The sun's relationship with the earth

Currently, the world is experiencing the worst heat waves in modern history. Japan, for example, has recorded the highest temperatures since weather records began. All over the globe, fatalities are occurring due to excessive heat. But that is just the beginning. Massive droughts, floods, and storms are being driven by weather cycles affected by global warming. Climate scientists are working on ways to alleviate the stress man is putting on the earth. Are there ways for the man to reverse these trends? It will not be enough to slow the use of fossil fuels. There needs to be an alternative energy source that is non-polluting, renewable and safe. Solar power offers many solutions. Photovoltaic technology converts the energy of the sun into electricity. When the photons from sunlight strike the panel, electrons within the solar cells become excited and start to move across the panel in such a way that creates a current. For this reason, solar power is renewable. It can be used over and over again with no noise or pollution. No burning is needed to unlock its energy, so the environmental impact of solar during operation is very small.

Environmental impacts of solar development

For large scale solar systems, the primary impact of solar technology is its extensive use of land. One square kilometer of solar panels generates between 20 and 60 megawatts of power. Fortunately, this is not a problem endemic to solar power. Coal power requires just as much land per unit of energy if the land used in strip mining is considered. Furthermore, most current solar panel farms exist out in the desert, where land is seldom needed for any other purpose. Another advantage is that solar energy also has no need for water for cooling.

Materials that comprise solar panels

What are solar panels constructed from? Solar panels are made from heavy metals and other hazardous materials such as arsenic, many of which could be potentially dangerous to the environment if improperly disposed of, but the same can also be said of coal and oil, which release heavy metals during combustion. Cadmium Telluride, one likely component of photovoltaic technology, is a harmful heavy metal, but according to Vasilis Fthenakis, an environmental engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the direct emissions from the production of cadmium telluride cells are 300 times lower than discharges from coal power plants, which carry out mercury and other heavy metals from smokestacks.

Emissions is a dirty word

Carbon emissions are an increasing problem around the globe. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that fossil fuels, which generate electricity through burning, produce about two-thirds of sulfur dioxide emissions and a quarter of nitrous oxide emissions in the United States, causing smog and acid rain. In 2007, over eight billion metric tons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere, which contributes to man-made global warming and climate change. By contrast, solar panels produce no emissions during their operation. Solar energy is converted into electricity without any material byproducts.

The manufacturing process behind solar panels

Despite several overwhelming environmental advantages, solar power has some unseen dangers during the manufacturing process that are being debated. One compound called nitrogen trifluoride is used to etch surfaces on solar cells. About 96 percent of the gas breaks down and provides fluorine at the surface for etching, and only 2 percent ever escapes into the atmosphere. Nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more potent as a global warming agent compared with carbon dioxide, but this is actually a marked improvement on alternative gases such as perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride, the latter of which was previously used but recently became regulated by the Kyoto Protocol.

Now is the time to install a solar energy system!

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