Part of me has never moved beyond the feeling of amazement I had watching a Crookes radiometer in primary school. How was it that sunlight could just magically make the spindle turn? Primary school was long ago but a similar feeling of awe came when I took this photo of about 5,000 solar PV panels we have awaiting installation.
Instead of making a radiometer spindle turn, these silicone cells will be converting about 20% of the sun’s energy to electricity and then using that to spin a whole heap of other machines like pumps, elevators and compressors. Amazing really. No digging up coal or oil, no cutting down trees and no smokestacks. Just waiting for the sun to shine.
And I know it’s not as simple as that and we have to mine the materials to make these, etc. but solar energy sure has some simplicity to it when compared to the way we’ve powered things up until now. Apart from being the right thing to do, going renewable is… the right thing to do.