Sustainable Energy FAQs
How much energy is really released by the sun?
If we could harness the power of the sunlight that fell on the earth for only 40 minutes that would well over the entire amount of power needed for the entire world for over a year. Unfortunately we cannot harness that much power at once, we haven’t even reached the 1% mark but honestly 1% is a huge number. If we could harness the power of the sun directly a millisecond of power could provide the energy needs for the entire planet until we evolve into floating brains.
The power is there, but are we inventive enough to capture it?
What is limiting the proliferation of solar power?
Right now it is the way solar panels are constructed which involves copious amounts of silicon which has proven to be an adequate material for converting photons into electrons (it doesn’t really happen that way, but its close). The trick has been finding ways to harness more power with less silicon which is expensive, hard to procure and in high demand. Alternative materials are being worked on with much success so don’t be surprised to see solar panels drop in price significantly in the future.
Another limiting factor is the proliferation of oil and fossil fuel based industries. It takes a long time to get the infrastructure in place to harness and effectively transfer that power into a useable form. Gas stations would have to be re-tooled, homes would need to be re-wired, even the entire electrical grid would need altering. It is a long process but it is sped up by user and consumer demand. If you want to see more green energy and products demand them, buy them, support them. Filling up that gas guzzler might not be the best option.
How much gasoline is used every day?According to the department of transportation over 200 million gallons of gasoline are burned everyday over the course of 4 billion miles. That averages out to 20 miles a gallon, not bad but that is still a huge amount of fuel being burned every day. Crude oil is currently $75 a barrel which is 55 gallons so those oil barons are making close to 300 million dollars every day. When was the last time you heard of an oil company doing any good? I can’t think of one instance. Oh, I forgot to mention that these facts are just for America. That is a lot of burned fuel released into the environment.
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