Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

by Paul Hawken

Silicon PV technology was discovered by accident in the 1950s, alongside the invention of the silicon transistor that is present in almost every electronic device used today. That work happened under the auspices of the United States’ Bell Labs, accelerated by a search for sources of distributed power that could work in hot, humid, remote locations, where batteries might fail and the grid would not reach. Silicon, the Bell scientists found, was a major improvement over the selenium that had been standard for experimental solar panels since the late 1800s. It achieved more than a tenfold rise in efficiency of converting light to electricity. In the 1954 debut of the Bell “solar battery,” a tiny panel of silicon cells powered a twenty-one-inch Ferris wheel and then a radio transmitter. Small as they were, the demos duly impressed the press. The New York Times proclaimed it might mark “the beginning of a new era, leading eventually to the realization of one of mankind’s most cherished dreams—the harnessing of the almost limitless energy of the sun for the uses of civilization.”