The answer to this question is No. I’m afraid that alternative energy sources will not be efficient enough to replace fossil fuel sources.
First, impractical as solution from requiring less land point of view. It is estimated that it would take a wind farm the size of
Second, alternative energy sources can be a bone of contention. We have some potentially alternative energy sources such as nuclear power and bio-ethanol. However, I believe that those are not definitive solutions to replace fossil fuel sources. Let’s take uranium for example. This is also finite fuel source. Only around 0.72% of all natural uranium is uranium-235, the rest being mostly uranium-238. This concentration is insufficient for a self sustaining reaction. Many electricity companies in mostly industrialized countries are rushing in getting uranium. The international price for this chemical element has been shooting up. As another example, I’ll take up bio-ethanol. bio-ethanol has been shed light on since the last decade. However, it causes some problems such as increasing the price of agricultural products, deforestation to gain the farmland for the crops and so on. Alternative energy sources essentially involves a bone of contention.
In conclusion, we need to keep using fossil fuel for a while. We need to make an effort to delay depletion of fossil fuel until we find definitive alternative energy sources.
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Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Since the end of last year, dye-sensitized solar cells have frequently appeared on news media. There are two types of solar cells, one is conventional silicon based type and the other is this newly developing dye-sensitized type. Silicon based type is still bulky, rigid and costly, so you rarely find it on a roof of someone's home. Where you find it is typically only limited on compact personal calculaters.
Dye-sensitized solar cells have emerged on media relatively recently, but its birth its self is actually more than 15 years ago, 1991. The reason they began to appear on the media is due to its improved efficiency. The merits of this new type solar cells are the following: low production cost and being thin and flexible. The reason why it can be mass-produced at low cost is this: it uses chlorophyll or its derivatives to generate electricity, which is cheap material, one of photosynthetic pigment. Up until relatively recently, people could not notice the fact; even plants are generating electricity. This dye-sensitized solar cells mimics this plants' magical mechanism of photosynthesis. In plant, especially at the tip part of leaves, chlorophylls, in which photosynthesis is carried out have gathered. When the light gets to a chrolophyll, electrons become energized and come out of it, which means conversion from photo energy to electric energy occurred.
Silicon base solar cells are costly because they need to be purified from sand which is very stable substance, using a lot of energy. On the other hand, dye-sensitized solar cells, which outwardly looks like films can be mass-produced by the way of printing, which lowers production cost. Scientists are looking to find better catalysts to improve energy conversion rate.
Concerns about the environment have been growing. Nowadays global warming is known to everyone. I personally am little skeptical on the truth of global warmig, but we should take measures before the problem deepens.
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