The Emily Rooney Show

From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Maria show. It's Tuesday August 2nd 2011 on Emily Rooney. This hour the Senate is expected to do with the House did yesterday pass a compromise bill to raise the debt ceiling. Critics of Tea Party Republicans say the caucus had an almost gleeful willingness to destroy America's credit. We'll hear from one Tea Party sympathizer who wavered until the last minute and wound up voting for the bill. Freshman Republican Congressman Frank into of New Hampshire joins us then solar power is expected to provide almost a quarter of the world's electricity supplies by 2050. MIT is on the cutting edge. And finally a shark attack. A look back at the making of the movie Jaws. Soon Deborah released a book of memorabilia That's today on the Emily Rooney show. But first the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the Senate

is expected to vote shortly on a bill that allows an increase in the debt limit and averts a government default after tonight's deadline. The bill passed the House last night. All indications are that it will be approved and head to President Obama who is due to speak after the Senate votes. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving had been tracking the contentious sometimes toxic negotiating process over this proposed deal and run is it. Is it something to make everyone happy. This deal will allow the raising of the debt ceiling and therefore prevent default on U.S. obligations. That makes nearly everyone happy but most of what's in the bill is going to mostly make people unhappy it's about a trillion dollars in short term decisions that Congress has to make about cutting spending over the next 10 years. And then Congress puts up a new committee that's supposed to make another. Million in a trillion and a half in cuts over that same period of time and if it doesn't then a similar amount will be cut by across the board automatic triggers.

We still don't know if this deal will be enough to prevent the U.S. credit rating from going down right. That's right the rating agencies are still looking at the U.S. credit worthiness over the long haul. And while there are many considerations and many factors to be taken into account they did not want a deal of this lowest common denominator sort they wanted more of a grand bargain worth twice as much. And we know that the markets have not been pleased by all of this entirely. So we're seeing that the Dow is down 99 points at last check to twelve thousand thirty four and the Nasdaq is off 25 points. It 27 20 Ron thanks for joining us That's NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving another reason that we're seeing stocks down is the latest economic data. People's incomes are up but not by much and they're scaling back their spending. The Commerce Department found that in June incomes moved up a tenth of a percent while spending dropped to temps the first decline in nearly two years. We have more on this from Daniel Carson.

Job growth is basically at a standstill and high gas prices are sapping much of people's discretionary spending. So Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner isn't expecting the economy to pick up much of a tailwind in the next few months. With gas prices this high consumers don't have a whole lot of discretionary income left. So we're going to have some tough sledding over the next few months were a little better analogy to get a spanking of some cool fonts that nurses consumer spending especially for cars should pick up as the supply disruptions from Japan fade. For NPR News I'm Daniel Karson in Washington. Spiraling out of control that's how one humanitarian group describes famine famine crisis in Somalia. Oxfam says donations cannot keep up with the surging demand for food in East Africa. This is NPR News. Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is at a jail. He walked free from a state prison in Michigan today. But as Michigan Radio's Vincent Duffy tells us Kilpatrick's other legal troubles could send him right back.

The former Detroit mayor spent the past 14 months in prison for violating probation. Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and resigned from office in 2008 after he lied at a civil trial to cover up an extramarital affair with his chief of staff. Michigan Corrections Department spokesman John Cordell says Kilpatrick was accompanied by a family member and his attorney. They were pretty happy exchange some pretty gratuitous hugs you know very happy big bear hugs happy to see each other. And he's on his way to Texas. Kilpatrick is joining his wife and sons in Texas where he'll be on probation for two years. He will also return to Michigan at a later date to face federal corruption charges that could send him back to prison. For NPR News I'm Vincent Duffy in Ann Arbor. Forecasters are closely watching Tropical Storm Emily which is expected to gradually gain strength as it moves closer to Puerto Rico. National Hurricane Center meteorologist Diana Goler says it's still not clear where the storm will head after Puerto Rico.

Check a little bit uncertain in the next. Four days or so it'll be in the general vicinity of the Bahamas South Florida area. It's feared the storm will unleash heavy rains on already drenched areas and that could generate flash floods and mudslides. Here's a latest look at Wall Street Dow is now down 110 points now nearly 1 percent at twelve thousand twenty three Nasdaq is down nearly 1 percent as well. Twenty seven eighteen S&P 500 down one point two percent. This is NPR. Support for NPR comes from IBM working to help midsize businesses become the engines of a Smarter Planet. Learn more at IBM dot com slash engines. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the callee Crossley Show only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show the Senate is set to vote any minute now on

the Budget Control Act that passed the House yesterday. The compromise bill raises the debt ceiling and includes spending cuts but no new taxes. Only three in the Massachusetts delegation voted for the bill. Bill Keating Niki Tsongas and Stephen Lynch. The bill got overwhelming Republican support but not from the band of tea Republican Tea Partiers. And in a column today the New York Times Jonah Sara says most of the country has watched in horror as Tea Party Republicans have wage jihad on the American people with their in transition in trenches and demands for deep spending cuts and an almost gleeful willingness to destroy America's credit. But one Tea Party sympathizer to our north was a breakaway and voted for the bill. We're joined by telephone by Congressman Frank ganta of New Hampshire welcome Congressman good to have you. Oh I'm great it's great. Well you've been so front and center in a lot of this debate we've seen you on a couple of those roundtables with Diane Sawyer on ABC. Yeah technically a part of the of the caucus are you.

No I didn't join the caucus I mean I had like many people lot of Tea Party support. I think that's probably because my tenure as mayor I cut borrowing I cut taxes I put in a spending cap and we actually got recognized as by many different publications as one of the lowest tax best run medium sized cities in the country. So I'm surprised I'm glad to have support from from both Republicans and Democrats as I've always enjoyed and I really only just try to bring a sense of calmness to any one of these issues and really just try to bring a thoughtful approach to you know the legislation I file and the positions that I take you know relative to the debt ceiling. First of all nobody wants to raise the debt ceiling. But the reality is our spending our expenditures exceed our revenues and until we get that into balance you're going to continue to have a fundamental problem

at the federal level. So I look at this as an opportunity to try to start to put. Some components in place at the federal level to reduce our spending and I do think that there is bipartisan agreement that spending levels to have to come down. There are those who would like to also raise tax rates I don't fall in that category but I do think that we can increase revenue in this country by putting some policies in place that get people back to work increase the number of rate payers. And I think later this year you're going to see a bipartisan proposal out of Ways and Means Committee in the house that actually lowers rates closes some loopholes on the corporate side and expands the base of tax payers and I think that you'll find it's its aim is to simplify the code and make it fairer. So I'm hoping that despite this was a very partisan battle in the debt ceiling that cooler heads will prevail as we move forward and really try to do with what the country

wants find solutions move the country forward and focus on getting people back to work I think that's really at the end of the day what you know the 9.2 percent that are unemployed about 15 million people would like their federal government to do is focus on those you know fundamental issues where you're a member of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is the chair and he was saying yesterday that when all is said and done you know this you've got to look at this as a positive. Here's a little bit ahead say about the compromise. You don't have it there. All right. What this is done it is brought our two parties together. And so I just like to take a second to reflect for a moment the fact that we have a bipartisan compromise here. It doesn't happen all that often around here so I think it's worth noting that's a good thing. You say it's a good thing do you agree on that that that's the bottom line here that the bipartisan nature of this was a good thing.

I think you know divided government it's a good thing that ultimately parties can come together and find some agreement. Now look I mean there's plenty to not like in the bill both sides are going to point to things that they don't like. But you know fundamentally we addressed for the first time raising the debt ceiling with getting something attached to it that I think is good. There are both Republican and Democrats who believe. That we should reduce spending so that is a good thing and while over the last two or three weeks you saw tensions rise and heated debate and discussion. What ultimately came out of this is a piece of legislation that had some components that Harry Reid wanted had some components that John Boehner wanted. You know I think both individuals would say if they were crafting the legislation themselves that you know they would do it far differently. But Paul Ryan is correct in the sense that you know what we actually did get something done in divided government. So I to me that says there's an opportunity for optimism in future bipartisan work it's not going to be easy I'm not saying that. But

I think there's always an opportunity for you know Republicans and Democrats to work together and I think the country wants to see us do that now. You know I'm still going to have my principles about the economy and and how you're going to create jobs and tax policy that may differ from a large percentage of Democrats. But you know there's also a number of Democrats who who share some of the similar views not sure if they come from Massachusetts or not a lot of them. Well you know on the issue of the bipartisan cooperation I'm sure you saw this you know tough people spied on us or on the New York Times today he's saying like idea ideologues everywhere that the Tea Party Caucus scorn compromise a humiliated John Boehner they waged jihad on the American people American people stood by and watched in horror as they refused to compromise on this. How you respond to that. Well I think that some of the tone of that language is inappropriate and accurate.

Well you know appropriate and accurate I mean you know saying that the Tea Partiers wage jihad. That's that's that's over the top and I really don't think there's any place in the political discourse for that kind of language you know. But but here's the interesting thing. When you sit down with a group of Tea Partiers what do Tea Partiers want. They want smaller government. They want to stop the levels of spending that we have. And they feel that they're going to push the envelope because they have that right as Americans. Now if you look at the other side of the aisle and you go and sit down with the Progressive Caucus they would argue the exact opposite. And they have the right Emily to do that as well. And I don't moan. You know the progressive caucus simply because I don't believe in their ideology. I respect the fact that they have a position they have a perspective and they represent their district in the matter that they see is most appropriate. So I would just ask that the rhetoric be toned down that we. Understand that you know America has very different perspectives when it comes to tax policy when it comes to spending policy and that the

only way America is going to is going to approve is if these people who are elected go to Washington and try to do the people's work in a respectful and dignified way. They probably did push it to the point where you know at least the issue of the debt ceiling was addressed I'm curious. Congressman Frank into New Hampshire and speak to him by telephone. What was your reaction when Arizona Congressman Gabby Giffords came into this. You know I've got to say I was on the floor of the house when she walked in and we found out a few minutes beforehand that she was coming on to the floor to vote for this this bill. And you know I the relationship that I had with Gabby Giffords is this I'm a freshman. You know I hadn't never met her except for the fact that when the Republicans and Democrats went down to the floor to read pieces of the constitution she went immediately before me. And so that's sort of the that was when you were first elected when we were when I was first elected. Now now as a colleague

I am so thankful that she survived. This shooting and as a colleague I was I couldn't hold back my tears when she came on the floor and most people I got to say you know where were were either crying or really welled up when she walked on the floor. And it was a great thing for Arizona was a great thing for the institution and everything for her for Gabby and her family that she fought through incredible odds to get back and everyone on that floor respected her that day there were no Republicans and Democrats in the fore in that moment. We were all colleagues and Americans and we felt very very thankful to have her come back to the floor and be able to participate in our democracy. He was quite a surprise to most of us. It did I mean you know this was a very well kept secret. You know there was only a few people in in Washington who knew that was going to happen. I thought it was nice that you know she and John Boehner met privately before she walked on the floor. But

it was it was a wonderful moment you know for for I think the House the institution and for the country. This now they're going to be setting up this 12 member bipartisan super committee to decide on the next one point five trillion dollars in cuts who's going to be on that committee you're going to lobby for it yourself. Well I would certainly be honored if if I was placed on the committee I suspect that it will go to you know maybe someone like Paul Ryan maybe someone like how Rogers. It really it's up to the speaker. But we. Here's what I hope that comes out of that committee first of all it's a 12 member committee. They've got to come up with 1.5 trillion in cuts in order for the president to raise the debt ceiling that second time. But to the tune of about 1.2 trillion. Well I would argue that there are not going to be tax hikes coming out of that out of that that group number one. Number two if they did and people are concerned about taxes going up that would never pass the House. So they've got a responsibility to come up with with some more spending

reforms. So you know we there are several different steps here that we're going to have to take. But they'll be busy. You know if I was chosen I'd be honored. But I suspect it'll it'll probably go to you know some of the more veteran legislators. All right Congressman Frank into New Hampshire. Always a pleasure to have you thanks for joining us. My pleasure to thank you. All right let us hear from you. E-mail us at. Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org and let us know or visit us on the web at WGBH that org slash Emily Rooney we can link to our Facebook and Twitter pages. We're going to take a short break. When we continue. Solar power is expected to provide almost a quarter of the world's electricity by 2050. MIT professors are on the cutting edge. You're listening to the Emily Rooney show Stay with us. Support comes from you and from the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset

presenting jazz trumpeter Chris Botti having performed at prestigious venues including the World Series and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. He brings his talents to the Music Circus August 20th in full at the Music Circus org. And from the 15000 WGBH sustainers who helped the station save thousands of dollars by having their contributions of 5 8 or 12 dollars a month automatically renew. Learn more at WGBH dot org. We talk with terrorism expert Peter Bergen about the threat and influence of al Qaeda after the death of bin Laden. Bergen was one of the first Americans to interview bin Laden. His latest book The Longest War The Enduring Conflict Between America and paperback. He just returned from Pakistan.

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solar energy. President Jimmy Carter made a statement about the promise of solar energy when he had 32 solar panels installed on the White House in 1989 and then President Ronald Reagan also was making a statement when he had them removed. Several years later and therein lies the problem capturing free energy from the sun is a great idea but the photo voltaic panels needed to do that are bulky expensive and by most accounts downright ugly. And that's where MIT professor Vladimir comes in he and his colleagues at MIT have just demonstrated new technology that allows photo voltaic cells to be printed just about anywhere including on paper. It is a solar energy era right around our horizon we asked the professor. Let Amir believe it is the director of MIT's solar frontiers Center welcome. Thank you very much. First of all describe what you have there in front of you. I have a couple of new technologies that were developed at MIT in collaboration with

curing Gleason's group at MIT we worked on figuring out ways to put solar cells directly on paper and making them truly lightweight make them as light as a piece of paper on which they're put on the actual cell itself is extremely thin. It's on the scale of 100 to 1 thickness of your here. And just imagine a coating of dot on top of your paper it's akin to the thickness of the ink you typically put so you get a piece of paper there that's about two and a half inches by two and a half inches is a couple little strings hanging off and by the way there are pictures of these cells are going to have on our website at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney you can catch it. I think we already took the pictures and everything so. And one of those little black dots then on the piece of paper. Well you need to be able to extract electricity so you provide contacts. So there are couple of wires hanging off of it and a couple of the key pieces of electrodes that are attached to the electrodes reaching for it now once. When you hear that three crinkly and get this kind of a wavy line in it and

those are actually those are individual cells it turns out that each one of these little cells generates relatively small amount of alters Maybe point three maybe point seven volts depending on what specific material set we trues. But one way I stuck this into something in touch and I get a shock not necessarily on that one it turns out yes you could. That particular panel is capable of generating up to 50 volts but it turns out it's only able to make it make my cramps at the ambient conditions. So not to worry so it's not enough to get me as I can apply power in my car. It happens to be plenty though to run many many of the appliances you run that you know that that little thing. Yes. If you want to run a little a clock or a little watch even this very first rendition which is by far not optimized from where the technology can be is already capable of running little clocks we have a few YouTube videos that actually show you the ability of. Using these to indeed run a clock or you can even and would be installed in the back of the clock so you wouldn't see it you wouldn't have it hanging off of that you know you can put it anywhere you want. You wouldn't necessarily know it's there. Depends on the way you choose

the integrated since it is a printable cell you can put it on any surface in any form you want. Consequently you can make a pattern if you wish or you can go ahead and simply make it be the whole background how do you recharge it. It's a solar cell it doesn't need to be recharged. You simply go ahead and shine light. Oh it's OK but let's say it's a clock and I've got it stuck in the mine my clock and clocks in my bathroom which doesn't have a window as I get recharged. Well if there happens to be a light bulb in your bathroom that should be sufficient to run a clock like nearly you know what is that other piece it looks like the face of a and I phone. Actually it's akin to a face of an iPhone this is a silicon cell and I think I brought it along in order for you to kind of get a sense of the difference in what the two cells feel like and what would be and isn't wanted. What again. So that would be a typical silicon solar cell. Just in this example of silicon solar cells you can see it's maybe an eighth of an in the end what they're uses for that is what's right now in a solar installations except many many of those put together to actually run generate enough electricity to run whatever

needs to be run with it so this is much more substantial than your it is a much heavier as a matter of fact you can ask a question of what is the number of watts per pound or watts per kilogram as we like to talk about what would be the amount of power you generate per weight of the cell and that is a significant value for the next thing to think about which is how do we really think about solar cells in general. Often we think of them as these large ugly pads they memorable. Yeah well what if you can think of them as part of your everyday an everyday environment as much. Like on the roof of your car you if your house or maybe even not noticing it's there and what if it happens to be on the piece of newspaper you happen to be reading or it happens to be as a front panel of your Kindle and example for that would be this other cell. This is what you have here if it looks a piece of clear plastic. Yeah actually you can look through it. I think that it is indeed what we call a transparent solar cell. It is first demonstrated there earlier this year. We published in April the demonstration of this and the idea is very simple and that is that how about to give you a cell that does not absorb any of the visible light but is capable of absorbing infrared

light light that we cannot see and we really don't necessarily appreciate it. Well you've heard light is light that goes beyond the spectral range of our eyes. So in terms of bees and butterflies you can go ahead and see these colors of life we don't hear about it. We usually often experience it in the form of heat. So what if I could go and give you a solar cell in every window you look through the window the windows are typically 10 to the little bit then anyhow so the cell with give you the tent if you want that. But then again you're going to still be in for a red light that often heats your home and at the same time you might as well use that infrared light and generate electricity. That again you can use a variety of ways. I talked to Professor Bill of each from Director of MIT solar frontiers center so why isn't this technology more prevalent. Let's get going. Why is it anyway. That's a great idea. You know I would love to have it everywhere as a matter of fact if we had it everywhere you would be able to go ahead and change the way we think about solar in general very simple as you get rid of foreign oil the oil dependence. Oh I think that's a great question. So

two things One is that takes about five to 10 years to commercialize anything made in the lab. These were brand new demonstrations just demonstrated this year. So give us five years these will be around now the next question would be What about solar replacing the oil. It takes a while to do that and it takes a while because we simply use so much energy in the United States just to give you a sense. We spend about two hundred eighty kilowatt hours per day per person. That's about 500 times more than someone in the pile would spend in a typical day. Now it's primarily due to the burning of oil by driving our cars. It turns out that with solar electricity I can say well maybe I can go and replace a lot of that. Well maybe I can it's just it takes a while to install solar and solar by the way is growing at an astronomical pace. We are scaling what people call faster than Moore's Law faster than about 30 40 percent from year to year to year. It just seems that some of these in America anyway are some states that get a great deal of sunshine You know Florida California and Colorado.

I mean they should be up and running within this year turns up most the United States has roughly speaking similar amount of insulation. You know yes you do better in the southern parts of the northern parts but even if you compare it to Colorado which Calderon's is way up high. So consequently it's a lot of sunshine. We get about 80 percent of the sunlight that Colorado gets here in Boston. That's a lot of sunlight. Just it takes a while to deploy solar. One thing we don't quite necessarily you can easily grasp is just the scale of deployment. You know as you mentioned well you know you know people often say you can have to use all these land and hence we won't have enough land to grow crops and the answer is NO NO NO NO. We only need about point 30 percent of United States to run electricity to provide all the energy we need to run the United States now point three percent. They said well that's a lot. Well no not really. You know the land area around I hire highways like I do real any more land area than we already have you could be putting it on buildings things these things structures Why do you need extra land if you choose to do that that would be the easiest way to do it. And indeed the cities cover about 30 percent of U.S. land roughly speaking. Hence you know 0.3

percent is certainly available. So you talk about it was like solar farms. If you choose to make solar farms you can I guess what I'm advocating at this point with these new technologies is that looking at ways of thinking of solar being present everywhere and actually the significant thing about that is coming up with ways to make it so lightweight and so transparent and so portable that you notice it will even notice it happens to be there what we think of it as ubiquitous solar energy. You've done it. Well we have it. And I would take the next that we're actually making practical these things that as I made them today last maybe a few years at the pickle solar installation at the pickle building last a lot longer than that. And what happens then they run out of their charge. Let us ask you this. Oh no no it turns out. So again since I'm just shining light to generate electricity I'm not really storing any charge inside them. The one thing that happens though is the molecules that these cells are made off eventually will break down just like the Leafs do break down. There are many more stable molecules to choose from. And indeed the next challenges are coming up with ways of extending the lifetime of the molecules that happen to be making these specific cells.

Let me just get this to this has reached the level of sophistication with currently solar plant panels that need to be recharged by the sun you're saying that these are going to come. Essentially fully charged they will have a life span but you don't have to worry about getting ten days around. Not quite so. So the way the seal a solar cell works is it's a piece of what we call a semiconductor. You shine a light on it and whenever light shines the photons the particles of light excite my material and that excited material canal give me electricity. So whenever light shines on my material I'll be able to generate electricity. If I can go ahead and make my material very stable so that it does not mind being illuminated by light for a very long time. If you for example go ahead and take a sheet of paper and leave it in sunshine you might bleach. You might find the paper loses the color. That's the bad thing for the sort these solar cells. Instead I would like to have materials that never change the color of one illumination with sunlight and that is the ability to issue that I was alluding to earlier. Right now they are very stable are going to molecules to choose from we just in these initial demonstrations we

haven't had the chance to utilize those yet. So the first trials are good. The next drives will be great. Talking to Professor Mayor Bill of its director of MIT's solar frontiers center I mean one of the really disturbing things going on in the world is the use of fossil fuels in third world countries I mean they're there they're burning everything around them they're destroying their own forests and their natural environments. You know for cooking to stay warm or whatever it is I mean this is where this technology is going to really change. I entirely agree with you on that as a matter of fact I think the very first market to look into for technology like this is to look at the places like Africa India China. It turns out a very simple example can be placed where you say a cell phone. It turns out is for African users the same as internet is for us meaning a cell phone is the way to connect to the neighboring places and understand what's happening in the world. A typical user in Africa a typical let's say a third of the users in Africa have no access to the grid electricity they cannot recharge their phones so often they would walk two hours to a

neighboring village wait for two hours for the phone battery to be charged and walk back two hours to their village six hours just to charge the phone. But they have the phone they have the phone. It costs 30 cents to do this which comes out to about $20 a year to recharge your phone every few days. And it turns out that for $20 a day for $20 you can make the cells the ones we are making right now. We should be able to provide you a very portable lightweight electricity I say lightweight because it turns out if I want to install a silicon solar panel in this rural village in the very far end that doesnt have a well-developed road to get to you will break your cell in the process of Transportation talking going on the guiltily to people who do install cells they often say more than half of their cells. Silicon once get broke and you cant roughness of the roads simply taking them from a center to a village. Causes them not to actually be useful. So a typical cell in a village helps last only about six months because again of the rocket weights being used the cells they're made on paper they're rugged in just

inherently the way they happen to be made. They're also very very light. So when it comes to how many watts of solar cells going to transport in the back of a donkey who's carrying them. I would like to have as many watts as I can per kilogram or palm propound of the cell and that's where these Excel. They're extremely lightweight for the amount of watts that give you an idea Professor Vladimir bill of its director of MIT solar frontiers center. What about the jobs market I mean is as I'm sure you remember Governor Patrick made a big point of supporting Evergreen Solar. But are these jobs consistent with these you know building of this consist with good jobs or is it just going to get made in China or India or what's going to happen with the actual manufacturing of this. The manufacturing of this can be done in United States as easily as it can be done in other places. United States does have a benefit due to the other industrial benefits for example we have a really good paper companies that happen to be here. We have a great deal of textile company companies that are capable of allowing us to go ahead and utilize these unusual

cells on unusual substrates. So in many ways the coherence between those companies and the new technologies electronic companies electronic technologies we are developing would allow you to go ahead and generate jobs locally as well as generate jobs externally. I mean to help the world actually make a difference. We do want to generate jobs in Africa as well. Based on this technology simply because that's going to allow us to uplift the parts of the world that right now are burning the woods that I happen to be having. Who and what are the companies that are using this technology that we already have right here that are trying to mass market it. Are there any of them here than even Massachusetts where they you know MIT startups and indeed would be an example of companies that could push this technology forward and say it could push because this is when I really start ups. This is a very young technology. It has been just invented. And whenever you have a brand you mention it takes again a little while before you can go and cultivate the the business idea around it and then push it forward to fund it and go ahead and push it forward beyond that. You could also allow larger companies to go ahead and push this but again there are

no obvious large companies in the United States that would easily be able to adopt this technology and generated forward. Indeed this is a fairly new way of even thinking about sources for the car companies say to have that gas fueled cars that they came to Seems like Economically it would pay off it with the company to transform themselves. Well it would be but a transformation is harder than simply a generation of new jobs from scratch in some in some instances. I think this might be one of those. I'm reminded of the great innovator the guy who did the blank in his name the Terra fusion guys also MIT. I mean seems to me that's the flying car. It seems to me that the demand for this would be instantaneous and worldwide. We are having a lot of inquiries from a variety of press sources and industry sources. Indeed at this point what is really important for this to truly succeed is to focus on a single idea and recognize that that single idea can curate the chronology forward to the next step. The single idea would be for example in the developing technology for the third world where you can have the most initial impact and then through that have a good learning experience of

how to make cells bigger. How to make them indeed more robust and how to make them last longer. And through that eventually allow you to have indeed a roll up of solar cells that you can maybe just people to your roof instead of having to you know have hire someone big electrician to go ahead and come in with some £2000 clunky ugly unsightly that will force you to reinforce your whole structure in order to be able to install themselves. Exactly. Well it's fascinating. All right a lot of bull of itch. Thanks so much for coming in today My pleasure thanks for having those things are very cool very lightweight. You can hear other segments by the way of our ask the professor series on our website segments ranging from Boston archeology and what's buried beneath the hub to the nuances a pattern reformed all of our past shows say by segment are available at WGBH slack that he gets at org slash Emily Rooney. Thanks so much. And we're going to take a short break when we continue to shark attack. A look back at the troubled production that preceded it and the unprecedented success that followed the making of the movie Jaws. And this into the Emily Rooney show.

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Welcome back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show the year is 1974. A relatively unknown Hollywood director descends on a small New England beach community to make what would go on to become one of the biggest movies of all time summer blockbusters not to mention previously undaunted beachgoers would never be the same. Thing. That director Steven Spielberg the movie Jaws. Today in recognition of the ever popular shark week we take a look at a new book that chronicles the filming of the cult classic jaws. I'm joined here in the studio by Matt Taylor. And you know treating editor Julian Weiss in their new book is Jaws memories from Martha's Vineyard. This is quite a book. First of all it's huge I have to describe it it's you

know. It's more than a foot. Why it is I think it weighs a pound and we got there we actually turned 50 pages to get and it's a matter gorgeous and it's you know so it's got a film strip across the top which is the famous beach scenes when the people are scrambling and somebody is yelling shark. But then the book itself is memorabilia from everybody including every two bit player in NFL money or in the directors and even got Steven Spielberg to do you know. When you call anyone for short you know it's very likely to get that. So all right I'll start with you Matt. What's your what's your connection to Martha's Vineyard and enjoy as my mother is a 14th generation Islander I grew up actually in Bridgewater not too far from here. Summer on the Vineyard every year and so I knew all these people growing up with the photos and the stories and you know I think universally brought forth a crew went for all of them are you know in this thing too. Yeah I get it and I know these people I know them now all grown up. Yeah I knew them growing up. Yeah there were two in this too yeah. I still have vague memories of that summer but they really

almost don't count as real memories you know and how do you do it. My family moved in 1077 so Jaws mania had passed by the time I arrived for first grade. But like Matt I grew up in high school. Jamie Bell who plays the youngest son of Chief Brody was a senior when I was a freshman so I still see him in the hallways and writing so now I have to. But how did you get interested in piecing this together. Well I just graduated from UMass Amherst where had been a history major and I was working on a film project the history of agriculture in Martha's Vineyard. And I met Jim velour who's this internationally renowned collector of movie memorabilia particularly Spielberg related things and he was coming to the island gathering up this collection of locally taken photos of the joss production. And really needed somebody a writer and designer and somebody connected to writing in filmmaking to put all the pull all the stuff together and somebody on the island who knew the other people he didn't have connections to to kind of dredge up all these old photos and make it all happen and so once he and I began working together we really just combed the island from one end to the other for three years. How did you how did Julian with him.

I met Matt. He contacted me because I write for a local newspaper and he just wanted to help get the final draft of the text ready for publication. And Julian I don't think the book ever would have come to fruition of the Julian I mean if you had come on two or three months earlier his name would be on the cover to me my day actually began at 5:30 every morning with Julian standing at my doorstep the snow flying sideways and would end every night watching a TV show like that as well as a long day. Yeah so I mean how did you get the rights to this going look you know this is all this a lot of stuff is from the movie but a lot of it is from the people and characters who were on the island in 94 and 95 percent of the photos or take were taken by even your people who had a connection to the production or not they were casual bystanders with their Polaroid camera their Instamatic and we had to get the rights to those photos. And we have a handful of Universal owned property and there is something that must be just given to you know. Yes. Everybody we have we have contracts for everybody that slowed everything down. I mean just thousands of pictures in this book. Twelve hundred I think yeah 200. Yeah.

So Julian what is it about Johns that people can't get enough. And it was I mean it was one of these things that had a lot of problems in the production too we should talk about that. Well my pet theory is that there's really four factors that made justice to success the first was the source material is excellent Peter Benchley novel is very well written on top of that you know of Carl Gottlieb who played Meadow's a small character in the film he was the screenwriter and he had written for The Odd Couple. And he did a wonderful job adapting the novel to the screen and a lot of the witty banter between the principal characters I believe comes from the television writing experience on top of that you have phenomenal performances from the principal actors you have Ford Schneider Richard Dreyfus and Robert Shaw but also wonderful character bits from so many local people in the island who appeared on film. And finally on top of the great performances you have really wonderful direction from Steven Spielberg and I think when you put all those factors together you have a film that to this day still remains one of the really greatest action films and the music made the film yeah definitely. In fact what was it you did this or was it the executives who watched the final cut of the film with or without the music said

well it's OK. And they when they saw it with the soundtrack they were just blown away. Who did the score again. John Williams I know you did that you know that. We have a let's hear a little bit of it it's actually amazing to think that they shot that film without having that in their head. Yeah and it came because they were a part of a Saturday Night Live skit you know not know who's there his lunch hour. And I interact. A little bit about what it was like working with this shark to get into that in the book because I mean that the mechanical shark wasn't always cooperating with it was still being built as they were filming and they were just way behind schedule because it should have you know all the guys who were going to told me this should have had 12 months to work on ironing out all the shark's intricate intricacies and they had six weeks. And so you can imagine the

problems that arose because of that this is something that was never the animatronics and never been done before. Never mind the fact it was built in California and I drive a lot and then drop into the Atlantic on the East Coast in the salt water which ate away at all the electronics and the barnacles and they didn't think of any of that when they were putting it together. And it really slowed things down. And it was fascinating is how local islanders mechanics helped in many ways see the special effects. Right. How was that. Well in particular was a it's a local. Marine mechanic named Lynn Murphy who was hired to work on the production of pretty much helped save the day with the sharks and Lynn had been doing it as he says special effects on the water his whole life or with scalloped edges and all kinds of things and fishing boats and he really saved the day and showed them how to how to make the things that work on the water they're trying to do and became a just an interval part of the production. And they are all the Hollywood guys I talked to said right off the bat the movie couldn't have been completed without Lynn Murphy and nobody's ever heard Lynn stories ever he's just kind of a

quiet shy guy and lives in the backwoods of the vineyard he has over 400 photos of the production. And so he's a big part of the book. Whose idea was it to get all the locals out. Well Jim Bell who initially got the ball rolling had the idea of having just a few people but he had no idea they were you know hundreds. I did and so I knew just who to go to and whose door to knock on whose idea was it was it Steven Spielberg who said let's oh you know use the local for the action. Well they were so far from Hollywood I mean it was I mean they needed boats built so they had to hire boat builders they needed special effects down the water they didn't know how to do it so they had to hire local marine mechanics and the actors too. Yeah. That was to a large degree because Spielberg wanted the realism of you know the East Coast people that they don't they don't look like trained Hollywood actors they don't talk like trained Hollywood actors you know. What's interesting about that is that my understanding on the Sugarland Express which was Spielberg's previous film which was shot in Texas he did the same thing.

He sent Sherry rudes who is he's casting director to find as many as centric locals as possible so there'd be an authenticity to the film and so when she came to Martha's Vineyard sharing the same casting director Spielberg said find me as many colorful unique locals as possible so he found people who were featured in the book like Craig Kingsbury who is just a classic local centric Captain Donald Poole who is a classic My grandfather's friends that I used to play in his fishing ships in all these parts did these people play all the harbormaster the Ben Gardner the fisherman whose head pops out of the hole in the rec hall and you know there's that scary moment when Richard Dreyfus is underwater prying the shark's tooth loose and the head comes out with this crate Kingsbury both of Cipro these children were local kids and just a lot of the local mannerisms and you know the old the old time salty character Spielberg just really fell in love with and wanted to bring into the film and he just knew we couldn't get that trained Hollywood actors. So the day that they were filming was ne it was freezing cold is that when May is a winter month announce it yet May 2nd to begin so you know it's pretty liberal mayor since the winter months around here so if these people are attending It's July. How do they

do that and then they said some of the locals are saying there's 38 39 takes they couldn't believe that they do it over and over. No wonder John alley page 50 I think is quoted as saying No wonder they all go they all go bad. How did you how did you decide how to thread this together I mean is it is it chronological. Yeah that was one thing that no one's ever done regarding the production of Jaws was told the story chronologically as far as how the movie was shot day to day you know obviously movies are shot out of sequence but no one had ever researched the production schedule so our book moves in chronological order from in the order in which the shots were shot on a day to day basis. Not how they appear in the movie and so they did they do all the shark stuff at one time pretty much. They had they had they had one bout with it in mid June and they came back in mid-July when they started in mid-June there was just too many setbacks and it was not ready. So they went back to filming stuff on land and then back out on the water and a month later

I met Taylor and Julian Weiss author and contributing editor of the new book jaws memories from Martha's Vineyard which is going to be out soon right now it's actually a little book right here it's gorgeous available on our website now. W w w dot and he remembers jobs dot com available on Martha's Vineyard and he says at 59 he doesn't say it looks like it's inexpensive but it is you know a coffee table book especially for Martha's Vineyard right. Oh absolutely yeah. It will be international. In September we have a distributor picking us up so that tell the story of the tiger shark they had to have. I caught a shark the head that had a real shark is part of the film Tom as he needed the quote unquote wrong shark to be caught for the movie the one of the locals think is the shark and it turns out not to be and they had they just wrongly assumed the filmmakers wrongly assume they could find a shark of a you know a big enough size to be mistaken as the shark in local waters and they were just coming up with diminutive size sized blues and threshers and they had to send a production

assistant all the way down to Florida to catch a 12 12 or 15 foot 12 foot tiger shark and ship it up on ice if it acts. But it wasn't all that well it rotted very quickly and had to make you know that they had the make up artist doing there working their magic on it and it smelled and they got in the guts are apparently spilling out of his mouth and he had to push them back up. It was supposed to be a freshly caught shark right course and there are pictures in the book of the making up the shark to make it look freshly cut. So what's the sequence when do they realize that wasn't the shark in the film like I have well in that film you know what so that they all think it's that hard the shark and they find out. Well the Richard Dreyfus character fine measures the bite radius of the tiger shark and discovers it's different than the bite radius on the wounds of the first victim and so they suspect. That it's not the shark and sure enough we find out it's not the Fourth of July a few days later. That's right and then they shut down the beaches. Well so at one point universal almost shut down the production of this what happened every

day they almost shut it down because because of all the setbacks and I wrote this stuff on land went relatively smoothly and quickly it was the mechanical stuff out of the water with the barrels and the shark in there and the anchors anchoring everything down the camera barge in conjunction with the boat in the shark and the tides that no one nobody thought of tides and things move and you just get the barge anchored a certain way that you need for the shot and the boat would begin drifting out to a different angle of the barge one way in the boat the other and the shark would start drifting away. If it was just to expand it was just crazy. Why didn't they do this in Hollywood or California or why did they do it in Martha's Vineyard. Well I know Spielberg wanted it to look very New England in the water New England looks different than the water in Florida or the Bahamas or California it's got the dark green kind of look and just the feet. He one of the real the real life feel of New England. Insisted that they go on location. That was one of his main stipulation he was also young and he says in later interviews that you know he didn't quite know what I was getting myself into. But we're going to talk about Jamaica as a possible shooting location. But I would have had that as were clear water there wouldn't really have New England feel to it.

There's no question that New England made this story I mean it was Peter Benchley you know group and enjoy it. Yeah he's situated here. I mean Peter Benchley I had him on Greater Boston and he did before he died and he was already in that retraction mode that he felt like he did a great disservice to great white sharks to shark sharks in general and he created a frenzy about you know fear of them and killing of them and everything else. Well I've read actually some books by him later where he said that the actual risk of shark attack is so miniscule that it's almost insignificant. And he felt that he was writing essential very entertaining yarn when he wrote Jaws. But he had no idea they would create this perception of the great white shark of this ruthless killer that threatened everybody there in the water and that he did feel some culpability and he became my understands quite an environmental advocate later. And because you're right I'm sure you've seen video of the countries that just do nothing but slaughter the sharks and you know so here we just saw the monster shark tournament on the Vineyard last week and just they're certainly not in for the fun of it.

A lot of controversy around this. That I mean now we have shark week. What is that all about. This is just because it's what is it. I can't speak for the Discovery Channel but sharks are very entertaining and you know they're fascinating creatures they're still a lot unknown about them. They're still discovering information of great white sharks they can dive to 2000 feet. Their migration patterns are only now being discovered because last summer there were survivors had to tag them. And they found that some of them went all the way around to the Gulf of Mexico others went down in the depths depths that which they can survive 2000 feet that was brand new. How often do they have to eat. I don't know how neither of us are. It's the ologists. But yeah I would imagine they can go. We've got a friend who actually works for the Dukes County harbormaster and he's actually been I don't know not too many people know this but right now there's a sperm whale carcass floating not too far off of the vineyard. Now there's about 10 feet under. They do now about 10 feet beneath the surface is actually an 18 foot great white feeding off it rarely every day is there and he had his job as the law to

keep people away from getting too close and we had one of the guys last year on going to Boston who was in the plane taking the pictures of the great white. Those were fantastic. The ones off the Cape yeah they went out they came. I mean it's just yeah it's riveting to watch that you can see aerial photos taken of South Beach on Martha's Vineyard looking down at all the people in the water and then however many yards out you see all the big dark shadows in there and wasn't there just a six year old in Florida I think was that a great white. I believe it was a bull shark or a tiger shark it was and I don't think it's a great way they are not the biggest sharks. Well sharks when they're there they don't they're not considered dangerous. Where are they where whale shit Mexico. Typically tropical waters so great whites are considered more dangerous because they've got the teeth. Yeah yeah well sharks are pretty docile you can my wife isn't swimming with them or what about tiger sharks and all those of the tiger sharks a lot of the sharks you you when you hear about World War Two sailors being attacked in the water with the ships that go to tiger sharks are the ones responsible tiger sharks and bull sharks are the ones probably the most likely. Yeah. But the most the ones that would you

know potentially do the most damage to somebody in the water. Talk to Matt Taylor author and Julian wise contributing editor of the new book jaws memories from Martha's Vineyard which is at how many pages is this guys. Oh three hundred even a hundred pages twelve hundred photographs thousands of anecdotes from people who made the movie were part of the movie many people were locals. I'm just it's sort of like any page that's a thing I like about this book and he paid you start reading is a story unto itself years and were shattered he was a good looking guy. Who's that with him Steven. I don't even know what page I'm on 177. One thing that's fascinating is that back in 1974 the set was fairly open. They didn't have you know locked up security so a lot of locals got right up to the press I mean yeah hung out right beside the camera as they were shooting and the way their Instamatic and I mean it was very open one fact we have a special collector's edition available and perhaps you talk about literally about movies. Yeah the hardcover limited collector's edition of our book comes with Carole

flitter who's now in her home her eight millimeter eight millimeter home movies color home movies of the behind the scenes of the production which is what 12 minutes when electricity and it comes Check this out it comes with an actual piece of the boat the Orca really. Yeah and so we do something we need people to know. Well actually they should know because it's actually we made a thousand of them and we thought we'd have them all here but they're actually very close to selling out and we need to keep some on hand we're going to go to the Comic-Con Convention New York City in October and we're right now we have to set a few aside so we don't sell out before October so we go to that convention will have some available for fans. Oh I'm sure anybody can make some more but the dork I was actually left on the island when they finished filming in 1974 and purchased by a local who's had the boat all these years and it's been literally rotting into his yard and so I thought I want to do something this would you mind cutting it up. Where's the shark now. It doesn't exist. They were the filmmakers who were so poorly thought of by the time they got back to Hollywood because they had gone so long over scheduling so far over budget that they just junked all the props and all I think we all expected to be blacklisted and that became

the biggest movie ever. How much more money to that movie a hundred million that was occurring the first year. By Hollywood standards but Art this is fascinating. Nat Taylor and Julian Weiss jaws memories from Martha's Vineyard quite a book. Thanks thanks for coming in appreciate having us. Right that's going to do it for us this afternoon a special thanks to our intrepid intern Daniel Brown for producing that last segment. We'll be back tomorrow at noon with journalist Juan Williams comments he made about Muslims last year led to his dismissal from NPR Now Williams is firing back with muzzled. Now stay tuned for the Kelly Crossley Show coming up next the Emily Rooney show is a production at WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture on the web at WGBH org slash Emily Rooney. Have a great afternoon and Shark Week. Support for WGBH.