Where Did the Carter White House's Solar Panels Go?

Source: Scientific America

The White House itself once harvested the power of the sun. On June 30, 1979, the Carter administration installed 32 panels designed to harvest the sun's rays and use them to heat water.

Here is what Carter predicted at the dedication ceremony: "In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people."

---SNIP---

And in 1986 the Reagan administration quietly dismantled the White House solar panel installation while resurfacing the roof. "Hey! That system is working. Why don't you keep it?" recalls mechanical engineer Fred Morse, now of Abengoa Solar, who helped install the original solar panels as director of the solar energy program during the Carter years and then watched as they were dismantled during his tenure in the same job under Reagan. "Hey! This whole R&D program is working, why don't you keep it?"


Read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carter-white-house-solar-panel-array

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This is a very good article but one that will make you very SAD & VERY ANGRY! Call me crazy but it almost makes me emotional thinking about what America could have been had we just followed President Carter's lead! I feel the same legacy will be Obama's...We will look back 30 years from now and wonder what could have been had we followed Obama's lead on many issues. Seeing how the nation wants to put the people responsible for America's decline back in power. SAD!

What has happened to our country?

Why did he hate America?

It is a part of the woof woof mentality. It is why americans take great pride in the largest, worst mileage gas guzzlers they can find.
dc

But I'll give you a k/r.

(K & R)





:kick:

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The Carter energy independence plan would have worked. We would have been 100% energy independent by the year 2000 and probably a lot sooner. Remember the Human Genome Project? Everyone thought it would cost so much and take twice as long as it actually took. But once American ingenuity was unleashed we found a way to do it faster, better, and cheaper. The same would have happened with the energy independence efforts.

Seem to have been joined at the hip for as long as I can recall. Repugs are always making sure we stay heavily dependent on oil and the sheiks are more than happy to share the wealth with them. Win win for them. Big loss for us and future generations.

you mean what he said he'd do during the campaign?

And give speeches about malaise!

2012, here we come! :shrug: (Thankfully, Axelrod et al know about the whole history -- non-remembering, repeating thing.)

We will see no panels, or cardigans, and hear about no malaises (or killer rabbits, even if they make an attempt.)

Also, interviews for Playboy? Right out!