Ultimate Power

The Sun is the source of all of our power. Its radiation energizes our planet, warms the ground and sea, lights our days, strengthens our bodies, and sustains life on the Earth. Green leaves of growing plants absorb sunlight, giving them the energy to decompose atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon and gaseous oxygen. The oxygen is liberated back into the atmosphere, where we breathe it, and the carbon is deposited in plants. When we burn the wood of a tree, the carbon reunites with atmospheric oxygen. Long-dead, compressed plants provide the petroleum, coal, and natural gas that energize the lights of our house and power the vehicles we drive while also increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Sun's warmth is the source of our weather and the arbiter of our climate, producing the winds and cycling the water from sea to clouds and rain. Hydroelectric power plants are energized by water running back to the sea. Wind power also is driven by the Sun. Uneven solar heating of different parts of the Earth produces the winds, which blow from hot to cold regions.

The Earth glides through space at exactly the right distance from the Sun for life to thrive on our planet’s surface, whereas other planets in the solar system freeze or fry:We sit in the “comfort zone.” Any closer and the oceans would boil away, as on Venus; farther out, the ground would be a frozen wasteland, resembling Mars, which is now in a global ice age. We receive exactly the right amount of energy from the Sun to keep most of our water in liquid form, which is a requirement for life as we know it. Turn off the Sun’s powerhouse and in only a few months, we would all be under ice.