Harvesting Solar Energy Might Be Efficient, But Is It Really Environmental-Friendly?
Many countries heavily rely on natural gas to generate power and electricity. Those who have their own reserve of natural gas (specifically the countries in Middle East) in their territories are lucky, but for the others, they still need to import barrels of natural gas, costing them millions of dollars every year. Aside from the fact that the need to harvest energy comes with an expensive price, there is no guarantee that our sources of energy will never be depleted. It is possible that one day, we might have already exhausted all the natural gas from a particular source, and we need to search for another potential source somewhere else. The worst scenario is that our demand for energy finally exceeds the available supply on Earth, causing unimaginable crisis.
Thus, it is our duty to look for alternative renewable sources of energy to ensure that the future generations will still have something to use to generate power. The collective efforts of experts have come up with really efficient solutions to harvest energy, and one of these is to collect energy right from the sun. The concept of solar energy is a huge breakthrough as people can finally use one of the most readily available sources of energy out there, which is sunlight, in order to power up houses and establishments. One may think that using solar panels is very efficient and does not pose any problems. Unfortunately, just like any other solutions that we created to sustain our needs, the use of solar panels also comes with a price, and the environment is the one to suffer for this.
What Is Wrong With Using Solar Panels?
The practice of using solar panels in every home is already widely advertised as it makes our households green. Perhaps there is a point when we say that a particular house is green because it can generate its own power from sunlight, thus lessening its demand for electricity that comes from power plants, which runs on natural gas. However, we need to know what is in a solar panel that makes it dangerous for the environment.
Most of the solar panels used today are silicon-based. Silicon in itself is not toxic to the environment, but the problem lies with the preparation of silicon. For a solar panel that incorporates thin-film technology, silicon is combined with other materials such as cadmium telluride and copper indium selenide. These are known to be highly hazardous components that pose health concerns to people, and they can negatively affect ecosystems if they are not properly disposed. These toxic materials can be released into the environment during the manufacturing of solar panels, and it is hard to minimize how much of these must be disposed.
Of course, there is always a way to avoid the leakage of these toxic chemicals in the creation of solar panels, although the experts have yet to find a solution to this. Just like in optimizing the performance of men, Semenax in United Kingdom is a great solution discovered by scientists to get that much-needed boost.
Aside from solar energy, there are other alternative sources of energy that we need to closely monitor so that we can prevent any potential damage to our environment. It is important that even as ordinary citizens, we are aware of what affects our environment and be vocal about our views, especially in the social media.