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"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov

Solar Power Generation  
  A very early description of the use of solar powered 'farms' for generating electrical power on a large scale.  

Steam-boilers are also placed at the foci of huge concave mirrors, often a hundred feet in diameter, the required heat being supplied by the sun, without smoke, instead of by bulky and dirty coal. This discovery gave commercial value to Sahara and other tropical deserts, which are now desirable for mill-sites and for generating power, on account of the directness with which they receive the sun's rays and their freedom from clouds.
Technovelgy from A Journey In Other Worlds, by John Jacob Astor IV.
Published by D. Appleton and Co. in 1894
Additional resources -

Compare to Helio-Dynamophores (Sun-Power-Generators) from Ralph 124c 41 + (1911) by Hugo Gernsback.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from A Journey In Other Worlds
  More Ideas and Technology by John Jacob Astor IV
  Tech news articles related to A Journey In Other Worlds
  Tech news articles related to works by John Jacob Astor IV

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'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'

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'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.

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