How Reagan destroyed solar energy and boosted oil

http://www.energybulletin.net/9657.html

"In June or July of 1981, on the bleakest day of my professional life, they descended on the Solar Energy Research Institute, fired about half of our staff and all of our contractors, including two people who went on to win Nobel prizes in other fields, and reduced our $130 million budget by $100 million," recalls Denis Hayes, the founder of Earth Day, who had been hired by Carter to spearhead the solar initiative.

SNIP

"The solar water heating industry instantly went from a billion-dollar industry to an industry that now installs, in the U.S., about 6,000 solar hot water heaters a year," said Noah Kaye, spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Had Reagan not squashed it, the research that Carter started could have triggered a substantial shift to solar, wind power and other renewable forms of energy - possibly providing as much as 25 percent of the nation's electricity supply, says Hayes, the Carter solar expert.

SNIP

I used to have a graph showing funding for renewable energy research under the Bush I administration. It was just a straight slope downwards.

Some graph.

If I were not..I could wish that piece of human garbage, Ronald Reagan, was in Hell.

Actually, I suspect Bush was the architect behind this. Reaan never had an original thought, good or bad, in his life. Carter's policies were a threat to Bush's Texas oil buddies. They worked hard for 12 years too keep us dependent on oil....there was too much money to be made hurting our long term national security interests. I wish people would understand that the problems we are facing today have their root in the original 1980 stolen election.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/03/solar.html

"It was the winter of 1981 and the country was just beginning to feel the sharp edges of the Reagan revolution. Denis Hayes, head of the fledgling Solar Energy Research Institute, was walking through the halls of the Department of Energy when an acquaintance came up to him and said, "Has Frank lowered the boom on you yet?" The Frank in question was an acting assistant secretary, but the boom, it turned out, was falling from the top. President Reagan had once been General Electric's most camera-ready tout, and his administration viewed alternative energy with open scorn. "They're going to kill your study," the gray-suited informant warned Hayes, before slipping down the corridor.

"The study, a yearlong investigation by some of the nation's leading scientists, provided a convincing blueprint for a solar future. It showed that alternative energy could easily meet 28 percent of the nation's power needs by 2000. The only thing that solar and wind and other nonpolluting energy sources needed was a push, the study concluded -- the same research funding and tax credits provided to other energy industries, and a government committed to lead the way to reduced reliance on fossil fuels. But the messenger in the corridor signaled that the solar future would only be won with a little guerrilla warfare. Hayes phoned a colleague at his office in Golden, Colorado, and told him to make 100 copies of the study and circulate them around the country. Energy Secretary Jim Edwards killed the study, all right, but not before it had been published in the Congressional Record.

"It was a bold gesture, but not enough to alter the outcome. The quashed study proved to be the beginning of the end. The budget for the solar institute -- which President Jimmy Carter had created to spearhead solar innovation -- was slashed from $124 million in 1980 to $59 million in 1982. Scientists who had left tenured university jobs to work under Hayes were given two weeks notice and no severance pay. The squelching of the institute -- later partly re-funded and renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory -- marked the start of Reagan's campaign against solar power. By the end of 1985, when Congress and the administration allowed tax credits for solar homes to lapse, the dream of a solar era had faded. The solar water heater President Carter had installed on the White House roof in 1979 was dismantled and junked. Solar water heating went from a billion-dollar industry to peanuts overnight; thousands of sun-minded businesses went bankrupt. "It died. It's dead," says Peter Barnes, whose San Francisco solar- installation business had 35 employees at its peak. "First the money dried up, then the spirit dried up," says Jim Benson, another solar activist of the day.

"Today solar and other renewable alternatives provide barely five percent of America's energy. The solar-powered present never arrived, postponed by opposition from big utility companies, government support that favored oil and nuclear, and unproven solar technology that left the entire concept of solar energy open to ridicule. The story of what happened to solar during that first, failed revolution is more than a footnote to forgotten history. It provides a primer for the current resurgence in alternative energy, an indication of what we can expect from solar power in the decades ahead. Although the solar panels came off the White House 14 years ago, the sun continues to shine, an obvious reminder of natural hope, bathing the earth in enough heat and light every hour to provide the world's energy needs for a year. It brightens the sulfuric haze above coal-fired power plants, splinters into psychedelic spectra in smoggy sunsets, reflects off the concrete cooling towers of Three Mile Island and Trojan. It powers highway signs and wristwatches and more than a million homes and offices and schools, fueling a worldwide industry that has grown from $150 million in 1990 to $1.2 billion in 1998. "

SNIP

When the govt. funding dried up, talented researchers across the country had to leave the field of solar energy and find other work. We lost a whole generation of capable researchers that way, and have been playing catch-up ever since. What a waste.

for a long time. These guys don't play by the rules. Never have, never will. They are sociopathic. All they know is winning any way they can.

Opportunity lost...

A visionary was defamed because of this. They hobbled his efforts, and claim he was a bad president, if his vision had carried through. . . the country would have had a headstart on measures we desperately need to make now.

again. I think this is a big part of it. They really don't want to go back to 76-80 and understand the oil shocks of the 70s that hurt our economy bigtime. Carter's solution was nuclear, conservation, and renewables/alternative energy development.

That was a big problem for Big Oil who was and is controlling the Republican Party. So that was the 1st thing that got torpedo'd...."Morning in America". Some day, I hope people wake up and see how we got sold out by the Bush family. They got rich, we got screwed...."Evening in America"

Still, Democrats can recognize this and take advantage of it. Show a new vision for America that brings back Carter's policies bigtime. Not only will it make us both energy secure, it will enhance our national/international security. Start moving big chunks of the Defense budget to jumpstart a "man in the moon" energy project. Create the market and demand. This will bring back real jobs as we retool for a 21st century post peak oil environment. It is a total winner.

Republicans = Big Oil = Wars without end = dead end
Democrats = Alternative/Renewable Energy = jobs = a real future for AMerica

Then they ran outta money or somethin, and we left Denver.

took almost all of the alternative fuels money, especially the solar energy money, out of the federal budget. And hundreds of researchers had to leave the field.

Sorry about your dad!

... lol - no fears of govt pulling the funding plug on that!

lol

of the lucky ones (and probably very capable ones) if he's still there twenty-some years later.

posting this article....

about the White House ever having solar panels. (Reagan tooked them down practically the day he moved in.) Can you imagine? What a different world we were living in.

... but he finally got tagged by it about 2 years ago... Wasn't all THAT damaging, since he's only a few years from retirement age anyways....

Boeing can be a tough place. I have a relative there, too.

making fun of him for that. But he was a visionary, and a good man.

I think he is a nuclear engineer. Whatever that is.

Thanks!

May they dwell in the ninth circle of Hell for all their blatant greed forever.

K&R. I'm just so damned mad I could spit. I had no idea of the depth of the destruction & harm of the reagan administration. One would think that Iran Contra, death sqauds, killing labor unions & workers rights, and the war on the poor would have satisfied whatever the fuck it is that burns in these guys to destroy anything that is good. Oh hell no, no, not the guys--they still had the environment to destroy in the name of making a buck. :grr:

things the whole time but all you heard from the press was how "sunny" he was.

That's why he was so much more successful than * I think; because he, unlike *, was truly able to convey the impression of niceness. Of course, he WAS an actor.

and check the whoppers at

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Quotes/Ronald_Reagan

now be best to pass this on to USE when they talk about energy?