Light Power: Half a Century of Solar Electricity Research

This book documents the development of solar electric power plants, reviewing their status during the decade that preceded the oil crisis of 1973 and spanning the approximately 40 years that followed. Its chapters contain, in historic order, a sequence of keynote lectures by specialists, each indicating what was considered to be important at the time. The lectures include important details of some systems that were successfully demonstrated but later abandoned due to economic considerations that may not be relevant in the future.
Contents: PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionSolar Power from the Perspective of 198619871988199119931997200120022015Afterword
Readership: Undergraduate and graduate students; research students; historians of science.Solar Power Systems;History of: Solar Ponds;CSP;Central Receiver;Power Tower;Parabolic Trough;Parabolic Dish;Solar Optics;Solar Economics;Solar Electric Power Technologies;Natural Resource Harvesting0Key Features:The authors of the chapters were all major players in the development of solar electric power systemsThe chapters contain technical details that are often skipped over in text booksThe chapters contain technical details about systems that were successfully demonstrated, but abandoned due to economic factors that may lose their relevance in the future