| Solar energy history is a very short history, right? | | | | electricity. In the later 1880s, Charles Tellier installed a |
| After all, we are only now trying to find renewable | | | | solar energy system to heat the water in his house! |
| resources, right? It was in the 1970s that we had the | | | | Even in the 1800s, there were people who were |
| energy crisis, is that not when we started looking for | | | | aware of the possibility of depleting our |
| an alternative form of energy? In truth, solar energy | | | | nonrenewable resources! And yet, strangely, people |
| history extends much further back than you might | | | | continued to take the easier route, using designs that |
| think! | | | | used coal and other nonrenewable resources instead |
| Way back in the late 1830's, Edmund Becquerel | | | | of the sun. |
| published his findings on how light can be turned into | | | | It was not until the 1950s that Gerald Pearson, Calvin |
| energy. Of course, his findings were not really ever | | | | Fuller, and Daryl Chaplin (of Bell Laboratories) |
| applied. One might say that the true solar energy | | | | discovered how well silicon worked as a |
| history because in the 1860s when Augusted | | | | semi-conductor. Silicon is what solar cells and solar |
| Mouchout received funds from the French monarch | | | | panels are generally made of today. |
| to work on a new energy source. | | | | These are only a few of the stepping stones that |
| Mouchout created a motor that ran on solar energy | | | | make up the rich history of solar energy. There have |
| and even a steam engine that worked off of solar | | | | been many other steps taken in the past that have |
| energy. He even used energy from the sun to make | | | | led us to this point in solar energy history, where |
| ice! He did this by connecting his steam engine to a | | | | solar energy is no longer just a part of our history. |
| refrigeration device. | | | | Rather, solar energy is a major influence at present, |
| William Adams used mirrors and the sun to power a | | | | and will only continue to be more so in the future. |
| steam engine during the 1870s. His design is still in | | | | It is time to stop looking at solar energy history, and |
| used today. It is called the Power Tower Concept. | | | | start looking at solar energy future! |
| In 1883, Charles Fritz turned the rays of the sun into | | | | |