The late former President Jimmy Carter was far ahead of his time, and his environmental legacy casts a long shadow.
Carter installed 32 solar water-heating panels on the White House roof in 1979. This came when many Americans had never even heard of solar power. I was eight years old then, and I don’t remember hearing adults talking about solar panels before then.
Carter installed the solar panels during an economic crisis caused by the Arab oil embargo. The Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) retaliated against the U.S. supplying arms for Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War by imposing an oil embargo. The 1973-1974 embargo banned oil imports to the U.S. and cut production. The U.S. imported around 42 percent of its total supply in 1979.
The oil embargo greatly affected the price of gas. In 1973, the price per gallon was only $0.39, but it jumped to $0.59 the following year and $0.896 by 1979. Carter called for conserving energy as a response to the crisis. He installed 32 solar heating panels as an example of energy conservation by harnessing the sun’s power.
Carter spoke on June 20, 1979, at the dedication ceremony for the solar panels he had installed. He described solar energy as “both feasible and also cost-effective.” He pointed out that solar energy “will not pollute our air or water…We will not run short of it.” He also called for the U.S. to get 20 percent of its energy from solar by the end of the 20th century. In 1999, solar energy represented only 0.1 percent of all U.S. energy.
Reagan and Subsequent Republicans Say No To Renewable Energy
When Carter spoke on that June day in 1979, he said that by 2000, the solar panels would either represent “ 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.”
Unfortunately, those solar panels did indeed become museum pieces. The Reagan administration had them removed in 1986. The tax credits for homeowners installing solar water heaters established in 1977 stopped on December 31, 1985, a month before the solar water heating panels were removed. The panels ended up in museums, libraries, and universities, including the Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the Unity College in Maine, and a science museum in China.
Since then, most Republicans have waged war on renewable energy expansion, culminating in President Trump’s second term. During his first two weeks in office, Trump issued executive orders to increase fossil fuel exploration and drilling on U.S. land and waters. He also attacked renewable energy. On the first day of his second term, he temporarily suspended all renewable energy development on federal land.
On February 5, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a temporary permitting pause on renewable energy projects in the U.S. “Of the approximately 11,000 pending permit actions by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency has temporarily paused evaluation on 168 pending feedback from the Administration,” Army Corps spokesman Doug Garman said.
Carter’s Environmental Legacy Lives On: Renewable Energy Will Continue
Despite Trump’s war on renewable energy, the industry will persist in the U.S. Last year, the country produced more than 50 gigawatts (GW) worth of domestic solar modules. Companies announced plans for 56 GW more of U.S. solar cell production, plus GW of wafers and 13 GW of ingots. All are necessary components of solar modules. The U.S. is the “third largest module producer in the world,” Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper.
The solar energy industry did not disappear during Trump’s first term. It continued expanding. Despite the actions taken during his second term, the industry will persist. Many say it is too big to fail.
And that means Carter’s vision for solar energy persists.
