Solar Energy History: A Look At Early Solar Ovens, Modern Satellites And Beyond
The sun has been supplying almost all of the earth's energy requirements though until the very recent past, energy generating plants used wood, natural gas, coal and also oil to capture the power from the sun. The pioneering inventions of Nicholas de Saussure, who in the eighteenth century created the first solar oven, are one of the first instances of using solar energy as recorded in solar energy history of our times. However, in those early days, solar energy was just something that had to be considered when positioning buildings and homes in a manner that would best catch the rays from the sun.
Major Leap Forward
However, solar energy history took a major leap forward only in the twentieth century when it was ready to take off in earnest, and in fact, in places such as California and also Florida, during the early parts of this century, many thousands of solar water heaters were used though only for a short time before they then fell out of favor with users. Nevertheless, peoples in Australia, Israel and also Japan still use them.
Nevertheless, the seventies saw a major spurt of interest in solar energy because it had become necessary to find alternative energy sources to oil and gas and so, the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) raised its budget from thirty-five million dollars in 1976 to one hundred and sixty-seven and a half million in fiscal 1977. Thus, solar energy history then saw another shift in interest towards solar energy although this interest had to still live in the shadow of the need to build new nuclear power generating plants.
Other notable achievements as recorded in solar energy history include using satellites that made use of solar power and such satellites were first used and launched by the Russians in 1957. Moreover, this achievement has since played an important part in researching as well as developing better means of generating solar power.
However, the year 1954 is a very important year in solar energy history and it was then that Bell Laboratories discovered, quite by accident, that silicon could be put to good use in solar energy generation and this came to be a major breakthrough because silicon is extremely sensitive to any light that falls upon it, and this discovery has led to making solar energy devices as many as six percent more effective, and there is plenty of room to further improve their effectiveness.
Along with the discovery of photo-voltaic cells in the forties, and continuing on from when the first solar cell was built in 1833, solar energy history has come a long way and hopefully, with further advances in this technology, will be able to provide sufficient power to heat up every home on the planet as well as every industrial unit.
