Solar power: the future, the present and the past

I recenty discovered a blog called Paleofuture which specializes in retro-futurism, visions of a perfect, high-tech future that never really was (or did not materialize as expected).

One of the posts in the blog harks back to the WWII period when fears over the future was real. The apocalypse was nigh, it seemed. The blog links to an article by one Dr Frank Thone in which he imagines a future powered with solar energy. The article was published in 1942 and is available on an embeddable Scribd file (see below).

â€œWhen the world stops destroying and starts rebuilding, vast new sources of power will be needed. Can the sun supply that demand?â€ the author asks.

In the face of the ongoing Gulf oil spill, this question remains pressingly relevant, not only in relation to solar power, of course, but also in relation to other clean sources of renewable energy, such as wind and geothermal.

1942 March 22 Galveston Daily News – Galveston TX paleofuture