In the early 1970s, the White House harvested energy from the sun through solar panels as it faced the global energy crisis and inflation. Does that last part sound familiar?
On June 20, 1979, the Carter administration installed the first solar panels on the White House, 32 panels designed to capture sunlight and use that energy to heat the White House water.
While no doubt more shocking to American audiences than it is to anyone who lined up at the gas station in their giant sedans in the 1970s, the Carter crisis shares characteristics with today's climate of high food prices and oil and gas NG00 . . .
By many accounts, though little has changed in retrospect, it was the energy crisis and inflation that cost Carter his second term.
The solar panels installed on the White House in the 1970s may be long gone, but its current occupant, President Joe Biden, like Democrat Carter, has also used the idea of guarantees for American production against unsustainable foreign energy dependence to promote energy . and climate... - Change the policy. Considered by some to be the largest piece of legislation focused on climate change, Biden last year used the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to promote solar, wind,
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" A generation from now, these solar heaters may be curiosities, museum pieces, off-the-beaten-path examples, or just a small part of the greatest and most wonderful adventure the American people have ever embarked on." . "
In fact, IRAs have deductions for home and business electricity installations (you can read about federal programs with savings on the Department of Energy's EnergyStar website).
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Consumer-level incentives aim to push the United States to zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are responsible for the increasing acidification of the oceans, coastal erosion and increasing intensity. Drought, heat and flood. Biden's political foes argue that producing more oil and gas in the US is important not only to lower energy costs but also to strengthen security while reducing dependence on Russian and Middle Eastern production.
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But Carter intended to push the US down this path long before the 2015 Paris climate accord and in the days after Paris, a near-universal global pledge to cut emissions. The success of this commitment is another story.
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On the day of the solar installation in 1979, Carter predicted during the groundbreaking ceremony, according to a Scientific American article about the event: "Behind me in 2000, this solar water heater dedicated today will always be there to be cheap and cheap energy efficient... A generation from now this solar water heater may be a curiosity, a museum piece, a borrowed street piece, a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures the American people have ever embarked on.
The former president, who is 98 years old, is the longest-serving US president. Recently he suffered several short hospital stays. And the Carter Center said in a statement over the weekend that he has now "decided to spend the remainder of his time at home with his family and receive palliative care rather than further medical intervention."
Carter is certainly not the first president to worry about, or at least pay attention to, climate change.
Notably, Republican President Richard Nixon introduced Proposition 37's critical environmental message in the early 1970s amid growing public concern about deteriorating urban air, littered natural areas, and polluted city water supplies. in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Nixon, who can be credited with founding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), eventually signed the Air and Water Quality Act.
So what happened to the solar panels on the Carter White House?
As the 1980s ended, President Ronald Reagan, a two-term Republican, eliminated the then-Department of Energy's (DOE) renewable energy research and development budget and tax credits. Wind turbine installation tax. and solar technology.
Reagan promised to reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers, because greater competition would likely lower costs.
"The Department of Energy has a multi-billion dollar budget, over $10 billion," Reagan said in a 1979 debate with Carter, justifying his opposition to Carter's energy policies. "It doesn't make a liter of CL00 oil,
In 1986, the Reagan administration secretly dismantled the White House's solar panel installation while the roof was being moved.
The removal did not go completely unnoticed.
"Hey, the system works, why don't you save?" Mechanical engineer Fred Morse, now of Abengoa Solar, reminded Scientific American of the task. Morse first helped install solar panels as solar director. The power plan during the Carter years, then dismantled under Reagan during his tenure in the same office.
Then Morse continues. “The motivation is energy independence,” he told the publication, and solar energy as a policy option is certainly a solution in areas where solar energy is fairly reliable. That's true then and now, especially as solar becomes more competitive.
This is an accepted excuse in today's political rhetoric. As Carter once said, the sun cannot be banned, referring to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74.
One of Carter's solar panels is in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, one in the Carter Library, and about a decade ago one joined the collection of the Museum of Solar Science and Technology in Dezhou, China.
In China, which is currently competing with the US in the renewable energy race, solar water heaters are commonplace.
In 2003, early in the George W. Bush administration, the National Park Service installed a 9 kW solar generator at the building's maintenance facility, but it received little media and White House coverage. It doesn't even help with installation. The Bush White House years included two solar thermal systems, one to heat the pool and spa and the other to provide public hot water to the property.
President Obama's Climate Action Plan, unveiled in 2013, outlines commitments to reduce emissions from electricity generation and uses executive orders to reduce the federal government's carbon footprint. Several initiatives have emerged. The Trump administration has largely changed most of the features of the 2013 bill.
The Obama administration's White House solar installation was completed in 2013. The panels, inverters and components were American made, and at the time solar systems in the US were considered the size of an average residential solar system.
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Carter's environmental credentials will be discussed as his longevity is remembered. It should be said that natural gas is regulated. It's a dirty energy source that, because it's so much cleaner than coal, has powered the U.S. electric grid for decades.
But he "authorized the nation's investment in solar energy research and was one of the first presidents to warn us about the dangers of climate change," Carter biographer Kai Byrd wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "He doubled the size of the state's protected wilderness areas through the Alaska Constitution."
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" Carter led the nation's investment in solar energy research and was one of the first presidents to warn us about the dangers of climate change." "
During a service this weekend at a church in Carter Plains, Georgia, his cousin Kim Fuller shared one of her uncle's quotes. Which can be attributed to his early understanding of multi-generational solutions to climate change, or indeed services in general.
"I just want to read a quote from Uncle Jimmy," Fuller said during Sunday school morning services, "Oh, it's going to be so hard."
He quotes this quote from Carter. “I have one life and one chance to make something worthwhile. I am free to choose whatever it is... My faith requires me to do as much as I can, where I can, when I can. I can: I can while I can.
"Maybe if we think about it, it might be time for a relay," Fuller said before offering the prayer. "I don't know who took it. I don't know because this stick is going to be big.
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The Associated Press contributed .
