Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
Solar Technologies
Solar Technologies: Solar is the only renewable energy source which could, in principle, easily meet all the world’s energy needs. _ “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” Thomas Edison in 1931 ____ Section-1 Prologue: Currently, our civilization consumes around 17.7 Terawatts (17.7 terajoules/second) of power taken from all sources of energy, namely oil, coal, natural gas and alternative energies such as solar, wind, hydropower and others. Fossil fuels—including coal, oil, and natural gas—have been powering economies for over 150 years, and currently supply about 80 percent of the world’s energy. The environmental ramifications of using fossil fuels, combined with their expected remaining abundance on earth places limits on how much longer we as a species can rely on them as an energy source. If […]
COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE
Combat Climate Change (CCC): ______ A Houston interstate after Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 _______ Prologue: Recently more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries issued ‘warning to humanity’. The scientists around the world are very concerned about the state of the world, the environmental situation and climate change. Experts say worldwide average temperatures have already risen 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times, largely due to carbon emissions from the United States and Europe over the past century. Many countries are already feeling the heat that is enveloping the globe, with dramatic floods, hurricanes and droughts across the world in recent months adding a sense of urgency to the climate talks. On June 1, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will pull out of the Paris Agreement, a 2015 deal to curb carbon emissions, invest in green technology, and take other steps to combat the existential threat of climate […]
