IS THE SUN THE ANSWER?
Even though the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away, this ball of burning hot gases is the primary source of all energy on Earth. No one can be certain for how long the Sun remained early man’s only energy source before he discovered and learned to use fire. Today, we still look to the Sun for energy.
Without sunlight, our fossil fuels, whose power has been locked up for millions of years in the remains of ancient plants and animals, could never have existed. The Sun is also the supplier of energy for evaporating water from rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans. This water, stored in clouds, eventually falls as rain and snow. Collected in dams, it turns the giant turbines in hydroelectric plants.
The unequal heating of the Earth’s surfaces by the Sun produces wind energy which can be converted into mechanical and electrical energy by windmills.
Even the stored heat in geysers is traced to the Sun. Geysers can be converted into geothermal energy. This energy source is very popular in Iceland where geysers are common.
Solar energy remains the cleanest, as well as the most inexhaustible, energy source. It is also truly renewable. One of man’s greatest challenges to be met is in utilizing the power of the Sun. The fossil fuels we depend on so largely today were once thought to be inexhaustible, but now we know differently. The Sun, which has been supplying energy for billions of years, is the only source we have that is likely to continue for billions of years.
IS THE SUN THE ANSWER?
1. What is the distance of the Earth from the Sun?
2. What is the Sun?
3. Why is no one certain of how long the Sun was man’s only source of energy?
4. The power of the Sun has been locked up in fossil fuels for millions of years. What is meant by that sentence?
5. What are some ways in which the Sun indirectly supplies us energy?
6. Why is solar energy the cleanest source of power?
7. How is the Sun responsible for wind?
8. Why are geysers important to Iceland?
9. Do you believe new ways will be found to use solar energy? Why?
10. Why is the Sun the only energy source likely to continue for billions of years?
1 of 2 Last Updated 8/03/09