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ENERGY

PLUGGING INTO SUN

source: www.earthfuture.com/
senergy/se01.asp

There is no shortage of solar energy…

every day, the sun radiates 3,000 times more energy onto the Earth’s surface than we use (96,000 versus 321 terawatt* hours).

The reason for the delay in realising the solar revolution is its cost:

in the mid-1970s, photovoltaic modules cost US$70/watt;

today, because of improvements in efficiency and the benefits of larger-scale production, they cost US$3.50/watt;

to compete with conventional electricity, they need to sell for US$1/watt (7 cents/kWh). When this happens, there will be an explosion in the production and use of solar energy around the world: solar energy is clean, produces no CO2 emissions, and once installed, the energy is free.

* The terawatt hour (TW·h) corresponds to 1,000,000,000 kW·h (kilowatt hours). It is the amount of energy that would be produced by a 1,000,000 MW generator over a period of one hour, or a 114 MW generator over a period of approximately one year. The terawatt hour is commonly used for large amounts of electrical energy, since it may be easier to understand in a practical context than the proper SI unit for energy, the joule, which is a watt second (W·s).

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