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Final Essay

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How much do you spend on electricity a year? Do you know how harmful your power usage is for the environment? Installing solar panels are the best improvement a homeowner can take in their home despite their high initial cost and perceived unsightliness. Any home with a south facing should have solar panels installed. Solar panels are environmentally friendly, renewable energy source, many financial benefits.
Simply put solar panels convert the energy from sunlight into usable electricity to light a house or power a television (see fig. 1). When sunlight hits the solar panels, electrons in the panels are released and create current, this is DC power, unusable in a home. A converter converts the DC power into alternating current. This electricity …show more content…

1. Hobgoblin Solar Company, “how solar panels works” HobgoblinSolar, n.d., Web, 11 Nov. 2014
In 2012 the average US residence used 10,837 kilowatthours of electricity (“How much electricity…”). Coal and natural gas account for 2/3 of that electricity (“What is U.S….). “Coal-burning plants are some of the worst industrial polluters in the United States, producing approximately one-third of our carbon dioxide, 40% of our mercury, one-quarter of our nitrogen oxide, and two-thirds of our sulfur dioxide”(Colly). Natural gas power plants are nearly just as harmful. The power produced by solar panels is completely green. This power comes from the sun, not a fossil fuel, and leaves no carbon footprint. Solar panels don’t produce any carbon dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide or any other pollutants when they produce electricity. “Per kilowatt, [solar electricity] offsets up to 830 pounds of nitrogen oxides, 1,500 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 217,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year” (Grayson). In one year, an average American home will offset over two billion pounds of carbon dioxide. In the solar panels lifespan, that same home will offset over 93 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, at least 600 million pounds of sulfur dioxide, and more than 325 million pounds of nitric oxides (“The Life Expextancy…”). These are astronomical environmental improvements that any homeowner can

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