Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Perhaps one ofthe most innovative moments in his presidency was when he had solar
panels installed on the White House to heat water for the building. In the speech to mark
the occasion, he talked about the fork in the road that America had reached on its energy
journey, and he imagined what the panels would someday say about this era in the na-
tion's history. The technology could end up “a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of
aroadnottaken,” hesaid, “orit could bejust asmall part ofoneofthe greatest andmost
exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people—harnessing the power of
the sun.”
Sure enough, those solar hot-water modules were taken down during the next pres-
idency, Ronald Reagan's, despite the fact that they were working perfectly, providing
1,000 square meters of solar-collecting surface that saved the White House $1,000 per
year on its energy bill. When one of Reagan's people was asked why, the spokesperson
responded that solar panels were “not a technology befitting a superpower.” Apparently,
acceptable superpower technology to Reagan meant lifting the ban on commercial pro-
cessing of nuclear fuel—thus widening the playing field for nuclear power, despite the
Three Mile Island disaster that had just occurred—and attempting to open Alaska's Arc-
tic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. But straight, efficient, and sustainable sun-
light?
Nah,
believed Reagan and his people—
that stuff's for wimps.
Thisisjustoneexampleofhowsolarhasbecomeapoliticalfootball.Partisanpolitics
has attempted to muddle the real benefits of solar energy for America and for all people.
Whenanincomingadministrationbelongingtoonepoliticalpartydeemsanenergytech-
nology unsuitable for the stature of the nation just a few years after the previous pres-
ident, who was of another political party, pronounced the technology a sign of the fu-
ture, we can guess we're headed into a negative spiral of silly rhetoric and irrationality.
But get this: the administration of George W. Bush—a staunch Republican, like his hero
Reagan—put solar
back
on the White House. He had the National Parks people, who
run the place, install the panels on a maintenance shed behind the building to power the
White House grounds and the swimming pool's hot tub, but they had to do it while the
president was out of town lest he be seen as reversing the Reagan-era doctrine against
solar on the grounds.
Americans against American Innovation
Asmanycommentatorshavenotedovertheyears,issuesaroundenergypolicyhavebeen
caught up in America's culture wars, and the rise of solar energy has been the casualty.
Conformity to the view that climate science is bunk, clean energy is ineffective, and coal
is the only way to make electricity is enforced by intense social pressure. Right now, as
Grist
writer Dave Roberts put it, “Republicans who stray, who say anything accommod-
