How does the use of solar power alleviate our dependence on fossil fuels?
Question:
Answer:
In the short term, it doesn't.
Ironically, it takes a lot of fossil fuels to make solar cells. It takes a lot of diesel and other fossil fuels powered equiment to mine, move, and process the raw germanium, arsinic, and/or silicon to make a solar cell. The it takes a lot of energy to make the silicon or germanium-asenide wafers, and the wafer processing to make the solar cells takes energy. Much of this energy comes from electricity generates by fossil-fuel generators. Then there is all the trucking required to move the wafer processing materials and equipment, and these trucks run on diesel.
By the time you're done, you used up a lot of fossil-fuel derived energy to make your solar cell- so when you start, you've already increased, rather than decreased, our reliance on fossil fuels.
Eventually, the hope is that the solar cell will make up for all the energy it took to create it. Also, over time we should be able to use nuclear, hydroelectric, and other power souces to produce the cells- and many companies are working hard on finding new types of solar cells that take less energy (and therefore less cost) to produce.
Because you are harnessing and using the energy from the sun. Then you will not need to use oil that is pumped out of the ground to make gas for cars or natural gas to heat homes. VERY big out in California, Arizona and other western states.
Supposedly, if enough people use solar power instead of fossil fuels, we won't need them anymore.
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