One Way or Another, Most of Our Electricity Comes From Solar Power
Photograph: Olga Rolenko/Getty Images Save this story Save this story There’s a whole menu of different energy sources to choose from in generating electric power—coal, gas, wind, and so on—and some are worse for the planet than others.
But regardless of where we gather it, the energy itself almost always comes from the sun.
Don’t believe me?
Let’s think about it: When you burn coal, it reacts with oxygen and releases energy.
But where did that energy come from?
Prehistoric vegetation.
Ancient ferns and weird swamp trees captured energy from sunlight using photosynthesis.
Over eons, all that greenstuff got buried, where heat and pressure turned it into coal.
That’s right, coal-based power is solar power.
You could even call it a renewable resource, if you don’t mind waiting 100 million years.
Same with oil and natural gas.
These fuels come from ancient marine microorganisms like phytoplankton and algae, which again used photosynthesis.
(Sorry, oil isn’t from dinosaurs; there’s no fossils in fossil fuels.) Gazillions of these organisms died and settled to the bottom of the sea over time, getting buried in sediment and turning into the sludge we call petroleum.
If you see an oil well on land, that spot was probably once underwater.
OK, but hydroelectric?
