Whats the difference between electrical and solar energy?
Question:
Answer:
From a biology standpoint: Solar energy comes from OUTSIDE the organism and is used to drive biochemical processes (such as photosynthesis), while electrical energy is generated INSIDE the organism as a result of biochemical processes.
From a physics standpoint:
Solar energy is radiated from the sun, it is the byproduct of the thermonuclear fusion reaction going on inside the sun and powered by the gravitational compression of all the gasses which make up the sun.
This energy is primarily in the form of ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION, which is to say heat, light, radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, and gamma rays. There are some particles ejected from the sun as well, but these have relatively little effect on the surface of the earth (the aurora borealis or "northern lights" is caused by these particles interacting with the upper atmosphere after being collected near the poles of the earth's magnetic field).
Electrical energy is caused by the desire of atoms to remain whole (where they are stable) -- if you pull an electron off from an atom, that electron will have a negative charge and the atom will have a positive one, so the atom and the electron want to come back together. The electron will move* with considerable force through a wire conductor to get back to the atom, and this energy can be harnessed to do things.
Solar energy can be converted into electrical energy by different means. The most direct method is when sunlight shines on a SOLAR CELL, which is a special kind of circuit: the sunlight causes electrons to pop off from some of the atoms and travel across a "barrier" so they can't just come popping back -- now they have to go all the way around through an electrical circuit to get back to where they want to be* and you can harness this motion and use it to do things like turn motors or light lights.
Solar energy can also be used to heat water and boil it into steam, which can turn steam turbines to generate electricity.
Indirectly, solar energy is even at the heart of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, since those come from organic matter (plants and animals) that needed sunlight to live, and after they died they were compressed in the ground and over a very long time were converted into coal and oil. Even burning wood first requires trees, which cannot grow without sunlight -- so when you are burning oil, coal, or wood you are really using sunlight indirectly. And it is the power of the sunlight that evaporates water from the oceans, and then moves it in the air up to the mountains where it falls as snow and rain, and when it comes back down the mountain in a river we capture some of that energy in our hydroelectric dams. So you could say even our hydroelectric dams are "solar powered" in that sense.
*Actually the electron does not move the entire way throught the wire. The wire is made up of metal atoms which form al electric CIRCUIT (a continuous linked ring of conducting atoms). If you have a big ring of atoms like this and pull the electon off of one atom and put it onto the next atom, that atom will then pop off a now-extra electron which goes to the next atom, where another electron pops off and so on and the whole thing ripples down through the ring of atoms until they all have the right NUMBER of electrons again, but now each one is holding one electron that originally came from the atom next to it.
Electrical energy is what you give off in attracting another person and solar energy is where it makes electric to run your hair dryer or heat to warm your bod up...
The thing is that solar energy can be converted into electrical energy. Solar energy is just the energy that comes in solar radiation. It's energy that comes from the nuclear reactions in the Sun's core. Now when that energy arrives on Earth, it can be converted into electrical energy.
electrical energy is the energy associated with electrons or electrically charget particles, static or moving
solar energy is associated with photons (light) / electromagnetic radiation
I believe the way you are wording it that they are the same thing. More specific though electrical energy to your home is obtained through power lines. Where as solar energy is covnerted into electrical energy and put in to your home through other means. For basic information check out the Learning Center at my favorite solar place
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