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If the first solar entrepreneur hadn't been kidnapped, would fossil fuels have dominated the 20th century? (techxplore.com)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The first commercial PV solar product was nah just in 1909.

See story above, and original article in Modern Electrics magazine in 1909:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051407073

EDIT

Since people didn't read past the headline, the article is about a startup company in 1905 that developed a commercial electrical solar panel by 1909 and was worth 160 million in today's money.

In 1909, the inventor of the solar panel was kidnapped and ordered by his kidnappers to destroy all information about this solar panel. He was eventually released, although he did not destroy the solar panel or his documentation, he did shut down his company.

So this is a pretty fascinating development considering that at this time period we actually did have early production electric cars that were manufactured in larger quantities than gas vehicles, and now we learn that solar panels were commercially available, at least for a short time.

And the solar panels could generate a fair amount of electricity:

500 volts per 10 square ft, and a smaller demonstration panel that was 3 ft x 4 ft could generate 60 watts of power (10 volts @6 amps).

Additionally, the panels were designed to charge a battery backup system.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Doubtful that it would have been very different. We would probably have more solar for home electrification. But with storage options being even less viable back then, we still would have needed a grid.

but the biggest benefit for fossil fuels were cars. And there I don't see how EVs would have been viable (yes, I know there were prototypes back then)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Fun fact - for a short time, there were more electric cars than gas:

"In 1897, the bestselling car in the US was an electric vehicle: the Pope Manufacturing Company’s Columbia Motor Carriage. Electric models were outselling steam- and petrol-powered ones. By 1900, sales of steam vehicles had taken a narrow lead: that year, 1,681 steam vehicles, 1,575 electric vehicles and 936 petrol-powered vehicles were sold. Only with the launch of the Olds Motor Works’ Curved Dash Oldsmobile in 1903 did petrol-powered vehicles take the lead for the first time."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/03/lost-history-electric-car-future-transport