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The true crime history of solar energy
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I was in the middle of editing this
video. I was looking for some of the
original newspaper articles. I realized
this story goes so much deeper and so
much weirder.
September 21st is the solar equinox, a
time when the sun is directly shining on
the equator. It's also Sunday, a
national day of action to raise
awareness about harnessing solar energy
with hundreds of events and
demonstrations happening across the
country. Ever since it coalesed into
existence, more than 4.6 6 billion years
ago. Our one and only star remains the
most powerful force in the entire solar
system. The energy it emits has been
responsible for supporting life on Earth
as soon as bacteria figured out how to
eat sunlight and burp out oxygen 2.4
billion years ago. Woripped by cultures
around the world for as long as human
history has been recorded, our special
star has been given many different
names. And the Wikipedia page for solar
deity is quite long. It makes sense.
Life on Earth wouldn't exist without it.
And it has taken thousands of years for
us to try and figure out what exactly it
is. It inspires awe and wonder and in my
case, terror. Because I have the
complexion of a bowl of mashed potatoes
and burn like a vampire. Advancements in
astronomical science have allowed people
to take advantage of the sun in
increasingly significant ways. But are
we really harnessing its full potential?
First of all, it was news to me that
solar flares can be so powerful that
they change Earth's electromagnetic
field, disrupting satellites and power
grids. The modern-day solar power
movement starts in 1839. Teenager Edmund
Beckerel was messing around in his dad's
physics lab and discovered the
photovoltaic effect. It's basically how
to produce an electrical current by
exposing certain materials to sunlight.
Another highlight came in 1883 when
inventor Charles Fritz showed off a
solar panel made of selenium and gold
capable of 1% energy conversion. Good
job, Charles. The most fascinating part
of this story doesn't happen until 1909
when inventor George Cove debuted his
sunpowered design on a New York City
rooftop and was featured prominently in
Modern Electrics magazine and otherwise
received a great amount of media
attention. Maybe we'd be further along
in the field of solar tech. But Cove was
allegedly abducted a few months after
his press premiere, supposedly by
members of a rival fossil fuel company
who threatened his life unless he
stopped inventing stuff and closed up
shop. The cops didn't take him seriously
because they assumed that this was some
sort of publicity stunt. Okay, cut. I
was in the middle of editing this part
of the video. I was looking for some of
the original newspaper articles. I
realized this story goes so much deeper
and so much weirder. It was sometime in
1910 that Cove wrote this letter saying
that he was kidnapped by quote a number
of capitalists and then dropped out of
sight. Modern-day defenders have painted
Cove in his novel inventions as sort of
this victim of fossil fuel company
greed, lamented this major setback and
then ended the story there. But that is
not exactly what happened. Actually, the
police did have a lot of reason to
believe that this was for publicity, and
it's because he'd already been under
surveillance by the post office
authorities for quite a while. So, you
might think that it's a little weird for
the post office to get involved. Most
local law enforcement has really limited
budgets and resources. And when it's a
larger crime and goes across state
lines, you need to get the federal
authorities involved. Enter the post
office authority. The post office
inspection authorities have existed
since 1775 and they do not mess around.
>> Duspace is the crown jewel of the law
enforcement system.
>> So you might have heard of this thing
called wire fraud and that's when crime
is committed through one or multiple
communications networks like the radio,
internet, or through phone calls which
in 1910 was still a pretty new
technology. When something starts as a
fishy phone call, it will often make the
leap into written correspondence, which
inevitably goes through the mail. Cove's
inventions weren't nearly as powerful or
efficient as he claimed them to be. He
and his business partner, Elmer
Ellsworth Burlingham, incredible name,
been going around and telling people
that their Sunshine Bottling Company was
expanding so rapidly it had a valuation
of $5 million. Today, that's like $165
million. Eventually, the two of them
were ratted out by a former employee who
tipped off these authorities that they
had been running concealed wires from
their solar panels to the Edison
electric lines next door and then
claiming the inflated data as a product
of their design and invention. Cove was
arrested, held on a $2,500 bond, which
is more than $82,000
today. Later, he was convicted and spent
a year in prison. His business never
recovered, but now I think we know why.
Oh, by the way, did you notice this
beautiful painting that's for sale at
emilygrassley.com? Okay, back to the
script. Then the next real breakthrough
didn't happen for 40 years. Scientists
at the telephone company Bell Labs
discovered that silicon is a better
conductor than selenium. In 1954, they
held a press conference featuring a
solar cell strong enough to run a 21-in
ferris wheel and transmit a radio
program. Bell Lab's ultimate goal was to
use these to power telephone systems in
rural areas. Around then they could
convert around 6% energy which wasn't
great but was better than the 1 to 2%
that Cove had developed. Today's solar
cells have an average output of 15 to
20%. But in 2022 a team in Germany
reported a new world record at 32 1.5%
energy conversion. Fact checker Grassly
back at it again. Turns out that is an
old record. A new one was set in April
of this year by Longi with a solar cell
that can convert nearly 35% energy.
That's bonkers. In the United States
last year, more than 80% of new
electricity capacity came from solar
technology. Seems to me like the biggest
things holding this back is the fact
that solar panels are still kind of
ugly. But for today, let's set aside the
roadblocks and take time to celebrate
the incredible power of solar energy and
where we are in this timeline of
innovation, perpetuating a great
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