The Long and Fascinating History of Solar Energy
Here are all 10 parts of a video I recorded recently on the history of solar energy. It’s an interview with John Perlin, author and scholar-in-residence in the physics department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. John is best known for his highly acclaimed book “Let It Shine! — The 6000 Year Story of Solar Energy.” I certainly learned a great deal from the discussions, and I hope you will too.
I’ve been making my way through the book, and it really is excellent. A great number of my heroes in the field of environmentalism and sustainability, people like Lester Brown, Jeremy Rifkin, and Amory Lovins have written glowing endorsements, and I can see why. It’s very well researched and documented, and presented in an interesting and accessible manner.
I did this with my cell phone, so don’t expect it to look like it came from Steven Spielberg, but I believe you’ll find the content to be of value.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOeEWzXZPAE]
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDanlQDul0&w=640&h=480]
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8_-4HDQ7yQ&w=640&h=480]
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btOrEq_VSPw&w=640&h=480]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJp01Czyq04&w=640&h=480]
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing posting this!
Thanks, Howard. My pleasure. Perlin’s quite a guy, as I’m sure you recognized.
And again WordPress has screwed me over refusing to let me post a comment, seriously Craig I typed a 200 word comment and then wordpress shut me out. but I have the last laugh because wordpress refused it let me change my password to one I used three years ago, i set it to,” F**K-wordpress” and vented my irritation as laughter…Seriously a comment is not a multi billion dollar transaction so the excessive security is blatant tedium and inhibits response, I just happen to be the only one who will tell you about it.
Thanks for another informative post. History is interesting, especially if you have lived through some of the times discussed.
Time will tell how much man will be affected and/or helped by the increased use and storage of renewable energy. Elon Musk has already shown what is possible by the development of SolarCity which is providing renewable energy to individuals and commercial sites. His supercharging stations will provide more renewable energy to be fed into the grid for individuals and businesses, in addition to the free energy provided for the Tesla Model S here in the US, in Europe and Asia. Think of all the jobs that have been and will be created as the years go by and how much less pollution there will be because there will be more EVs in our future.
China may build Tesla EVs and would surely benefit from less pollution from internal combustion vehicles. It will be interesting to see the changes man, the environment and the planet will experience in the years to come.