UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #33
DUFFIE, JOHN A.

DUFFIE, John A. (1925-2005)
Graduate Student; Professor of Chemical Engineering 
At UW: 1954-1988

Interviewed: 1976	 
Interviewer: Donna Taylor
Indexed (time code) by: Haochen Wang
Length: 2 hours (02:02:59)

Background; Symposium on solar energy; Attitudes toward research in 1950s and 1960s; Work of Farrington Daniels in Solar Energy Laboratory after retirement; International Solar Energy Society; Life expectancy of solar energy system; History of Solar Energy program; WARF; Money brought into UW by Solar Energy program; Accomplishments of program.

Tape 1/Side 1 

00:00:04	Reason for coming to Wisconsin and previous activities.

00:03:25	Bob Marshall's invitation to help start solar energy.

00:04:47	Came to UW December 1953.  Symposium on Solar Energy organized by Farrington Daniels, September 1953.

00:06:05	The original solar energy committee and its members.

00:06:40	The book Solar Energy Research, a collection of the papers at the symposium.  

00:08:17	Location of the program.  Rockefeller funding set direction of research.  Research in Mexico, Latin America, Pakistan.

00:10:58	Some failures.  Effort to develop a solar cooker for use in India as a substitute for burning of dung.  Dan Dunham. 

00:14:03	Solar cooker successful at the lab itself. Trying them out in Mexico. Realizing the need to understand the sociological aspect of an innovation.

00:17:25	Work with Milton Barnett in anthropology and his students.

00:19:17	Amount and distribution of Rockefeller money.

00:19:47	Work on absorption cooling.  Developed a refrigerator. Worked but too difficult for layman to operate. 

00:23:51	Conclusion: Better to work on community scale. 

00:24:52	Work on continuous absorption cooling--late fifties, early sixties.

00:26:16	Consequences of research under Rockefeller money.

00:28:12	How JAD would go about it if could begin again.

00:28:53	People in program.  George Worth, Denver.  

00:30:13	Work in Denver.  Dale Fester.  

00:31:03	End of side. 

Tape 1/Side 2

00:31:04	Dale Fester.  Duane Williams, selective surfaces.  Ray Chung, cooling experiments.

00:32:55	Attitudes to solar energy in US in fifties and sixties.  Comparison of AEC and solar energy budgets in US (one year to five minutes).  NSF gave some support. 

00:35:27	Work on solar cells.  Bill Beckman.

00:39:08	1963 a Fulbright to University of Queensland, Australia.  Use of analogue computer.  Had money from WARF also.

00:43:18	Funding nonexistent 1965-71.  Reasons.  Atomic energy research as a factor.

00:46:51	Beckman's work with Warren Porter in zoology.  Two of his students.  Work on a Reid Bryson project.

00:49:00	JAD director University Industrial Research Program and associate dean of graduate school.

00:49:48	Farrington Daniels' work in solar energy lab especially after retirement.

00:51:32	1970, 1971--plans for reviving solar program.  Got NSF grant for methods of predicting behavior of heating and cooling processes.  Student research.  Use of digital computer.  Larry Butts MA thesis outstanding.  Sandy Klein, recent Ph.D., has international reputation.

00:58:16	More on Sandy Klein and TRANSYS.

00:58:58	Farrington Daniels became ill.  His concern about the atom bomb.  Devoted himself to solar energy research.  Wanted to concentrate on developing countries.  JAD and Beckman wanted to get it accepted in US.  His influence.

01:02:42	End of side.  End of tape.

End of Mp3 File.

Tape 2/Side 1

00:00:07	International Solar Energy Society.  Daniels was president, kept it out of debt during lean period.

00:01:36	JAD's conversations with Daniels during his last illness.  More on his influence.

00:03:30	Solar Energy program as of 1976.  Outstanding in country.  Due to Beckman and to having first class students.

00:06:24	TRANSYS, solar energy program.  Visitors from abroad.  Peter Cooper from Australia and Don Close from Australia--open cycle cooling systems.  JAD to Australia for six months in November.

00:10:06	Design method.

00:11:10	ERDA money (NSF) now.

00:11:47	Experimental house at Arlington, Wisconsin.  Source of funds for Arlington, Wisconsin and equipment.  Finished fall 1976.

00:13:43	Interest of utilities in solar energy.  Problem of peak loads.

00:15:34	More on open cycle cooling.  John Mitchell.  Said Abdel-Khalik.

00:17:36	Predictions on cost of current sources of energy and comments on US use of energy out of proportion.

00:22:42	One solar heated house in Madison.  Bought from new company.  High cost.  A few banks are developing expertise on solar energy heating costs in preparation for mortgages.  Question of tax incentives. 

00:26:45	Cost of installing will go down.

00:30:09	General discussion of energy; life expectancy of solar energy system. 

00:31:11	End of side.  

Tape 2/Side 2

00:31:16	Scope of program here compared with others around country.

00:34:22	History of solar energy program.

00:40:57	Relationship of program to Engineering Experiment Station and other engineering departments.

00:41:57	Relations with L&S departments.

00:43:32	JAD's work in graduate school.  Began when he became director UW Industry Research Program, carried with it associate deanship in graduate school.  JAD worked on research support.  Was on research committee; member of UIR for six years. 

00:45:05	More on job in grad school.

00:47:39	Views on WARF.

00:52:48	Relation to budget crisis. Main problem is to attract first class graduate students.

00:54:45	Money the program has brought into UW--Rockefeller, ERDA.  

00:56:15	Accomplishments of the program as part of UW. 

01:01:17 	End of interview.

END