Solar Futures: The View from 1952

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The history of solar energy is full of predictions or "possibilities" that were not realized and appear in retrospect to have been too-wishful.  Here's an example which I mentioned in The Solar House.  In 1952, the Paley Commission completed a five-volume report entitled Resources for Freedom, which predicted future oil shortages, warned against dependence on imports, and recommended a national energy agency.  It included a section called “The Possibilities of Solar Energy”, written by Palmer Putnam:

"Of new dwelling units to be built in the United States by 1975 ... functionally designed for solar heating ... the maximum plausible market may be more than 13 million installations ... supporting about 10 percent of the national energy system."

In fact, by 1975, solar energy was such an insignificant fraction of the national energy supply that it could not be quantified (pdf source), although this type of analysis is subject to The Clothesline Paradox.

Previously:
Solar Futures: The View from 1978
Solar Futures: The View from 1973

Shakespeare's solar geometry

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My friend John Perlin is a leading expert regarding ancient peoples' knowledge of solar principles.  He recently alerted me to this passage in Shakespeare's The Life and Death of Julius Caesar (1695).

source: archive.org

source: archive.org

Perlin is impressed by Shakespeare's high awareness of solar geometry.  Casca tells Decius Brutus, Cinna, and Cassius that the sun rises South-of-east (in Winter), but in the "youthful season" (Spring) it will rise North-of-east.

Perlin wrote the excellent Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy (2013), which built upon and revised his landmark A Golden Thread: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology (1980).

Sunlight Towers, Lawrence Kocher, 1929

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Here's an interesting project which was sun-responsive but not solar heated.  Therefore I place projects like this in the category of heliotherapeutic architecture as distinct from solar architecture.  (This is not a value judgement; it discerns that the architecture is not concerned with solar heating and therefore not designed strategically with regard to orientation and solar geometry.  Kocher is interested in sunlight for health and hygiene.)

The fact that Sunlight Towers was was sun-responsive but not solar heated is indicated by the large amount of glass, with corner windows in all major rooms, placed in every direction, irrespective of orientation.  Kocher oriented the towers at forty-five degree angles to the urban grid.  He sought daylight (and cross-ventilation) but did not optimize to gather solar heat and protect against the cold north.  This is classic 1920s architecture, influenced by the sanatorium movement and Le Corbusier.

The project was not built.  This was published in Architectural Record in March 1929 (just before the Great Depression).

Had it been built, it would have used a large amount of energy, and it would have been quite uncomfortable, by later standards.

See also: Le Corbusier and the Sun

2017 Solar Decathlon: Denver

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News: The 2017 Solar Decathlon will be held in suburban Denver.  Link

When the contest was held in Irvine, California, I complained: "This is a significant and disappointing decision because it confirms that the contest is about solar electricity, not solar heating.  In Irvine in October, the average temperature is 64˚F, practically room temperature!  ... Why not hold the contest in Minneapolis a month later?"

In October in Denver, the average temperature is 49˚F (High - 65; Low - 36).  Heating will be needed!

See also:
Help Wanted: The Solar Decathlon
Too Expensive: The Solar Decathlon
#SD2015
The Solar Decathlon: Back to Irvine
The “Shading Decathlon”?