Will solar energy cause global warming as it increases in popularity as an energy source?

Question

As the solar panels suck the heat out of the Sun, will that pull more heat to concentrated areas of the earth? I like this to heat rays from a magnifying glass. We are concentrating where some of this energy goes. What happens when energy transfer is concentrated? What strength of force does this eventually lead to were it to grow? At what point would it be harmful to mankind?

Answer 1

Lots of good answers here, but I wish to rake over your misconceptions. All the solar energy that strikes the earth now left the sun 8.3 minutes ago. There is nothing we can do to "suck heat" from the sun. All we do with solar panels is convert some of that tiny fraction of heat that happens to fall on earth into electricity.

Now, a solar panel is usually very dark, so it absorbs more light than does a more reflective surface, like a snow bank. The key is that not all the energy is converted to heat, some of it goes to electricity. And NONE of it adds sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere, unless perhaps you are cutting down forest to build solar panel arrays.

To "magnify" solar energy we might build collectors in space and beam the energy through the atmosphere. Again, we would expect very little heat transfer this way. Any time space based panels occluded sunlight we would actually expect a slight (immeasurably small) reduction in total heat absorbed by the earth. Then again, any work performed by that electricity ends up as heat in the environment. Still, heat is not the real problem. Every night waste heat is radiated back into space. The problem facing us is atmospheric greenhouse gasses that trap extra heat, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Releasing carbon sequestered since the permian (300 million years ago) into our atmosphere will hurt us MUCH more than using solar power collectors. Solar power is one of the cleanest energy sources. Consider--plants obtain energy via photosynthesis, liberating oxygen. That is solar energy. You eat the plants, or other animals that eat the plants, so you are already using "solar" energy. All energy sources are ultimately solar, except fusion, fission (liberation of energy from some previous star went supernova billions of years ago), and geothermal--essentially the same ultimate source as fission--the gradual decay of long lived isotopes in earth's core and mantle.

One thing that would be fun would be to build big space based solar collectors girdling the sun like a belt. There is sufficient material on mars--silicon and iron--to ring the sun with an array about the diameter of the orbit of Venus and a hundred kilometers wide. Just imagine what we could do with such cheap, abundant energy! And that would be only a tiny fraction of the sun's output.

Advanced civilizations might erect shells around their suns, capturing most of the light. So instead of looking for extraterrestrial civilizations around G type stars (like our sun), we might instead search for stars more like red giants...

Answer 2

Just the opposite. Without solar panels, most of the sun's energy will strike the ground and warm it up. If it hits a solar panel, some of that energy will be converted into electricity. This electricity can be stored (in many different ways) or it can be used to do work [which will decrease the amount of energy needed from other sources (such as burning fosssil fuels)]. The panels and that area of the ground will heat up less

Answer 3

no.

the amount of light hitting the earth is unchanged. Solar energy just puts a panel between the sun and the ground. In fact, since the solar panels are converting some photons of light to electricity, solar panels would actually reduce the amount the earth heats up from sunlight.

Answer 4

No, solar panels don't cause global warming. The energy that the sun puts out that makes it to earth is here to stay - if it isn't going to be used by solar panels, then it will be absorbed by the ground or reflected back into the atmosphere, where it will stay.

It's a net of zero. The gain is in not burning fossil fuels for power.

Answer 5

Solar panels do not suck heat out of the sun, they simply collect light rays that the sun gives off.

Solar energy is a clean energy source that does not tax out eco system and therefore will help reduce global warming.
Not increase it.

Answer 6

according to my knowledge, using solar energy will not cause global warmng becaucse it won't produce any greenhouse gases which is most responsible for global warming. Also solar energy is very expensive, and the efficiency nowadays is low.(10~20%). It should not be harmful even with high efficiency, since there is no sun after sunset, and also the problem can be easily solve. In fact, scientist try to develop this technology to solve over- global warming.

Answer 7

One should not think about what will happen if we use solar energy, but think about what will happen if we don't use solar energy. Unless we come up with a better alternative fuel source, solar energy will be cleaner than gas heat which just adds more to the insulating blanket around Earth. Solar energy may not be perfect, but it will be better than the other options. Also- who are we kidding? The sun isn't THAT strong. The solar plants can't be THAT big. I don't think it would be a problem.

Answer 8

You cannot be serious. The amount of energy reaching the earth will not change no matter what so unless you can change the suns energy somewhere out side the atmosphere. There will never be a change in the "global Warming" caused by the sun.

Answer 9

not an issue. The heat that the solar panels collect is already in the atmosphere. It's already guaranteed to be absorbed by something - your head, the local concrete, sparrows, the sea, molecules in the atmosphere, whatever - and that heat will be given back to the atmosphere at lower wavelengths, which will find it hard to escape because of the elevated level of CO2 caused by the comparative LACK of solar panels, wind turbines, etc.

Answer 10

nah the heat energy is converted to electricity. and anyways the cells convert a little bit of heat to a lot of electricity. its not too much compared to the size of the earth. the problem with CO2 is that there is way too much of it in the air and it absorbs a lots of it compared to the size of the earth.