xiv Preface
sense of panic among politicians, industrialists, engineers, and
the general populace was a suggestion by the engineer John
Ericsson (who is better known for his design of the Civil War
ship Monitor) that scientists begin to study the use of solar en-
ergy as an alternative energy source. “The field awaiting the
application of the solar engine is almost beyond computation,”
Ericsson once wrote, “while the source of its power is bound-
less. Who can foresee what influence an inexhaustible power
will exercise on civilization?”
Interest in solar energy in the United States blossomed in
the mid-1970s, when the Organization of Petroleum Export-
ing Countries (OPEC) declared an embargo on oil shipments
to countries that had supported Israel in the Arab–Israeli war
of 1973. Faced with a rapid and significant increase in the cost
of oil, Americans and citizens of other nations affected by the
embargo began to think about possible alternatives to oil as a
source of energy. For many experts in the field, the answer to
this challenge was solar energy. And during the 1970s, the U.S.
Congress passed a number of bills encouraging and supporting
the growth of solar energy facilities.
With the end of the OPEC embargo and the installation
of a Republican presidential administration with greater inter-
est in fossil fuels, interest in solar technology withered, not to
arise again until early in the twenty-first century. At this point,
concerns not only about the availability of fossil fuel supplies
but also about the environmental effects of burning coal, oil,
and natural gas once again forced solar energy to the forefront
of national policy making. Significant improvements in the ef-
ficiency of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and concentrating solar
energy systems also contributed to renewed enthusiasm for the
potential of solar energy as a factor in the nation’s energy equa-
tion in the near and more distant future.
The acceptance of solar energy by policy makers and the
general public has not been, however, unanimous and always
enthusiastic. A number of questions have been raised about
