Solar power is often seen as a new technology, but here is Abel Pifre’s solar-powered printing press
Solar power is often seen as a new technology, but here is Abel Pifre’s solar-powered printing press, from Scientific American, 1882. Beginning in the 1860s, mostly French inventors like Pifre’s mentor, Augustin Mouchot, had seen the possibility of boiling water (in the center of the ring of mirrors) to turn a turbine with heat from the sun instead of coal or oil. The potential for solar power was discarded by people at the time, who saw it as too unreliable and expensive. -- source link
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