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The Sun's lifetime as star will be about 11 billion years. Half of that time
has passed. 1st written account of solar energy use: 4th century BC when a
scarcity of wood forced fuelwood imports from Middle East.
A Brief History of Solar Energy |
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Inventors unlocked the secrets of turning the sun's rays into mechanical power
more than a century ago, only to see their dream machines collapse from lack of
public support. Modern solar engineers must not be doomed to relive their fate.
Many of us assume that the nation's first serious push to develop renewable fuels was spawned while angry Americans waited in gas lines during the "energy crisis" of the 1970s. Held hostage by the OPEC oil embargo, the country suddenly seemed receptive to warnings from scientists, environmentalists, and even a few politicians to end its over-reliance on finite coal and oil reserves or face severe economic distress and political upheaval.
But efforts to design and construct devices for supplying renewable energy actually began some 100 years before that turbulent time--ironically, at the very height of the Industrial Revolution, which was largely founded on the promise of seemingly inexhaustible supplies of fossil fuels. Contrary to the prevailing opinion of the day, a number of engineers questioned the practice of an industrial economy based on nonrenewable energy and worried about what the world's nations would do after exhausting the fuel supply. The History of Solar Energy |
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