Sun Is Source Of All Propulsion Power

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 58, 21 June 1948, Page 6

Sun Is Source Of All Propulsion Power

The whole of the energy which keeps the wheels of civilisation turning has come to us from the sun — it does not matter whether we draw it from a petrol tank, a storage battery, a'ton of coal or a pound of butter. While the sun continues to shine, we have little cause to worry about running out of energy. Unfortunately, most of the energy we are using today came from the sun in ages past, and instead of using our current energy income we are drawing heavily on the earth’s savings acount of coal and oil. Even though the sun sends us 20,000 times as much power as we need, most of it slips through our fingers because we have not yet learned how to convert sunlight efficiently into those forms of energy which are useful for civilised living. When we have succeeded in doing so our fuel troubles will be over. Whether yesterday was sunny or cloudy, a June day or a day in December, enough energy fell on the earth during that 24 hours to serve humanity for a century. Select on a map an area of any convenient desert 10 miles wide and 20 miles long. 'Year -after year enough sunlight is lavished on this small, sandy waste to satisfy perpetually the power needs of the entire population of the United States at the present rate of power consumption, , In order to obtain energy equivalent to that swallowed in one hour on a sunny day by any single square mile of land or sea, miners must dig 500 tons of coal.