Great News For Solar Energy
There was a time, not all that long ago, when solar power was pretty much limited to small hand held calculators and little else. Only the very rich had the money to put solar to use in their homes. Those days have been replaced by a broader range of devices, uses andprice ranges.
The history of solar power seemed bright back in the seventies. It was considered the answer to how to generate clean, cheap, unlimited energy. The Twentieth Century just did not have the technology or the materials to bring the cost of solar power down to where the common man could afford it.
But that was then and this is now. Finally the advances in materials and production have begun to bring the cost of solar energy into the realm of the possible. Efficiencies in scale are producing solar energy at a fraction of the previous cost. But it still matters where you live.
Areas of the earth that get the most consistent hours of sunlight are those near the equator. The Polar Regions have their sunlight condensed into half of the year. The Northern Area gets sun from March to September and the Southern from September to March.
Despite the shifting sunlight, solar has been used in a small way in many places. Remote weather stations and autonomous reporting stations have used solar for decades. Africa and South America have a long history of using solar panels in remote locations.
The price of solar has to get within a few pennies of the price of oil in order to be a major player in energy markets. Fortunately, advances in production methods and materials are beginning to do just that. Nanotechnology and single molecule layeringtechniques are reducing the cost of solar panels and increasing their efficiency.
Now there are commercial solar power stations in California and other Southwestern states. These are still highly subsidized but are producing power for homes and businesses on the national power grid. Solar power is part of the US energy structure. In Germany and the Netherlands, solar has an even higher profile.
The idea of solar cars and motorcycles is not as radical now as it once was. Flexible solar panels are used to recharge everything from camera batteries to cell phones. Solar power is not the mildly unusual and rarely practical energy source that it once was. Solar energyed flight is a reality if not something common.
Solar panels are common in suburbia and on commercial retailer roof tops. Some firms even advertise their solar power to gain the market loyalty of the ecologically conscious. And the newer solar power modules are not the ungainly and unsightly constructs they once were.
The promise of universal, clean, alternative and almost free solar power is closer to realization than ever before. It is quite likely that the Sunbelt will gain from solar first. But, as soon as an inexpensive method of storing solar energy is found, the Polar Regions will be right behind.
This article is brought to you by George Zalcman. George Zalcman has always had a passion for green technologies, and believes that we should all get on the boat before natural resources become limited. George Zalcman is part of an air to water technology hoping that this will eventually bring an end to the water crisis as well.
