SOLAR ENERGY: It's a fact that all life depends on and comes from the sun. The production of oxygen and food would be impossible without solar energy.
Farmers know the value of a large field with a plentiful supply of sunlight, and now individuals all around the world are taking this boundless source of diffuse energy more seriously as the finite supply of fossil fuels dwindle.
Today less than 0.1% of our heating, transportation and power energy comes from direct sunlight although it is now possible to meet all our energy needs with this simple, renewable resource. Demand for electricity is growing at an ever-increasing rate.
The Energy Information Administration estimates that 258 gigawatts of new electric generating capacity will be needed by 2030 to meet the growing demand. This equates to an additional 250 to 500 baseload power plants rated at between one-half and one gigawatt of capacity.
Infrastructure costs are increasing. The cost of maintaining the nations electric power grid including high-voltage transmission lines and towers, power sub-stations, and electric distribution systems is advancing in an upward trajectory. In a three year period ending with 2009, electric utility companies will need to invest $31.5 billion, a 60 percent increase over the three years from 2002 to 2005.
For the next ten years electric utilities will invest $14 billion per year on infrastructure. Compliance with environmental laws and regulations and related litigation is becoming more expensive for electric utilities. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, as well as a host of other state and federal laws and statutes create a maze of bureaucracy to negotiate.
Rate caps which were put in place beginning in 1997 have begun to expire giving the impression that rates are rising when in actuality costs that have already been incurred by electric utilities are being passed on to consumers. So you see why it's so important for us to use the resources we have like the sun to fuel or world.