Did You Know?
November 17th, 2009
Did you Know that:
According to an article in a recent issue of National Geographic featuring solar power
“Back in the 1980s, an engineer named Roland Hulstrom calculated that if photovoltaic panels—the other big solar technology—covered just three-tenths of a percent of the United States, a 100-by-100-mile square, they could electrify the entire country.“
Power needs of the US have increased since the 1980s but so has the efficiency of solar panels.
One Response to “Did You Know?”
Burt November 18th, 2009 at 9:25 am #
The following quote (from the same National Geographic article) is a stunning comparison of the earth’s energy needs and the energy provided by the sun:
“………………. Eicke Weber, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, in Freiburg, Germany, told me last fall. “The total power needs of the humans on Earth is approximately 16 terawatts,” he said. (A terawatt is a trillion watts.) “In the year 2020 it is expected to grow to 20 terawatts. The sunshine on the solid part of the Earth is 120,000 terawatts. From this perspective, energy from the sun is virtually unlimited.”