SOLAR+POWER

SOLAR POWER

"**The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. "— Ralph Nader 2009**
====**"**We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." —Thomas Edison====

Edison in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931)
[|alternative energy]

Our world today is suffering through so many problems. The biggest two would be fuel and water. Gasoline prices in the USA are getting outrageous, soon the average person will not be able to afford to drive a car. What will we do then? People think that oil is an unlimited resource, but in reality nothing in this world is unlimited, that goes for water as well. Our world is also running out of fresh water. The amount of water that people consume per day is unbelievable. Soon enough there will be no fresh water on this earth, and with no water means no life, then this world will become dry and dormant just like what happened to Mars. But, if we can come up with an alternative energy source this planet just might be saved. Power from the sun would be the most logical resource we can perform. As long as the sun is there we are here, so you could say the sun is an unlimited resource. If the sun dies out, well then there is really no hope for life anywhere on the galaxy let alone earth. So if we can harness the suns energy in an efficient manner, then the oil problem will be a problem of the past. Unlike gasoline, [|solar power] does not harm our atmosphere. Gasoline toxins rise up in the air and burn holes in our ozone layer, letting more sunlight rays seep through to our planet thus making the average temperature rise, also called global warming. But now we can stop heating up our planet and start producing energy from the sun that is heating our planet up. Harnessing sunlight rays with panels that soak up the rays and store them for energy is the way I am promoting here. Solar power works when a beam of sunlight shoots into a panel knocking a neutron out and that neutron is harnessed as energy. A few disadvantages to this is that in order to receive the energy you must live in a place that receives ample amount of sunlight per year, and even when you do, the energy produced is still low, but scientists are working on methods to increase the amount of energy received through a single solar cell. Also, te use of solar power could decrease the amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Stuart Licht, a chemistry professor at George Washington University, says“,Carbon dioxide, a non-reactive and normally difficult-to-remove compound, can be easily captured with solar energy using our new low-energy, lithium carbonate electrolysis STEP process, and with scale-up, sufficient resources exist for STEP to decrease carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels within 10 years.”



The one problem I see with solar power is that it is very expensive to perform. A solar cell is constructed from rare materials. The cell also has to be maintained and cared for frequently, and this can cause havoc to people who are working full time jobs. You also have to have an ample amount of solar panels to get enough energy to even run your house let alone the world. But some day in the near future (hopefully) the problems with solar power will be solved and the world can start trying to save this planet from what burning fossil fuels and gasoline did to it.