ChemII.Fall.2010.Zielinski.DiVerdi

The main problem facing our world today is a lack of clean, renewable energy. Today’s energy is gathered and produced by methods that are harmful to both the environment and people. Coal, for example, has to be gathered by mining deep into the earth at the risk of the miners’ health. Coal dust can cause respiratory problems and mine collapses kill on a large scale. Once the coal is mined, it has to be burned, releasing tons of carbon and other greenhouse gases. Oil and natural gas as well are costly to find, costly to collect, release harmful fumes, are highly combustible, and release harmful greenhouse gases. These methods of energy production are the main sources of our energy supply, as shown in the figure below.

These methods have great benefits of being in certain places readily accessible and in certain industries, like petroleum in the automaking industry, of being essential. However, they cannot remain our main sources of energy because they greatly harm the environment and people who use them.

The reason these methods are still being used, however, is because they have gotten used to them. Familiarity breeds fondness and people are loath to try new methods when the current ones seem to work fine. At the present they do work fine, they will not work in the long term because, in the case of petroleum and coal, they will eventually run out. People are starting to realize the problems, though and are doing something about it. People are using less of these fossil fuels, creating more hydroelectric dams, increasing nuclear power output, building wind turbines, and generally using more renewable resources.



All of these methods have their place, but we believe that the primary source of power for the future should be solar power. Essentially, solar power has the benefit of going straight to the main source of all power on earth, the sun. All of the remaining sources of power use a derivative of the sun’s power, be it decayed plant matter in petroleum, wind from warm air, or living plant matter in biodiesel.

How It Works

The photovoltaic cell functions as shown above. The sun’s rays hit the cell which contains a semiconductor which absorbs the light as well as its energy. The opposing sides of the cell, known as the P side and N side, draw the electrons from the sun’s rays apart. The electrically opposing sides then try to reunite to become neutral. The electric field within the cell then forces the electrons to flow in a certain direction. Metal contacts placed at the top and bottom of the cell allow the electrons to reunite. The current then draws the energy away for use. Since this process merely separates electrons with opposing elements, there is no burning and as such no CO2 is produced.

This method of energy production has many benefits. Perhaps foremost is that it is clean. There is no burning or hazardous waste associated with this manner of energy production and as such no threat of harm to humans or environment. Secondly, it is constant and steady. As long as there is daylight, the solar cells will gather power. Thirdly, it is readily accessible for everyone. Instead of having to go through a power company to power their homes, people can power create their own power and even sell power back to the power company.

Other Uses

Besides the traditional uses for solar such as powering buildings and cars, solar panels have other uses as well. They can be fitted to boats to provide electricity to navigation equipment and the like. They can also be used to power long range airplanes. There are also experiments going on to create a road that collects electricity. Not only would this road be able to power street lamps but it could have LEDs embedded in it to generate signs and markers on the road. This was perhaps the most intrigueing use of solar panels that we found. The concept shall be discussed at length here. A video of the idea is linked here: [].



**__Solar Roadways __** Imagine being able to power the entire country plus other countries all through renewable energy. This dream and vision is more than just a possibility with the new invention of solar roadways. The idea invented and tested by Scott Brusaw might just be the roads we drive on and the electricity used to power our h ouses in the future. The Solar Roadway is a series of structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon. The idea is to replace all current petroleum-based asphalt roads, parking lots, and driveways with Solar Road Panels that collect energy to be used by our homes and businesses. The ultimate goal is to be able to store excess energy in or alongside the Solar Roadways. This renewable energy replaces the need for the current fossil fuels used for the generation of electricity. This, in turn, cuts greenhouse gases literally in half.


 * How It’s Made **



Solar Roadways have three basic layers, a road surface layer, an electronic layer, and a base plate layer.

**Road Surface Layer**  - Translucent and high-strength, it is rough enough to provide great traction, yet still passes sunlight through to the solar collector cells embedded within, along with LEDs and a heating element. It is capable of handling today's heaviest loads under the worst of conditions. Weatherproof, it protects the electronics layer beneath it.

**Electronics Layer** - Contains a microprocessor board with support circuitry for sensing loads on the surface and controlling a heating element. No more snow/ice removal and no more school/business closings due to inclement weather. The on-board microprocessor controls lighting, communications, monitoring, etc. With a communications device every 12 feet, the Solar Roadway is an intelligent highway system.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">**Base Plate Layer**<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> - While the electronics layer collects energy from the sun, it is the base plate layer that distributes power (collected from the electronics layer) and data signals (phone, TV, internet, etc.) "downline" to all homes and businesses connected to <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">the Solar Roadway. Weatherproof, it protects the electronics layer above it.
 * Snow and Ice Management **

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When you first consider solar roads one of the first problems that comes to mind is whether or not the plows will break it when removing snow. Solar Roadways has a solution for this too. Since the roads have electricity running through them, they could use some of that electricity to melt the snow. The roads would melt the snow the same way that a car melts snow and ice off its back window, through wires. This is another great benefit because the need for plow trucks would be completely eliminated, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for each town which receives a lot of snow.


 * Asphalt Road **
 * Solar Powered Road (plus other walkways) **

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As you can see in the pictures comparing asphalt roads to solar roads, solar roads are much better. It completely eliminates build-up of snow and ice and eliminates the dangers of falling and losing control while driving in addition to being a clean, consistent source of energy. So as you can see solar roads do not just help save the environment they also help save human lives.



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Despite these obvious benefits, some people claim that solar power is not the right way to power the future. Some claim that solar panels are too expensive and the power they produce not cost effective. However, solar power is a relatively new technology and the only aspect that is keeping its cost up is efficiency. The efficiency of solar cells has been rising as time has passed and will continue to rise with better technology. Another criticism is that solar panels do not work at night and so have a large and expensive gap in productivity time.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, new advancements in the efficiency and affordability of solar panels are happening every day. For example, recent developments at the Idaho National Laboratory have created a solar panel which also gathers infrared heat which can be gathered at night not only from what light there is at night but also from the heat from the earth. Chemists Joshua Pak and Rene Rodriguez were originally trying to make supercritical carbon dioxide which would streamline the process of transforming material into the semiconducting nanoparticles needed for solar panels. As a side note, supercritical fluids act like a cross between a gas and a liquid that can diffuse through solids but also dissolve substance like a liquid. After their first attempt at adding the supercritical carbon to their reaction vessel they produced a yellow goop. When they examined the goop more closely they saw it was full of small, uniform semiconducting nanoparticles. Their “mistake” resulted in creating better of versions of these nanoparticles that are used in solar panels. “We didn’t expect that doing this would give us such homogeneity,” says Fox. Not only did their discovery create a better nanoparticle but it also created them at 65 degrees Celsius instead of the industry average of 300. These particles can also be designed to pick up different wavelengths. This would not only allow solar cells to pick up more energy from the sun, but also collect infrared energy that radiates off the earth at night. This a great leap in solar panel technology which could propel the technology into the mainstream, hopefully replacing dirty coal and petroleum energy production in some areas.


 * In Conclusion **

Solar power is the ideal source of energy for the future. It is clean, unlimited, and safe. It can be easily installed on industrial and domestic scales and in a variety of uses from home power to road networks. The use of solar power will offset global carbon footprints by a large margin and will pay for itself in a relatively brief amount of time. Solar power is the best way to power the future.

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