After thousands of years of use and misuse we have woken up to the fact that our natural sources of energy are depleting faster than the blink of an eye. Fossil Fuels which take million years to form as a result of anaerobic decomposition of plant and animal organisms are not something that the ingeniousness of our best scientists can create overnight. Fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and petroleum have extensive uses in our life from fuel to medicine. Electricity, energy even the fabrics of our clothes; fossil fuels have touched all aspects of our life. And its depletion could be the world’s worst nightmare come true.
Fortunately we are gradually learning more ways of generating energy to make up for the current depletion, and our future sources are the Renewable energy or alternative energy which is obtained from water, wind, sun and solid waste. Scientists have predicted that by 2030 we can power 100% of our energy by these alternative forms. There is another advantage to this; no greenhouse gases notorious for global warming will be emitted by renewable energy.
Solar energy can be harnessed directly by photo voltaics which generate electricity by conversion of solar radiation into direct electricity or indirectly by Concentrating Solar Power which entails the use of lenses or mirrors to garner a large area of sunlight onto a small area thereby producing electricity when the concentrated light is directed onto photo voltaic surfaces.
Today the prospect of converting solar energy into solar power fuel is being contemplated since this can help to exploit this energy to the fullest and assist to make it readily available round the clock. With the dream of solar power fuel being fulfilled we can utilize this energy for transportation, industrial and residential applications. Through principles of ‘ transformational science ‘scientists hope to harness solar power fuel by attaching manganese complexes to titanium dioxide nanoparticles thereby develop a genre of system that can produce fuel through solar energy. With this discovery we can reach a milestone in the history of the world when free solar power fuel will be used for uses varying from electricity for homes to fuel for cars.