As the world braces for a looming energy crisis, fueled by skyrocketing oil prices because of increasing demand for energy and fewer resources to go around, solar panels are becoming a more lucrative and attractive solution for powering our energy hungry world. As the price of fossil fuels increase and as the cost to the environment becomes a major concern, solar panels are becoming more affordable and cost effective — in the long run.
Solar panels create electricity by converting energy from the sun into electricity. The energy that the sun provides is free, but transferring it into electricity is not free. In the past, solar panels were a useful but expensive method of providing power. However, as the market demands green alternatives, and as more businesses and individuals install solar panel systems into their homes and businesses, solar panels are being produced on a larger scale, and are therefore becoming a lot more cost effective.
At the time this article is being written, solar energy is still more expensive to produce, at least on the surface, than energy from fossil fuels like oil and coal. However, if one takes the cost of damage to our environment into account, solar energy is, by far, a much cheaper, practical and cost effective solution to energy needs. Of course, solar power is not the only solution to moving away from fossil fuels, and it is only one solution out of many, but most local governments have rebates and tax incentives which make the cost of installing solar panels into homes and businesses even more attractive and financially rewarding.
Countries like China and India, who are experiencing an industrial golden age are adding to the pressure of, not only the cost of energy, but also the environment. It’s rather hard to blame these countries for the position they’re in, as already successful, prosperous and economically powerful first world countries import a growing amount of manufactured goods from these countries — just as the jobs and manufacturing processes have been exported. However, if countries like India and China had not become the world’s factories, the goods would still have to have been produced somewhere. Therefore, it even though it seems evident that India and China are poised to become the largest environmental polluters on earth, within a handful of years, we can still do a lot to help slow down the effects of this pollution, on a global scale, collectively.
If the businesses and residents of the world richest countries, who can afford to make use of green technologies — such as the installation of solar panels, act quickly, we can offset a measurable amount of the pollution that is created by the world market. It needs to be remembered that just because these factories are moving to India and China for the cheaper manufacturing costs, it does not mean that we’re not also to blame; we’re not off the hook. It is our businesses and corporations that import from these countries, and indeed, constructed many of the manufacturing plants and factories in the first place. It is the rich countries in the world that import the goods from these countries. So anything we can do to help slow the rate of pollution, collectively, will be helpful.
As solar technologies and other green technologies such as wind power products become more widely used, it will become a lot cheaper — and is becoming a lot cheaper. Once solar panels are widely used, all over the world, and as the cost of fossil fuels increase to the point where it is actually more expensive than green technologies like solar panels, the cost of these technologies will be more affordable for the industrial centers of the world, like India and China, to afford. It is the responsibility of all of us, around the world to do everything we can to promote and use green technologies such as solar panels.
