Solar Power the wave of the future

With the growing oil crisis there has been an ongoing debate that other alternatives should be used to meet the ever-increasing energy requirements of the world nations. Several alternative ways of producing energy are already being employed and have proved to be less costly, environment-friendly and more reliable. One such method being employed all over the world is using solar energy to produce energy.

Earth is receiving sunlight from the Sun with every passing second and this is the basic source of solar energy. Solar energy is used to produce electricity, to heat buildings and also provide cooling facilities. Earth receives about 174 petawatts of solar radiation out of which only 70% is absorbed by land and atmosphere. The availability of solar radiation is far greater than any other form of energy and this is offers a huge prospect for solar energy adoption.

Following points emphasize the availability and reliability of solar power:

• The total amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is nearly 3,850zettajoules (ZJ) per year which was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year in 2002.
• The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth’s non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined.
• The amount of solar energy received by the Earth every minute is more than the amount of energy the world uses in fossil fuels every year.
• Tropical oceans absorb 560 trillion gigajoules (GJ) of solar energy each year, equal to 1,600 times the world’s annual energy use.
• The energy in the winds that blow across the United States each year could produce more than 16 billion GJ of electricity, more than one and a half times the electricity used in the United States in 2000.

The immense supply of solar power is well beyond the total demand of energy on Earth, and this is the solution to any kind of energy shortage. The fossil fuel currently under use has a limited supply and one wonders what would follow when all the oil and gas reserves will be exhausted. Fossil fuel requires thousands of years for its formation so we should be more careful in its use. Solar energy gives an emphatic response to this problem but use of solar energy can be costly, so researchers and scientists must find ways to reduce its cost so that every nation in the world can adopt solar energy.