ABSTRACT
One of the greatest achievements at the turn of the 20th century in the field of solar energy was invented by Manuel Antonio Gomes, a Jesuit Priest. The device, a solar concentrator named the “Pyreheliophoro,” won the Grand Prize at the 1904 World Fair, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Gomes, born in 1868 to a poor family in Northern Portugal (nicknamed Himalaya because of his height), attended Catholic Seminary as a way to get an education. While he never received a high level of academic instruction, his strong aptitude for physics, chemistry, mechanics, and botony has left lasting contributions in those fields. In Paris, Gomes studied under Berthelot, Violle, and Moissan. His motivation for the study of solar energy germinated from an idea for synthesizing fertilizers using nitrogen present in air. With these desirably cheap and abundant fertilizers he wanted to feed the poor and rural Portuguese population and the rest of the world. Gomes felt the fertilizer synthesis could be achieved with high temperatures coming from high solar concentration, as did other researchers of the day. He initiated a long process of devising new ways of concentrating solar radiation. It started with a metallic lens of the Fresnel type, culminating with the Pyreheliophoro, which was capable of producing a sustained temperature of 3,800ºC, which was the highest temperature ever produced with solar energy at that time. Unfortunately, his work had little chance to survive in the dawning of the oil era. He went on to invent and develop other remarkable ideas, including an explosive called 466himalayite and a rotary steam engine. He became member of The Portuguese Academy of Sciences and his voice was known as truly original, as he proclaimed concepts which made him a true ecologist “avant la lettre,” defending concepts like what we today call sustainable development. This truly remarkable man died in 1933, probably a victim of his own botanical experiments. The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the St. Louis Grand Prize in 2004 is an excellent reason to bring the man and, in particular, his solar energy achievements to the attention of the solar community.
