Solar energy

“ What principle of conservation of energy is it possible to apply to the vast quantities of light and heat which constantly disappear in the interstellar realms of space? How to account for this enormous emission of solar energy during the long period of time requisite for the development of the earth during its past geological ages. How to explain why the moon always presents the same face to the earth. Why, if the law of gravity prevails there, there are no visible traces of atmosphere or moisture in the moon. ”

“ The heat motion then disappears as heat by its conversion into work, just as the motion of a belt in a mill disappears in the work of the machine which it drives. One two-hundred-and-thirty-two-millionth part of the radiant solar energy, we know, is caught by the flying planets of our system in the forms of heat and light, adapted to sustain life and its continued [140] potentiality, and we know that this solar energy is the sole source of all the development and maintenance of the planets as the possible abodes of organic life, past, present or future. ”

“ The great difficulty, that of the perpetual renewal of the solar fuel, still remains unsolved; the fact that during the millions of years of geological history we find no indications of any declining average of solar energy is so far still unexplained by this, as by every other, attempt to account for the origin of solar and stellar light and heat. ”

“ But while the sun’s energy is—as it must be in this case—the outcome of that of the planets, it is equally obvious that the planets themselves can have no permanent, inherent energy of their own to generate or modify such energy of the sun, since they are in fact supplied by the solar energy, and their motions are controlled and regulated by the sun itself. ”

“ The most matter-of-fact language of science agrees with the words of the poet in declaring the earth's dependence upon the sun for all those varied forms of energy which make it a fit abode for living beings. The winds blow and the rivers run; the crops grow, are gathered and consumed, by virtue of the solar energy. Factory, locomotive, beast, bird, and the human body furnish types of machines run by energy derived from the sun; and the student will find it an instructive exercise to search for kinds of terrestrial energy which are not derived either directly or indirectly from the sun. ”

“ It is evident that if such fan action can bring back all the material that has received the solar radiations, and which holds them either as temperature or otherwise, the restoration and perpetuation of solar energy will be complete, for even the heat received by our earth and its brother and sister planets would still remain in the family, as they would radiate it into the interplanetary atmospheric matter supposed to be reclaimed by the sun. ”

“ In the preceding chapters of this book the attention of the student has been directed mainly to the operations of those natural forces which act upon the surface of the earth. Incidentally the consequences arising from the applications of energy to the outer part of the planet have been attended to, but the main aim has been to set forth the work which solar energy, operating in the form of heat, accomplishes upon the lands. We have now to consider one of the great results of these actions, which is exhibited in the successive strata that make up the earth's crust. ”

“ Solar energy powers the systems which gather nonterrestrial materials for conversion into refined materials products. These "products" can be additional power systems, materials gathering/processing/ manufacturing systems, or simply support for other human and machine systems in space. ”

“ The sun is thus, in effect, a self-compensating machine, and its passage through a region of increased electrical generation would first manifest itself in a vast increase of brilliancy, due to higher incandescence of its hydrogen envelope; this, in turn, would be communicated to the deeper structures of the sun, producing increased volatilization [196] and dark absorption bands, and finally to the whole solar mass, expanding its volume in proportion to the heat absorbed. ”

“ SOLAR ENERGY. The source of the energy which accomplishes all this necessary work is the sun. It is the radiant energy of the sun which causes the disintegration of rocks, which lifts vapor into the atmosphere to fall as rain, which gives life to plants and animals. Considering the earth in a broad way, we may view it as a globe of solid rock,—the lithosphere,—surrounded by two mobile envelopes: the envelope of air,—THE ATMOSPHERE, and the envelope of water,—THE HYDROSPHERE. Under the action of solar energy these envelopes are in constant motion. ”

“ For this reason astronomers generally, while conceding that a portion, and possibly a considerable fraction, of the solar heat may be accounted for by this hypothesis, are disposed to look further for their explanation of the principal revenue of solar energy. They find it in the probable slow contraction of the sun's diameter, and the gradual liquefaction and solidification of the gaseous mass. The same total amount of heat is produced when a body moves against a resistance which brings it to rest gradually, as if it had fallen through the same distance freely and been suddenly stopped. ”

“ The condensation of volume of the planets will give rise to great elevation of temperature, while their currents of electricity, poured into the sun, will, by their passage through its enormously compressed hydrogen atmosphere, produce intense heat, and this, rapidly communicated to the solar core within, will raise its temperature to that of the sun as we now see it, and permanently maintain it in that state of incandescence. ”

“ How much solar energy does the Earth receive? Well, just however much of the sun’s energy actually reaches as far as the Earth multiplied by the size of the area of the Earth that the sun is actually shining on. ”

“ Yet it is difficult to see how, on any hypothesis of the generation of solar heat, or by combining together all possible modes of heat generation, a supply for more than twenty millions of years in the past and a possible supply for as long a period in the future can be accounted for. ”

“ Solar electricity production The potential per area for solar electricity production can be calculated from the solar energy incident upon the surface per year and the conversion efficiency of the harvesting technology, as shown in Eq. (4) .
where P/A = potential per area in EJ/km2 per study period and technology (PV vs CSP) ; p = the study period (2010, 2030, 2070) ; t = the technology (PV or CSP) ; I = resource intensity in J/m2 for solar irradiation; E = conversion efficiency in % by technology. ”

“ Still other conditions enable these suns to transform and send forth much of the energy of space which comes their way in the established space circuits, Many phases of physical energy and all forms of matter are attracted to, and subsequently distributed by, the solar dynamos. In this way the suns serve as local accelerators of energy circulation, acting as automatic power-control stations. ”

“ The quantity of energy they yield is, however, insignificant in comparison with the solar expenditure of heat. We may return to this subject at a later period, and it need not now receive further attention.
We must deliberately face the fact that the energy of the sun is becoming exhausted. But the rate of exhaustion is so slow that it affords no prospect of inconvenience to humanity; it does not excite alarm. 84We grant that we are not able to observe by instrumental means any perceptible diminution of solar energy. ”

“ We have found that all these theories are alike, in that they recognize the sun itself as the only source of his energy, that his enormous emission of light and heat is almost entirely wasted in empty space, and that this will go on with the same frightful waste until he has squandered his whole patrimony and ends his melancholy career in the poor-house or the dungeon. ”

“ This allows us to take the latitudinal variation of incoming solar energy into account, for example: in general, areas near the equator receive more energy, and the incoming energy drops off as we move north or south toward the poles. Alternatively, if we are interested in differences in radiation received by different levels of the atmosphere, we might implement a one-dimensional model that’s organized vertically, rather than horizontally. ”

“ The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. ”

“ If, then, we depend upon solar radiation for our very existence from day to day, it can not be said that we are only remotely interested in solar physics, and the question whether and how solar energy, comprising the rays of heat, of light, and the actinic rays, is likely to be maintained, is one in which we have at least as great a reversionary interest as we have in landed estate or other property. ”

“ As the planets advance in their orbits they plunge into new and fresh fields, and, as the whole solar system gradually moves [102] onward through space, these fields are never re-occupied. These electrospheres, by their rotation, generate enormous quantities of electricity at an extremely high potential,—so high that we can scarcely even conceive it,—and this electricity flows in a constant current to the sun, where it disappears as electricity, to reappear in the form of solar light and heat. ”

“ Other instruments in the satellites will measure for the first time how much solar energy is falling upon the earth's atmosphere and how much is reflected and radiated back into space by clouds, oceans, the continents, and by the great polar ice fields.
It is not generally appreciated that the earth has to send back into space, over the long run, exactly as much heat energy as it receives from the sun. ”

“ Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.
Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity. ”

“ We must also bear in mind that sun-spots do not diminish the solar heat, as they are the result of increased and not of diminished energy. Electric currents of high potential pass directly, as we know, along the lines of least resistance to their opposite center of polarity, so that two planets nearly in conjunction with each other transmit their currents almost directly towards the sun’s center, and upon the same point of solar latitude, while, if at right angles with the sun, they must deliver their electricity along converging lines and thus strike the solar surface at different points. ”

“ But as energy could not be lost, that disappearing potential energy must be manifested in some other form. This was accomplished by its transformation into heat, which kept the sun so far supplied as to maintain its radiation unabated for uncounted thousands of years. It was easily demonstrated that a shrinkage in the solar diameter too small to be appreciable by any measurements we could make, would, nevertheless, set free a quantity of heat sufficient to maintain the radiation for a period of two thousand years. ”

“ True, the energy we are constantly employing seems to come to us from the sun; but we must remember that the sun and its family of the solar system, including the earth, were all made at the same time, that they are bound together as parts of an indissoluble whole. Accordingly, no one can say that the total amount of energy called into existence at the creation of our solar system is being added to at the present time. At any rate, so far as modern science can judge of the matter, the total amount of energy available for our world is a fixed quantity ”

“ They are the means provided to distribute the restricted areas of abnormally heated photosphere over the solar surface, and finally to cause the absorption of the whole excess of heat in the sun’s central mass. ”

“ While they aim to account for the sun’s light and heat, they all fail to consider the active medium of the solar light and heat in the sun itself. It is not simply a highly-heated central mass glowing in space. It is a vast orb surrounded by different envelopes of incandescent vapors or gases, and by far the most vast in volume, as well as in light and heat-radiating power, are the photosphere and its superincumbent chromosphere, composed almost entirely of free hydrogen gas in a state of intense incandescence. ”

“ Thus, as we have seen, through countless future ages will the sun, with his incandescent envelope of hydrogen, and the planets, with their life-sustaining atmospheres of oxygen, fulfil their appointed times and courses. ”

“ The rotation of the planets is the grand exciting cause, and the process, in its complete cycle of development, has live stages: first, planetary generation; second, transference by currents of electricity to the sun; third, conversion into light and heat; fourth, emission; and, fifth, reabsorption and conversion again into molecular energy of position. ”