Japan's American Genius
Is Detroit inventor Stanford Ovshinsky the new Thomas Edison? Japanese industries are betting that the genius behind amorphous materials-a simpler and less expensive alternative to silicon-is onto something big.
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00:00Tonight on NOVA. Millions of people tinker in their basements. Once in a long while one succeeds.
00:12This is Stanford Ovchinski. He was right once before and the world was wrong. Now he has a new idea.
00:20Producer Marian Marzinski spent a year watching Ovchinski try to turn his dream into reality.
00:26What will happen this time to Japan's American genius?
00:36Major funding for NOVA is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.
00:43Additional funding was provided by the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, supplying health care products worldwide.
00:52And by Allied Signal, a technology leader in aerospace, electronics, automotive products and engineered materials.
01:23In the suburbs of Detroit lives a man whose life revolves around two words in the dictionary.
01:29The first is amorphous, meaning shapeless, unorganized, unstructured, and in solid state physics, lacking a crystalline form.
01:36The second, ovonic, he created by combining the word electronic with his name, Ovchinski.
01:42This man is a scientist, an inventor, and a high stakes businessman.
01:48His quest is to solve the world's energy problem.
01:54Twenty years ago, Stanford Ovchinski, a one-time high school dropout and former machinist, made a discovery that shook the world of physics.
02:02In amorphous materials like glass, scorned by the founders of modern electronics, he found a world of atoms that led to uncharted technologies.
02:12His admirers see him as the greatest inventor since the transistor revolution of the late forties.
02:19I grew up as a kid during the depression, thinking about basic problems of nature, being very excited by that.
02:29I grew up in a rich cultural environment in terms of thinking and speaking and reading, but it was also clear that I wasn't going to go to college.
02:39And so I chose a trade, and I chose a trade of machinists, of a toolmaker, because to me, I still love it.
02:46To me, the making of things, the manufacturing of something, to take something that wasn't there and to make it new in different ways is a very exciting thing.
02:59I still love the smell of oil and the machine and the tools and the chips.
03:05But I was also part of, in terms of my mind, I wanted to understand.
03:10I felt that I was going to be an inventor from a very early age, because I felt something in me that said not only to understand all that one could,
03:20but then to change, to change, to make something where something wasn't there before.
03:27Owczynski grew up in a world of exciting inventions, among them the vacuum tube, which made radio and television possible.
03:34Then, in the 1940s, a new electronics revolution began.
03:38The tiny transistor paved the way for today's high-speed computers and all of modern telecommunications.
03:45The world of possibilities was opening to probing minds.
03:49I was inquisitive, I was curious, I wanted to understand, I wanted to participate, I wanted to help change the world and shape it.
03:58The new electronics industry depended completely on crystalline materials like silicon with their regular atomic structure.
04:07When a small impurity is introduced, it greatly enhances the ability of the crystal to conduct electricity.
04:14But crystals must be grown and the process is expensive.
04:18Owczynski had the revolutionary idea that non-crystalline materials like glass with a disordered atomic structure would work just as well.
04:26But these amorphous materials had long been disdained by physicists who considered them poor conductors of electricity and hard to analyze mathematically because of their random nature.
04:38Stanford Owczynski was challenging the dogma of modern physics.
04:42What brought him to this was an interest in biology and a strong intuition.
04:47He saw similarities between amorphous materials and the nerve cells of the brain.
04:52So I became, I was always interested in biology, but I became interested in what is the nerve cell?
04:58How does it store information? How does it switch information? How does it transfer information?
05:04And I, there was no theories there. The field of transistors and crystalline materials, which were rising so steeply, had no answers for that.
05:14Now, to be able to take materials, to take atoms now, and to put them in new and different ways relating to each other, this, you can't do that when you have a crystal, what we call lattice.
05:28It's a tyranny. You must have, here's a lattice, crystal lattice. This is a crystal, germanium crystal. Everything is very regular. You can't distort that or change it much.
05:39You have limitations. So if you want to create new materials, you have to be able to synthesize.
05:48You have to be able to take from the mind instead of from the minds.
05:52And then you must use your, because it's an uncharted area in inorganic materials.
05:58You must be able to have a vision of what those atoms, how they can go together.
06:03You can't violate the laws of chemistry and the laws of physics.
06:07What you have instead is a new world of chemistry and physics, where if you can determine in your own mind what the atoms would naturally do.
06:18It took him years of experiments in his home basement until he came up with this tiny device made up of amorphous glass and capable of switching electricity off and on at the amazing speed of a trillionth of a second.
06:31It's impossible. It cannot work. Scientists scoffed at him.
06:35Owczynski took his invention to Helmut Pritchett, chairman of physics at the University of Chicago, who at first couldn't believe what he saw.
06:44So we had to understand what gives rise to the memory state.
06:50But the evidence was undeniable, and Pritchett became a convict.
06:54That was a forbidden subject in the early days of semiconductors.
06:57In crystals, this does not happen.
07:01But you don't want that. It's a failure mechanism.
07:05When the results were published, Owczynski made history, and his invention became known as the Owczynski effect.
07:11Glassy electronic device may surpass transistor, the headline said.
07:17The structural state between an amorphous state and a partially crystalline state and back to an amorphous state.
07:25And the optical memory that came from it and all the photography.
07:28It was all initiated by electrical pulses, but any kind of energy...
07:32A self-taught inventor had embarrassed the world of science, opening a new field of material studies.
07:38You know, humans create the disciplines, nature did not.
07:42But it is a combination of physics and chemistry and what we now call material science.
07:48When you do that, you have an effect upon the way we live.
07:52Look at how the transistor affected the way we live.
07:55The electron tube affected the way we lived in the old days.
07:59And how we listened, we had radio.
08:02And how society lived was changed by the radio, just like how society lived was changed by the automobile.
08:09Obviously the society is changing now because of the computer and because of the transistor.
08:16Now with amorphous materials and you're able to do so many different things in so many different ways by thinking in terms of amorphous materials.
08:24Then there's going to be another impact of how we live.
08:27And I hope and I look forward to that impact being a very favorable one.
08:32Mostly the visionaries don't succeed.
08:35Don't keep their sanity, don't keep their judgment and so on.
08:38Dr. Isaac Riby, Nobel Prize winner and the ground man of American physics, has been watching Gofsinski for 25 years.
08:45Some succeed and some don't.
08:48So much depends upon the times.
08:50So much depends upon accident.
08:54So much depends on whom you meet, what impression you make.
09:00That's the whole gamble of life.
09:04You can't lay down the rule.
09:1023 years after his stormy admittance to the world of science, Stan Gofsinski still lacks a formal education.
09:17He went the Edison way and decided to hand deliver his invention to the world.
09:23300 people, 70 of them with doctorates, work for his Edison-like company called Energy Conversion Devices.
09:32Over those years he spent 200 million dollars on research to develop new amorphous materials.
09:39If this were a university lab exploring new frontiers of science, nobody would criticize him for not generating profit in any of those years.
09:49But since he's on the stock market, many do.
09:52Can a great scientist be a great businessman, they ask him.
09:58For Gofsinski, who wants to change the world, the answer is, I have no choice.
10:04Dr. Stephen Hatchins is ECD vice president and Stan Gofsinski is chief scientist.
10:08The remarkable things about working at ECD is the freedom to work across boundaries of conventional understanding.
10:14For instance, there are aspects of chemistry, engineering, physics, all of which are involved in every aspect of the things that we work with.
10:21Let me show you how our research and development is organized at ECD.
10:26Basically, our company is divided into product divisions.
10:31Photovoltaics, batteries, thermoelectric, imager and display, synthetic materials.
10:38Research and development has a responsibility for developing the new materials that are used in each of these products,
10:45as well as helping to solve production problems related with producing the products,
10:50and in some cases inventing device configurations that use these new materials to allow new products to be developed.
10:56Basically, this is the alphabet from which we construct materials.
11:02The periodic table of the elements is the ECD scientist's bible.
11:07They study atoms inside the elements and, like modern alchemists, create new amorphous structures.
11:14We know a lot about the transition metals also for coatings.
11:17For instance, somebody said one time, silicon and carbon are the same,
11:23except carbon gives you biology and silicon gives you sand.
11:26The way the atoms go together make all the difference.
11:29If the Owczynski lab is the atom's kitchen, this is the atom's oven.
11:35They are cooked by applying radio frequency or microwave energy to gases made of various elements,
11:41like germanium, tellurium, arsenic and others.
11:46This causes them to light up by knocking electrons out of the gas molecules and creating ions and free electrons.
11:54These together comprise a charged gas called plasma.
11:57Some call it the fourth state of matter.
12:00Plasma seals the atoms and spreads them like butter on a substrate.
12:05The atoms leave the oven and are served to scientists as a thin film.
12:11The recipe is now a secret.
12:13When the patent is issued, it will become a potential moneymaker for Owczynski's company.
12:19How to write a patent is a science in itself.
12:22The strategy is to be general enough so that others cannot create their own inventions,
12:27but to reveal just enough so that they must rely on yours.
12:32Obtaining and then selling patents are this company's assets.
12:36300 already issued in the US, 1500 abroad, 180 applied for.
12:42This is the current score of Owczynski's science for sale.
12:46Those who buy it make products out of it.
12:50Plasma is a remarkable way of making materials
12:53because the energies involved are so much higher than we can achieve in normal thermodynamically equilibrium processes.
13:00An extremely durable amorphous drum for copy machines is one example.
13:08The everyday life at the lab is still the struggle for what they call material optimization.
13:14From his initial discovery, Owczynski's science has flown to new heights.
13:19Today it's not just amorphous materials,
13:21but a combination of both crystalline and amorphous structures in one material.
13:27This new technology has already generated a computer optical disk
13:31with a 400 million byte memory capable of storing an entire 50 volume encyclopedia.
13:38You can go up to 40, 50 probably, right?
13:41No problem.
13:42I think then let's give the next experiment 50 watts.
13:46We keep the same recipe.
13:48And maybe you'd like to reduce the time.
13:50This was two and a half minutes?
13:51Correct.
13:52Let's go down to two minutes.
13:56Scientists from 16 countries found their haven at the Owczynski lab.
14:02Some of them fled the rigidity of corporate structures.
14:05Others couldn't stand academic bureaucracy or the limitations of the third world.
14:11Dr. Shabandu Guha from Bombay Stata Institute is director of photovoltaic research here.
14:18He has over 70 publications in solid state physics.
14:25But with Owczynski, the stakes are higher than publish or perish.
14:29They are here to win or lose a technological war and to make big bucks along the way.
14:35If I don't get there, I shall have much less loss.
14:38Today, they try to improve the composition of an amorphous material for solar cells.
14:48Dr. Wali Chobati, PhD in electrical engineering.
14:54But supposing you have 95% of the total light getting through.
14:58In addition, you'll be losing 3 or 4% here.
15:01So this is the first thing that we are trying to do.
15:03How about the match between the...
15:06Dr. Adam Pawlikiewicz came from Poland.
15:09Silicon nitride and silicon, amorphous silicon here.
15:13Don't you think that you may lose some kind of collection
15:17because of the fact that perhaps microcrystalline is wider bandgap?
15:22That's a good question.
15:24But as you know that even the microcrystalline P plus that we are using today without nitrogen,
15:29that has a bandgap of about 2 electron volt.
15:31You cannot talk about hydrides.
15:33Of all of Shinsky's scientific goals,
15:36the application of new materials to solar technology is closest to his heart.
15:41Here in the Institute of Amorphous Studies he built in the back of his 10-acre yard,
15:46scientists holding the highest academic titles in physics and chemistry come to listen to him.
15:53His message is that the key to solving the world's energy problems lies in his solar cells.
16:00His mission is to convince the world that he is right.
16:03Truly amorphous germanium is not very interesting.
16:06This is a dream come true.
16:08As you remember NASA doesn't have...
16:11This is twice the energy for...
16:15His newly developed amorphous solar panel is so light and flexible
16:19you can almost wear it as a shirt.
16:21You can't do that to a crystal.
16:25The ovonic switch brought Stanford of Shinsky scientific fame.
16:28This is the ovonic machine that is supposed to turn this fame
16:32into a technological breakthrough in photovoltaics,
16:35the conversion of solar energy into electricity.
16:41Six layers of amorphous thin film will be deposited from the plasma
16:46onto a sheet of thin steel.
16:49Photons from the rays of the sun will excite the electrons in the amorphous solar cell
16:54and these now free electrons will create electricity.
16:57To do that they have to be channeled into a silkscreened grid pattern,
17:02a kind of thin film wire made of silver paint.
17:07The machine is called the continuous web roll-to-roll photovoltaic processor.
17:12With a speed of 10 inches per minute the machine makes solar cells
17:16one foot wide and up to 2,000 feet long.
17:19In 10 years time 30,000 of these machines could produce enough cells
17:24to cover 5% of Arizona and provide enough electricity for the entire United States.
17:31Of Shinsky's critics and competitors call this machine a white elephant.
17:36They call him an impatient inventor who put the cart before the horse,
17:41spending millions of dollars on a machine before establishing a market.
17:46It is a third generation machine born out of not quite happy marriages.
17:50The first one was financed by the money ECD made on a solar contract with Arco.
17:56The second was a $20 million Japanese baby fathered by Sharp Corporation
18:02to produce minuscule solar cells for pocket calculators.
18:06When the market became oversaturated the machine had no more use.
18:10The present machine comes from a joint venture with Standard Oil of Ohio
18:15which ended in divorce after Sohio spent 87 million dollars on it.
18:19ECD was able to acquire the machine in a friendly settlement and decided to go on its own.
18:25Now the pressure is on Of Shinsky to make the machine pay for itself.
18:31The solar game is one of technology and money.
18:34When NASA needed solar cells for its space program money was no object.
18:39The first crystal cells built by hand produce electricity at $200 per watt.
18:44Now the Of Shinsky machine and its amorphous technology
18:48is capable of delivering a watt of electricity for under $5.
18:52But even with that the machine usually sits idle.
18:58Unlike other ovonic devices Stan Of Shinsky's photovoltaics do not sell yet.
19:04When the world was ready for solar energy in the midst of its oil crisis
19:09the technology was out of date.
19:11Today Of Shinsky's technology waits for the world.
19:18But countries with money do not seem to care about solar energy
19:23and the third world countries that need it most have no money to buy it.
19:33Stanford Of Shinsky places himself in a position of power.
19:37Stanford Of Shinsky places his hopes in Japan.
19:44This is his 80th trip to Japan.
19:47Iris, his wife and PhD in biochemistry is vice president of their company.
19:52She is his inseparable companion.
19:55I immediately recognized that there was something happening in Japan in 64.
20:00When I came back and talked to my American colleagues about it
20:03they didn't seem to think so.
20:06People looked down upon Japan.
20:09They thought that the Japanese would produce inferior products.
20:13The president of one big automotive company told me
20:16that they would never learn how to build an automobile.
20:19But I saw something else.
20:22I saw a determination, a vitality and an intelligence
20:27and thought this would be of interest to us.
20:29The feeling that I have is any country that survived a war
20:34with the destruction that accompanied the war
20:37and was able to rebuild itself is admirable.
20:42The feeling that there is industry and power
20:47and pulsating vitality in terms of building of new kinds of products
20:52that's all to the good.
20:54That's what America should be and what it used to be.
20:56What we have to offer is what they would like to use
21:00to build their industrial base, to make new products.
21:04Crystal technology has been pushed to the fundamental limits of nature
21:08and Silicon Valley will soon become Death Valley.
21:11Amorphous is the way to go for modern Japan, he tells them,
21:15pointing to his new solar application.
21:18We have to free ourselves from conventional fuels.
21:21That's one problem.
21:22The next problem is to provide new materials for the information field
21:27because these two fields will be the largest.
21:30And the third point will be to provide new synthetic materials
21:33that have desired characteristics that allow us to build new industries.
21:38New materials, materials from the mind and not from the minds.
21:43Materials that we can synthesize, that we can take elements
21:47in three-dimensional space and put them together
21:50in arrangements that are simply not possible
21:55and are limited by the lattice, by the crystalline lattice,
21:59what I call the tyranny of the crystalline lattice.
22:03So it's been a dream, a utopian dream to use photovoltaics.
22:09But if you have a role now, and that role is thin and flexible...
22:14Twenty years ago, when few of his own countrymen took him seriously,
22:18Japan christened him a genius.
22:21Now he wants the Japanese to wave his solar flag as well.
22:26You have now a way of making roles in Japan or in the United States or in China
22:31and shipping those roles anywhere in the world
22:34and having the low-tech end making them into modules.
22:39How do you start doing business with Japan
22:42when you hold 300 patents in the materials you know Japan is interested in?
22:46You go to the trade show, look under amorphous
22:50and quickly figure out who is infringing on your patent.
22:54Then you kindly invite the big corporation to buy the license from you
22:59and after they decline, you threaten to sue them.
23:02That shocks the Japanese, who are used to solving problems by friendly negotiations.
23:10And that was exactly the beginning of Owczynski's Romance.
23:13That's exactly the beginning of Owczynski's Romance with Japanese industry.
23:17A tough start with a happy end.
23:24Today, Owczynski's company conducts business with Japan's giants.
23:29Matsushita Electric, Sony, Hitachi, Canon, Sharp and Nippon Steel are on the list.
23:35At Canon, personal copiers are being produced with amorphous drums developed by ECD.
23:47The revenue from licenses like copier drums, optical discs, memory systems,
23:52scientific mirrors and coating for machine tools supported his company for 23 years.
23:57If it wasn't for the Japanese, the prolific inventor-entrepreneur
24:01who is spending the bulk of his revenue on solar technology could have been out of business.
24:08It was though a different Japan that opened its arms to him a decade ago
24:13when a bonanza was on the horizon.
24:16Today, overproduction and trade friction force the Japanese
24:20to make more cautious economic decisions.
24:25ECD Japan is his subsidiary.
24:27From here, he sells his patents to Japanese industry.
24:43Mike Iwakata is in charge of marketing.
24:57The president or top management is not like a founder usually.
25:03Its founder is different.
25:05But those kind of people are employed, you know, the president or an employed vice president.
25:10And those people are just trying to maintain their reputation in the industry.
25:15So what they're trying to do is because in such a panic situation,
25:20they rather want to get the immediate return.
25:23Japan in that sense is becoming more Americanized
25:25where we're involved in trying to transform the way society has to work and live.
25:30And these guys are going back into saying,
25:32well, what can we do this week, this month, this near term?
25:37One of the biggest Japanese venture capitalists,
25:40Yutaro Hasegawa of Mitsubishi Chemicals,
25:43has just returned from China.
25:45Anticipating a manufacturing crisis at home,
25:48he looks to Asia for new labor and consumer markets.
25:51And that is exactly where Ofsinski hopes to sell his photovoltaics.
25:56In terms of this, these are some of the photovoltaic paddocks.
26:02See how flexible?
26:04Yeah.
26:06Photovoltaics now in crystal form is heavy and glass and breaks easy.
26:14And it hasn't got, well, look here.
26:19You're losing at least 80% of your light through the window.
26:26It's dark.
26:28And yet there's enough light to run radio or whatever.
26:34And this is not only for radios, but of course to do work.
26:41To be able to put a photovoltaic paddock in a room,
26:44not only for radios, but of course to do work.
26:47To be able to bring energy to people who are without it
26:52is going to change their life so much.
26:55The ability to have medicines and to have jobs,
27:00without electricity you can't have anything.
27:04I have to be not only an inventor, I have to be an entrepreneur.
27:08And I have to have a strategy of how to introduce a new product,
27:12a new invention that can have so much potential impact as photovoltaics.
27:19You can carry under your arm 40 kilowatts of electricity.
27:23Something you could not do with nuclear energy, obviously.
27:35We put holes through it.
27:38Actually shot bullet holes through it.
27:39And it doesn't destroy...
27:48So what it's a new technology, thin film on flexible substrate.
27:55And it allows you to do things that simply were unrealistic,
28:01utopian before in terms of solar energy.
28:05For the first time it makes sunlight a practical form of energy conversion.
28:36The fact that the climate can get so much hotter from the pollution
28:41really is what it amounts to, from burning fossil fuels.
28:45So in any sane society the burning of fossil fuels
28:48which could cause such a horrible catastrophe would be banned.
28:52But nobody can ban coal or oil.
28:55And oil is dangerous.
28:57I know he's a big oil man and Japan went to war when its oil got cut off.
29:02Right now the war in the Persian Gulf is over who controls oil.
29:08A diligent student in Japanese manners,
29:11Stan Ofsinski made unusual inroads in the world we call Japan Inc.
29:18It is a world of family connection, university ties and government influence
29:23in which an American businessman often behaves like a bull in a China shop.
29:28The daughter of Dr. Tadashi Sasaki is getting married.
29:40Her father, a former sharp executive vice president, is Stan's dear friend of 20 years.
29:46Dr. Sasaki was the one who first called Ofsinski the American genius
29:50and who still spreads the word.
29:52Today Sasaki is one of the most trusted advisers to Japanese industries and government.
29:59If you have a basic and fundamental new approach and a new idea
30:05then it really isn't the general acceptance that you're after.
30:11What you're after are those people who can understand
30:15because what I want to do is very ambitious.
30:18I wanted to and we are doing with your help and your vision.
30:23We're transforming the way the world thinks about materials and how it works.
30:29And therefore if an idea is so basically new and different
30:35and it's immediately accepted there is something wrong.
30:38I have found that in Japan the transition between what I was saying
30:45and its acceptance was a very short time historically.
30:50Much longer in the United States.
30:59Professor Sasaki gives grades in science and technology.
31:03For creativity Europe gets an A, United States a B, Japan a C.
31:09In future technologies A to US, B to Europe, C to Japan.
31:14Americans get A in high technology, Japanese get B, C for Europeans.
31:20When it comes to product development, improvement and production
31:24Japan is the notorious top of the class
31:27and that's how international trade friction developed.
31:30The world of science and technology according to Sasaki is a matter of water and fish.
31:36The fish is the product, the river is a national market
31:40and the ocean stands for the international marketplace.
31:44Americans and Europeans invent and engineer a fish, put it in the river
31:49and when it grows fat and reaches the ocean
31:52the Japanese bring their big fishing boats and catch it.
31:55To get rid of the economic friction, creativity should fly freely across the oceans
32:00and the fishing should be shared.
32:02Help each other by a connection of a canal.
32:07Japan needs assistant USA like you.
32:10See, what Japan is so good at is not only application and improvement and production
32:16but acceptance. So I don't know if I would just put down acceptance here.
32:21To accept a new idea is part of creativity.
32:28It's a new part of creativity but a very important part of creativity.
32:32That is what Japan has been able to do all this
32:36because it understands creativity and is able then to apply it.
32:42Where in Europe, as you know, the acceptance of creativity is very low.
32:47And the United States, despite the fact that it claims to accept creativity
32:52has many structural institutional inhibitions to it.
32:58In Japan there is a big bureaucracy and structure
33:02because look, you are such a creative guy
33:06and yet the Japanese government uses you as a wise man.
33:09So the Japanese government, even though it's big and bureaucratic
33:12is creative in that it uses creative people.
33:15In the Sasaki prescription for harmonious world science and technology
33:20the partners would teach each other what they know best.
33:23It's a deceptively simple ideal
33:26but Ofsinski questions the Americans' ability or desire to deliver.
33:29No country can be great or have the environment for creativity
33:35without an industrial base.
33:37And it seems to me that the industrial base of the United States is eroding.
33:42Take in Japan the declining industries, steel, shipbuilding.
33:47They're making a desperate attempt
33:51not just to buy each other up and to take each other over like in the United States
33:56but they're making a desperate attempt to get into new technology.
33:59And technology is the answer.
34:01New products are the answer.
34:03I don't see that in the United States.
34:06It's hard to be a prophet in your own land, Ofsinski seems to imply.
34:11And elsewhere, what are his real chances?
34:14Momoko Ito, the president of ECD Japan
34:17her mentor, professor Edwin Reischauer
34:20former US ambassador to Japan and one of ECD directors
34:23and his wife, Haru, who writes books on Japanese-American history
34:27speculate on whether Ofsinski's big dreams will play in Japan and when.
34:33Japanese always have this hungry feeling or sense for crisis.
34:41Maybe it's partly because of the experience of the war that the Japanese lost
34:47or the realistic fact that we don't have natural resources.
34:50So, Japanese are always searching for something new.
34:54They're much more sensitive about what's going on around the rest of the world
34:59than Americans for the same reason.
35:01So, Ofsinski was in a way much well-known among Japanese probably
35:09than among Americans for the same reason
35:12because Japanese are always looking for something new.
35:15The most popular word in Japan today is internationalization.
35:19And they don't know what it means.
35:21They don't know what to do about it.
35:23But what they have to do is find things like this
35:27that will internationalize their contribution to the world.
35:31And if they can hit on things like this
35:34where it really makes a difference to their neighbors and the poor countries
35:38then the Japanese will get a great deal of satisfaction out of it.
35:42It will actually help their economy
35:44because it helps balance the trade imbalance that goes on right now.
35:48And it will have a playback effect on the Japanese economy itself
35:53as the other countries become more prosperous.
35:57Japanese have always had the concept of doing something for something bigger than yourself.
36:01It's not just your own profit.
36:03It's a profit of the company.
36:05It's a profit of the nation.
36:07Japanese industry was built up to produce a strong Japan.
36:11And now Japan's gotten to a place in the world
36:14where it has to do it for the whole world.
36:16It can't get along by itself.
36:19The whole world has to prosper.
36:21The poor countries as well as the rich countries.
36:24And the Japanese see that if they're going to maintain their present position
36:28and play their natural place in the world
36:30they've got to do something for the whole world.
36:32And so they're looking for something of the same way.
36:35And Stan and the Japanese therefore just click together on this.
36:41They both want to do something that will count in the long run
36:44and count for the world
36:47and give Japan the position it should have in the world
36:50and us our position of leadership too.
36:53Back in Detroit with a maybe from Japan
36:57Ofsinski is looking for bright people
36:59who can create a market for photovoltaics in America.
37:02Dr. John Kelly, private consultant in public policies from Austin, Texas
37:07is one prospect.
37:09Well, right.
37:11But it's like the newspaper.
37:12The newspaper is great.
37:14Who's going to write on it and who's going to buy it?
37:16To have a newspaper, let's use the same analogy.
37:18To have the newspaper you have to have a literate public.
37:20Right.
37:22So that's where you come in.
37:24The projections, the energy projections for the United States
37:26indicate that we're going to have a very serious shortage
37:28in base load capacity.
37:30The ability to generate basic energy supply
37:32for domestic and industrial purposes in the United States.
37:35Unless we do one of several things.
37:38Either we build more large capacity generating facilities
37:42which would either be coal fired or nuclear fired
37:45or some petrochemical base.
37:48Or we move to a different technology,
37:50to a solar technology that can provide that base load.
37:54The perception on the part of most policy makers
37:57and most energy companies
38:00is that solar technology cannot fill that gap at this point.
38:04One of the ironies of solar is that in the policy area
38:08people are now concerned about the environmental aspects
38:10of solar.
38:12They think that if the efficiency stays in the teens,
38:16the amount of surface area that's going to be required
38:19covered with solar cells, areas the size of Arizona,
38:22would be just covered with solar cells
38:24in order to really provide the kind of power
38:26the United States need.
38:28Is that an accurate view?
38:30Well, it reminds me of the people who felt
38:33they ought to design airplanes
38:36by flapping their wings like a bird
38:38because a bird flies.
38:40It just takes the conventional way
38:43you've been doing things
38:45and now extrapolates for new technology
38:47that that's what you ought to be doing.
38:49Well, I think the day of the tremendous
38:52centralization of energy
38:55and then the distribution of energy
38:57in the conventional way
38:59is one that is changing
39:01and will in time become very much less important.
39:05Just as you were talking about base load,
39:07there's two different important points in energy.
39:10One is generation and the other is transmission.
39:13And transmission costs are very large.
39:16In any country that doesn't have an infrastructure,
39:18for example, it isn't just the generation that's important.
39:21They couldn't afford to build the wires
39:24to go across the mountains or the rivers or what have you.
39:26The fact is that the problem that I see now
39:29is not one of technology.
39:31It's not one of science.
39:33It's a bit of psychology.
39:35It's really a public policy
39:37because how to get a revolution started
39:40is one thing.
39:42How to propagate it is another.
39:45And what's needed now
39:47are other kinds of people
39:49of the entrepreneurial bent,
39:51of the planning bent,
39:53of the ability to meet the kind of social structure
39:56and political structure problems
39:58that are involved in changing
40:00the vast field of energy
40:02as we know about it.
40:04That's where I think the people like you
40:05can be very helpful
40:07to people like ourselves
40:09because that's what's going to be required.
40:11A sales meeting at Sovoni,
40:13Owczynski's solar energy company.
40:16A salesman from Arizona
40:18is on a conference call.
40:20He wants to know what price per watt to quote.
40:22395 is incredible.
40:24Nobody comes close to it.
40:26They struggle to get volume orders
40:28without which any price
40:30is below the production cost.
40:32On the solar energy market,
40:33the law of supply and demand
40:35is still a hope,
40:37not a reality.
40:39No different than when Henry Ford
40:41started his Model T,
40:43comments Stanford Owczynski.
40:45The only way we can do it, I say,
40:47is to give them a bonanza
40:49that if they buy,
40:51I don't care if it's 100 kW,
40:53say it's 500 kW or something like that
40:55and bring your price down to $3.50 a kilowatt.
40:57Dr. Masatsugu Izu,
40:59an Owczynski-style scientist
41:01turned businessman,
41:03a world-renowned whiz kid
41:05in photovoltaics.
41:07He was a student of the famous Kenichi Fukui,
41:09Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
41:11Arizona, New Mexico,
41:13Colorado, California?
41:15Well, Arizona and New Mexico for sure,
41:17but you have to get us
41:19a big purchase order.
41:22Midway between Japan
41:24and the American mainland is Hawaii.
41:26Owczynski sees it
41:28as an important proving ground
41:30for his solar technology.
41:31Dudley Pratt,
41:33the president of Hawaiian Electric Company,
41:35is a potential convert.
41:37Basically all of our generation here
41:39is oil-fired,
41:41and this is where our interest
41:43has become so great
41:45in trying to find a source
41:47for island nations
41:49to produce electricity
41:51without burning oil,
41:53because we're at the mercy
41:55of the world oil situation.
41:57Everybody still thinks of photovoltaics
41:59being utopian,
42:01but that was the 1990s.
42:03And that's the 1990s today
42:05in terms of product.
42:07And in order to get the price down,
42:09which is what we both want to do
42:11in terms of making it suitable
42:13for utilities,
42:15it's just a matter of now
42:17getting enough orders
42:19so that you can have volume,
42:21because we can get down to $2.
42:23Owczynski sees an opportunity here
42:25and looks for a partner.
42:27He knows that San Abandoned Hawaii
42:29pays the highest electric bill
42:31in the U.S. here.
42:33He has a solar agenda for Hawaii.
42:35He would assemble his panels
42:37in the islands
42:39should the Japanese investment come true,
42:41and later,
42:43with even more venture capital,
42:45he would install a photovoltaic plant,
42:47export the panels to the Pacific Basin,
42:49and assemble them there.
42:51Translated and transferred
42:53an idea which appears
42:55to be so advanced
42:57into an actual product
42:59into a developing country
43:01because that's one thing they can do.
43:03And right now in America,
43:05everybody thinks that business,
43:07and they assume I'm supposed
43:09to be a businessman, right?
43:11And I'm being criticized
43:13because a businessman has to think
43:15in terms of mergers, takeovers,
43:17all this sort of paperwork
43:19that doesn't build value.
43:21And I believe that the real value
43:23has to be built
43:25is in science and technology,
43:27and you cannot lose that base,
43:29and in production.
43:31There's no marvelous
43:33that one person can do it
43:35and another person can't.
43:37It needs a determination
43:39and a culture
43:41that you're going to build things,
43:43and this is something
43:45that the Japanese have
43:47and others are developing.
43:49It's an ethic,
43:51and it's an ethic
43:53that's disappearing
43:55in the United States.
43:57On the southern shore
43:59of Honolulu
44:01the Japanese market
44:03has installed here
44:05a crystal panel for remote power.
44:07Across the water
44:09Japanese investors
44:11will pour $4 billion
44:13into building another Waikiki
44:15without including solar power.
44:17This saddens Kali.
44:19What an exposure
44:21for a solar farm,
44:23he tells Stan and Iris.
44:25In Kali's solar shop
44:27Owczynski compares
44:29arco-crystal cells
44:31to remotes,
44:33asking themselves
44:35whether solar in America
44:37will ever take off.
44:39According to Kali
44:41it all amounts to dollars and cents.
44:43You're talking about
44:45electronic gear,
44:47metal parts,
44:49wiring,
44:51power inverters,
44:53and right on down to the batteries.
44:55If we had billions of dollars
44:57worth of that being made,
44:59then this industry,
45:01it would be changed
45:03and the economics would have to
45:05start changing on this.
45:07And as you cut down on weight
45:09and size...
45:11At night,
45:13solar energy gets expensive.
45:15When storage batteries
45:17are added to the installation cost
45:19the price per watt doubles.
45:21But Owczynski argues
45:23that the self-contained solar home
45:25is not practical in the United States.
45:27He wants your utility company
45:29to serve as a battery
45:31and he plans to develop
45:33an entirely new kind
45:35of storage battery
45:37based upon his forays
45:39into the hot new field
45:41of superconductivity research.
45:43This, he believes,
45:45will be his next
45:47technological breakthrough.
45:49So once you've started
45:51a revolution,
45:53you cannot fix it in time
45:55and space and say,
45:57gee, that's it,
45:59and look at the limitations.
46:01The real true cost
46:03of where the energy sources
46:05come from,
46:07and you've got to include
46:09cleaning up the mess
46:11from acid rain,
46:13the coal dust that's in the air,
46:15and the ruining of the aquifers,
46:17and we have to go clean
46:19a whole aquifer out
46:21and see what that costs.
46:23If they include those costs
46:25and put them on the back
46:27of the polluting industries,
46:29photovoltaics can compete
46:31with poverty.
46:33And so what we have to do
46:35is live with this,
46:37but change it.
46:39And public awareness
46:41is going to take too long.
46:43We have to really appeal
46:45to the self-interest
46:47of the groups involved.
46:49And if the utilities
46:51have been a factor
46:53of retardation,
46:54then we have to work
46:56with the utilities.
46:58We have to really win,
46:59because that's the reality
47:01of the situation,
47:03that we can do this,
47:05that we have the mechanism
47:07where they can make money,
47:09and at the same time,
47:11where we can build new industries.
47:13New industries in the
47:15electrical industry,
47:17in the DC industry.
47:19The things that are
47:21holding back technical progress
47:23is that there's no investment.
47:25People are investing
47:27in real estate here,
47:29but with sugar going down
47:31and everything,
47:33agriculture not being
47:35what it should be,
47:37it seems to me that
47:39here's an opportunity.
47:41One of the things Hawaii
47:43has is a tremendous
47:45resource of people,
47:47knowledge, skills,
47:49sun, energy potential.
47:51So they're all here.
47:53What's the backing?
47:55It's just plastic.
47:57By the way,
47:59it's low cost.
48:01It's the ultimate in
48:03what you can do.
48:05You know,
48:07the other thing, Governor,
48:09is that this kind of technology
48:11spawns other kinds of
48:13technologies that Hawaii
48:15could be involved in.
48:17Now we have to discuss storage.
48:19Ultimately,
48:21he will receive a small
48:23order from Hawaii
48:25to build a 10 kilowatt
48:27solar farm.
48:29Hawaii's longtime ally,
48:31mainland United States
48:33harder to win over,
48:35and Hawaii a bridge
48:37between these two worlds.
48:39But this man,
48:41who thinks only big battles
48:43are worth fighting,
48:45expects a struggle.
48:47There's a quote
48:49on the wall
48:51of Stanford Ofsinski's office.
48:53Champions of new inventions
48:55must display persistence
48:57and courage
48:59A new idea
49:01either finds a champion
49:03or dies.
49:05Will Hawaii become
49:07his utopia island?
49:09Back home,
49:11Stanford Ofsinski
49:13puts on his new inventor's hat,
49:15one that he calls an old one.
49:17Superconductivity
49:19is a phenomenon occurring
49:21in certain materials
49:23when electric current
49:25is transmitted without power loss.
49:27Until recently,
49:29the world was exposed
49:31to extremely low temperatures
49:33with high-cost liquid helium.
49:35Now the race is on
49:37to find materials
49:39that are superconductive
49:41at higher temperatures.
49:43The elusive goal
49:45is room temperature.
49:47In Japan,
49:49the fever got out of hand.
49:51One company alone,
49:53Sumitomo Electric,
49:55fired off a barrage
49:57of 700 patent applications.
49:59What is now,
50:01looking at it my way,
50:03is not the crystal structure
50:05as everyone thinks it is,
50:07but the defects,
50:09the disorder,
50:11the same principles
50:13that I use for amorphosity
50:15and for glasses
50:17are now being considered
50:19not only by me,
50:21but are now being addressed
50:23by others.
50:25And in fact,
50:27you have to make the materials
50:29that we can actually now sample.
50:31In a paper published
50:33in Physical Review Letters
50:35of Shinsuke reveals
50:37his special recipe.
50:39He is confident
50:41that his experience
50:43in thin film technology
50:45and knowledge of materials
50:47will assure him
50:49a strong position
50:51in the race for patents.
50:53Dr. David Elrod
50:55conducts experiments.
50:57He was up at 4 a.m.
50:59and wants to obtain
51:01the same result
51:03in front of the team.
51:05David will put the sample
51:07into a cooling tank
51:09filled with liquid nitrogen.
51:11While conducting electricity
51:13through the sample,
51:15he will be lowering
51:17the temperature of cooling
51:19until the magic zero resistance
51:21will appear
51:23on the measurement instrument.
51:25After achieving zero resistance,
51:27the temperature reading
51:29will be at 100 milli-ohms.
51:31It's pretty high temperature.
51:33It's 180.
51:35That we beat.
51:37It's not yellow,
51:39but it's dropped very fast now.
51:41It dropped very fast now.
51:43Well, then I think
51:45we ought to wait for this one.
51:47I'm not breaking for lunch.
51:49I don't know anybody else
51:51who might not break.
51:53The exciting thing
51:55is that you can have
51:57a breakthrough every minute.
52:00We're about 1.3.
52:02And we're down 6.73.
52:04Oh, this is really coming down.
52:06This is remarkable.
52:08You're checking for critical current.
52:11Yeah.
52:13Very close.
52:15It's very close to zero.
52:17Is that right?
52:19Yeah, 7.45.
52:21It's to zero.
52:23What is it?
52:25I can't get it anymore.
52:277.45.
52:29Is that right?
52:31This is zero.
52:33I'm increasing the current.
52:35168 Kelvin.
52:37Incredible.
52:39Make sure that you have it all.
52:41We have a lot to celebrate today.
52:43And in the usual ECD fashion,
52:45where science has to be fun,
52:47and this is certainly fun,
52:49then everybody get out of the way
52:51because workman's compensation
52:53I don't think covers this.
52:55Glass, glass, glass.
52:57Between a prediction
52:59of a superconductivity market
53:01of $20 billion by the year 2000
53:03and a projected annual
53:05$50 million royalty to ECD
53:07for optical memory disks,
53:09the scientist cheers his alter ego,
53:11the capitalist.
53:13But for all this,
53:15his company is still running in the red.
53:17So he recently restructured the company,
53:19laid off 100 of his staff,
53:21cut his and his wife's salary in half,
53:23and asked a big headhunter
53:25to find him a chief operating officer.
53:28Back home,
53:30life for Iris and Stan Owczynski
53:32is as amorphous
53:34as the materials they develop.
53:36In their basement,
53:38the Owczynski switch
53:40has been switching on and off
53:42continuously for 23 years,
53:44proving everybody else
53:46was wrong about amorphous materials.
53:48Stan and Iris are two people
53:50on a mission with their joys and sorrows,
53:52having no boundaries
53:54between home and work.
53:55Their mom and dad company
53:57is a two-minute drive away.
53:59The company stock roller coasters,
54:01up when they invent things
54:03and down when they cannot
54:05sell them right away.
54:07Anybody who believes
54:09that they're a true revolutionary
54:11that wants a rant from a soapbox
54:13is not going to change society.
54:15Society is changed
54:17by hard work
54:19and dedication
54:21and sticking with it.
54:23You're not in there
54:25to build on general principles.
54:27He's not an Edison.
54:29He's an Owczynski.
54:31He's of this age
54:33and he's...
54:35didn't have this formal education.
54:38He has a lot of education.
54:40And he's working
54:42with things
54:44which have been discovered recently
54:46and he's mastered
54:48and he's understood it.
54:50He has some of the Edison thing
54:52that he plays around
54:53in that way.
54:55I think he's more
54:57of a brilliant mind
54:59finding his way
55:01through the intricacies
55:03of modern technology
55:05and science.
55:07One of a special breed,
55:09Stanford Owczynski,
55:11was once right
55:13when the world of science was wrong.
55:15Now his scientific reputation
55:17is unquestioned.
55:19It is the business world
55:21he is up against today
55:24Will Japan's American genius
55:26ever become a prophet with honor
55:28in his own land?
55:53For a transcript of this program
55:55please visit
55:57www.sciencemedia.org
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