Grand Challenges in Engineering: Make solar energy economical
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| Audience/Grade: | High School Junior -College Senior 11-College Senior |
| Discipline(s): |
Ceramic Engineering Electrical Engineering General Engineering, Engineering Science Materials Engineering Mechanical Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Article/Document |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Randy Atkins |
| Description: | "Solar energy provides less than 1% of the world's total energy, but it has the potential to provide much, much more. As a source of energy, nothing matches the sun. It out-powers anything that human technology could ever produce. Only a small fraction of the sun’s power output strikes the Earth, but even that provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet. Why is solar energy important? Already, the sun’s contribution to human energy needs is substantial — worldwide, solar electricity generation is a growing, multibillion dollar industry. But solar’s share of the total energy market remains rather small, well below 1 percent of total energy consumption, compared with roughly 85 percent from oil, natural gas, and coal. Those fossil fuels cannot remain the dominant sources of energy forever. Whatever the precise timetable for their depletion, oil and gas supplies will not keep up with growing energy demands. Coal is available in abundance, but its use exacerbates air and water pollution problems, and coal contributes even more substantially than the other fossil fuels to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For a long-term, sustainable energy source, solar power offers an attractive alternative. Its availability far exceeds any conceivable future energy demands. It is environmentally clean, and its energy is transmitted from the sun to the Earth free of charge. But exploiting the sun’s power is not without challenges. Overcoming the barriers to widespread solar power generation will require engineering innovations in several arenas — for capturing the sun’s energy, converting it to useful forms, and storing it for use when the sun itself is obscured. Many of the technologies to address these issues are already in hand. Dishes can concentrate the sun’s rays to heat fluids that drive engines and produce power, a possible approach to solar electricity generation. Another popular avenue is direct production of electric current from captured sunlight, which has long been possible with solar photovoltaic cells." |
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| Keywords: | grand challenges in engineering solar panels solar energy |
| Is Component of: |
Grand Challenges for Engineering |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
Part of the NAE Grand Challenges project. Reading and voting could be used as an exercise for a K-12 or freshman engineering class. |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | July 2008 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9082.aspx |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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