in the early 1950s a physicist named
Gerald Pearson took a piece of silicon
and he dipped it into a molten hot bath
containing lithium this is a bold move
at the time but in doing so he created
the the world’s first silicon PN
Junction which has now become a
fundamental part of microchips cell
phones computers displays but the
silicon PN Junction is also at the core
of the solar cell the silicon solar cell
it’s really hard to understate sorry to
overstate the importance of this moment
both as a physical chemistry experiment
but also the development that it kicked
off you know this moment kick-started a
research project between Pearson and
another chemist and an engineer all
working at Bell Laboratories the I
wanted to say their names Gerald Pearson
Darrel Shaban and Calvin fuller so these
scientists were all working at Bell
Laboratories in New Jersey and a few
years later in 1954 Bell Laboratories
announced their invention now this is an
image used from the press release you
can see clearly a scientist holding one
of their test strips of silicon this is
sort of a momentous occasion right this
was greeted with great excitement I
wanted to read a quote here written by
the US News and World Report titled fuel
unlimited they wrote that the strips may
provide more power than all the world’s
coal oil and uranium engineers are
dreaming of silicon strip powerhouses
the New York Times Science magazine
everyone greeted this announcement with
tremendous excitement and at the time
you know it felt like this was the
beginning of a movement 1955 Bell
Laboratories started implementing these
solar cells as a way to extend
transmission line distances and as I
said there’s the beginning of a movement
but it was a movement they would take
over 50 years to develop
in the 1970s we experienced the oil
crisis the price of gasoline strike the
mat spiked dramatically and researchers
began developing improved modules with
the goal of you know freeing ourselves
from this this constraint of having to
consume other people’s gasoline
President Jimmy Carter put solar cells
on the roof of the White House you can
now buy pocket calculators with solar
cells and my dad put a solar-powered
water heater on the roof of his home he
was not a chemist a physicist or an
engineer more recently we’ve been
experiencing the early effects of what
is becoming a global climate change
crisis the hurricanes and floods and
droughts of increasing severity have
forced us to question just how exactly
we want to power our lives and our
economy now somewhere between now which
is a time when it feels like we’re
beginning to embrace this need for
renewable energies in 1954 we lost that
sense of awe and excitement that we once
held instead it’s been replaced by sense
of fear of you know how we could screw
this up and so today I’d like to provide
you guys with a little bit of a reason
to think positively about solar so why I
think it’s awesome
now I began my time I’m not I’m a little
bit new to the field compared to my dad
but I’ve been spending the past 10 years
working in the field of photovoltaics I
earned my PhD at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado I
spent four years at Columbia University
understanding the fundamental chemistry
and physics of solar cells and now today
I work in Silicon Valley making what I
think are some of the best solar cells
in the world clearly I’m an advocate and
a believer in solar energy now I don’t
want to treat this as a criticism of the
other forms of renewable energy or non
renewable energies
in fact I believe that much like a
retirement account a diverse energy
resource portfolio is both reliable and
profitable and so I’d like to make the
argument today that you know there are
many associated benefits to solar energy
and to other energies for example a list
a couple two non solar energies for
example offshore windfarms can provide
growth beds for marine ecosystems
hydroelectric dams have long been used
to manage irrigation and flood control
hot springs for example this hot spring
and Iceland can actually provide a place
for people to hang out and bathe
themselves you can see if you look
carefully in the background this picture
is a this is actually a geothermal power
plant I’m also not blind to the
challenges confronting solar cell
I think storage remains an open
challenge and regardless I’d like to
tell you about a few things that I that
I think are particularly special
so first solar cells are literally as
tough as the nails used to fix them to
the roof solar modules are built to
withstand wind rain snow Sun even hail
storms the fact that they have no moving
parts means that the life time is
measured in decades and the maintenance
requires a ladder and a garden hose a
typical solar cell degrades by about
less than half a percent per year and
many companies today you can buy modules
for with 25 or 30 year warranties I’d
like to take a moment for all of you to
think about is there any consumer
product you can think of with that comes
with a 25-year warranty if anyone has an
idea
I still haven’t thought of one but think
of the things that you thought of right
I think Solar belongs in that cat
so I think a good word to describe this
characteristic is resilience and this is
not the first time we’ve talked about
resilience I think it was it was really
eloquently described earlier today and I
think in a world where floods and
hurricanes are challenging our
environment resilience to the
environment is is really paramount
second sunlight is everywhere
this may seem kind of obvious at first
but often when I say this people say
well that’s easy for you to say you live
in California you know you have all the
Sun and you know I think I think well
that’s that’s true there’s a lot of
sunlight in California it’s not it’s not
as dis uniform as you might think so
this is I’m a scientist I love data this
is a map of the solar resource across
the United States you can see you know
Arizona California New Mexico certainly
have an impressive energy resource but
if you compare the numbers California to
here in Jackson Mississippi it’s really
only about 20% less sunlight that we get
here than then in in California and if
you compare that to say Maine or
Michigan which are some of the weakest
solar resource parts of the United
States it’s just another 20% the
comparison between Alaska and Arizona is
only about a factor of two so really is
everywhere but I think that this graph
is this plot is sort of hard to
understand at least for me because I
don’t really know what a kilowatt hours
I work in photovoltaics and I don’t
really have a visceral understanding for
what a kilowatt hour means so what often
is done at the stage is we draw a white
box and we say look if you fill this
white box with solar panels we could
power the entire United States
everything we need in terms of power and
energy could come from that white box
and then you hope that nobody lives
inside that box but other than paper you
know covering over somebody’s home with
with solar modules I I think that this
is also difficult because this is an
incomprehensible large amount of area
I don’t think I’ve ever looked at that
box maybe from an airplane but even then
it’s like you know so I’d like to
simplify it maybe reduce it to my own
solar footprint or your own solar
footprint and think about in terms of
area you need to power a single-family
home so for example if we take Phoenix
Arizona this is about how much area so I
should I should caution this graph the
display here is about half the size of
real life so if you take this and you
double it this is about how much area of
solar modules you would need to power
single-family home in Arizona here in
Jackson Mississippi and in Portland
Maine so these are these are large
amounts of area but at the same time you
know these are accessible amounts of
area right many of these roof systems
would fit on us on the roof of a
single-family home for those of you who
live in an apartment like I do you can
imagine finding a tract of land out in
the country where you could install this
much solar modules so it really makes it
an accessible you know dimension so I
like to think of this sort of in a
slightly different way another way to
consider this ideas you and I we can
both own a solar rooftop like that one
or we can own a solar farm out in the
country but none of us will ever own a
nuclear reactor I don’t think any of us
would ever own an oil rig or a windmill
or hydroelectric dam for that matter
right and I think in that way Solar is
incredibly democratizing because we all
have access to sunlight
most importantly many parts of the world
most in need of democracy are the parts
of the world to have the most access to
sunlight
finally Solar has for a long time been
liberating devices and people from the
power outlet so solar was first
implemented in satellites
which power our communications and our
GPS which give us freedom to travel
solar powers the International Space
Station all these things in outer space
could not exist without solar cells and
our transport and our communications
could not exist without solar cells I
work for a company that we help to put
cells on solar airplanes so that they
can fly for up to three months at a time
back down here on earth solar modules
give us the option to live on or off the
grid they give us the ability to
contribute to the energy needs of our
community if you drive an electric car
they give you the choice to skip out on
the gasoline line they give you the
option the freedom from changes in the
price of gasoline so my three
characteristics I’ll summarize as
resilience democracy and freedom now
there’s a reason I started with a
picture from Americus Georgia I think
that these three characteristics are
also three founding principles of the
United States and I think it’s really
fitting that this technology was
invented and developed in the United
States of America I think it really
means a lot from a fundamental
perspective and in a time when I think
many of us are questioning what it means
to be American and what it is that makes
America great I’d like to make the
argument that Solar is American and that
Solar is American as apple pie so for
those of you considering what to do with
your careers you know come join us where
our work has just begun we’re still
looking for people to help us develop
the technology the policy the social
movement necessary to create a
distributed renewable energy movement
and for those of you considering what to
do with your roof put solar cells on
them it’s the patriotic thing to do
thank you
you
you
Gerald Pearson took a piece of silicon
and he dipped it into a molten hot bath
containing lithium this is a bold move
at the time but in doing so he created
the the world’s first silicon PN
Junction which has now become a
fundamental part of microchips cell
phones computers displays but the
silicon PN Junction is also at the core
of the solar cell the silicon solar cell
it’s really hard to understate sorry to
overstate the importance of this moment
both as a physical chemistry experiment
but also the development that it kicked
off you know this moment kick-started a
research project between Pearson and
another chemist and an engineer all
working at Bell Laboratories the I
wanted to say their names Gerald Pearson
Darrel Shaban and Calvin fuller so these
scientists were all working at Bell
Laboratories in New Jersey and a few
years later in 1954 Bell Laboratories
announced their invention now this is an
image used from the press release you
can see clearly a scientist holding one
of their test strips of silicon this is
sort of a momentous occasion right this
was greeted with great excitement I
wanted to read a quote here written by
the US News and World Report titled fuel
unlimited they wrote that the strips may
provide more power than all the world’s
coal oil and uranium engineers are
dreaming of silicon strip powerhouses
the New York Times Science magazine
everyone greeted this announcement with
tremendous excitement and at the time
you know it felt like this was the
beginning of a movement 1955 Bell
Laboratories started implementing these
solar cells as a way to extend
transmission line distances and as I
said there’s the beginning of a movement
but it was a movement they would take
over 50 years to develop
in the 1970s we experienced the oil
crisis the price of gasoline strike the
mat spiked dramatically and researchers
began developing improved modules with
the goal of you know freeing ourselves
from this this constraint of having to
consume other people’s gasoline
President Jimmy Carter put solar cells
on the roof of the White House you can
now buy pocket calculators with solar
cells and my dad put a solar-powered
water heater on the roof of his home he
was not a chemist a physicist or an
engineer more recently we’ve been
experiencing the early effects of what
is becoming a global climate change
crisis the hurricanes and floods and
droughts of increasing severity have
forced us to question just how exactly
we want to power our lives and our
economy now somewhere between now which
is a time when it feels like we’re
beginning to embrace this need for
renewable energies in 1954 we lost that
sense of awe and excitement that we once
held instead it’s been replaced by sense
of fear of you know how we could screw
this up and so today I’d like to provide
you guys with a little bit of a reason
to think positively about solar so why I
think it’s awesome
now I began my time I’m not I’m a little
bit new to the field compared to my dad
but I’ve been spending the past 10 years
working in the field of photovoltaics I
earned my PhD at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado I
spent four years at Columbia University
understanding the fundamental chemistry
and physics of solar cells and now today
I work in Silicon Valley making what I
think are some of the best solar cells
in the world clearly I’m an advocate and
a believer in solar energy now I don’t
want to treat this as a criticism of the
other forms of renewable energy or non
renewable energies
in fact I believe that much like a
retirement account a diverse energy
resource portfolio is both reliable and
profitable and so I’d like to make the
argument today that you know there are
many associated benefits to solar energy
and to other energies for example a list
a couple two non solar energies for
example offshore windfarms can provide
growth beds for marine ecosystems
hydroelectric dams have long been used
to manage irrigation and flood control
hot springs for example this hot spring
and Iceland can actually provide a place
for people to hang out and bathe
themselves you can see if you look
carefully in the background this picture
is a this is actually a geothermal power
plant I’m also not blind to the
challenges confronting solar cell
I think storage remains an open
challenge and regardless I’d like to
tell you about a few things that I that
I think are particularly special
so first solar cells are literally as
tough as the nails used to fix them to
the roof solar modules are built to
withstand wind rain snow Sun even hail
storms the fact that they have no moving
parts means that the life time is
measured in decades and the maintenance
requires a ladder and a garden hose a
typical solar cell degrades by about
less than half a percent per year and
many companies today you can buy modules
for with 25 or 30 year warranties I’d
like to take a moment for all of you to
think about is there any consumer
product you can think of with that comes
with a 25-year warranty if anyone has an
idea
I still haven’t thought of one but think
of the things that you thought of right
I think Solar belongs in that cat
so I think a good word to describe this
characteristic is resilience and this is
not the first time we’ve talked about
resilience I think it was it was really
eloquently described earlier today and I
think in a world where floods and
hurricanes are challenging our
environment resilience to the
environment is is really paramount
second sunlight is everywhere
this may seem kind of obvious at first
but often when I say this people say
well that’s easy for you to say you live
in California you know you have all the
Sun and you know I think I think well
that’s that’s true there’s a lot of
sunlight in California it’s not it’s not
as dis uniform as you might think so
this is I’m a scientist I love data this
is a map of the solar resource across
the United States you can see you know
Arizona California New Mexico certainly
have an impressive energy resource but
if you compare the numbers California to
here in Jackson Mississippi it’s really
only about 20% less sunlight that we get
here than then in in California and if
you compare that to say Maine or
Michigan which are some of the weakest
solar resource parts of the United
States it’s just another 20% the
comparison between Alaska and Arizona is
only about a factor of two so really is
everywhere but I think that this graph
is this plot is sort of hard to
understand at least for me because I
don’t really know what a kilowatt hours
I work in photovoltaics and I don’t
really have a visceral understanding for
what a kilowatt hour means so what often
is done at the stage is we draw a white
box and we say look if you fill this
white box with solar panels we could
power the entire United States
everything we need in terms of power and
energy could come from that white box
and then you hope that nobody lives
inside that box but other than paper you
know covering over somebody’s home with
with solar modules I I think that this
is also difficult because this is an
incomprehensible large amount of area
I don’t think I’ve ever looked at that
box maybe from an airplane but even then
it’s like you know so I’d like to
simplify it maybe reduce it to my own
solar footprint or your own solar
footprint and think about in terms of
area you need to power a single-family
home so for example if we take Phoenix
Arizona this is about how much area so I
should I should caution this graph the
display here is about half the size of
real life so if you take this and you
double it this is about how much area of
solar modules you would need to power
single-family home in Arizona here in
Jackson Mississippi and in Portland
Maine so these are these are large
amounts of area but at the same time you
know these are accessible amounts of
area right many of these roof systems
would fit on us on the roof of a
single-family home for those of you who
live in an apartment like I do you can
imagine finding a tract of land out in
the country where you could install this
much solar modules so it really makes it
an accessible you know dimension so I
like to think of this sort of in a
slightly different way another way to
consider this ideas you and I we can
both own a solar rooftop like that one
or we can own a solar farm out in the
country but none of us will ever own a
nuclear reactor I don’t think any of us
would ever own an oil rig or a windmill
or hydroelectric dam for that matter
right and I think in that way Solar is
incredibly democratizing because we all
have access to sunlight
most importantly many parts of the world
most in need of democracy are the parts
of the world to have the most access to
sunlight
finally Solar has for a long time been
liberating devices and people from the
power outlet so solar was first
implemented in satellites
which power our communications and our
GPS which give us freedom to travel
solar powers the International Space
Station all these things in outer space
could not exist without solar cells and
our transport and our communications
could not exist without solar cells I
work for a company that we help to put
cells on solar airplanes so that they
can fly for up to three months at a time
back down here on earth solar modules
give us the option to live on or off the
grid they give us the ability to
contribute to the energy needs of our
community if you drive an electric car
they give you the choice to skip out on
the gasoline line they give you the
option the freedom from changes in the
price of gasoline so my three
characteristics I’ll summarize as
resilience democracy and freedom now
there’s a reason I started with a
picture from Americus Georgia I think
that these three characteristics are
also three founding principles of the
United States and I think it’s really
fitting that this technology was
invented and developed in the United
States of America I think it really
means a lot from a fundamental
perspective and in a time when I think
many of us are questioning what it means
to be American and what it is that makes
America great I’d like to make the
argument that Solar is American and that
Solar is American as apple pie so for
those of you considering what to do with
your careers you know come join us where
our work has just begun we’re still
looking for people to help us develop
the technology the policy the social
movement necessary to create a
distributed renewable energy movement
and for those of you considering what to
do with your roof put solar cells on
them it’s the patriotic thing to do
thank you
you
you
Please follow and like us: