Thesis: Ever since the dawn of time, the sun has been a resource we cannot live or do without, so it’s 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. It was first applied to use in 212 B.
C., by the Greek genius Archimedes.
Solar energy was used to defend the harbor 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 onshore (McDaniels 83). It wasn’t until 1615 when Salomon de Cauxconstructed the first solar device; a solar engine. His device was made of glass lenses, a 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 admission 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- by3. 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, JohnEricsson 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, an 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 GoodHope. He constructed it as 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, serves 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 degrees 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 consists of the 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 the pulse is visible light (Holsroemn 12-14).
Another dangerous solar energy is Ultra-violet rays. Ultra-violet rays 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 the1960’s.
It can be dangerous because too much rays can cause you to sunburn, 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 suntan 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 every time 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 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 itis 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.
Works Cited
- Cheremisinoff, Pual N. Principles ;
- Applications Of Solar Energy. AnnArbor 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.
