A new documentary on solar power, the offspring of Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn’s passion for science education, is scheduled to make its campus debut on Nov. 29. “The Power of the Sun” will show at 4 p.m. in Campbell Hall, and is free to the public. A question-and-answer session will follow the screening.

Described as “a scientific morality tale,” the film tells how the ideas and the technology were developed to tap the sun’s rays as a source of clean, safe, and renewable energy. With fossil fuel prices climbing, and increased talk of petroleum production peaking, this 56-minute film illuminates a timely topic.

Kohn, a theoretical physicist by training, is encouraged by the decreasing cost of manufacturing silicon-based photovoltaic cells, the basis of solar panels. “Solar energy is quite realistically estimated, in two or three decades, to contribute perhaps in the vicinity of 25 percent of total electricity consumption,” he has said.

He turned to experienced scriptwriters John Perlin and David Kennard to bring together in an understandable and entertaining way the use of Einstein’s theory of light as packets of energy, called photons, and the development of the photovoltaic cell as a practical, increasingly efficient converter of light into electrical energy.

Acting as executive producer, Kohn enlisted fellow UCSB Nobelist Alan Heeger and Zhi-Xun Shen of Stanford University as scientific advisers to the film project. Actor John Cleese provided the narration.

The foundation-funded DVD of “The Power of the Sun” also contains another film, called “The Power of the Sun—The Science of the Silicon Solar Cell.” This 20-minute animated film shows how a solar cell works. It is aimed at science teachers who are working with 12th graders or college freshmen in the areas of chemistry and/or physics, materials science, and engineering.

Single copies are free to instructors while supplies last. For details on how to order the DVD, go to <http://powerofthesun.ucsb.edu/order.html>.