Solar Energy
Ever since the dawn of time, the sun has been a resource we cannot live
or do
without, so its not such a shock that man has come up with the idea of
solar
energy. Solar energy had many uses. Some can be dangerous and some, a
very
valuable asset to the modern world. I. What is solar energy? A. Who was
the
first person to use solar energy? B. When was it used? C. Where was solar
energy
first put to use? II. What are some of the uses of solar energy? A.
Solar roof
1. Who invented it? 2. When was it invented? 3. What was it
used for? 4. How
does it work? B. Solar cooker 1. Who invented the first one?
2. When was it
invented? 3. How does it work? 4. What is it used for? C.
Solar oven 1. Who
developed it? 2. When was it developed? 3. What does it
look like? 4. How does
it work? III. What are some of the dangers of solar
energy(used today or
otherwise) A. Laser 1. What is it? 2. How does laser
work? B. Ultra-Violet Rays
(UV rays) 1. Who discovered UV rays? 2. When was
it discovered? 3. In what way
is it dangerous? 4. How can we protect
ourselves from this? IV. Conclusion A.
What are some uses of solar energy
around our household? 1. List some examples
C. Thoughts on Solar energy
1. What we think of solar energy 2. Poll results A
Primitive Resource:
Solar Energy and Its Many Uses Ever since the dawn of time,
the sun has been
a resource we cannot live or do without, so its not such a
shock that man has
come up with the idea of solar energy. Solar energy had many
uses. Some can
be dangerous and some, a very valuable asset to the modern world.
Solar
energy is energy derived from the sun in a form of ultra-violet rays. Its
was
first applied to use in 212 B.C., by the Greek genius Archimedes.
Solar
energy was used to defend the habor of Syracuse against the Roman
fleet.
Archimedes used a mirror or "burning mirror" as they had called
it, to set
fire to the ships of the Roman fleets while standing on shore
(McDaniels 83). It
wasn’t until 1615 when Salomon de Caux constructed the
first solar device; a
solar engine. His device was made of glass lenses,
supporting frame, and an
airtight metal vessel containing water and air. This
produced a small water
fountain when the air heated up during operation. This
was considered to be more
of a toy than a device, but it was the first
published account of the use of
solar energy since the fall of the Roman
Empire (Cheremisinoff 1). Some other
use of solar energy after that was the
solar roof and the solar oven. The solar
roof was thought up by Harold Hay.
In a solar roof system, water is contained in
a clear plastic bag and it is
placed on a black metal roof. Hay got the idea
while traveling in India on a
technical aid mission for the U.S government.
While there, he noticed
that many people were living in rusty, sheet metal
shacks, which were hot in
the day and cold at night. Hay’s plan was to remove
the insulation from the
roof on winter days so that the roof would get hot, and
Replacing the
insulation at night to allow the shack to be warm through the
night. Then in
the summer, he would so the reverse of what he did in winter to
let the house
cool at night and replacing the insulation in the daytime to block
out the
heat. Then over the years, Hay and a man named John Yellott constructed
a 3-
by 3.7-m building using water basins as the actual roofing material.
During
the summer, a slab of foam insulation was rolled back at night, and
the water
would become cold through the night sky evaporation. Since the
water supply sat
directly on a metal ceiling, it absorbed the heat from the
room and kept the
building air-conditioned all day. During the winter, the
movable insulation was
rolled back in the daytime which allowed for it to
collect heat. This generated
enough heat into the house through the ceiling
at night to keep the room
comfortable (McDaniels 179-181). Then there was the
solar cooker. Developed by
Augustin Mouchot in France and by John
Ericsson in the United States in the
nineteenth century. They wanted to
develop a solar cooker that not only reached
high temperatures, but also was
to be used as a means of heat storage enabling
food to be cooked after
sundown. Mouchot built a solar steam engine that
operated a printing press in
Paris in 1882. In the United States, John Ericsson
invented what he called
the "Ericsson-cycle" which was a hot-air engine for
the making of solar heat.
The sun’s rays would be concentrated with the use of
a parabolic reflector,
which was designed to track the sun across the sky in
order to keep a
constant power output. (McPhillips 86-89) There was also the
solar oven. In
1837, and astronomer from England named John Fredrick Herschel
introduced to
the world a solar oven. He built a small solar oven while on a
trip to
Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. He constructed it as a mahogany, painted
it black
and buried it in the sand for purposes of insulation. a doubled-glazed
cover,
which was the only portion of the oven left exposed, serve to limit
heat
losses through the top, while at the same time, letting in sunlight. The
maximum
temperature of the oven was of about 240 degree F and it was used
throughout his
expedition by him and his staff to cook both meat and
vegetables (Regino 5). Not
all solar energy inventions and discoveries were
good. Some solar energy is
dangerous. One for example would be lasers. Laser,
an electromagnetic wave that
is made up of excited atoms. It produces
coherent light. This means that the
light produced is orderly, with all the
excited atoms making up the laser beam
that is emitting their flashes in
unison. The laser often consist of polished
ruby rod that has a solid mirror
at one end, and a high voltage flash tube wound
around the rod. The flash
tube acts as the power source for the laser beam and
the energy that is
emitted as pulse is visible light (Holsroemn 12-14). Another
dangerous solar
energy is Ultra-violet rays. Ultra-violet rays is also referred
to as UV rays
for short. They are energy rays that is given off from the sun. UV
rays were
first discovered by astronomers in the 1960’s. It can be dangerous
because
too much rays can cause you to sun burn, tan, damages your hair, and at
the
worst; skin cancer. You can get skin cancer if your are not careful about
how
to spend and protect yourself from the sun. One way to protect yourself is
by
applying sun tan lotion to your skin every time that you plan on spending
a
lot of time in the sun, especially if you are going to the beach. To be on
the
safe side for sure, you should apply it everytime you are in the sun.
(Rose
123-125). There is basically a lot of solar powered inventions in
our society
today. Like in our household, there are many solar equipment.
There is the solar
heating, solar satellite, solar water heating, solar
cooling, solar radio, solar
battery, etc. As you can see, there are so many
solar items in the world so
solar is an important source. (Holstroemn 182).
We believe that solar energy is
worth it. It is a good thing that our planet
has so many ways of generating
energy. We have electricity, solar power,
nuclear power, propane, so many! We
think that out of all the choice of
energy, we prefer solar. Why you ask,
because think of what will happen when
we lose all of our other source of
energy. The sun is always here for us.
Solar energy is the only energy source
that can not be controlled. We could
lose all of our electricity and still live
because we can live off of solar
power. You don’t need electricity or gas to
power your stove because when
there is a storm, the power can be knocked out and
you wouldn’t have to worry
if you have furniture that were powered by solar.
Every other power
source can be destroyed but the greatest power of all is the
sun. This is one
power source that can always be depended on. The best part
about solar energy
is that it is free. It can last forever. In a poll that we
had conducted
around our neighborhood, we found that only five percent of the
people on our
street have solar powered products. This is very surprising to me.
We had
expected the average to be somewhat higher. Mrs. Richard is one of the
person
who we asked that had solar products such as: solar battery and
solar
heating. She believes that everyone should at least give solar products
a try
because you can always depend on it when you need it. Other people like
Mr. Pham
said that there is no use to solar power because when the sky is
cloudy, there
is no sun to power any of the solar product. He prefers to
stick to electricity.
People have different ways of looking at solar
energy so its up to them if they
want sun energy or electricity. Who knows,
maybe one day, everyone will agree on
using solar energy. As for us, we still
prefer solar over electricity
any
day.
Bibliography
Cheremisinoff, Pual N. Principles &
Applications Of Solar Energy. Ann
Arbor Science Publishers: Michigan,
1979. Holstroemn, Isaac R. Energy From The
Sun. Tab Books, Inc:
Pennsylvania, 1981. McDaniels, David K. The Sun. John Wiley
& Sons, Inc:
Canada, 1984. McPhillips, Martin. The Solar Energy. Everest
House: New
Yrok, 1983. Regino, Thomas C. Solar Energy. St. Martin’s Press,
Inc: New
Yrok, 1986. Rose, Harvey. Solar Energy Now. Ann Arbor
Science
Publishers:1982.