The recent interest in the issue of solar energy has increased dramatically. In this section I discuss the possibilities with direct use of solar energy although most of the energy that hits the Earth is the sun, and the bulk of it concentrated in the atmosphere and hydrosphere.

     Potential possibilities of using direct solar energy is very large. If we can use 0.0125% of this energy, humanity would be fully equipped with energy now, and the use of 0.5% would be fully covered all the needs of all humanity (if we assume that the population will not exceed 20 billion)

     Unfortunately, it is only potential. The fact that even under the best weather conditions of energy density, Tina solar flux does not exceed 250 W/m2. Let's calculate: to kollek-Torah "collected" for the year that amount of energy they need to be placed on the area of ​​130,000 km2! In addition, to create so many collector to 1.3 * 109 tonnes of aluminum. World stock aluminum assess precisely in this figure.

    Clearly, there are various factors that limit the power of solar energy. Except for recourse is a problem area. For example, in the year 2100 mankind fully provide its energy needs through solar, the collector area should be as high as 3.1 million km2. Also bezposerednye using sunlight requires a lot of work: for producing 1 MW-year take from 10 to 40 thousand man-hours. At the same time in the traditional energy sector, this figure is less in 50-80 times.

    So now more and can not talk about large-scale use of sunlight. Of course, the resort and remote regions of the solar electric power may be necessary, but the total share of solar energy is extremely small. But why build a collector and, if in nature there are much larger and more powerful collector: the atmosphere and hydrosphere?


at great length