15 Minutes Smarter - Episode 2: Alternative Energy

START OF TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Claire Concannon
Welcome to another episode of 15 Minutes Smarter. I'm Dr Claire Concannon, and I'm here again with Dr Jonathan
Falconer.
[00:00:08] Jono Falconer
That's me!
[00:00:11] Claire Concannon
(Laughs). And today we're going to talk about energy.
[00:00:14] Jono Falconer
Yeah, because energy is everything in the world, and what's more important than everything?
[00:00:22] Claire Concannon
Ah...nothing? That sounds like a trick question.
[00:00:25] Jono Falconer
I think nothing is less important than everything.
[00:00:27] Claire Concannon
(Laughs).
[00:00:28] Jono Falconer
This is a philosophical discussion, not a scientific one.
[00:00:32] Claire Concannon
Yeah. So there's lots of different kinds of energy.
[00:00:35] Jono Falconer
Yeah, ah there is potential energy, which is mass like a table or you are potential energy.
[00:00:43] Claire Concannon
Snack bars?
[00:00:43] Jono Falconer
That's it, snack bars. Yeah. Food. Like Einstein's equation E equals MC squared converts matter into energy.
[00:00:50] Claire Concannon
Such a great equation.
[00:00:51] Jono Falconer
One of my top five favourites.
[00:00:54] Claire Concannon
Oooh! It's in the top five?
[00:00:56] Jono Falconer
Yeah.
[00:00:56] Claire Concannon
What else is in the top five?
[00:00:59] Jono Falconer
Um, E to the I pi plus one equals zero.
[00:01:04] Claire Concannon
A classic.(Laughs).
[00:01:06] Jono Falconer
Classic equation right there. I is an imaginary number which is called the square root of negative one. I believe in
imaginary numbers.
[00:01:14] Claire Concannon
(Laughs).
[00:01:14] Jono Falconer
I'm not an imaginary number denialist, I had an imaginary friend growing up. So the numbers, they just kind of slide
right in there, very easy for me to understand.
[00:01:22] Claire Concannon
Nice. OK, what else is in the top five?
[00:01:26] Jono Falconer
Time equals money.
[00:01:27] Claire Concannon
Oh that's a good one.
[00:01:28] Jono Falconer
I like that one. Yeah.
[00:01:29] Claire Concannon
OK, anyway, we're getting off topic. Energy.
[00:01:33] Jono Falconer
Yup.
[00:01:34] Claire Concannon
And we're actually going to focus on alternative energy and how materials science can help us because our
traditional forms of energy.
[00:01:44] Jono Falconer
Burning stuff. Lighting stuff on fire.
[00:01:46] Claire Concannon
That's exactly what it is.
[00:01:48] Jono Falconer
Cool.
[00:01:49] Claire Concannon
Burning coal, oil, gas, actually not really working out for us anymore.
[00:01:54] Jono Falconer
Now, I mean, it is cool to burn stuff, but not as cool as using energy sources that don't increase the temperature of
the planet.
[00:02:02] Claire Concannon
Yeah, yeah. Nice to have a livable planet. So renewable energy sources like hydro power, wind power, solar power,
these are your your alternative energy sources.
[00:02:18] Jono Falconer
I mean, fossil fuels are renewable, too. Like if you're patient and you can just chill out for a hundred or so million
years.
[00:02:29] Claire Concannon
Oh yeah, ok.
[00:02:31] Jono Falconer
We'll get more fossil fuels.
[00:02:33] Claire Concannon
Everybody just sit down (laughs).
[00:02:35] Jono Falconer
Not move, not drive or eat food even because that requires a lot of energy.
[00:02:41] Claire Concannon
Yeah. OK, um so. Well yeah, and I suppose if coal and oil can be classed as renewable then how renewable is
something like solar power?
[00:02:54] Jono Falconer
As renewable as I guess it only lasts as long as the sun exists.
[00:02:58] Claire Concannon
I mean there's going to be trouble in about five billion years.
[00:03:01] Jono Falconer
Yeah?
[00:03:02] Claire Concannon
(Laughs). It's a very different picture when you think on really long time scales.
[00:03:09] Claire Concannon
But um we did some research.
[00:03:12] Jono Falconer
Yes.
[00:03:13] Claire Concannon
Like we read some scientific papers. We were looking up what the relative damage to human health and the planet
might be of using these different energy sources. Right.
[00:03:23] Jono Falconer
Which is kind of hard to quantify. But we found a paper that tried to quantify it using the coolest unit I've ever come
across, which is the species year per kilowatt hour.
[00:03:37] Claire Concannon
Yeah, you you're a big fan of this unit.
[00:03:40] Jono Falconer
Yeah. And if you're confused by what that means, ah you should be.
[00:03:45] Claire Concannon
Yeah. Um it's going to take its 15 minutes... (Laughs).
[00:03:49] Jono Falconer
(Laughs). But yeah, the species year per kilowatt hour, basically tells you how many species we would make go
extinct for how much energy we use in a year.
[00:04:04] Claire Concannon
Yeah, so kilowatt hour is a unit of energy.
[00:04:07] Jono Falconer
It's like your power bill.
[00:04:08] Claire Concannon
Yeah.
[00:04:09] Jono Falconer
Is in kilowatt hours.
[00:04:10] Claire Concannon
And then the species per year is a potential species loss over a year, like three hundred and sixty five days of using
that amount of energy. And so this paper did this calculation um based on using traditional energy sources like coal
and oil, gas versus solar power or wind energy. And guess what?
[00:04:38] Jono Falconer
If I used I mean, I think it's not that bad. If I used energy like an average American and I got my energy from coal, I
would only be responsible for removing point zero zero zero zero three species each year, which isn't that many.
That means I could live 30 thousand years before I make a single species go extinct.
[00:05:01] Claire Concannon
But Jono, multiply that by seven billion for me.
[00:05:08] Jono Falconer
Ah then we get two hundred and thirty seven thousand species dying each year. So that's less good.
[00:05:17] Claire Concannon
Definitely less good. But that that is if you were creating all that energy using traditional sources because
renewable energy sources have a lot less impact.
[00:05:29] Jono Falconer
Yeah. And there was a difference between some of the renewable energy sources, like solar and wind had the
lowest, but they were all way better than coal.
[00:05:41] Claire Concannon
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I guess solar is one of the ones that just has massive potential.
[00:05:50] Jono Falconer
Energy.
[00:05:54] Claire Concannon
Like, it's only just kind of starting here in New Zealand. It's kind of it's still in the 'Other' category when you report
on the renewable energy contribution. But the amount of energy that hits the earth from the sun every minute is
just crazy. And it's just a matter of if we can take that energy and convert it into electricity.
[00:06:16] Jono Falconer
Yeah, and it's getting way better. Like solar is improving the most. I think of any renewable energy source like solar
power has gotten eight times cheaper over the past 10 years. Which is huge.
[00:06:29] Claire Concannon
Yeah, so like, I didn't really understand how it worked. But learning is fun (laughs) cause this is the photoelectric
effect.
[00:06:41] Jono Falconer
Right.
[00:06:41] Claire Concannon
Which is pretty neat.
[00:06:42] Jono Falconer
Yeah, it brings in Einstein's E equals MC squared equation because we've got...
[00:06:48] Claire Concannon
One of your faves.
[00:06:50] Jono Falconer
One of my faves. Ah so we've got a light particle or photon which runs into an electron and it transfers its energy
into that electron. So.
[00:07:02] Claire Concannon
It sets it free!
[00:07:04] Jono Falconer
Yeah, it sets it free to run into other electrons, which creates electricity and it sets those electrons free to power
our stuff, which is what electrons like doing, lighting up our houses and running our computers.
[00:07:19] Claire Concannon
Sure. Yeah, they've got emotion and motivation and yeah. Subatomic particle.
[00:07:25] Jono Falconer
I care about those electrons.
[00:07:28] Claire Concannon
But yeah, I think that's, that's a really neat thing for me, is that you've got this system where they set up. So this
electron got free and then they have this little racetrack that the electron goes around in, so you're you're not
actually like the energy is being transferred from a electron to electron and that creates electricity. So you're never
actually losing electrons. So it can just keep going.
[00:07:51] Jono Falconer
Right. You don't need to, like, do anything to it once you build the solar panel.
[00:07:55] Claire Concannon
You don't need to feed it more electrons. Yeah. It just blows my mind.
[00:07:57] Jono Falconer
Yeah. I like the idea of feeding electrons (laughs).
[00:08:02] Claire Concannon
Well, honestly, like that's what I thought when we were looking into this. I was like "OK, and how do you, you know,
what do you have to put back into the solar power panel to keep going?".
[00:08:11] Jono Falconer
You know, you go yeah, you'd think, yeah. That the electrons would go somewhere and you'd have to get more.
But.
[00:08:16] Claire Concannon
No!
[00:08:17] Jono Falconer
You don't.
[00:08:17] Claire Concannon
No.
[00:08:17] Jono Falconer
Pretty cool.
[00:08:18] Claire Concannon
Yeah, but a person who actually does know this (laughs) is Justin, right. And you went out.
[00:08:27] Jono Falconer
Yes.
[00:08:27] Claire Concannon
Had a chat with Justin.
[00:08:28] Jono Falconer
Yeah, I went and caught up with Justin Hodgkiss, who is a professor of chemistry at VUW and Co-Director of the
MacDiarmid Institute. Welcome to the 15 Minutes Smarter Justin.
[00:08:41] Justin Hodgkiss
Hi Jono, good to be here.
[00:08:42] Jono Falconer
So what do you think are some of the biggest challenges are right now with solar energy? Is it the cost of the
materials or whether materials are sustainable? Is it the solar efficiency or storing solar energy since it can only
work during the day?
[00:09:00] Justin Hodgkiss
Ah yeah, it's probably a bit of all of those I mean, the bottom line is that um, you know, not every roof has solar
panels on it, and that's because not everybody can afford solar panels. Um you know, they work perfectly well.
They generate electricity whenever the sun's shining. But if there were a lot cheaper, then everybody could or you
know, more people could afford them. And and the cost does come down to the cost of manufacturing, the cost of
materials. And you're right that the inevitable challenge is that they only generate power when the sun's shining.
So that means that if we had them on every house and generating lots of electricity at some point, then we need to
store that electricity.
[00:09:40] Jono Falconer
Right.
[00:09:40] Justin Hodgkiss
And so it's coupled to things like batteries developing as well.
[00:09:44] Jono Falconer
Yeah. So with your research, how are you addressing some of these challenges?
[00:09:49] Justin Hodgkiss
So my research is on next generation photovoltaics that could replace silicon. So silicon photovoltaics are the
standard ones that you see on rooftops now, and silicon panels are rigid and heavy and that explains part of the
manufacturing costs because you kind of that kind of manufactured like panes of glass. Um they need to be really
pure otherwise they're inefficient. And so I'm working on ah materials that could be printed that are essentially
polymers and molecules that do the same job, that they take light and convert it to electricity. But you need hardly
any of them because they absorb light so strongly.
[00:10:32] Jono Falconer
Ok.
[00:10:32] Justin Hodgkiss
So they could be manufactured very sustainably. But you don't see them yet because they're not as efficient as
they need to be. Yeah, that's where the future's going.
[00:10:40] Jono Falconer
Alright. So if we were to have these solar panels in our hands, are they called solar panels or fabrics?
[00:10:50] Justin Hodgkiss
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it it, the form is not really like a panel. Yeah. Photovoltaic, I guess,
photovoltaic.
[00:10:59] Jono Falconer
Yeah, and so it would be would it be like a piece of saran wrap or a bedsheet? Like what? What would this feel like
if we had it in our hands?
[00:11:09] Justin Hodgkiss
It would probably feel like like an overhead projector transparency, which is another thing that many of your
listeners won't have any idea what I'm talking about. Um, but yeah, like a thin kind of plastic bag or a plastic folder
or something like that.
[00:11:26] Jono Falconer
Ok, nice. So it's something that I could wear to potentially power an electric skateboard?
[00:11:33] Justin Hodgkiss
Potentially you could, yes.
[00:11:35] Jono Falconer
And ah how far could I go if I was wearing this shirt on an electric skateboard? Do you have an idea?
[00:11:41] Justin Hodgkiss
Um so, what I can tell you is um how much power you would get. And then it depends on how heavy you are and
how.
[00:11:47] Jono Falconer
Alright.
[00:11:48] Justin Hodgkiss
Your battery and that kind of stuff. So I can do a quick calculation so that on a clear day, the sun's shining and it's
straight above you that delivers about 1000 watts per square meter.
[00:12:01] Jono Falconer
Ok.
[00:12:03] Justin Hodgkiss
Um, so let's say that the solar photovoltaic is about 10 percent efficient, hopefully a be more than that. But if
there's losses and transmission stuff, then you'd get 100 watts per square meter. So let's just make things simple.
[00:12:13] Jono Falconer
A square meter that's like that would be about a shirt if the sun was hitting all of it.
[00:12:17] Justin Hodgkiss
Yeah, maybe a cape.
[00:12:18] Jono Falconer
A cape. Nice.
[00:12:20] Justin Hodgkiss
So you've got a cape that's one square meter.
[00:12:21] Jono Falconer
That'd be more stylish.
[00:12:23] Justin Hodgkiss
(Laughs). Yeah so you'd get about 100 watts from that. Now a typical electric skateboard, I think is...I don't have
one, unfortunately, but I think they're around three hundred, five hundred watts.
[00:12:32] Jono Falconer
Ok.
[00:12:34] Justin Hodgkiss
So with 100 watts you could either go really slowly.
[00:12:37] Jono Falconer
OK.
[00:12:37] Justin Hodgkiss
Or um maybe put a small child on it to go faster or you could um you know, use that to use your cape to charge it
up.
[00:12:45] Jono Falconer
Right.
[00:12:46] Justin Hodgkiss
For 10 minutes and then you go for a bit of a hoon after that.
[00:12:49] Jono Falconer
Yeah, if you're wearing a cape you definitely want to be going fast enough for it to blow in the wind, right.
Otherwise it kind of.
[00:12:54] Justin Hodgkiss
(Laughs). Yeah, you do you'd need to.
[00:12:54] Jono Falconer
No one likes a cape just sagging down your back. (Laughs).
[00:13:00] Justin Hodgkiss
Just dangling there. Yeah. So you maybe want to just crouch down like a lizard in the sun for a while and then take
off.
[00:13:05] Jono Falconer
Sounds good. And if someone wanted to get involved in designing a an electric cape or any other type of solar
energy, what, what type of field should they go into? What is kind of the most important areas of research to learn
about this stuff?
[00:13:21] Justin Hodgkiss
Traditionally, if you were um making solar panels, silicon ones, you would be a physicist or an electrical engineer.
Ah but I'm I'm a chemist. And um so this area, you know, we're actually designing materials, designing molecules
that um that convert to electricity. So, you know either I think chemistry, physics, engineering would still be the
most important areas, materials science kind of spanning those things and um. But of course it's, you know there's
other things that become important as well. We're talking about new technologies where people's behavior
becomes important as to how they will actually use them or whether they will use them at all even if they work
perfectly.
[00:14:04] Jono Falconer
So even sociology can be important.
[00:14:07] Justin Hodgkiss
Sociology will be very important for adoption of new technologies.
[00:14:11] Jono Falconer
Great. Well, thanks a lot for your time. I think that was very informative and hopefully our listeners have a good feel
for the power of solar power. Thanks, Justin.
[00:14:23] Justin Hodgkiss
Thank you, cheers.
[00:14:24] Claire Concannon
Hey, that was a great interview. There's some really interesting stuff there.
[00:14:28] Jono Falconer
Thank you.
[00:14:28] Claire Concannon
I cannot believe that you ended up on skate cape again (laughs).
[00:14:33] Jono Falconer
I'm going to have one of those.
[00:14:34] Claire Concannon
If you can dream it, you could do it, Jono.
[00:14:36] Jono Falconer
Yeah. Anyway, time equals money.
[00:14:39] Claire Concannon
Yeah.
[00:14:40] Jono Falconer
Ah so we need to move on. But next time we are going to talk about nanotechnology and how size matters.
[00:14:49] Claire Concannon
Yay, cool. Looking forward to it. Where should people go in the meantime if they want to know more?
[00:14:54] Jono Falconer
W W W dot MacDiarmid dot A C dot N Z.
[00:15:01] Claire Concannon
Sweet!
[00:15:01] Jono Falconer
Bye.
END OF TRANSCRIPT