| Lost tonnages of atomic helium plunge from the sun in | | | | sun-machine was a failure; Syracuse fell to Rome, and |
| every direction as radiant energy every second. Our | | | | the distinguished inventor was slain. Modern devices |
| earth, a kind of pinhead in space, intercepts only one | | | | date from 1901, when the complicated Eneas "solar |
| two-billionths of the total solar output. This nevertheless | | | | generator" was patented. Eight years later, Boyle and |
| equals, in three minutes' time, the United States' annual | | | | Willsie reported a sun-machine with a stationary mirror, |
| consumption of power from all sources. In other words, | | | | a feature that practically guaranteed low heat of |
| in a single hour the earth receives solar power | | | | operation because of the oblique approach of the |
| equivalent to that produced by the burning of | | | | solar rays most of the time, and the low temperatures |
| twenty-one billion tons of bituminous coal. Is it surprising | | | | reached. Shortly before World War I, a group of |
| that inventors have dreamed of ensnaring the sun's | | | | enthusiasts organized Eastern Sun Power, Limited, and |
| rays? Few projects have seemed so enticing...or have | | | | erected a plant on the banks of the Nile. Their idea |
| proved so disappointing. | | | | was to capture sun-power for irrigation. The war |
| The key to most failures to harness solar power lies | | | | interrupted this activity, and operations were never |
| mainly in the inefficiency of the devices. Energy rated | | | | resumed. America's best-known helio-scientist is Dr. |
| at 1.5 horsepower per square yard arrives from the | | | | Charles G. Abbot, retired secretary of the Smithsonian |
| sun, but by the time it has passed to utilization its | | | | Institution. |
| strength has dropped to 0.1 horsepower per square | | | | Analyzing his predecessors' failures, he spent a lifetime |
| yard, or less. To utilize sun-power thus becomes a real | | | | producing sun-mirrors of improved potential. By 1941, Dr. |
| problem. It must be focused, collected and stored, and | | | | Abbot had raised the efficiency of solar devices to 15 |
| all of these requirements have given trouble. For | | | | per cent. With his solar oven, patented that year, one |
| centuries men have experimented with the mirror to | | | | can bake bread or cook a dinner. Two years later, he |
| devise one whose magical curvature can trap enough | | | | announced that any western state-such as New |
| of the fugitive beams to ensure an efficient | | | | Mexico-using machines of the "type now in existence," |
| concentration of solar heat. An early tradition, nearly as | | | | could furnish from solar radiation "more power than is |
| hoary as that of Apollo himself, tells of huge mirrors | | | | now used for heat, light, transportation and |
| erected by the mathematician Archimedes to set the | | | | manufacturing in the United States, and at a cost not |
| besieging Roman navy aflame at Syracuse in 212 B. C. | | | | perhaps exceeding the present cost of power from |
| Like most of its successors, this legendary | | | | coal. |
