Image via Wikipedia
With the government shutdown of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, oil prices have steadily risen, causing more and more people to look into alternative fuels and methods of obtaining energy. One of these focuses on the oldest source of heat and light: the sun.
Solar energy has long been a dream of man like finding the best direct tv deals, and has been experimented with to some degree or another for hundreds of years. With the awakening of environmental consciousness in the 1970s, aided by the OPEC embargo and a fuel shortage, solar power finally got its chance to shine and entered the world as a viable energy source.
Solar power is gathered by photovoltaic cells, like those seen in this picture. The cells individually gather energy and convert it through a process to alternating current which can be used to power any number of electronics. The sun gives off massive amounts of energy on every square meter of earth, which means that if we can figure out the right way of doing it, humanity could have limitless erengy fed from the sun.
Today, solar panels can be seen on traffic lights, personal homes, Air Force bases, and lots of other places. Generally speaking, solar energy is not yet worth the hassle. Consumers pay about $1.80 per kilowatt/hour, although Nellis Air Force Base manages it for a fraction of that cost. However, with more and more attention being directed towards research and useage of solar energy, the future hopefully holds an economically sensible way of replacing much of the world’s oil consumption with energy from the sun.
