Ah, this sun, giver of life,
and sustainer of
the cycles of nature.
Isn’t it glorious, radiant
and resplendent.
A warm oasis of energy,
around which consciousness-es
may huddle together
to seek comfort from the dark.
In its light, we climbed down
from the trees
and learned to walk upright.
And as soon as it goes down,
evil emerges from the shadows.
Predators,
ghosts…cockroaches, ugh.
It first poked and prodded
inanimate matter
into self replicating
organic molecules.
Like when your parents
wake you up in the morning
to go to school,
and tell you
to put on a uniform.
A green one,
so they could absorb its energy.
With the light of the sun,
these early life forms
purified the earth with oxygen,
and transmuted solar energy
into neat little packages
that mammals like us could eat.
The sun also gave us
a regular cycle
to organise our society around.
As our energy needs grew,
it gave us a buried treasure
in the form of
liquid solar energy
to power our civilization.
But we burned through this gift,
a little too fast.
So we needed
a different way forward,
and the sun would directly
intervene this time.
To make electricity
from the sun,
all you need to do is press
two wafers of silicon together,
one doped with an element
with five valence electrons,
and one with three.
Because each silicon atom
has 4 bonds with its neigbours,
this leads to the upper wafer
having free electrons,
and the lower wafer,
having free…holes?
The free electrons start feeling
a little crowded,
so they look over
to the other wafer,
and figure,
it’s free real estate.
Sliding over into
the p-type wafer’s DMs,
they give it
a slightly negative charge,
and the upper wafer becomes
slightly positively charged.
The electric field that forms
due to this acts as a barrier
to any further electrons
moving over,
creating a region of depletion
of free charge carriers.
A depletion region,
as one may call it.
You don’t get electricity
yet though.
Because…conservation
of energy…duh.
But when angry energetic photons
from the sun rain
down on this region,
and break some bonds,
free electrons are created.
These electrons flow under the
influence of the electric field,
and from scattered
thermal energy,
we get beautiful,
smooth electricity.
While there are other ways
of using solar power,
mostly through concentrating
its thermal energy,
solar photovoltaics will
probably be the dominant form
of utilizing solar energy
for the foreseeable future.
Now, solar energy is not
consistent,
and it goes away at night.
So we need a backup.
In the absence
of large scale storage,
this comes in the form of Coal
or Natural gas
fired power plants.
But storage technology
may be on its way.
Tesla famously created a large
Li-Ion battery storage facility
two years ago
in Hornsdale, Australia.
Which must be working
really well,
as they’re planning to go
ahead and expand it.
Centralized battery storage
is one solution,
but to me it sounds far neater
to have a distributed grid
of home
based batteries which
store energy from the grid
when solar production
is at its peak,
and use that stored power
when it gets dark,
channeling excess energy
back into the grid
based on the requirement.
What type of distribution
and storage
finally becomes popular
might depend on how humanity
decides to spread out
over the earth.
We don’t just make
and use technology,
but are in turn
transformed by it.
Since solar works so well
for individual houses,
and with the prevalence
of Jio Fiber,
maybe living in big cities
won’t be a priority
for people anymore.
Industries
could run on solar power too.
Just give everyone a day off
when it happens to be cloudy.
Ok fine. Can’t happen in
a capitalist society.
These guys figured it out.
Tesla batteries seem to be
doing the trick here.
How useful solar energy
is for a particular region
also depends
on its solar isolation.
Luckily, we’re pretty
much draped
around the waist
of mother earth.
Being near the equator
has its perks after all.
India is on its way to getting
a third
of its electricity requirement
from the sun, by 2050.
And this energy is cheap.
We may be hitting the limits
of how efficient
we can make solar panels,
but maturation
of the ecosystem
should lead to
further decreases in cost.
So how much energy do we need?
The math is pretty simple.
The area under
this generation curve,
averaged out over a day
needs to be higher
than the highest peak
of the consumption curve,
or it could a little lower.
We can leave this guy out.
He sucks.
And what do we do
with all this excess energy?
We could use it
for desalinating sea water.
Casually solving the impending
water crisis. No biggie.
Every energy source I research
seems to default
to desalinating sea water.
Think of something
more interesting, people!
With the amount of solar
potential India has,
we could actually
be living in a world
where keeping your AC
on full blast
would be the
eco-friendly thing to do,
because it would reduce
stress on the grid.
And considering India will need
a lot of cooling in the years
to come, that is great.
The best thing is that solar
power generation is at its peak
when we need cooling the most.
Perfectly balanced
as all things should be.
Realistically though, going all
solar is probably a bad idea.
We need nuclear energy in the
mix to provide base load too.
I’ve done a video on that.
Go check it out.
Now, some of you
might be wondering -
Sira, what happens
to all the miles upon miles
upon miles of solar panels
when they have to be
replaced after 20 years.
Won’t recycling them
be a big problem?
Or perhaps an opportunity for
enterprising business owners?
Well, too bad.
This is a positive video.
About the possibility
of the sun being God.
Forgot about that, didn’t you?
We’ll do
the recycling thing later.
Now, where were we?
Yes! Solar energy
is going to be big.
So is wind energy,
which is basically solar energy,
as all the cycles of nature
are powered
by thermal energy from the sun.
But electricity and heat are not
the only two things
the sun can give us.
There are some who say,
that just like plants,
we could use energy from the sun
directly in our cells.
Doing so could speed up
our recovery from injury,
and increase our lifespans.
But the story doesn’t end there.
All religions say
the goal of existence
is to get closer to God.
So how do we get there?
Perhaps we’ll send great
satellites towards the sun
that will unfurl their wings,
and beam back energy
to power our megacities.
Focused energy to run
the digital minds
that’ll organize
and reshape the world.
Perhaps, we’ll attain a degree
of computation
that’ll allow us to navigate the
different pitfalls of existence,
allowing us to be fitter,
happier, and more productive.
Perhaps even allowing us
to cheat death itself.
And with death and disease
behind us,
maybe we’ll venture even further
towards the resplendent sphere
that gave birth to life
and consciousness.
Launching a swarm
that encircles it,
giving us access to even
greater levels of energy.
Enough energy for gigantic
mega structures, like mirrors,
with which we can direct
the sun’s radiation into a jet,
and travel through the universe
consuming planets
and asteroids
to grow our swarm.
Basically, becoming Galactus.
We’ll be sojourners through
the blackness with the sun,
uncovering the secrets of
reality in our ultimate quest,
to see the universe naked.
So before you head in for the
night, look towards the west.
See the sun disappearing
behind the horizon,
and let the red rays,
heralds of the day’s
passing touch your mind,
and thank the unconscious God,
our celestial companion
for its existence.
I hope you guys
enjoyed this video.
Like, share, subscribe
and leave comment below
if you want to hear
any of the topics
discussed in this video,
in greater detail.
I’ll see you next Sunday. Bye.
