In 1979 on the 20th of June, after setting up solar panels on the White House, Jimmy Carter proudly proclaims:
"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."
It turns out that Carter was able to foresee the efficiency of solar energy from both an economic but also an ecological perspective. So he built a 32-panel system that would heat the water of the presidential residence.
"President Carter saw [solar] as a really valid energy resource, and he understood it. I mean, it is a domestic resource, and it is huge," Fred Morse, director of Carter's solar energy program, told Scientific American.
"It was the symbolism of the president wanting to bring solar energy immediately into his administration," he continued.
Sadly, when Reagan won the presidency, he decided to take down the panels that president Carter had put up a few years before him.
Now Carter's panels are displayed on The Smithsonian Institute, the Carter Library, and the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China, and renewable energy has become one of the largest industry sectors in America and the world. Carter was undoubtedly decades ahead of his time.
Almost 40 years ahead and in 2017, Carter rented ten acres of land near his home in Plains, Georgia, to build an entire solar farm with 3,852 panels. Just three years later, the farm produces 50% of the town's electricity, generating 1.3 MW of power per year, which is equivalent to burning about 3,600 tons of coal.
The now 94-year-old former president still lives a modest life in his home in Plains with his wife.
In a press release in SoLAmerica, Carter said,
"Distributed, clean energy generation is critical to meeting growing energy needs around the world while fighting the effects of climate change. I am encouraged by the tremendous progress that solar and other clean energy solutions have made in recent years and expect those trends to continue."
George Mori, executive vice president of SoLAmerica, stated,
"There remains a great deal of untapped potential in renewable energy in Georgia, and elsewhere in the U.S. We believe distributed solar projects like the Plains project will play a big role in fueling the energy needs of generations to come".
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