America’s Solar Challenge comes to Naperville

Did you know that the energy the sun produces is constantly being recycled?   The sun’s energy can neither be created or destroyed, but only changed!  The sun’s energy helps thing to grow , then die, then decompose, then become something new again. 

This same process is how we get oil and gas and coal. They all started as tiny organisms hundreds of millions of years ago.  They died, decomposed, were compressed by the pressure of the earth and then changed into petroleum.  Coal was once green plants and the same processed occurred.  In each case they became carbon atoms which we now know as fossil fuels.  This process is occurring today as well, but  remember, it took millions of years to create oil.  The first well was drilled only a century and a half ago and we are already running out.

Here is what I am trying to convey.  Fossil-based energy isn’t just what you use when you fill up your gas tank or flip your switch.  It refrigerated your food, and then cooked it.  It fed the growing corn that fed the steer that became the steak on your plat e.  It fueled the salad in your bowl which depending on the season may have been flown from another continent altogether.  It’s in your clothes, and your furniture,   It’s in your hair and on your face.  It’s in the materials from which your home was built.  Fossil fuel energy is everywhere.

Each and every one of us is connected to the grid, and I don’t mean the electrical grid, I mean the energy grid. The living things grid.  The sun grid.   The point I am making is that the source is “non-renewable”

Energy from sustainable biological systems is renewable.  ( Solar is renewable energy)

June 26, Naperville will be the “finish line” Host  for America’s Solar Challenge.  University Students from all over the country create solar powered vehicles in a race through America, and finish at Naperville North High School.  Put this important date on your calendar.  It will be an event focused on efficient, sustainable choices.

Until next time, Don’t be part of the Pollution, try being part of the Solution

Submitted by

Deb Villarese

Connect to my blog by going to my website:   www.bellawelllifestyles.com