Does solar energy effectively utilize our natural resource?
439559
It does utilize a natural resource but... 'effectively' ?  I don't think so.  We can't use it to power cities.  It's still quite expensive and just used as a supplement to our regular energy resources.
556703
After the natural oil gone we can use other alternatives resources for producing energy such as hydrogen or solar cell, and we can still use plastics based products by recycling the plastics' trash because plastics is non-organic trash. if the space exploration success to find natural oil in other planet, we will use it.
105865
Solar energy is available in a large quantity, in fact much larger than all other safe energy sources put together. Energy obtained from coal, petroleum, other carbon based products and that obtained from nuclear fusion/fission is not safe for the enviornment.\nSo Solar energy has two major advantages -\n1. Abundant, hence making it cheap.\n2. Environmental friendly.
423132
It all depends on the area where you live. Like people in Florida would benefit most from Solar energy. People living near dams would benefit more form water energy. Wind energy would benefit people who live in the mountains. It all has to do with the geography of the land. But dealing with fuel options... I'm stumped!
659160
It absorbs light energy from the sun.
1076095
Yes but it would take a some time and a lot of effort and money invested into alternative sources in energy . We know that we have the capabilities with hydro electric wind solar and nuclear energies but they need more time and effort the only problem is with global warming Do we have the time?
167574
Solar energy is a success story. It already supplies electricity to several hundred thousand people around the world, provides employment for over ten thousand and generates business worth more than $1 billion dollars. In the future, the pace of change and progress could be even more rapid as the solar industry unlocks its hidden promise.\n\nThe benefits of solar power are compelling: environmental protection, economic growth, job creation, diversity of fuel supply and rapid deployment, as well as the global potential for technology transfer and innovation.\n\nThe underlying advantage of solar energy is that the fuel is free, abundant and inexhaustible. The total amount of energy irradiated from the sun to the earth’s surface is enough to provide more than 10,000 times the annual global energy consumption. Yet these benefits remain largely untapped; most energy decisions taken today overlook solar power as a modular technology which can be rapidly deployed to generate electricity close to the point of consumption. Phasing in solar photovoltaics therefore requires a shift from centralised to decentralised power production, offering far greater control to individual consumers.
148104
Well, Yes i agree with the rest about reducing our dependency on crude oil, and start finding some clean technology  to produce energy, the solution lies in various methods.\n\na) developed countries should promote industries or companies with incentives to  switch over to solar energy or wind power.\n\nb) countries must make optimum  use of tidal energy( energy created through tides at seashores) to produce energy in a industrial level.\n\nc)hydro electric although is second most exploited source, the full potential is not fully tapped yet, countries around the world should utilise it to the optimum level.\n\nd) Developed countries as well as developing countries must set aside a certain percentage of thier budget to set up clean energy such as setting up wind mills,to generate power\n\ne) Nuclear energy is still a disputed energy as it involves  potential risk of exposure to radiation, and its high cost o f operations,Yet the energy produced outweight all odds, it \nproduces enormous energy with little fuel.\n \nf) Countries should fast track the process  of finding an efficient alternative to Petrol(gasoline) or Diesel as Automobile fuel, right now the research is on hydrogen fuel cells , which seems promising, Yet the research lacks impetus from most of the developed nations.\ne) Countries (developed& developing) should start untilizing the Bio-deisel extraction process in massive scale,( that is extraction of Ethenol which can be got extracted from certain plants and certain seeds). The use of Ethenol will ease the stress on crude oil.
70676
Natural gas is a very good source for energy, but it is non-renewable with our current technology. \n\nHydro-electric is a viable energy source for electricty. It will always be available unless the water cycle ends.\n\nCoal is a good source for heat and power, but it does have some polluting characteristics in its natural state.\n\nNuclear is good for electricity production, steam generation and heat (from steam), it does leave residual waste, that is more concentrated radioactivity than what occurs naturally.\n\nFuel cells require power to produce but they work very well. They use readily available materials and can be scaled to the power output that is needed.\n\nGeothermal is good for heating houses and on a large scale in some areas for producing electricity. It is also a renewable power source.\n\nWind and solar are two more options that are becoming readily available for the end user. They are generally coupled with a battery system for calm periods of weather and night time.
267202
Yes, we can and we do.  We used both the moon and the Earth's energy to help propel the Apollo spacecraft around the moon.  Gravity is actually what keeps satelites in orbit around Earth.  \n\nHowever, to be able to harness enough energy to power cities?  Probably not.  Perhaps we can harness the ocean's waves (which is caused by the moon's gravity) into some electricity, but without some major advances in technology, I don't think we would be able to make it worth the effort.
138678
Wind energy is actually growing at a double digit rate, albeit from a very small percentage of the energy total.  Like solar and geothermal it's about as green as energy can get, so it is very responsible in that sense.   It will take strong government committment to spur it's use because it's still rarely competitive with fossil-based energy.   The Wall Street Journal had an article last week about the difficulty of the boldest experiment yet - a Danish island that has tried with limited success to get off shore wind energy as the primary source (it was going OK until the government withdrew subsidies).
324403
There is no such thing as non-renewable energy.  Energy is simply converted from one form to another and never actually gets 'used'.\n\nThere are non-renewable SOURCES of energy however and other answerers have pointed these out.\nHydrocarbons, like coal, oil and gas are considered non-renewable because once you have converted their (stored) chemical energy in to heat energy by burning them, you will have to wait several million years before the energy is stored back in a chemical form for you to burn again.\nWind power is considered renewable since wind is a form of mechanical energy which is converted thermal energy from the sun.  We use wind turbines to control the mechanical energy of the wind and convert it into electrical energy.  The sun provides more thermal energy, which makes more wind and so the source of energy is renewed on a useful timescale.\n\nMost energy on Earth comes from the sun.  Wind is driven by the sun as I have explained.  Solar energy is obviously sun powered.  Chemical energy sources like wood, coal, gas, etc also come from the sun since plants capture the solar energy and store it in their structure as chemical energy.  This same energy is what is released by burning.\nThe most notable source of non-sun derived energy on Earth is that of the tides.  Gravitational effects between the Earth and the moon (alright, and the sun a bit) cause the tides.  Gravitational energy converted to mechanical energy.  We can use this as a renewable source as well.\n\n<flight of fancy>\nIt is theoretically possible to have so many turbines extracting energy from the wind that there isn't enough left over to keep the winds blowing, which would have rather a startling effect on regional climates.  Turn the turbnes off however and the sun would soon start things up again.\n</flight of fancy>
470132
Solar energy ( using solar panels or something ) is the ultimate alternate energy source, because the energy in living things comes from the sun.  The energy in petroleum, which comes from dead plants, comes from the sun.  And the energy from hydroelectric dams comes from the sun, because the sun evaporates the water so it can rain down on the mountains and fill up the reservoir behind the dam.  Why not just go directly to the source--the sun.\n\nAs for simulating day and night, you must do this!  The human body schedules itself to sleep about every 24 or 25 hours.  Going against this schedule or against the schedule of light and dark periods can cause difficulty sleeping, difficulty staying awake, and possibly psychological problems.\n\nI don't really know what kind of colony you are referring to, so I can't really answer the other questions.  Is it a computer simulation, like Sim City, or a science-fiction colony on the planet Mars, or just a wilderness survival plan?
515649
http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/solar.htm\n\nThis is a favorite source of future energy for many people, comforted by the thought that it is unlimited. But, quite the contrary is true. The Sun will exist for a long time, but at any given place on the Earth's surface the amount of sunlight received is limited--only so much is received. And at night, or with overcast skies, or in high latitudes where winter days are short and for months there may be no daylight at all, the sunlight received is very limited at times. Direct conversion of sunlight to electricity by solar cells is a promising field, but the amount of electricity that can be generated by that method is not great compared with demand. The conversion efficiency is low, about 12 percent with present technology.\n\nSolar energy in quantity requires huge installations. It has been estimated that an area of 60 square miles in relatively clear central Oregon would have to be covered with solar cells in order to meet the present electric needs of that State. About 10% of the cells have to be replaced each year. But the big problem is how to store significant amounts of electricity when the Sun is not available to produce it. That problem remains unsolved. The statement that "solar energy will not make next century's electricity" is probably right. And the end product is electricity--a very limited replacement for oil.
122917
Solar power has existed as long as humans have existed. It was used well ionto pre-history. The first use of solar power was probably in drying clothes or food. \n\nSome of the very earliest written documents record the existence of dried dates and dried fish, which were of course sun dried. \n\nThe idea that it was first used in 5000BC is completely erroneous. Solar power is a prehistroic energy source and has been used in some form by every human society that has ever existed.
21156
The quantity and quality of a resource is determined by whether it is a renewable, non-renewable, or a flow resource. \n\nRenewable resources, such as plants and animals, can replenish themselves after they have been used if their physical environment has not been destroyed. If trees are harvested carefully, a new forest will grow to replace the one that was cut. If animals eat grass in a pasture to a certain level, grass will grow again and provide food for animals in the future, as long as the carrying capacity of the land is not exceeded by the pressure of too many animals. \n\nNonrenewable resources, such as minerals and fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), can be extracted and used only once. \n\nFlow resources, such as water, wind, and sunlight, are neither renewable nor nonrenewable because they must be used as, when, and where they occur. The energy in a river can be used to generate electricity, which can be transmitted over great distances. However, that energy must be captured by turbines as the water flows past or it will be lost.
670720
electric can come from solar energy gas is made of oil and if people use gas powered cars earth might run out of oil and solar power can keep on going