Why Is Solar Energy Important?

The merits of solar energy are often brought up, but most seem to just assume everyone realizes the benefits of it. Well, let's back up and ask the basic question of why is solar energy important?

Solar energy is important for a host of reasons. Let's start off with the most basic of them – sunlight is plentiful. We would never have wars over the sun as an energy resource because it hits all parts of the inhabited earth equally. This alone makes it an important part of the energy discussion.


We can see the second reason it is important by following up on this idea. Not only is solar power available to every country, it is also incredibly abundant as an energy source. How so? There is enough energy in one day of sunlight to meet our electricity needs for a year. The problem is not the energy in sunlight, but our ability to harness it. As technology improves, we will be able to gather more and more energy, which will be a huge relief for a country in desperate need of power.

This form of energy is also important because it is considered the cleanest energy platform in existence at the moment. There is much debate about climate change, but there is little argument that the pollution produced by burning fossil fuels is neither good for us nor the plants and animals around us from a health perspective. Let's see. We can have a fuel source that produces all kinds of gasses when converted to energy or one that produces no waste. Hmmm...which one should we choose?



Another reason solar energy is important is its longevity. We are going to run out of oil. We are going to run out of coal. We are going to run out of natural oil. In truth, we are also going to run out of sunlight, but it is going to take another 4.5 BILLION years or so. This will happen when the sun turns into a red giant. When that occurs, it will swallow the earth as the sun expands and we will have a host of other problems at that point!

Why is solar energy important? The real question is why isn't it.

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