Your Questions About Solar Energy Generators For Home

Donald asks…

need help with my science home work questions?

1) describe 2 different ways to convert solar energy into electrical energy.
2) what problem exists when you use either solar or wind energy to generate electrical energy?
3) describe the nessary conditions for the use of tidal energy to generate electrical energy.
4) what is nuclear fusion? how does it differ from nuclear fission?
5) nuclear fission reactions take place is a large, sturdy tank. why is it impossible to use the same type of vessel for nuclear fusion reactions.

admin answers:

1. Solar energy can be converted to electricity in two ways:
Photovoltaic (PV devices) or “solar cells” – change sunlight directly into electricity.
Solar Power Plants – indirectly generate electricity when the heat from solar thermal collectors is used to heat a fluid which produces steam that is used to power generator.

2. The amount of sunlight that arrives at the earth’s surface is not constant. It depends on location, time of day, time of year, and weather conditions.Because the sun doesn’t deliver that much energy to any one place at any one time, a large surface area is required to collect the energy at a useful rate.

4. Nuclear Fusion- the process by which multiple atomic particles join together to form a heavier nucleus.

Nuclear fission is the splitting of the nucleus of an atom into parts (lighter nuclei) often producing free neutrons and other smaller nuclei, which may eventually produce photons.

5. An electrode structure is comprised of a pair of electrodes provided in a reaction vessel for causing a nuclear fusion reaction with deuterium or a deuterium compound in a gaseous or liquid state, at least one of the electrodes having a surface portion which is made of a reactive material for nuclear fusion reaction and a base which is tightly connected with the surface portion, wherein a heat exchange medium is introduced from a heat exchange device into the base and out from the base to the heat exchange device after heated by nuclear fusion reaction.

Sandra asks…

What is alternative energy and what are some examples?

I need a few examples of alternative energy and what it is.

admin answers:

Alternative energy is a term that refers to methods of generating energy that are not the usual method (i.e. Fossil fuels). There are many forms of alternative energy, but, as energy is conserved, you have to ask yourself where the energy comes from (and the answer is always “the sun”). You should always be careful when you look at energy forms, because some of them just won’t work – like the idea of putting water in your gas tank that another user has suggested (thermodynamics shows that these ideas won’t work).

The sun undergoes nuclear reactions which result in the release of photons (beams of light that have energy associated with them). Alternative energy forms just capture the energy from the sun in different ways (actually, fossil fuels also got their energy from the sun a long time ago).

Here are a few alternative energy sources and how they relate to the sun:

Bio-fuels: We can grow plants (such as algae, corn, sugar cane) which collect the photons from the sun and use the energy in the photons to create sugars. We can harvest those sugars and and turn them into liquid fuels such as ethanol.

Solar Energy: This technology directly harnesses the energy of the sun by absorbing photons through photovoltaic solar cells and which create an electrical current when they absorb a photon. Additionally, you can use the energy of the sun to thermally heat an object, which is referred to as solar-thermal energy.

Wind Energy: When the photons from the sun hit the air in the atmosphere, that energy can cause the generation of wind. We can harvest the wind energy by using turbines which spin when the wind hits them. The spinning motion is used to turn a generator which produces electricity.

Hydro-electric: When the sun hits water, it can cause the water to turn into a gas and later that gas can result in rain. If the rain occurs at a high enough elevation and gets held behind a dam, the water now possesses a high potential energy due to the energy from the sun. That energy can be turned into electrical energy by converting the potential energy of the water into kinetic energy which is then used to turn a turbine in a hydroelectric dam.

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