In this modern era, our lives revolve around newer and newer technology. With the development of newer technology the things that we use everyday to carry out the functions of our daily lives now required more sources energy than ever before. That gas powered snow blower used to clear driveways in the winter replaced that hand powered shovel in the corner of the garage.

The biggest problem that comes from using these modern devices is the energy consumption of it. There is only a limited amount of resources available on the earth that can provide energy. One of the biggest producers of energy for the world is oil. The whole world runs around oil, as can be seen from outrageous gas prices and yet there will always be buyers. In addition, countries start and fight wars with each other just to get their hands on the product.

The biggest problem with using oil and all the other varying forms of energy production material (e.g. natural gas, coal, nuclear) is that they have some adverse byproducts with their use. The most well known issue is the production of massive amounts carbon emissions. Currently there are plenty of suggestions that would reduce the amount of carbon emissions but these steps are way too conservative to invoke any significant change. Something that would create huge change is needed, and the use of solar energy could be the answer.

Solar energy provides huge amounts of energy that will never be harnessed. The sun puts out as much energy in about an hour that the entire world uses in a year. The Sunbelt alone gets approximately 4500 quadrillion BTUs of energy, making these states prime location to build a huge solar power plant. Arizona has already express interest in providing land to build solar power plants, without using environmentally fragile areas.

There are only two main issues involved with this ideal is the cost of building a solar power plant and the available technology. Currently the efficiency of photovoltaic cells is about 10 percent, to keep cost reasonable 14 percent efficiency needs to be achieved. However, great advances in technology are happening with 14 percent efficiency in sight. Also with the advances comes cheaper production cost which would also bring down the overall cost for energy consumers.

Now the only thing left is to get the needed funds together to start this project. With the estimates riding at about $400 billion, investment by the federal government is not only helpful but necessary. With the investment of the solar power plant, the United States can stop depending on foreign oil all together, saving the country huge amounts of money.

Another thing that skeptics bring up is that solar energy collection becomes hampered by overcast conditions and stops entirely when it is nighttime. The answer to this would be to store the solar energy as heat, which can easily be used to power turbines. Therefore, just in case no sun is available for a day energy will still be available.

All that is left is to push the United States government into executing this plan. Currently Japan and Germany are in the process of creating solar power plants to reduce their emissions. Right now the United States is doing too little to stop such a huge problem in which they are the greatest contributours.