• Question: Is solar energy likely to be the way all household are fueled .

    Asked by huntsop to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 6 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 6 Mar 2013:

      I think that a mix of different sources of energies are going to be needed in the future. As I’m sure you’re aware, fossil fuels like oil and coal will run out leaving us with renewable energy and nuclear.

      Solar is definitely important, the technology at the moment is pretty good but will need to be a lot better (especially as we get quite a bit of cloud and not much sun here!). The other problem is that we can’t really store energy that well at the moment.

      I wonder whether we’ll have lots of small farms for energy such as solar and wind, or whether we will go for huge nuclear once the fossil fuels run out.

    • Photo: Phil Rice

      Phil Rice answered on 6 Mar 2013:

      It’s definitely really important given the massive energy output of the Sun.
      Remember that the Sun turns 4 MILLION TONS of matter (hydrogen and helium) into ENERGY every SECOND. The atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki converted less than a GRAM of matter into energy!!!
      We need efficient ways of collecting the energy however; maybe something in space with a conection back to Earth, but I am not sure how we would do that.

    • Photo: Jennifer Paxton

      Jennifer Paxton answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      Possibly, but I’m pretty sure that other forms of renewable energy will also be used. Solar power might be great in a sunny place like Spain or America but maybe not so good in somewhere like Scotland which is where I come from…. I think wind or rain energy might be better there 😉

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I think that of all the different types of renewable energy sources, solar power is the most promising. However, we need to think of a better way to store the energy for long periods of time (particularly as in the UK we don’t get much sun!).

      Solar energy is really good because any energy you make in your house is fed back into the national grid for everyone else to use. I think that this will the best way we can all reduce our carbon footprint in the future. We just need to develop better and more cheaper ways to store the energy that is generated during the day

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