A few places in the country enjoy year-round sunshine and mild weather. California and the western desert of the United States get so much sun we don't know what to do with it all. While sunshine usually means suntans and beaches and beautiful weather or blistering heat, it can also represent a massive and renewable form of bakelite oven knob power just waiting to be harnessed by advances in science and technology. Solar energy has been around for centuries, but its popularity has waxed and waned as government funding has gone up and down in recent years.
Our awareness of environmental benefits of clean sources of energy has dramatically expanded in recent decades, but for many people, the benefits of solar energy still remain elusive and expensive.Converting the vast power from the sun into usable products that are harnessed within homes and offices is a priority for many countries around the world. In some ways, the United States has lagged behind other innovative countries in our ability to keep up with advances in science because of limited government funding into research and development. China, Spain and Germany continue to promote incentives in their countries that promote the advancement of solar energy and sell this power to their electric utilities companies at fixed prices. Panels around the world that capture the power of the sun are responsible for $29 billion dollars in market economy. In the United States, we purchase $1.6 billion of those panels and more are found in California than any other state.
In recent years, China has pulled ahead of every other country in advances in this type of technology. This is mostly due to generous government grants that fund subsidies for solar energy. The panels in China are located on huge tracts of land that are gained at a very modest price or are completely free for use by the government. This differs from European countries that have much less land space available and from the United States that inputs fewer government dollars into research and funding. Solar energy is a vast and mostly untapped resource just waiting for science to catch up and capture it for clean use in our homes and offices. Technology and innovations within the United States and around the world will continue to evolve and ensure this clean and renewable form of power will be available to everyone around the world. Keep up with the advances in science and give back to environmentally friendly forms of power.