After the recent embarrassment of the residents in Woodland, North Carolina, I think it's time we lay down the truth on solar panels and how they work. If you have not yet heard of what happened in Woodland, N.C., a local science teacher named Jane Mann gave personal insight in a meeting with the local N.C. Town Council to deny a solar farm that would generate power to the Woodland community. Her claim being that solar panels would "suck up all energy from the sun." I kind of laughed out loud at this until I realized that this individual is tasked with teaching young minds the world of science and how it works and even she cannot understand the basics of a solar panel, which then made me cringe. I began to become depressed when those same council members of the local N.C. Town Council called Jane Mann's stance on solar panels "a carefully considered expert local testimony." This moment was face palm worthy. To be fair, if your town's best expert is someone like Jane Mann, it might be time to consider outsourcing to real scientist ... or a cynical article writer who loves pointing out major flaws in society. Since I'm the only one here, I'll take the time to educate you and the townspeople of Woodland, N.C.

First off, let's walk through how a solar panel works. Light from the sun hits the solar panel, which then uses of layers of silicon, phosphorous (which provides the negative charge) and boron (which provides the positive charge) to turn light from the sun into something called photons. Photons are tiny elementary particles of light. These layers of silicon, phosphorous, and boron use the Photovoltaic Effect to create electrical currents from sunlight.

Diagram of the Photovoltaic Effect used in solar panels

This electrical current can then be used to power homes without any damage to the environment, unlike coal, propane, natural gas and oil, all of which release green house gases when burned, and burning of course is the only way to produce power from these natural resources. The also infect our atmosphere with air pollution and poison clean water sources. Leaps and bounds worse then a solar panel which will only kill grass underneath where you place it because the solar panel does block sunlight from hitting the ground. This is easily solved by placing solar panels on house roofs and other places like parking lots which have no grass.

Pretty simple, right? But wait, it gets better! Scientist have found a way to vastly improve power output from solar panels even more while it's raining. Without sun, how could solar panels produce electricity? Well, scientist in China have discovered by adding a small atom-thin layer of an element called graphene. When it rains, this super tiny layer of graphene uses the raindrops as a natural capacitor. A capacitor works by separating energy in the air between the clouds and ground. An electrostatic field then forms between the clouds and the ground. This electrostatic field can produce ions and free electrons. These ions and electrons soon begin to spread apart creating lightning. The ions and free electrons are the key components used to produce this effect in smaller instances when raindrops hit these high tech solar panels. Although research is in the early stages, this guarantees that one major con of solar panels would not only be fixed, but turned into a positive feature.

This is a great step in the fight for clean energy and a cleaner earth. Take what you learned here today to educate those around you and those in Woodland, N.C. that solar panels are not going to suck up the energy from the sun and make it disappear. Utter nonsense, mostly pushed by oil companies and other big natural resource producers to misinform the public and they do it purely for profit margin. They (who?) would rather kill the Earth and us with it because of an evil source of greed which knows no bounds. We can fight back, fight back with scientific fact that can be proven right in front of their very eyes. They cannot lie forever! Go Science!