Solar Power:an Eternal Source of Energy

Solar Power means the conversion of the energy of sunlight into electricity. It can be done in two ways which are one using photovoltaic’s and two is using concentrated solar power which uses lenses or mirrors and tracking system to focus a large area of sunlight in a small beam. In today’s world we use fossil fuel to produce electricity and other thing which is both very hazardous and harmful to our environment. Solar energy can be a great alternative to fossil fuel as it is available as long as the sun is alive, it is less harmful to environment and it has the lowest water consumption per unit of electricity.

Firstly, the solar power is not going to finish as fossil fuel will. The Sun today is roughly halfway through its life. It has not changed in four billion years and will not change for about five billion years. So, it will not run out as fast as fossil fuel. Due to its limitation on our planet very soon we will run out on fossil fuel. Only solar energy can be a useful renewable energy source.

Secondly, fossil fuel is very dangerous to our environment. When fossil fuel is burnt for producing electricity many types of harmful chemicals generates form that process such as sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids which than causes acid rains, destroys both natural and built environment. Harvesting and distributing fossil fuel is also very harmful to environment. Coal mining, deep sea oil drilling, crude oil refineries all of these create negative impact on environment. Solar energy on the other hand is a clean energy; it does not pollute air, water or environment at all. So it can be our best source of energy.

Thirdly, solar energy has the lowest water consumption of water per unit of electricity. Water is a very precious element of nature. Wasting water is not good our plants biodiversity. So, it’s very important that we use less water to produce electricity. In a study researchers have found that the operational water consumption (with cooling towers) for nuclear (720 gal/MWhr), coal (530 gal/MWhr), or natural gas (210/MWhr) where solar energy used only 12 gallons of water per megawatt hour. That shows solar energy is more efficient than other energy source in production.

In concussion, we can say that in future solar energy is our only hope. Due to the limitation of fossil fuel, soon we will have to look for other energy resources like sunlight, water and wind. In that case solar energy will be the best as its almost eternal use, very minimal side effect and low cost.