HokieTalks: Do Plants Hold the Key to Our Energy Future?

[00:00:05] >> One of the things that I think is really important that we understand is that in one and a half hours enough solar energy hits your surface to power all human activity for the entire year right so let's think about that right in the time it's going to take us on the field to crush William and Mary. [00:00:26] We can power generators that we can have tailgates all season long we can have enough energy to power all the lights and all of our buildings across the world we can power all of our manufacturing plants so all of human activity could be handled with one and a half hours of solar radiation on the Earth planet so it's pretty awesome. [00:00:51] And so if you think about the potential that solar energy has you might say why don't we do it now. I mean that sounds really good why are we actually utilizing solar energy now and that comes down to two big issues one cost and two storage right and so Virginia Tech researchers that span from the College of Science to the College of Engineering to the College of Agriculture are actually working on solutions to these two remaining barriers to the widespread implementation of solar energy so let's talk a little bit about the barriers cost. [00:01:30] Where the bill payer is in the room. Right advancement folks did you catch that OK Eric at no time did. Any of you use electric heat. Really what's your what's your bill say per month what your bill average bill. So about four hundred dollars OK OK So about four hundred dolla