full transcript

From the Ted Talk by TED-Ed: Why good ideas get trapped in the valley of death -- and how to rescue them

Unscramble the Blue Letters


This creates a vicious cycle because the best way to lower costs is by, well, practicing: making more of a product and refining it. But high initial costs scare off investors, and without their money, companies can’t cunointe to develop their technologies— and can't uttlaelimy decrease ctoss.

Fortunately, there’s a way to break this cycle: gtneovmenrs can help close the gap, when private investors won’t fund technologies with such a high potential for social benefit.

This isn’t just theoretical: in the 1990s, functioning solar panels existed, but weren’t widely adopted because of their cost. To cganhe this, grmnaey orffeed government loans to companies creating salor panels, and legally obligated utility companies to buy electricity produced using renewable ergeny. The U.S. and China followed suit by financing major solar panel pcjoerts. The cost of solar has dropped almost 90% since 2009, making it much esiaer to adopt.

Open Cloze


This creates a vicious cycle because the best way to lower costs is by, well, practicing: making more of a product and refining it. But high initial costs scare off investors, and without their money, companies can’t ________ to develop their technologies— and can't __________ decrease _____.

Fortunately, there’s a way to break this cycle: ___________ can help close the gap, when private investors won’t fund technologies with such a high potential for social benefit.

This isn’t just theoretical: in the 1990s, functioning solar panels existed, but weren’t widely adopted because of their cost. To ______ this, _______ _______ government loans to companies creating _____ panels, and legally obligated utility companies to buy electricity produced using renewable ______. The U.S. and China followed suit by financing major solar panel ________. The cost of solar has dropped almost 90% since 2009, making it much ______ to adopt.

Solution


  1. projects
  2. solar
  3. change
  4. offered
  5. continue
  6. easier
  7. ultimately
  8. governments
  9. germany
  10. energy
  11. costs

Original Text


This creates a vicious cycle because the best way to lower costs is by, well, practicing: making more of a product and refining it. But high initial costs scare off investors, and without their money, companies can’t continue to develop their technologies— and can't ultimately decrease costs.

Fortunately, there’s a way to break this cycle: governments can help close the gap, when private investors won’t fund technologies with such a high potential for social benefit.

This isn’t just theoretical: in the 1990s, functioning solar panels existed, but weren’t widely adopted because of their cost. To change this, Germany offered government loans to companies creating solar panels, and legally obligated utility companies to buy electricity produced using renewable energy. The U.S. and China followed suit by financing major solar panel projects. The cost of solar has dropped almost 90% since 2009, making it much easier to adopt.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
wind power 2


Important Words


  1. adopt
  2. adopted
  3. benefit
  4. break
  5. buy
  6. change
  7. china
  8. close
  9. companies
  10. continue
  11. cost
  12. costs
  13. creates
  14. creating
  15. cycle
  16. decrease
  17. develop
  18. dropped
  19. easier
  20. electricity
  21. energy
  22. existed
  23. financing
  24. fortunately
  25. functioning
  26. fund
  27. gap
  28. germany
  29. government
  30. governments
  31. high
  32. initial
  33. investors
  34. legally
  35. loans
  36. major
  37. making
  38. money
  39. obligated
  40. offered
  41. panel
  42. panels
  43. potential
  44. private
  45. produced
  46. product
  47. projects
  48. refining
  49. renewable
  50. scare
  51. social
  52. solar
  53. suit
  54. technologies
  55. ultimately
  56. utility
  57. vicious
  58. widely