Solar energy
hideSolar energy is the radiant light and heat from the Sun that has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation along with secondary solar resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass account for most of the available renewable energy on Earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.
Solar power provides electrical generation by means of heat engines or photovoltaics. Once converted, its uses are limited only by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, daylighting, hot water, thermal energy for cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes.
Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute sunlight. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors (with electrical or mechanical equipment) to convert sunlight into useful outputs. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
For more information about Solar energy, read the full article at
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News tagged with solar energy
Researchers Identify Key Molecules in Photosynthesis
Dec 02, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Chemistry professor Harry Frank led an international group of researchers that identified the molecules in algae which direct the organisms to convert sunlight into oxygen. The findings may ...
How green is your house? Recycling favorite activity among Brits says new survey
Nov 23, 2009 |
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Seventy percent of households always separate their rubbish for recycling, but only 2 percent buy their energy on a green tariff, according to the early findings of a major new annual household survey, called "Understanding ...
Commercialization of new solar technology to boost solar efficiency
Nov 09, 2009 |
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A pioneer in solar power in the 1990s before it became "sexy," University of Houston Professor Alex Freundlich recently entered into a collaborative research agreement with U.K.-based start-up QuantaSol for the development ...
Solar power generation around the clock
Nov 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A Californian company, SolarReserve, is developing a solar power system that can store seven hours' worth of solar energy by focusing mirrors onto millions of gallons of molten salt, allowing ...
Toward home-brewed electricity with 'personalized solar energy'
Nov 04, 2009 |
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New scientific discoveries are moving society toward the era of "personalized solar energy," in which the focus of electricity production shifts from huge central generating stations to individuals in their ...
Will Europe Be Powered by the Sahara
Nov 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Europe has long been interested in developing alternative energy sources. And, one of the more interesting places that some Europeans are looking for solar power is the Sahara. With the vast ...
Danish nanowires have great potential
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Danish nanophysicists have developed a new method for manufacturing the cornerstone of nanotechnology research - nanowires. The discovery has great potential for the development of nanoelectronics and highly ...
Largest solar panel plant in US rises in Fla.
Oct 24, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Greg Bove steps into his pickup truck and drives down a sandy path to where the future of Florida's renewable energy plans begin: Acres of open land filled with solar panels that will soon power thousands ...
Solar lantern lights up rural India's dark nights
Oct 23, 2009 |
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For more than 100 Indian villages cut off from grid electricity, life no longer comes to an end after dark thanks to an innovative solar-powered lantern that offers hope to the nation's rural poor.
The easy way to go green
Oct 20, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- At last Friday's Energy Night at the MIT Museum, Dr. Keith Collins described his approach to fighting global warming with all the gusto of a really good insurance salesman. But Collins, who ...
Shifting the world to 100 percent clean, renewable energy as early as 2030 -- here are the numbers
Oct 19, 2009 |
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Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so ...
Harnessing the sun
Oct 05, 2009 |
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The American Solar Energy Society's 2009 National Solar Tour took place Oct. 3 in 3,000 communities.
German solar panel makers in trouble: federation
Oct 02, 2009 |
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German solar energy firms are in a bind, the head of a federation said in a report due out on Monday amid concern that the new German government will abandon the sector.
Iowa State researchers looking for catalyst that allows plants to produce hydrocarbons
Oct 01, 2009 |
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Plants and algae may be a source of green, renewable hydrocarbons that could replace the ancient, finite hydrocarbons in fossil fuels, according to a team of researchers led by Iowa State University's Jackie ...
Swiss to inaugurate high-tech, green mountain hut
Sep 25, 2009 |
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Switzerland will inaugurate on Saturday a new mountain refuge in the Alps that looks more like a futuristic space station than the no-frills stonewall huts that alpinists are more familiar with.
