DID YOU KNOW?
Every second, 657 million tons of hydrogen are converted to 653 million tons of helium in our sun. The missing 4 million tons are converted to light and heat energy via Einstein’s E=MC2 equation and radiated into space. At an average distance of 93 million miles from the sun, the earth collects approximately 4 lbs. of total energy, which supports life on earth as we know it.
• The earth receives more energy from the sun in just one hour than the world uses in a whole year!
• Solar energy is free, and its supplies are unlimited. Using solar energy produces no air or water pollution.
• Solar energy has many uses such as electricity production and heating of water through photovoltaic cells and directly for drying clothes.
• Solar energy can also be used to generate electricity; heat spas and swimming pools; power cars; and to power attic fans, calculators and other small appliances.
• A 3 kW PV Solar Electric System will prevent approximately 510 lbs. of coal from being burned, 900 lbs of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, 315 gallons of water from being consumed each month and keeps NO and SO2 from being released into the environment !
• The CO2 absorption of a PV Solar Electricity System is the equivalent to planting 8.5 acres of trees.
Are you aware with the Problems with Plastic?
• Did you know that 14 plastic bags contain enough petroleum to drive an average car for one mile! Plastic bags, like all plastic products, are made from petroleum. Americans use over 380 billion bags every year, throwing away millions of barrels of oil.
Paper bags have the highest global warming impact per bag compared to other types of bags. According to the US EPA, 70% more global warming gasses are emitted making a paper bag than a plastic bag, and 50 times more water pollution. They also contribute to global warming by destroying trees. In 1999, the American Forest and Paper Association reported that Americans used 10 billion paper shopping bags, consuming 14 million trees.
Plastic: The petroleum used to make 14 plastic bags is enough to drive a car a mile. The 380 billion plastic bags that Americans throw away each year are made from millions of barrels of petroleum, contributing to global warming, depleting oil supplies, and driving up costs of petroleum-based products like gasoline and energy for our homes.
• 380 billion plastic bags or wraps are thrown away in America every year!
• Paper bags do not biodegrade in landfills due to the lack of oxygen!
• Paper bags cost US taxpayers 17 cents each in disposal costs, wasting millions of tax dollars!
(info from www.1BagataTime.com)
Other Interesting Facts about Solar Energy:
• Leonardo Da Vinci predicted a solar industrialization as far back as 1447.
• A world record was set in 1990 when a solar powered aircraft flew 4060km across the USA, using no fuel.
• Fierce weather cost the world a record $130 Billion in the first eleven months of 1998; more money than was lost from weather related disasters from 1980 to 1990 ($82 Billion). Researchers from the Worldwatch Institute and Munich Re blame deforestation and climate change from Earth warming for much of the loss. The previous one-year record was $90 Billion in 1996. Source - Associated Press, November 28,1998.
• About 2 billion people in the world are currently without electricity.
• Accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world's energy.
• Electric ovens consume the most amount of electricity, followed by central air conditioning and microwave ovens.
• Third world countries with an abundance of sunlight and a population currently without electricity, represents the fastest growing market for solar energy, with the largest domestic market being the utilities sector.
• Shell Oil predicts that 50% of the world's energy will come from renewable sources by 2040.