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Solar Panel Efficiency Improvements Mimicking Giant Clam Algae · How To Protect The Ocean

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  What if I told you that giant clams can help solar
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  panels be more efficient? Imagine that! A
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  clam, a thing that sits in the ocean, has beautiful colors
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  around it. It has purple, blue, green,
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  yellow, like just very, very bright fluorescent colors.
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  Stands could be like four meters wide, four meters long, however you
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  want to measure it. Looking amazing. And I'm telling you
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  that this clam can actually help solar
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  panels become more efficient and help in the increase of renewable energy to
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  be able to meet our energy needs globally. What if I
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  told you that? Would you believe me? I wouldn't, at first I'd
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  be like, no, I don't think so. I don't see the connection, but it has to do with algae
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  that sits in these clams that allows it to absorb sunlight
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  and allows the algae that actually uses the sunlight
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  to be able to flourish. And that's going to help the way that it's arranged. That's
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  going to help the solar panels become more efficient. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of
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  the how to protect the ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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  your host, Andrew Luan. This is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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  you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a
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  so forth. It's a lot of fun. Check that out. Speak up for
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  blue dot com forward slash newsletter. Let's talk about clams right now.
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  Now, this is probably not the clams that you're thinking about, not the edible clams that
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  you would get on a plate when you go to a seafood restaurant and you pay a lot of money for or
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  you go to your seafood dealer or your seafood supermarket and
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  you're like, hey, you know what? I want clams. You get these little clams that come
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  in and you eat them and they're delicious. And especially if they're grown sustainably,
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  they're very good. This is a different type of clam. This is like one of my favorite species
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  of all time. I'm a big invertebrate guy. I'm not sure if you've noticed that cuttlefish
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  are big thing of octopus. I'm very interested in these
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  types of species. They really make me, they make
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  me happy. They make me happy. And clams, giant
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  clams, are really important in coral reef areas, especially
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  in the Southeast Pacific. These things are massive. These things are not
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  only live animals, but they also act
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  as, in the picture that I'm going to show you, act as a coral reef.
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  They have corals living on their shell. They're a hard shell coral, they require
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  calcium, and they have this fleshy inside that
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  shows these beautiful colors that kind of come out. So
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  as the clam opens during the day, and when it's
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  healthy, it'll come out with this like soft tissue and it'll just
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  kind of, it almost looks like a flower, but it's like this neon blue,
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  green, purple, yellow, different
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  types of colors that just kind of show. And what
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  it does is it actually sits there and it grabs, it does two things. One
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  is it grabs sunlight. and this is what we're going
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  to be focusing on today but it grabs sunlight but it also filters in
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  other organisms like filters in plankton and to eat and
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  it goes through a siphon and it comes out and so it helps clean the
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  water now i used to be a marine aquarium hobbyist i
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  loved being a marine i loved having the reef in my
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  house, like having an aquarium. I don't do it anymore because I can't spend
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  as much time. I also worry about importing animals
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  and where they're coming from and so forth. It became really difficult. I
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  felt bad if something died and so I stopped doing
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  it. However, one of the things I used to fall in love with was giant clams.
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  Giant clams were the best. They're still the best there I would love to see if
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  I've never actually snorkeled in the southeast southeast Pacific where
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  they're found I would love to go see them. They would be an amazing You
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  know bucket list item for me to go see I'm not sure about
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  you I'd love to hear your bucket list item in the comments below but these things
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  are gorgeous and I remember having them in a
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  tank on part of as part of my coral reef and
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  I used to have to feed it, you know, almost like by a like a little pipette
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  and you'd have to feed it plankton and And so I'd grow my own plankton, or
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  I'd buy plankton that was grown from a lab. And I would go in, and
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  I would squirt it in. I'd have to directly squirt it in. These are not easy
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  species to take care of. If you are a marine aquarium hobbyist,
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  you need to be almost in the advanced category to be able to take care of them properly to
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  make sure they're healthy. You need the right lighting, and you need the
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  right plankton to actually feed them. they will clear up
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  your tank especially when you first get them that's the one really realize when
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  you first get a coral reef tank and you get these types of
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  corals that really siphon in and these clams that really siphon in
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  and take out all the plankton in in their water if you have Cloudy
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  water that has a lot of organisms in it that will kind
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  of clear up that water It's really kind of cool to see plus it brings in
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  more sunlight So if you have lights It'll bring in more light to the
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  corals as well as the clams now the way that clams work as
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  I mentioned before is you feed them? Manually with plankton or
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  they use sunlight actually both they use sunlight they absorb sunlight so
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  that there's zoanthellae the their actual algae that cells that
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  actually live within the soft tissue of the clam grab
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  light to allow those algae to live and probably bring off some
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  calcium, build up their calcium shell. So they need that
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  light. To be able to absorb that light, they need
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  to kind of go out of their shell, open up their shell, and that soft
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  tissue gets it. And that's why you see the colors that you
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  actually see in these giant clams. If these organisms aren't
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  there, if this algae is not there, the species will eventually die.
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  It's kind of like a bleaching coral. in a way, but the tissue will deteriorate, the
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  clam will die, and it won't be able to eat anymore, it won't be able to function. The interesting part
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  of this is getting into the solar panels. Solar panels right now are,
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  you worry about the efficiency. I think, according to this article that
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  I found in Animals Around the Globe, I think the efficiency was
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  about... 60 some odd percent, I
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  think is what it is. 67% not the best efficiency, but
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  not terrible. The interesting thing is the corals only reflect
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  5% of that light away from the organism. So that means it
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  absorbs 95% of the light. So the efficiency is a lot
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  better increased by 30% than the, than the
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  solar panels that are now the common solar panels that you have now. Now imagine if
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  you can duplicate the efficiency in the clam, the
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  giant clam, and put it in a solar panel where you can get more from
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  each solar panel. Wouldn't that make it a lot better? Especially
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  when we're trying to solve our energy crisis, especially when
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  we're trying to divest our infrastructure of
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  fossil fuels. This would be really cool. So the way that
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  they looked at it, they did like a lab analysis. They looked at how the
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  algae were arranged within the fleshy tissue of
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  the giant clam. They were arranged in a line. And that
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  made it a lot easier to be able to absorb
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  the sunlight. Then once they can absorb the sunlight, they use
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  that sunlight and they incorporate it into the body and they feed off of it
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  and so forth. They use photosynthesis. Imagine if you're able to duplicate that
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  formation and put it on solar panels. Once you're able
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  to do that, the solar panels are able to thrive. They're able to increase their
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  efficiency. The other thing that they're looking at is the type of algae that's there. Are
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  they optimal for doing this? Can they
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  be replicated into solar panels to make sure
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  that the, The compounds that actually absorb the light
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  from the algae cells, can they be duplicated and can they be added to
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  solar panels to increase the efficiency of these solar panels? Here's
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  the kicker. We found this out from a giant clam. I
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  asked you before if I said that we can increase the efficiency of solar panels by
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  looking at giant clams. I asked you if you would believe me. Some of
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  you are probably like, no, I don't even know what this guy's talking about. This is crazy talk.
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  I thought the same thing. But imagine now if we didn't have giant
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  clams, if we didn't take care of our coral reefs properly, and we didn't know about
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  these giant clams. This is why we are, like, scientists are always
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  talking about protecting biodiversity. Protecting as many animals
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  as possible, because you never know what we're going to learn from these animals.
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  Like, we protect sharks not only because they're an apex predator and
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  they regulate the food web, but also because they have a lot of properties that
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  have helped us in cancer research. These animals are important
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  to our own health. We've looked at how animals regenerate, like starfish,
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  like corals, and so forth, and we looked at the compounds in there and how we
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  can help in terms of growing cells, in
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  terms of growing organs. There are a lot of different things that you
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  can get from the ocean that will help us in pharmaceuticals, we
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  know horseshoe crabs have this like coagulant in
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  their blood that they're that's used for vaccines there's a lot
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  of things that benefit us that are in the ocean
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  but if we don't protect biodiversity we don't know
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  what we're going to miss and you're probably like well Well, yeah, well, if you don't know we're gonna miss what we don't
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  then we don't know what we're gonna miss It's no big deal. What if we can cure the next big
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  disease that comes in? What if we can cure more cancers? What if we can cure
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  more diseases that affect us or or be able to
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  you know Fortify our vaccines and our other medicines that
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  will help us in in recovering from these different diseases
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  that we face, whether they be new diseases or whether they're old diseases. The
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  modern medicine is based off of what we notice and
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  observe and replicate from nature. Ocean has
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  a lot of biodiversity. We are doing a very terrible job
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  in protecting that biodiversity because every time we talk about biodiversity, people are like, ah,
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  whatever. it has nothing to do with me at
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  least with climate change when we say we got to protect the ocean because it helps
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  us regulate climate change and reduce climate change at least
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  we know there's like a direct effect if we reduce climate change through
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  the ocean or protect the ocean to help reduce climate change we know that we
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  can help and we want to Make sure there's enough algae in the water. We want
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  to make sure the water quality is good enough. We want to make sure that we're protecting
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  species and protecting habitats that allow us to develop and
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  protect these natural processes that allow carbon dioxide
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  absorption and methane absorption and not the release of
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  these greenhouse gases. That is a little easier to understand
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  for people to say, hey, you know what? Yeah, we need the ocean. It's every second
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  breath is because of the ocean. But a lot of times when it comes to biodiversity, I
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  see people, they just glaze over. You know, there's like, I just don't get it. Like,
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  yeah, we want to protect species. We want to make sure that the animals are safe. They're well for
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  the animals are good and we protect them. But what do we really need
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  them for? Like if we lose the species, is it that big of a deal? Who knows? Right.
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  I think it's a big deal just to lose a species. And the extinction rate of
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  species is crazy. But we still need to protect everything, because we
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  don't know what we're missing. We don't know what we're going to miss out on. The next species that
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  goes extinct could save part of humankind. And I know some
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  of you are just like, well, yeah, but there's too much of us anyway. But we still need to help people.
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  It's still in our blood. It's still what we do as a human species, help
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  as many people as possible. To do that, we need to protect biodiversity, like
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  giant clams. Protect those species because they will help us become
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  more efficient in absorbing light and absorbing solar energy
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  to help our energy needs and help divest us away from
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  fossil fuels, dirty fossils like coal, oil, gas, all that kind of
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  stuff, and get us back into renewable energy, get us more sustainable, and
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  still be able to fill the energy needs of
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  this today's world because we need a lot of
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  energy. And so biodiversity is a big deal. Protecting biodiversity is
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  a big deal. It should be important to you. It's important to me. It should be important to
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  everybody. And we need to get that across by highlighting
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  stories like this. Giant clams are extremely important.
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  And so I wanted to highlight it with you. I wanted to highlight the
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  fact that we need to protect biodiversity and that giant clams are
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  super cool and you need to know about them if you haven't known about them
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  before. And if you're ever in the Southeast Pacific and you're able to
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  dive and snorkel or snorkel on these animals or within
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  these animals, don't touch them, they're very sensitive, but be able to see them, I
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  hope you do because that is on my bucket list and I hope it's
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  on yours as well, at least now anyway. But love to hear your
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  thoughts on these giant clams and how they can make solar panels more efficient.
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  The story, I'd love to hear your thoughts on solar panels. And if
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  you're an engineer or something like that, you want to talk more about solar panels and how they can
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  help the ocean, please feel free to reach out to me at
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  HowToProtectTheOcean. That's all one word, HowToProtectTheOcean on Instagram. But
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  don't forget, you can follow us, subscribe to us
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  on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, any
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  of your favorite podcast apps, you can get access to us just by
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  subscribing or following and hitting that notification bell. And I
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  want to thank you for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the
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  ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time