Solar Energy Consumption

By Author: Pierce Brosnan
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Solar energy is the heat and light energy obtained from the sun. The solar light at the earth surface is mostly spread across visible and infrared ranges with small part of ultra violet. Earth receives solar energy at relatively constant rate and receives nearly 174 petawatts of incoming solar radiation of which 30percent is reflected back into space and the rest is absorbed by plants, oceans and clouds.

The total solar energy absorbed by earth surface, oceans and land masses is nearly 38, 50,000 exajoules per year. The earth absorbs more solar energy in one hour, than the entire energy used by humans in one year. The available solar energy resources are 1, 20,000 TW but solar energy supplied less than 0.02 percent of the worlds energy supply which was mainly due to higher price of solar equipment.

Direct Form and Indirect Form of Solar Energy

Direct form includes, using solar radiation directly to produce electricity and for other heating purposes. Due to the development of the photo voltaic technology the installed capacity has increased and the solar cell production increased by 50% in 2007, to 3,800 ...
... megawatts, and has been doubling every two years. Consumption of solar hot water and solar space heating was estimated at 88 GW

Indirect form includes, burning of fossil fuels, wind energy, biomass energy, hydro energy, nuclear energy etc. The energy which we are using such as coal, petroleum, natural gas etc is indirect form of stored solar energy, which was chemically stored through the process of photosynthesis by plants. Most of the energy used is in indirect form

Total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J) with 80 to 90 percent derived from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Coal: It is the largest source used to produce electricity around the world and it is one of the dirtiest sources of energy which contributes to enormous amount of green house gases. Coal accounted for nearly 28 percent of energy use.

Nuclear fuel: Of the world’s total energy supplied, nuclear fuel accounted for 6.5 percent in 2005. As of 2006 nuclear fuels produced 2.658 TWh which was increase of 16 percent of global electricity production. Since nuclear fuel does not emit any green house gas emissions and small amount can produced enormous energy compared to other fuels, it is increasingly becoming popular and has the potential to replace coal in power plants in near future.

Renewable Energy: It includes hydro power, wind power, solar energy geothermal energy and biomass energy. Renewable energy supplied around 19% of the world's energy consumption. Hydro power capacity reached 816 GW and energy produced from biomass source was estimated to be 44 GW. The installed wind capacity was nearly 120 GW and that of geothermal energy was in the range of 100 GW.

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