Submitted 8 months ago by PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-solar-entrepreneur-hadnt-kidnapped-fossil.html
The first commercial PV solar product was nah just in 1909.
See story above, and original article in Modern Electrics magazine in 1909:
I did not read any of your linked articles, but the answer is yes, fossil fuels most certainly would have dominated the 20th century because they are:
LOL sorry bro
That being said, free electricity is free electricity. There are so many use cases for distributed small power systems, particularly in rural areas. I would bet that early solar could have found widespread use while yes, fossil fuels would still have dominated.
It’s not free though, solar panels back then would be prohibitively expensive to get any amount of useful power out of them
I fully agree. In cities and places with a grid, fossil fuels will absolutely dominate, while rural grids/independent homeowners could use solar. However, I do think the cost of acquiring such panels could be prohibitively expensive for some rural homeowners.
These solar panels must have been using some older technology fundamentally different from the one used in current solar panels because the PN junction, basis of the photocell, was not invented until 1939
Likey also didn’t contain rare earth minerals - no where near as effective but could have been less damaging and easier to make.
Then again, could have been a combination of arsenic, asbestos and cocaine so who knows.
I was too curious:
Cove’s device was a sort of thermocouple, and thus not based on newly-discovered natural processes or scientific principles. In the patent application the device was described as follows: A thermo-electric battery and appurtenances comprising a block of incombustible, non-conductive material, a series of pairs of elements comprising a plurality of elements formed of an alloy of antinomy and zinc, and a plurality of elements connecting said antinomy and zinc elements, said elements connecting said first-mentioned elements being alternatively of copper and of an alloy of nickel, copper and zinc.
I want to read more about this, as there is some speculation that the guy may have invented an actual PV panel. Difficult to say without more research… He was also a prolific inventor.
Photoelectric efficiency was pretty bad back then. It had only been discovered in 1887. Einstein had just studied the photoelectric effect in 1905 and won a Nobel prize for analyzing it in 1921.
It wasn’t like getting rid of the guy would’ve destroyed knowledge about it or the potential for the business. The devices were listed in the patent office and the technology was public knowledge. It just couldn’t compete with cheaper and more energy dense sources like oil. Electric cars were a thing even in the late 1800s but the technology was so poor they lost to internal combustion.
Interestingly, my parents remember electric milk delivery trucks in the 1950s & 60s.
The technology could have been improved if there was investment. Just look how much has been invested in ice vehicle drivetrains… It’s a wonder they work at all!
Yes.
Doubtful. 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)
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.”
Here’s a whole lot more detailed information with sources:
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]”
ITT: people who didn’t read past the headline
Maybe, but the result is the same. The arguments in the article sound good but aren't really that compelling. The points people make here are good.
This is one of the rare cases where the answer to a headline question is "yes"
Put up a shitty leading headline and this is what you’ll get.
You weren’t allowed to put your own headline up for these types of posts.
With other people who didn’t read past the title agreeing despite literally saying “I did not read any of the articles but here’s my opinion”
luthis@lemmy.nz 8 months ago
I think it would have played out roughly the same. Energy density of fossil fuels is ahead of everything, along with it’s portability. Not to mention no one knew or cared about environmental issues then.
Might have made the transition easier though.
topinambour_rex@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Some cared or questionned it. A local newspaper which is more than a century old, republished some old articles. One of those was about the coal consumption, how luch they comsumed back then, and how it would be consumed in the incoming decades, and asked what was going to be the outcome.
In the 30s, some english scientist pointed the raise of temperature too. It was minimal, but visible.
PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Exxon had detailed climate change predictions in the 1970s:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063