Solar Energy Myths and Truths
We had a fun and informative discussion on solar energy and renewable energy sources during our Twitter party on Tuesday night. Thank you to everyone who joined in. We look forward to tweeting with you in the future. Follow us @spanglerscience to join the conversation.
During the Twitter party, we promised a post with more in-depth answers to our questions.
We talked a lot about Photovoltaics. Photovoltaics are simply defined as the method of turning the sun’s power into solar energy.
Solar energy puts the sun’s energy to work in the form of electricity, heating and lighting. A strong effort is being put into solar energy because it is reliable and has few environmental impacts. Solar energy is also an abundant and renewable resource.
Q1: Myth or Truth: Solar electricity cannot serve any significant fraction of U.S. or world electricity needs.
Q1 ANSWER: Photovoltaic technology can meet electricity demand but the system is not set up to do so yet.
PV technology can meet electricity demand on any scale. The solar energy resource in a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply the United States with all its electricity (about
…
