Social Impacts of Solar Energy

Last Updated: July 10, 2021

Solar energy is changing the world in a rapid space. It has social, economic and environmental more merits than demerits. The social impacts of solar energy are great. Renewable energy provides substantial benefits for our health, economy, and climate. Fossil fuel, oil, and coal are damaging the world in many ways. These are causing different diseases by polluting nature. They contain hydrocarbons which are quite harmful. They have more demerits than merits. Solar energy is running out as it is renewable energy. So, we do not have to worry about the amount. Solar energy is produced from sunlight, which powers our houses. Using solar panels increases your house value by up to $20,000.

Social Impacts

Solar energy has more advantages than disadvantages. First, we will discuss positive social impacts.

Positive Social Impacts of Solar Energy

The positive social effects are following;

Jobs

Solar energy is becoming common every day. People have started investing in solar energy. When new businesses start, it needs people. They hire people for managing and installing. Thus, numerous jobs are produced. This decreases the unemployment rate of the respective area. It will provide three times more jobs than fossil fuel. In 2010, the industry hired 93,000 people. The number of solar jobs increased to over 242,000 in 2018, and 500,000 jobs were created in 2017. Many new jobs are expected worldwide.

Health

Fossil fuel and coal pollute air and water. Generating energy from them is like killing yourself slightly. When we use solar energy, it pollutes to a little extent. When we use solar energy, we get cleaner air and purer water. This keeps us healthy and long-living. If we talk about fossil fuels, it increases global warming. So, using solar energy makes the quality of air better. Burning fossil fuel always emits carbon dioxide, which is hazardous.

Economic

When we use solar energy, we have to pay exactly what we use. If a country starts using solar energy, it will produce new jobs. There would be more workers. This will boost up the economy of the country. Countries lacking fossil fuels would not have to import them. Thus, the economy of that particular country would get better. Sometimes, production of oil stops or there may be a shortage, many purposes could not be done in that situation. But in solar energy, as soon as the Sun lasts, energy will be produced.

Cheaper

Solar energy is quite cheaper than oil or any other source. The prices of solar energy have been dropped by 60% since 2011. People just need to pay the upfront cost. Initially, people have to pay a large amount of money.

Negative Social Impacts of Solar Energy

It has some demerits that are not something very serious. Solar energy is burgeoning every day globally. The instalment cost has dropped by more than 77% since 2010. People are switching themselves to solar energy.

Space

If we talk about the instalment of solar panels at home, then it is fine because it requires a negligible amount of space. But if we talk about the industrial area or any large company, it would a vast amount of space. Solar farms cover a large amount of area. It causes space deficiency. Using extra space may take the space of any other business or anything.

Water

Creating solar panels require water. It means that the manufacturing of solar panels requires water. In the United States, electricity production accounts for more than 40% of all daily freshwater withdrawals. We can reuse that used water. So, some countries are lacking enough amount of water, it could be a little hard to manage for them.

Chemicals

The manufacturing of solar panels includes chemical involvement. If mistakenly chemical is not used according to instructions, then it can be harmful to people, especially for the workers. These chemicals usually are hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, etc. These chemicals cause some diseases.

There are two types of resources, renewable and nonrenewable. We will discuss the characteristics of nonrenewable resources. We will also talk about renewable resources little. Air, water, wood, oil, wind energy, natural gas, iron, coal, and many other are resources we people use for our benefit. They may be solids like coal, lignite, minerals, liquids like petroleum or gases like natural gases.

Renewable Resources

We want to make you aware of your renewable resources first. Solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass energy are examples. We call them renewable resources because they are infinite. It means they are not going to finish. Like we get solar energy from the sun and wind energy from wind. These energies are quite clean and pollutant to a negligible extent. These energies are developing every day. The world is embracing them gradually. North America

Nonrenewable Resources

Nonrenewable resources are the resources that can not replenish at the pace we use them. Examples are coal, fossil fuel, natural gas and many others. They are finite resources. These resources are found inside of the earth. Nonrenewable resources take millions of years to form in great quantity. You can call it minerals. We, humans, extract them in gases and crude oil for use. Even they can become financially inaccessible.

You can include metal ores too. Nonrenewable resources take millions of years to form how much we have used. The characteristics of nonrenewable resources are following;

Characteristics of Nonrenewable resources.

  1. Getting more Expensive every day

Nonrenewable resources are getting more expensive over time. We need to extract them which costs. We get them from the earth. They are coming into being at the speed at which we use them. A great number of dinosaurs and creatures had died aeons. If they had not died, we would not have many of these resources. If we talk about metals like gold, silver, iron, they cost us to mine. When we talk about renewable resources, they are getting cheaper every day.

  1. Do not replenish

Nonrenewable resources do not recycle. They take millions of years to come into being in the amount they get used in a few days. They can not regenerate with usage. These resources are used to produce energy. When we talk about renewable resources, nothing is like with them.

  1. Pollutant

Most of the renewable resources form from organic compounds. When we burn or extract them, they pollute the environment badly. When we use them, global warming increases. But when we talk about renewable resources, they are clean resources. On the other hand, they pollute to a minor extent.

  1. Quantity

Nonrenewable resources are present in a finite amount. On the other hand, renewable resources are in infinite amounts as the sun is not going anywhere, and the same thing is with the wind.

Developing countries are producing more than consuming nonrenewable resources. On the other hand, developed countries are consuming more than producing it. As there are more developing countries than developed, so production is more than consumption. Developing countries do balance.

Learn more about what NASA has to say about Non-Renewable Sources.

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