SolarEnergy.gs
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Motorcycle Shipping InformationSolar Panels
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Solar EnergyThere is a lot of solar energy in the world. There is enough solar energy to power everything man could ever want or need. One day of sunlight is more than the power ever used or needed by man. The problem with the whole solar thing is how to harness the wide radius of the photoelectric particle streams. Some solar engineers have suggested that the deserts of Arizona and Nevada could power all the needs of the United States. With the renewed interest in solar, new solar innovations are taking place at a very rapid pace. It is estimated that, in the next few years, solar will be ten times cheaper and 10 times more effective.Where Does All the Solar Energy Come FromIn case you haven't heard, solar energy comes from the sun. It's a big ball of gas. The majority of the gas is hydrogen (92%) and then helium (7.8%) and the rest (.2%) is oxygen, carbon, neon, and nitrogen. It seems unbelievable that scientists really know what it is made of. Nobody has ever landed on the sun or taken a sample directly from it.The solar energy created is by nuclear fusion. The hydrogen protons have a positive charge. The positive charges repel each other. The immense heat and mass of the sun cause the inner core to fuse the protons together. When the protons fuse, they give off an immense amount of energy. That heat energy or radiant energy is what makes gives the earth sunlight. What Holds the Sun TogetherWhy does a big ball of gas just sit there? Why doesn't the wind just blow it away? To be more accurate, the sun is actually an electrically charged plasma. The mass of the sun is huge. The inner core becomes more and more dense with nuclear fusion. The extreme weight and mass creates a huge and powerful gravitational field. That gravitational field is what holds the plasma in place. If you were to go stand on the sun, you would weight almost 30 times what you do on earth. That gives you an idea of the gravity on the sun. Don't every try this. You will get burned up.How Do We Know So Much About the Suns Energy?There are scientists that have their main role of studying the sun. These scientists are called heliologists and heliophysicists. Some of the scientists will also call themselves solar physicists (src: Dr. Eric Christian).The study of the sun is one of the most important phenomenon. The sun powers the entire world we live in. It has taken scientists thousands of years to finally understand a little bit about nuclear fusion and the awesome power of the sun. There is still a lot more to know because nobody has been able to harness the power of fusion for energy production. The Closest Thing Humans Have Created to the Sun's PowerThe closest thing that humans have created are atomic and nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs use uranium 238 because it is unstable and easier to split. The splitting of the uranium atom is done by fission and not fusion. The power of a nuclear bomb is awesome. The amazing thing is that a fusion bomb would have even more energy, although it may not be sustainable.To create fusion, scientists theorize it could take as much force as an atomic blast to get it started. Then, to contain it, you would need an immensely strong field. Some scientists have experimented with powerful magnetic fields. The great part about fusion is if something went wrong and the magnetic field collapsed the fusion would stop instantly. To create fusion, you also need immensely hot temperatures. Scientists still haven't figured out how to maintain the high temperatures required to make fusion continue. Some heliologists theorize that matter and antimatter could create the massive explosion necessary in a particle accelerator. The only problem is antimatter is extremely expensive to produce and, to this day, not much of it exists on earth. Some scientist claim they can create fusion, the problem is to sustain the effects for a period of time. The size of the sun is so massive. A real fusion reactor would need to be done on a massive size unless someone could invent something that, as of today, seems impossible. Solar Panels Harness Solar EnergyOne of the most effective ways to harness the suns energy is with solar panels. Scientists have harnessed the suns energy with water, parabolic dishes, mirrors, plants, and more. The advantage to solar panels is that they are light in weight, are relatively inexpensive to produce, and can produce a higher conversion ratio than other materials.The preferred substance for solar panels are thin silicon wafers. Each wafer makes up a solar cell and the cells are put into arrays to get enough power for a building. How the process works is by photons that bombard the silicon. The silicon wafers release electrons as the material is bombarded with the photonic particles. The electrons move and that is what creates the electricity. There are different kinds of solar panels. They are monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and amorphous. The majority of people use polycrystalline panels because they are more economical to use. Monocrystalline panels have the highest conversion rates, but due to the high cost they are not used that much. Thin Film Solar PanelsOne of the newest and most exciting solar panels is thin film solar. Thin film solar is said by many scientists that it will revolutionize the industry. The reason is not the conversion rates. Thin film solar panels will be extremely inexpensive to produce.The process works like the semiconductor industry. The understanding of nanotechnology has greatly improved the chances for solar. How it works is that nanoparticles that harness the sun are put into a special ink. That special ink is used to print out solar panels. The process is done in many layers and much more complicated than the short version we are describing here. The good news is that a company called Nanosolar (www.nanosolar.com) is claiming that they will be able to go into production in the next few years. As a side, one of the main investors into Nanosolar are he founders of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin). Another company that has recently come onto the scene is Covalent Solar. This group from MIT have found ways to make the panels a lot cheaper and with much higher conversion ratios. The panels are made with special dyes and out of plastic panels. The electric charges move through the panels and out each side between the micro layers. Future of Solar Panel TechnologyIt is evident that solar is going to come of age. Fossil fuels are limited in supply. There will come a time when fossil fuels are going to be so expensive that it simply won't be feasible to keep using them. When solar is less expensive than traditional power companies, you will see an explosion in their installation. The day is coming soon. Many solar manufacturers are producing much higher conversion rates and making the panels much cheaper. If if is anything like the computer industry, you can expect a revolution take place with Moores law. Moores law states that speed will improve by double every three years. If solar becomes twice as good every three years, there will be a massive shift towards people purchasing and using solar panels.
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