Solar energy generates electricity when light is around. Unfortunately, there isn't much light at night. Consequently, other forms of energy need to be used during these times--or, energy captured during the day would need to be stored.
Even within battery technologies, there are a variety of options, some more in development than others. Elon Musk and many other companies use lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are currently the market leaders. For off-grid and some utility applications, people often use lead acid batteries (basically, souped up car batteries) due to their low cost. Flow or sodium sulfur batteries may be used on utility scales. Sodium sulfur batteries require higher temperatures for operation. These technologies are promising due to their cost, energy density, and lifetime.
Solar energy, itself, does not release greenhouse gases (although the energy required to make solar panels, themselves, often does--the precise "cleanness" depends on the specific technology, but modern technologies are cleaner than the status quo). At the same time, they absorb energy and pump it other places in the form of electricity (and, ideally, don't reflect much back to space). Consequently, solar panels change the energy distribution in their immediate vicinity. Computer models are used to predict the effects of solar cells on their local environment. Aixue He et al. recently published a paper discussing these effects. This paper was then picked up by the Washington Post. Solar panels, themselves, lower temperatures in their immediate vicinity. They absorb energy from their surrounding and convert it to electricity, which is sent into cities and towns. Those areas, then, use the electricity, often in ways that release more heat, resulting in warming of urban areas. It is important to note that these temperature increases are much less than those predicted without the use of solar or other clean energy sources.
It is important to note that precipitation is also affected by air temperature. Cold air can't hold as much moisture. If deserts are colder, they are often drier. Solar panels, where they are set up, decrease the local temperature, which A. He et al.'s study suggests would slightly reduce cloudiness and precipitation. It only takes a 2 C temperature decrease to reduce precipitation by 20 % in desert regions. For these reasons, it was found that placing solar panels in a mixture of urban and desert regions minimizes many of the local environmental impacts of solar cells.
The moral of the story is that no matter what you do, the environment is effected. It is just a question of degrees and in what way things are affected.
Graduate school is like no other beast. In the sciences, you both do research and take classes. When you start out, you are mostly taking classes but, as you progress, you do more and more research with fewer to no classes. By the time you graduate, there is little difference between being a graduate student and being a postdoc or research scientist. It is a transition and learning period. By the end, you are the world expert on the topic of your research. Answers are not in the back of a textbook or online. You make your own questions.
According to the Motley Fool, 40 % of all new electricity generating capacity during the first half of 2015 came from solar energy. Yes, it still accounts for only 0.4 % of total electricity generation in the US, but this just demonstrates how much built up generation capacity that we have. While solar modules are being installed at a fast rate, the energy needed is also growing and building a power plant is a long-term commitment. It takes time to gain market share.
There are a lot of different metrics involved in calculating the cost of solar energy. One must account for the basic cost of a module, the installation costs, and the cost of electronics used to interface the module with the grid. For some applications, energy storage batteries must also be taken into account. Many reports of cost do not take all of these costs into account. Several years ago, people were really excited about module costs lowering below $1/Watt. As you can see, module costs are now well-below that price. Also, there is a price difference between industrial-scale and roof top (residential and non-residential) solar energy. Industrial scale production is less expensive than roof top energy. These costs also vary by location. It will cost more to install a solar panel in areas where installers lack experience.
Source: Deutsche Bank, Vishal Shah, for rooftop market
Therefore, when you hear people talking about solar and citing costs, always ask what they are referring to.
Credit: L.M. Peter, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 369 (2011) 1840-1856.
There are a variety of reasons. Most commercial solar technologies are currently based off silicon or cadmium telluride (CdTe). CdTe is relatively new to the market and has been instrumental to lowering the cost of cells since it can be processed using inexpensive technologies (it's more defect-tolerant) and only requires a very thin layer of material (~2 millionths of a meter, thinner than a human hair). Silicon, itself is very abundant and is very well understood thanks to the microelectronics industry. Unfortunately, though, silicon requires more material to make a good solar cell and that material needs to be of higher purity and quality. Silicon technologies, however, can capitalize on the existing knowledge band and manufacturing advances by the microelectronics industry to lower costs. My adviser always says: "Never bet against silicon".
That being said, these technologies have their limitations. Silicon, while raw material is cheap, getting it to the required purities for good devices is an expensive and energy-intensive process. Also, it can be expensive to get rid of defects that harm performance. For every solar cell, there is a trade-off between cost and performance. Record silicon cells are close to the theoretical maximum efficiency possible, although these record cells are costly to manufacture. CdTe requires special encapsulation because Cd (cadmium) and Te (tellurium) are toxic if released from the CdTe compound (cells based on these materials are great safe ways to dispose of Cd waste when refining zinc ores and Te waste when refining copper), raising the cost. CdTe developments have been instrumental in lowering the cost of solar cells and modules, although it is unclear how long that will continue. The Department of Energy expects a Te shortage ~2025, which will raise costs. As you can see from the chart above, Cd and Te are fairly scarce and current reserves are not enough to supply our current energy needs completely.
A material known as CIGS (Cu(In,Ga)Se2) that has been researched for decades is just now being commercialized. These cells look to fulfill entirely new niches in the solar market. The cells are lightweight and flexible. The constituent elements have fewer scarcity concerns compared to CdTe, although competition with other industries (touch screen devices use In, as well), will likely limit production capacity (and raise costs). This is another potentially really inexpensive technology with good performance comparable to CdTe. People in these research groups actively research this material, as well as CdTe to further improve performance.
The material that we research, Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4, is composed of earth-abundant and inexpensive elements, making it unlikely that the scarcity concerns that hinder the other technologies would limit it. Research focuses on improving the efficiency of cells using CZTS as an absorber layer. It also seems amazingly amenable to cheap fabrication methods. However, CZTS device performance isn't yet good enough to compete commercially. The record cell efficiency is 12.6 %, lower than module efficiencies of CIGS and CdTe commercial modules. We research these materials in order to improve efficiencies and make them competitive. Even if they don't pan out, we also learn about the broader materials system. For example, in my quest to learn about the CZTS material, I'm also learning about Cu2SnS3 and Cu4Sn7S16, which may also be of engineering importance, to name a few. Much of the understanding of CIGS helped in understanding CZTS.
Perovskite solar cells came out of nowhere and are achieving amazingly high efficiencies (although their lifetimes and tendency to degrade leave more to be desired). We don't know what the next technology will be, but it is always good to gain a better fundamental understanding of the world around us so that we have a knowledge base that can actually be applied intelligently.
The sun doesn't shine at night. This can't be changed overnight. While it is possible to design systems that can handle variations in solar (or wind) energy without batteries or other forms of energy storage, in order to simplify systems and even out this supply, it would be beneficial to be able to store energy cheaply. Several weeks ago, we talked about duck curves. These curves describe the variations in load throughout the day. Check out this article from the Motley Fool about different supporting technologies that can help with energy storage, such as Li-ion batteries, hydrogen, liquid air, and flow batteries!
Other technologies that you might not think about are the technologies associated with the smart grid. The term "smart grid" refers to technologies that are used to automate and allow for the remote control of power distribution systems. This should allow energy from renewable sources to be re-routed in ways that allow the energy to be more efficiently used, quickly responding to changes in energy supply and demand. Most solar (and wind) plants are located far from urban centers where most electricity is used. Other related technologies depend on type of solar cell and the process used to make them. Just as the drive for lower-power, smaller, and cheaper microprocessors necessitated advances in photolithography, vacuum science, and materials deposition technologies, advances in solar technologies, which, themselves piggybacked off microprocessor manufacture, will likely drive further innovation and the advancement of different processing technologies.
Excellent question. Solar energy (and renewable energy, in general) has become competitive in manymarkets around the world, including in some parts of the U.S. NREL has developed a website where you can check if solar energy is competitive in your area. Also, many installers will provide energy audits so you can know what to expect.
When do you need the most energy? You probably don't need much when you are sleeping (which is why many do laundry at night, it can be cheaper). You probably need more when you first get home from work or school, when you turn your air conditioner on (or turn it up, or even, naturally, as you get into the heat of the day). Solar cells produce most of their energy during the day when the sun is shining. Distributed systems like wind power also have this issue, although they produce the most energy at different times of day.
A duck curve shows the net electrical load as a function of time. This is used by utilities to determine how much additional power needs to be produced to meet demand. The "duck" shape is obtained because solar energy produces most of its energy during the day, reducing the net load.
I don't take you for a fool--I just want to show the bigger picture. So much gets buried in politics and This research and support is actually paying off. For example, Deutsche Bank recently released their analysis of the prospects of solar energy and found that it is already competative in many locations, including the U.S. They state that "unsubsidized costs of solar energy are [currently] 30 %-40 % below the retail price of electricity in many markets globally." You can see how these prices compare in the plot above. Even in the U.S., they find that solar energy is competitive in more than 14 states without additional subsidies. Planners have been increasingly turning to solar energy because the economics are starting to work out!
We need energy to live. We need energy to work. We need energy, period. It comes from different sources. Not all sources are created equal. One source in one location, can provide more than enough energy safely for a population whereas, in another location, that same source may not be enough or may be unsafe. For example, it is a bad idea to build a nuclear power plant or oil drilling waste disposal/fracking wells on an active fault line. Similarly, solar plant at the South Pole would provide little energy during its winter and wind farms only work in certain windy locations, preferably far away from major bird migration corridors. Check out this game to learn about some of these tradeoffs between energy sources.
There is a lot of energy out there that has not yet been tapped--and most of it is renewable. However, not all places receive the same amount of energy. Different sources are distributed non-uniformly across the planet. Follow this link to learn more about the distribution of energy resources. The greatest amount of solar energy is found around the equator. There are significant wind resources offshore, although there can be significant resources inland, as well. These resources also vary based on season and time of day (not much sun shines during the night, generally). Also not all of these resources make sense to use since energy is lost when the energy is transported and it costs money to develop transportation infrastructure. Click on your country and look at its profile. The resource potential should be listed. Click on your state. You should be able to see information on how your state gets its energy and the potential for further development. This data was all gathered together by NREL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Ah, the tough stuff. The economies of many major oil exporters are understandably dependent on oil exports. Consequently, the widespread adoption of other non-oil-dependent technologies would be disruptive to their economies. Therefore, it is generally not in their best interests to upset the energy status quo. At the same time, each year, it becomes more and more difficult to reach new petroleum reserves at a reasonable cost. Countries like Saudi Arabia heavily subsidize their domestic oil consumption. Saudi Arabia earns an additional ~$55/barrel if they export rather than if they consume the oil domestically. By developing renewable energy technologies like solar, there is more oil to export and they can be better situated, long-term, when oil reserves become more depleted or difficult to access. They would remain a leading energy exporter.
The European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Photo: NASA, Plumbrook Facility (where they tested the Saturn V rocket and have the largest vacuum chambers on the planet). If you're ever near Sandusky, OH, check to see if they are giving tours!
We talk about how temperature affects performance, but not much about pressure. Pressure can cause similarly drastic changes in how materials perform. To illustrate this point, check out this video
As you can see, the water started to boil at a temperature well below 212 degrees F. It then froze. A changing pressure can greatly affect how materials behave. This is a major issue in the vacuum of space. Electronic equipment may release trapped gas, which can then condense on camera lenses, solar cells, CCD sensors, and other critical materials. NASA has had to develop rigorous tests to make sure that materials they put in space do not offgas significantly. These tests are outlined in engineering standards. Organizations like NASA or ASTM International release standard test methods they and other groups can use to quantify this and other effects. Offgasing can also affect the structural integrity of materials if a certain phase becomes unstable at certain pressures under which the material is expected to perform and a phase transformation is allowed to take place. You are probably most familiar with this happening when you change temperature, but it can also happen when pressure is changed.
When you think of a solar cell in operation, unless we are talking about a space application, this occurs at atmospheric pressure. However, many of the techniques used to make solar cells require a vacuum (very low pressures). For example, sputtering and thermal evaporation are typically performed under vacuum conditions (at very low pressures). At higher pressures, it is more difficult to control these processes. Gases conduct heat (and convection currents can move heat), causing samples to be non-uniform. Furthermore, gas atoms can disrupt and change the chemistry at the surface of a growing film. Although solution-based processes can also be used to fabricate solar cells (and these tend to be inexpensive and easily scale-able), many of the high-efficiency devices have been fabricated using vacuum-based techniques since it is easier to control processes in vacuum at fairly low cost.
Good question! Different cells are useful for different applications. For example, where weight and size are a major issue and cost is less important, high-efficiency multijunction or GaAs cells are useful. On earth, the critical metric tends to be cost per watt of electricity generated, although in some cases, area or aesthetics (how it looks)/flexibility (what shapes does it come in, how can it be installed, how easy is it to add extra area) become important. Different companies use different techniques to make their solar modules, so actual module efficiencies often vary. So far, companies using a variety of different technologies, such as CdTe, GaAs, silicon, and CIGS, have been or are starting to be successful.
Multijunction: These cells are fairly expensive to produce. They have multiple p-n junctions (the basic structure of a solar cell) stacked on top of each other designed in such a way that you can get more energy from light produced by the solar spectrum than is possible using a single cell. The junctions will have different band gaps to make this possible. In many structures, cells are stacked in series with tunnel junctions in between to allow current to flow through the entire stack monolithically.
Concentrator: This can be applied to a variety of different technologies. Mirrors and lenses are used to concentrate light on a high-efficiency solar cell in order to increase the amount of light hitting the high-efficiency cell, thus allowing you to produce more energy in a smaller area. These cells, practically, would only be useful in areas with a lot of direct sunlight and are not practical for roof-top applications (heat dispersal is a major issue).
GaAs: Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a direct band gap semiconductor that is used in high-efficiency solar cells. It historically has had the best performance and reliability, although it tends to be expensive. As such, it is often used in satellites, military, and space applications. Cells can be lightweight and small (even portable or, recently, flexible). Recently, however, thin-film GaAs production costs have come down, although they are still more expensive than silicon or other thin film technologies like CdTe.
Silicon (Si): Technologies based on the element Si have been able to piggyback off developments in the microelectronics industry (same material) to deliver somewhat low-cost energy with fairly high-efficiency. It is an indirect band gap material, which inherently lowers device efficiencies, but, for an indirect band gap material, it's efficiency is close to optimal. Good feedstock material is widely available and fairly inexpensive due to the semiconductor/microelectronics industry and the material is widely understood. The main drawback is the cost; it is very energy-intensive and expensive to purify the Si to a point good enough for high-efficiency cells and grow the Si into single crystalline wafers. Multicrystalline and thin-film crystal solar cell structures (and actions of international political leaders) have lowered the cost of this technology significantly to the point that it is the most common solar-cell material. However, these technologies do not have diminished, though still competitive performance. For electronics applications, it is widely stated in the industry, "never bet against silicon."
CdTe: CdTe solar cells are a thin-film solar cell technology (the width of the cell is smaller than a human hair). These cells are easily and inexpensively manufactured and have typical module efficiencies on par with to slightly less than silicon-based thin film and multicrystalline modules. The main benefit is the low cost and fairly forgiving process. The material is less effected by common defects, so it can be made inexpensively. Of minor concern is the toxicity of the cadmium, although the cadmium is securely bound to the tellurium and is further protected from accidental release without significant effects on cost. It is actually a fairly safe way of disposing of Cd waste from other processes. Because of these waste streams and the small amount needed per module, CdTe modules are among if not the most inexpensive cells on the market in terms of cost per watt. Of larger concern is the amount of Cd and Te present on the planet. There are currently not enough known deposits to fulfill the world's current energy needs, so this will eventually cause the price of raw materials to rise, raising module prices.
CIGS: Many people in our group research this material. It is just beginning to be commercialized and is projected to be another low-cost thin film technology with slightly more potential than CdTe. There are fewer abundance or toxicity concerns compared to CdTe, although competition with the microelectronics industry (think transparent touch screens on your cell phones) for In and Ga might raise prices in the future. They need less encapsulation and can be made on flexible substrates while retaining a high efficiency.
Amorphous Si:H: This is a technology in which thin films of silicon are deposited in such a way that there is little crystal ordering (hence, amorphous). This leads to a lot of dangling bonds in the silicon, so hydrogen is used to passivate these bonds. Instead of a true electronic band gap (energies where you can't have charge because of physics), you have a gap of energy states in which it is difficult for charge carriers to move (hence, a mobility gap). These materials have low efficiencies, although they are inexpensive to produce. They do out-perform all organic or dye-sensitized cells and are a baseline for comparing technologies. They also have some issues with degradation over time in sunlight.
Dye-sensitized cells: Dye-sensitized cells are solar cells in which electron and hole transport are localized into different spatial areas. These are an inexpensive, yet low-efficiency technology that, nonetheless, could eventually be competitive due to their low cost per watt. When light comes in, it excites carriers in a dye molecule. The electron is transported to TiO2 particles that form a scaffold. For charge neutrality, the electrolyte is then reduced. They can be somewhat flexible or semi-transparent. They perform well in low-light conditions with indirect sunlight. The Achilles heels of these are the inability of removing expensive catalyst materials like Pt or Ru, the liquid electrolyte, and the stability of the dye under UV light. The electrolyte contains toxic volatile organic compounds and can freeze or expand with temperature, making encapsulation difficult.
Perovskite cells:Check out the previous post to learn more! The new kids on the block, these cells can have extremely high efficiency and can be made inexpensively, although they have some major degradation and stability issues.
Organic cells: Organic solar cells use organic semiconducting materials instead of inorganic semiconducting materials. They have issues with UV degradation and charge separation (it is very easy for electron-hole pairs to recombine compared to separating the charges). Still, they would be a good low-cost option if their efficiencies could be improved. They also tend to degrade with water.
CZTSSe cells: This is the technology that this collaboration studies. All elements (Cu, Zn, Sn, and S, with optional Se) in this technology are widely available, inexpensive, and (excepting Se), non-toxic. It has been shown to tolerate inexpensive processing conditions with surprisingly high efficiencies (record cells have been made using solution-based processing, which is notoriously difficult to control compared to vacuum-based counterparts). The major issue with these seem to be the efficiency. These are also relatively new kids on the block, so only time will tell how CZTSSe cells will fair, but there seem to be some issues with defects and secondary phases that need to be addressed. Most of the advances to-date have been made by assuming that it is similar to CIGS, so a more thorough understanding of this materials system is required, including investigations into chemistries that may reduce the effects or abundance of problematic defects. If these efficiency/defect issues can be overcome, these cells might represent a lower, more-stable cost CIGS-like cell. However, module and cell efficiencies need to improve before this happens. They might be good on flexible substrates and for a wide variety of other applications, although GaAs will always out-perform it if cost were not an issue.
Quantum Dot cells: Tiny (nm-scale) blobs of material are deposited on a substrate. The size of the blob determines its band gap and, therefore, the energies of light that it would absorb. These cells are particularly interesting for multi-junction cells, since you can tune the band gap easily using a single concept/material. Quantum dots are easy to make and could be easily scaled up in a commercial operation. Thus, they could be inexpensive, depending on the material and process, but the efficiency would need to be improved for them to be competitive. They, historically, have had issues oxidizing or reacting with air.
Perovskite solar cells are a recent phenomenon. They've experienced an unprecendented rise in record cell efficiency and seem to naturally have fewer issues with defects than many other competing technologies. They also seem amenable to low-cost production techniques. That being said, many issues need to be overcome in order for them to be commercialized.
"Perovskite unit cell" by Sevhab - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Perovskite_unit_cell.png#/media/File:Perovskite_unit_cell.png
Perovskites are based around the perovskite crystal structure, as shown above. This structure is repeated in all directions to form a crystal. Unfortunately, most of the high-performance cells contain lead but, since these are thin films, the amount of lead is pretty small and it is (relatively) safely stored beneath protective coatings. The word "halogen" refers to atoms in the second to last (17th, or 7A) column in the Periodic Table including F, Cl, Br, I, and At. In many of these cells, the halogen used is usually iodine (I), although chlorine (Cl) and bromine (Br) are also common. Methylammonium is a small organic ion.
This perovskite material is the part of the cell that absorbs the light. Electron and hole transport layers on either side of this material selectively remove charge carriers that have been created when light is absorbed. Perovskite solar cells have a ways to go before becoming a marketable product. Solar cells on the market today have 25+ year warranties. These perovskite cells currently have issues with durability. Presently, they decompose when exposed to water, including water vapor in the air, so careful sealing is required (they actually turn yellow). Furthermore, when held under conditions similar to those of device operation (constant forward bias), the ions start to move and collect at either side of the device, causing performance degradation. The internal field cancels the field created by the light-induced field. Below is a plot of J-V curves taken with different voltage sweep rates. You can see that there are serious reproducibility issues under conditions useful for actual solar cell use.
W. Tress et al., Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, 8, 995-1004. The curve on the left represents actual J-V outputs, whereas the curve on the right shows J-V outputs normalized at -0.2 V. You can see the hysteresis in these curves. Hysteresis means that the curve made by varying the x-axis in one direction is different from the curve made by varying the x-axis in another direction.
These cells need to be more durable in order to be practical. While promising, more research is needed to get them to this point. They do represent a promising technology that definitely deserve the hype and excitement!
Excellent question! Research is useless if it isn't be communicated.
Researchers tell people about their research in a variety of ways. This blog is geared towards the general public and talks about how research is done. Group members also do a variety of other outreach and communication activities so you can all see what research is like in the real world.
We also communicate our research to the broader research community. We speak and present posters at conferences, discussing our work with other researchers. We also publish our work in academic journals. It is these publications that are the most important, since other researchers also review these works before they are published to make sure that everything is good. These journals are able to be referenced all over the world and are recognized as being trustworthy research that can be confidently referenced in the future.
The phrase "publish or perish" refers to life as an academic researcher, specifically those journal publications. Just as any worker is judged by his or her work, scientists are judged on their work. This performance is used to determine who will get funding to do more research and is used to determine which researchers gain tenure and advance, a position in which faculty have improved job security and more intellectual freedom. Researchers are judged by their publications, both the quality and quantity. Research institutions (such as universities) like to see that their researchers are leaders within their fields and driving thought forward.
You may notice the NSF logo on our blog. That stands for the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation funds the research that we do. They are a government organization that funds a large portion of federally-supported basic research. Basic research is important because it provides the fundamentals from which technologies are made. For example, without Michael Faraday's fundamental research into electricity and magnetism, we wouldn't have the electric motor and a wide variety of electric and/or magnetic appliances. We also wouldn't have cell phones and the entire telecommunications industry. Einstein also did fundamental, state-sponsored research that has fed into a wide variety of disciplines including the computer that you use to read this website. In order for companies to put money into developing a product, there first needs to be basic research to give them a reason to put money in a given direction. Without basic research, there is no fundamentally new technology. At the same time, basic research tends to be a high-risk/high-reward scenario. Not all basic research pays off and we generally do not know at the onset what will pay off and what will not.
If you are interested in learning more about the NSF, check out their Tumblr, facebook, or website.
Periodically, science stories hit the news. Universities have PR departments churning out press releases (articles about current research). Researchers also must publish their findings in scientific journals (this is what is meant with the phrase "publish or perish"). In order to get funding, scientists need to communicate the value of their work to the public.
We see these stories in the news, get excited, and most of the time, nothing comes of it. Why?
There are a variety of reasons. There is an entire subset of science that focuses on "proofs of concept". The systems described in these studies aren't necessarily ready for commercialization. For example, lead-based piezoelectric materials perform great and could do a lot of good if we could put materials with similar piezoelectric properties in the human body. Unfortunately, they contain lead, a poison. A recent article in Time magazine discussed a method of turning solar energy into liquid fuel. Unfortunately, the cell described was only ~1 % efficient. Since commercial solar cells are often ~10-20 % efficient, this technology is nowhere near ready for prime time. The scientists state this. For transportation uses, it would be nice to have liquid transportation fuel (quicker re-fueling, large volume and mass energy densities), so it is seeking a worthy goal and, for technology using bacteria to produce fuel, it is a major step forward.That being said, there is a long way to go. As it currently stands, it is more difficult to see how this technology will catch up to solar cell with battery technologies. It captures the imagination and could play a role in the future. In the image above from Bell Laboratories of the 1950s, solar cells were a similarly raw technology not ready for commercialization. They have only recently became competitive with fossil fuels in many areas. No one knows what the future will bring. Even technologies that do not make it can spur on other technologies and innovations. For example, research into conducting polymers and dye-sensitized solar cells has really helped research into perovskite solar cells. Many technologies that "don't make it" benefit the development of still other technologies, either by capturing the imagination of future and current researchers or by adding to facts and data known. Somehow, an interest in cosmology when I was 10 led to me now studying materials that are useful for engineers here on Earth. While the real-world benefits of cosmology are not readily apparent outside of a science fiction, the ability of the field to inspire researchers and get people thinking of new and creative things cannot be discounted and really is an asset to the scientific community.
As a kid, I always enjoyed building things and seeing how things worked. I also had major softball and basketball obsessions. Some of my scientist friends grew up with a love of photography, music, or dance. We all had mentors and role models (some more official than others) who nurtured our curiosity and guided our interests. For a period of time, I was obsessed with MacGyver, a tv show in which the Angus MacGyver, a freelancer, gets all sorts of people out of extreme situations using only the items around him (duct tape, a swiss army knife, a shoe string, and his wits). It was an adventure show that featured creative problem solving.
It looks like they are trying to create a new MacGyver-like show to highlight the exciting things that can be done with a science and engineering background. Check out the website! Pitch an idea for the new show!
Who are some of your heroes and role models? How did you get interested in science and engineering?
Check out this link to learn about Topaz Solar Farms, the newly-created largest solar farm in the world, created by First Solar! The solar cells used in this are based on CdTe, another thin-film solar cell technology. This farm is designed to deliver 550 MW of power to the grid.
Excellent question! In my experience, English is generally used as a common language. In the past, German and Latin have served this purpose. However, this system is not perfect--think of all the ways grammar can be abused with humorous consequences.
There are definitely times when there is not one language that is common to everybody, although those times are relatively rare. More commonly, speakers can imperfectly understand each other. For example, if you said, "What's up?", a non-native English speaker might look at you a bit funny. A non-native speaker may believe that you are literally asking what the words of that question indicate. A good friend has a funny story about the word "vowels" being mixed up with the word "bowels" to humorous effect.
Research is "written up" in journals. There is often a real problem with good papers in journals written in languages other than English not getting the attention that they deserve because of the language barrier. While most research groups are fairly international (and therefore have some understanding of several languages), translations are often needed. Many journals are translated into other languages. At universities, it is fairly easy to get a librarian or someone in the language department to translate a paper (or you can use Google Translate). Still, it is good to have an understanding of multiple languages to be able to communicate with the authors of important papers in your field who may speak limited English (although they may speak another language like Russian, Japanese, or Chinese almost natively).
Math is a language that is common to every scientist, contrary to the picture above (It looks and works the same in every country and the symbols mean the same things, too--it's really the universal language and good for making all sorts of friends from all over (for example, your computer is doing binary arithmetic)). I once had a professor who tended to hand out notes in a variety of languages, telling us to learn from the math (I think he was also trying to encourage us to learn German and French). When all else fails, many ideas can be communicated via a combination of creative miming and and math.
