Harnessing the sun to better our lives

Harnessing the sun to better our lives

For someone who made a career in the Oil and Gas Industry you would think I have no time for renewable energy.

However I have seen first hand the devestation and destruction that fossil fuel production and processing can have on our planet.

Lagoons of dead trees in black water. Granted that ethics from multinational companies have tightened up, but there are better ways to harvest energy.

In the Uk of course we are windy and one island with a decent sized coastline, so we have loads of wind turbines and wind farms.

I have always been fascinated by those.

We even have wave booms etc to harvest tidal power.

24/7 electricity

Having lived and worked in Africa I know how people in the West take uninterrupted power supplies for granted.

Waking up in the morning and you discovered you forgot to charge your smartphone, no problem just plug it in and in a jiffy you will have power levels back upto 100%!

But not all countries are like that.

I do remember the strikes when we had blackouts in Orkney, now that was quite spooky, the howling winds and pitch darkness.

But a power cut, a loss in power, no electricity... I can't remember the last time that happened.

It did happen occasionally in the South of Spain when we lived there.

Africa why no power?

What got me was when I worked in Africa, in oil rich countries like Nigeria. Why on earth was there no uninterrupted power supply?

I know the corruption is rife, there is no investment in the infrastructure.

Diesel generators are great to have as a back up, but of course still expensive to run as you need diesel as a fuel source.

Solar Power the obvious answer

Solar Panels, we in the UK don't get enough sunlight in the winter to really make these work properly.

Funnily enough though, the canal narrow boats all use them. Yes Mrs T and I are still thinking about getting one to live on.

The fantastic thing about Solar power and panels is that the running costs so to speak are negligible.

It is all in the setup, the capital cost.

I have been researching companies here and how they sell panels in Africa.

It is outrageous that any citizen of our world does not have access to clean fresh potable water or continuous power supply.

Imagine having power 24/7, it is a game changer.

No more shops where hundreds of phones are being charged at once. No more overloaded circuits.

Solar panels and solar power are the way of the world. Many countries have unlimited sun, that needs to harnessed.

It is food for thought and would be a game changer for the good of so many!

All ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated, note lead image is generated with AI on pixlr .com from a prompt by me.

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