The greatest
source of energy that powers the entire earth is the Sun itself. In
fact life exists on earth because of the sun had there been no sun
there would have been no plants at all whether microscopic or large
ones. The plants have a chemical in them called chlorophyll
and using this chlorophyll plus the nutrients and water absorbed by
their roots from the earth and the sunlight falling on them plants
create their own food through a photochemical process called
photosynthesis .Now these plants are consumed by small and large
animals and some of the smaller insects are consumed by larger
creatures while there are some other living organisms that are
carnivorous those who consume both meat and plants. We the humans are
such carnivores at the top of this food chain.
Now
the sustenance of life on earth totally depends not only on food but
water is even more essential ,while the organisms living in sea has
access to unlimited amount of water those living on land have a
limited supply of water that's fit for their consumption. Clean water
that can be consumed by land animals is supplied from rivers,lakes
and ponds and water comes into them through rain ,now how these rain
happen water on the surface of the sea evaporates these evaporated
water accumulates at higher layers in the atmosphere the accumulated
vapour form clouds and these clouds condense into rain droplets that
fall back on the surface of the earth this water is fit for
consumption by humans and other land animals. So its the the energy
of sun that resulted in rain.
Again
consider the energy we use to cook wood derived from trees or coal
that is nothing but
the trees that
once existed on the surface of the earth which were buried below the
earth and became coal under high pressure over millions of years.
Again butane gas that we used for cooking is derived from petroleum
which are again marine organisms and plants that were buried below
the surface of the earth and these plants and organisms also came
into existence because of the energy received from the sun.
Again
talking about wind energy the winds exist because the atmospheric
pressure everywhere on earth is not uniform the difference in
atmospheric pressure leads to air from high pressure areas move
towards the low pressure areas and this causes winds. The non
uniformity of atmospheric pressure is due to the sun that results in
different temperature at difference places on earth.
Now
the most renewable source of energy on earth is the sunlight itself
the technology to convert solar energy directly into heat energy has
been there for quite a few decades but was not commercially viable
till now however in the last two years the cost of solar energy has
come down drastically and now it is just a little bit more than grid
electricity surely in the next two to four years the solar energy
price would be at par with the price of grid electricity and this
would lead to a complete new revolution ,today one thing we see is
that all electronic consumer goods are becoming energy efficient the
CRTs are replaced by LCD,LEDs. The bulbs are replaced by fluorescent
lamps followed by LED lamps and when you combine this with affordable
solar electricity that means one does not have to depend on grid
electricity totally for their energy requirements so one can move to
remote places where he can receive adequate amount of sunlight and
live a normal life with adequate amount of solar electricity supply.
Again there are still millions of people in India who don't have
access to electricity for them affordable solar electricity will be a
boon that would revolutionize their lives. This would also save
billions of dollars of imports of coal and oil since there would be
cars that would run on solar electricity.
So you see
the real source of energy is in front of us that can change the world
in the next few years surely the developing world would be immensely
benefited from solar energy also its a clean and green solution 0 CO2
emissions no trees have to be cut down no large scale displacement of
people ho harmful gases. In fact there are places where solar are
placed over canal so that the loss of water from canals due to
evaporation is minimised , the large scale use of solar panels around
the world will help the environment immensely and is absolutely vital
for the sustenance of life on the surface of the Earth.
