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Hah. Interesting that he predicted large scale solar PV deployments too. (In my mind, that's an even more impressive prediction given the state/cost of PV tech

by davedx 9y ago

Hah. Interesting that he predicted large scale solar PV deployments too. (In my mind, that's an even more impressive prediction given the state/cost of PV tech in the 60's). Even more interesting, I would say (though who knows) this power mix he predicted (nuclear + solar) will be much closer to what we end up with on Mars, which he also made predictions about.

eesmith 9y ago
No, he didn't. You are reading too much into his prediction because you know the outcome. He wrote: "Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas -- Arizona, the Negev, Kazakhstan." There's nothing in the prediction which implies that the solar power would be based on PV. I think there's a higher likelihood he was thinking of heliostats. Solar One, a solar thermal power plant built in Mojave Desert, produced 10MW of electricity back in the 1980s.
- davedx 9y ago
  > I think there's a higher likelihood he was thinking of heliostats. You mean CSP? Why do you think that? Silicon PV was available in the 1960's and widely used in the space program. It's been around for longer than the first CSP plant that was built 4 years after Asimov made his predictions in 1964. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#cite_note-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#cite_...
  - eesmith 9y ago
    Because solar power is older than that CSP. For example, Mouchot's work on solar power in the the 1870s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Mouchot#Solar_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Mouchot#Solar_researc... . His machine generated steam that could be used for mechanical power. At that point it's trivial to produce electricity. It just won't be cheap electricity. In 1941 Asimov wrote the short story "Reason", which took place in a solar power satellite which beamed power down to Earth. He at this time wasn't thinking about PV, because it didn't meaningfully exist, and the story only talks about a "converter". (The station is also a mile across, and in solar orbit.) There's another SF book I read, probably written in the 1950s, about building such a power plant in Earth orbit. It used a mirror to heat up material in its focus to generate power. (One of the side plots of the story was that some TV show was being filmed on the construction site, and the lead actor, in a space suit, almost drifted through the invisible focus.) This is why I'm sure that SF at the time didn't say that solar power stations had to be PV. I looked around for something more definitive. In 1981 Asimov wrote "How Did We Find About Solar Power", available at https://archive.org/stream/HowDidWeFindAboutSolarPower-English-IsaacAsimov/solarpix#page/n0/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/HowDidWeFindAboutSolarPower-Engli... . That booklet predicts PV use for the future. (It's also where I learned specifically about Mouchot's work.) In the 1980s he know the cost of PV power was growing ever cheaper. What it doesn't answer is what Asimov thought in the 1960s. He might simply have left it open, as he did in "Reason". So, I could be wrong about my belief. But it's surely not obvious that Asimov is specifically predicting PV over other possibilities that he reasonably know about.

by davedx 9y ago

eesmith 9y ago

No, he didn't. You are reading too much into his prediction because you know the outcome. He wrote: "Large solar-power stations will also be in operation in a number of desert and semi-desert areas -- Arizona, the Negev, Kazakhstan." There's nothing in the prediction which implies that the solar power would be based on PV. I think there's a higher likelihood he was thinking of heliostats. Solar One, a solar thermal power plant built in Mojave Desert, produced 10MW of electricity back in the 1980s.

davedx 9y ago
> I think there's a higher likelihood he was thinking of heliostats. You mean CSP? Why do you think that? Silicon PV was available in the 1960's and widely used in the space program. It's been around for longer than the first CSP plant that was built 4 years after Asimov made his predictions in 1964. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#cite_note-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#cite_...
- eesmith 9y ago
  Because solar power is older than that CSP. For example, Mouchot's work on solar power in the the 1870s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Mouchot#Solar_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin_Mouchot#Solar_researc... . His machine generated steam that could be used for mechanical power. At that point it's trivial to produce electricity. It just won't be cheap electricity. In 1941 Asimov wrote the short story "Reason", which took place in a solar power satellite which beamed power down to Earth. He at this time wasn't thinking about PV, because it didn't meaningfully exist, and the story only talks about a "converter". (The station is also a mile across, and in solar orbit.) There's another SF book I read, probably written in the 1950s, about building such a power plant in Earth orbit. It used a mirror to heat up material in its focus to generate power. (One of the side plots of the story was that some TV show was being filmed on the construction site, and the lead actor, in a space suit, almost drifted through the invisible focus.) This is why I'm sure that SF at the time didn't say that solar power stations had to be PV. I looked around for something more definitive. In 1981 Asimov wrote "How Did We Find About Solar Power", available at https://archive.org/stream/HowDidWeFindAboutSolarPower-English-IsaacAsimov/solarpix#page/n0/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/HowDidWeFindAboutSolarPower-Engli... . That booklet predicts PV use for the future. (It's also where I learned specifically about Mouchot's work.) In the 1980s he know the cost of PV power was growing ever cheaper. What it doesn't answer is what Asimov thought in the 1960s. He might simply have left it open, as he did in "Reason". So, I could be wrong about my belief. But it's surely not obvious that Asimov is specifically predicting PV over other possibilities that he reasonably know about.