Countdown is a global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action. Everyone has a vital role to play if we’re to reach our goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Find out how you can be part of building a better future by visiting bit.ly/JoinCountdown

TED-Ed is like that one friend that asks questions that have nothing to do with our daily works but makes us curious as well for the answer.

Short answer: -It would produce a lot of heat 🥵 -It may change the ecosystem in deserts 🏜 -Even if you generate alot of electricity, it can't efficienty travel to far away places, just local ✈

The animation is so top notch that I can't even imagine the load the artists have taken upon themselves.

Thailand has started putting solar panels on the surface of reservoirs. Saves farmland, reduces wildlife competition for space, if the reservoir has hydro-electric capacity, no new extended distribution network has to be built, and reservoir water can be used for cooling.

"covering the desert in solar panels would vastly change the desert landscape" well, yes.

That red-shift detail of a photon bouncing between surfaces deserves a big praise!

"I don't like sand it's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere" *--Anakin SolarWalker*

something that ive seen in a city i visited was an "open air" parking lot with a roof made only of solar panels. it didn't ruin the cities landscape, wasn't in the way of any activity, produced energy and stopped the cars in the parking lot from overheating. definitely think we should all start doing that, or at least when we find a way to recycle solar panels

“Why don’t we cover the desert in solar panels?” Sand. Sand is why.

Thank you Ted-Ed for answering my question. Being Ghanian, I always wonder why Saharan countries don't come together and invest in solar panels considering the sun shines there literally 24/7 and this would create jobs and help many countries who are already struggling with electricity. I hope that more countries in Africa would adopt the more eco friendly way of getting energy

The problem with solar is that currently, the panels have a very limited lifetime and cannot be recycled, producing an ever-growing amount of waste that we don't know what to do with.

I find the whole Ted project both amusing and incredibly good in quality. It's stunning that you make all the videos available for free. In my case, I cannot pay anything but the essentials, and this is really an incredible educational source for people like me with little acquisition power. Keep this up!!!

Another reason why we don't insert solar panels in desert is because of the shifting sand dunes.

This was literally in Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary” Amazing book, so happy to see people discussing these ideas

The beginning reminded me of Dune. Let's hope we don't end up in a similar fate anytime soon. Educational initiatives like these will hopefully contribute a great deal to deter a dystopian future.

The motion graphics and illustrations for this video are beyond godlike.

The question aside, the animation used here is amazing!!

This animation was particularly exquisite

I can't get over how well animated this is

This video is brilliant. The narration, the illustrations and the music were all perfect.

Furthermore, the desert is always changing. The location of solar plants is crucial as if not placed a low activity region, the panels might be covered by huge dunes of sand within months, never to be recovered or broken beyond repair!

Anyone else has been getting this video recommended to them for an eternity, then finally clicks it and it says it was uploaded 5 days ago ?????????

Transmission, accessibility for maintenance, sandstorms are my 10 second answers.

Never even considered this as an option. Sounds brilliant. Let's find out if it works.

Seeing this voice actor not be the snarky Demon of Reason caught me off guard. Their voice is amazing.

But how magical is the music in the background? So good!

I wouldn't like to be a pilot flying over the giant mirror plant.

Companies won't embark on a project like this due to the political instabities of some countries. And let's not forget (as amply demonstrated by Russia) that becoming dependent on other countries to supply one's energy needs leaves one extremely vulnerable.

I’ve been asking this same question since I was a kid!

the animation, music, and sound effects was just 😍🤌

“Lets have solar panels in the desert, that’ll solve our energy problem” Sand: we’ll see about that

I took an "Energy in the 21st Century" class in college. The conclusion was the same: a 1000 x 1000 km range of concentrated solar mirrors would power the earth... but there's no way to move that electricity to the rest of the planet. I also learned that thorium breeder reactors use like 99% of waste from current US reactors, but an old cold war clause prevents the US from implementing them. :(

This is the single best video on this topic I've ever seen. Literally every other video on youtube, and even written essays elsewhere, just talks about how much energy COULD be generated with solar panels in the Sahara, never addressing the massive amounts of water necessary to maintain it, the ecological damage it would do to the Sahara, and just the simple fact that getting the energy from the Sahara to say, Japan, would be a logistical and expensive nightmare.

I'm annoyingly curious by nature. These are questions I ask when I was still a kid, that I get no reasonable answer. I'm happy TedED is giving me my most awaited answer.

The first problem that popped into my head upon reading that title is the sand which will cover up the panels rendering them useless. Not to mention wicked sandstorms which would undoubtedly damage the panels as well.

This animation was beyond beautiful, not to mention extremely interesting! Keep up the great work Ted-ED.

The problems is, in desert we often get sand storm. Also even a small wind carrying a lot small and light sand Because of that problem we need to clean our solar panels *Once each day.* And with that big amount square metres of panels, it's will take alot of workers and time to clean it So that's make the maintenance costs for solar power in the desert getting higher Even higher than nuclear power plant maintenance (cost/energy) When we only cleanings the panels each 1 month on regular area (not desert) such a city, or rural, or Plain, ect. *Meanwhile in desert we need to do it each day just for better effectivity of foton solar absorption*

truly the most beautiful video ever made by Ted-Ed. thank you so much for being an amazing source of information.

Okay but the animation of this episode tho... Phenomenal

the only question here is: how do they make those transitions so smooth? 😭

Besides of the heat problem, the energy transfer become a problem too. Sahara and many other deserts are far away from human settlements where have abundant energy demand, and the transfering the energy (electricity) needs a long, huge and reliable grid system. Because of that, as this video said, batteries and energy conversion become other options, but all of them still too costly. Then, lets hope there will be a more efficient and reliable solar panel to be commercialized in the future such as Perovskite. Amazing lesson and animation as always, I love to see the photon hit the electron animation, its just cool and easily recived by general people

These illustrations are awesome

As a Moroccan, I'm so proud of our solar power plant :D (Also the animation is so sick, the artist(s) should be hardworking for it :O, You deserve a like and a sub :P)

TED-Ed seriously brings the quality with these videos! I almost felt immersed in the video with the music / sounds, the calm voice over, and the wonderful animations. Keep up the good work!

The animation style in this video is so good!

THE ANIMATION??? Extremely gorgeous

Can’t say this is an educational video. More like diverting the topic rather than giving a straight answer.

The initial animation with the light bulbs in the sand is a MASTERPIECE!

IMHO, Best animation so far for a ted video, and the Piano notes were just a cherry on top!!

There’s a book where this happens! It’s called Hail Mary, written by the same guy who wrote The Martian, and it happens when (slight spoilers) the world needs a really fast way to produce heat for this microbe, so they decide to pave the Sahara with solar panels so they can use the electricity to create that heat. They acknowledge all the points made in this video, but they’re so desperate to get this microbe to reproduce that they don’t care. It’s a great read, I recommend it. They also nuke the arctic at one point if you’re interested in reading about that.

What amazing animation and music! So well done 👏 I love this style

ooh the graphics and animations are spot-on on this one, kudos!

the animation, music, and style of this video is some of the best I've seen

Hello, I am Iranian and I was a radio announcer who was fired due to political issues and now I record podcasts and lectures. Because your beautiful and informative videos have Persian subtitles, I wanted to dub them in Farsi for Iranian audiences and those who speak Farsi. also be understandable. Thank you for agreeing to my cooperation offer. Thank you🙏🌹♥️

I think it would have been great to include how the materials to make the panels themselves are limited and sometimes toxic to process, and that the energy that goes into their production can be pretty significant as well. Good video. :)

The animation and the music successfully builds a fictional world.

I always assumed the reason why we do not cover mass desert areas with solar panels is primarily the rather extreme forces of erosion they will face...people forget that sand wreaks absolute havoc on electronics and infrastructure unless they are fully prepared for such factors. Best case scenario the pannels will last a good few years, but will require matinence and cleaning to prevent massive dust/sand buildup from basically making them inoperable or inefficient. Otherwise worse case scenario they may straight up be buried by the sands, or consistently eroded away to the point that they are useless. That is why if I'm correct the best areas to put solar pannels are arid, but not necessarily sandy dessert areas (think like the mohave or some areas of Afghanistan) where sunlight can reach them, but face less buffering from the environment. I know its also not my place...but Im more pro-nuclear than anything, it just seems more viable with some of the advancements that have been made, much easier to place, and overall just more effective and reliable than most renewable energy sources...but whenever people think nuclear their minds go to Chernobyl, fukishima, and bombs...not the new reactor designs, potential energy breakthroughs, and advancements made in safety and environmental impact.

The factory must grow!

Thanks TedED for presenting cons and pros of solar energy. We should diversify different modes of energy to avoid ecological consequences. Moderation in everything.

The beauty of this animation made me gasp

The illustrations and animations are off the charts!

Thank you for this video, this is a question that my students have asked in our energy unit in science. I'll be showing this to them after spring break.

The amount of Ted-Ed videos are the equivalent of how much I know about naval aviation lol.

You left out that solar panels have limited life spans, are made with toxic chemicals and we have no idea how to safely disposed of the millions of panels we already have. They also only produce power 30% of the time and those batteries you need to store the power also have limited life spans and are made with toxic chemicals that will need to be disposed of.

Disney : Our animations are the best TED-Ed : Hold ma beer

The music in this video was beautiful

"Can we ...?" Yes. "Should we ...?" No because it would defeat one of the chief advantages of solar power (close proximity of power generation with consumption).

Me: *I'm bored, what does Ted-ed have for me today* Ted-Ed: _why don't we cover the desert with solar panels?_ also Me: *..No, no, he's got a point.*

Instead of Solar Panels, which have to use wires to distribute electricity, my idea is to use Concave Mirrors, concentrate light, then transfer it in fiber optic cables around the world, to their location use. This would transfer energy without any loss, as well as you can convert light to electricity at the destination. For example, you can build huge concave mirror farms in Saudi Arabia, concentrate light, transfer it in fiber optic cables to India/China, and in a city in India/China, use light to heat boilers to produce electricity. This will ensure that, even if it's day/night in India/China (or any part of the world for that matter) you could still get electricity from the part of the earth that has a desert and day. So you can have 24hrs energy all over the world. *ANYWAY that's my idea, I don't know if it will work or not*

The music for this video is mysterious as heck.

bro this video is deadass so beautiful

Animation is out of this world

What about subterranean heat pipe. If the sand is incredibly hot then why don’t we collect the energy of the sand. So we could let the sand absorb the energy and probably do less destruction to the ecosystem.

That intro sound is just wow! Never gets old

My dad and I often talked about ideas on how we could’ve used the Sahara to our advantage (thinking about energy), glad this video came on my recommended. Good animation, good explanation and overall really well made, thank you for bringing this topic up :)

bad idea to centralize solar production- you're unnecessarily asking for mega-corporations to maintain control over our energy, to hold us hostage to their production, and to charge us accordingly. i have a small solar setup that i installed and that meets my needs. it's reliable, portable, relatively inexpensive, and independant of any grid corporation. everyone making their own power would mean no expensive infrastructure to carry that power across distances, no mass outages, no hacking, and no monopoly on energy by the giants.

The transitions and soundtrack in this one is so satisfying. Appreciate that

I’ve literally been asking this question for >25 years, thank you

0:43 lovely rhyme!

Quality video. I didn't know that solar panels were so inefficient. Excellent points and animation as always.

Great video but a giant props to whoever created this animation! Just WOW! It's truly stunning and beautiful, and displays what is being talked about in a smart and simple way.

Weird how they forget to mention that it's only viable with massive government subsidies

The animating was extraordinary

Visual design and sound design are astonishingly stylish.

Ted Ed writes down the questions when you’re baked then answers them

Probably for the same reason that we don’t use solar panels on the Mars rovers anymore. Sand and dust covers them up

I liked the animation this episode! It looks like a sketchbook in animation. The music was nice too, and the narrator was great (no Addison tho ;) )

TedEd video editing and animation team.. you guys are the best

the music and sound design was beautiful and fit with the animation so well!

The animations are vivid and satisfying

The only 1 channel almost everyone watch without skipping 👊💥 💀

*Fun fact:* "Noor" means "Light" in Arabic. So, the Moroccan "Noor" Power Plant means the "Light" Power Plant :) Noor is also the name of my sister 😇

I love how you animated dessert in gravity well istead of animating solar cell panels

To the Ted Ed team. I am always impressed by the quality of knowledge you passes..

my god, what a beautiful video. the visuals + music

Glad people realize it ain't as simple as the media makes it

The art in Ted videos never fails to impress me

I've been wondering about this really long... Thanks a lot TED-ED for this wonderful video.. has helped me a lot..

Wow I always wondered why we do not do that. Thanks for the answer