By Tony Chlopek and Chad Roat

Background Solar panels are very beneficial because they take solar energy and convert it into electricity. Solar panels can provide many houses and commercial buildings with power. Many advances are being made in this field because of the threat of global warming and the predicted energy crisis.

Background(cont.) Solar panels can cut energy emissions by fifty percent in research produced by Professor John Bell. Many people are also accepting the fact that global warming is happening and that we need new resources for our energy supply. Solar energy will soon be available to many people when the solar powered windows go on the market

The global warming crisis  Global warming has been a major problem over the last two thousand years.  Recently this problem has been exposed to the population through a movie called An Inconvenient Truth.  Al Gore Jr. has tried to take the global warming problem by hand and show it to the people so they know what is happening and what could happen in the future.

Solar Energy Solar energy may seem like a futuristic device but that is not so. People are starting to recognize the power of solar energy. Some countries are starting to use this visionary source for energy. There is a list of countries that use solar power because, Spire, a company that provides solar energy, has 144 facilities in 42 countries.

Can solar energy be achieved? Solar energy can be achieved in many ways like solar plants (a power plant that is run on solar energy). Solar energy can also be achieved by using home solar cells, which are solar panels that are located inside or around someone's house or building.

Solar energy use in houses Professor John Bell believes that using solar panels like the picture does, except as windows, would help our lives. His research shows that there could be a 50% decrease of greenhouse gas emissions.

What are the benefits of solar energy? Solar energy has many benefits in our daily lives. Solar panels can pay for themselves over time because of the money you will save on energy costs. It could be very helpful to have a way to run our world on energy from something that comes to us most everyday in our life.

What are the benefits of solar energy? (cont.) Solar energy can also help the rest of the world. Solar energy can deplete the predicted energy crisis more than it would if we did not use solar energy. Solar energy can cut the emissions being released into our atmosphere from our harmful carbon dioxide.

Our Independence If The United States of America were to find a way to use solar energy, we could kick our dependency on foreign oil and use the alternative of solar energy in our vehicles because when solar energy is captured it is changed into electricity which is one of the main components in hybrids.

Durham University Experts at Durham University are in the midst of a 4-year study to make solar panels more affordable and accessible Solar power currently provides less than one hundredth of one percent of the UK's home energy needs The thin-layer PV cells would be used to make solar panels that could be fitted to roofs to help power homes with any surplus electricity being fed back to The National Grid.

Green Solar power produces about 1/10 as much CO2 and other harmful emissions as conventional power In the 70’s, solar panels required as much energy to be manufactured as they produced in their 20 year lifetime Today’s solar panels can “pay back” in only one to three years the energy needed to make them

Power! All the energy stored in Earth's reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is matched by the energy from just 20 days of sunshine This energy needs to be harnessed! Not just electricity Water heating Space heating Space cooling

How does it work? Solar Cells are made up of special silicon crystals When sunlight hits the crystals, electrons are knocked out of orbit Missing electrons create holes in the atom’s orbits which are filled by other silicon atom’s electrons This flow of electrons creates a current, which can be used or stored as electricity This method of energy production can harvest 100 watts of electricity per square yard of solar cell

Why? Solar panels are extremely low maintenance A solar power system can reduce or eliminate a building's electric bill Government rebates and tax credits No matter how high electricity rates soar, a solar panel is a locked investment

In Closing Solar energy is one of the potential answers to our energy crisis Work is being done everyday to make solar cells more efficient, affordable, and available In certain places, houses without solar panels are the outsiders Solar Power is a renewable resource Global warming is a real threat to the world today and Solar energy is one way we could reduce the harm the earth endures