Well, maybe not my weight problem or disease, or war, but it can solve pollution and green house gas emissions.  As always, i preface this next party by saying: Assuming the Manufacturing and Delivery of Solar Cells is Environmentally neutral.

Solar electricity is the cleanest, least dangerous source of electricity on the planet earth.  Solar does not, energy from weather and gravitational forces, reducing the flow and affect of that phenomenon downstream, the way, wind, wave and current schemes do. In other words, if you take energy from the gulf stream, less warm current ends up in Europe, for example, causing cooling and a new ice age.  Solar appears to have no such deleterious effect.

Rather than absorbing and transfering the energy of motion, solar cells use the Photovoltaic effect to convert the suns energy into a stream of electrons to power our world. A solar cell, which most resembles an integrated circuit (the silicon wafer inside, the hard package we think of as the chip) like those in our computers, phones and TVs, can produce electricity for decades.  Today there are a variety of solar electric panels that allow homes and businesses to be powered via solar electricity.  Due to the existence of night and cloudy days it is paramount that solar powered buildings are connected to the power grid in a two way relationship, to insure the buildings are powered 24/7 without the financial and resource costs required of storage batteries .  Additionally, solar has the potential to solve the most pressing electric problem throughout the world: surges in electric uses in response to hot weather.  Solar electric buildings reduce the draw on the grid and help provide additional power during daytime surges, reducing the need for additional fixed power plants by the grid operators.

Solar Electricity Solves All! - Well a lot.  We just solved the need for more power plants, help reduced the amount of power generated from hydrocarbons and help make homes and buildings that are more able to handle disruptions in service by the electric grid providers. 

Click here for: More on the Science of Solar Electricity

A Sun Powered Dream that is coming true today. 

Little Miss Sunshine

I’m sitting here in Essex County Ontario, the most southern county in Canada and i’m freezing my ass off.  It’s no surprise that Windsor (across the river from Detroit) can be dangerously cold in winter, even in the midst of global warming.  Eventhough polar ice caps melt and Caribbean waters are overheating, most weather patterns remain intact, if not exactly the same as in the past.

The biggest problem about global warming, that makes it hard to take these warnings seriously, is our view from the “warming pot of soup”.  If the climate suddenly (within days/weeks) changed, say temperatures rising 5C, it would be obvious.  But since we’re living in the environment and changes are gradual, say over years, that much like the pot of soup coming to a boil, it’s hard to see the evidence as evidence.

Solving the problem is simple, reduce the production of greenhouse gases, reduce greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere.  It’s simple to do, but not very practical in a modern world generating these gases in power production.  The world much shift to a renewable, low impact, no waste energy source to power our world.  Only solar is a passive, renewable, low impact alternative to hydro carbon energy (not accounting for production materials).  Wind and wave power, while renewable and clean does impact the air and current flow, around the collection turbines. The same can be said for thermal collection methods, only photogeneration of electricity promise no impact to the environment.

Well just a few thoughts, in the dead of winter