Well, the cynic would say, “Ha! Solar energy? That’s for Hollywood millionaires,”

嗯 愤世嫉俗的人会说“哈！太阳能？那都是好莱坞百万富翁才用得起的东西”

and, “I’ve heard that so often, that we’re going to live in solar houses, and it never happened! So ha!”

“总有人说 我们就要住进太阳能房子了 但却从来没有实现过！所以别哄人了！”

Well, you see, there is a reason that we don’t live in the solar age,

我们没有生活在太阳能年代是有原因的

and it doesn’t have anything to do with solar cells at all.

而且这与太阳能电池没有丝毫关系

You see, there’s a missing link that’s, why we don’t have wind power and solar power everywhere.

风能和太阳能还没有普及是因为中间缺失了一环

And the missing link is something we forget, and that is: Storage! The battery.

这缺失的一环是被我们遗忘的东西 那就是：存储 电池

A hundred years ago Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were friends;

一百年前 托马斯·爱迪生和亨利·福特是朋友

they would vacation together and they were rivals, of course, and they had a bet:

他们会一起度假 当然了 两人同时也是竞争对手 他们打了个赌：

what would energize the 20th century?

20世纪的能量来源是什么？

Well Edison said the battery.

爱迪生说是电池

Well, Ford said no, it’s going to be the internal combustion engine.

福特说不对 应该是内燃机

Well, people said the solution to that is obvious:

人们说这个问题的答案很简单：

the internal combustion engine is dangerous because gasoline engines will explode.

内燃机很危险 因为汽油发动机可能会爆炸

Batteries will not explode, but gasoline will, and having a gas station on every block?

电池不会爆炸 但汽油会 难道要在每个街区都设一个加油站吗？

That’s ridiculous. That’s stupid.

那也太荒谬了 根本不可能

So many people said that it’s obvious Edison is going to win;

所以很多人觉得爱迪生一定会赢；

we’re not going to have gas pumps on every block;

不可能每个街区都有汽油泵

and we’re not going to have explosions take place on our highways.

也不可能让高速公路上发生爆炸事件

Well, guess what happened? The opposite happened.

猜猜怎么样？事实正好相反

And that is: Henry Ford was right, at least for the 20th century.

即：亨利·福特说对了 至少20世纪被他猜中了

And now General Motors, General Motors recently announced

现在通用汽车（美国汽车公司） 通用汽车最近宣布

that they can see the time when they will phase out completely the internal combustion engine.

他们能够预见到未来将逐步淘汰内燃机

This is huge. Think about that.

这将是历史性的一步 想想

50 percent of our carbon dioxide production comes from the transportation sector,

50%的二氧化碳源自运输部门

and General Motors is already talking about phasing out the internal combustion engine.

而通用汽车正在考虑淘汰内燃机

So what’s the problem? The problem is the battery: the lowly battery that everybody forgets.

那么问题在哪里？问题就在于电池：经常被人们忽略的不起眼的电池

You see, we all know Moore’s law: computer power doubles every 18 months,

我们都知道摩尔定律：电脑性能每18个月就会提升一倍

but Moore’s law only applies to ultra violet etching on computer silicon wafers.

但摩尔定律只适用于电脑硅片的紫外线蚀刻

It doesn’t apply for solar cells.

它并不适用于太阳能电池

Storage is the basic problem—there’s no Moore’s law for the battery.

存储是基本问题——电池方面并没有摩尔定律这一说

However, now that inventors are getting wind of this, we now see new energy, new creativity,

但是 现在发明家们开始摸着门道了 出现了新能源 新创造力

new ideas, and so the price of battery power is of dropping by about seven percent a year.

新想法 所以电池价格每年在以7%的速度下降

This means opportunities for the super-battery.

这意味着我们可以打造超级电池

It’s no accident that Elon Musk of Tesla Motors has made the battery a priority.

特斯拉汽车公司的伊隆·马斯克优先选用电池并非偶然

He wants to market these super batteries so that when the sun doesn’t shine and the winds don’t blow,

他想营销这种超级电池 这样 当阳光不再明媚 风儿也不再刮的时候

you can still have large quantities of solar power.

我们依然拥有大量太阳能

He’s also marketing these batteries for industries,

他也是为了整个行业营销这种电池

because what happens if you can’t necessarily make peak summer and peak winter demands of power?

因为如果你无法满足夏季和冬季的高峰能量需求 会发生什么呢？

Why should a facility have to generate this gigantic infrastructure to generate electricity,

为什么一家机构要生产庞大的发电设施

just for peak summer and peak winter?

只是为了满足夏季和冬季的需求高峰吗？

That’s where the super-battery comes in.

这时候就需要用到超级电池了

And so with the price of batteries dropping

所以随着电池价格的下降

I think we’re going to see the economics of solar and wind turn the other way,

太阳能和风能经济的走势会恰恰相反

so they are competitive with fossil fuels.

它们跟化石燃料还是有一拼的