Abstract
Women have contributed to the development of renewable resources since pre-history. The women we know about, however, are all from the modern era. They include science popularizers Jane Haldimand Marcet and Mary Fairfax Somerville; science writer and educator Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps; and computer software pioneer Ada Byron Lovelace. After the invention of electricity, several women contributed to renewable energy and the development of the electric grid including engineers and physicists: Bertha Lamme, Edith Clarke, Mabel MacFerran Rockwell, and Maria Telkes. Since the latter half of the twentieth century, women have contributed through service to the U.S. Department of Energy, as entrepreneurs and employees of renewable energy companies, and as government employees working on technology. Information on these pioneering women in renewables is presented in this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
Pioneering physicist Michael Faraday produced the first electrical generators and motors. The farad, the unit of electrical capacitance, was named for him. He introduced the terms “electrolyte” and “ions” into our scientific vocabulary.
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Tietjen, J.S. (2023). Pioneering Women in Renewable Energy. In: Wang, K.T., Tietjen, J.S. (eds) Women in Renewable Energy. Women in Engineering and Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28543-1_1
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