Thank you to the Oxford PV team for sharing your work with me! And thank you to Opera for sponsoring this video. Click here opr.as/Opera-browser-DrBenMiles to upgrade your browser for FREE!
So let me ask what I think is the obvious question regarding perovskites: To my knowledge, the biggest problem to solve with its durability is that they break down under exposure to sunlight. Is it a specific frequency (for any given perovskite) that causes it to break down? If it's a frequency that's outside the useful range for perovskites and silicon, could a filter layer "just"* be stacked on top of it to block the offending frequency band? I understand that ideally we want to convert it _all_ into electricity, but if the cell can't use it then blocking it can't hurt much. *I acknowledge that "why don't you just" is the single most infuriating thing a professional can hear from someone who has no understanding of the complexities the professional deals with on a daily basis. I use that wording here as a casual idiot who really knows barely more about solar panels than presented by TH-cam's various science communicators. Thanks, Les
I watched the entire video, and seem to have missed the explanation of why perovskite photovoltaics in the hands of Oxford PV "just changed everything". Are they rendered suddenly practical from a cost or durability breakthrough? Can anyone time stamp this moment in the video? Or is this just another click bait featurette without a payoff? Edit: At 16:32 there is mention of "additional layers of packaging are needed to take a lab material and turn it into a material that can survive in the real world." Is this the breakthrough that "changed everything"? No other group of people, aside from Oxford PV, figured out this extra layers approach? That seems a bit incredible.
Yeah, bit misleading how he promotes 20% increase compared to silicon (20->24%). But then the 28%->24% decrease in efficiëncy due to protective material is almost talked about as negligible.
So in other words this video is clickbait given 22% panels have been on the market for an age and 24% is an incremental efficiency gain not a breakthrough. Thanks, no need to waste my time on the rest of what I already know.
Framing videos like this is so obnoxious. TL;DW: their cells are 20% more efficient. Not 20% of the sun's energy more, but 20% of the efficiency of conventional solar cells, aka less than 5% more of the sun's energy. And it's not like we couldn't reach this efficiency before, or even do much better, but simply that reaching it wasn't cost effective.
@@boltvanderhuge8711 yeah it feels dumb. pretending a dual layer 1m square is comparable to a single layer 1m square feels disingenuous. if the dual layer square is more efficient than 2 1m squares, then we're getting somewhere
Ah thanks for TLDW. I think for the next 20 years, we perhaps don't even need a more efficient cell, in the sense of a cell that captures more solar power per unit of footprint area, because we aren't anywhere near close to saturating possible solar installation footprint. Instead we need cells which are cost effective in terms of total lifetime output per unit of cost, high endurance, and not too difficult to recycle into new raw material.
So what? The title is accurate (sorry you assumed anything), and it's interesting on how solar cells work. I love this channel but it has a dedicated hard-core hate group. Go away if you don't like the channel. Why watch?
@@TrickyNekro We're all, with bated breath, looking forward to you publishing your scientific advancement that shows these _obvious_ amateurs how it's done.
@@LilMissMurder3409 Solar thermal already can achieve 60% efficiency. Geothermal is also a possible path. One could also combine the two. I don't need do anything. Edit: with btw the problem of energy storage almost solved in the same facilities. Existing technology can be used, produces far less e-waste, don't produce anywhere near the green house effect through self-heating etc. etc. etc.. So yes, 4% max at best possible scenario for current PV for use on earth and not maybe niece space applications is totally and utterly.... Pathetic!
For a roof installation, when you take the cost of scaffolding, wiring, inverter, roof frames, labour, and profit, a solar panel that is 40% more expensive (for example) might only push the costs up by 20%. People doing price comparisons often often miss this point. The panals are only part of the overall system installation costs. Throw a home battery in and the costs work even more in favour of more efficient cells.
Which is why it's more efficient for an industry to produce energy rather than individual residences. Industry can save on costs, materials, and carbon expenditure using economies of scale. We shouldn't care how the electricity is produced. We should only care that our power outlets deliver reliable power. Electricity should be produced by industry using nuclear, solar cells, geothermal, or elephants jumping on trampolines. Regardless of how it's done it won't make a difference to us as long as it's green.
I think about this a lot. Humans have hardly really ever had enough extra to always build the ideal solution. What we have now is because of sacrifice. For all or most history. Roads, houses, Schools, farms, entire cities just kind of happen over time. Then having 20 20 hindsight. We can see the best. They even know at the time there are ideal or better ways, and there are realistic levels of perfection that are attained. That just always leaves people either catching up with stuff as it breaks, fixing it, and still theres growth. It would always be best to put the best possible roofing system on your house, so in an ideal world the ones who would live there in the future never even worry about a roof leak and it lasts forever and makes the rest of the house last forever. That is always choice. But, not always possible. That I think is a problem that can be addressed and it could help advance human progress if it is. But you are right. it's true. The Wires for the system add tons of cost.Don't cheap out if you have the choice. Think If one is to get the best wiring, it costs a lot more. Just that is a huge efficiency thing. and cost thing. Wire gauge. We need to get a taste for how much energy our bodies can make and use and then compare it to our machines. That's why we get weaker and weaker and now barely resemble our ancestors, allegedly. We are just out of touch with how much energy we use, feel we deserve, or how much energy is ACTUALLY needed to be alive and happy and healthy and why we use so much more. Sent using energy. Sorry. Also have you heard of phase change materials insulation.
@@Sim-q9t That's an INCREDIBLY reductionist look at history. The longest lived empires, buildings, cultures, and even Religions all have historical evidence of a MUCH larger amount of care put into planning for that perfection PRIOR to execution. A comparison of cultures has been done by a few dozen Master's students (Ty Jstor) correlating how deeply a culture valued planning, efficiency, and mastery to the longevity of that culture(each focused on a different one, or collection of these traits, but the over arching theme is surprisingly common) It isn't hard to guess which direction the trends pointed. The more you plan out prior to execution, the longer you, your creation, and your very society survive. It's incredibly stark.
@@potato9832yes and no. Yes there are advantages to massive solar farms, but you also have to take into account land value and energy losses getting the power where it needs to go. Likewise, distributed power generation feeding into a smart grid will be less susceptible to power outages. Solar on every roof combined with distributed storage batteries would be a very robust system and reliability of power is valuable as well. Weighing the costs vs benefits of different approaches gets complicated quickly.
@@terryhayward7905 Yes, 1 Htz = 1 oscillation per second, and so he was famous for doing a task per second. It's not only a not funny joke, it isn't even a joke, just idiots managing to correlate two things.
@@blucat4Terry laughs when he hears wordplay that requires rudimentary scientific knowledge to understand. He laughs in the hope other people will say "why are laughing Terry?" And he can then dazzle them with his "elite knowledge" that most 12 year old high school students know. 🤓
I went off-grid about a dozen years ago. I have old monocrystalline panels. My panels are somewhere above 10% on a sunny Okanogan Highlands day. Since the introduction of LiFePO4 batteries I only fire up my generators when a big Pacific storm blows through. I'm not desparate for a functional replacement, but it sure would be nice. At -20°s and cloudy, things get a bit dicey for the panels and the generator. Better battery chemistry and panel compositions are what I would like to see. There has to be some tricksy compositions that are still hiding in the combinatorial crevices.
We supposedly have satellites in space that have been running off of solar for 50+ years. That means the "good" technology that can run stuff very efficiently is over 50 years old. BUT ON THIS PLANET THE CRAP WE USE CAN'T MAKE IT A SEASON WITHOUT MAINTENANCE. And space is supposedly the coldest, most hostile environment in our known existence. We are being LIED to. Rovers go to Mars and run on solar.......in a supposedly very hostile environment...WTH is going on?
@@Abduladilosman I live on the east side of the Cascade Mountain Range, up near Canada in the Okanogan County, in a part called the Highlands. On a big bluff. But this time of year the clouds sink at night to the valley below us, then, as the day wears on, the clouds rise with the sun and our output crashes. It's almost a daily event. So, going into town early, we drive down through the cloud cover, then later, we drive up into very thick fog. Sometimes we are even in the snowflake creation layer. This lasts 6-8 weeks per year and makes a generator necessary. We get less than 10" of precipitation per year, but still gotta keep my expensive propane refrigerators and 1 watt lights in happy juice. Good luck with your system.
@@AbduladilosmanDid not mean to insult or belittle. But, it's 5°s farenheit or about -15 C right now, snowing. I hsven't been down to town in a month, I can't see more than 20 meters out my window, so maybe I have a touch of Cabin Fever. Please forgive any insult I may have given.. My wife says I am a jerk only 1/2 the time. So hopefully this text is from my better half. Ha.
When I was a teenager I remember watching James Burke's Connections. He explained how throughout history we build our knowledge on what others have done in the past. I'm happy to say he is rebooting his series again. Of all the accomplishments we have made our ability to learn through language is the one traits that we should cherish most because if we didn't none of the things we have today would exist. Your channel rocks!
10:30 I'm not sure what Dr. Chris Case was thinking when he said "superconductors are used to cool MRI systems". No. The MRI machine is cold so that the superconductors stay cold. They need to be cold so that they maintain their induced magnetic fields. The magnetic fields are necessary in order for the MRI to penetrate object ( humans) in order to see inside them. In other words, "cryogenic fluids like liquid nitrogen are used to cool superconductors, and they are what make MRI machines possible"
"High Temperature" distinguishes superconductors that need to be colder than liquid nitrogen and those that can be high enough temperature that liquid nitrogen is can cool them.
Summer 2024 DIY 14 KW system installed. Despite a modest understanding of the physics the tech has a almost magic feel. Having control over only a tiny fraction of the suns power is rather amazing, far more power than a small campfire and way more useful.
I would've liked to hear more about the toxicity / sealing efficacy. The ability to mass produce is one thing, but it would've been useless without an effective resistance to degradation.
@@autohmae still, Cadmium and Lead have been banned for good reason, so introducing these to an open market would have to overcome SIGNIFICANT hurdles. And for good reason, humans suck at keeping toxic stuff in check once they distribute it in use, see lead in electronics and Cadmium in batteries.
@@DooMMasteR I don't think safety was the main reason in this case, we are talking about films and layers in solar panels humans don't really interact with directly and it's not like people will DIY solar panels to try and build state of the art panels either.
@@DooMMasteR It's almost like putting lead in fuel and have it belching out of every exhaust pipe for decades might have something to do with it.... Lead pewter, water pipes, and paint are also very common historic sources of lead contamination. Lead is bad, and hould be avoided where at all possible, but putting a tiny amount in solar panels (assuming their particular secret forumla does) is not exactly a panic button moment.
I love the quote “the sun has never raised its price”. So if that’s true and the tech to convert it to electricity keeps getting cheaper, things don’t look so bleak after all.
Things are going to get really bad. It's not as bleak as it could be as decarbonization is entirely within our means. The problem is the political will to do it and the fact that we've already waited too long. There are areas of the Earth which will be rendered uninhabitable already. It's just a question of how MUCH of the planet we're going to loose access to.
@@dynamicworlds1 Also .... all the idiots forgetting about the billions of people forced to migrate into other countrys ... maga is already getting a meltdown because of mexicans
@@dynamicworlds1We're likely to lose Florida soon, just because of home insurance. Large parts of the dry West also, but there the cities will survive because they exclude wildfires.
The great extinction event known as 21st and 22nd centuries? There are certainly hard times ahead, but if we can solve energy, that frees up a lot of resources to solve the other problems.
To be fair that was a flexible prototype, not the one they actually produce.
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I would bet that many of the first prototypes have been tested in military and spaceflight applications and this is where the first year or two of production will go.. A company in Texas is making double sided panels in the 22% range and I don't see it taking long for fabs to get up to production levels maybe a year before the volume is up to retail levels.. If they can get the cost down and lifespan up in two years I would consider adding a bank of these in place of the 300 watt panels I have now as afternoon energy production..
For those who know nothing about glove boxes: If you do ever visit a lab with one, don't don't actually give it a vigorous high five. (But if you must, make sure somebody records a video to entertain the rest of us.)
1:40 I hope you’re not using those words lightly, because modern solar panels aren’t cheap or clean with the byproducts of production and how little of it is recycle-able. My main concern for the future of solar panels if we’re ever gonna produce large scale is sustainability, recycle-ability, and I guess environmental impact if we’re talking really large scale, but I guess the goal here is to minimize the size and maximize the impact. Like those mirror designs.
Thank you for the wonderful video! Perovskite solar cells certainly look like they'll be a key technology in our future, so it's a good idea to understand how they work as completely as we can.
Thank you so much for these really informative, professionally delivered programmes. The occasional subtle humorous asides are also welcome! I have recently been investigating solar marine propulsion and your information is invaluable. Anything to do with PV energy generation, battery science, electric motors for boats is welcome. I'm very happy to be able to send a financial donation as well. Great value for money!
I love this. Everybody has been talking about this company for years (well, since 2017), it's great to have a progress report this detailed and well presented.
Best system there was. Now Microsoft is annoying me with upgrading to 11. I tried 11 for a year. Windows Vista was bliss against 11. That is just a slap in your face for a system.
@@GERntleMAN No one says you have to go to 11! Previous versions will continue to exist. There's also the option of jumping ship to Mac/Linux/BSD or just saying 'to heck with desktops' and sticking with a phone/tablet.
@lithiumflower31337 No thanks, I tried Mac several times and it's worse than win 11. For someone messing around on administrator level and customizing OS for himself, Mac is simply the worst there is. Too limited and ugly and very non-intuitive. And mobile phones had their UI pinnacle in 2015. After that the usage got worse every year. And I tried all, yes all brands.
The only mention I heard of a resolution of the problem of the delicacy of the material was "layers of additional packaging," which is rather a vague reference considering it is the most challenging issue with perovskites.
I highly appreciate that you do those kind of videos based on visiting the research places and interviewing the people instead of articles. Makes this whole video way more interesting.
To add some extra detail into this that wasn't included, the main thing stopping mass production isn't just the rapid degradation in real-world conditions. It's that the current most efficient perovskite that we have uses lead as a main component. Added WITH the rapid degradation when exposed to some UV wavelengths and moisture you have a disaster with lead leaching into some peoples main sources of drinking water
As a firefighter and "parttime" scientist, I'm always looking at problems through two lenses. One is just basic practicality the other is scientific and engineering innovation. Many times practicality wins. But both are needed. I like it when scientist see both sides.
silicon cell efficiency >27% and module efficiency >25% already being mass produced, not the 18-20% limit you said in the video 8:30, it's actually much higher than that.
@@koaasst we installed about 35 000 PV panels and through two last years they raised from 20.5% up to 20.8% through the 4 types of PVs from 400Wp up to 550Wp - mostly because of size changes (all Risen Solar company) /calculated from standard measurement environment with perpendicular light with intensity of 1000W/m2 - then any deviation from that, lowers efficiency drastically = clouds, fog, tilt, dust .... /
@@DrBenMiles is 1839 "suspicious" since that might be the day that aliens came to deliver both of these technologies to planet Earth ? j/k ?! I was just curious as to why you said "suspicious" as opposed to "coincidental". Maybe that is what you meant.
Dr. Chris Case is an ENGINEER not a physicist. Please give us engineers more due for the technology we develop. Of course we cannot work without the contributions of physicists but the converse is also true.
And also they treat inventors as if they don't know anything about science. Actually, I think science is mostly a recap of history of inventions. Every invention leads to a new theory.
Science discovers what is possible, engineering discovers what is practical... with enough education that can be one person even if they are two different tasks.
FYI, 2e+18 as you indicate in brackets at 00:22 is 2 million terawatt not 200K terawatt as you've indicated. So either the large number needs updating or your scientific notation needs updating.
@@alienwalk so pointing out a critical error in a scientific video equates to having an attitude for you haha 😂 don't think you realize how significant the 2 numbers are from one another but okay 👍
Great way to tell the story of how innovation is an evolution! I’ve been casually following this development for a while but haven’t seen it presented in such a scientifically entertaining way.
Type 0 is such an arbitrary measure, in particular because early humans used way more energy than just their camp fires. All the energy that fell on the earth and was absorbed by the plants that the humans or their animals would then eat, for example
Most plants and animals were unavailable to humans for usage, early humans used a very small part of said energy. Even then plants absorb a very small part of the light energy that falls on their leaves and when animals eat said plants they absorbed a small part of the energy stored in those plants. When humans ate said animals they again absorbed a very small part of the energy stored in those animals. So, the total energy absorbed through eating was(still is) an extremely small part of the total energy coming from the sun(and all of this not accounting for the fact that most solar energy falls on ocean water where mostly nothing lives). There is also the fact that gaining energy through eating limits how said energy can be used compared to getting it in form of something like fire or electricity for example, so this would decrease the available energy even more. All in all, yeah early humans used more energy than produced by their camp-fires but it wasn't that much more than what type-0 predicts.
roasting marshmallows at yellowstone, or other lava spots. Cavemen. Luxury levels of energy just freely out in the open. Maybe their descendants are free energy guys. ha.
The value for Type 0 is just repeating the pattern established for the higher levels, but going down. The jump from Type 2 to Type 3 is 10^26 to 10^36. To make the scale continuous, Sagan changed the value for Type 1 from 10^17 to 10^16, which left Type 0 at 10^6.
Thanks for the video. As an environmental engineer, battling the planet's climate difficulties, it's good to know other (more complicated) fields are doing their damndest for humanity's future. Looking at the comments, a lot of folks clearly already have ALL of the answers (or more likely watched a video of someone else telling them 😂) but for a lot of us grafting outside and either not smart enough to get a lab job, or too busy applying it practically to read and study, this has been very positive and helpful news. Thanks.
I've read that silicon cells degrade from about 22 to the stated 18% rather quickly. For the layered cells, will the silicon aiming at a different wavelength have a similar degradation, and what does the expected curve for the provoskovites look like? Basically, how long will they last?
What you're saying about degradation from 22% to 18% states a degradation to ~80% of initial effectiveness. Data collected from existing photovoltaic solar panels tells us that it takes anywhere from 20 to 25 years to degrade to 80%. Not so rather quickly in my opinion :) As to perovskites solar cells there is no real world data but in labs they mostly had crap life span.
That would be insanely much. Most manufacturers guarantee you 80-90% remaining power output after 20-35 years. Most degradation is caused by atom migration, where e.g. Oxygen or Nitrogen migrate into the P-N-Boundary and create leaks. The packaging and preparation of the cells in modern modules has improved a lot, so that the issues has mostly become a non issue. We have "in that regard bad" modules from 1997 running and they still show just very VERY little degradation by age, though one module degraded faster due to mechanical damage.
Perovskites are still a lab experiment, but given the amount of real world operation problems with them I would say they wouldn’t last more than a year and would not be used anywhere except for aerospace.
It's not that quick. A typical solar installation is rated to last thirty years, after which the panels will have degraded to maybe 80%-ish of their original capacity and are due for replacement. The replacement is fairly cheap, as the rest of the system is in place - electronics, cabling, mounting brackets and such - so it's just a matter of sending someone up on the roof to un-bolt the old panels and bolt new ones in their place.
I don't understand why the pyrovskite doesn't need the same perfection in the crystal structure that the silicon does? You mention that "obviously" it still needs to be tuned, but how is that obvious when you just went over how the defects in the crystalline structure of this compound doesn't matter?
Surely you understand that any can't or doesn't is can't yet or doesn't yet? I mean of course it doesn't matter yet. They get it working is what matter, finetuning comes after knowing how it works! Isn't that kinda obvious?
@@dragon67849 Yeesh. What an immature and egotistical response. Every sentence is just tones of "Duh, you f-ing idiot."? Pathetic. Grow up, kid. The person simply asked a question. I hope you're not raising/f-ing up a child of your own with this kind of ego/asshole attitude...
@@pedro_mab i wouldn't call that an explanation he just kind of says it is and glosses over it. I'm genuinely curious why this material is exempt from the physical requirements demanded by silicon, and he doesn't address this. I've watched it twice could u post a time stamp?
New subscriber here. I don't usually comment, but this was an exceptionally well-made video. I enjoyed the history aspect as well as the science explanation behind how solar works paired with the visual representations. Keep it up!
Sadly, I'll still have to categorize this under "We'll never hear from this again" until there's actual evidence that this will be used commercially within an acceptable time frame.
It's already going into large scale commercial field customer production/ beta testing and development .. another year or so after that for rooftop sales.
i feel like the threshold for being a type 1 civilisation should be alot lower, like, being a civilization that is actively harnessing loads of energy without destroying their home planet (which is actually achievable using today's technology, and alot more nuclear).
In my opinion, the definition for type one makes sense because it matches the definition for the rest of the levels. If we redefined it to match our level it wouldn't have the symmetry of the current definition in my opinion
@@jamesleishman8025Yes, but I don't think it is a positive to harness the total energy of a planet. Destroying a planet to do so is stupid. Totally darkening a star and destroying Earth's ecosystem is also stupid. The scale is not an absolute measure. It is more of a guideline.
@@vidal9747if you cover a planet to harness the power that’s one thing, but by the time we could get to that point we would likely have interplanetary travel and use other surfaces to make up the difference. By the time you can get outside the solar system (interstellar travel), you’d likely need to have your entire star’s energy cycling to make the leap to the next star, by which halfway point you’d probably want energy collection outposts from the new star. Each whole number in the scale is exponentially harder to reach. The purpose of the scale is to use as a benchmark. Arbitrary, not a goal to block out the sun. If we encounter other life forms here or in space travels, it would be a good thing to learn how far their tech is developed in comparison to energy capabilities, to see if one has a limiting factor on the other.
Dr Miles, you are a scientist and that explains your conviction that the commercial stage of the Oxford technology is more desirable than waiting for the perfect cell. Actually, there are two aspects to this commercialisation. First, the pervoskite/silicon cells will be considered in terms of power output per dollar and selected or rejected in comparison with the other cells in the market. Secondly, the worry of investors will be that one of the other technologies, and there are many of them, will reach the market with a greater power output and at the same or lower cost. If this happens, the investment in plant and team will collapse. This is not an unusual problem for business projects. Something similar is happening in the field of electric vehicle battery technology.
The company now can try to focus more on production rather than pure research, delivering revenues and profit, then start feeding research from customers rather than investors. As economic efficiency can became more interesting. On top of that, two concepts are missing from this... communication. 1: lifecycle compared to standard silicon cells. 2: recycle cost and efficiency compared to standard silicon cells. Deliver more energy? Seems so. It's actually better than silicon in long term? Answer is not here.
Thank You !! I learned a lot on the history. Even from your ad. on Opera ! I must watch this several times to pick up the parts my future self missed !!
Kardashev's scale is about consumption but does not account for efficiency. For example, in the '70s we used incandescent lighting but nowadays we use LED lighting, so we have become more efficient in e.g. lighting a room with the same lighting intensity but at a fraction of the previously used amount of consumption. So there is a need to redefine this scale incorporating efficiency as well.
Don't forget to allow for Jevons paradox though - an increase in the efficiency with which a resource is used can result in a counterintuitive increase in the utilisation, because new uses which were previously not viable become worthwhile and there is less pressure to conserve. LED lighting does provide the same light at a fraction of the energy, but that also mean the lights might be left running continuously rather than turned off any time the room is empty. Or that the LEDs might now be used to construct large-scale light shows and advertising displays.
The Kardashev scale is really stupid. It's like he wanted to give an unattainable goal to work towards. We can't ever get there. I hate tk say it, but, it seems downright impossible for any species to ever achieve it.
@@jeremymanson1781 No one is talking about this. They are always some great breakthrough when in fact it's some nonsense. Edison had a breakthrough after many attempts. He didn;t boast about his attempts but his success.
@@TemplarX2Yes the hype is very annoying. If you look further, some of the hype is journalists getting carried away and some is straight up hype by the researchers, maybe because they are trying to prevent their investors from losing faith in them. The fact is the vast majority of attempts to innovate fail. The failures are an important part of finding out where the blind alleys are or where to focus to overcome the reason for failure. Even in ordinary business, 9 out of 10 business start ups fail. Failure is necessary.
Perovskite coated silicon solar panel is the smartest business choice. Since you don't have to build Si-panel, just source it from other companies, then clean it and coat it nicely. I know "just" here sounds undermining, but the difficulty of doing that could be tedious. And from the graph in 15:41 I think you can't add more than that one layer, only leave a room for a new Perovskite in place of Si. I think, they still have to keep a layer of Si at the bottom even with new Perovskite material, it seems to help stabilize the structure.
I was working on PV's in the 90's here in Australia, our group held at the time the (in lab only) maximum efficiency record, (and not much lower than today), this work is very infesting.. Particularly your take on cost, reliability, and eff%, the engineering Vs 'perfection', a case where good enough is good enough.
that is a point - if we consider nowadays prices of PVs then it is much cheaper to add a few m,ore panels than make a frame to give them better orientation to the sun (pricewise). We were covering even northern sides of roofs, because of dirt cheap panels (sun hits them only around the noon in summer - it was for cooling system, which utilizes this seasonal gain). We put them flat on roof without bothering about frames, because it adds weight to roof (to level it is not possible to make installation there), lowers coverage and make installation twice expensive (frame cost and installation cost). so... compromises
More efficient but as mentioned deteriorates more rapidly. It can be protected from some things. But one thing that can't be avoided that causes it to deteriorate is sunlight - LOL ...Seriously, a big downer for a solar cell, but I guess they have solved that?
I remember reading a paper a just a few years ago talking about how they found superconductive properties in part of a leafs' structure. They were essentially looking at how leaves work as solar cells.
It would be interesting to learn how long these new cells last and how recyclable they are. Recycling doesn't sound like a big deal until you realise that current panels only last 20 years before they have to be replaced. Every panel that you see being installed today will have to be recycled 20 years from now. In the Netherlands we current get 400.000 new rooftop installations a year and that number will grow. That means that in 20 years time we'll have 400.000 old rooftop installations that need replacing and recycling every year. That's 4mln panels a year. That's a problem.
Current panels last rather 25 to 30 years. The EU and the members have or should have already laws that adress recycling plus there are already PV recycling companies for "normal" silicon PV panels across Europe. But yeah, i agree that there are still questions to be answered how recycling friendly those new ones will be and how long they last.
I strongly believe that perovskite cells are the future. Once manufacturing processes are refined and the most ideal compounds found, I think it won't be too hard to layer up a few layers of this into >50% efficient solar panels cost effectively. This means far less mined material since the power density is drastically increased. That's what's important, because raw material will be the limiting factor to increasing solar power. Energy will become cheaper as we deploy more, which will make manufacturing cheaper, but you can't turn energy into matter (well, not practically). So being efficient with resources, especially if we can make them recyclable, will be hugely important.
Well. Ben, you did well in explaining this to a MBA guy like me. Since I understand it now.. I’m fully into it ❤❤ Thanks also for including all the scientists behind it. These findings don’t just grow on trees. Thanks!!!
Still think that optical rectennas could get way better result at some point in the future. It still tons of issues to overcome and manufacturing could be problematic but potential efficiency around 80% sounds worth trying to solve that riddle.
efficiency is great and all, but the real energy gainer would actually be applying these kinds of systems. we are currently vastly underusing solar panels, so solar panels that are even 100% more efficient wouldn't make that much difference in overall power production.
100% efficient solar panel would be something then it would be very viable, todays panels are around 20-23% efficient, at 100% that would be 1000w per sq metre, tho plenty of people buy it id say dependy on country
@@MrRacerhacker "100% efficient solar panel would be something then it would be very viable," And it would be invisible because all the light that falls on it would be transformed to electricity. Are you AI?
@@vinny142 no just bit tired do agree 100 aint viable but tho would be alot more usefull at 80-90% tho myself run 3kw myself in the nordics work well but also got some space for it
I absolutely love your videos, but something about this one was particularly exciting. I have loved science all my life but am still only a peon in the world of science. Thank you for making it understandable and intriguing at a peon level. I’m excited to pass along this information. - An old, old teacher
That energy scale where a civilization harnesses all their suns energy is silly though. If we turned all the energy that hit our planet into electricity, then we'd live on an ice rock
If we had the technology to do that we would allocate some of it to keeping our world nice and comfortable. In fact, we'd end up making even more of the planet habitable than it is today. Think about it, if we had the tech to use all the energy coming from the sun it would be a piece of cake to direct it to where we want it to go.
It doesn't say turn it all into electricity it says control it all. If you had a dyson sphere you could easily program it/design it to leave the very small portion of energy/light leaving the sun that actually hits the planet in question alone and let it through the dyson sphere's network. Also a dyson sphere capable civilization could just use dyson tech in solar systems with no planets with desireable habitable conditions. And only use partial dyson rings in their home system. Given the area of our sun for instance, you could host untold billions or trillions in a structure the size of a dyson sphere.
If you turn sunlight into electricity, that electricity eventually turns back into heat. If anything we'd overheat the planet by absorbing too much sunlight.
It's like the Northvolt. As far as I could check none of the companies that you have listed have a production line either. Their install seems to be more like test-installs. Am I wrong and if not so, any idea of the price/lifetime ?
I am sure you still have contacts with Oxford PV, i'm curious to know if they are preparing some recycling process for these solar panel. If not, they could miss some huge things. Being able to recycle the solar panels will allow them to take a huge part in the market
The Kardashev scale never made much sense to me. We don't even know what would happen to the solar system if we blocked just 1% of the sun's energy and converted it to our needs artificially, let alone 100% of it. If the temperature on Earth was 2 degrees hotter or cooler, then life on Earth would change drastically. That's how delicate nature is. We shouldn't think this balance is only important here on Earth.
@@Duminasion bruh, average temperature, bruh. It's currently around 15 degrees Celsius. If it moved 5 degrees lower, we'd probably be starting to move towards an ice age. 5 degrees hotter, and many areas around the equator would become like the Sahara desert, and many islands and shores would come under water. Not sure what 2 degrees difference would look like, but definitely different than now. That's all I'm saying.
For Hertz, the phenomena is called "The Compton Effect". It applies not only to Electrons around a nucleus but also those in transis. It is most notable in-transit.
Issues, yes you can create a better nano structure to absorb solar energy, but it's significantly larger than the normal substrate which decreases it's potential when compared to regular solar panels.
This is huge. Thank goodness. This might quarter current product cost, make install cheaper. And ultimately allow some real distribution of useful solar. Huge. Thx for the video.
Thank you to the Oxford PV team for sharing your work with me! And thank you to Opera for sponsoring this video. Click here opr.as/Opera-browser-DrBenMiles to upgrade your browser for FREE!
Ty! What is the lifetime of the panels? Science is essential, but cost will make it or break it, meaning in this case longevity.
Only one task each second .. that was a good one ...
So let me ask what I think is the obvious question regarding perovskites:
To my knowledge, the biggest problem to solve with its durability is that they break down under exposure to sunlight.
Is it a specific frequency (for any given perovskite) that causes it to break down? If it's a frequency that's outside the useful range for perovskites and silicon, could a filter layer "just"* be stacked on top of it to block the offending frequency band? I understand that ideally we want to convert it _all_ into electricity, but if the cell can't use it then blocking it can't hurt much.
*I acknowledge that "why don't you just" is the single most infuriating thing a professional can hear from someone who has no understanding of the complexities the professional deals with on a daily basis. I use that wording here as a casual idiot who really knows barely more about solar panels than presented by TH-cam's various science communicators.
Thanks,
Les
I watched the entire video, and seem to have missed the explanation of why perovskite photovoltaics in the hands of Oxford PV "just changed everything". Are they rendered suddenly practical from a cost or durability breakthrough? Can anyone time stamp this moment in the video? Or is this just another click bait featurette without a payoff?
Edit:
At 16:32 there is mention of "additional layers of packaging are needed to take a lab material and turn it into a material that can survive in the real world." Is this the breakthrough that "changed everything"? No other group of people, aside from Oxford PV, figured out this extra layers approach? That seems a bit incredible.
Never let perfection get in the way of good enough.
that joke about only completing tasks at one cycle per second really hertz...
Yeah, it hurts by the Anglo-Saxons.. not by the Germans 😊
megagroan lol
Hehehehehe I laughed. Couldn't help it.
To save to 20 min: New best efficiency is 24% now (at 16:25).
24? Not much.
Yeah, bit misleading how he promotes 20% increase compared to silicon (20->24%). But then the 28%->24% decrease in efficiëncy due to protective material is almost talked about as negligible.
So in other words this video is clickbait given 22% panels have been on the market for an age and 24% is an incremental efficiency gain not a breakthrough. Thanks, no need to waste my time on the rest of what I already know.
damn THANKS for the timer, the first ads-minute was awfull...
Which is just a clickbait advertisement for the greatly over-hyped under-performing perovskite cells that have crappy life-cycles.
Framing videos like this is so obnoxious. TL;DW: their cells are 20% more efficient. Not 20% of the sun's energy more, but 20% of the efficiency of conventional solar cells, aka less than 5% more of the sun's energy. And it's not like we couldn't reach this efficiency before, or even do much better, but simply that reaching it wasn't cost effective.
But the physical limit for efficiency of single layer cells sits at c.30%. As such it’s unclear that we could go much better before.
@Adam-pt3cb these aren't even single cells though; they're a layer on top of a traditional cell
@@boltvanderhuge8711 yeah it feels dumb. pretending a dual layer 1m square is comparable to a single layer 1m square feels disingenuous. if the dual layer square is more efficient than 2 1m squares, then we're getting somewhere
Ah thanks for TLDW.
I think for the next 20 years, we perhaps don't even need a more efficient cell, in the sense of a cell that captures more solar power per unit of footprint area, because we aren't anywhere near close to saturating possible solar installation footprint. Instead we need cells which are cost effective in terms of total lifetime output per unit of cost, high endurance, and not too difficult to recycle into new raw material.
So what? The title is accurate (sorry you assumed anything), and it's interesting on how solar cells work. I love this channel but it has a dedicated hard-core hate group. Go away if you don't like the channel. Why watch?
TLDR; 24% with packaging. 28% in lab.
So what... Max 4% more than regular panels? Pathetic!
And 0% at economic production.
@@sectokia1909 so this isn't a "step change" at all. Bullshit clickbait video
@@TrickyNekro We're all, with bated breath, looking forward to you publishing your scientific advancement that shows these _obvious_ amateurs how it's done.
@@LilMissMurder3409 Solar thermal already can achieve 60% efficiency. Geothermal is also a possible path. One could also combine the two. I don't need do anything.
Edit: with btw the problem of energy storage almost solved in the same facilities.
Existing technology can be used, produces far less e-waste, don't produce anywhere near the green house effect through self-heating etc. etc. etc..
So yes, 4% max at best possible scenario for current PV for use on earth and not maybe niece space applications is totally and utterly.... Pathetic!
For a roof installation, when you take the cost of scaffolding, wiring, inverter, roof frames, labour, and profit, a solar panel that is 40% more expensive (for example) might only push the costs up by 20%. People doing price comparisons often often miss this point. The panals are only part of the overall system installation costs. Throw a home battery in and the costs work even more in favour of more efficient cells.
Which is why it's more efficient for an industry to produce energy rather than individual residences. Industry can save on costs, materials, and carbon expenditure using economies of scale.
We shouldn't care how the electricity is produced. We should only care that our power outlets deliver reliable power. Electricity should be produced by industry using nuclear, solar cells, geothermal, or elephants jumping on trampolines. Regardless of how it's done it won't make a difference to us as long as it's green.
@@potato9832theoretically it's true in terms of efficiency but decentralisation give also another advantages
I think about this a lot. Humans have hardly really ever had enough extra to always build the ideal solution. What we have now is because of sacrifice. For all or most history. Roads, houses, Schools, farms, entire cities just kind of happen over time. Then having 20 20 hindsight. We can see the best. They even know at the time there are ideal or better ways, and there are realistic levels of perfection that are attained. That just always leaves people either catching up with stuff as it breaks, fixing it, and still theres growth. It would always be best to put the best possible roofing system on your house, so in an ideal world the ones who would live there in the future never even worry about a roof leak and it lasts forever and makes the rest of the house last forever. That is always choice. But, not always possible. That I think is a problem that can be addressed and it could help advance human progress if it is.
But you are right. it's true. The Wires for the system add tons of cost.Don't cheap out if you have the choice. Think If one is to get the best wiring, it costs a lot more. Just that is a huge efficiency thing. and cost thing. Wire gauge. We need to get a taste for how much energy our bodies can make and use and then compare it to our machines. That's why we get weaker and weaker and now barely resemble our ancestors, allegedly. We are just out of touch with how much energy we use, feel we deserve, or how much energy is ACTUALLY needed to be alive and happy and healthy and why we use so much more. Sent using energy. Sorry.
Also have you heard of phase change materials insulation.
@@Sim-q9t That's an INCREDIBLY reductionist look at history. The longest lived empires, buildings, cultures, and even Religions all have historical evidence of a MUCH larger amount of care put into planning for that perfection PRIOR to execution. A comparison of cultures has been done by a few dozen Master's students (Ty Jstor) correlating how deeply a culture valued planning, efficiency, and mastery to the longevity of that culture(each focused on a different one, or collection of these traits, but the over arching theme is surprisingly common)
It isn't hard to guess which direction the trends pointed. The more you plan out prior to execution, the longer you, your creation, and your very society survive. It's incredibly stark.
@@potato9832yes and no. Yes there are advantages to massive solar farms, but you also have to take into account land value and energy losses getting the power where it needs to go.
Likewise, distributed power generation feeding into a smart grid will be less susceptible to power outages.
Solar on every roof combined with distributed storage batteries would be a very robust system and reliability of power is valuable as well.
Weighing the costs vs benefits of different approaches gets complicated quickly.
"Famous for doing only 1 task each second" Now I need to clean the coffee off my screen.
I literally read your comment exactly as he said that out loud and thank goodness I wasn't drinking coffee.
It wasn't that funny.
@@blucat4 If it wasn't funny, you didn't understand the joke.
@@terryhayward7905 Yes, 1 Htz = 1 oscillation per second, and so he was famous for doing a task per second. It's not only a not funny joke, it isn't even a joke, just idiots managing to correlate two things.
@@blucat4Terry laughs when he hears wordplay that requires rudimentary scientific knowledge to understand. He laughs in the hope other people will say "why are laughing Terry?" And he can then dazzle them with his "elite knowledge" that most 12 year old high school students know. 🤓
I've watched many youtube videos on the subject of perovskites, but this is by far the most detailed and useful. Thanks for this.
I went off-grid about a dozen years ago. I have old monocrystalline panels. My panels are somewhere above 10% on a sunny Okanogan Highlands day. Since the introduction of LiFePO4 batteries I only fire up my generators when a big Pacific storm blows through. I'm not desparate for a functional replacement, but it sure would be nice. At -20°s and cloudy, things get a bit dicey for the panels and the generator. Better battery chemistry and panel compositions are what I would like to see. There has to be some tricksy compositions that are still hiding in the combinatorial crevices.
We supposedly have satellites in space that have been running off of solar for 50+ years. That means the "good" technology that can run stuff very efficiently is over 50 years old. BUT ON THIS PLANET THE CRAP WE USE CAN'T MAKE IT A SEASON WITHOUT MAINTENANCE. And space is supposedly the coldest, most hostile environment in our known existence. We are being LIED to. Rovers go to Mars and run on solar.......in a supposedly very hostile environment...WTH is going on?
Where I am coming from, we celebrate the two partially cloudy days we have every year
@@Abduladilosman I live on the east side of the Cascade Mountain Range, up near Canada in the Okanogan County, in a part called the Highlands. On a big bluff. But this time of year the clouds sink at night to the valley below us, then, as the day wears on, the clouds rise with the sun and our output crashes. It's almost a daily event.
So, going into town early, we drive down through the cloud cover, then later, we drive up into very thick fog. Sometimes we are even in the snowflake creation layer.
This lasts 6-8 weeks per year and makes a generator necessary. We get less than 10" of precipitation per year, but still gotta keep my expensive propane refrigerators and 1 watt lights in happy juice.
Good luck with your system.
@@davidhanna8470 I feel misunderstood here😅😅 what I meant is my country is the sunniest in the world.
@@AbduladilosmanDid not mean to insult or belittle. But, it's 5°s farenheit or about -15 C right now, snowing. I hsven't been down to town in a month, I can't see more than 20 meters out my window, so maybe I have a touch of Cabin Fever.
Please forgive any insult I may have given.. My wife says I am a jerk only 1/2 the time. So hopefully this text is from my better half. Ha.
When I was a teenager I remember watching James Burke's Connections. He explained how throughout history we build our knowledge on what others have done in the past. I'm happy to say he is rebooting his series again. Of all the accomplishments we have made our ability to learn through language is the one traits that we should cherish most because if we didn't none of the things we have today would exist.
Your channel rocks!
A link would be nice ?
10:30 I'm not sure what Dr. Chris Case was thinking when he said "superconductors are used to cool MRI systems". No. The MRI machine is cold so that the superconductors stay cold. They need to be cold so that they maintain their induced magnetic fields. The magnetic fields are necessary in order for the MRI to penetrate object ( humans) in order to see inside them. In other words, "cryogenic fluids like liquid nitrogen are used to cool superconductors, and they are what make MRI machines possible"
"High Temperature" distinguishes superconductors that need to be colder than liquid nitrogen and those that can be high enough temperature that liquid nitrogen is can cool them.
@18:30 - Perfect is the enemy of good. Any practical advance on the current tech is excellent news
Summer 2024 DIY 14 KW system installed. Despite a modest understanding of the physics the tech has a almost magic feel. Having
control over only a tiny fraction of the suns power is rather amazing, far more power than a small campfire and way more useful.
I would've liked to hear more about the toxicity / sealing efficacy. The ability to mass produce is one thing, but it would've been useless without an effective resistance to degradation.
It's pretty simple reason they didn't: because they don't want their competitors to know.
@@autohmae still, Cadmium and Lead have been banned for good reason, so introducing these to an open market would have to overcome SIGNIFICANT hurdles.
And for good reason, humans suck at keeping toxic stuff in check once they distribute it in use, see lead in electronics and Cadmium in batteries.
@@DooMMasteR I don't think safety was the main reason in this case, we are talking about films and layers in solar panels humans don't really interact with directly and it's not like people will DIY solar panels to try and build state of the art panels either.
@@autohmae I mean, you don't eat batteries or PCBs either and still.. stuff ends up in places it should not. RoHS is pretty comprehensive nowadays.
@@DooMMasteR It's almost like putting lead in fuel and have it belching out of every exhaust pipe for decades might have something to do with it.... Lead pewter, water pipes, and paint are also very common historic sources of lead contamination.
Lead is bad, and hould be avoided where at all possible, but putting a tiny amount in solar panels (assuming their particular secret forumla does) is not exactly a panic button moment.
1:20 is this loss?
nahhhh💀💀💀
Omg
It just might be
I love the quote “the sun has never raised its price”. So if that’s true and the tech to convert it to electricity keeps getting cheaper, things don’t look so bleak after all.
Things are going to get really bad. It's not as bleak as it could be as decarbonization is entirely within our means. The problem is the political will to do it and the fact that we've already waited too long.
There are areas of the Earth which will be rendered uninhabitable already. It's just a question of how MUCH of the planet we're going to loose access to.
@@dynamicworlds1 Also .... all the idiots forgetting about the billions of people forced to migrate into other countrys ... maga is already getting a meltdown because of mexicans
@@dynamicworlds1We're likely to lose Florida soon, just because of home insurance. Large parts of the dry West also, but there the cities will survive because they exclude wildfires.
The great extinction event known as 21st and 22nd centuries? There are certainly hard times ahead, but if we can solve energy, that frees up a lot of resources to solve the other problems.
@@android0197820th & 21st
Nothing says "in production" like.. "they wouldn't let me hold their panel"..
To be fair that was a flexible prototype, not the one they actually produce.
I would bet that many of the first prototypes have been tested in military and spaceflight applications and this is where the first year or two of production will go.. A company in Texas is making double sided panels in the 22% range and I don't see it taking long for fabs to get up to production levels maybe a year before the volume is up to retail levels.. If they can get the cost down and lifespan up in two years I would consider adding a bank of these in place of the 300 watt panels I have now as afternoon energy production..
Even Chinese are manufacturing perovskite cells, iirc
High five machines 😂😂😂 That's hilarious!
Love his dry delivery! I thought, "what did he just say?"
That joke earned my subscription.
For those who know nothing about glove boxes: If you do ever visit a lab with one, don't don't actually give it a vigorous high five. (But if you must, make sure somebody records a video to entertain the rest of us.)
That's not what my proctologist calls them!
Hugabees moment
1:40 I hope you’re not using those words lightly, because modern solar panels aren’t cheap or clean with the byproducts of production and how little of it is recycle-able. My main concern for the future of solar panels if we’re ever gonna produce large scale is sustainability, recycle-ability, and I guess environmental impact if we’re talking really large scale, but I guess the goal here is to minimize the size and maximize the impact. Like those mirror designs.
Thank you for the wonderful video! Perovskite solar cells certainly look like they'll be a key technology in our future, so it's a good idea to understand how they work as completely as we can.
Thank you so much for these really informative, professionally delivered programmes. The occasional subtle humorous asides are also welcome!
I have recently been investigating solar marine propulsion and your information is invaluable. Anything to do with PV energy generation, battery science, electric motors for boats is welcome.
I'm very happy to be able to send a financial donation as well. Great value for money!
LOL. High five machines... I died! :D
@13:36
I feel like this joke went past a lot of people. It's brilliant.
I love this. Everybody has been talking about this company for years (well, since 2017), it's great to have a progress report this detailed and well presented.
shoutout to Oxford PV for still rocking Windows 7 18:22
Best system there was. Now Microsoft is annoying me with upgrading to 11. I tried 11 for a year. Windows Vista was bliss against 11. That is just a slap in your face for a system.
@@GERntleMAN No one says you have to go to 11! Previous versions will continue to exist. There's also the option of jumping ship to Mac/Linux/BSD or just saying 'to heck with desktops' and sticking with a phone/tablet.
@lithiumflower31337 No thanks, I tried Mac several times and it's worse than win 11. For someone messing around on administrator level and customizing OS for himself, Mac is simply the worst there is. Too limited and ugly and very non-intuitive.
And mobile phones had their UI pinnacle in 2015. After that the usage got worse every year. And I tried all, yes all brands.
We on IJS institut use it too on some pcs
@@franzupet4406 high-five
The only mention I heard of a resolution of the problem of the delicacy of the material was "layers of additional packaging," which is rather a vague reference considering it is the most challenging issue with perovskites.
Sharing information vs. secrecy until patented always seems a huge roadblock. I truly hope this works out. I won't hold my breath in the meantime.
It's a real fancy term for Gorilla Glass™
@SepticFuddy it would cover it but it wouldn't seal it
I highly appreciate that you do those kind of videos based on visiting the research places and interviewing the people instead of articles. Makes this whole video way more interesting.
20:16 I too enjoy having a sun
To add some extra detail into this that wasn't included, the main thing stopping mass production isn't just the rapid degradation in real-world conditions. It's that the current most efficient perovskite that we have uses lead as a main component. Added WITH the rapid degradation when exposed to some UV wavelengths and moisture you have a disaster with lead leaching into some peoples main sources of drinking water
“High five machines” was the most instant decision to subscribe to a channel in my TH-cam career
As a firefighter and "parttime" scientist, I'm always looking at problems through two lenses. One is just basic practicality the other is scientific and engineering innovation. Many times practicality wins. But both are needed. I like it when scientist see both sides.
silicon cell efficiency >27% and module efficiency >25% already being mass produced, not the 18-20% limit you said in the video 8:30, it's actually much higher than that.
What I thought, too!
Most commercially available solar panels have an efficiency of less than 23%, with an average range of 15% to 20%. i wish 25 was being mass produced
@@koaasst we installed about 35 000 PV panels and through two last years they raised from 20.5% up to 20.8% through the 4 types of PVs from 400Wp up to 550Wp - mostly because of size changes (all Risen Solar company)
/calculated from standard measurement environment with perpendicular light with intensity of 1000W/m2 - then any deviation from that, lowers efficiency drastically = clouds, fog, tilt, dust .... /
Maybe on the planet Mercury perhaps?
Thanks for your clarification @@stanislavbandur7355
Awesome! I read about Perovskite years ago in a scientific paper and to hear that it is commercially available is awesome!
Very useful, beautifully explained, thank you Dr. Miles
Thanks
Thanks for your support!
@@DrBenMiles is 1839 "suspicious" since that might be the day that aliens came to deliver both of these technologies to planet Earth ? j/k ?! I was just curious as to why you said "suspicious" as opposed to "coincidental". Maybe that is what you meant.
Dr. Chris Case is an ENGINEER not a physicist. Please give us engineers more due for the technology we develop. Of course we cannot work without the contributions of physicists but the converse is also true.
And also they treat inventors as if they don't know anything about science. Actually, I think science is mostly a recap of history of inventions. Every invention leads to a new theory.
A phrase that one of our managers used and I did not fully appreciate when I started my engineering career was "better is the enemy of good enough."
No one cares how well you can drive a train bro 😉
It is possible for somebody to both be a physicist and an engineer. I went to school for physics engineering... It's an actual thing.
Science discovers what is possible, engineering discovers what is practical... with enough education that can be one person even if they are two different tasks.
FYI, 2e+18 as you indicate in brackets at 00:22 is 2 million terawatt not 200K terawatt as you've indicated. So either the large number needs updating or your scientific notation needs updating.
Shots fired at the end there
Your attitude needs updating 😂
@@alienwalk so pointing out a critical error in a scientific video equates to having an attitude for you haha 😂 don't think you realize how significant the 2 numbers are from one another but okay 👍
It's deeply unsatisfying to see 3 tiny solar panels on top of a entire warehouse of a building dedicated to designing them.
Like the miner foreman in Chernobyl tossing the mask on the desk.
"If these worked, you'd be wearing them"
Great way to tell the story of how innovation is an evolution! I’ve been casually following this development for a while but haven’t seen it presented in such a scientifically entertaining way.
“High five machines” 😂
Thank you so much for making this video. I'm still in love with pv solar power. These people who are advancing the technology are my rock stars. ❤
Type 0 is such an arbitrary measure, in particular because early humans used way more energy than just their camp fires. All the energy that fell on the earth and was absorbed by the plants that the humans or their animals would then eat, for example
all extra energy lost to the heat from poop
Most plants and animals were unavailable to humans for usage, early humans used a very small part of said energy. Even then plants absorb a very small part of the light energy that falls on their leaves and when animals eat said plants they absorbed a small part of the energy stored in those plants. When humans ate said animals they again absorbed a very small part of the energy stored in those animals. So, the total energy absorbed through eating was(still is) an extremely small part of the total energy coming from the sun(and all of this not accounting for the fact that most solar energy falls on ocean water where mostly nothing lives). There is also the fact that gaining energy through eating limits how said energy can be used compared to getting it in form of something like fire or electricity for example, so this would decrease the available energy even more. All in all, yeah early humans used more energy than produced by their camp-fires but it wasn't that much more than what type-0 predicts.
@@Nadzap making poop is what all that energy is FOR.
roasting marshmallows at yellowstone, or other lava spots. Cavemen. Luxury levels of energy just freely out in the open. Maybe their descendants are free energy guys. ha.
The value for Type 0 is just repeating the pattern established for the higher levels, but going down. The jump from Type 2 to Type 3 is 10^26 to 10^36. To make the scale continuous, Sagan changed the value for Type 1 from 10^17 to 10^16, which left Type 0 at 10^6.
A nice blend of clearly presented information and a wry sense of humour. Thanks
Thanks for the video. As an environmental engineer, battling the planet's climate difficulties, it's good to know other (more complicated) fields are doing their damndest for humanity's future. Looking at the comments, a lot of folks clearly already have ALL of the answers (or more likely watched a video of someone else telling them 😂) but for a lot of us grafting outside and either not smart enough to get a lab job, or too busy applying it practically to read and study, this has been very positive and helpful news. Thanks.
They’d just prefer to watch it in a TikTok video and forget it 30 seconds later
Cope
video starts @14:50
Thanks for helping all those that have the attention span of a normal TH-cam Short!
@@elwhagen well, you're entirely free to listen to 14 minutes of waffle
@@ThylineTheGayI like waffles
@@unoriginalname4321 great for you
I generally prefer them not in video form myself
@@ThylineTheGay Thanks!
It is crazy how far we are going with tech
I've read that silicon cells degrade from about 22 to the stated 18% rather quickly.
For the layered cells, will the silicon aiming at a different wavelength have a similar degradation, and what does the expected curve for the provoskovites look like?
Basically, how long will they last?
What you're saying about degradation from 22% to 18% states a degradation to ~80% of initial effectiveness. Data collected from existing photovoltaic solar panels tells us that it takes anywhere from 20 to 25 years to degrade to 80%. Not so rather quickly in my opinion :) As to perovskites solar cells there is no real world data but in labs they mostly had crap life span.
That would be insanely much.
Most manufacturers guarantee you 80-90% remaining power output after 20-35 years.
Most degradation is caused by atom migration, where e.g. Oxygen or Nitrogen migrate into the P-N-Boundary and create leaks.
The packaging and preparation of the cells in modern modules has improved a lot, so that the issues has mostly become a non issue.
We have "in that regard bad" modules from 1997 running and they still show just very VERY little degradation by age, though one module degraded faster due to mechanical damage.
Perovskites are still a lab experiment, but given the amount of real world operation problems with them I would say they wouldn’t last more than a year and would not be used anywhere except for aerospace.
Top end silicon degrade with around -0.25% per year, and th cost is around 100 EUR/kW
It's not that quick. A typical solar installation is rated to last thirty years, after which the panels will have degraded to maybe 80%-ish of their original capacity and are due for replacement. The replacement is fairly cheap, as the rest of the system is in place - electronics, cabling, mounting brackets and such - so it's just a matter of sending someone up on the roof to un-bolt the old panels and bolt new ones in their place.
You make phenomenally great educational videos. Don’t change ever
I don't understand why the pyrovskite doesn't need the same perfection in the crystal structure that the silicon does? You mention that "obviously" it still needs to be tuned, but how is that obvious when you just went over how the defects in the crystalline structure of this compound doesn't matter?
Surely you understand that any can't or doesn't is can't yet or doesn't yet? I mean of course it doesn't matter yet. They get it working is what matter, finetuning comes after knowing how it works! Isn't that kinda obvious?
@@dragon67849 Yeesh. What an immature and egotistical response. Every sentence is just tones of "Duh, you f-ing idiot."? Pathetic. Grow up, kid. The person simply asked a question. I hope you're not raising/f-ing up a child of your own with this kind of ego/asshole attitude...
It's explained right after in the "defect tolerance" section of the video
@@pedro_mab i wouldn't call that an explanation he just kind of says it is and glosses over it. I'm genuinely curious why this material is exempt from the physical requirements demanded by silicon, and he doesn't address this. I've watched it twice could u post a time stamp?
I would explain but you would not understand.
New subscriber here. I don't usually comment, but this was an exceptionally well-made video. I enjoyed the history aspect as well as the science explanation behind how solar works paired with the visual representations. Keep it up!
1:43 NUCLEAR
Specifically thorium.
@@BondzySmid this is misinformative, thats our current stockpile, not the total amount of uranium capable of being mined and used for power
@@BondzySmid me when i intentionally spread misinformation online
Sadly not very cheap and the build has a quite big emissions footprint.
@@Hector-bj3ls no fuel is better than any other. If you can achieve fusion and producing energy it’s good in my book
That was really interesting & well explained. I could follow it & understand. Thanks for making the video!
Perfect may be the enemy of good, but it is in reaching for perfect that we discover the point of diminishing returns or the "good enough" point.
This is actually great news.
Sadly, I'll still have to categorize this under "We'll never hear from this again" until there's actual evidence that this will be used commercially within an acceptable time frame.
It's already going into large scale commercial field customer production/ beta testing and development .. another year or so after that for rooftop sales.
This was inspiring. Thanks.
Everything about Fusion technology please if you're doing requests for future episodes.
Fusion never gets boring.
i feel like the threshold for being a type 1 civilisation should be alot lower, like, being a civilization that is actively harnessing loads of energy without destroying their home planet (which is actually achievable using today's technology, and alot more nuclear).
In my opinion, the definition for type one makes sense because it matches the definition for the rest of the levels. If we redefined it to match our level it wouldn't have the symmetry of the current definition in my opinion
@@jamesleishman8025Yes, but I don't think it is a positive to harness the total energy of a planet. Destroying a planet to do so is stupid. Totally darkening a star and destroying Earth's ecosystem is also stupid. The scale is not an absolute measure. It is more of a guideline.
@@vidal9747if you cover a planet to harness the power that’s one thing, but by the time we could get to that point we would likely have interplanetary travel and use other surfaces to make up the difference. By the time you can get outside the solar system (interstellar travel), you’d likely need to have your entire star’s energy cycling to make the leap to the next star, by which halfway point you’d probably want energy collection outposts from the new star. Each whole number in the scale is exponentially harder to reach. The purpose of the scale is to use as a benchmark. Arbitrary, not a goal to block out the sun. If we encounter other life forms here or in space travels, it would be a good thing to learn how far their tech is developed in comparison to energy capabilities, to see if one has a limiting factor on the other.
That got me from start to finish. What a great way to explain solar
Dr Miles, you are a scientist and that explains your conviction that the commercial stage of the Oxford technology is more desirable than waiting for the perfect cell.
Actually, there are two aspects to this commercialisation.
First, the pervoskite/silicon cells will be considered in terms of power output per dollar and selected or rejected in comparison with the other cells in the market.
Secondly, the worry of investors will be that one of the other technologies, and there are many of them, will reach the market with a greater power output and at the same or lower cost.
If this happens, the investment in plant and team will collapse.
This is not an unusual problem for business projects. Something similar is happening in the field of electric vehicle battery technology.
The company now can try to focus more on production rather than pure research, delivering revenues and profit, then start feeding research from customers rather than investors. As economic efficiency can became more interesting.
On top of that, two concepts are missing from this... communication.
1: lifecycle compared to standard silicon cells.
2: recycle cost and efficiency compared to standard silicon cells.
Deliver more energy? Seems so. It's actually better than silicon in long term? Answer is not here.
Thank You !!
I learned a lot on the history.
Even from your ad. on Opera !
I must watch this several times to pick up the parts my future self missed !!
Kardashev's scale is about consumption but does not account for efficiency. For example, in the '70s we used incandescent lighting but nowadays we use LED lighting, so we have become more efficient in e.g. lighting a room with the same lighting intensity but at a fraction of the previously used amount of consumption. So there is a need to redefine this scale incorporating efficiency as well.
Don't forget to allow for Jevons paradox though - an increase in the efficiency with which a resource is used can result in a counterintuitive increase in the utilisation, because new uses which were previously not viable become worthwhile and there is less pressure to conserve. LED lighting does provide the same light at a fraction of the energy, but that also mean the lights might be left running continuously rather than turned off any time the room is empty. Or that the LEDs might now be used to construct large-scale light shows and advertising displays.
And since energy use is closely related to the destruction of biodiversity, maybe the concept of this scale is just nonsense in our current context.
@13:27 - we had a perfect perovskite crystal until Taylor gave us bombastic side-eyed, criminally offensive side-eye! 😖😭
12:34 windows 7
My shop just got rid of a CNC machine that ran on a Commodore 64. In 2024.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
I went into a fit of hysterical laughter at the “high-five machines.” Thank you for that, Dr Ben.
4:19 Physics joke…😂😂😂
Lol, I caught that too. Units of “per second”
It’s a rather good one ☝️ xD
I love the way you introduced Henry Hertz. "Scientist famous for doing only one task per second"
I can’t imagine a civ actually wanting to reach type 3 while inevitably destroying an entire galaxy. That is some Marvel mega villain level sh**t.
The Kardashev scale is really stupid. It's like he wanted to give an unattainable goal to work towards. We can't ever get there. I hate tk say it, but, it seems downright impossible for any species to ever achieve it.
Thanks for letting me know Opera is still alive. Also the solar panel thingy
Everyday a video about some energy breakthrough comes our and every other day the video is forgotten as the tech turns out to be useless.
So what? just stop then ?. You really don't belong here
This is a real product in the market. It is not some crazy revolution, but a very significant upgrade
Its called trial and error. Edison created 1,000 light bulb attempts that failed before he produced one that did the job and changed the world 💡
@@jeremymanson1781 No one is talking about this. They are always some great breakthrough when in fact it's some nonsense. Edison had a breakthrough after many attempts. He didn;t boast about his attempts but his success.
@@TemplarX2Yes the hype is very annoying. If you look further, some of the hype is journalists getting carried away and some is straight up hype by the researchers, maybe because they are trying to prevent their investors from losing faith in them.
The fact is the vast majority of attempts to innovate fail. The failures are an important part of finding out where the blind alleys are or where to focus to overcome the reason for failure.
Even in ordinary business, 9 out of 10 business start ups fail. Failure is necessary.
"This is why they have so many High-Five machines throughout the lab".....@ 13:35....Love It!!!
Efficiency matters as much as cost. The available area is still quite large I think.
At 25% efficiency vs 20%, the area is reduced by a fifth.
@@simonwatson2399 Yes but at what extra cost. Also what degradation over times looks like.
Perovskite coated silicon solar panel is the smartest business choice. Since you don't have to build Si-panel, just source it from other companies, then clean it and coat it nicely. I know "just" here sounds undermining, but the difficulty of doing that could be tedious. And from the graph in 15:41 I think you can't add more than that one layer, only leave a room for a new Perovskite in place of Si.
I think, they still have to keep a layer of Si at the bottom even with new Perovskite material, it seems to help stabilize the structure.
I was working on PV's in the 90's here in Australia, our group held at the time the (in lab only) maximum efficiency record, (and not much lower than today), this work is very infesting..
Particularly your take on cost, reliability, and eff%, the engineering Vs 'perfection', a case where good enough is good enough.
that is a point - if we consider nowadays prices of PVs then it is much cheaper to add a few m,ore panels than make a frame to give them better orientation to the sun (pricewise). We were covering even northern sides of roofs, because of dirt cheap panels (sun hits them only around the noon in summer - it was for cooling system, which utilizes this seasonal gain). We put them flat on roof without bothering about frames, because it adds weight to roof (to level it is not possible to make installation there), lowers coverage and make installation twice expensive (frame cost and installation cost).
so... compromises
I'm just at 7:30 and had to comment. This is a really good video so far. Well explained on the set up.
More efficient but as mentioned deteriorates more rapidly. It can be protected from some things. But one thing that can't be avoided that causes it to deteriorate is sunlight - LOL ...Seriously, a big downer for a solar cell, but I guess they have solved that?
I remember reading a paper a just a few years ago talking about how they found superconductive properties in part of a leafs' structure. They were essentially looking at how leaves work as solar cells.
PS I heard the joke about the high 5 machine! It wasn't wasted!!!!
It would be interesting to learn how long these new cells last and how recyclable they are.
Recycling doesn't sound like a big deal until you realise that current panels only last 20 years before they have to be replaced. Every panel that you see being installed today will have to be recycled 20 years from now.
In the Netherlands we current get 400.000 new rooftop installations a year and that number will grow. That means that in 20 years time we'll have 400.000 old rooftop installations that need replacing and recycling every year. That's 4mln panels a year. That's a problem.
Current panels last rather 25 to 30 years. The EU and the members have or should have already laws that adress recycling plus there are already PV recycling companies for "normal" silicon PV panels across Europe. But yeah, i agree that there are still questions to be answered how recycling friendly those new ones will be and how long they last.
I strongly believe that perovskite cells are the future. Once manufacturing processes are refined and the most ideal compounds found, I think it won't be too hard to layer up a few layers of this into >50% efficient solar panels cost effectively. This means far less mined material since the power density is drastically increased. That's what's important, because raw material will be the limiting factor to increasing solar power. Energy will become cheaper as we deploy more, which will make manufacturing cheaper, but you can't turn energy into matter (well, not practically). So being efficient with resources, especially if we can make them recyclable, will be hugely important.
Those cells have my handwriting on them! Am I famous?
Maybe but Facebook are taking all the royalties because of that photo you posted years ago.Yeah,that one ;-)
@@chippysteve4524Facebook does accelerate fascism so I'm unsurprised :)
Well. Ben, you did well in explaining this to a MBA guy like me. Since I understand it now.. I’m fully into it ❤❤
Thanks also for including all the scientists behind it. These findings don’t just grow on trees. Thanks!!!
There really is no need to link the K-scale into this technology.
More clicks = more $$. As Dr Miles says, the practicality is pretty dang important.
Still think that optical rectennas could get way better result at some point in the future. It still tons of issues to overcome and manufacturing could be problematic but potential efficiency around 80% sounds worth trying to solve that riddle.
So basically, 20mins to inform us that there's no NEW information/breakthroughs - this is very old news.
Well it's new to me. And I imagine everyone else who hasn't Currently ridden on the Solar Express, (all puns thoroughly intended)
@@TCL_Dasler”I know this information so everyone must” ahh attitude
Thanks now I can skip this
someone needs to get...... you get the idea.
Way to go Oxford PV! I'll be investing soon!
efficiency is great and all, but the real energy gainer would actually be applying these kinds of systems. we are currently vastly underusing solar panels, so solar panels that are even 100% more efficient wouldn't make that much difference in overall power production.
Yes yes it's all available but ppl don't buy it enough, isn't at stores, ppl need "micro incentives" to do this more
100% efficient solar panel would be something then it would be very viable, todays panels are around 20-23% efficient, at 100% that would be 1000w per sq metre, tho plenty of people buy it id say dependy on country
@@MrRacerhacker "100% efficient solar panel would be something then it would be very viable,"
And it would be invisible because all the light that falls on it would be transformed to electricity.
Are you AI?
@@vinny142 he meant 99.99%
@@vinny142 no just bit tired do agree 100 aint viable but tho would be alot more usefull at 80-90% tho myself run 3kw myself in the nordics work well but also got some space for it
I absolutely love your videos, but something about this one was particularly exciting. I have loved science all my life but am still only a peon in the world of science. Thank you for making it understandable and intriguing at a peon level. I’m excited to pass along this information. - An old, old teacher
Why is the local climate changing effect of solar panels always ignored?
And the biggest effect is the city island effect on the local logged thermometer, telling us the world is heating up.
What is that?
It’s not, the shadowing is actually an additional benefit in some application so is reducing the local heat
Thanks for discussing these ideas so clearly!
That energy scale where a civilization harnesses all their suns energy is silly though. If we turned all the energy that hit our planet into electricity, then we'd live on an ice rock
If we had the technology to do that we would allocate some of it to keeping our world nice and comfortable. In fact, we'd end up making even more of the planet habitable than it is today. Think about it, if we had the tech to use all the energy coming from the sun it would be a piece of cake to direct it to where we want it to go.
It doesn't say turn it all into electricity it says control it all.
If you had a dyson sphere you could easily program it/design it to leave the very small portion of energy/light leaving the sun that actually hits the planet in question alone and let it through the dyson sphere's network.
Also a dyson sphere capable civilization could just use dyson tech in solar systems with no planets with desireable habitable conditions. And only use partial dyson rings in their home system.
Given the area of our sun for instance, you could host untold billions or trillions in a structure the size of a dyson sphere.
If you turn sunlight into electricity, that electricity eventually turns back into heat. If anything we'd overheat the planet by absorbing too much sunlight.
And once it was used as electricity it would turn back into heat melting the ice.
Still would be a rock because no energy for nature would be left.
High Five Machines! That is going to be my go to term for positive pressure glove boxes :)
This is company PR and misleading by leaving out a ton of context. Oxford PV has a production line of "production capacity of
It's like the Northvolt. As far as I could check none of the companies that you have listed have a production line either. Their install seems to be more like test-installs. Am I wrong and if not so, any idea of the price/lifetime ?
I am sure you still have contacts with Oxford PV, i'm curious to know if they are preparing some recycling process for these solar panel.
If not, they could miss some huge things. Being able to recycle the solar panels will allow them to take a huge part in the market
Cheap oil makes world peace ---
Cheap energy helps the poorest FIRST! ---
i feel bad for how hard the casket RNG is cause im dying laughing xD gl hopefully soon!
The Kardashev scale never made much sense to me. We don't even know what would happen to the solar system if we blocked just 1% of the sun's energy and converted it to our needs artificially, let alone 100% of it.
If the temperature on Earth was 2 degrees hotter or cooler, then life on Earth would change drastically. That's how delicate nature is. We shouldn't think this balance is only important here on Earth.
Bruh, the temperature swings about 60 to 80c every single year here. The nature seems just fine. I don’t think 2 degrees is gonna break nature..
@@Duminasion bruh, average temperature, bruh. It's currently around 15 degrees Celsius. If it moved 5 degrees lower, we'd probably be starting to move towards an ice age. 5 degrees hotter, and many areas around the equator would become like the Sahara desert, and many islands and shores would come under water.
Not sure what 2 degrees difference would look like, but definitely different than now. That's all I'm saying.
very well put together research, i love it
For Hertz, the phenomena is called "The Compton Effect". It applies not only to Electrons around a nucleus but also those in transis. It is most notable in-transit.
Great report. Thanks.
Issues, yes you can create a better nano structure to absorb solar energy, but it's significantly larger than the normal substrate which decreases it's potential when compared to regular solar panels.
This is huge. Thank goodness.
This might quarter current product cost, make install cheaper. And ultimately allow some real distribution of useful solar. Huge. Thx for the video.
Great video keep doing the good work we need to be shown the state of play.