Archive Gallery: A Century of Progress in Renewable Energy
July 1941 PopSci reminisces about the tornado turbine, the marine kelp farm, polar windmills, and other renewable energy generators that promised to overthrow conventional fuel sources Although the issues of climate change and crude oil have received plenty of media coverage over the past decade, scientists have been working for over a century to develop technology capable of replacing conventional fuels with renewable energy. You could even argue that society has attempted to harness renewable energy since ancient times. Over the past 138 years, Popular Science has seen engineers adapt Dutch windmills into wind turbines, water mills into commercial tidal power facilities, and Roman hot spring-powered underfloor heating systems into geothermal electric power plants. Click to launch the photo gallery. Going by the illustrations in our archives, however, most early prototypes of those facilities only vaguely resemble today's wind farms and solar power plants. There were plenty of things engineers...