Technology

59559 readers

3348 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

218

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

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here's a whole lot more detailed information with sources:

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-10-21/how-to-build-a-low-tech-solar-panel/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Whoa, thanks for the link! Fascinating! So this WAS potentially an early non-silicone PV panel.

"If Philip Pesavento’s historical account and hypotheses are correct, George Cove set out to build a thermoelectric generator but accidentally made a photovoltaic generator – a PV solar cell."

"By mid-1909, Cove had moved to New York City, where he presented his third prototype, a solar array consisting of four solar panels of 60 watt-peak each, which charged a total of five lead-acid batteries. The total surface area was 4.5 m2, the maximum power output was 240 watts, and efficiency rose to 5% – similar to the first solar panel presented by Bell Labs. [18]"

Sadly, reference #18 does not actually list a reference but a statement by t Mr. Cove which is impossible as he is currently deceased.