Prodigal Sun News: Solar energy was a rising star in the '70s -- until it was banished by the powers that be. Are we ready for its return?
By Arthur Allen
March/April 2000 Issue
...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...
Was Jimmy Carter right?Published on 2 Oct 2005 by
Cleveland Plain Dealer. Archived on 13 Oct 2005.
by Stephen Koff
...Carter insisted that U.S. automakers build more fuel-efficient cars, with a goal of 27.5 miles per gallon over the following decade - a requirement passed under Gerald Ford but put into force by Carter....
...Yet solid data exist on what happened after the free market- loving Reagan chopped Carter's programs to shreds....
...Oil prices plunged in the early 80s after the Iranian crisis ended; after a worldwide recession sapped productivity (a less productive economy uses less fuel); and especially after Reagan eliminated price controls....
...Higher prices are also providing incentives to look at alternative fuels, and we are using more alternative fuels all the time, says Dougher. In fact, the biggest producer of solar energy today is an oil company, BP, in terms of solar panels.... (
BP Solar North America )
US governors adopt energy plans for the WestReuters
Monday, June 12, 2006; 6:26 PM
...The Western Governors Association, which represents 19 states and three U.S.-flag islands in the Pacific, passed measures on Sunday that call for 30,000 new megawatts of clean energy supplies such as
solar (my emphasis) and geothermal power by 2015, and development of cleaner fuels like ethanol and biodiesel and climate change policies for the West...
The domestic hot water solar systems were paying for themselves in a few years in the eighties. Ummm, a bit skeptical, Iyam Iyam. Maybe the Governors can figure out how to get around the BushOilCo Administration. We'll see. Preznit Poopypants blathers on about alternative energy, including nuclear energy. Have a look at how safe that is:Government, plaintiffs continue wait through appeals of Hanford downwinders' casesMonday, June 12, 2006
By SHANNON DININNY Associated Press Writer
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