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In our search for renewable energy we decided to go to the

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very top, the Big Kahuna... the Sun. Seems like a great idea right well after all [Footage of Earth is zoomed out until the entire planet is seen next to the Sun]

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that's where the plant turns for their energy. Oh there was just one small issue...

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We are not plants, we can't just stand around the sunlight and end up

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with a full stomach. To harvest the sun's energy we needed to invent something new

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called the photovoltaic cell. The first working photovoltaic cell was built in [Solar cell with a halo]

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1954 in the same research lab where the first transistor was

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assembled. Turns out that putting strips of almost pure silicon, semiconducting

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material, in the sunlight generates an electric charge. Even after the

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scientists realized this it took decades before practical marketable solar panels [Solar panel at a party with a bow tie on]

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showed up, and they were still super expensive. Most people weren't interested

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in costly bulky panels when they could just plug into the electric grid. Then in

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the mid-1970s we hit our first oil crisis, several Middle Eastern nations

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stop selling us oil, which the US took about as well as somebody having stolen

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a puppy. Prices skyrocketed people panicked and alternative energy sources suddenly

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looked a lot more interesting. Well by the 1990s solar panels were cheaper and [Man scans a solar panel through a checkout]

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more common it basically became the modern panels we know and love today.

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And nowadays we have a direct line to the sun's energy, take that trees,

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brussel sprouts and moss. (Laughing) Oh what? They were always rubbing it in our faces.

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Well but we didn't stop with the Sun we're also like "hey how about the wind

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that used to work pretty well way back when." Anyhow we totally figured out

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wind power couple a thousand years ago. As soon as we knew how to generate [Prehistoric man holding a paper pinwheel]

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electricity we hooked up windmills to generators and may wind turbines didn't

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happen in some high-tech research lab either. First guy to make electricity

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with wind was a Scottish professor named James Blyth and he built it literally

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in his backyard in 1891 whoa. All the neighbors probably thought he was crazy.

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Unlike solar power wind generated electricity was a relatively standard

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option throughout the 20th century. We're not saying that we were dewy-eyed

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environmentalists in their 30s who loved wind power because it was kinda nice to [Two people hugging wind turbines]

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mother earth... Nope, wind power was just a practical and useful way to generate

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power in certain circumstances. Like in rural areas too far from the power grid

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such as the American great plains until the forties and fifties. Or on sailing

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ships before they all converted to steam or internal combustion. Or on early [Sailors on a ship with waves crashing onto them]

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expeditions to Antarctica where explorers would have plugged into a

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Penguin if they thought it would fire up their electric blanket. But wind turbines

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were pretty cheap and reliably produced a little bit of electricity so why not

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use 'em. Well the same oil crisis that gave the solar industry a boost [Barrel of oil and wind turbine fist bump]

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encouraged wind power research too. Private companies and government

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programs began investigating wind turbines that were bigger, more efficient

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and could be used for public utility electricity. You know it wasn't easy..

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The first wind turbine that could produce megawatts of energy only lasted for 45

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days before it um... broke. What's the return policy on these... While these days they've [Windmill falls down]

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come up with a better model that's a lot less schlocky. If solar and wind power are

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so great and efficient and we're running out of fossil fuels then why don't we use

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more renewables? Well, good question. Wind power makes up a whopping 3.35%

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of global electricity production full fired power plants on

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the other hand make up about 41% of the world's electricity so

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you know old king coal is still on his throne... But we still have some fossil

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fuels left and coals still really cheap and available so why change? [Man with a trolley full of coal at a supermarket]

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Climate change, climate change, right.. Well renewable energy is expensive compared

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good old coal wind and solar power are really pricey to adopt and because of that not

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many people want them for people to want them well they have to be cheap at least

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competitive with coal and for them to be cheap people would have to, you guessed it

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want them yeah catch 22. As much as we love them the sun and wind aren't as

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reliable as coal fire. That means that renewable energy requires planning. [Smartly dressed people in a meeting room]

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Where can we generate the most consistent energy? how do we store that

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energy to make up for the dips in supply? what if it's cloudy with a chance of

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meatballs? No those photovoltaic cells wont do much in that... [Meatballs fall from the sky onto solar panels]

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