Solar Power With Style

Solar energy got hot in the 1980s. The economic sting of the oil embargo was still fresh and the air was thick with tax credits, so Innovation Nation put on its thinking cap and began harvesting the resources that were literally falling from the sky: the 1,366 watts of solar energy that constantly rain down on every sunny square meter of earth. Smelling opportunity in those free-flowing photons, huge companies jumped into the sun business. In 1984, the energy giant ARCO teamed up with Fluor, the engineering conglomerate, to erect what was the largest solar farm in the world, a mammoth photovoltaic cluster in the California desert called Carrisa Plains. It was spectacularly unbeautiful -- 120 acres of blue-gray panels, bolted to concrete posts -- and even less efficient. And if its rumored $65 million cost was accurate, then each watt cost about $10, only to be sold to the local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, for pennies.

For further information: Fast Company