Abel Pifre Quotes
There is little doubt that such a solar engine will be a boon to the population of hot areas which so often suffer from a shortage of fuel.
Of great surprise to most people, there were actual working solar powered engines invented in the latter part of the 19th century. In this famous demonstration, Pifre printed with a large rotary printing press 500 copies of a new magazine. The printing press was powered by a 2 horsepower steam engine which in turn was driven by the solar heat from a parabolic “dish” which focused the sun’s rays on a 50 gallon boiler. Despite a cloudy day, the solar engine took only 50 minutes to heat to a boil and then printed all afternoon. Much of the most effective uses of Solar power uses the concentrated heat of the sun to heat water or some other substance like this device. The vast majority of the hot water heaters in Israel function on this principle—no electricity or any other fossil fuel. John Ericsson of America also developed workable solar engines {635005}. Coal was the fuel that powered steam engines and would do so for electrical generators until oil was discovered. The coal, oil and gas was less expensive however but there were areas that did not have fuel and before oil and gas were discovered, these men thought that at some point the coal would run out. The only reason that the solar engines of the time were more costly where fuel was available is that no one realized the huge environmental consequence of the fossil fuels. Today we do realize that but do not charge the oil and gas companies and consumers to cover the costs of fixing what we know about and are able to remedy. Solar powered equipment is not a modern invention however and has been with us for well over a century.
Abel Pifre, 1852-1928, French Engineer, Statement when demonstrating a practical solar powered engine, Jardin des Tuileries, France, August 6, 1882, Quoted in Scientific American, May 1882
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {635006} for a slightly earlier French solar engine. Much of the most effective uses of Solar power uses the concentrated heat of the sun to heat water or some other substance like this device. The vast majority of the hot water heaters in Israel function on this principle—no electricity or any other fossil fuel. The only reason that the solar engines of the time were more costly where fuel was available is that no one realized the huge environmental consequence of the fossil fuels. Today we do realize that but do not charge the oil and gas companies and consumers to cover the costs of fixing what we know about and are able to remedy. Solar powered equipment is not a modern invention however and has been with us for well over a century. Paul Collins wrote “He calculated that solar power cost about ten times as much as coal, so that until coal began to run out, solar power would not be economically feasible. But this, to him, was not a sign of failure—there was no question that fossil fuels would indeed run out someday. The great engineer maintained an unshakeable belief in the future of solar power to his last breath; he had set up a large engine in his backyard and was still perfecting it when he collapsed in early 1889. Though his doctor made him rest, Ericsson could not sleep at night: he complained that he could not stop thinking about his work yet to be done.” The only reason that the solar engines of the time were more costly where fuel was available is that no one realized the huge environmental consequence of the fossil fuels. Today we do realize that, but do not charge the oil and gas companies and therefore consumers cover the costs of fixing what we know about and are able to remedy. Solar powered equipment is not a modern invention however and has been with us for well over a century.
Statement when Chile built the first large scale Solar Powered Electric Generating facility in one of its deserts. The cost of electricity was less than half of that of the then existing generation with carbon based fuels like oil or natural gas, It was a major breakthrough bacuase while solor power was always clean and infinte, it had been more expensive to generate than carbon based power sources. The consinuous improvement in the solar collecting techno;ogy, the large scale of the Chlean facility and the terrific desert location combined to not only make solor power less expsnsive, but much less expensive than fossil fuels.
Lott, like many other reasonably intelligent people who understood little about technology, did not realize that all the early efforts with a technology are relatively primitive and even the best ideas have to be engineered to scale and cost efficiency. A decade later, solar energy had become a significant industry in the work and the United States, which had invented many of the early technologies had lost the international lead in Solar Energy to Germany and China. The ultimate value of any technology cannot be judged by the initial technological efforts.
The American public did not accept the need for conservation during Carter’s administration. Carter and many people then thought the major problem was that we were running out of fossil fuels. With shale gas and other techniques there was much more fuel that was suspected. However, the real problem was clean fuel and carbon causing global warming. So wind, solar and other “clean” energy sources have become very inporantant.
Abel Pifre (1852–1928), was a French engineer who developed the first solar power printing press. He was initially an assistant to Augustin Bernard Mouchot who developed the first solar engine, but later developed solar technologies independently of his mentor.
