Title: 5 Great Reasons To Harness Solar Power Word Count: 896 Summary: Very simply put, Solar energy

is energy that is derived from the sun. Our sun is a n abundant source of energy; it gives of heat and light. The suns been revered by several cultures of the past and even by a few cultures still present today. Th e ancient Egyptians even worshiped the sun as a God. Keywords: solar panels energy Article Body: Very simply put, Solar energy is energy that is derived from the sun. Our sun is a n abundant source of energy; it gives of heat and light. The suns been revered by several cultures of the past and even by a few cultures still present today. Th e ancient Egyptians even worshiped the sun as a God. All said and done, it was not misplaced respect; the sun certainly is an abundan t and limitless source of power, at least for several generations to come; the m erits for using its solar energy are numerous. Its free Every morning with each dawn, the solar energy released by the sun comes filtere d through our atmosphere providing light and helping to radiate heat. This has b een happening for millions of years yet it is only recently that we have begun t o capitalize on this abundant source of almost infinite power. In the past the Greeks and the Egyptians have been known to harness the power of the sun to heat whatever they wished to by concentrating its radiation. Its non-polluting The energy from the sun is clean and free of any pollutants; unlike various sour ces of energy present today like petroleum or organic fuels that leave back resi dues and often leave back harmful gases when utilized to create energy. Extremely reliable The sun has been burning for roughly four and a half billion years now and is li kely to burn on for another four to five billion years to come. Thats definitely more than our lifetimes and certainly more than several generations of the futur e. Every morning it promptly shows up and vanishes for the evening while it ligh ts up another portion of the globe. The saying as sure as day did not come about for nothing; assuming the sun is shin ing brightly, depending on which part of the globe you are you can harness the e nergy of the sun to either store it away or utilize its energy in a different wa y. Limitless There is no restriction on how much energy we can use from the sun. Apparently, the amount of energy that comes from the sun every few minutes if successfully h

arnessed can power the entire United States of America for a whole year. If we w ere only able to harness the immense energy of the sun we would be able to solve all the worlds energy problems. Why Ever wonder why no one thought about this earlier? How come if theres so much ene rgy just lying around, we simply cannot seem to efficiently harness it? How it t hat so much of the sun energy seems to go totally unnoticed and is ultimately wa sted? Well one of the reasons that this wonderful power reserve is generally wasted is the fact that the sunlight that we actually receive is so thinly dissipated acr oss the earth to be able to contribute substantially enough if we try to harness it. For us to be able to actually harness the power of the sun we have to be able to manipulate, focus and store the suns energy. While this may seem simple it is easier said than done; So far we have only managed to develop three partially su ccessful means of collecting solar energy. The Reflection Method Mirrors / Parabola The reflection method is based on the concentration of the suns rays through a si ngle or a set of mirrors onto one point and then utilizing the concentrated heat energy that is produced for out need. A parabolic mirror much like a dish anten na can be used to capture the suns rays and focus them on a single point. The radiation method This is the principle behind the solar water heaters. Painted black pipes sandwi ched between two layers of glass, have water inside them that is heated thanks t o the rays of the sun. Solar panels A more recent invention the solar cell is composed of treated silicon crystals, wh ich when hit by the rays of the sun knock electrons out of their orbits and ther eby create a void that needs to be filled by electrons from the other silicon cr ystals, this creates an imbalance of electrons and hence a flow of current which can be either immediately utilized or else stored away in a rechargeable batter y. Whats stopping us? Despite the apparent benefits of using solar power it is most unfortunate that t here are very few solar power plants around the world. Sadly, with todays level o f technology, cost and reliability are two major factors that are still hurdles in the way of mass usage of solar energy. Technological limitations dictate that the most efficient solar cells created to day are still not capable of generating enough power to be commercially viable w ithout occupying huge surface areas. Furthermore, reliance exclusively on solar cells in not yet practical, for if there were to be a cloudy day it could reduc e the amount of electricity generated and that would be disastrous for those peo ple completely reliant on that energy. On the bright side, constant innovation and research on solar energy is g in much more efficient solar cells that are a fraction of the size of cells and churn out much more power. For now they are still expensive, far is the day when they will be affordable and available to the common resultin existing but not man.