Question: How do we get more energy from the sun ?

Duncan McNicholl answered on 14 Nov 2017:

This is such an Anu question: she definitely knows more about it than me. I think I’m going to stick to not answering your question at all, but sort of rambling in the vague topic you’ve asked about.
.
My thing with this question is that almost all the energy that we use comes from the sun, and the stuff that doesn’t comes from some other sun, more-or-less. So in order from easy to hard: Solar is direct from the sun’s light, coal is from trees millions of years ago that got their energy from the sun’s light, oil is from animals millions of years ago that got their energy from plants that got their energy from the sun’s light, hydroelectric is from rain moving the water up hills from the sea because it is warmed by the heat from the sun, wind comes from heating different parts of the atmosphere by the heat from the sun, wave comes from the wind that’s caused by the differential heating of the sun, tidal comes from the gravitational effects of the sun (and moon, admittedly), geothermal comes from the same gravitational collapse that created the sun (which is a stretch), and nuclear comes from the elements created by another sun when it collapsed and exploded in a supernova billions of years ago. So basically all the source of energy that we use come from the sun one way or another. Let me know if I missed any out.