Archive for the ‘Solar Energy’ Category

It Just Makes Sense

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 posted by admin

I am sure everybody has heard by now that oil and coal are dirty forms of energy. Digging for coal is dirty, dangerous work. Drilling for oil is also dirty, dangerous work. The recent tragedies of the West Virginia mine explosion and Gulf of Mexico oil spill have shown the world the risks of depending on these materials for our main sources of fuel. We should all know by now that alternatives to coal and oil are not only desirable, they are vital to society if we expect to have a sustainable future. The alternative source of energy that hits closest to home is solar energy.

Solar panels have been around for a long time. Everybody knows of that one house in your neighborhood that has had the bulky solar panels on the roof for the last 20 years. You probably do not know that those panels have been providing that home with electricity for only the cost of initial investment for those whole 20 years. What you might have thought of as a bulky box on somebody’s roof has been saving those people money for a long time. With today’s technology, you will not even notice the houses that have gone solar in the last few years.

Solar energy is superior to the dirtier forms in many ways. Solar panels convert sunlight into electricity. The panels pick up sunlight for much of the day every day, even working when it is cloudy. The panels let your house produce some of its own energy, making you less dependent on the electricity coming from the utility company. Combined with energy saving measures such as increased insulation, improved weather stripping, energy efficient appliances, and more efficient doors and windows, solar panels can save you a significant amount of money on your energy bills.

Using the sun for energy makes sense in many ways. Energy produced at your house means that it would not be affected if there were an outage on the power grid. With your solar panels, you will always have at least some energy coming in. The more panels you add (and the better the technology gets), the more likely it will be that you can weather a power outage without much inconvenience at all. Energy produced at your house is also clean energy. Nothing needs to be extracted, processed, and burned just to get you a watt of power. The conversion takes place in the solar system and only has to travel to your circuit breaker. You do not have to worry about spills, toxic fumes, or environmental disasters on any scale. The solar panels are completely safe for the environment leaving no byproducts that need to be buried or reprocessed.

Solar panels are becoming more popular in many parts of the United States. Places like Arizona, Nevada, and California have seen a massive upsurge in the number of households that have installed solar panel systems. With technology making the systems more efficient and more people realizing the benefit, it is not inconceivable to think that someday we can get the majority of our power right from the sun at our own home.