What is solar energy?

Solar energy -- or energy from the sun in the form of light and heat -- in the broadest definition of the term is the most fundamental form of energy on earth. Except in some very unusual cases, energy in the form of sunlight falling on the planet is directly or indirectly the source of all life on Earth. Plants absorb light from the sun and convert that energy along with CO2 into sugars (photosynthesis). This forms the base of the food chain upon which all other life forms build, including animal and humans.

Our entire industrial civilization currently depends on fossil fuels, which is energy from plant and other organic matter trapped in the earth's crust and transformed over millions of years into hydrocarbons... stored energy bonded to carbon. The problem, as our civilization is learning, is that energy in the form of hydrocarbons releases greenhouse gasses in the form of CO2 when burned... warming the atmosphere and thus disrupting our climate and the biosphere.

Solar energy is free, limitless, and clean energy from the only really safe nuclear reactor we know of ... the highly efficient fusion reactor 93 million miles from Earth known as Sol... our sun!