PV Gap

Peggy Said:

Could Tapping Too Much Solar Energy Cause Global Cooling?

We Answered:

You make a good point. That's a good question. I like folks who think out of the box. Sun rays that penetrate the earth atmosphere bounce off the surface, hit the upper atmosphere and return to the surface. Solar panels absorb rays and prevent this from happening.
If you fill the landscape with wind turbines, converting wind velocity to power, will we reduce the breeze that cools the earth?

You make a good point

Dave Said:

What is the global effect of solar energy?

We Answered:

It keeps us from turning into an ice ball!

Heather Said:

how will the use of solar energy affect global warming/use of oil and fossil fuel?

We Answered:

solar energy does not affect the environement - it is clean efficient and does not produce excess gas such as carbon dioxide

it is also quiet and generates a considerable amount of electricity when many solar cells are put together. It therefore does not contribute to global warming but conserves energy and no-renewable resources such as oil and fossil fuels

i hope this helps =D

Carol Said:

Will solar energy cause global warming as it increases in popularity as an energy source?

We Answered:

Lots of good answers here, but I wish to rake over your misconceptions. All the solar energy that strikes the earth now left the sun 8.3 minutes ago. There is nothing we can do to "suck heat" from the sun. All we do with solar panels is convert some of that tiny fraction of heat that happens to fall on earth into electricity.

Now, a solar panel is usually very dark, so it absorbs more light than does a more reflective surface, like a snow bank. The key is that not all the energy is converted to heat, some of it goes to electricity. And NONE of it adds sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere, unless perhaps you are cutting down forest to build solar panel arrays.

To "magnify" solar energy we might build collectors in space and beam the energy through the atmosphere. Again, we would expect very little heat transfer this way. Any time space based panels occluded sunlight we would actually expect a slight (immeasurably small) reduction in total heat absorbed by the earth. Then again, any work performed by that electricity ends up as heat in the environment. Still, heat is not the real problem. Every night waste heat is radiated back into space. The problem facing us is atmospheric greenhouse gasses that trap extra heat, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Releasing carbon sequestered since the permian (300 million years ago) into our atmosphere will hurt us MUCH more than using solar power collectors. Solar power is one of the cleanest energy sources. Consider--plants obtain energy via photosynthesis, liberating oxygen. That is solar energy. You eat the plants, or other animals that eat the plants, so you are already using "solar" energy. All energy sources are ultimately solar, except fusion, fission (liberation of energy from some previous star went supernova billions of years ago), and geothermal--essentially the same ultimate source as fission--the gradual decay of long lived isotopes in earth's core and mantle.

One thing that would be fun would be to build big space based solar collectors girdling the sun like a belt. There is sufficient material on mars--silicon and iron--to ring the sun with an array about the diameter of the orbit of Venus and a hundred kilometers wide. Just imagine what we could do with such cheap, abundant energy! And that would be only a tiny fraction of the sun's output.

Advanced civilizations might erect shells around their suns, capturing most of the light. So instead of looking for extraterrestrial civilizations around G type stars (like our sun), we might instead search for stars more like red giants...

Sherry Said:

What are some problems that solar energy solves besides global warming?

We Answered:

Air pollution.

We get a lot of energy from fossil fuels (most of our energy), and so it can stop mining of coal from the ground which puts a bunch of debris/acidic chemicals in rivers and destroys large mountains of land and reduces them into flat fields. It stops us from putting ugly oil wells up which can spill black tar stuff all over if it breaks/if there is an oil spill which kills a bunch of life while leaving black sticky gunk everywhere (but of course that looks much better than a bunch of solar panels on a area right? *sarcastic response to the other answer*). And it reduces the pollution that is pumped into the air from the burning of fossil fuels (like carbon monoxide, CO2, sulfur/mercury (in coal mostly) ).

Keith Said:

If we get more sunny days because of global warming; will this help us produce more solar energy to reduce Co2?

We Answered:

well, personally i do not believe in global "warming" but i believe in climate change...global warming does not involve more sunny days, it involves less because the greenhouse gasses trap the heat in (like a greenhouse) as apposed to...well... idk what you were thinking and alot of the world (if the climate change theory is correct) will become colder, hence theoretically burning MORE fossil fuels