TechStuff Classic: How Solar Towers Work

How will we send memes when the world ends? This week, Oz and Karah recap the first ever World Humanoid Robot Games – the Olympics for Androids. Then, Oz explains why the US might be putting secret tracking devices inside shipments of advanced microchips. Karah explains a texting ... Show More

This week we go on a romantic getaway for people who are in love with AI. Karah talks with Sam Apple, an author and journalist who wrote an article for Wired about a couples retreat he organized for people with AI companions. We’ll discuss how the weekend unfolded, whether AI rom ... Show More

Is technology actually good for older people? This week, Oz and Karah explore the French palace of Versailles by talking to a statue-turned-chatbot. Then, Oz gives an update on Apple’s new make-or-break Siri overhaul. Karah weighs whether everyday use of technology is rotting our ... Show More

Perovskites are cheap, abundant photovoltaic materials that some have hailed as the future of green energy.Around the world, companies are layering perovskites on top of traditional silicon to develop so-called tandem solar cells that some think could deliver at least 20% more po ... Show More

Today, solar’s dominance feels inevitable. But in 1979, when Neville Williams started promoting the industry at the Department of Energy, it felt like a far-off dream. That didn’t stop the early pioneers from thinking big and pushing the government to invest in the early technolo ... Show More

A new kind of solar cell - made by drying a special liquid on a surface - is being heralded as a revolution in solar power. The minerals known as perovskites were discovered more than 150 years ago. More recently, their crystal structure has been copied using other materials and ... Show More

As expected, 2013 was yet another record year for solar in the U.S. With 5.1 gigawatts of PV and CSP coming online, the solar industry was the second largest provider of electricity capacity behind natural gas. But how long will it continue? With a tax credit expiration looming, ... Show More

This year, GTM Research is forecasting that 66 gigawatts of PV capacity will be installed around the world -- a 21 percent increase over last year. But next year, capacity will only expand by 4 percent. In fact, without some of the top markets like India, America and China, the g ... Show More

This week, we finally left behind a destructive regime that thwarted environmental policy at every turn. We exchanged it for a government putting climate experts and clean-energy doers in its highest ranks in a way that no prior administration has done before.What comes next?Firs ... Show More

Daniel and Kelly talk about how to keep solar panels bright and powerful when they far away on a dusty planet.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

We are at the height of the Sun's activity in its eleven year cycle, known to astronomers as the solar maximum. This means that over the next several months there's going to be a lot of solar activity. It's got us thinking back to 1859. That's when astronomer Richard Carrington w ... Show More

On a tous entendu cette critique fustigeant que les énergies renouvelables, notamment l'éolien et le solaire, étaient beaucoup trop coûteux à produire pour les bénéfices qu’ils apportent au final. Cette idée reçue pourrait bientôt être révolue puisque d'après le dernier rapport d ... Show More