Comments on: Where voices are powered by the sun (Jan, 1956)

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:28:38 +0000

Lana: What should it look like? You’re confusing technology with design. Technology of solar cell efficiency continues to advance http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....921%29.jpg

A collection of thin solar cells pointed at the Sun, what should that look like today? Tail fins, or maybe a racing stripe?

I don’t understand your choices offered of technology not advancing and power companies promoting electrically driven devices? I prefer electric irons myself, those gasoline powered irons always made me nervous. I could always use a flat iron heated on my pot bellied stove (if I had a pot bellied stove).

By: Lana

Lana — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:55:38 +0000

It amazes me that this looks exactly like the solar panels on power lines today. Has technology really not advanced that much? Or was it that power companies were actively promoting the most energy-intensive products, rather than the ones that saved or created energy? Some books about the history of electricity (e.g. Leslie Hannah, 1979) have noted how electric irons were actively promoted due to their high consumption.

By: Firebrand38

Firebrand38 — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:07:49 +0000

Bernd: I have no doubt. Maybe because it fits the dictionary definition of “battery” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Battery as in:
4 a : a combination of apparatus for producing a single electrical effect b : a group of two or more cells connected together to furnish electric current; also : a single cell that furnishes electric current .

Boy, you suck at this!

By: Bernd

Bernd — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:31:38 +0000

…and it is still beyond my comprehension why they would call it a solar “battery”.

By: Toronto

Toronto — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:37:49 +0000

That’s quite the array of anti-pigeon spikes on that solar panel.