Choose Solar Energy

As we saw on the last post, discussing about human influence on the environment is not what really matters. Instead of it, we should start doing something today. This is why we will present several suggestions to make Earth a better place on the second part of our blog – ‘Do Something’.

One of the most important issues we face is the dependence on petroleum. But aren’t fossil fuels just a small part of Sun’s energy stored in our planet? Yes, and they are almost insignificant compared to Sun’s huge amount of energy. Why don’t we use this energy?

Solar energy is a great choice, having the most important characteristics of an energy resource: it is clean, unlimited, and cheap; it is literally falling from the sky.

This type of energy can be explored in two ways: to produce heat and electricity.

Solar collectors are devices which use sunlight to increase their internal energy. This energy is generally used to heat water. These collectors are getting cheaper and more efficient. Actually, according to Quercus, an investment of 1500€ to 2000€, which is compensated in a few years, is enough to buy a solar collector for home.

Solar photovoltaic modules can produce electricity using solar energy. For example, in sunny countries, public lighting may be completely powered by sunlight.
Although this devices are more expensive that solar collectors, they can be lucrative too because electricity produced by homeowners can be sold to energy companies in a higher cost than they buy it.

As you can see, solar energy is a good way to fight the dependence on petroleum. Because, as we already said, Sun is the source of almost all the energy on the Earth, it is the responsible for all other kinds of renewable energies, as the wind power, which we will discuss next on this blog.


Sources:
http://www.quercustv.org/spip.php?article181
http://www.solargen.biz/uploads/images/solarlights/st_ives_6.jpg
http://www.top100-solar.eu/