What Will the Solar Cities of the Future Look Like?

[Music] solar punk is a sci-fi futuristic view that sees our world and technology being powered by solar it is a future that is broken away from the fossil-fueled ways of the past and a future that connects humans technology and nature together this video takes a look at the futuristic ways our cities homes and lives will be taken over by solar power everything from cities filled with solar trees to building drones with solar panels and what happens when you add robotics and ai to solar panels will they be able to start thinking for themselves and how will that change the solar movement what other ways are people building solar farms as they move beyond land and build floating solar farms and start looking to the skies we will be ending this video with solar balloon towers and how solar panels will be fused with tesla's cyber truck and what other ways will solar panels and solar power be used to build a more technologically advanced world since the amount of energy that the sun strikes the earth in one hour is enough to power all of humankind's needs for a whole year will there be a day when our city and town streets are lined with solar trees mixed with natural ones cities from singapore to marrakech already have these futuristic solar trees merging solar panels with a tree structure allows for more solar panels to be used without taking up more floor space on the ground as the structures reach up and branch out they also provide shade for hot city streets or even parking lots and depending on the design of the solar trees they can also give an area a more sci-fi-like and futuristic landscape even lighting up at night there are a number of companies that work on building solar trees such as spotlight solar envision solar smart palm artemide outdoor and smart flower you can see the solar trees being used in different places around the world in florida solar trees have been popping up in zoos near museums airports and parks india has created the world's largest solar tree with 35 panels at the cisr cmeri residential colony in durgapur and then there is singapore who has created a skyline that looks like a photoshop concept image but these are real solar trees there are 18 super trees that collect rainwater and work as cooling ducts and 11 of them have solar panels which powers water pumps and powers the super trees when they light up at night the super trees also draw in air sending it upwards creating a breeze at ground level visitors are able to walk up among the trees along the skywalks that connect them all of this is part of singapore's goal of creating a city inside of a garden what happens when you start mixing robotics with solar panels and make them smart machines that start thinking for themselves the reason for adding robotic elements to a solar panel is as the sun moves during the day and even the year you want the solar panels to move too just the way sunflowers do as they turn to follow the sun's rays when mixing robotics with solar panels there is the smart flower all-in-one solar power system it uses robotics and motors to fold out and follow the sun's path doing this can generate up to 40 percent more solar power than a solar panel that sits still and at the end of the day it will fold up and clean itself for the night ready for the next day people can even build their own diy solar trackers at home using motors and a 3d printer as seen by this open source project by the open source classroom cubotics was a company that created saw bots instead of having expensive individual motors for each solar panel stand an inexpensive railing was used to connect them all two robots worked together driving to each solar panel stand to rotate them to face the sun while one robot made the rounds the other would be charging and what about adding drones into the mix how can they along with artificial intelligence add to the solar movement drones are used to map out plots of land and calculate the sun's exposure at different times of the day and year this lets land owners figure out where is the best place to install the solar panels and drones along with artificial intelligence are also able to fly over large solar farms inspecting solar panels for damaged areas that need repairing there will be more later in the video on how drones fitted with solar panels can stay flying for months and what they are used for as drones survey plots of land for the best place to put solar panels other people and companies are choosing to build on water creating floating solar farms one reason for building on water is because there is more space available to build and another big benefit is that the water keeps the solar panels cooler making them more efficient there is the sector and floating solar farm built on a lake in the netherlands that was switched on in 2019 and it only took six weeks to build ocean sun have been building floating solar farms too prototypes have been built on the west coast of norway in singapore and the philippines and they are building full projects in albania and south korea in the western indian village of gujarat a solar power farm has been built on land but spreads across and covers a canal river not only does the canal water help keep the solar panels cool making them up to five percent more efficient but the shade from the solar panels helps stop the water below from evaporating saving the water for crops and people the shade also helps keep the water cleaner as it slows down the growth of algae the project in india is called the canals solar power project and covers 750 meters of canal waters in gujarat and more states in india have been commissioning builds for solar canal farms the idea of using solar panels to create protective shade can also be used on land agri-voltaics is a way of farming that uses solar panels on farmland while allowing food to grow under them in the shade because the crops are growing in the shade when watering the crops the water stays on the soil longer and does not evaporate as fast this saves water as farmers are faced with climate change affecting water supplies and crop growth another benefit of growing food crops under shade is that the leaves grow larger as they try to capture as much sunlight as possible this means you end up with larger leafy food crops ready for eating the solar panels also provide farmers with a different income source as they sell the energy back to the grid so far we have covered using solar panels on land and water but what about up in the air lightweight autonomous drones fitted with solar panels are flying in the skies for months at a time some are being worked on so that they can fly up to a year these are being built to provide internet for undeveloped areas as well as communications and they can be used for imaging and monitoring areas for example when natural disasters happen and for tracking wildfires google had a project where they were developing drones to provide internet for rural areas but they ended up moving onto large balloons instead google's balloon project is called loon and they use balloons that are as big as a tennis court these balloons use solar panels to power the equipment that beams down the internet network and keeps the balloons in the right place up in the air there are also balloon projects being developed to generate solar power the sun hope project is a project started by joseph corey and dr penny gerfel an architect and an aerospace engineer the balloons are filled with helium and are made from a solar integrated fabric the balloons attach to a power cable a control panel and a helium supply cable this balloon system makes use of vertical space effectively building in 3d rather than on a 2d plane like normal solar farms and having balloons that can fly above the clouds allows for uninterrupted solar power nasa is also looking into using solar balloons but for the exploration of mars or even jupiter and saturn when it comes to our homes the most common place to put solar panels is on the roof but companies such as ubiquitous are working on making solar windows possible they will act just like a normal window letting you see out while adding more areas where solar power can be captured they could also be used as skylights in the roof or as greenhouses in the backyard not only will houses be able to use them but also buildings and cities but where else could these transparent solar panels be fitted car windows would be the other use or even for mobile phone screens the idea of making solar panels invisible in windows can also be used for other materials an italian company called the aqua uses recyclable materials to create realistic looking tiles just like tesla's roof tiles but the aqua are also creating realistic looking stone wood and concrete which means that they don't just have to go on the roof they can also be used to cover walls this allows solar panels to be used with heritage buildings and landscapes keeping the historical look of a place since you can avoid using the traditional black rectangle solar panels that are usually put on roofs these diaqua invisible solar panels could even be used to make sidewalks or cobbled streets [Music] when it comes to our roads we can see solar panels being used on cars as barriers or even used to make the roads themselves elon musk's cyber truck can be used in remote locations because of its off-roading capabilities and adding solar panels to it will allow it to go completely off the grid adding solar panels onto the back of the cyber truck would add 15 miles of range per day while as elon has said adding fold-out deployable solar wings could add 30 to 40 miles per day could this be an elon musk's side project for developing human transportation vehicles to be used on mars when it comes to the streets on earth solar panels are being put up as sound barriers in high traffic areas these types of sound barriers are mostly seen in europe in countries such as switzerland germany and holland and lastly there is solar roadways a company who creates specially engineered solar panels that can be walked and driven on these are smart panels too as they have microprocessors in them that light up led lights that act as road markings and can heat up the roads to melt snow and ice adding to the number of ways that solar panels and solar power will transform our lives in the future creating a more solar punk world on the next episode of venture city we take a look at elon musk and his thoughts on artificial intelligence and the video will also explain the basics of ai hit the thumbs up and subscribe buttons to not miss a video

Channel: Venture City

Views: 111,950

Rating: 4.920217 out of 5

Keywords: solar power, elon musk, cybertruck, solar energy, solar, solar trees, Singapore, robotics, future, futuristic, innovation, tech, technology, design, renewable energy

Id: 5G-AojIVp6g

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020