subject: A Directory Of Some Great Benefits Of Solar Energy [print this page] Almost all energy on planet Earth is solar energy. The only other kinds of energy on our fair blue orb are gravity and the molten core of the planet itself. Even the molten core could be solar energy if one subscribes to the theory that the planet is simply solar flotsam spewed out in a huge solar storm billions of years ago. Gravity is the only form of energy that we can say definitively is not solar in nature.
"Gravity?" I can hear you asking. Yes, gravity. When water flows, it does so because of gravity. When it flows through a hydroelectric turbine, gravity is being used to power your home.
Even the wind is, towards the end for the day, solar in nature. When the sun heats the atmosphere, it causes movement, exactly the same steam results from boiling water. The movement in the atmosphere is wind. Wind is solar.
Petroleum, natural gas and coal are essentially decayed organic matter. Organic matter depends on the sun as the lowest amount food chain -- plants -- grow due to photosynthesis, which is the reason plants die in a dark closet.
So we have established that almost all available energy on this planet comes from the sun. You will find the first reason that solar energy is superior to "other" forms of energy: It exists in its base form. We need not wait millions of years for dinosaur bones to decay into sunlight. Sunlight itself is the alpha. Oil and its attendant problems are currently the omega, but that needn't be.
We can harness solar energy immediately. It is rather simple to harness solar energy. Maybe you have opened the drapes on a sunny winter day to let the sunlight in, to enjoy its warmth? You have harnessed solar energy. It has not cost us a dime -- which brings us to the second advantage of solar energy: It is inexpensive. Even solar panels have become cheap lately. If one considers the price tag on cleaning up oil spills and the expense of global climate change (by means of intensified weather events which are now undeniable on a global scale), solar power is indeed the cheapest form of energy on the planet.
Another advantage of solar energy is that it must be everywhere. Even on a cloudy day, a massive amount of solar energy is hitting the ground. Which brings us to the final advantage -- solar energy is abundant. Daily, more energy from sunlight reaches the surface of our planet than will be burned in the entire history of all fossil fuels combined. This is absolutely a scientific fact. Look it up. It works out to 12.2 trillion watt-hours of solar energy per square mile per year. Multiply this by 198 million square miles on top of the world. This quite a bit of energy.
The one thing left to do is to harness it on a massive scale. It's easier than digging for dwindling amounts of coal and oil and much easier and safer than sparking up "miniature suns" in solar power plants.
