The Association for Applied Solar Energy/Solar Energy Society, 1954-1970

Abstract

In the early 1950s, a segment of the American business and scientific community, having concluded that the United States was eventually going to run out of fossil fuels, began advocating solar energy as an answer to the nation's long-term energy needs. A key role on behalf of the new technology was assumed by the Association for Applied Solar Energy, established in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 17, 1954; the AFASE sought to generate public interest in solar energy development, expand research, and encourage the commercial application of solar power to industrial and residential needs. A decade later the noted solar energy specialist Farrington Daniels wrote to one of the association's founders that the AFASE has been the largest factor in the development of solar energy utilizaton. A look at the history of the association provides insights into the problems of developing a new technology, as well as an unusual example of cooperation among scientists, engineers, educators, and businessmen in that development.'