Have you ever sat in a closed car and spent a lot of time in the scorching sun? The heat can be almost unbearable! Without a doubt, the sun is undoubtedly a great source of potential energy.
Think about it, solar energy could be used to heat our homes, power our appliances, light our cities, drive our vehicles, or meet other electrical needs. In fact, so much solar energy falls on Earth that if man could use his river for just fifteen minutes, he would have enough energy to support the world's current needs for an entire year!
However, there are skeptics. They believe the sun is too diffuse to be a practical source of energy - six to ten times the energy needed to heat an average building in the United States is emitted by the sun each time. Year.
But is it really practical to use solar energy? Can today's homes use this fabulous flow of energy economically?
A practical source of energy?
You will be surprised at the progress that has been made in the use of solar energy. Solar energy is not just a theory. We are talking about things that already exist, things that we can already do.
What are some of these things? For example, can the sun be used to power a house? The technology is available to convert solar energy into significant amounts of electricity. Then the senator insisted: “The main effort must be to convert solar energy into usable electricity.
However, there is still no cheap way to do it. Of course, there is no doubt that the sun can be used to meet all the electrical needs of a home. The orbiting spacecraft uses solar energy to power the electrical devices on board. However, generating electricity from the sun is still too expensive to be practical.
Most authorities believe that the first step in using solar energy is not to generate electricity, but to heat, heat and cool water. Some solar energy experts say it is now convenient for many homeowners to do so. The idea is to capture, store and circulate solar heat to heat the house or use the heat to turn on the air conditioning.
Currently, all the materials for installing solar thermal in buildings are available on the market. We just need a company ready to assemble all the packaging and deliver it to the public.
Is there a solid basis for this optimism? Is a Huge Solar Heating Industry Growing?
How to use solar energy
As the industry is at an early stage, there is a lack of standardization. The basic system, on the other hand, consists of a solar collector, a heat accumulator and a distribution system.
The collector is usually placed on the roof and tilted to capture as much sunlight as possible. The basic principle of the collector is that of a greenhouse. The black absorbent panels are covered with glass or plastic. These panels can be made from aluminum foil with a special black coating that absorbs heat. The liquid, usually water, flows through the black panels. In one system, the plates are corrugated and the corrugations are corrugated with tubes in the form of a radiator.
Sunlight penetrates the glass or plastic and the black plate absorbs the trapped heat. The water flowing through the pipes to the panels can be heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. This hot water flows into the storage tank, usually in the basement. However, in a simple hot water system, the tank is often placed with the collectors on the roof. A tank of about 140 liters supplies a family of four with hot water.
The average American home needs a 1000 gallon storage tank to meet your heating and cooling needs. A system heats the house in the following way: hot water is transported from the tank to the heating coils. Then the air is blown through the streamers, the air is heated, and the hot air is circulated to heat the house.
To cool the house, hot water is passed through a modified home air conditioner.
To keep the house cool, the hot water is led through an air conditioning system that has been modified to use hot water as a heat source instead of a gas burner. There is a lot to be said about sun protection, because when the sun is shining brighter and more air conditioning is needed, there is energy available to power the system.
But can an efficient solar system now be mass-produced? Many researchers believe: the technology is advanced enough to be used on a large scale. Some scientists, engineers and architects now believe that it is possible to build houses on our latitude whose heating is entirely due to solar energy.
As previously reported, some solar energy experts estimate that this solar system will be on the market in three to five years. However, a professor in Chicago, who has also worked for several years with research on solar energy, warns: “The road between a handful of solar homes and buying a solar heating system lies with Sears. far".
It will be interesting to see the development. But what about the prospects for solar energy at the same time?
Solar energy for electricity
There are two ways to generate electricity from the sun that are often discussed. First, sunlight can be used to heat a liquid that creates steam, which in turn drives a turbine engine. It is estimated that an area for collecting solar energy of between five and seven square kilometers could supply a steam plant that can provide performance for the largest nuclear power plants. Some supported the construction of such a solar power plant.
It seems possible that with current materials and processes we can convert 20% of the solar energy that falls on the earth at any time to thermal energy and therefore to usable electrical energy. It would mean enough energy to meet the needs of the nation for many years, and at a price we can pay if unused parts of our country, such as deserts, are used without causing pollution.
Although some see this type of power as a wrong approach.
It is true that sunlight can be converted into electricity directly at home. This can be done with the help of solar cells. They are thin waffle-shaped silicon chips that generate electricity when sunlight hits the surface. These solar cells now generate electricity in an orbiting spacecraft. And a thousand square meters of these sustainable roof cells can meet the electrical needs of a modern home. However, solar cells are very expensive for this use. However, it is not always necessary.
What is the future of solar energy?
Even in the sun, we have an abundant source of green energy that can be used to meet human needs. How do you do it? When? Those are good questions.
There are, of course, obstacles: The fact that solar energy has been largely ignored is likely to make economies, interest groups and government agencies dependent on fossil fuel systems.
Have these obstacles been overcome? Will there be a real attempt to develop this environmentally friendly energy source to support rapidly declining oil, natural gas and coal reserves? This will be interesting to watch.
