With cold weather and snow coating our roofs, you might wonder if solar panels are still effective this time of year. So this week on Possibly we’re answering your snowy solar panel questions.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today, we have a question from a listener. Margret Bulmer wonders whether solar panels still work in the winter when they’re covered with snow.

We had Maddy Adams and Luci Jones from our Possibly Team look into this question. Welcome, Maddy and Luci!

Maddy Adams: Hi, Megan!

Luci Jones: Hey!

Megan Hall: How does snow affect solar panels?

Maddy Adams: It’s a good question, and we needed some help to answer it.

Luci Jones: So we spoke with Andrew Gabor. He works for Brightspot Automation, a company that makes equipment to test how well solar panels are working.

Maddy Adams: He told us solar panels are pretty low maintenance.

Andrew Gabor: It’s really elegant, there’s no moving parts, it’s just this black box, you stick out in the field and, and convert sunlight to electricity and can do that for 30 years with no problems.

Megan Hall: That sounds easy enough!

Luci Jones: And he says, solar panels actually work pretty well in the winter…

Andrew Gabor: In wintertime the panels get cold. So some people think, oh, that could be a problem. And it turns out, it’s not.

Maddy Adams: Andrew says solar panels are actually more efficient in the winter.

Megan Hall: Really? Why?

Maddy Adams: Well first of all, solar panels create energy from the light of the sun, not the heat of the sun.

Luci Jones: Meaning you don’t need to live in a hot place for your solar panels to work well.

Megan Hall: Got it.

Maddy Adams: But there’s another reason too. Bear with us here, it’s gonna get a little technical…

Megan Hall: Ok.

Luci Jones: Solar panels work to produce electricity, which is the flow of tiny charged particles called electrons.

Maddy Adams: Electrons resting in a solar panel get excited when they’re hit with sunlight

Luci Jones: and the difference between their resting energy and their excited energy is what produces power.

Maddy Adams: when it’s hotter outside, the electrons already have a higher resting energy.

Luci Jones: so when they’re hit with sunlight, there’s less of an energy difference between their resting and excited states.

Megan Hall: So, a warm electron that gets hit with sun creates less energy than a cold one that gets hit with sun?

Maddy Adams: Basically. Or, close enough for us non-physicists.

Luci Jones: That means, solar panels don’t just work well in the cold, they thrive in the cold!

Maddy Adams: It’s pretty cool (pun intended).

Megan Hall: But what about Margaret’s question- do solar panels still work when they’re covered with snow?

Maddy Adams: Andrew says, not really.

Andrew Gabor: Their efficiency will be very low when they’re covered with snow. They can work a little bit if there’s a thin dusting of snow, some sunlight can get through it.

Luci Jones: But if there’s no light hitting the panel, it can’t generate electricity.

Maddy Adams: Still, this isn’t usually a big problem. Solar panels are often installed on an angle to get the most direct sunlight.

Luci Jones: So, if a panel has snow on it, with a little help from gravity, the snow slides off.

Megan Hall: When do solar panels work their absolute best?

Luci Jones: Andrew says it’s a combination of factors:

Andrew Gabor: When the sun is shining the brightest, when the panels are pointed most directly at the sun, and when the temperature is coolest.

Maddy Adams: Overall, the amount of sunlight is the most important, so summer months are still when solar panels produce the most electricity.

Luci Jones: But don’t shy away from getting solar panels just because you live in a snowy, cold place!

Maddy Adams: And over a year, if you have enough solar panels in the right location, you can  produce more electricity than your house needs.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Maddy and Luci!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.

The post When do solar panels work? When don’t they? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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President Trump’s tax and spending bill will end a program offering up to $7,500 for Americans who buy electric cars. But you still have a little more time to claim the tax credit. On this episode of Possibly, we break down what potential car buyers need to know.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Back in July, President Trump signed a major tax bill into law, you’ve probably heard it called ‘The Big Beautiful Bill.’ The legislation had a lot in it, So this month on Possibly, Nat Hardy is breaking down what the law means for climate change.

Nat Hardy: Hi Megan! Good to be back.

Megan Hall: So on our last episode you told us what the law means for how we make electricity, and the answer was big cuts to renewable energy, right?

Nat Hardy: That’s right. It basically singled out wind and solar, and rolled back all of the Biden administration’s tax credits for those renewable projects.

Megan Hall: Okay, So what are we talking about today?

Nat Hardy: Today I wanted to talk about what the Big Beautiful Bill means for electric vehicles.

Megan Hall: Yeah, when I bought an electric car a few years ago, I got a nice tax credit.

Nat:  Yeah, President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act set aside big tax credits for electric cars and plug-in hybrids., up to $7,500 for a new car, and $4,000 for used ones. But the Big Beautiful Bill is getting rid of those tax credits.

Megan Hall: Are they gone right away?

Nat Hardy: You can still get  the credit, but you’re running out of time. You have to purchase the car before September 30th of this year to claim the credit on your taxes.

Megan Hall: Oh wow that’s soon.

Nat Hardy: Yeah, the clock is ticking.

Larry Chretien: If you’ve been thinking about buying an electric car, this is the best time to go get one.

Nat Hardy: That’s Larry Chretien, the executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, a clean energy advocacy group working in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Larry thinks the Big Bill is bad news for getting people to buy electric cars, but it’s not the end of the story.

Larry Chretien: EVs are still at the point where the consumer rebate is helpful. The gap between the cost of an electric car and its comparable gasoline powered car is closing. So this is gonna slow down adoption. But EVs are better cars. If you talk to anyone who’s had one, they’re gonna tell you that.

Nat Hardy: Megan what do you think?

Megan Hall: I love my electric car! I’m never going back!

Nat Hardy: I think that’s a common sentiment. And Larry says the car market seems to be moving towards EVs, regardless of the tax credit.

Larry Chretien: The car makers are still gonna produce them because if they don’t, they will not be able to sell cars in a lot of countries that are all in.

Nat Hardy: The number of electric cars globally has tripled over the last three years. In Norway, more than 90% of all new vehicle sales are electric. And China is becoming a big player in EV manufacturing and  purchasing. This June, more than half of all the cars sold in China were electric.

Larry Chretien: Many countries in Europe are going heavily for EVs, and if they can’t buy an American car, they’ll buy a Chinese one.

Nat Hardy: EVs are about the same price as gas cars in China and lots of other countries.  So Larry and other experts argue that the Big Beautiful Bill puts American manufacturers at a disadvantage when it comes to selling electric cars.

Megan Hall: But it sounds like Larry doesn’t think this is the end for EVs in the US. The market is moving there one way or another?

Nat Hardy: Exactly. Americans lose out on this extra bonus for buying an electric car,  but it’s definitely not the end.

Larry Chretien Try to take advantage of the tax credit. It’s $7,500. That’s great. But even then, I have a feeling that you’ll be able to get affordable EVs, you know, next year. We’re not going, you know, to zero electric cars. It’s bad that we’re gonna lose these tax credits, but there’ll still be availability to some extent.

Megan Hall: Great, and just one more time, what’s the last day to get that tax credit?

Nat Hardy: You’ve got to drive your EV off the lot by September 30th, 2025.

Megan Hall: Great, Thanks Nat.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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When four dams were removed along the Klamath River in the Pacific Northwest, it meant giving up a source of renewable energy. But clean energy wasn’t the only factor the company had to consider.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here at Possibly, we usually talk about how dams create clean, renewable electricity, but today we’re reporting on why, sometimes, it makes sense to take them down. To do that, we’re traveling near the border between Oregon and California, to the Klamath River.

Emma Mejia and Iman Khanbhai from our Possibly team have the details.

Emma Mejia: Hi, Megan!

Iman Khanbhai: Hello!

Megan Hall: So why would you remove dams? Aren’t they a good source of renewable energy?

Emma Mejia: Before I answer that question, let’s take a step back and talk about where these dams were on.

Iman Khanbhai: The Klamath River is massive. It’s more than 250 miles long and runs through Oregon and Washington. At one point, it had one of the biggest migrating salmon populations in the world.

Emma Mejia: It’s also an important cultural and economic resource for a lot of Native American tribes that live nearby.

Megan Hall: Tell me about the dams.

Iman Khanbhai: A utility company built six of them along the river.  Some of them were more than a hundred years old.

Emma Mejia: The dams generated electricity, but they also caused problems by blocking the natural river flow, which affected the communities and ecosystems in the region.

Iman Khanbhai: And by the early 2000s, local tribes and environmentalists saw a major die-off of the river’s salmon population.

Megan Hall: Why were the salmon dying?

Emma Mejia: To find out, we called up an expert.

John Sabo: I’m John Sabo. I’m the director of the ByWater Institute for Climate Adaptation at Tulane University.

Iman Khanbhai: He says–

John Sabo: The first and primary impact is blockage of migratory routes.

Megan Hall: What does that mean?

Emma Mejia: Salmon are born in rivers and streams. When they get older, they swim to the ocean, where they spend a lot of their adult life.

Iman Khanbhai: When they’re ready to reproduce, they make a trip up the same river to where they were born, to lay their eggs.

Emma: Mejia: As you can imagine having huge dams blocking this path was making the trip a lot more difficult.

Iman Khanbhai: Which was devastating for their populations.

John Sabo: If you want to have a healthy salmon run, you need a lot of river.

Emma Mejia: Rivers dams also can increase water temperature, and lead to algae blooms which sucks oxygen out of the water. That isn’t great for salmon and the overall health of the river.

Iman Khanbhai: So, because of all of these issues, tribes and environmentalists have spent decades fighting to remove these dams.

Emma Mejia: Eventually, four of the dams were removed.

Megan Hall: Got it. But why did the utility company that owned them, allow this?

Emma Mejia: Well, The dams only produced about 2 percent of the utility company’s total electricity.

Iman Khanbhai: Also, they couldn’t relicense the dams without fixing them to meet current environmental standards.

Emma Mejia: So they crunched the numbers and realized it would be cheaper to remove the dams. 

Iman Khanbhai: As John puts it…

John Sabo:  It kind of was a perfect storm. There was not only a lot of enthusiasm, both from the tribes on the cultural side and also on the ecological side, from environmental organizations and the government. The policy and economics made sense too.

Megan Hall: So was everyone happy with the decision?

Emma Mejia: Not totally. There were some people living near the river who were worried about what dam removal would mean for their communities.

Iman Khanbhai: People were worried about losing recreational areas. And it sparked some debates about water rights. 

Emma Mejia: There are always trade-offs after any environmental project.

Megan Hall: Well, it’s been about a year since the last dam was removed, what does the landscape look like now?

 Iman Khanbhai: It’s going to take a while to see the full benefits of the dam removals.

Emma Mejia: In terms of the salmon, there’s been mixed results. Initial counts show a fluctuation in the populations. Scientist predict it will take a few decades for the salmon run to return to its full glory.

Megan Hall: What about renewable energy? How is that gonna be replaced?

Iman Khanbhai: The utility company that operated the dams hasn’t said exactly how they’re replacing the power. But they have announced plans to build a lot more wind and solar over the next decade.

Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Emma and Iman!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

The post Why would an energy company remove its dams? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

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For decades now, people have been installing solar panels, wind turbines and more to transition our energy to renewable sources – but we wondered, how’s it going? We turned to California’s electric grid for answers.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

If you only know one thing about climate change, it’s probably that we need to stop using fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy.

For decades now, people have been installing solar panels and wind turbines trying to do just that – but we wondered, how’s it going? Are we actually close to powering our world without coal, gas or oil?

We had Nat Hardy from our Possibly Team look into this.

Nat Hardy: Hi, Megan!

Megan Hall: So how are we doing? Are we close to switching to renewable energy?

Nat Hardy: So the answer is a little different depending on where you live. The US doesn’t have one big electric grid, so different regions and states all use different amounts of renewable energy. But some places are doing really well!

A great example is California. The state has been a leader in renewables for a long time, but this spring they’ve hit some really impressive milestones.

On almost every day from March to the start of June this year, California was able to power the whole state with renewable energy – at least for part of the day.

Megan Hall: Really? That’s amazing

Nat Hardy: It’s pretty impressive! So to learn more, I talked to Elliot Mainzer, the CEO of California’s Independent System Operator. They’re the group that manages the electricity market and the electricity infrastructure for most of the state.

Elliot Mainzer: There are days, particularly in the springtime, when there’s a lot of sun, quite a bit of wind, the hydro system is starting to ramp up, when the amount of renewables that’s on our grid can actually meet all or even more of the total consumer demand inside the state.

Nat Hardy: California has made this happen by building tons of solar panels – about 25 percent of the US’s solar capacity is in California.

Megan Hall: And those solar panels have helped power the entire state the past 3 months?

Nat Hardy: Well they’ve powered the state for part of the day, over those three months.

Megan Hall: What do you mean?

Nat Hardy: So an important thing to know about energy is that traditionally, you need to use the electricity you make, right away. And this can be a little tricky for renewable energy like solar and wind.

Megan Hall:  Because the sun only shines during the day?

Nat Hardy: Exactly. So during the day they have lots of electricity to use, sometimes even more than they need. But at night, they’ve had to fall back on fossil fuels – mostly natural gas.

Megan Hall: Can they save that extra solar energy somehow? Or does it just go to waste?

Nat Hardy: Well they are able to save some of it! In the past,  you needed to use electricity right away – but new developments in batteries are starting to change that. And California has built lots of them.

Elliot Mainzer: Those batteries absorb a lot of that extra solar during the day. And then in the evening, as the sun is coming down, but there’s still a high demand for electricity, they inject their power back into the system. It’s almost a perfect match.

Nat Hardy: Because of the batteries, California has been able to use less natural gas during the evenings. For the first time this year, there have been moments where batteries provide more power than gas!

Megan Hall: So what does this all mean? Is California close to running on just renewable energy?

Nat Hardy: They still have a way to go. They’ve been able to power the state with renewables during the spring, when conditions are just right.

Megan Hall: So later in the year,  they’ll use more fossil fuels?

Nat Hardy: Unfortunately yes. And if you average it out, over a full year, 47% of California’s energy comes from renewables. So if they want to get to 100%, they’ll have to make more energy and battery technology will need to get better. But Elliot says he’s optimistic:

Elliot Mainzer: If you had asked me to try to predict all the things that are going on in the grid today, 25 years ago, I would have been so far off, so it’s going to be a very innovative and creative next couple decades.

Megan Hall: Okay but how’s the rest of the country doing?

Nat Hardy: Nationally only about a quarter of our energy comes from renewables.  But even that number is way up from a decade ago.

Megan Hall: And where we’re from, in New England…?

Nat Hardy: Only about 14% renewable. So we have work to do. But other states are showing this transition is possible, and they’re demonstrating how to get there.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks Nat!

That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, go to askpossibly.org Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or X at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.

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