The US purchases this from Bell Labs⏤the first commercial silicon solar cell.

美國從貝爾實驗室買了這個：第一個商業硅太陽能電池。

But these first solar cells are not exactly efficient.

但這些首批太陽能電池的效率並不高。

If you were to put them on your roof and try to generate electricity, it would cost you about $300,000 a month.

如果將它們放上屋頂並嘗試發電，每月將花費大約 30 萬美元。

Fast-forward 70 years, and that cost has come down.

時間調到 70 年後，太陽能成本已降低。

Way down.

低了很多。

Solar energy is the cheapest it's ever been⏤nearly 90% cheaper than it was just in 2009.

太陽能價格前所未見地低，比起 2009 年便宜了近 90%。

In a lot of places, it is now cheaper to generate electricity with solar than with coal, natural gas, or nuclear power.

在很多地方，比起用煤、天然氣或核能發電，現在用太陽能發電更便宜。

This is an unqualified success story.

這無疑是個成功的故事。

And, if we can take the right lessons from it,

如果我們能從中吸取經驗，

this story can help us create and deploy all the other technology we will need to keep our planet livable.

這能幫助我們創造及有效運用保護地球宜居性所需的其它技術。

They just became cheap so quickly; it's really an amazing breakthrough that is going to come to define the 21st century.

太陽能跌價非常迅速，這是個將會定義 21 世紀驚人的突破。

So, how did solar energy go from prohibitively expensive to cheaper than fossil fuels?

那麼，太陽能是如何從貴得令人望而卻步變成比化石燃料便宜的呢？

We're in an energy crisis now.

我們現在正經歷能源危機。

In the 1970s, with the oil crisis, there was a really big push on research and development for alternative energy.

1970 年代歷經石油危機，其對替代能源的研究和開發有很大的推力。

Today, in directly harnessing the power of the sun,

今天，在直接利用太陽能方面，

we're taking the energy that God gave us and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

我們接受上天給的能量，拿來替代不斷減少的化石燃料供應。

With Project Independence, as it was called,

隨著當時「獨立計劃」的啟動，

the US federal government allotted more than $8 billion to solar research and development.

美國聯邦政府撥出超過 80 億美元投入太陽能研究和開發。

That really made a huge difference and probably doubled the efficiency of the cells.

這真的帶來了巨大的影響，可能讓太陽能電池的效率提升了一倍。

It was a guy named Paul Maycock, who came from Texas Instruments.

有個叫 Paul Maycock 的人，來自德州儀器公司。

Oh, like the calculators?

你是說計算機那個嗎？

Yeah, working on calculators, and he found, for calculators, the more they built, the cheaper the calculators got.

對，研究計算機那個，他透過相關經驗知道，製造得越多、計算機就越便宜。

And he said, "Same thing for solar."

他說：「太陽能也是如此。」

If we build more, the cost will come down.

如果我們建造更多，成本就會下降。

But before the US could really test Maycock's idea, President Reagan canceled Project Independence.

但美國還沒真正測試 Maycook 的想法，雷根總統就叫停了「獨立計劃」。

Fortunately, two countries were ready to step in and put Maycock's hypothesis to the test.

幸運的是，有兩個國家已準備好踏足此領域，並測試 Maycook 的假設。

Like the US, Japan had been hit hard by the oil crisis in the 70s.

與美國一樣，日本在 70 年代也大受石油危機打擊。

They started funding solar research and development around the same time,

他們在差不多時間開始投入太陽能研究及開發，

and soon, they developed solar cells small and powerful enough to run watches, calculators, and toys.

並很快開發出了夠小夠有力的太陽能電池，用於行手錶、計算器和玩具。

Trivial, in terms of the global energy system, but crucial in that large companies were now becoming interested in solar,

就全球能源系統而言，這微不足道，但卻大大地影響了大公司，使其對太陽能開始產生興趣，

and, crucially, figuring out how to construct solar at really low, low cost.

更關鍵的是，這幫助弄清了如何以極低成本製造太陽能。

That know-how came in handy when the Japanese government announced a major subsidy for rooftop solar in the mid-90s.

日本政府在 20 世紀 90 年代中期宣布補貼屋頂太陽能時，這種技術就派上用場了。

But the global market for solar technology was still relatively small until Germany stepped in and truly changed the game.

但太陽能技術的全球市場仍然相對較小，直到德國涉足太陽能並改變了局面。

The most important policy on this whole chain, if I had to pick one, it would be the German feed-in tariff.

如果必須選一個其中最重要的政策，那會是德國的躉購制度。

Feed-in tariffs, which was basically a program that deployed solar at scale.

躉購制度基本上就是個大規模部署太陽能的計劃。

Here's how it worked.

它是這樣運作的。

Starting in 2000, the German government basically said to power companies,

從 2000 年開始，德國政府基本上對電力公司宣布：

"Hey, if you can start producing renewable energy, we will buy it from you."

「嘿，如果你能開始生產可再生能源，我們就跟你買。」

"We promise, for double the market price, and we will keep paying you at that rate for the next 20 years."

「我們承諾以雙倍市場價格購入，且在未來 20 年內都會按這個費率購買。」

And, so, for developers of solar projects in Germany, all of a sudden, it became like a no-brainer to do this,

因此，對於德國太陽能開發商來說，突然間，開發成了不費吹灰之力的事，

even though Germany is not the sunniest place in the world.

儘管德國並不是世界上陽光最充足的地方。

Companies responded to the incentives by building solar farms like this one.

公司對鼓勵措施的反應是建立像這樣的太陽能農場。

In one year, the installations for solar went up by a factor of 4 and then it just grew.

在一年的時間裡，太陽能的安裝量增長了 4 倍，並持續增長。

The more panels they produced, the cheaper it got to generate electricity with solar.

生產的面板越多、太陽能發電的價格就越便宜。

Then, another country picked up the baton and made solar cheaper than even Maycock could have imagined.

接著，另一個國家接過了接力棒，讓太陽能變得比梅科克所想象的更加便宜。

So, it really starts with Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s.

這一切始於鄧小平在 1980 年代。

He had this plan for a thousand Chinese students to go abroad and come back and see what they came back with.

推動了一項計劃，讓千名中國學生出國，看看他們帶回什麼。

One group of students went to the University of New South Wales in Australia,

一批學生去了澳洲新南威爾士大學。

where they worked with a team that was producing some of the most efficient solar cells in the world.

在那，他們與一個正在生產世界上最高效太陽能電池的團隊合作。

After a few years, one of those students went back to China and opened up the country's first commercial solar manufacturer, Suntech, in 2002.

幾年後，其中一個學生回到了中國，並於 2002 年開設了該國第一家商業太陽能公司，尚德電力。

With that new German law in place, the company had so much success selling solar panels to Germany.

在德國的新法律下，該公司對德國的太陽能板銷售成績十分亮眼。

Suntech's success attracted competitors, which helped drive down prices, in part because all of this demand inspired Chinese manufacturers to produce at an unprecedented scale.

尚德的成功吸引了競爭對手，這有助壓低價格，部分也是因為太陽能板需求激發了中國工廠以前所未有的規模生產。

Policymakers around the world noticed the falling prices and wrote laws to create new markets in their countries, including the United States.

世界各地的政府注意到價格下修，紛紛制定法律以在該國創造新市場，其中包括美國。

The United States passed an important law, it's called the Energy Policy Act 2005.

美國通過了一項重要法律，就是《2005 年能源政策法》。

And buried deep within that law was an investment tax credit.

而該法律中深埋了一項投資稅收抵免。

Sounds kind of boring, but it turns out it was absolutely critical to deploying solar

聽起來有點無聊，但事實證明，這對部署太陽能至關重要，

because what it said was that if you put out a new solar project, you can get 30% of those costs back for a tax credit.

因為它的內容是如果建設一個新的太陽能項目，就可以獲得其費用的 30% 作為稅收抵免。

This sparked a phenomenon called solar leasing,

這引發了一種叫太陽能租賃的現象，

where companies would look for places to put solar so that they could reduce the amount they owed the federal government in taxes.

公司會找地方放置太陽能，這樣他們就可以減少其欠聯邦政府的稅。

Other policies helped create markets for solar modules in Spain, Italy, and, crucially, in China.

其它政策則有助在西班牙、意大利，還有很重要的，中國，創造太陽能模組市場。

The Chinese devised their own subsidy program that was modeled on the German one where you get a guaranteed price.

中國模仿德國設計了自己的補貼計劃，你可以獲得保證價格。

By 2011, China was not only the biggest producer of solar, but the biggest producer of solar electricity.

到 2011 年，中國不僅是最大的太陽能板生產國，也是最大的太陽能電力生產商。

In the course of a single lifetime,

在短短百年中，

solar energy has transformed from a niche technology to the cheapest way to bring clean, reliable power to billions of people around the world.

太陽能已經從小眾技術轉型成為全球數十億人提供乾淨、可靠電力的評價發電方式。

But the markets that brought us these lower prices didn't just magically appear by some invisible hand.

低廉的太陽能價格並不是因某種「看不見的手」神奇地出現的。

Political leaders in countries all over the world created these markets,

世界各國的領導人創造了這些市場，

then subsidized them for decades to the tune of billions of dollars.

幾十年來，補貼了數十億美元。

By investing that money, you got the solar to come down in costs to the point where you don't need to subsidize it anymore.

通過投資這些錢，太陽能成本才下降到不再需要補貼的地步。

We're doing that on purpose with things like batteries and electric vehicles.

我們也有意在電池和電動汽車等方面這樣做。

We're doing that with things like heat pumps.

我們正試圖用熱泵等東西來做到這一點。

Solar provided us with a playbook for how to do that for other technologies.

而太陽能為其它技術提供了指引前路的劇本。