1 00:00:04,637 --> 00:00:09,642 ♪ ♪ 2 00:00:12,979 --> 00:00:15,148 NARRATOR: In September 1980, 3 00:00:15,148 --> 00:00:18,118 the Department of Energy was in the midst of building 4 00:00:18,118 --> 00:00:20,987 a revolutionary house. 5 00:00:20,987 --> 00:00:24,758 A recent energy crisis 6 00:00:24,758 --> 00:00:27,427 and early warnings about global warming 7 00:00:27,427 --> 00:00:29,429 had helped to bring the project about. 8 00:00:29,429 --> 00:00:33,033 Located in Carlisle, Massachusetts, 9 00:00:33,033 --> 00:00:36,336 the remarkable new structure was to have solar heat, 10 00:00:36,336 --> 00:00:39,339 solar hot water, solar-powered appliances, 11 00:00:39,339 --> 00:00:42,942 and, in theory, would even sell the excess energy it produced 12 00:00:42,942 --> 00:00:46,212 back into the grid. 13 00:00:46,212 --> 00:00:50,050 To pull it off, the D.O.E. made a most unusual call, 14 00:00:50,050 --> 00:00:53,353 to an 80-year-old retiree down in Florida. 15 00:00:53,353 --> 00:00:55,789 Her name was Mária Telkes, 16 00:00:55,789 --> 00:00:57,524 and some 40 years earlier, 17 00:00:57,524 --> 00:00:59,292 the Hungarian physicist 18 00:00:59,292 --> 00:01:01,261 had put solar on the map-- 19 00:01:01,261 --> 00:01:04,264 so famously, in fact, that she went by the nickname 20 00:01:04,264 --> 00:01:06,299 the Sun Queen. 21 00:01:06,299 --> 00:01:09,369 ♪ ♪ 22 00:01:09,369 --> 00:01:11,071 MICHELLE ADDINGTON: She was ahead of her time, 23 00:01:11,071 --> 00:01:13,973 and she was asking the right questions. 24 00:01:13,973 --> 00:01:18,611 We have this amazing thermal source with incredible power. 25 00:01:18,611 --> 00:01:21,147 Why have we not harnessed it? 26 00:01:21,147 --> 00:01:23,983 ANDREW NEMETHY: She saw something that I don't think 27 00:01:23,983 --> 00:01:25,485 anybody conceived of at that point. 28 00:01:25,485 --> 00:01:27,754 She imagined that the world could 29 00:01:27,754 --> 00:01:30,523 get free power from the sun. 30 00:01:30,523 --> 00:01:31,958 I mean, if one person's vision 31 00:01:31,958 --> 00:01:34,727 is here, her vision was way out there. 32 00:01:34,727 --> 00:01:38,832 A.L. HU: Telkes believed that there was a moral imperative 33 00:01:38,832 --> 00:01:42,635 to understanding solar energy, not just as 34 00:01:42,635 --> 00:01:45,505 an alternative, but as a way to kind of live our lives. 35 00:01:45,505 --> 00:01:49,075 I would like to show you some very simple things 36 00:01:49,075 --> 00:01:50,643 like a house. 37 00:01:50,643 --> 00:01:53,646 The sun's energy is absorbed 38 00:01:53,646 --> 00:01:56,282 and is transformed into heat. 39 00:01:56,282 --> 00:01:59,552 DANIEL BARBER: What Telkes showed us was that 40 00:01:59,552 --> 00:02:02,622 this ambition to think differently about energy sources 41 00:02:02,622 --> 00:02:05,458 not only changes the way that we build, the way that we 42 00:02:05,458 --> 00:02:08,128 produce heat, the kind of technologies of those systems, 43 00:02:08,128 --> 00:02:10,330 but also shifts our expectations, right? 44 00:02:10,330 --> 00:02:12,599 Shifts the way that we think about living in a house. 45 00:02:12,599 --> 00:02:15,068 NARRATOR: Telkes came out of retirement to help 46 00:02:15,068 --> 00:02:17,537 make the Carlisle house a success. 47 00:02:17,537 --> 00:02:19,639 When it came to all things solar, 48 00:02:19,639 --> 00:02:21,608 her passion bordered on obsession. 49 00:02:21,608 --> 00:02:24,777 Her vision was as legendary as her engineering, 50 00:02:24,777 --> 00:02:28,281 but her ambition came at a cost. 51 00:02:28,281 --> 00:02:29,983 NEMETHY: Mária was a solar evangelist. 52 00:02:29,983 --> 00:02:31,551 Now, like a lot of evangelists, 53 00:02:31,551 --> 00:02:35,655 she was pushing her vision very strongly. 54 00:02:35,655 --> 00:02:37,690 Anybody who disagreed with that vision 55 00:02:37,690 --> 00:02:39,993 kind of rubbed up against her the wrong way. 56 00:02:39,993 --> 00:02:42,128 OLIVIA MEIKLE: This was not something 57 00:02:42,128 --> 00:02:43,496 that would've been easy as a woman, 58 00:02:43,496 --> 00:02:46,332 but she was determined to change the world 59 00:02:46,332 --> 00:02:48,735 in the face of what must have been enormous odds. 60 00:02:48,735 --> 00:02:53,106 SARA SHREVE-PRICE: Telkes knew you can't just wait for society to be ready. 61 00:02:53,106 --> 00:02:56,042 You need to sell them on this idea. 62 00:02:56,042 --> 00:02:58,077 You need to convince them that this 63 00:02:58,077 --> 00:02:59,479 is the time for the idea. 64 00:02:59,479 --> 00:03:02,382 If we want the sustainable future, 65 00:03:02,382 --> 00:03:05,552 we don't just need the technology. 66 00:03:05,552 --> 00:03:07,987 We need to want the technology. 67 00:03:07,987 --> 00:03:10,056 ♪ ♪ 68 00:03:18,698 --> 00:03:23,836 ♪ ♪ 69 00:03:40,119 --> 00:03:43,556 ♪ ♪ 70 00:03:55,802 --> 00:03:57,704 (horn blasting) 71 00:04:03,076 --> 00:04:05,211 NARRATOR: Mária Telkes, 72 00:04:05,211 --> 00:04:07,947 32, physicist, 73 00:04:07,947 --> 00:04:10,984 had just arrived from her native Hungary. 74 00:04:10,984 --> 00:04:13,353 Her immigration papers gave her height 75 00:04:13,353 --> 00:04:15,154 and marital status, 76 00:04:15,154 --> 00:04:17,724 but said nothing about her most distinguishing trait of all. 77 00:04:17,724 --> 00:04:20,960 Telkes was a scientist on a mission, 78 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:23,796 and had traveled to the United States for one reason, 79 00:04:23,796 --> 00:04:26,332 and one reason alone. 80 00:04:27,967 --> 00:04:29,836 By the early 1930s, 81 00:04:29,836 --> 00:04:32,939 America was in the throes of a solar revolution 82 00:04:32,939 --> 00:04:36,075 that had been going on for more than 50 years. 83 00:04:36,075 --> 00:04:39,746 In 1884, the first experimental solar panels 84 00:04:39,746 --> 00:04:42,115 had gone up on a New York City rooftop. 85 00:04:42,115 --> 00:04:45,752 Four years later, the American chemist Edward Weston 86 00:04:45,752 --> 00:04:48,087 developed the world's first solar cell, 87 00:04:48,087 --> 00:04:51,324 while, on an ostrich farm in Pasadena, 88 00:04:51,324 --> 00:04:54,027 one inventor installed a giant solar motor, 89 00:04:54,027 --> 00:04:55,762 some 35 feet across, 90 00:04:55,762 --> 00:04:58,097 that pumped enough water from the local well 91 00:04:58,097 --> 00:05:01,501 to make the dry California ground a verdant paradise. 92 00:05:02,635 --> 00:05:05,004 In any single issue of "Scientific American," 93 00:05:05,004 --> 00:05:06,372 subscribers might read 94 00:05:06,372 --> 00:05:08,675 about a solar printing press that could reel off 95 00:05:08,675 --> 00:05:10,209 500 copies an hour, 96 00:05:10,209 --> 00:05:12,712 or a host of solar gizmos 97 00:05:12,712 --> 00:05:14,947 that did everything from pumping sewage 98 00:05:14,947 --> 00:05:17,016 to distilling alcohol. 99 00:05:17,016 --> 00:05:19,152 At the turn of the century, 100 00:05:19,152 --> 00:05:21,854 there were so many solar hot water heaters in homes 101 00:05:21,854 --> 00:05:24,357 in Florida that one resident remarked, 102 00:05:24,357 --> 00:05:27,727 "I can't remember a house on the block that didn't have one." 103 00:05:27,727 --> 00:05:29,729 IVAN PENN: It was this age 104 00:05:29,729 --> 00:05:31,798 of all this talk about solar. 105 00:05:31,798 --> 00:05:33,833 It's about 1905. 106 00:05:33,833 --> 00:05:36,069 Albert Einstein is looking at what they called 107 00:05:36,069 --> 00:05:38,137 the photoelectric effect: 108 00:05:38,137 --> 00:05:41,841 the release of electrons when light hit metal, 109 00:05:41,841 --> 00:05:45,311 which is essential in using solar to make electricity. 110 00:05:46,512 --> 00:05:49,248 By 1931, 111 00:05:49,248 --> 00:05:52,185 Edison is in a conversation with Henry Ford, 112 00:05:52,185 --> 00:05:55,188 and he says, "I'd put my money on the sun 113 00:05:55,188 --> 00:05:56,856 and solar energy," 114 00:05:56,856 --> 00:05:59,425 in how we ultimately are going to power the world. 115 00:05:59,425 --> 00:06:02,095 SHREVE-PRICE: Telkes is passionately interested 116 00:06:02,095 --> 00:06:05,164 in trying to chase the power of the sun. 117 00:06:05,164 --> 00:06:07,800 In the United States, in the 1930s, 118 00:06:07,800 --> 00:06:11,604 there are some really interesting projects. 119 00:06:11,604 --> 00:06:13,639 But there haven't been giant successes, 120 00:06:13,639 --> 00:06:16,843 and I think she sees that as a real possibility. 121 00:06:18,778 --> 00:06:22,348 NARRATOR: Telkes had been obsessed since she was a girl. 122 00:06:22,348 --> 00:06:24,183 The brilliant daughter of wealthy Hungarian bankers, 123 00:06:24,183 --> 00:06:26,552 born December 12, 1900, in Budapest, 124 00:06:26,552 --> 00:06:30,156 she'd explain, "I was only 11 when 125 00:06:30,156 --> 00:06:32,625 "I became intensively curious about chemistry. 126 00:06:32,625 --> 00:06:35,695 "I purchased test tubes and chemical glassware, 127 00:06:35,695 --> 00:06:38,831 and a small garden house became my laboratory." 128 00:06:38,831 --> 00:06:41,434 From the beginning, she had bold plans 129 00:06:41,434 --> 00:06:43,369 to put her science to work. 130 00:06:44,937 --> 00:06:46,939 ADAM ROME: Telkes, growing up in Hungary, 131 00:06:46,939 --> 00:06:49,108 coal was the dominant form of energy. 132 00:06:49,108 --> 00:06:50,977 Coal is incredibly polluting. 133 00:06:50,977 --> 00:06:52,412 You could have days, 134 00:06:52,412 --> 00:06:54,280 in the middle of the day, when it seemed like night, 135 00:06:54,280 --> 00:06:55,548 or that, like an eclipse, 136 00:06:55,548 --> 00:06:57,850 where you couldn't see the sun. 137 00:06:57,850 --> 00:06:59,585 So there were people 138 00:06:59,585 --> 00:07:01,854 early in the 20th century 139 00:07:01,854 --> 00:07:05,057 who did imagine a coal-less future. 140 00:07:05,057 --> 00:07:08,261 And Telkes, growing up in that time, 141 00:07:08,261 --> 00:07:11,597 begins envisioning alternative sources of energy. 142 00:07:11,597 --> 00:07:14,200 NARRATOR: By the time she was 24, 143 00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:16,636 Telkes had earned a doctorate in physical chemistry 144 00:07:16,636 --> 00:07:18,237 from the University of Budapest. 145 00:07:19,272 --> 00:07:22,775 "It is the things supposed to be impossible that interest me," 146 00:07:22,775 --> 00:07:24,343 Telkes would explain. 147 00:07:24,343 --> 00:07:27,847 "I like to do things they say cannot be done." 148 00:07:27,847 --> 00:07:29,449 ♪ ♪ 149 00:07:29,449 --> 00:07:31,083 In May 1932, 150 00:07:31,083 --> 00:07:33,152 Telkes arrived in Cleveland, 151 00:07:33,152 --> 00:07:35,822 where by day, she had gotten a job as a researcher 152 00:07:35,822 --> 00:07:37,657 at a biomedical facility. 153 00:07:37,657 --> 00:07:41,327 But by night, she was developing and refining a device 154 00:07:41,327 --> 00:07:45,198 called a thermopile to convert sunlight into electricity. 155 00:07:45,198 --> 00:07:48,134 Her work caught the attention of the press, 156 00:07:48,134 --> 00:07:50,102 and in 1934, she was hailed 157 00:07:50,102 --> 00:07:52,338 as one of the most interesting women of the year, 158 00:07:52,338 --> 00:07:55,641 alongside a tennis champion, a Rockefeller, 159 00:07:55,641 --> 00:07:59,212 and child actress prodigy Shirley Temple. 160 00:07:59,212 --> 00:08:02,081 As one reporter who met her at the time remarked, 161 00:08:02,081 --> 00:08:06,285 "Miss Telkes is a scientist-- everything else bores her." 162 00:08:06,285 --> 00:08:07,520 NEMETHY: She was adventurous. 163 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:09,188 And she came over to the United States 164 00:08:09,188 --> 00:08:10,623 and basically fell in love with it. 165 00:08:10,623 --> 00:08:13,192 She loved the country and she loved the freedom 166 00:08:13,192 --> 00:08:16,095 that she had to use her immense skills 167 00:08:16,095 --> 00:08:18,030 and her vision for whatever she came up with. 168 00:08:19,465 --> 00:08:23,002 NARRATOR: Now, in April 1938, out in Boston, 169 00:08:23,002 --> 00:08:25,204 she heard about an exciting new project starting up 170 00:08:25,204 --> 00:08:27,807 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 171 00:08:27,807 --> 00:08:31,344 The Solar Energy Fund launched to bring together 172 00:08:31,344 --> 00:08:33,713 the very best minds on the solar question. 173 00:08:33,713 --> 00:08:36,582 As university leaders told the press, 174 00:08:36,582 --> 00:08:39,051 "The store of energy in our familiar fuels, 175 00:08:39,051 --> 00:08:41,254 while great, is not inexhaustible." 176 00:08:41,254 --> 00:08:44,657 So it was high time for bold new thinking. 177 00:08:44,657 --> 00:08:46,792 Telkes immediately wrote to them, 178 00:08:46,792 --> 00:08:48,794 "I read with great interest 179 00:08:48,794 --> 00:08:50,830 "the announcement of the solar project. 180 00:08:50,830 --> 00:08:53,499 May I have the opportunity of a personal interview?" 181 00:08:53,499 --> 00:08:56,402 Her timing couldn't have been better. 182 00:08:56,402 --> 00:08:59,272 Her new thermopile could, by her own estimation, 183 00:08:59,272 --> 00:09:02,308 turn sunlight into power some ten times more efficiently 184 00:09:02,308 --> 00:09:04,076 than any existing technology. 185 00:09:05,645 --> 00:09:08,014 When she initially wasn't offered a position, 186 00:09:08,014 --> 00:09:11,551 she traveled to Boston with her prototype, 187 00:09:11,551 --> 00:09:14,820 determined to impress the all-male committee. 188 00:09:14,820 --> 00:09:17,890 The gambit worked, and, in July 1939, 189 00:09:17,890 --> 00:09:20,793 she got the job. 190 00:09:20,793 --> 00:09:23,763 But just as it was all falling into place, 191 00:09:23,763 --> 00:09:27,300 everything changed. 192 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:28,434 (bombs whistling) 193 00:09:28,434 --> 00:09:32,071 (explosion roars) 194 00:09:32,071 --> 00:09:36,208 As war broke out across Europe, Asia, and the United States, 195 00:09:36,208 --> 00:09:37,944 it unleashed an energy crisis 196 00:09:37,944 --> 00:09:40,446 the likes of which the world had never seen. 197 00:09:40,446 --> 00:09:45,051 By June 1943, petroleum reserves on the East Coast 198 00:09:45,051 --> 00:09:47,219 dropped to an all-time low. 199 00:09:47,219 --> 00:09:51,324 People needed a ration card just to fill up the tank. 200 00:09:51,324 --> 00:09:53,492 Okay, it's an A card, three gallons. 201 00:09:53,492 --> 00:09:55,595 NARRATOR: And were forbidden from driving faster 202 00:09:55,595 --> 00:09:57,296 than 35 miles an hour, 203 00:09:57,296 --> 00:10:00,399 known henceforth as "Victory Speed." 204 00:10:00,399 --> 00:10:03,836 Making matters worse, Nazi U-boats 205 00:10:03,836 --> 00:10:06,939 were sinking so many oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico 206 00:10:06,939 --> 00:10:09,442 that beaches were stained ink-black. 207 00:10:09,442 --> 00:10:10,910 ROME: World War II 208 00:10:10,910 --> 00:10:14,747 accentuates the sense that a reckoning is coming. 209 00:10:14,747 --> 00:10:17,984 It really was partly a war about resources. 210 00:10:17,984 --> 00:10:19,518 (film music playing) 211 00:10:19,518 --> 00:10:21,754 FILM NARRATOR: Use trains. 212 00:10:21,754 --> 00:10:23,756 Use bus lines. 213 00:10:23,756 --> 00:10:25,925 Share cars going to work. 214 00:10:25,925 --> 00:10:28,894 ROME: And so it's this incredible period 215 00:10:28,894 --> 00:10:30,730 of government promotion of conservation. 216 00:10:30,730 --> 00:10:33,733 So people were hyper-conscious of their fuel use. 217 00:10:33,733 --> 00:10:36,168 And for a while, this idea really mattered 218 00:10:36,168 --> 00:10:38,371 for a lot of Americans. 219 00:10:41,540 --> 00:10:45,177 NARRATOR: Telkes's solar dream was more urgent than ever, 220 00:10:45,177 --> 00:10:46,912 but the M.I.T. solar project was put on ice 221 00:10:46,912 --> 00:10:48,447 for the duration of the war. 222 00:10:48,447 --> 00:10:52,284 The entire team was reassigned to help with the war effort, 223 00:10:52,284 --> 00:10:54,754 and Telkes threw herself into the work, 224 00:10:54,754 --> 00:10:56,589 alongside her collaborator, 225 00:10:56,589 --> 00:10:58,324 the head of the Solar Energy Project, 226 00:10:58,324 --> 00:11:02,324 a chemical engineer named Hoyt Hottel.