SOLAR ENERGY

The Fire in the Sky Like a never-ending fire in the sky, the sun releases enormous amounts of heat and light that shower upon the earth. Every day, the Earth receives an amount of solar energy equal to 30 years of world fossil fuel energy use. In half a day, the US receives the same amount of energy from the sun that it consumes for all purposes in an entire year. If concentrated, the sunlight that falls on the hood of a car would be enough power to boil a pot of water in minutes. Except for a few odd places, solar energy can be utilized anywhere in one form or another. Even in places that are considered cloudy like New England or Europe, passive solar energy can be readily harnessed to warm buildings economically. Many other parts of the world, like the Mediterranean and Africa, receive months of endless sunshine.

Solar energy can heat buildings, heat water, cook food, drive pumps and refrigerators, and make electricity. Passive solar, which uses little or no mechanical devices, is the easiest form to use. It can supply all or most of the energy required by a conventional home. Larger buidings like schools and apartments that use passive solar energy may use less than half the electricity, oil or gas of a similar conventional building and can often be built at little or no additional cost.

Over two million solar water heaters are used in Japan, and their use is accelerating in the US, where over 100.000 family water heaters were installed in 1981. As technology improves and costs decline, solar photovoltaic cells will generate more electricity worldwide.

While many new homes and industries will be designed to use the sun's power in the future, there exists an enormous potential to retrofit millions of existing buildings with solar applications now . For example, the addition of a passive solar greenhouse on a southfacing wall reduces heating bills. Since millions of houses in US cities are already facing south towards the sun, as in Washington DC, or in the grid cities of the American midwest, their roofs and walls are prime locations for solar panels for hot water, heat, or electricity.

The future of solar energy is very bright. While there were only 135 solar houses in the US in 1975, today there are thousands and hundreds of thousands could be built by the end of the century. Millions could be built worldwide. As time goes on, a variety of solar technologies will be combined to power entire communities and industries.

Abundant, clean, and free, solar energy willl gain great importance in a world of diminishing finite fuels.