Link History Guide to the Early 20th Century Solar Engine

Transactions of the American Electrochemcial Society
THE CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION OF NATURALSOURCES OF POWER
By John H. Finney,
Secretary of the Appalachian National Forest Association. Kind of a fascinating little work bringing the conservation ethos to energy, etc.

Technical world magazine
“WHEN our coal fields are exhausted of their stored carbon, science will convert water into light and heat, and [...]

links for 2009-09-25

Missouri wind speeds for energy production lower than predicted
Oops: "In a two-year study, MU atmospheric scientist Neil Fox gathered data from 10 wind towers across the state. At 100 meters (230 feet) above ground level, the height at which wind turbines operate, wind speeds averaged between 0.1 and 1 meter per second slower than estimated [...]

links for 2009-09-18

History of thermodynamics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sometimes Wikipedia is awesome. This is a great article.
(tags: Science)

1899: “I think compressed air is the coming motive power”

19th Century – Physics
Strange, unbylined treatise on the fabulous possibilities of compressed air.
(tags: compressedair)

N.J. venture uses compressed air to store energy | Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/09/2009
(tags: compressedair)

Compressed air: Experiments upon the the Transmission of Power by Compressed Air in Paris
Here’s the set of experiments that gave compressed air backers hope that they would win out [...]

Delicious Links for 2009-09-08

China and U.S. Company Plan a Big Solar Project – NYTimes.com
Chinese government officials signed an agreement on Tuesday with First Solar, an American solar developer, for a 2,000-megawatt photovoltaic farm to be built in the Mongolian desert. Set for completion in 2019, the First Solar project represents the world’s biggest photovoltaic power plant project to [...]

Delicious Links for 2009-09-07

The Land of sunshine – Google Books
A visit to Potencia Beach to see the Wright Wave Motor
(tags: wavepower ParvinWright)

Unlimited Electric Power in Overland Monthly
“WONDERFUL as are the wireless telegraph the Bell telephone and the Mergenthaler typesetting machine which set civilization forward nearly a century within the past decade there comes now a remarkable invention made [...]

The City That Has Fallen

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was the Katrina of its day. Commentators the country over held forth on what The City meant. Perhaps the most stylish of these was The City That Has Fallen by William Marion Reedy, a St. Louis editor who’d never seen the place. I ran across it in a slim [...]

Primary Sources on Wave Motor History in California

As you can see, I’m still researching wave motors, particularly their development along the California coast line at the turn of the century. I’m particularly interested in the pods of inventors in San Francisco and Los Angeles from about 1890-1910.
These 11 men each had at least part of a wave power patent assigned to him [...]

Introducing the Inventing Green Wave Power Patent Database

Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, people started trying to invent machines that could transform the force of the waves into useful mechanical power for driving machines. Given the success harnessing river power and the relative lack of horsepower availability outside the big industrial cities until the turn of the century, inventors had [...]

The Wave Motor Craze of the 1890s

Ahem, as you can see from the links below, I’ve begun the detail work on my chapter on early wave motors. I’m building a wave power patent database based on a collection at Berkeley’s Water Resources Center Archive, which I’ll be posting shortly. For, let it suffice to say that 102 patents (!) were granted [...]