Harold R. Hay: Solar Pioneer
(Page 2 of 17)
September/October 1976
By Mother Earth News Editors
PLOWBOY: Mr. Hay, we always like to start at the beginning with these things ... so let's do that, if you don't mind. Where and when were you born ?
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HAY: I was born in 1909 in Spokane, Washington. Most people today think of the city by its Chamber of Commerce designation, "Hub of the Inland Empire" or "Capital of the Inland Empire" . . . something of that nature. But, to me, it's always been Spokane ... derived from the Salish Indian word, spokanee, which means "sun". "City of the Sun". That's the way I always think of my home town ... and maybe that's influenced my life's work just a little bit.
PLOWBOY: Well you've certainly become known for your involvement with the sun. Did you originally set out to be a solar energy pioneer!
HAY: No, I went to the University of Wisconsin to study chemistry and found myself taking an extremely interdisciplinary course. Before I knew it I was minoring in biology, botany, plant physiology, plant pathology, bacteriology, and even engineering.
I found this all very stimulating. So stimulating, in fact, that—while still in my freshman year—I came up with the concept of preserving wood by mixing sodium silicate and an acid to get a precipitate of silic acid. My idea, you see, was to impregnate wood with the two solutions to get a precipitate that would make the wood fireproof and decayproof ... "petrified", if you will.
When I took this concept over to the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory, I was lucky enough to talk to a man who was really an extraordinary teacher. He already knew that the idea had been patented in 1860 but he didn't tell me that. He just asked if I'd researched all the previous work in the field. When I answered that I hadn't, he said, "Well, you go over to the library and start digging into the patents that might have a similarity to this idea of yours, and we'll give you some help whenever you need it."
Eventually, of course, I did find the 1860 patent for "my" idea and—as might be expected—I was kind of disappointed ... especially when I learned that the concept hadn't worked as well as expected. But my mentor just said, "Go on. Study further. Maybe you'll be able to solve the problems that stumped your predecessor."
So I did go on. And the next year I came up with another idea that my guide thought was very good. I combined some of the things I had learned in plant pathology with some known facts about wood preservatives and came up with a way to make the fungi that attacked wood, in effect, commit suicide with their own secretions. My advisor over in the Forest Products Lab liked that and asked me what I'd need to develop the concept. And I told him and he suggested that I get in touch with my professor and there I was—a sophomore—given the keys to the chemistry building! As a result, I've been in research ever since.
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