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Solar Power: Our Energy Future or False Promise

Solar Power: Our Energy Future or False Promise. Melanie Beck, Jess Kroboth, Jeremy Yzeik, Matt Reinert. What is solar energy?. The technology to harness the sun’s energy and make it usable Energy is converted into thermal or electrical energy

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Solar Power: Our Energy Future or False Promise

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  1. Solar Power: Our Energy Future or False Promise Melanie Beck, Jess Kroboth, Jeremy Yzeik, Matt Reinert

  2. What is solar energy? • The technology to harness the sun’s energy and make it usable • Energy is converted into thermal or electrical energy • The Sun releases tiny packets of energy called photons, which travel 93 million miles from the sun to Earth in about 8.5 minutes • Every hour, enough photons impact our planet to generate enough solar energy to theoretically satisfy global energy needs for an entire year

  3. Solar panels / Solar-thermal Power plants • Photovoltaic cells, or solar panels, are made up of semiconductor materials • When sunlight hits the cells, it knocks electrons loose from atoms, causing them to flow through the atom, thus generating electricity • Solar-thermal power plants employ techniques to concentrate the sun’s energy as a heat source • The heat is used to boil water that drives a steam turbine that generates electricity, supplying electricity for thousands

  4. How it works 3. The meter tracks how much electricity is generated. 2. The DC electricity moves to an inverter that converts it to Alternating Current electricity. 1. Solar panels collect sunlight and convert it to Direct Current electricity.

  5. Advantages/disadvantages • Advantages • Cleanest and most abundant energy source • Renewable • Noise-free • Disadvantages • Doesn’t work at night without a storage device (battery) • Cloudy weather can make the technology unreliable • Expensive • Requires a lot of land area to collect the sun’s energy for a large amount of people

  6. Question: Solar power:our energy future or false promise?

  7. Viewpoint 1: In Favor of Solar Power

  8. perspective • Solar energy is one of the cheapest ways to get and use energy from the sun • It is renewable and abundant • Other places than the U.S. are installing panels for solar energy like India and China • Solar energy has long-term sustainability • Contribute to more than one third of our energy supply in 2060

  9. explanation • A company named, Sunflare, are making solar panels thinner, lighter, and more flexible • The flexibility of these panels allow them to be used on different types of surfaces instead of traditional ones • These panels have the ability to shut themselves off when they are in the shade and turn back on when the sun hits them again

  10. Future Numbers • Solar Power can count up to 16% of the globe’s entire energy use • Right now solar power is 1% of the globe’s entire energy use • A lot of room for growth in the solar power industry • Companies are thinking of new ways to make the production of panels cheaper to make solar power more affordable to get

  11. Why Is Solar Power So Promising? • Solar panels are more productive at converting sunlight into power • Other energy producing companies are being taxed due to the greenhouse gases that are being produced • Solar power does not create these greenhouse gases, so this tax will not be a problem or an additional expense

  12. Expanding • Install more solar panels around the world • Think of other ways to store energy from solar power • An example of a way to store this energy is by batteries • Create an easier way to transport the energy gathered by the solar panels to where people live

  13. Viewpoint 2: Opposing Solar Power

  14. perspective • Cost: Installing solar panels on a home can be expensive • Environmental: Solar cells are not clean and heavy metals can seep into groundwater when disposed • Governmental: Many state and local governments have proposed taxes and rate increases to slow the use of solar panels

  15. Cost • Installing solar panels on a home can range from $18,000 to $40,000 • For homeowners wanting to buy residential panels, the average price is less than $3.00 per watt • It can cost 20۪￠ or more to produce a kilowatt-hour of electricity from a solar-powered system, depending on the area and incentives • Electricity generated from coal and natural gas can cost anywhere from 2￠ to 10￠ a kilowatt-hour • The Energy Information Administration estimates that it is the most expensive form of electricity among current technologies costing about $396 per megawatt hour

  16. environmental • Solar cells contain heavy metals that can seep into groundwater when disposed of • Photovoltaic manufacturers employ toxic and explosive compounds that lead to unintended risks for workers and local residents • Solar farms use up large areas of farmland • Large solar farms could increase the warming of the planet • Affects native vegetation and endangers wildlife in the surrounding areas • Loss of habitat

  17. Weather • Electricity cannot be generated during the night, requiring you to either store excess energy made during the day, or connect to an alternate power source • Have to pay more on top of the high costs of the solar panels • Cloudy weather or storms restrict the amount of energy that is produced because the light rays that would have been absorbed are being blocked

  18. Government • Many state and local governments have proposed state tariffs and tax hikes to slow the use of solar power • As of 2008, renewable energy received nearly $5 billion in federal subsidies • Even with them, renewable energy is still 4 times as expensive as fossil fuels generating energy • The government alone cannot sustain renewable energy like solar or wind • Republicans express support for education programs aimed at consumers and allowing more drilling for oil and gas

  19. What will the future look like? • Perovskite Cell Technology • Future of Solar panels • Cheaper and more efficient • Still in testing

  20. conclusions • Its Clean! • Alternative to fossil fuels • For consumers, cheapens the electric bill • Very little maintenance • Beginning of a large industry

  21. citations • https://cresustainabilitypresentation.weebly.com/the-opposing-view-of-solar-power.html • https://www.greenamerica.org/new-green-tech-promise-and-pitfalls/bright-future-solar-power • https://www.herox.com/crowdsourcing-news/222-a-promising-future-solar-energy-to-become-cheapest • https://www.sunlux.com/blog/future-of-solar-energy/ • https://breakingenergy.com/2017/03/29/solar-power-the-future-is-here-alternative-energy/ • https://www.renewableresourcescoalition.org/solar-energy-disadvantages/ • https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/solar-power/

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