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E13 Solar 101, Sun · Two Tools, No Clue

• Jeidan and Anna: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Two Tools No Clue Podcast. I'm Anna. And I'm Jaden. And today we have no clue. About solar power. How much sun is too much sun? Too much sun? Didn't know that was a thing in solar power. It's not. I thought it was funny. So yeah, we have no clue, but we're gonna find out together. But first Anna, what do we have going on around the homestead? Well, if you're watching YouTube you'll notice that our plant is different. Our mascot is getting watered because I have forgotten to water it for probably about three weeks now because that's how long I've been at my new job and killing it. I'm trying my best to learn. names of people, names of animals, just like how to do the job. So it's just been craziness in my mind and my plants are suffering because of it. So in our Peace Lily's place we have a nice I think this is an Easter cactus. Yep. Sometimes she sports very vibrant pink flowers. Yeah she doesn't like her new spot. Well she likes she's usually right by my side here. And that's where she's produced the most flowers, but in her new spot she's not super happy. She's got a little bunch of new ones coming in though, so that's a good sign. Yeah. Larry's been chewing on her. Yeah, he's silly. And then, so I guess some other news is, so as you all know, we have a dumb amount of blueberry bushes. and obviously the homestead shed didn't go to plan this year like we thought because of all the wasps. but I did some canvassing on my vacation to try and find some people to buy our blueberries. And I actually was able to link up with our local farm stand. it's a family owned farm here in our our town. And yeah, he was more than excited to take the blueberries. So we've been selling them to the buy the flat. and it's been pretty cool. I'm very proud of us. Yeah. Way more lucrative to do it that way than what we were doing at the farmers market. Yeah. It's already sold way more. Driving around town selling pints of blueberries. people love it, but my gas tank did not. Yeah. So yeah. How many pounds do you think you've sold? So far. Pounds, yikes. I don't know. I know that we have successfully given him fifteen flats. Wow. Which has twelve pints in it each. So we've done quite a bit. That's crazy. So it's pretty pretty cool. Yeah, after every harvest, his mom likes to weigh the berries to see how how many pounds we pick. That's why it's Asking how many pounds we've seen. I think we're at like a hundred and seventy pounds so far. Picked? Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. And like I think half of it is what we've sold 'cause we have a bunch frozen too. Yeah. But yeah. So that's been pretty exciting. I was pretty proud of myself and just us in general for sticking to it and also being able to consistently supply the stand. Everybody loves blueberry, so it's been working out for all of us. Unfortunately the season is coming to a But the wasps are coming in. Yeah. At least we know what to do for next year now. Yeah. So that's pretty awesome. Get a quicker head start on that. So yeah, that's all we really got going on for now. I guess now I'll just start talking about solar power. Ooh. So in today's episode I'm gonna be answering a variety of questions that people usually have about solar energy. we're first gonna start off by figuring out what solar energy is and I will do my best to explain the different ways that we capture it from the sun. So yeah. and then I'll kinda break down just the random things that are also considered solar energy that I didn't really think of. But it's everywhere, all the time. Our houses, how our houses are built. So it's pretty cool. Interesting. Yeah. so I used two different sources off of this for this episode, mainly because of like the different wording that they were using throughout the articles. I was trying to keep it one manageable for me and then also easy for me to explain. Yeah. so I do recommend watching the little solar power one one YouTube video that I put up there. definitely made for like educational purposes for like younger kids, but it was very helpful. and it helped me both understand and realize a lot of things that I was missing about about solar energy, I guess. So definitely check it out. the show notes. It'll be in the show notes. And then another article I used was from NRDC.org. It was that was also called solar power 101. So yeah, just wanted to say that here. so to define solar energy, I'm gonna use a quote from that article I just stated. So solar energy refers to the electrical or thermal energy that is created from solar radiation, aka the power of the sun. Solar energy is also called solar power, or even just solar for short. so I'll probably be saying a lot of different things like that, but it's all the same. it is the energy that we're getting from the sun that we're capturing and and harnessing in some cases. so they continue on to explain there are two main types of solar energy. One is called photovoltaic power, aka P V, which are more formally known to us as solar panels. okay. and then thermal power. Both utilize sunlight as a fuel, but they harness it in different ways. So basically the way that we use the power is what kind of differentiates the thermal from the electric. Gotcha. And we'll we'll get into that. so the two different ways we collect solar energy could save the world of both fossil fuels. Like, yes, fossil fuels are great. it took some genius men and women to figure out how we could use those things just like solar energy. But obviously there's negative impacts to fossil fuels being used all the time. One of the main reasons is our oxygen levels and the carbon dioxide that we're getting and producing already in the planet. That's just adding to it. whereas solar energy it it doesn't produce anything like that. it's just a heat source, really. Right. Clean energy. Yes. And then it also, you know, will definitely save you a few dollars in your utility bills, which is what I'm hoping we'll get to soon. the cost of installing solar panels to your home can be actually very expensive. And that's why a lot of people don't start off doing it. average in our state, we're in New Hampshire. It's about like i it depends if you're getting it on your roof, which I don't recommend. Don't do that. don't mess with the integrity of your house. Like that's crazy. Is that why just the weight of the system is why people don't recommend that? Yeah. And but it also just there's a lot of reasons, but it's just not it's not good mainly for the integrity of your home. It's cheaper to install them there because you don't end up having to have all these huge frames and stuff like that. So if you're looking at solar on your on top of your roof in our state, it can go anywhere between like fifteen thousand dollars to twenty-five thousand dollars. If you're going for something that isn't on your roof, which is what we're looking towards, it can go anywhere up to like forty thousand dollars to install, just depending on how many panels you want slash need. and that is why a lot of people will just go with roof programs. a lot of the reasons you'll see rooftop solar in the area is because there are programs set up through electric companies and that's the cheapest way to put it onto the roof. So that's what they offer. and there's like meter banking and meter banking you you not only get the energy for your house but you also kinda get a credit, an electrical credit for providing more. A lot of those systems though, if you're set up on a system like that, like EverSource has one, for example, in our area, we use Eversource. those typical systems, if the power goes out, your power still goes out. really? because most of those systems don't come with a banking system. So you would have to still install a banking system so the bank to kind of get that credit. For like the the company. And then there's off grid systems. And that typically is involving a banking system and that's what I would want for us. you you're less likely to get credits unless there's like a federal or state program, which in this case right now there's not, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. Is it like all roof panels don't come with a banking system and all no not necessarily. It's just cheaper to install it that way. So a lot of the meter banking programs, if it comes with a we're gonna install this for you. It's cheaper for the company to put it up that way. So that's w the way they're gonna do it basically. And they probably get more out of you. Yeah. In some cases, yeah, for sure. so when you think of solar power, what do you think of? Think of those fields in Japan where it's like Mickey Mouse shaped. You know what I mean? And it's just like fields on fields on fields of solar like circular the mirrors ones that you're talking about. Yeah, that l it literally looks like little Mickey Mouse. Maybe that's just Disney in general. That's too funny. But yeah, that's what I think of. And we should be using parking lots. And covering cars with panels. Yeah. In my opinion. That's always what I think of. That's usually what people are thinking of is is solar panels. Like why are they covering our fields? yeah, 'cause that's what I think of. when I'm thinking of stuff like that, I'm thinking of, you know, driving by someone's roof has one on there, at some of like the hospitals. They have them like on top of the parking garages and stuff like that. They have them at my work. There it's called the solar field. Yeah, that's really cool. Walk the dogs through it. That's really cool. Yeah. So like and that's what I think of too. I think of solar farms, which is just like literally when you drive by the the high down the highway, especially on Route ninety one, like you know Yeah, that's what I don't know in Massachusetts, like that's what you see. You just see lines of them. Why are we taking up valuable So and and that's where people are covering it. That's where people get kind of weird about it. But you have to think of that. if that is being utilized correctly, a space like that can sorry could give electricity to a community of like ten thousand people. Yeah. If it was utilized correctly. Often it's not. Often it's just banked and metered by big electric companies. So that's why it doesn't happen. in the YouTube video that I watched, I can't remember where it was. but there's a location, I think it's in Africa somewhere or in Asia. And the amount of sunlight that happens in that one desert, if they put up like not even that many solar panels in there, it could literally harvest enough energy to give the entire planet electricity. Wow. So why aren't we doing that? Because like nobody's growing shit in the desert. Because we're gritty. Because then the electric companies wouldn't make any money. Don't don't get me into Tesla and the free electricity. I know, I'm just saying. Because that will go off. It could it could and should be a thing. And there's so many things that we put prices on things for that shouldn't have prices on them. I think electricity is one of them. And the modern society There's no reason for it. The fact that we bottle up water and sell it for twice the price is insane to me. Instead of just using the water sources in your local communities, yadda yadda yadda yad. Yeah. Instead we're just taking everybody else's water. so y anyway. Anyway. So solar panels are what most people think of and they're actually called, like I said earlier, photovoltaic panels. AKA P V panels for short. They're one of the most popular and the poster child of solar panels. And, you know, even if you don't have one, like I said earlier, you've seen them. You drive by them, you're like, my God, that looks horrible. You know, just things like that. Like I know you guys have seen them, whether you live in the cities, whether you live in the mountains, 'cause even up in the mountainsides, they've got them. You know, they have the off grid living, but then they also have fields in the mountains, like all the Berkshires. There's so many solar panel farms in the Berkshires because those communities do use them. Yeah. Which I think is pretty cool. did you get into the history at all? Like the first solar panel and what that was like? So They have actually been using Not necessarily panels, but mirrors for like thousands of years. To create energy? Yes. To heat water systems was the first way. And they still do it the same way. So like when you were talking about like the Mickey mouse shape things, like I'm thinking of if if if you're looking down like, you know, Birdview, there's these like thermal heating systems that there's like this bulb in the middle, it's like a huge rod thing and it's just a circle of like thousands of mirrors and they all direct to this thing and they heat and it creates steam. And they've been doing that for a very long time. And they still do it. They still use it. It's mainly used in like commercial in like factories and stuff like that. but it's a cleaner way to do things. A little more expensive obviously. but it's not crude oils. Right. So it it they have been doing stuff like that for a while and still do. I just imagine like the first solar panel that someone puts on their house and it's like two feet thick. Yeah, like the old like the old flat screen. Yeah, exactly. Not flat screen what's over there in boxes. so a P V cell contains semiconductor materials. Silicone most commonly, when sunlight which is made up of the tiny bits of energy called photons hit the P V cell, the material absorbs and photons which dislodge the electrons, this movement of electrons creates an electrical current. And that's what happens in your solar panel. so metal conductors on the side of each P V cell then transfer the electricity to the wires and to an inverter, which then comes to us. Whether like it's being stored into your batteries for later use or just straight to your light bulbs. Okay. It's pretty pretty cool. that seems pretty straightforward. Yeah. It's like really not too much to it. And if you think about it, like a lot of things use these things, like even like calculators. Like you know, like the little tiny ones on calculators? Yeah. That's how those things run. And the on and off. Like it's really strange. They don't take batteries? Some of them do, but not all of them. Like there's a lot of calculators that are just little solar panel. things and that's what they are like indoor lights are enough. Yeah. Huh. Mm-hmm. It's weird. That is weird. Yeah. So when solar panels first were introduced they were expensive and really limited to commercial use and and then some residential because like you said, like they were expensive and they were bulky and people weren't thinking, yeah, I'm gonna spend fifty grand pay for half my electricity basically is what they were thinking. Yeah. but now you can purchase solar powered anything really. they even have like mini solar packs that you can fold up and bring camping with you. all ranging to like things to put on the pack of your RVs, things to even install on the side of your sheds and things like that. it's Pretty cool the stuff that we've decided that we can just hey, the sun can power this instead. Yeah. like lawn lights, lawn decorations, you don't have to worry about batteries or plugs for a lot of things now, especially even like some Christmas decorations. there's just a little solar panel attached to it and it turns out. my god, those little guys who dance. Yeah, they're so cute. Yeah. I love those. so yeah, the options now are are pretty crazy. So PV panels are one way and very popular way that we collect the energy from the sun. That is the electrical form. And then the other form is thermal energy. so the definition of thermal energy also comes from the Solar Power 101 article. And they said thermal energy can be used to warm the water for your shower. or more passively maintain a comfortable temperature inside your home. You can even use it to generate electricity at a massive scale. Thermal energy can be collected several ways as well. some more advanced technologies than others. And to help me explain that a little bit more, I'm gonna quote that article one more time. Just as humans first focus sunlight with glass lenses more than twenty seven hundred years ago, concentrated solar thermal power creates electricity using the same basic mechanism. C S P for short. utilizes mirrors to point sunlight into a receiver to heat up a fluid and generate steam. The steam spins the turbines then that creates electricity. CSP systems are utility scale solar plants that are typically built on large swaths of land and can power tens of thousands of homes and businesses. One of the advantages of CSP system is that the fluid can retain the heat for a long time Which is especially handy on cloudy days when C S B systems aren't able to harness as much sunlight. However, the technology is still in limited use and the industry is not expected to grow as much as utility scale P V solar. Gas and coal powered plants also use steam to spin turbines, but with CSP there's no nasty pollution or waste or climate warming emissions like there are from those types of buildings. So there's also forms of solar energy happening around us in our daily lives, and this is called passive solar energy. examples of these are greenhouses, windows, even the blinds on your windows, even different Building materials like concrete, brick and stone, they're all known to hold the energy well. And so that's why they're implemented like so the stone tape theory. Yeah, and this is what I think of. Okay. that should be your mini soda. What? The stone tape theory. yeah. Has nothing to do with solar. No, it's not gonna be my mini soda. so what I always think of is when I was living in Texas for like one whole year, every single building was made of brick. Why? I feel like it has to do with solar. Interesting. 'Cause it does it keeps it on the inside, not the outside, so it keeps it from the opposite. It keeps it cool. Just like clay buildings and stuff like that. Like down in Texas they also had like a lot of clay buildings back in the day and that's 'cause it keeps it cool. 'Cause the earth keeps it like it doesn't retain it. Whereas like, you know up here it makes sense why there's like concrete slabs for like going on top of houses 'cause that also helps retain the heat and the cold. And when there are big brick buildings, there are like ten fireplaces in every room. Yeah. I just I don't know. I don't know. Right now I thought it was pretty cool. so yeah it does. Side note, sorry, when you said that the windows and the blinds like generate their own kind of solar power. It made me think of I saw this post a while ago that where this person was like taking a nap. So they had their blinds closed and it was like the middle of the day, and there was a tiny little pinhole in their blind, and the sun was coming through, and it was like the perfect angle and size hole, and all like everything just fell into place for it to project her neighbor's house onto her wall. Whoa, that's so cool. Which isn't solar, but it's like the sun and windows and blinds doing weird shit. That is really cool. But it's like that's how they did cameras back in the day with with with the little pin print. That is true. So it's just like being a c like it just like made itself into a camera. I think that's pretty cool. But yeah, I didn't even think of stuff like that, honestly. But it is true. you know, it's like when we have really hot days here, we close all the blinds and it does help and you're and I'm always like, This isn't gonna do anything, but it does. Yeah very much does in our home. our house has the sun on it, for like 17 hours of the day. Yeah. Especially during the summertime. so yeah, I thought all that stuff was pretty cool. I guess it's just things that you don't think of. You know, it's like w when you go outside and people who work outside all the time, like they put long sleeves on. Whereas like I go outside if I have a long sleeve on, like I'm gonna die. But really they're doing it right. They have the right types of materials on them. Yeah. For it to be long sleeve to actually benefit them and I prefer long houses too. If I'm going out to if I'm gonna be outside for a while. I don't like wearing sun sunscreen. Yeah, I mean the sun can be intense too. So right now the benefit of getting solar in your home is very much dependent on where you live. I have a random question. Does color affect thermal energy? Like how black absorbs more and white reflects more? Yeah. It's like how my black car is the worst. It's like hor it's like they like utilize color along with mirrors and stuff like that or not. I'm sure they do. They have to because all that adds up, you know what I mean? but yeah, it'll attract it a lot quicker than say white. Yeah. White just reflects off and goes back. Whereas it it absorbs it the darker the colors it is. Has to be the same. You know? So I would never have a black house. Yeah. That's crazy. That's insane. People that have their homes that are dark greys and black, I'm like, are you okay? Like it's hot. I mean I guess in in the wintertime in New England it might be good, but not for the summertime. No no no. So yeah, thanks to our current administration and you know, because the good D J T wait, no, because D T J is a tool bag. You had it right the first thing. Donald Trump Junior. Trump because Donald Trump is an asshole. There are no incentives right now for federal breaks or in our case, even in our good old state of New Hampshire, there's no state rebates right now either. They all got cut in twenty twenty five thanks to our great administration because they love us all so much and they love the planet so much that they decided to cut The clean bill initiative that goes along with solar panels and solar energy and residential homes. The only people that typically are getting tax baked right now. Go figure. The greedy corporations of America. Good for you guys. Make sure you put some solar panels on your AI fucking factories. Yeah, right. but it is still beneficial. So right now, if we were to get it installed, yes. It would be a pretty penny to install it, but they still do have a lot of great solar energy loan programs. so basically what ends up happening is instead of us paying our electric bill for the next five years, we would be paying our solar panel loan off for the next five years. And then after we paid that off, guess what? We still have electric and we don't have to pay that anymore. So, yes, the first few years or first. two to five years depending on what loan you wanna take out. It would be like having an extra car payment, but you wouldn't be paying a l an electric bill at that point. So it would still be reasonable, you know? You wouldn't be paying out of pocket. So there are still a lot of great options. And I'm looking forward to looking into that for us because I've always wanted to have solar panels. Definitely not on top of my roof. we have a tin roof. Never gonna be a thing. I remember when we were looking at the house, I was talking about getting solar and I the the selling agent looked at me and said, This would be a great location for solar, but please do not put it on your roof. And I said, I'm not gonna do that, but thank you for saying that. Some people don't have a choice. Yeah, some people don't have a choice. Thankfully, I think do so. We do. we would just need four to five panels, I think would would be just time to They're pretty big. But you line up in one row and that's it. You know what I mean? Like one thing that goes and like swings from side to side with the sun. That's one panel. Yeah. Yikes. We don't have room for five. But they would be set up. They wouldn't be rotating ones. They'd probably be just ones that slant and they would go right next to each other. Okay. But make a fence out of it. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. so yeah, I'm excited for it. I think it's still beneficial to have, especially if you're a homeowner. Listen. I'll knock on wood just because of the way things are going, but I have faith that the sun isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But your electric bill is only gonna get higher. I'm sure we all shared the same experience of fearing that the sun was gonna explode when we heard that in like a hundred thousand billion years it's gonna explode. And we're all like, my god, that's basically tomorrow. For some reason I really thought you were gonna just plunge right into the fact that that rocket hit the moon recently because that opened up like a new level of fear. Like I'm a nineties kid. Okay. Like I've been afraid of log trailers since the beginning of time for absolutely no reason. And there's just been so many things that have happened to us as a group, as you know, just as nineties kids. That when I saw that, I like laughed at first and then Anna was like, that just unlocked a new fear. And I was like, what are you talking about? I had a little bit of a crisis. She literally was like, Well, the tides. No, no, no. I was like, these fucking billionaires are gonna blow our moon to bits because they're fucking idiots and we're gonna be like, it's literally just gonna get chunked away until all of a sudden we have no moon, which means no tides. Which means and it just like fucking crumbles. And as soon as she said no tides, I was like, I've never thought of that before. Now I have a new fear of how we could all die. Great. Yeah. me too now. Also. but I still I still am hopeful that the sun won't be going anywhere. Yeah. Anytime soon. God only knows at this point. And so yeah, the sun will always be shining down on us and we figured out how to harvest it and not like a evil diabolical way. Also I think is pretty cool because I think that would be When did solar panels become a thing for public consumption? I don't know. Probably like the seventies. Yeah. When people cared about the environment. They tried for a second. And then they were all shipped off to work. Yeah. my goodness. Literally every time any good people make any sort of advancement, there's a war or a pandemic. Straight to jail. Or wait, no, straight to war. I don't know if I've said this on the podcast before, but I have this not really conspiracy, but just observation that everyone was just rearing up and gearin' to go in twenty twenty. Like little people were starting their own businesses, People who are our ages were starting to buy their own houses and really like become people. Yeah, we were trying to move to Colorado. I don't know. a lot of people just seemed to have really big, awesome plans for twenty twenty. And then we all just got the shaft. Literally shut down. Actual shutdown. I'm sure that's happened a thousand times before. i it was just an interesting thing to observe. Especially while we were all just sitting waiting. Yeah. And I mean like some great things came out of the pandemic because people were just sitting and waiting, but a lot of people were like, twenty twenty is the year that I'm gonna open my own business and it was just like shit. Yeah, I feel like it shattered a lot of of dreams for a lot of different generations too. It wasn't just one generation that was affected. Like I feel it really changed Trajectory for a lot of people. Yeah. Whether you were a high school student or college grad or just someone who literally was in a midlife crisis like me. Like what are you doing next? Yeah. Nobody knows. I was very lost during the pandemic. I used to joke about it all the time. I turned 30 during the pandemic. I call it the dirty 30. Thought it was wicked funny. But when I reflect on it, it really it put me back for a second. You know, I remember going back into public. That was hard. And even for someone like me, like I'm half introverted, half extroverted. I always joke if I'm getting paid, I'll be an extrovert. that was hard for me. Yeah. I'm used to just be like, okay, I can click this on, I'm here. Here's, you know, retail Jaden basically. But it was difficult, to do that because your body for almost forgot what it was like to be around humans because we it was forced to be that way. Yeah. Even when you went out into public, public wasn't the same. Public was very much like you stay over there. I think it's interesting because the same thing happened to me, but I had to work throughout the entire pandemic. So 'cause I was an essential worker, I made bread basically. But when we were homeless and I was living in the RV, that was a similar thing. When I went back to work, what is that? I was like, ew, I have to like figure this out again. And be around people and respond to people. Yeah. Even if you don't want to. Yeah. Is a hard was a hard thing for me. It's just like, you're talking to me, like I have to socialize with you right now. So yeah. okay, that was a little side rant, nothing to do about solar, but it's still important. Yeah. So yeah, that was my short take on solar energy. I definitely recommend if you're a homeowner that you get your solar on. as we start to get quotes and figure out what we're doing, we'll keep you updated on our Facebook page and also just on here. Yeah. What do we got for this week in the Farmers Almanac, Inna? Well, today is August 13th. The waxing crescent moon is in It's descending node today. That sounds scary. And gray squirrels have second litters now. So cute. They second poops. Look out for some baby squirrels soon. So cute. Especially on the roads. Go slow. They don't know how to cross the roads yet. And today is the best day to have dental care. That's a new one. Start projects, pick fruit, and harvest above ground crop. Okay. So that's what we got in store for us on this beautiful Thursday. Yeah, go pick your crops and get your teeth checked. Yeah, J Dan. I know, I felt like that was shots fired at me. Yeah. Have to get some stuff done soon that I've been putting off. Yeah. Yeah, you do. I went. I considered it done. But then they're like, you have to come back seven different times. I'm like, this was a setup. Well when you haven't been in seven years. Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. I am grateful for that. But you know, it was pretty horrible. This man had no cavities. Okay, just one rotting tooth though. Like let's not pretend. But yeah, no cavities. Well, thanks for coming and listening to my TED talk about solar. If you want to reach out, please do. But make sure that you give us a follow on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. and TikTok at Two Tools No Clue Podcast. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot com slash two tools no clue. And you can email us at two tools no clue podcast at gmail.com. Heck yeah. Have a great week, everybody. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.