Why hasn't enough work gone into harnessing the sun's energy?

Question

In one day the absorbs as much required to power all our energy requirements for over 16 years. Why isn't more being done to harness this energy?

Answer 1

How do you know that enough has not?  By what standard are you making this determination?  It appears to me that the amount of work that has gone into solar energy has far out paced the amount of energy obtained.  This would indicate that too much work has gone into this.

Answer 2

because you cant make money from it yet and too many interests are against it

Answer 3

First of all, ignore the lunatic fringe that says the oil industry blocks solar while strangely allows nuclear and hydroelectric to pass.

Now here's the reality:  the microelectronic and solid state silicon industry is going where the bucks are now, and thats not solar PV cells but rather computers, cell phones, HDTV and iPods.  In other words luxury entertainment electronics.  When people quit buying the latest gaming system every Christmas and start buying roof mounted solar PV cells instead of a new $30,000 gas guzzling Prius, then maybe solar will take off.

Answer 4

The powers that be (oil, gas, coal, etc.) have worked tirelessly to kill solar power and advances in solar power so as not to lose market share.

Remember that the 1st thing Reagan did when he got into the White House was to remove the solar panels Carter had installed to show his support of the fossil fuels industry.

Answer 5

The current solar cell technology is NOT very efficient at less than 40% of the energy converted---- much less than other forms of energy------- so its not cost effective to convert -------- and you need a system of batteries (which creates another environmental problem) to power things at night. Solar will never be a large component of out electrical grid ------ however a portion of our energy requirements can be met by large solar arrays as exists already in many locations.

Wind has similar issues -------- what do you do when the wind speed is ZERO? However 10-20% of our local electrical power requirements probably can be met with these two technologies, with further development and investment.

Now tell me what I should do with all those dead batteries full of toxic substances.

Answer 6

simply put, from what i know, solar power is still quite expensive and it's difficult to store the energy that was collected during the day time. If a city isn't particularly a sunny city most of the time, it would be difficult for that city to harnest much solar power