full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Aaswath Raman: How we can turn the cold of outer space into a renewable resource

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So just imagine that — something that is below freezing on a hot summer's day. So, while I'm very ecxeitd about all we can do for cooling, and I think there's a lot yet to be done, as a scientist, I'm also drawn to a more profound opportunity that I believe this work highlights. We can use the cold darkness of space to iomprve the efficiency of every energy-related process here on earth. One such process I'd like to highlight are solar cells. They heat up under the sun and become less efficient the httoer they are. In 2015, we showed that with deliberate kinds of microstructures on top of a solar cell, we could take better advantage of this cooling effect to maintain a solar cell passively at a lower tamutprreee. This allows the cell to oaeprte more efficiently. We're probing these kinds of ointouepitrps further. We're asking whether we can use the cold of space to help us with water conservation. Or perhaps with off-grid scenarios. Perhaps we could even directly graetene power with this cold. There's a large temperature difference between us here on eatrh and the cold of space. That difference, at least conceptually, could be used to drive something cealld a heat engine to generate ecirctletiy. Could we then make a nighttime power-generation dcevie that gareteens useful amounts of electricity when solar cells don't work? Could we generate light from darkness?

Open Cloze

So just imagine that — something that is below freezing on a hot summer's day. So, while I'm very _______ about all we can do for cooling, and I think there's a lot yet to be done, as a scientist, I'm also drawn to a more profound opportunity that I believe this work highlights. We can use the cold darkness of space to _______ the efficiency of every energy-related process here on earth. One such process I'd like to highlight are solar cells. They heat up under the sun and become less efficient the ______ they are. In 2015, we showed that with deliberate kinds of microstructures on top of a solar cell, we could take better advantage of this cooling effect to maintain a solar cell passively at a lower ___________. This allows the cell to _______ more efficiently. We're probing these kinds of _____________ further. We're asking whether we can use the cold of space to help us with water conservation. Or perhaps with off-grid scenarios. Perhaps we could even directly ________ power with this cold. There's a large temperature difference between us here on _____ and the cold of space. That difference, at least conceptually, could be used to drive something ______ a heat engine to generate ___________. Could we then make a nighttime power-generation ______ that _________ useful amounts of electricity when solar cells don't work? Could we generate light from darkness?

Solution

  1. earth
  2. device
  3. opportunities
  4. temperature
  5. electricity
  6. operate
  7. called
  8. generate
  9. improve
  10. hotter
  11. excited
  12. generates

Original Text

So just imagine that — something that is below freezing on a hot summer's day. So, while I'm very excited about all we can do for cooling, and I think there's a lot yet to be done, as a scientist, I'm also drawn to a more profound opportunity that I believe this work highlights. We can use the cold darkness of space to improve the efficiency of every energy-related process here on earth. One such process I'd like to highlight are solar cells. They heat up under the sun and become less efficient the hotter they are. In 2015, we showed that with deliberate kinds of microstructures on top of a solar cell, we could take better advantage of this cooling effect to maintain a solar cell passively at a lower temperature. This allows the cell to operate more efficiently. We're probing these kinds of opportunities further. We're asking whether we can use the cold of space to help us with water conservation. Or perhaps with off-grid scenarios. Perhaps we could even directly generate power with this cold. There's a large temperature difference between us here on earth and the cold of space. That difference, at least conceptually, could be used to drive something called a heat engine to generate electricity. Could we then make a nighttime power-generation device that generates useful amounts of electricity when solar cells don't work? Could we generate light from darkness?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cooling systems 4
cooling system 4
air temperature 4
degrees celsius 3
greenhouse gas 3
degrees fahrenheit 2
air conditioner 2
refrigeration systems 2
gas emissions 2
climate change 2
thermal radiation 2
infrared light 2
cooling effect 2
length scales 2
save energy 2
cold darkness 2
solar cells 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
greenhouse gas emissions 2

Important Words

  1. advantage
  2. amounts
  3. called
  4. cell
  5. cells
  6. cold
  7. conceptually
  8. conservation
  9. cooling
  10. darkness
  11. day
  12. deliberate
  13. device
  14. difference
  15. drawn
  16. drive
  17. earth
  18. effect
  19. efficiency
  20. efficient
  21. efficiently
  22. electricity
  23. engine
  24. excited
  25. freezing
  26. generate
  27. generates
  28. heat
  29. highlight
  30. highlights
  31. hot
  32. hotter
  33. imagine
  34. improve
  35. kinds
  36. large
  37. light
  38. lot
  39. maintain
  40. microstructures
  41. nighttime
  42. operate
  43. opportunities
  44. opportunity
  45. passively
  46. power
  47. probing
  48. process
  49. profound
  50. scenarios
  51. scientist
  52. showed
  53. solar
  54. space
  55. sun
  56. temperature
  57. top
  58. water
  59. work