ABSTRACT
The present consumption level of the reserved fuel left on Earth that powers the world is depleting the limited fossil fuel level, while fossil fuel burning is causing deadly environmental vulnerability. Inevitably, alternative energy sources that are abundant and benign to the environment are needed to drive the modern world. The use of solar energy, which is renewable and abundant everywhere, in every sector of modern life is an interesting option for powering the modern world. Therefore, in this research, a calculative mechanism is conducted to estimate the global solar energy in order to present a clean and renewable energy system for the world. Interestingly, the calculated results show that the average energy density of sunlight irradiance energy on the surface of the Earth is 1,366 W/m2, which is determined by calculating the diameter of Earth as 10,000,000 meridians from the North Pole to the equator and the radius of Earth as 2/π × 107 m. Therefore, the net solar energy coming to Earth is calculated as 1,366 × (4/π) × 1014 ∼= 1.73 × 1017 W by computing a day consisting of 86,400 seconds and a year consisting of 365.2422 days, on average. The annual net solar irradiance reaching Earth is 1.73 × 1017 × 86,400 × 365.2422 ∼= 5.46 × 1024 J, which is equivalent to 5,460,000 EJ, which is 10,056 times higher than the annual net current energy demand on Earth. Simply put, the utilization of solar energy, which is clean and environmentally friendly, could be the primary source of energy to satisfy the net power demand of the entire world.
