Widespread Solar Power Happening Right Before Our Eyes (News)
Solar power is our planet’s primary energy source. All life on Earth, from the simplest of bacteria to photosynthesizing plants, to human beings is wholly dependent on the Sun’s immense energy emissions.
Only relatively recently, our form of life has been turning our star’s power into electricity for our needs. Our technological use of solar energy is half a century old. In 1954, Bell Labs created the first photovoltaic cell which could translate the rays of the sun into power to run conventional electric equipment.
Photo by Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash
The major problem solar power has faced is the cost-to-utility ratio of photovoltaic cells. The first cells only had an efficiency of 4-11% conversion of energy, and cost an arm and a leg to produce.
Technology has evolved as it tends to do, however, and starting in 1977, the price of photovoltaic cells began dropping rapidly while simultaneously rising in efficiency. Across the next decade, the price of solar electricity plummeted from $76 to $10 per watt. Extending this pattern to the current day, we see that the price per watt now sits less than 30 cents.
Naturally, this has lead to a much broader adoption of the green technology. Yet, the US government has routinely underestimated renewable energy capacity. Every two years since 1990, the US Energy Information Administration has released its biannual report of the expected growth and adoption of renewable energy sources, and each time it has been wrong.
Solar energy has been the most staggering difference in reality from the estimates. The 2006 estimation for 2016’s solar energy capacity was almost 5,000% less than how much the technology grew.
This raises an interesting question: what does the future look like? With the foremost experts coming so far short in their estimations, this suggests that the future is highly unpredictable. We are taking a step towards a vastly different tomorrow than we are used to today. Perhaps the world of tomorrow will overwhelmingly favor the sun over other energy sources, as life has repeatedly done throughout its existence.
ohhhh waooo great view of solar panel. it make a very attractive and amazing scenry . i like it much. thanks @earthnation. solar energy is much better for us as compare to other resources.
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very powerful solar power in the sun
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Nice, you got a 97.0% @rocky1 upgoat, thanks to @earthnation
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Solar energy is an excellent source of energy and much better than petroleum.
The use of solar energy will benefit humanity much for two reasons.
More the adoption of Solar, the better it is for our atmosphere and health of the planet!
The main reason that most "experts" under estimate the rates of adoption for solar (and many other technologies) is they do not understand exponential growth as it applies to technology. Solar is following a fairly consistent pattern over the last 30 years. The problem with growth is that a doubling or tripling of placements when you have 5 isnt going to have much of an effect. Now that solar is over 1% of the energy production and most governments on the planet are implementing some kind of renewable regulations to phase out fossil fuels, we are going to see a radical jump in usage.
I read a headline today that some scientists believe they uncovered a material which could make solar conversation rates similar to that of plants...what a breakthrough that would be.
That would be an incredible breakthrough. Thank you for sharing so much info with us!
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