and growth you could power the entire USA. And be much cheaper. France which is 80% nuclear has the lowest cost of metered electric. The only green house gas that nuclear plants produce is water in the form of steam. Again,France leads the way for rod usage and disposal. The new plants in France us fuel rod recycling allowing the rod to be used longer and when spent only be half as radioactive as the uranium mined. This means the spent rods could be placed at the same level as the uranium is mined without any lining and be less dangerous than the unexposed uranium. Nuclear is the power source of the immediate future. Not, solar or wind.
Not really. Solar energy is quickly becoming the most cost effective energy source on the planet. There are solar panels on the market that already reach peak efficiency of the best coal/natural gas plants.
@Jesus Christ Back in 2017, the coal museum in KY has switched to solar power citing the reason as it's cheaper. So yes, it is absolutely realistically viable now
Hank!!! Great video bro! Can you update it with current breakthroughs and potential cost-saving technologies that have been introduced in the last 6 years? Awesome stuff.
True story: I showed this video to my high school Science teacher when it was first released, and he played it for the class because he thought it was so good, and covered all the bases he wanted to talk about. Come 2020, Illinois (my home state) has _at least_ three solar energy providers, all of whom are partnering with the major provider ComEd, and one of whom is owned by ComEd's parent company, Exelon.
I know this video is two years old, but I just wanted to add that my uncle, who lives in the middle of Sweden, installed solar panes a couple of years ago, and he cut his electricity costs by 1/4. Note that he lives in a valley, in an area of the world that gets about 1500 hours of sun per year. I don't know what kind of panels he uses, but if a person living in this part of the world can cut his costs by that much, an area with a lot more hours of sun per year should be able to get more power per dollar.
I have PV cells on my roof and almost never have to use the city powergrid. Every so often, we'll have a particularly cloudy couple of days or like a week of rain and I'll end up pulling a little power, but it's pretty rare. Of course, I don't live in a valley or anything either. I think in the last 6 years, I've had a monthly electricity bill about 5 times.
I just don't understand why organizations can't get tax breaks for helping fund this, or why the government can't give out grants to offset the costs. Doesn't the long term benefit and green energy matter more than green paper in the long run? My bank account is always running on empty, and I get people don't want to work for free to build and operate these plants, and that people on budgets don't want to pay more for the 'same' service they have now... But I also understand that living impulsively and easily in the now will put you at dire straights later, often with no feasible fix in sight. Energy is something we DO have. Money is ultimately just a concept, and I have a hard time understanding why people can't cooperate and waive fees in this instance for the greater good.
Pearl Carol "long term benefit" aren't words politicians can comprehend; they usually are capable of thinking only between the now and the next election term.
ASmallGamer In fact, it's the complete opposite of what you say - it is not radioactive, it is stable and also very safe. Another reason Hank REALLY should make an episode about ITER and fusion.
ASmallGamer Like eldorado said, it's not what you think it is. Nuclear Fusion is not the same as Nuclear Fission, do your research and you'll understand. Unfortunately it's extremely complicated and we are, at a minimum, 50yrs away from harnesing such an energy source. If we ever do though, it will advance humanity more than oil and coal ever can.
Mordant Victor Quick question though. Since we're focusing on tritium-deuterium fusion, the reaction would spit out an excess neutron, wouldn't the neutron getting captured by another atom render the recipient atom radioactive?
Nick Huang That's where Lithium plating around the core comes into play. Neutrons that escape generate Tritium upon reacting, which is then returned into the fuel mixture. "Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 mm of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin.", more on Tritium here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium And this is also very informative: www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels
I think, what he meant @1:56 is the discovery of photovoltaic effect, and not photoelectric effect. The two are different (are related, but different phenomenon) The photo electric effect was discovered by Hertz
Awesome video, but I fear it may nowadays be obsolete in some areas. For instance with recent innovations such as the Tesla Powerwall and advances in solar energy generation in general, solar power is in fact cheaper than fossil fuels. That being said, it seems the transition from fossil fuels to 100% clean and renewable energy sources, while being critical to the well-being of the biosphere and the survival of mankind, is greatly slowed down by a cumbersome and inefficient economic and political system which seems to do little else but cater to the vested interest of the owners of the current establishments, which to a great extent rely on the use of fossil fuels and our outdated global infrastructure for making profit. Frankly, at a time when we are seeing explosive growth in the rate at which science and technology advances and have more scientists alive than at any other moment in history, I find it sad and perplexing that we still use opinion-based systems of decision making on national and international levels and a money-based economy for the distribution of resources, while the currencies we use to measure 'value' are not based on any resource, or anything measurable whatsoever. Surely, this is holding us back as a society and it is certainly not a way to build a peaceful and sustainable civilization on a global scale. So far I know of no other solutions to the problems we face together as a species and as a planet, than a global resource-based economy, as presented by Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project. That's all. DFTBA fellow earthlings!
Eemil Sulva Why take 4 years of Political Science or Sociology or Economics if one can just read your brilliant comment? Thank you for that, I'm amazed how you just summarized and explained the whole world's current political/economical situation (plus toning in a very adequate and reasonable ideological position). I wish you could have chatted with Marx as he wrote the heavy reading Das Kapital is, maybe it would have come out a little more straightforward...
It would be nice if we could genetically modify a plant to increase its solar efficiency. Then, we could grow fields of solar collectors, massively increasing the amount of solar power we collect. Although we could collect this energy in the form of various organic molecules, it is also possible to use plant cells to set up a voltaic potential. We could get electricity directly from plants. That is the basis of biological fuel cells.
Richard Alexander exactly. So when you are talking about work for storage of one kind of energy into another, the maximum power occurs at 50% efficiency.
Dude, you need to come to Dancing Rabbit Eco Village and learn more on this topic. Solar panels have come a long way. We have about 65 people in NE Missouri, (not having sun 365 days a year) and we power everything here with solar panels and wind turbines. We have our own mini grid that actually give twice what we use back to the electric company. No use of mirrors even at this time. We have high speed Internet here etc, and are not living like the Amish either.
***** You are correct that watts measure power, or work divided by time. Therefore it doesn't make sense to say "1500 watts per year" because watts have already been divided by time.
Benjamin Hershey The solar constant is approximately 1,360 watts per square meter. It varies with the Earth's orbit so the aforementioned number is for 1 AU and it is slightly affected by the solar cycle. The vast majority of the solar emissions are in the visible and infrared bands. However satellite measurements exaggerate this figure because they do not take into account the fraction of this energy that is absorbed or reflected by the Earth's atmosphere and weather before we can harvest it. If the Sun isn't directly overhead then the amount of energy received can be further reduced. On average only 680 watts per square meter hits the top of the atmosphere. -sources www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/The%20Sun%20and%20Solar%20Activity/General%20Info/Solar_Constant.pdf earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page2.php P.S. maybe the "year" was just a typo. (I'm surprised that nobody caught this) P.P.S. 1.5*1360*(%that gets through the atmosphere) ~ 1500. Also: This is pretty obvious but nighttime cuts everything in half :/
wow, its impressive how the show has evolved over the past year. better lighting, graphics and hank is now a lot more comfortable and expressive in the more current videos. i love sci show... i want a sci show coffee mug...
I'm not much into conspiracies but I can't help but think that the only reason companies don't invest in Solar power is that Oil and coal is still more profitable than solar power. (not coast benefit but coast profit).
Renato Cara Oil and gas is a merchandise that can be sold over and over. Solar is too democratic for some greedy companies. It's amazing what a difference 3 years makes in technology, because solar and wind are now on par or cheaper than electricity from gas or coal in many places. rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very-cheap-indeed/ I love SciShow but this one is not the best and Hank doesn't sound as expert as usual.
+Guillaume Laflèche Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is the way forward to meet all the worlds energy need, it's clean and very safe power, spread the word.Look it up on youtube, search. Kirk Sorensen @ MRU on LFTR - Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors.
when it comes to this subject, I think words like 'economic' and 'expensive' and phrases like 'getting value for your dollar' should be left unuttered. 'Ecology' and 'environment' should be the lead points and everyone should pitch in for a better future. What good will those dollars you've saved by buying charcoal powered energy do? To buy more plastic toys? Or buy three muffins a day instead of 2? When it comes to sensitive topics like these, I think it wise to not focus so much on cash. Which for now seems to be a taboo.
+SgtCanadian No, I mean if someone doesn't look at the date this was made and doesn't know about the exponential advancements in nano-materials science since this video was made, they might walk away with an uninformed view of current state of solar energy harvesting and also energy storage technologies. The point of this video is to inform people, isn't it? It would be a disservice to misinform people wouldn't it? Both solar harvesting tech and energy storage tech are both now cost effective. And though it is still early in the process, both (along with solar fuels) are on their way to becoming the dominant forms of energy on the planet. Accurate and up to date information is especially important in view of climate change. Did this explanation clear things up for you or do you need more?
+Stephen Nielsen Viable compared to they typical cost of enery from a utility, which of course can use a mix of any number of the energy sources you pointed out.
Yes it is! In my house in the mountains of Argentina we have a bunch of solar panels and 2 batteries that can store enough energy to power the basic utilities for 3 days, and this is a MUST b/c if you have a cloudy day and you didn't have batteries youre screwed
Wait! There are two ideas/solutions that I have. We can put photovoltaic cells on wind turbines. On cloudy days there's usually wind and on calm days there's usually sun. Also, we can use solar roadways. If all the roads in America were converted to solar roadways the country would produce 3x more energy than it currently uses making a huge excess to use at night.
1 word... MONEY solar roadways? MONEY photoelectric cells+wind turbines? MONEY no one is willing to invest that much into something that has never been done before so it may or may not work.
The problem is not the lack of place to put photovoltaic pannels but the cost to build them. If you build photovoltoic wind turbine that'll cost even more than building the two separetly.
It's still the means of storing the energy. You can create as much excess as you want, if you can't store it, your electrical line will burn and shrivel up like throwing a fat leech on the fire. Take Germany for example. On very sunny and windy days they suffer from having too much energy and need to give it away to France/Austria/Switzerland to stop their grid from frying and collapsing. Also REM (Rare Earth Materials) and Money are two HUGE factors.
Drama_Llama_5000 I heard something about people making hexagonal plates that could be uses to make roads that generate electricity, light up at night, and carry wifi signals.
i think we shouldn´t either pay a lot of money for clean energy or a little for "dirty" energy! why don´t just unite and say, ahh no i don´t need you to pay for what i do for you/us, i just do it because it´s good ;D?
+Lardah-Arms With the ever increasing costs of living and global warming, there should be better time when we stop throwing money out the window and save some by starting to generate our own electricity*. Go here ==> www.solarenergy.ml
I really hope they finish a full functioning, efficient fusion reactor. That would be more amazing than photovoltaic cells and way more cost effective.
My friend has solar power in her house, and she actually got paid when she went on vacation for awhile. Her house generated a surplus of power, so the power company actually sent her money. That's awesome!
Wow, it is 4years later and solar has improved hugely and is affordable. I have 400 watts of monocrystalline panels feeding 800 amp hours of batteries on a van! I run computers cameras, a fridge, lights...love it.
All that you required, they store enough energy to run the house for 3 days without either the solar panels or wind turbine producing energy However, keep in mind that we minimized the energy consumption, for example the water is heated in a "wood furnace" (I don't know the name for this in English, but it heats the water in a tank by burning wood underneath it. It's what most people in rural areas in Argentina use) and the fridge is gas-powered
Love the presentation! Most of the major factors, easy to comprehend and compare. Minor edit at the end: CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's the Carbon-cycle requirement for life to exist, just like your example of water evaporating by the sun and returning as rain. *If we could find a way to release even 'more' CO2 - but without any of the pollutants that need to be captured like they do with coal-plant scrubbers and the new containment tech - that would actually be a GOOD thing. Plants would grow greener, faster, have bigger fruit, better grains, etc...and no, it would never cause any 'global warming' as it is absorbed by plants about as quickly as you release it, and is only a fractional percent of the warming-effect, which is mostly from water vapor. and apparently cow-farts. but that's a different farce. Only missed one perfect opportunity to point out that IF you had "1.21 GigaWatts"...and a DeLorean going 88 mph...and you mispronounce the G as a J...
It should be noted that residential PV is currently profitable for individual households (more so than putting the money in a savings account). You just need to leave the panels on your roof for long enough. Also, electricity from fossil fuels is only as cheap as it is because it is heavily subsidised both directly, and indirectly through tax and tariff exemptions. You can also argue (as the IMF does) that not internalising the long-term costs of greenhouse gas emissions is a kind of subsidy.
Actually n-type and p-type materials are both neutral, the p and the n relates to what we call the majority carrier, and is kind of what is moving when there is a current flow thought the material. In the n-type, the flow of electrons produces current and in the p-type, we say that there is flow of "holes", and by a hole we mean a lack of electron in a given position. You can search more about this in any material related to semiconductors.
1:00 nucleu energie is solar power to. the element we use for the energie was once fussed in a star (everything above iron, in a dieing star). so everything we just exept for hydrogen is solar power. (including oxigen)
The energy however did not come from the sun, it is a natural property of matter. The element was in essence constructed in our sun, its energy however was not generated there - it exists by virtue of field interactions innate to the matter used. That's like saying that the energy in petroleum came from the refinery it self...
***** Also it is reasonable to suppose (though not definite) that most of the Hydrogen in our solar system was likely generated by our sun specifically. Also I have never in all my years of training heard the idea expressed that Uranium was produced by the supernova process...
There is an error in the information given at the beginning. In a given amount of time, we should be talking about amount of energy not power. 1500J is the amount of energy that you receive in a second. So it doesnt need to be year before you get 1500W. every time sunlight hits a 1.5m^2 normal to the direction of light, it gets 1500W
Keep in mind everyone that this video is over 3 years old. There is a 30% gov't incentive for solar installation now. There are incentives from some power companies as well. It is a good financial investment. Long term you will profit having panels on your house! You just have to come up with the money initially. And let's not forget, It is a great investment for the planet and the human race.
In Australia, retail electricity costs ~A$0.25/kw.hr and we have a feed in PV payment of A$0.20 per kW.hr; thus photovoltaic cells are economic for most households who must pay retail (not wholesale) prices for electricity. They are guaranteed a minimum of A$0.20 per kW.hr return on the PV energy, which given its total cost and lifetime is a much better ROI than banks or shares. Understandably this has caused our electric companies many headaches as they need to match supply with demand.
Bad hank has a good point that is not often mentioned. We don't need to cover the deserts with solar panels. Instead, the desert is all of the empty rooftops of homes and businesses across america, and generate the power right next to where it is used.
Incidentally, there are rare examples where it has been practical to convert gravitational potential energy to electricity using a medium other than water. A base metal mine in PNG (iirc) had an aerial tramway that took ore from the mountain down to a processing plant on lower slopes, and that tramway was braked by doing electrical work, by powering part of the facility. Eventually though, you do run out of mountain to put in it at the top of the tramway, unlike water.
Here here! I have heard some talk of making firms pay for the cost of landfill for their products, to encourage them to either make them to start recycling programs too. If we actually figure out how to waste less/recycle more, we can reduce the energy cost of making products.
Dear Hank, please review you statement at 0:36. The unit Watt is not a measure of energy, Joule is. Watt is energy per time (J/s). The statement should be something along the lines of "....1500 Wh of solar energy in 1 year" or similar
I heard of a new type of method of manufacturing panels about 2 years ago, the silicon supposedly ends up with ridges instead of being regular, and the refraction of the glass causes it to be more efficient due to hitting the points on the irregular ridges, not only that, but the inconsistency is easily achieved and is less difficult to manufacture, thus making it cheaper, i just don't know if it's hit mass market yet....
In fact they are planning to contruct fusion reactors. But to accomplish a fusion there have to be huuuge temperatures, so they are basically researching on kind of a heating device.
Here I am watching this, in 2024 to try and learn what it means that my landlord wants to put solar panels up at my house and idk what solar power reallly *is*. Tho I’m sure much has changed, this is just a good base level knowledge. Works for me!
another idea for night solar power (instead of converting the energy into molten salt to boil water and such losing a lot of that power) we can just double up on the number of solar panels/mirror size/etc. to produce twice the needed amount and store the excess in batteries like the Tesla wall battery to be used at night.
n and p type silicon are neutrally charged. The n and p refer to the charge of the free charge carriers within the material. In fact, if you put n next to p, free electrons from the n type will diffuse into the p type, making a small region of the n type positively charged and a small region of the p type negatively charged.
I know this was 5 months ago, but you could argue that gravitational pressure causes the flow of geothermal energy due to the temperature gradient between the core and the crust.
Just though you might want to know, while the magma thing is true, it's not much use to us. Geothermal electricity generation involves pumping cold water into shallow reserviors of hot rock, and those are depleted faster than the natural heat flux that created them. It is essentially heat mining. Also, mining heat from the magma itself is problematic because extracting heat from magma turns it into rock, and rock doesn't actually conduct heat very well, so you have to dig the well again.
Only photovoltaic is restricted to when the sun shines. Concentrated solar power is not, the heat can be stored until needed. Also can use thermal electric generators, which rely on the Seebac effect, which also can store heat and use it to generate electricity on demand.... And in many locals when it's cloudy it's also windy and wind can be used to spin up a flywheel.
The cost will come from maintenance, upgrade(as communities, businesses grow), and restoration recovery time. I say this from experience, having worked in energy industry for 25 plus years. Personally, I believe that smaller nuclear facilities in greater numbers, are our greatest source with lowest cost by far.
i'm confused. the process you described sounded like a self-sustaining process of transferring the free electrons between the n and p-type silicon wafers, but where does the sunlight come in? does the energy just excite those electrons to create a greater output of power? why is the n-type silicon on top?
Tesla has launched just the product we needed to to store electricity. Please check out the Tesla Powerwall and if it is exiting enough then please explain it in a video.
Hey, If you could find another colorful expletive besides 'frickin' I'd bet lots more teachers would show your clips or parts of your clips to students in classes. I love your bits! I wish I could use parts of them in my high school science classes more often. Thanks for being so frickin awesome!
I've seen the gravity light several times, and never did they neglect to mention that you must first lift the weight to the top before it goes. You should be concerned that you either blocked this information, or got your information from places where that was withheld from you. It is literally wound up, in a very similar way to how the spring that stores power in a grandfather clock is. The weights (pendula) in them are only used to make it tell the time accurately, not to power it.
One of the main reasons that solar power is 'expensive' is because solar energy is a substitute good with the products which compete with it. So, if we increase production of solar power, it reduces the demand, and therefore the short-term price, of other forms of energy, like natural gas, oil, etc.
in Brazil, we've found the greatest oil reserves ever, in literal translation it'd be called pre-salt or under-salt the place where we found all this oil. it's a layer like 4 to 7 thousand kilometers deep in the ocean filled with oil. we already sold most of the main field which we call the "pound-field" but it is still enormous. we're also calling it our blue-amazon cause it's as valuable and it's under our oceans.and with our oil estimates state that will take another 40-60 years to oil end.
Near enough to it, and the discharge can be pretty stable for a few years, but the main problems are accessibility (it's in the middle of a national park, and is sacred) and proximity to power demand, though it probably wouldn't yield more energy than they already generate and use on Hawai'i, so wouldn't be wasted. Iceland will probably look to it when they run out of geothermal unless they go for wind, and the only other decent candidates I can think of are also protected or on quiet islands.
I would like to share this video with a group of 4th graders in a recreation center with no interner connection, would it be possible to get a copy of this video? thanks
A few little mistakes I think were made in that video: Watts are not a measurement of energy, but of power. If you want energy you have to use watt-hours or joules. Not only the moon but also the sun is involved in creating tidal forces. I think the respective influence is even nearly 50/50, but I'd have to check.
i actually do work for a solar energy installation business and the price of solar has actually dropped 70% in the last 5 years, and each panel (roughly 3 feet by 5 feet) produces 285 watts, and the system pays itself off in about 4-6 years, and they last for more than 25 years.
120 at 100 amps is 12kW at 300 watts that per panel that is 40 panel at $10000 per panel that is $400,000. I know few people who spend $70,000 per year for electric try more like 60 years
0011peace Your numbers make no sense.
nick parkin
The avg US house hold has 110/120 voltage @ 100 amp service To go off grid you solar panels must be 110/120 @ 100 AMP
The formula for is P = V * I(current use I in electricity) V = 120 I = 100 So P = 12kw
The solar panels produce slightly less than 300w each per your statement so I round to 300w. 12000/300 = 40 panels. If you have better Idea of the price per panel multiply it times 40 for the price of the panels That doesn't include any other equipment need or installation charges. I was told that solar panels were 10000 each. For your figure to work they would have to be less than $1000 each. If you figure the house avg of 4 people that is 80, million homes and that is only residential service. with as few as 20 nuclear plants and 30 for redundancy and growth you could power the entire USA. And be much cheaper. France which is 80% nuclear has the lowest cost of metered electric. The only green house gas that nuclear plants produce is water in the form of steam. Again,France leads the way for rod usage and disposal. The new plants in France us fuel rod recycling allowing the rod to be used longer and when spent only be half as radioactive as the uranium mined. This means the spent rods could be placed at the same level as the uranium is mined without any lining and be less dangerous than the unexposed uranium.
Nuclear is the power source of the immediate future. Not, solar or wind.
nick parkin I'm one of the annoying bastards that cold calls about solar panels and what you said is just sales patter that we use to get a lead
Karl Eisenhauer But what were saying is also the facts
Could you please update this video if there are any new scientific breakthroughs in Energy production?
um
2.4 cents / kw hour in Dubai..
I'd be really interested to see how these values have changed with recent technologies? Would love a follow-up video!
Agreed!
They have!
@@jnoland13 yes definitely now
@juiccybazeresidential solar
I think you guys should make an updated Solar video! :)
It looks like Hank is really struggling to talk slowly :p it's okay hank one of the many reasons we love you is your "bolt" speed speech!
Solar has changed A LOT since January 2012
or maybe just the advertising and subsidies for it have changed
Or maybe not. Much of the cost decrease is explained by the learning curve. Look it up.
Not really. Solar energy is quickly becoming the most cost effective energy source on the planet.
There are solar panels on the market that already reach peak efficiency of the best coal/natural gas plants.
True
@Jesus Christ Back in 2017, the coal museum in KY has switched to solar power citing the reason as it's cheaper. So yes, it is absolutely realistically viable now
Hank!!! Great video bro! Can you update it with current breakthroughs and potential cost-saving technologies that have been introduced in the last 6 years? Awesome stuff.
True story: I showed this video to my high school Science teacher when it was first released, and he played it for the class because he thought it was so good, and covered all the bases he wanted to talk about.
Come 2020, Illinois (my home state) has _at least_ three solar energy providers, all of whom are partnering with the major provider ComEd, and one of whom is owned by ComEd's parent company, Exelon.
I know this video is two years old, but I just wanted to add that my uncle, who lives in the middle of Sweden, installed solar panes a couple of years ago, and he cut his electricity costs by 1/4. Note that he lives in a valley, in an area of the world that gets about 1500 hours of sun per year. I don't know what kind of panels he uses, but if a person living in this part of the world can cut his costs by that much, an area with a lot more hours of sun per year should be able to get more power per dollar.
I have PV cells on my roof and almost never have to use the city powergrid. Every so often, we'll have a particularly cloudy couple of days or like a week of rain and I'll end up pulling a little power, but it's pretty rare. Of course, I don't live in a valley or anything either. I think in the last 6 years, I've had a monthly electricity bill about 5 times.
I just don't understand why organizations can't get tax breaks for helping fund this, or why the government can't give out grants to offset the costs. Doesn't the long term benefit and green energy matter more than green paper in the long run? My bank account is always running on empty, and I get people don't want to work for free to build and operate these plants, and that people on budgets don't want to pay more for the 'same' service they have now... But I also understand that living impulsively and easily in the now will put you at dire straights later, often with no feasible fix in sight. Energy is something we DO have. Money is ultimately just a concept, and I have a hard time understanding why people can't cooperate and waive fees in this instance for the greater good.
Pearl Carol "long term benefit" aren't words politicians can comprehend; they usually are capable of thinking only between the now and the next election term.
+Pearl Carol such innocence
because money. image the oil and gas companies be like "yeah and it puts us out of business, let me throw in millions of dollars in investment"
Be great to see an update of this!
if the entire Sahara desert was turned into a gigantic solar station it could power the world
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fullneed.jpg
lol so true
Slightly stoned Hank?
+MrChosenone34 tru dat
Inductable was going say something similar
...Huh, I was guessing just tired
You should address Nuclear Fusion, what powers the Sun itself. Specifically ITER.
Yes but that is very radioactive and highly unstable and very dangerous
ASmallGamer In fact, it's the complete opposite of what you say - it is not radioactive, it is stable and also very safe. Another reason Hank REALLY should make an episode about ITER and fusion.
ASmallGamer Like eldorado said, it's not what you think it is. Nuclear Fusion is not the same as Nuclear Fission, do your research and you'll understand. Unfortunately it's extremely complicated and we are, at a minimum, 50yrs away from harnesing such an energy source. If we ever do though, it will advance humanity more than oil and coal ever can.
Mordant Victor Quick question though. Since we're focusing on tritium-deuterium fusion, the reaction would spit out an excess neutron, wouldn't the neutron getting captured by another atom render the recipient atom radioactive?
Nick Huang That's where Lithium plating around the core comes into play. Neutrons that escape generate Tritium upon reacting, which is then returned into the fuel mixture.
"Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 mm of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin.", more on Tritium here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
And this is also very informative: www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels
just ten years ago. things have changed.
I think, what he meant @1:56 is the discovery of photovoltaic effect, and not photoelectric effect. The two are different (are related, but different phenomenon)
The photo electric effect was discovered by Hertz
Awesome video, but I fear it may nowadays be obsolete in some areas. For instance with recent innovations such as the Tesla Powerwall and advances in solar energy generation in general, solar power is in fact cheaper than fossil fuels. That being said, it seems the transition from fossil fuels to 100% clean and renewable energy sources, while being critical to the well-being of the biosphere and the survival of mankind, is greatly slowed down by a cumbersome and inefficient economic and political system which seems to do little else but cater to the vested interest of the owners of the current establishments, which to a great extent rely on the use of fossil fuels and our outdated global infrastructure for making profit.
Frankly, at a time when we are seeing explosive growth in the rate at which science and technology advances and have more scientists alive than at any other moment in history, I find it sad and perplexing that we still use opinion-based systems of decision making on national and international levels and a money-based economy for the distribution of resources, while the currencies we use to measure 'value' are not based on any resource, or anything measurable whatsoever. Surely, this is holding us back as a society and it is certainly not a way to build a peaceful and sustainable civilization on a global scale.
So far I know of no other solutions to the problems we face together as a species and as a planet, than a global resource-based economy, as presented by Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project.
That's all. DFTBA fellow earthlings!
Eemil Sulva Why take 4 years of Political Science or Sociology or Economics if one can just read your brilliant comment?
Thank you for that, I'm amazed how you just summarized and explained the whole world's current political/economical situation (plus toning in a very adequate and reasonable ideological position).
I wish you could have chatted with Marx as he wrote the heavy reading Das Kapital is, maybe it would have come out a little more straightforward...
Hank is doped
So. It's been four and a half years. What progress has solar power made now?
its now 75 percents cheaper with about 20 % MORE efficiency .
David Edwards Cool!
Very simple explanation of Solar Power.
to: to do something
too: too much
two: 2 difrent things
"two" seems more logical to me becuz its the number 2
What about wind energy at night???
probably not efficient enough. Wind mills don't really generate much energy.
+Laura Tabea Mattern , it works perfectly but the oil oligarchs won`t let it happen.
It would be nice if we could genetically modify a plant to increase its solar efficiency. Then, we could grow fields of solar collectors, massively increasing the amount of solar power we collect. Although we could collect this energy in the form of various organic molecules, it is also possible to use plant cells to set up a voltaic potential. We could get electricity directly from plants. That is the basis of biological fuel cells.
plants already ARE at the peak efficiency. Evolution has already maximized power, which is more important then efficiency
jordan fink
I seriously don't think so. For one thing, plants absorb only 2 wavelengths, and it's at the low end of the spectrum.
Richard Alexander For this conversation i need to understand that you understand the difference between efficiency and maximum power.
jordan fink
Efficiency is energy out versus energy in, while power is energy per unit of time.
Richard Alexander exactly. So when you are talking about work for storage of one kind of energy into another, the maximum power occurs at 50% efficiency.
Dude, you need to come to Dancing Rabbit Eco Village and learn more on this topic. Solar panels have come a long way. We have about 65 people in NE Missouri, (not having sun 365 days a year) and we power everything here with solar panels and wind turbines. We have our own mini grid that actually give twice what we use back to the electric company. No use of mirrors even at this time. We have high speed Internet here etc, and are not living like the Amish either.
0:30 "I would collect about 1,500 watts of solar energy." Uh, what?
***** You are correct that watts measure power, or work divided by time. Therefore it doesn't make sense to say "1500 watts per year" because watts have already been divided by time.
Benjamin Hershey I stopped watching the video and clicked thumbs down as soon as I heard him say that
Benjamin Hershey The solar constant is approximately 1,360 watts per square meter. It varies with the Earth's orbit so the aforementioned number is for 1 AU and it is slightly affected by the solar cycle. The vast majority of the solar emissions are in the visible and infrared bands. However satellite measurements exaggerate this figure because they do not take into account the fraction of this energy that is absorbed or reflected by the Earth's atmosphere and weather before we can harvest it. If the Sun isn't directly overhead then the amount of energy received can be further reduced. On average only 680 watts per square meter hits the top of the atmosphere.
-sources
www.ips.gov.au/Category/Educational/The%20Sun%20and%20Solar%20Activity/General%20Info/Solar_Constant.pdf
earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/EnergyBalance/page2.php
P.S. maybe the "year" was just a typo. (I'm surprised that nobody caught this)
P.P.S. 1.5*1360*(%that gets through the atmosphere) ~ 1500.
Also: This is pretty obvious but nighttime cuts everything in half :/
Skyloftian it's pretty obvious from the video that he thinks watts measure energy
he has no idea what he's talking about
Skyloftian This video was probably done semi offscript with a non-hank editor.
Geothermal, not from the sun either...
Well it's partial. It comes from the heat within the earth, a lot of which has been heated by the sun, but also from tidal power.
7:20 - "To drive a turban"
wow, its impressive how the show has evolved over the past year. better lighting, graphics and hank is now a lot more comfortable and expressive in the more current videos. i love sci show... i want a sci show coffee mug...
he's so different in there's older videos haha.
not to mention that the tunnel is bound to collapse
I'm not much into conspiracies but I can't help but think that the only reason companies don't invest in Solar power is that Oil and coal is still more profitable than solar power. (not coast benefit but coast profit).
Renato Cara Oil and gas is a merchandise that can be sold over and over. Solar is too democratic for some greedy companies. It's amazing what a difference 3 years makes in technology, because solar and wind are now on par or cheaper than electricity from gas or coal in many places. rameznaam.com/2015/08/10/how-cheap-can-solar-get-very-cheap-indeed/
I love SciShow but this one is not the best and Hank doesn't sound as expert as usual.
+Guillaume Laflèche Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is the way forward to meet all the
worlds energy need, it's clean and very safe power, spread the word.Look
it up on youtube, search.
Kirk Sorensen @ MRU on LFTR - Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors.
Yep i couldn't agree more, well said. Mind if i copy what you said and i post it other places ?
Please do. :-)
+Guillaume Laflèche you do realise that it has been 4 years since this video was uploaded -_-
Always good to remember that this SciShow episode is 3 years old and things change rapidly in that field.
and your comment is 7 years old!
when it comes to this subject, I think words like 'economic' and 'expensive' and phrases like 'getting value for your dollar' should be left unuttered. 'Ecology' and 'environment' should be the lead points and everyone should pitch in for a better future. What good will those dollars you've saved by buying charcoal powered energy do? To buy more plastic toys? Or buy three muffins a day instead of 2? When it comes to sensitive topics like these, I think it wise to not focus so much on cash.
Which for now seems to be a taboo.
OUTDATED
Well duh.
It's over 4 years old. In a field where a lot of R&D is happening...
This is out of date. Solar is much cheaper now. Please update and take this one down
WOW YOU MEAN THAT SCIENCE EVOLVES AND OLDER EXPLANATIONS/REALITIES ARE NO LONGER ALWAYS TRUE? NO WAY!
+SgtCanadian No, I mean if someone doesn't look at the date this was made and doesn't know about the exponential advancements in nano-materials science since this video was made, they might walk away with an uninformed view of current state of solar energy harvesting and also energy storage technologies. The point of this video is to inform people, isn't it? It would be a disservice to misinform people wouldn't it? Both solar harvesting tech and energy storage tech are both now cost effective. And though it is still early in the process, both (along with solar fuels) are on their way to becoming the dominant forms of energy on the planet. Accurate and up to date information is especially important in view of climate change. Did this explanation clear things up for you or do you need more?
Someone reading your post may think that Solar is cheap enough now to be viable. It isn't.
Please clarify - viable as compared to the established viability of what other energy source? Oil? Coal? Gas? Nuclear? Geothermal? Hydro? Wind? Tidal?
+Stephen Nielsen Viable compared to they typical cost of enery from a utility, which of course can use a mix of any number of the energy sources you pointed out.
Yes it is! In my house in the mountains of Argentina we have a bunch of solar panels and 2 batteries that can store enough energy to power the basic utilities for 3 days, and this is a MUST b/c if you have a cloudy day and you didn't have batteries youre screwed
Wait! There are two ideas/solutions that I have. We can put photovoltaic cells on wind turbines. On cloudy days there's usually wind and on calm days there's usually sun. Also, we can use solar roadways. If all the roads in America were converted to solar roadways the country would produce 3x more energy than it currently uses making a huge excess to use at night.
1 word... MONEY
solar roadways? MONEY
photoelectric cells+wind turbines? MONEY
no one is willing to invest that much into something that has never been done before so it may or may not work.
The problem is not the lack of place to put photovoltaic pannels but the cost to build them. If you build photovoltoic wind turbine that'll cost even more than building the two separetly.
It's still the means of storing the energy. You can create as much excess as you want, if you can't store it, your electrical line will burn and shrivel up like throwing a fat leech on the fire. Take Germany for example. On very sunny and windy days they suffer from having too much energy and need to give it away to France/Austria/Switzerland to stop their grid from frying and collapsing. Also REM (Rare Earth Materials) and Money are two HUGE factors.
Boby Gandhi Solar roadways don't work for a bazillion reasons, google thunderf00t's analysis.
Drama_Llama_5000 I heard something about people making hexagonal plates that could be uses to make roads that generate electricity, light up at night, and carry wifi signals.
i think we shouldn´t either pay a lot of money for clean energy or a little for "dirty" energy!
why don´t just unite and say, ahh no i don´t need you to pay for what i do for you/us, i just do it because it´s good ;D?
+Lardah-Arms With the ever increasing costs of living and global warming, there should be better time when we stop throwing money out the window and save some by starting to generate our own electricity*.
Go here ==> www.solarenergy.ml
+Lardah-Arms I'm off grid. I use solar, and I NEVER get a bill from the sun for it's wonderful bounty.
+Lardah-Arms Energy from solar power is getting affordable for everyone. Technologies are growing, prices are going down!
Hank you're drunk go home
I really hope they finish a full functioning, efficient fusion reactor. That would be more amazing than photovoltaic cells and way more cost effective.
Great video! ...But it's pronounced "jigawatt".
I don't think so
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/gigawatt
Pixel is making fun of the Gif = Jif thing.
No Pixel is making fun of Back to the Future.
Anon Ymous You are the first to pick up on this, and so you win a brand new flying DeLorean :D
Did he say drive a turban? Like where a Sikh keeps his sandwiches warm?
+Rob Fraser Yes, and arabs because there's plenty of sun in the desert.
My friend has solar power in her house, and she actually got paid when she went on vacation for awhile. Her house generated a surplus of power, so the power company actually sent her money. That's awesome!
Wow, it is 4years later and solar has improved hugely and is affordable. I have 400 watts of monocrystalline panels feeding 800 amp hours of batteries on a van! I run computers cameras, a fridge, lights...love it.
just wanted to say great vid... really hit a lot of key points a lot of ppl don't understand
All that you required, they store enough energy to run the house for 3 days without either the solar panels or wind turbine producing energy
However, keep in mind that we minimized the energy consumption, for example the water is heated in a "wood furnace" (I don't know the name for this in English, but it heats the water in a tank by burning wood underneath it. It's what most people in rural areas in Argentina use) and the fridge is gas-powered
Love the presentation! Most of the major factors, easy to comprehend and compare.
Minor edit at the end:
CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's the Carbon-cycle requirement for life to exist, just like your example of water evaporating by the sun and returning as rain.
*If we could find a way to release even 'more' CO2 - but without any of the pollutants that need to be captured like they do with coal-plant scrubbers and the new containment tech - that would actually be a GOOD thing. Plants would grow greener, faster, have bigger fruit, better grains, etc...and no, it would never cause any 'global warming' as it is absorbed by plants about as quickly as you release it, and is only a fractional percent of the warming-effect, which is mostly from water vapor. and apparently cow-farts. but that's a different farce.
Only missed one perfect opportunity to point out that IF you had "1.21 GigaWatts"...and a DeLorean going 88 mph...and you mispronounce the G as a J...
I'd be widly interested in a follow-up video for this topic! It has been 10 years already! :DD
Hey Hank!! Could you make an update video comparing the old market phenomenons to the ones of 2023 ish?
It should be noted that residential PV is currently profitable for individual households (more so than putting the money in a savings account). You just need to leave the panels on your roof for long enough. Also, electricity from fossil fuels is only as cheap as it is because it is heavily subsidised both directly, and indirectly through tax and tariff exemptions. You can also argue (as the IMF does) that not internalising the long-term costs of greenhouse gas emissions is a kind of subsidy.
This deserves update :)
Actually n-type and p-type materials are both neutral, the p and the n relates to what we call the majority carrier, and is kind of what is moving when there is a current flow thought the material. In the n-type, the flow of electrons produces current and in the p-type, we say that there is flow of "holes", and by a hole we mean a lack of electron in a given position. You can search more about this in any material related to semiconductors.
1:00 nucleu energie is solar power to. the element we use for the energie was once fussed in a star (everything above iron, in a dieing star). so everything we just exept for hydrogen is solar power. (including oxigen)
this: ironic* human spellcheck: unneeded*
***** becouse a star and the sun is are the same thing, so some sun somewhere made it
The energy however did not come from the sun, it is a natural property of matter. The element was in essence constructed in our sun, its energy however was not generated there - it exists by virtue of field interactions innate to the matter used. That's like saying that the energy in petroleum came from the refinery it self...
***** Hydrogen is used in fusion friend - not uranium
***** Also it is reasonable to suppose (though not definite) that most of the Hydrogen in our solar system was likely generated by our sun specifically. Also I have never in all my years of training heard the idea expressed that Uranium was produced by the supernova process...
There is an error in the information given at the beginning. In a given amount of time, we should be talking about amount of energy not power. 1500J is the amount of energy that you receive in a second. So it doesnt need to be year before you get 1500W. every time sunlight hits a 1.5m^2 normal to the direction of light, it gets 1500W
Need to revisit the assumptions behind this video. Photovoltaics are currently competitive with other forms of power.
Especially with the Rawlemon Spherical solar generator. I'd like to see a video on that
Keep in mind everyone that this video is over 3 years old. There is a 30% gov't incentive for solar installation now. There are incentives from some power companies as well. It is a good financial investment. Long term you will profit having panels on your house! You just have to come up with the money initially. And let's not forget, It is a great investment for the planet and the human race.
The storage of energy by waterdams and similar constructions as the gas / pressure cave thingie are actually already being used.
Please make an updated solar power videoooo
Please update! The price/performance ratio continues to shift rapidly, it's a much different situation in 2016 than it was in 2011/2012.
+Ryan Provonsha Any links?
In Australia, retail electricity costs ~A$0.25/kw.hr and we have a feed in PV payment of A$0.20 per kW.hr; thus photovoltaic cells are economic for most households who must pay retail (not wholesale) prices for electricity. They are guaranteed a minimum of A$0.20 per kW.hr return on the PV energy, which given its total cost and lifetime is a much better ROI than banks or shares. Understandably this has caused our electric companies many headaches as they need to match supply with demand.
Bad hank has a good point that is not often mentioned. We don't need to cover the deserts with solar panels. Instead, the desert is all of the empty rooftops of homes and businesses across america, and generate the power right next to where it is used.
Incidentally, there are rare examples where it has been practical to convert gravitational potential energy to electricity using a medium other than water. A base metal mine in PNG (iirc) had an aerial tramway that took ore from the mountain down to a processing plant on lower slopes, and that tramway was braked by doing electrical work, by powering part of the facility. Eventually though, you do run out of mountain to put in it at the top of the tramway, unlike water.
Here here! I have heard some talk of making firms pay for the cost of landfill for their products, to encourage them to either make them to start recycling programs too. If we actually figure out how to waste less/recycle more, we can reduce the energy cost of making products.
Dear Hank, please review you statement at 0:36.
The unit Watt is not a measure of energy, Joule is. Watt is energy per time (J/s).
The statement should be something along the lines of "....1500 Wh of solar energy in 1 year" or similar
I heard of a new type of method of manufacturing panels about 2 years ago, the silicon supposedly ends up with ridges instead of being regular, and the refraction of the glass causes it to be more efficient due to hitting the points on the irregular ridges, not only that, but the inconsistency is easily achieved and is less difficult to manufacture, thus making it cheaper, i just don't know if it's hit mass market yet....
In fact they are planning to contruct fusion reactors. But to accomplish a fusion there have to be huuuge temperatures, so they are basically researching on kind of a heating device.
Here I am watching this, in 2024 to try and learn what it means that my landlord wants to put solar panels up at my house and idk what solar power reallly *is*. Tho I’m sure much has changed, this is just a good base level knowledge. Works for me!
Maybe is time to update this. 3 years the things are changed quite a lot. Here in Italy we have already hit Grid parity in some region.
another idea for night solar power (instead of converting the energy into molten salt to boil water and such losing a lot of that power) we can just double up on the number of solar panels/mirror size/etc. to produce twice the needed amount and store the excess in batteries like the Tesla wall battery to be used at night.
n and p type silicon are neutrally charged. The n and p refer to the charge of the free charge carriers within the material. In fact, if you put n next to p, free electrons from the n type will diffuse into the p type, making a small region of the n type positively charged and a small region of the p type negatively charged.
2018, although we're not as far removed from coal/natural gas and it's nice to see progress with the cost and efficiency of solar.
I know this was 5 months ago, but you could argue that gravitational pressure causes the flow of geothermal energy due to the temperature gradient between the core and the crust.
Very awesome video, I can't believe that world leaders are still not trying to focus on this so that it would become a energy solution for the future.
Hi Hank how about a 6 year anniversary update video
Thank you! Now I can go to my interview with confidence in the subject. My formal college education didn't teach me this...
Just though you might want to know, while the magma thing is true, it's not much use to us. Geothermal electricity generation involves pumping cold water into shallow reserviors of hot rock, and those are depleted faster than the natural heat flux that created them. It is essentially heat mining.
Also, mining heat from the magma itself is problematic because extracting heat from magma turns it into rock, and rock doesn't actually conduct heat very well, so you have to dig the well again.
Only photovoltaic is restricted to when the sun shines. Concentrated solar power is not, the heat can be stored until needed. Also can use thermal electric generators, which rely on the Seebac effect, which also can store heat and use it to generate electricity on demand.... And in many locals when it's cloudy it's also windy and wind can be used to spin up a flywheel.
I'd love to see an update to this .. given all the advancements in the last 2 years .. both in solar and also onsite power storage..
The cost will come from maintenance, upgrade(as communities, businesses grow), and restoration recovery time. I say this from experience, having worked in energy industry for 25 plus years. Personally, I believe that smaller nuclear facilities in greater numbers, are our greatest source with lowest cost by far.
Just a question: how big a field of solar panels would we need to replace ALL of the other power plants? And how much would it cost?
These guys came a long way!
i'm confused. the process you described sounded like a self-sustaining process of transferring the free electrons between the n and p-type silicon wafers, but where does the sunlight come in? does the energy just excite those electrons to create a greater output of power? why is the n-type silicon on top?
Tesla has launched just the product we needed to to store electricity. Please check out the Tesla Powerwall and if it is exiting enough then please explain it in a video.
Hey, If you could find another colorful expletive besides 'frickin' I'd bet lots more teachers would show your clips or parts of your clips to students in classes. I love your bits! I wish I could use parts of them in my high school science classes more often. Thanks for being so frickin awesome!
Thanks for the info. That helped with my homework SO much! I can't tell you how much it means to have this info on hand.
I've seen the gravity light several times, and never did they neglect to mention that you must first lift the weight to the top before it goes. You should be concerned that you either blocked this information, or got your information from places where that was withheld from you.
It is literally wound up, in a very similar way to how the spring that stores power in a grandfather clock is. The weights (pendula) in them are only used to make it tell the time accurately, not to power it.
This should be revisited given the new changes in solar energy, from panels and paint that conduct energy from the sun and new tech in normal panels.
That's the first I knew of Cacti collecting so much energy. very informative. Thank you.
One of the main reasons that solar power is 'expensive' is because solar energy is a substitute good with the products which compete with it. So, if we increase production of solar power, it reduces the demand, and therefore the short-term price, of other forms of energy, like natural gas, oil, etc.
in Brazil, we've found the greatest oil reserves ever, in literal translation it'd be called pre-salt or under-salt the place where we found all this oil. it's a layer like 4 to 7 thousand kilometers deep in the ocean filled with oil. we already sold most of the main field which we call the "pound-field" but it is still enormous. we're also calling it our blue-amazon cause it's as valuable and it's under our oceans.and with our oil estimates state that will take another 40-60 years to oil end.
what about sterling engines, driven directly by sunlight?
Well done Hank. Good one!
on concetrated PV My undertanding heat demisishes the effeciancy of PV. Wouldn't concentrating sun light on the cell heat them up
Near enough to it, and the discharge can be pretty stable for a few years, but the main problems are accessibility (it's in the middle of a national park, and is sacred) and proximity to power demand, though it probably wouldn't yield more energy than they already generate and use on Hawai'i, so wouldn't be wasted.
Iceland will probably look to it when they run out of geothermal unless they go for wind, and the only other decent candidates I can think of are also protected or on quiet islands.
You should do a video about Stirling Engines and the application of them being solar powered
I would like to share this video with a group of 4th graders in a recreation center with no interner connection, would it be possible to get a copy of this video? thanks
Power is an energy per unit of time. As a rate of change of work done or the energy of a subsystem
Thank you man. I never knew about cpv and may be a solution for when my country runs out of oil.
theres always thorium reactors which is a far better option alot more efficient smaller and greener for the environment
A few little mistakes I think were made in that video:
Watts are not a measurement of energy, but of power. If you want energy you have to use watt-hours or joules.
Not only the moon but also the sun is involved in creating tidal forces. I think the respective influence is even nearly 50/50, but I'd have to check.
also, I would love an episode on solar stirling power technology.