This article is an excerpt from Chapter three in my new book The Chicken Little Agenda – Debunking Experts’ Lies. You can find out more about the book here, and can order the book from this link. This is the second of seven parts for Chapter three that will be presented here sequentially. Read part one here.
Chapter 3
The Sun and the Atom: The Only Sources of Electricity
The Solar Energy Cycle
Solar energy plays two direct roles: it evaporates water and, by warming the atmosphere, increases its ability to carry more water vapor. Solar energy also plays a significant indirect role. Some places are warmer than others. By a relatively complicated mechanism, these differences in air temperature result in pressure differences. Air located in an area of higher pressure will naturally flow towards areas of lower pressure. The exact path the air takes is a function of many things, including the shape of the land and the rotation of the Earth. The net result, however, is wind. When you think about it, therefore, the motion of the air – the wind – is a form of solar energy.
We can directly recapture solar energy from the wind by placing a windmill in its path. Many Western windy ridges host armies of wind generators. These farms of tall, single-mast, high-tech windmills suck a significant amount of solar energy out of the passing air. The hardware is simple but still relatively fragile. As more and more of these systems come into use, the technology will become increasingly robust.
We have been indirectly recapturing solar energy for millennia using flowing water. Remember all that water vapor that found its way into the atmosphere through the action of solar energy? Much of this water eventually forms into water droplets that make up clouds. Under the right conditions, these droplets coalesce into raindrops that fall to Earth, either back into the ocean to undergo the cycle all over again, or on land somewhere. When they fall, they give up something called potential energy. In effect, each raindrop contains a level of potential energy exactly equivalent to the amount of total solar energy it took to get the raindrop from the ocean where it originated to the point from which it begins to fall. When a raindrop falls into the ocean, it has given up its entire store of potential energy; every bit of solar energy that it took to create the water vapor, coalesce it into a droplet, and transport it to the rain location is gone. When the landing spot is higher than sea level, however, the raindrop sitting on the Earth’s surface still contains some potential energy.
So here’s the whole story. Melting snowfields, rainstorm runoff, brooks, streams, rivers, lakes – all this massive amount of water eventually finds its way back to the ocean. Sure, some of it evaporates and gets recycled locally, but eventually all of it comes home. Every inch of descent represents a surrender of potential energy.
(Part 3 of 7 follows)
© 2006 – Robert G. Williscroft
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