0:01 I was in the middle of editing this
0:03 video. I was looking for some of the
0:05 original newspaper articles. I realized
0:08 this story goes so much deeper and so
0:11 much weirder.
0:14 September 21st is the solar equinox, a
0:17 time when the sun is directly shining on
0:19 the equator. It's also Sunday, a
0:20 national day of action to raise
0:23 awareness about harnessing solar energy
0:24 with hundreds of events and
0:26 demonstrations happening across the
0:28 country. Ever since it coalesed into
0:30 existence, more than 4.6 6 billion years
0:33 ago. Our one and only star remains the
0:35 most powerful force in the entire solar
0:37 system. The energy it emits has been
0:39 responsible for supporting life on Earth
0:41 as soon as bacteria figured out how to
0:44 eat sunlight and burp out oxygen 2.4
0:46 billion years ago. Woripped by cultures
0:48 around the world for as long as human
0:51 history has been recorded, our special
0:52 star has been given many different
0:55 names. And the Wikipedia page for solar
0:57 deity is quite long. It makes sense.
0:59 Life on Earth wouldn't exist without it.
1:02 And it has taken thousands of years for
1:04 us to try and figure out what exactly it
1:07 is. It inspires awe and wonder and in my
1:09 case, terror. Because I have the
1:12 complexion of a bowl of mashed potatoes
1:14 and burn like a vampire. Advancements in
1:16 astronomical science have allowed people
1:18 to take advantage of the sun in
1:20 increasingly significant ways. But are
1:22 we really harnessing its full potential?
1:24 First of all, it was news to me that
1:27 solar flares can be so powerful that
1:29 they change Earth's electromagnetic
1:31 field, disrupting satellites and power
1:33 grids. The modern-day solar power
1:36 movement starts in 1839. Teenager Edmund
1:39 Beckerel was messing around in his dad's
1:40 physics lab and discovered the
1:42 photovoltaic effect. It's basically how
1:44 to produce an electrical current by
1:46 exposing certain materials to sunlight.
1:48 Another highlight came in 1883 when
1:51 inventor Charles Fritz showed off a
1:53 solar panel made of selenium and gold
1:55 capable of 1% energy conversion. Good
1:58 job, Charles. The most fascinating part
2:00 of this story doesn't happen until 1909
2:03 when inventor George Cove debuted his
2:05 sunpowered design on a New York City
2:07 rooftop and was featured prominently in
2:09 Modern Electrics magazine and otherwise
2:11 received a great amount of media
2:14 attention. Maybe we'd be further along
2:16 in the field of solar tech. But Cove was
2:18 allegedly abducted a few months after
2:20 his press premiere, supposedly by
2:22 members of a rival fossil fuel company
2:24 who threatened his life unless he
2:26 stopped inventing stuff and closed up
2:28 shop. The cops didn't take him seriously
2:29 because they assumed that this was some
2:32 sort of publicity stunt. Okay, cut. I
2:33 was in the middle of editing this part
2:35 of the video. I was looking for some of
2:37 the original newspaper articles. I
2:40 realized this story goes so much deeper
2:42 and so much weirder. It was sometime in
2:45 1910 that Cove wrote this letter saying
2:47 that he was kidnapped by quote a number
2:49 of capitalists and then dropped out of
2:52 sight. Modern-day defenders have painted
2:54 Cove in his novel inventions as sort of
2:56 this victim of fossil fuel company
2:58 greed, lamented this major setback and
3:01 then ended the story there. But that is
3:03 not exactly what happened. Actually, the
3:05 police did have a lot of reason to
3:07 believe that this was for publicity, and
3:09 it's because he'd already been under
3:11 surveillance by the post office
3:13 authorities for quite a while. So, you
3:14 might think that it's a little weird for
3:16 the post office to get involved. Most
3:18 local law enforcement has really limited
3:20 budgets and resources. And when it's a
3:22 larger crime and goes across state
3:24 lines, you need to get the federal
3:26 authorities involved. Enter the post
3:28 office authority. The post office
3:30 inspection authorities have existed
3:33 since 1775 and they do not mess around.
3:35 >> Duspace is the crown jewel of the law
3:36 enforcement system.
3:38 >> So you might have heard of this thing
3:40 called wire fraud and that's when crime
3:42 is committed through one or multiple
3:44 communications networks like the radio,
3:47 internet, or through phone calls which
3:50 in 1910 was still a pretty new
3:51 technology. When something starts as a
3:54 fishy phone call, it will often make the
3:56 leap into written correspondence, which
3:58 inevitably goes through the mail. Cove's
4:00 inventions weren't nearly as powerful or
4:02 efficient as he claimed them to be. He
4:04 and his business partner, Elmer
4:06 Ellsworth Burlingham, incredible name,
4:07 been going around and telling people
4:10 that their Sunshine Bottling Company was
4:12 expanding so rapidly it had a valuation
4:16 of $5 million. Today, that's like $165
4:18 million. Eventually, the two of them
4:20 were ratted out by a former employee who
4:22 tipped off these authorities that they
4:24 had been running concealed wires from
4:26 their solar panels to the Edison
4:28 electric lines next door and then
4:30 claiming the inflated data as a product
4:32 of their design and invention. Cove was
4:35 arrested, held on a $2,500 bond, which
4:37 is more than $82,000
4:39 today. Later, he was convicted and spent
4:41 a year in prison. His business never
4:43 recovered, but now I think we know why.
4:44 Oh, by the way, did you notice this
4:46 beautiful painting that's for sale at
4:48 emilygrassley.com? Okay, back to the
4:49 script. Then the next real breakthrough
4:52 didn't happen for 40 years. Scientists
4:54 at the telephone company Bell Labs
4:56 discovered that silicon is a better
4:58 conductor than selenium. In 1954, they
5:00 held a press conference featuring a
5:03 solar cell strong enough to run a 21-in
5:05 ferris wheel and transmit a radio
5:07 program. Bell Lab's ultimate goal was to
5:09 use these to power telephone systems in
5:11 rural areas. Around then they could
5:14 convert around 6% energy which wasn't
5:16 great but was better than the 1 to 2%
5:19 that Cove had developed. Today's solar
5:21 cells have an average output of 15 to
5:23 20%. But in 2022 a team in Germany
5:27 reported a new world record at 32 1.5%
5:30 energy conversion. Fact checker Grassly
5:32 back at it again. Turns out that is an
5:34 old record. A new one was set in April
5:37 of this year by Longi with a solar cell
5:41 that can convert nearly 35% energy.
5:43 That's bonkers. In the United States
5:45 last year, more than 80% of new
5:47 electricity capacity came from solar
5:49 technology. Seems to me like the biggest
5:51 things holding this back is the fact
5:53 that solar panels are still kind of
5:56 ugly. But for today, let's set aside the
5:58 roadblocks and take time to celebrate
6:00 the incredible power of solar energy and
6:02 where we are in this timeline of
6:04 innovation, perpetuating a great
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