While there is tremendous potential for solar emergy, why it is not fully tapped?
463667
If you're talking about electricity generated from solar panels, it's not widely done because of how expensive it is to build and construct panels. The material (Germanium or Silicon) alone costs a lot to synthesize.\n\nWind power turns out to be a better alternative, if you consider the costs and benefits. Ocean-tide power may be good source of power too.\n\nNow look up "Dyson Sphere." This is another aspect of tapping solar power; Solar power tapped to the extreme, not for electricity, but for life; A solution for the evergrowing population of mankind. A Dyson Sphere is impossible to construct, but a few hundred years from now it may be possible to create a Dyson Belt, a collection of inhabitable planetoids built and placed in orbit 93 million miles from the sun (the same distance as the Earth).
1138859
solar rays could do that
227733
There is already a device that can collect electrical discharges, made earlier in the turn of the century, they are called leyden jars, Modern day terminology call these devices Capacitors or battery. The innovation from the leyden jars to the rechargeable battery took centuries to develop. The reason why they do not build massive structures for the purpose you described is because simply that lightning is an uncontrollable energy source. its random unexpected occurrence, its unstable and erratic voltage potentials makes it very dangerous and an inefficient source of stable energy. Perhaps why electromagnetic generators are built and are still being used as of today to supply a more controllable source of electrical energy. Its flexibility of use with hydro-electrical plants, wind farms, and fossil fuel plant, make the electrostatic generators more advantageous to deal with than lightning alone in producing electricity.\n\nOther alternative energy to consider are nuclear, solar, hydrgen fuel cells, and geo-thermal energy.\n~meow
1142453
Well it's a natural phenomenon. If moon is not rotating then some thing else any where else in our solar system will do something to compensate for this energy.\n\nRemember : Energy can neither be created nor be destoyed and according to the energy conservation principle this energy will have to be redirected . So it can be millions of other possibilities :)\n\nLike days will be shorter ans earth rotates fast to use that excess energy or something like that.\n\n:)
368898
It is renewable since warmth from the sun generates new wind all the time.\n\nThis is the opposite of oil.  Oil takes so long to produce that we use it up much faster than it is created in the earth.  We can actually use up all the oil.
439559
It does utilize a natural resource but... 'effectively' ?  I don't think so.  We can't use it to power cities.  It's still quite expensive and just used as a supplement to our regular energy resources.
75665
In the short term, it doesn't.\n\nIronically, it takes a lot of fossil fuels to make solar cells.  It takes a lot of diesel and other fossil fuels powered equiment to mine, move, and process the raw germanium, arsinic, and/or silicon to make a solar cell. The it takes a lot of energy to make the silicon or germanium-asenide wafers, and the wafer processing to make the solar cells takes energy.  Much of this energy comes from electricity generates by fossil-fuel generators.  Then there is all the trucking required to move the wafer processing materials and equipment, and these trucks run on diesel.\n\nBy the time you're done, you used up a lot of fossil-fuel derived energy to make your solar cell- so when you start, you've already increased, rather than decreased, our reliance on fossil fuels.\n\nEventually, the hope is that the solar cell will make up for all the energy it took to create it.  Also, over time we should be able to use nuclear, hydroelectric, and other power souces to produce the cells- and many companies are working hard on finding new types of solar cells that take less energy (and therefore less cost) to produce.
484249
With ground based solar:\nPositives:\nOnce you build the panels the power is free\nLittle environmental impact\nAppeases the luddites\nNegatives:\nDownright expensive\nToo unreliable to be a major player in a power grid\nDoesn't work at night\nReduced power when skies aren't clear\nReduced power in winter and at high latitudes\n\nNow putting the solar power plant in space and beaming the power down to earth is another matter.\nPositives:\nVery clean, possibly cleaner than doing it on the ground (trade off is between making the semiconductors on Earth and dumping the waste from that or launching rockets)\nPotentially very cheap if space resources are used\nActually has a possibility of competing with fossil fuels and nuclear power for dominant power supplier\nNegatives:\nNot yet deployed so we only know of it in theory and limited tests of the microwave power transmission\nEvery year at the equinoxes there is a IIRC 74 minute blackout (not as bad as a 12 hour one though and that's only on two days)\nLuddites will probably oppose it despite the microwave beam being perfectly safe
988898
PV tech is expensive and only works when the sun is shining. Not the best solution when we have a delivery infrastructure for bulk power. Don't forget about all the batteries a solar set-up needs. Where do they go when they no longer hold a charge?\n\nNuclear is the best solution.
1154190
radiation? do you hear yourself?\n\nit looses heat b/c it doesn't get enough energy to keep it warm!  a solar cover is a good way to create that needed energy as it uses the suns rays and not weighing down your electricity bill.
1107524
Because fusion doesn't happen inside the Sun's core.  The corona is about 300 times hotter than the photosphere.  Sunspots shows us an interior of the Sun that is even cooler than the photosphere.  \n\nThis is because huge electric currents are passing over the Sun.  The charge per cubic meter is too small a difference for our instruments to detect, but it's so massive that it really adds up fast.  We pick up the movements of these currents though, and call it the solar wind. \n\nProblems with the current model of the sun as continuous fusion reaction, releasing energy from the core:\n\nMissing neutrinos \nTemperature of the halo-like corona is 300 times that of surface \nRotates faster at equator, faster on surface \nSolar wind accelerates upon leaving the Sun \nSunspots reveal cooler interior \nSunspots travel faster than surrounding surface \nSunspot penumbra (interior walls) reveal structured filaments \n\nhttp://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sun.jpg\n\n http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sun2.jpg \n\nThe most detailed pictures ever taken of the Sun reveal the insides of striking snake-like filaments that reach from bright portions of the solar surface into the dark hearts of sunspots. Researchers at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm discussed the images in the journal Nature. One researcher commented: "A dark-cored filament looks like a glowing snake with a dark stripe painted along its back. The 'head' of the snake is often a complicated feature where the stripe splits up among many bright points." \n\nThe scientists also identified canal-like structures in the so-called penumbra of sunspots that "could also be described as a pattern of cracks," the researcher said. The penumbra straddles a sunspots dark core and brighter regions elsewhere on the solar surface. "Whatever metaphors we use for these features, one should remember that everything is just glowing gas." \n\nThere is a temptation to simply equate the penumbral filaments with gargantuan lightning bolts, but the features do not match all that well. \n\nA typical lightning flash lasts for 0.2 seconds and covers a distance of about 10 km. The penumbral filaments last for at least one hour and are of the order of 1000 km long. If we could scale a lightning bolt 100 times we might have a flash that lasted between 20 and 200 seconds and was 1000 km long. The lifetime is too short. \n\nhttp://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/firetube.jpg\n \nThis shows an artificial tornado of fire, the bright edges to the vortex near the base, so there is another familiar form of atmospheric electric discharge that does scale appropriately and could explain the mysterious dark cores of penumbral filaments. It is the tornado! Tornadoes, like the one pictured here, last for minutes and can have a diameter of the order of one kilometre. Scale those figures up 100 times and we match penumbral filaments very well. And if the circulating cylinder of plasma is radiating heat and light, as we see on the Sun, then the solar 'tornado' will appear, side on, to have a dark core. \n\nhttp://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/050616sunspotropes.jpg\n\nWe can see here a twin bridge crossing a sunspot.  This is indicative of electrical activity.  I hope this helps you better understand the Sun.
1050409
Some folks are doing interesting things with tidal energy.\n\nIt really all goes back to the sun in the end though - even oil comes from biomas, which captured and stored energy from sunlight.
246888
Currently, solar cells are only moderately efficient. Solar panels must be installed in large, unshaded areas.\n\nOther solar facilities that convert water to steam to generate power require acres of land for mirrors to focus the sun on the generation point.\n\nAll solar facilites will alter the environment around by raising the temperature in the air above them.  In the case of solar panels, they can be installed on roofs but steam facilities will block most of the sunlight from reaching the ground, altering the natural environment under the mirror field.
43785
it produces a lot of energy
225705
Energy can exist in many forms (chemical, electrical, mechanical, light and heat, etc.) and can be converted from one form to another without being lost (conservation of energy).  When solar energy strikes different surfaces it is either mostly reflected (from pure white or mirrors) or absorbed (pure black) or somewhere in between.  Solar energy consists of photons that enter the material and interact with the electrons of atoms (and molecules) and knock the electrons into higher orbits storing energy.  When the electrons fall back to rest orbits they give up their excess energy as photons.  To understand heat transfer, follow the electrons and photons because the black surfaces that absorbed the photons heats up.  Heat may be stored within a material in its solid, liquid and gaseous states.  Atoms of solids vibrate more when hot and transfer some energy to adjacent cooler atoms within a crystal.  Atoms of liquids bump into each other with more force when hot and transfer some energy to cooler atoms.  Atoms within a gas travel at greater velocities when hot and transfer some energy to any other cooler atom it strikes (like pool balls).  Heat stored in vibrating solids atoms and circulating liquid atoms and flying gaseous atoms can transfer energy from hotter to cooler atoms and in fact a copper vessel filled with half water and half air will reach an equilibrium (identical) temperature as all three states warm or cool by transferring heat energy.  At equilibrium, there will still be atoms well above or below the equilibrium temperature which is only an average temperature.  Thus you can have steam in an ice cube or ice in a flow of steam depending upon the instantaneous (and highly temporary) state or two or more adjacent atoms, but all are driven back toward the equilibrium state by additional collisions or vibrations of neighbors.\n\nThat said, heat is transferred from solid to solid in contact (metal pot on electrical heating element?) by conduction as vibrations of hot neighbors affect cooler neighbors.  Heat is transferred by conduction (from the pot to liquid at the bottom?) by metal atoms vibrating against liquid atoms.  The hot liquid at the bottom of the pot is less dense (due to expansion caused by liquid atom vibrations and electrons in higher orbits) and rises to the top by convection (stirring or forced convection helps).  If you hold your hand near the pot you can feel heat similar to solar heat of radiation.  As electrons in the heated metal fall from higher energetic orbits to rest orbits, photons are transmitted to your hand raising some of your oown electrons to higher (hotter) orbits.\n\nInterestingly, if you open the drapes of your picture window on a frigid winter day, radiation energy will enter your house from outside while even more radiation is leaving from inside, and the net effect will be to cool the house, unless the sun is shining brightly through the window.  It sounds strange but if the interior of your house was at absolute zero temperature the same radiation from the "cold" outside would enter and heat it, right?
205169
The greatest technological challenge of the 21st century is to meet energy demand in an environmentally sustainable way.  Nuclear energy is a carbon free energy; however, current fission technology leaves a deadly legacy - radioactive waste that is toxic for tens of thousands of years.  To put the energy demands of humans in perspective with nuclear energy, please see the lecture by Nate Lewis (California Institute of Technology).  In 2006, humans are consuming energy at a rate of about 14TW (14 trillion watts).  Using current technology, in order to generate 10TW of energy, we would have to build a new reactor every single day for the next 50 years.  This would be a monumental effort in stupidity and futility.  Furthermore, this would not meet growing energy demand, which is predicted to be ~28TW in the year 2050.  The clearest alternatives are wind energy and solar energy.  Practically, wind energy used globally can potentially provide ~2TW energy, meaning that solar energy is going to be our primary energy source.  The energy that strikes the Earth in 1 hour as sunlight is enough to provide humanity's energy needs for 1 year (~14TW).  However, this energy is diffuse, and we still need to develop low cost, efficient methods to convert solar energy to fuels and electricity. Research is progressing rapidly in this topic.  The world needs to committ massive resources to this right now.  \n\nThe second part of your question relates to cold fusion.  Interestingly, fusion is the source of sunlight, so using solar energy, is in a way, using fusion energy (we don't have to worry about the problems of containment and generating fusion pressures and temperatures).  There are a few research projects around the world that are working on finding useful methods for controlling fusion reactions for energy.  Perhaps the most well known involves a giant room with thousands of high energy lasers that are focused at a pelletized source of fusionable material.  In this scheme, the energy input from the lasers initiates fusion.  This technology is promising, but is far from being economical.  Research efforts should continue.
269384
it exists but i'm not sure if u can use it for energy...it would be to strong