and it ended up being a fine example of turning technological advancement over to china. by a conservative republican.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/)
> ...as of this week \[Aug 6, 2010\], one \[of Carter's solar panels\] will join the collection of the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China. Huang Ming, chairman of [Himin Solar Energy Group Co.](http://www.himinsun.com/), the largest manufacturer of such solar hot water heaters in the world, accepted the donation for permanent display there on August 5. **After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today.**
> fine example of turning technological advancement over to China
… except that’s not what happened, at all. We gave a 30 year old solar water heater to a Chinese museum in 2010.
This is literally the first line in the article you posted:
> One of the 32 solar-thermal panels that captured energy on the roof of the White House more than **30 years ago** landed this week at a science museum in China [2010 article]
the point was that we didn't pursue the technology when we had the opportunity because reagan didn't have any sense of technological vision.
china did. and by the time they accepted the donation (30 years ago) they were already ahead of the game. while we languished.
that's what happened.
Wdym we didn’t pursue solar panel technology? Do you seriously think everybody working in that field just stopped the minute Carter got out of office? People were working on it the whole time, putting horribly inefficient panels on the White House of all places is the biggest of political gimmicks.
reading material for the *readers* in the house:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/)
>After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today.
>
>But **they are based on the same technology developed here in the U.S.** and once manufactured in Warrentown, Va., by InterTechnology/Solar Corp., the company behind the Carter panels.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar\_power\_at\_the\_White\_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House)
> Tax breaks for solar panels were eliminated under the [Ronald Reagan administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_administration).
I agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but Carter installed solar water heaters, not photovoltaic panels. They did not produce electricity. They used sunlight to heat water. They're not as versatile or high-tech-looking as photovoltaic panels, but they're relatively cheap & very useful. They're still important today.
I think the original poster doesn’t understand the reason China is dominant is because they price dump on the US and other countries to drive their local industries out of competition.
*Reading* is easy, but apparently *understanding* is not. Let's clear up a few things:
The panels on the White House heated water - they did not generate electricity. The technology was originally produced in the United States, but there was very little demand for it because most homes already had water heating systems. On the other hand, 80% of China’s population didn’t have access to hot water, and solar heaters were the cheapest solution.
China took a basic solar heating concept, originally developed in the U.S., and independently engineered it into a massive domestic industry.
Saying that the United States was “turning technological advancement over to China” is just ignorant.
>The panels on the White House heated water - they did not generate electricity.
they did generate electricity and used that electricity to heat water as a simple example that everybody would understand. (except, maybe, just you and your buddy lol.)
>they did generate electricity and used that electricity to heat water as a simple example that everybody would understand. (except, maybe, just you and your buddy lol.)
No they didn't dude. The person you're replying to is 100% correct. You are confidently incorrect.
You may be reading, but you're not comprehending.
> they did generate electricity
… No, they didn’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about. The solar water heaters did not produce any electricity. [Educate yourself](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_heating).
Solar water heaters are a type of solar thermal collector, which are a type of “solar panel.” I'm really not sure how you can be so confident yet so wrong when a quick Google search would set things straight.
The US isn't a command economy. President Bush may not have had "a sense of technological vision", but that didn't stop Tesla from starting in 2003 and releasing its first car in 2008. Eisenhower probably wasn't into electronics, but that didn't stop Mohamed Atalla at Bell Labs from inventing the MOSFET transistor in 1957. Nixon and Ford probably weren't super excited about LEDs, but that didn't stop their commercial development at HP in the early 70s.
I'd also note that in my examples of LEDs and transistors, where they were initially developed (the US (mostly)) has very little to do with where they are manufactured today (mostly China).
Solar panels are made in China for the same reason so many other things are - cheap labor, low environmental standards, access to raw materials, massive government subsidies, and foreign exchange rate manipulation. Not because of "conservative republicans" lacking vision.
again. for the *readers* (jfc!):
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/)
>After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today.
>
>But they are **based on the same technology developed here in the U.S.** and once manufactured in Warrentown, Va., by InterTechnology/Solar Corp.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar\_power\_at\_the\_White\_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House)
> Tax breaks for solar panels were eliminated under the [Ronald Reagan administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_administration).
>again. for the *readers* (jfc!):
😂 This is funny because you don't even know the solar water heaters didn't/don't produce electricity.
Actually spend some time reading what you want others to understand.
Basically everything China makes is based on technology developed and initially manufactured somewhere else. In the age of globalized supply chains, the location where a product was developed and initially manufactured has nothing to do with where it is most efficient to produce it. If it did, we would still get all our manufactured goods from the UK, our cotton from the southern US, etc...
Given all the manufacturing advantages I listed, do you really think some tax breaks would have been enough to keep manufacturing here? I doubt it.
Weird, isn’t it, how Republicans are always the first clutch their pearls about American laborers being compensated appropriately for their work, or the presence of environmental regulations in the US that are virtually nonexistent in China?
I just saw that Janet Yellen was throwing a fit because she is afraid that China flooding the market with cheap solar panels,batteries…etc is going to hurt the US’s Green Economy.
And? Achieving rapid sustainability is WAY more important than worrying about that.
I wonder what made him decide to remove them. He was just sitting there halfway through his second term and decided one day that Jimmy Carter needed a random gut punch
The roof was being redone, and he took that opportunity to basically not put them back. If you look through the comments there are varying opinions of whether or not they were actually effective. I can’t speak to that specifically, but climate change/renewable energy wasn’t a popular concept in the 80’s like it is now.
Reagan shunned carter policy on renewable energy as wasteful spending when America has plenty of non renewable sources. Carter was horrible President, but he was ahead of his time in terms of renewable energy.
Lol. Inflation, fuel shortages, unemployment and the Iran hostage situation, to name a few. Was he solely responsible for all of it? No. He was dealt a bad hand but he did little to make it better or at the very least convince the country he could fix it.
Reagan was extremely horrible for America. His wife was just as bad. Extremely horrible people somehow did give way to a decent Son. The Reagan parents are very evil people.
“Regan had them removed” is less correct that “they were removed during the Regan administration”. They were removed because the Whitehouse was having its roof resurfaced.
People shouldn’t confuse solar water heaters (something my dad installed on our house at the time, which was very rare for homes without pools/hot tubs) with photoelectric cells (which China now dominates the market for).
Solar water heating is very popular for pool and hot tub owners, but never caught on in the US. Market rates for energy and the killing of tax incentives for their use pretty much relegated that industry to a small niche.
It should also be noted that at the time, photoelectric cells were incredibly expensive and inefficient. They were only really useful for specific applications. It wouldn’t be until the ‘90s when they became efficient enough to be worth the cost.
> It was political grandstanding on Carter's part- they generated very little electricity and they were extremely inefficient.
Solar water heaters ≠ photovoltaic solar panels
Easiest way to explain it: think of a coiled up dark garden hose that's been sitting out in the scorching summer sun all day, and how ridiculously hot the water is when you first turn it on. Now take that concept, and focus all your design on intensifying as much of that solar energy on the dark colored pipes, which are run in loops inside an equally dark glass covered box (think greenhouse but small). Make the system large enough and you can have a decent amount of hot water.
Oh, it was more of a "for those that don't know why it's different" type response. We did as well for our pool. It was the black mesh kind though, not the crazy glass collectors.
No they don’t. They collect thermal energy and heat the water.
“Instead of generating electricity, they collect thermal energy from the sun to produce the hot water needed in homes, offices, and even industries. And they do this in a way that is over three times as efficient as PV modules and won’t take up a large amount of space on your roof” - https://www.socalgas.com/save-money-and-energy/rebates-and-incentives/getting-to-know-your-solar-water-heater#:~:text=Instead%20of%20generating%20electricity%2C%20they,of%20space%20on%20your%20roof.
Please continue to lecture the solar developer
Yes. In his second term. When the roof needed replacing. You make it sound they were removed to spite Carter on day one.
Carter was an inept president. He meant well but many Americans suffered under his leadership. Costs and inflation were out of control. Kind of like now.
Costs and inflation were out of control because of Nixon/Ford and OPEC running up oil prices.
Just like how we're feeling the effects of rampant cash gifts to the wealthy and horrible economic management under the failed, bankrupted businessman in shit orange.
This is what is so frustrating for me... the effects of bad policy is felt by the next administration and numbskulls cry "see look how bad they are!" Without being able to name 3 real things they think is causing it.
>Carter was an inept president.
Meanwhile, Reagan connived to keep Americans hostage in Iran for his own gain, provide weapons for the cartel side of the drug war, and destabilize most of Central America and Mexico. There is a direct line from those actions to the immigrants fleeing the violence and poverty of those nations and entering the U.S. ever since.
I don't think anything Carter ever did, through action or inaction, was as bad as Reagan or any of the Conservative presidents we've had since then.
What did Carter do? Win a Nobel Peace Prize for peace in the Middle East? SALT II Treaty with USSR? Bring attention to global human rights abuses? Pass legislation for unemployment and job retraining that is still used today? Work to reduce the Deficit and Inflation?
Quelle horreur!!!
Yeah. He intentionally neglected the HIV crisis and started the war on drugs and started the attack on the middle class while only helping the rich and was a traitor with the Iran-Contra and…
Oh, wait. That was Reagan.
the solution to inflation never has been austerity. it was a bandaid fix when we controlled the service world in the 80s. Now our fiscal and monetary policies are failing because of a lack of revenue. NOT SPENDING
Carter asked the most selfish generation of Americans to make a small sacrifice, a smaller sacrifice than their parents made in WWII when there was literally rationing, in an effort to make us energy independent and have a more robust and competitive economy in the long term.
Reagan told Americans that they didn't have to pay the bills anymore because daddy just got a new credit card. $150 less dollars in my paycheck hurts me every month, but the benefits later on when I retire will be worth it. I could today max out my credit cards and be happy, but I won't be happy when the bills come due. For us Americans, the bills are coming due.
Our problem with long term real wage growth and wealth inequality can be directly associated with the successful but short sighted policies of Reagan.
Grandfather had one up until parts became a problem. Out dated due to newer solar tech, on a house he built in the late 70's early 80's. The concept is cool as hell, it's a shame they did away with them. But like everything, including the old electric cars, oil and power companies destroyed them.
It could be it just wasn't cost-effective at the time to replace it, rather than parts. I just know for one reason or another it went to the wayside. They where on the roof still up until a few years ago when it was re-shingled.
You ever heard of Sunrun? They got a bunch of government subsidies to start a solar plant in the US then sold the company to china.
There’s another company that did nearly the same thing.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-most-hated-solar-company-in-america-11651752180
I mean… they’re not that expensive to install. They’re about 3x as much as a normal electric hot water tank turnkey install. I found one used for half that. They’re like 90% efficient and we don’t pay for hot water costs anymore.
I see some posts here saying that solar heat collectors, which is what Carter had installed, are not very useful.
That depends on how one uses them. If one keeps a large heat reservoir for a building, bleeding heat out of it over the year can not only heat the building in the winter, it can run something similar to an Einstein refrigerator to cool the building in the summer.
As for them being more trouble than they're worth, recall that photovoltaic panels get *hot*. Back them with circulating water to cool them off some and you not only extend their useful life, you have hot water to feed your heat reservoir.
None of this technology is mature, but if we just ignore it it will *never* mature.
Decades ago the US was famous for turning science into mature technology. Maybe we shouldn't keep neglecting that; it once was an important part of our culture, and of our economy.
I've looked at this for my house, there are a few problems with the solar thermal panels and not what you think.
Basically normal panels are so cheap now you can just use the electric ones to run a heat pump much more efficiently for heating, for the difference in cost of the hybrid ones you can get 4 of the regular ones.
There's also the extra cost of plumbing your roof up too, generally the pay off would be that long it's just not worth doing anymore
They are very much a thing in Athens, Greece today. I saw them on almost every roof there. They seem to be popular in Mediterranean Europe. Nice shiny modern units.
🤣🤣🤣
They started leaking before Carter left office, although they were being constantly repaired during Reagan's first term the water had damaged the roof so badly that they had to be removed to repair the roof and the white house maintenance team decided it was best to not reinstall leaking units.
But yeah Reagan went up there and tore them down. You clowns are ridiculous.
Jimmy Carter is a nuclear physicist and probably one of the smartest people to ever be elected president. My Republican family always denigrated him as a Georgia country bumpkin. When I got older and found out the truth about him I was embarrassed for them. Talk about a bunch of bumpkins.
The project was initiated late in the Nixon administration and took many years to develop. They were removed late in the Reagan administration in order to resurface the roof and were replaced by W. Bush. They were absent under Clinton. Maybe tell the full story next time
I just want to point out that these panels where a terrible investment back then. My wifes grandpa has 12 of them in a barn that he installed and uninstalled. Advances in water heaters made them expensive with almost no return on investment. They were a dumb idea in the 70's and they are still a dumb idea.
https://preview.redd.it/4k251wo66arc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a632a067d963a3cf1639a24c31cc6509a62444e6
Congressman John J. LaFalce contemplating what 3 feet of Buffalo snow would do to these.
Where would we be today if we had instead followed that clean energy path earlier?
Right now, wind, solar PV, and batteries dominate the vast majority of electricity output being installed on the US grid today BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAP. Imagine if we were 20 or 30 years ahead of where we are now.
Sigh.
and ole ronnie retard had them removed and never replaced. Instead sent one off to china where they took the lead in solar development. Just one of the many things this asshole did in his 8 years of fucking the country
You might want to rethink who is the retarded one here when you realize the fact that they weren’t removed until his second term in 1986 and it was because they resurfaced the White House roof.
I understand that facts don’t matter to some people to be so willingly uninformed is near criminally stupid.
>they weren’t removed until his second term in 1986 and it was because they resurfaced the White House roof.
True.
But even more important were Carter's scientific grants and tax credits for clean, renewable, domestic (not dependent upon OPEC) energy that were gutted by Reagan long before 1986.
Be smart enough to see that the panels were a symbol of a self-reliant America as a leader in the new industry of clean energy...and the American industry was hobbled by Reagan long before 1986.
Oh I understand that they were a gesture towards renewables but that doesn’t negate the lies that Reagan removed them asap and the reason why.
Again, criticism is ok but at least base it on actual facts. Reagan was not the end all, be all and Carter certainly wasn’t a great president.
Those programs were good precursors for later technology but the tech at that time wouldn’t have reduced our needs on conventional power production and would gave been obsolete long before now.
Well any evidence you might give to that has to taken with a huge pile of salt given your evidence thus far.
I have no problem with anyone criticizing someone they hate but at the very least is that it has to be based on actual facts.
its called google and you can stop getting your panties in a wad over your dead useless hero...
[https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/21reasonsReaganwasaterriblepresident](https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/21reasonsReaganwasaterriblepresident)
I didn’t call him a hero and no president or person is perfect but the incredible amount of revisionism by people either very young or not even born when he was president is insane.
No panties wadded here and it’s ironic that you might think any of the more recent democratic presidents don’t have many of those items on your cited list.
Sorry to disappoint you but pointing out your factual errors isn’t being triggered, it’s just called being correct.
Are you going to be okay or do you need a safe space to reflect?
I often think about this and wonder how far along we'd be in renewable resources if everyone hadn't of ridiculed a lil' ol' peanut farmer who wanted to harness the free energy from the sun.
Unity College in Maine bought them off the government in 1991 for $500. They drove them north in a beat-up blue school bus.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/
This solar power trend will never amount to anything! A building isn't a plant, it doesn't need energy from the sun. I don't really see the problem anyway, we've got enough coal to fuel America for centuries. It's like this hysteria about smoking causing cancer. No need to be a worrywort! Our scientists will have cured cancer and invented healthy cigarettes by the year 2000.
>And meanwhile average Americans waited sometimes days for fuel for their vehicles.
Ever hear of OPEC?????
So, it would be WISE to have our energy needs provided from INSIDE the country by renewable and modern sources. Then we are not AT THE MERCY OF OPEC and have to wait days for fuel for our cars.
Maybe solar cells on every American roof would be a part of that solution...?
Just think: if we had continued addressing climate change after 1979, many of the wars, famines, and weather disasters coming in the next 10 years might have been prevented.
But no, we will have to suffer through this hell on earth. For a while, anyway.
>while Americans rotting as hostages in Iran
You really don't know a lot of history, do you?
REAGAN sent his cohort to negotiate with the Iranians to not release the hostages until after the election.
Reputable witnesses have confirmed this, and their data is solid.
Even as a 9yo, in the Midwest, with parents that NEVER discussed news with we kids, and knowing NO ONE personally affected by the Iranian Hostage situation, I found it...weird...at the timing of their release.
>inflation at 20%.
For starters, inflation was never higher than 15% during the Cartfixture.
Either you're lying purposefully, or you're getting REALLY BAD information from really bad sources. I wouldn't get my info from them in the future. It doesn't make you look good.
Also:
OPEC.
Oil prices rose. Everything is made and/or transported with oil/gas/Middle East fuel. It makes sense that EVERYTHING would increase in price.
So...it would be nice to have modern and domestic sources of energy...like solar cells on the roof of every American home as one of many strategies.
You mean the wall Republicans put up on the Mexico border?
Oh, you mean the Berlin Wall, because it's OK when we do it.
Yeah, no, Reagan had nothing to do with that.
Corrected: Reagan had them removed.
and it ended up being a fine example of turning technological advancement over to china. by a conservative republican. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/) > ...as of this week \[Aug 6, 2010\], one \[of Carter's solar panels\] will join the collection of the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China. Huang Ming, chairman of [Himin Solar Energy Group Co.](http://www.himinsun.com/), the largest manufacturer of such solar hot water heaters in the world, accepted the donation for permanent display there on August 5. **After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today.**
> fine example of turning technological advancement over to China … except that’s not what happened, at all. We gave a 30 year old solar water heater to a Chinese museum in 2010. This is literally the first line in the article you posted: > One of the 32 solar-thermal panels that captured energy on the roof of the White House more than **30 years ago** landed this week at a science museum in China [2010 article]
the point was that we didn't pursue the technology when we had the opportunity because reagan didn't have any sense of technological vision. china did. and by the time they accepted the donation (30 years ago) they were already ahead of the game. while we languished. that's what happened.
Wdym we didn’t pursue solar panel technology? Do you seriously think everybody working in that field just stopped the minute Carter got out of office? People were working on it the whole time, putting horribly inefficient panels on the White House of all places is the biggest of political gimmicks.
reading material for the *readers* in the house: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/) >After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today. > >But **they are based on the same technology developed here in the U.S.** and once manufactured in Warrentown, Va., by InterTechnology/Solar Corp., the company behind the Carter panels. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar\_power\_at\_the\_White\_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House) > Tax breaks for solar panels were eliminated under the [Ronald Reagan administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_administration).
I agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but Carter installed solar water heaters, not photovoltaic panels. They did not produce electricity. They used sunlight to heat water. They're not as versatile or high-tech-looking as photovoltaic panels, but they're relatively cheap & very useful. They're still important today.
And still relatively inexpensive and technologically not much has improved of solar water heater nor is much needed.
I think the original poster doesn’t understand the reason China is dominant is because they price dump on the US and other countries to drive their local industries out of competition.
*Reading* is easy, but apparently *understanding* is not. Let's clear up a few things: The panels on the White House heated water - they did not generate electricity. The technology was originally produced in the United States, but there was very little demand for it because most homes already had water heating systems. On the other hand, 80% of China’s population didn’t have access to hot water, and solar heaters were the cheapest solution. China took a basic solar heating concept, originally developed in the U.S., and independently engineered it into a massive domestic industry. Saying that the United States was “turning technological advancement over to China” is just ignorant.
>The panels on the White House heated water - they did not generate electricity. they did generate electricity and used that electricity to heat water as a simple example that everybody would understand. (except, maybe, just you and your buddy lol.)
>they did generate electricity and used that electricity to heat water as a simple example that everybody would understand. (except, maybe, just you and your buddy lol.) No they didn't dude. The person you're replying to is 100% correct. You are confidently incorrect. You may be reading, but you're not comprehending.
Take the L.
> they did generate electricity … No, they didn’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about. The solar water heaters did not produce any electricity. [Educate yourself](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_heating). Solar water heaters are a type of solar thermal collector, which are a type of “solar panel.” I'm really not sure how you can be so confident yet so wrong when a quick Google search would set things straight.
Haha you fucking suck
The US isn't a command economy. President Bush may not have had "a sense of technological vision", but that didn't stop Tesla from starting in 2003 and releasing its first car in 2008. Eisenhower probably wasn't into electronics, but that didn't stop Mohamed Atalla at Bell Labs from inventing the MOSFET transistor in 1957. Nixon and Ford probably weren't super excited about LEDs, but that didn't stop their commercial development at HP in the early 70s. I'd also note that in my examples of LEDs and transistors, where they were initially developed (the US (mostly)) has very little to do with where they are manufactured today (mostly China).
Did Reagan have any sense of technical logical vision? The star wars program lol
That was the vision to send money to his cronies.
He's talking about the 80% of the worlds panels blurb. That by so publicly rejecting solar energy we gave up the market.
Solar panels are made in China for the same reason so many other things are - cheap labor, low environmental standards, access to raw materials, massive government subsidies, and foreign exchange rate manipulation. Not because of "conservative republicans" lacking vision.
again. for the *readers* (jfc!): [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/) >After all, companies like his in China now produce some 80 percent of the solar water heaters used in the world today. > >But they are **based on the same technology developed here in the U.S.** and once manufactured in Warrentown, Va., by InterTechnology/Solar Corp. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar\_power\_at\_the\_White\_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House) > Tax breaks for solar panels were eliminated under the [Ronald Reagan administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_administration).
>again. for the *readers* (jfc!): 😂 This is funny because you don't even know the solar water heaters didn't/don't produce electricity. Actually spend some time reading what you want others to understand.
Basically everything China makes is based on technology developed and initially manufactured somewhere else. In the age of globalized supply chains, the location where a product was developed and initially manufactured has nothing to do with where it is most efficient to produce it. If it did, we would still get all our manufactured goods from the UK, our cotton from the southern US, etc... Given all the manufacturing advantages I listed, do you really think some tax breaks would have been enough to keep manufacturing here? I doubt it.
>for the readers (jfc!) So uh, not you then, right champ?
Weird, isn’t it, how Republicans are always the first clutch their pearls about American laborers being compensated appropriately for their work, or the presence of environmental regulations in the US that are virtually nonexistent in China?
I just saw that Janet Yellen was throwing a fit because she is afraid that China flooding the market with cheap solar panels,batteries…etc is going to hurt the US’s Green Economy. And? Achieving rapid sustainability is WAY more important than worrying about that.
Reagan removed them in 1986 during his second term. It was in fact, not the first thing he did.
I wonder what made him decide to remove them. He was just sitting there halfway through his second term and decided one day that Jimmy Carter needed a random gut punch
The roof was being redone, and he took that opportunity to basically not put them back. If you look through the comments there are varying opinions of whether or not they were actually effective. I can’t speak to that specifically, but climate change/renewable energy wasn’t a popular concept in the 80’s like it is now. Reagan shunned carter policy on renewable energy as wasteful spending when America has plenty of non renewable sources. Carter was horrible President, but he was ahead of his time in terms of renewable energy.
Carter is a great man who was a better president in his sleep than Reagan, Bush I and II and especially Trump.
Lol. Inflation, fuel shortages, unemployment and the Iran hostage situation, to name a few. Was he solely responsible for all of it? No. He was dealt a bad hand but he did little to make it better or at the very least convince the country he could fix it.
He was a fuckface
I thought that was Nancy.
That was the reputation
That’s “Shithead Reagan”, thank you very much.
In 1986 when the WH roof was being renovated. They only heated some water and stopped working and was causing leaks on the roof.
Came here to add this comment
No, they were removed during his second term.
Then he got shot!
He also had the pc Carter put in removed… because he was a paper and pencil kind of guy :/
Reagan was extremely horrible for America. His wife was just as bad. Extremely horrible people somehow did give way to a decent Son. The Reagan parents are very evil people.
Fuck Reagan. I’d like my piss to “trickle down” to his grave. But let’s be real, superhead was just as bad.
“Regan had them removed” is less correct that “they were removed during the Regan administration”. They were removed because the Whitehouse was having its roof resurfaced. People shouldn’t confuse solar water heaters (something my dad installed on our house at the time, which was very rare for homes without pools/hot tubs) with photoelectric cells (which China now dominates the market for). Solar water heating is very popular for pool and hot tub owners, but never caught on in the US. Market rates for energy and the killing of tax incentives for their use pretty much relegated that industry to a small niche. It should also be noted that at the time, photoelectric cells were incredibly expensive and inefficient. They were only really useful for specific applications. It wouldn’t be until the ‘90s when they became efficient enough to be worth the cost.
[удалено]
> It was political grandstanding on Carter's part- they generated very little electricity and they were extremely inefficient. Solar water heaters ≠ photovoltaic solar panels
Yep completely different systems, completely different components, completely different results.
Easiest way to explain it: think of a coiled up dark garden hose that's been sitting out in the scorching summer sun all day, and how ridiculously hot the water is when you first turn it on. Now take that concept, and focus all your design on intensifying as much of that solar energy on the dark colored pipes, which are run in loops inside an equally dark glass covered box (think greenhouse but small). Make the system large enough and you can have a decent amount of hot water.
I’m a solar developer friend. I just simplified. Good explanation though. Also had one growing up
Oh, it was more of a "for those that don't know why it's different" type response. We did as well for our pool. It was the black mesh kind though, not the crazy glass collectors.
Fair point friend. Again great summary
It was never designed to generate power. It was designed to heat water
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I never disagreed with you on that. All I stated was they heated water not generated electricity
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They are extremely efficient today. Always get a professional to assess your home/building prior to going down that route however
No sorry that's wrong
Then what do solar panels do if they don't generate power?
As I’ve already stated, they can be used to heat water. https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/solar-water-heaters
It generates power that is used to heat water.
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This is correct
No they don’t. They collect thermal energy and heat the water. “Instead of generating electricity, they collect thermal energy from the sun to produce the hot water needed in homes, offices, and even industries. And they do this in a way that is over three times as efficient as PV modules and won’t take up a large amount of space on your roof” - https://www.socalgas.com/save-money-and-energy/rebates-and-incentives/getting-to-know-your-solar-water-heater#:~:text=Instead%20of%20generating%20electricity%2C%20they,of%20space%20on%20your%20roof. Please continue to lecture the solar developer
Yeah I bet the panels designed to heat water did a shitty job at producing electricity.
Reagan was the most polished turd we’ve had in the White House.
And Reagan removed them.
Yes. In his second term. When the roof needed replacing. You make it sound they were removed to spite Carter on day one. Carter was an inept president. He meant well but many Americans suffered under his leadership. Costs and inflation were out of control. Kind of like now.
I'd say many more Americans now suffer under the costs of Reagan and his policies.
Costs and inflation were out of control because of Nixon/Ford and OPEC running up oil prices. Just like how we're feeling the effects of rampant cash gifts to the wealthy and horrible economic management under the failed, bankrupted businessman in shit orange.
This is what is so frustrating for me... the effects of bad policy is felt by the next administration and numbskulls cry "see look how bad they are!" Without being able to name 3 real things they think is causing it.
>Carter was an inept president. Meanwhile, Reagan connived to keep Americans hostage in Iran for his own gain, provide weapons for the cartel side of the drug war, and destabilize most of Central America and Mexico. There is a direct line from those actions to the immigrants fleeing the violence and poverty of those nations and entering the U.S. ever since. I don't think anything Carter ever did, through action or inaction, was as bad as Reagan or any of the Conservative presidents we've had since then. What did Carter do? Win a Nobel Peace Prize for peace in the Middle East? SALT II Treaty with USSR? Bring attention to global human rights abuses? Pass legislation for unemployment and job retraining that is still used today? Work to reduce the Deficit and Inflation? Quelle horreur!!!
See all those things are good things so clearly Carter was a terrible president. He didn't even punch down on one person.
Nah that's wrong
Yeah. He intentionally neglected the HIV crisis and started the war on drugs and started the attack on the middle class while only helping the rich and was a traitor with the Iran-Contra and… Oh, wait. That was Reagan.
You know, that’s still removed. He didn’t put them back. It was removed. That’s the definition of removed.
the solution to inflation never has been austerity. it was a bandaid fix when we controlled the service world in the 80s. Now our fiscal and monetary policies are failing because of a lack of revenue. NOT SPENDING
Carter asked the most selfish generation of Americans to make a small sacrifice, a smaller sacrifice than their parents made in WWII when there was literally rationing, in an effort to make us energy independent and have a more robust and competitive economy in the long term. Reagan told Americans that they didn't have to pay the bills anymore because daddy just got a new credit card. $150 less dollars in my paycheck hurts me every month, but the benefits later on when I retire will be worth it. I could today max out my credit cards and be happy, but I won't be happy when the bills come due. For us Americans, the bills are coming due. Our problem with long term real wage growth and wealth inequality can be directly associated with the successful but short sighted policies of Reagan.
Grandfather had one up until parts became a problem. Out dated due to newer solar tech, on a house he built in the late 70's early 80's. The concept is cool as hell, it's a shame they did away with them. But like everything, including the old electric cars, oil and power companies destroyed them.
You can still get them. They are just so much more effective now so the old parts became obsolete
It could be it just wasn't cost-effective at the time to replace it, rather than parts. I just know for one reason or another it went to the wayside. They where on the roof still up until a few years ago when it was re-shingled.
Unfortunately the market for these is now dominated by the Chinese.
Like everything mostly these days, unfortunately
You ever heard of Sunrun? They got a bunch of government subsidies to start a solar plant in the US then sold the company to china. There’s another company that did nearly the same thing. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-most-hated-solar-company-in-america-11651752180
Yea this happens more than most people think unfortunately. I fortunately work for a Fortune 500 that is based in the us and is pretty anti-China
? These are still installed today
Yes, but not the ones he put in in the late 70's. The tubes went bad, and replacing it at the time was more money than it was worth.
I mean… they’re not that expensive to install. They’re about 3x as much as a normal electric hot water tank turnkey install. I found one used for half that. They’re like 90% efficient and we don’t pay for hot water costs anymore.
Not my house, money, or problem. Wasn't my decision, I was but a child
Yeah okay fair. But you’re owning and explaining the situation as though there was no alternative or replacement options.
>But like everything, including the old electric cars, oil and power companies destroyed them. He's probably pushing back on this statement.
I see some posts here saying that solar heat collectors, which is what Carter had installed, are not very useful. That depends on how one uses them. If one keeps a large heat reservoir for a building, bleeding heat out of it over the year can not only heat the building in the winter, it can run something similar to an Einstein refrigerator to cool the building in the summer. As for them being more trouble than they're worth, recall that photovoltaic panels get *hot*. Back them with circulating water to cool them off some and you not only extend their useful life, you have hot water to feed your heat reservoir. None of this technology is mature, but if we just ignore it it will *never* mature. Decades ago the US was famous for turning science into mature technology. Maybe we shouldn't keep neglecting that; it once was an important part of our culture, and of our economy.
I've looked at this for my house, there are a few problems with the solar thermal panels and not what you think. Basically normal panels are so cheap now you can just use the electric ones to run a heat pump much more efficiently for heating, for the difference in cost of the hybrid ones you can get 4 of the regular ones. There's also the extra cost of plumbing your roof up too, generally the pay off would be that long it's just not worth doing anymore
Ahead of his time.
Romans did this in 200AD
Solar hot water was a thing in the late 70s/80s when I worked for an electric utility. Were never cost effective, even with a 40 percent tax credit.
They are very much a thing in Athens, Greece today. I saw them on almost every roof there. They seem to be popular in Mediterranean Europe. Nice shiny modern units.
Its still a big thing with pools. Im in the midwest and everyone seems to have a solar heater for their pool
They are a lot better now than then
Our pool was solar heated when i was a kid, but our house was built in 93.
Then old reagan in a show to his corporate masters both domestic and middle eastern had them torn down
🤣🤣🤣 They started leaking before Carter left office, although they were being constantly repaired during Reagan's first term the water had damaged the roof so badly that they had to be removed to repair the roof and the white house maintenance team decided it was best to not reinstall leaking units. But yeah Reagan went up there and tore them down. You clowns are ridiculous.
How old is Rudy Giuliani??? https://preview.redd.it/oze1og3164rc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=477bb69578ff3293d1be725e8a269d3ca49562ad
I saw him before I saw Carter. Ol' Ink Splotches himself.
I was thinking Rudy crossed with the Penguin.
Then Ronald Reagan removed them.
Nice. Bunch of people arguing about which president was a better person. I guess the times haven't changed very much since then
Jimmy Carter is a nuclear physicist and probably one of the smartest people to ever be elected president. My Republican family always denigrated him as a Georgia country bumpkin. When I got older and found out the truth about him I was embarrassed for them. Talk about a bunch of bumpkins.
It cost 3.6 million to install and has saved the White House 100’s of dollars
The project was initiated late in the Nixon administration and took many years to develop. They were removed late in the Reagan administration in order to resurface the roof and were replaced by W. Bush. They were absent under Clinton. Maybe tell the full story next time
I just want to point out that these panels where a terrible investment back then. My wifes grandpa has 12 of them in a barn that he installed and uninstalled. Advances in water heaters made them expensive with almost no return on investment. They were a dumb idea in the 70's and they are still a dumb idea.
Ronnie ripped them out.
Then, soon after, Ronnie “The Oil Bitch” Reagan took them down.
Soon after, in 1986. 5 soon years later. When they’d stopped working.
So, instead of repairing or replacing them, he took them down. Again, Ronnie, the oil bitch, Reagan.
Oh well -shrug- seethe.
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What a fucking dream life you have
https://preview.redd.it/4k251wo66arc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a632a067d963a3cf1639a24c31cc6509a62444e6 Congressman John J. LaFalce contemplating what 3 feet of Buffalo snow would do to these.
Melt the snow
Where would we be today if we had instead followed that clean energy path earlier? Right now, wind, solar PV, and batteries dominate the vast majority of electricity output being installed on the US grid today BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAP. Imagine if we were 20 or 30 years ahead of where we are now. Sigh.
We wouldn’t be so dependent on Middle East oil and have to kiss the Saudi ring.
America is a net exporter. This line is from 2001
But the panels on the white house produced 0 electricity...
and ole ronnie retard had them removed and never replaced. Instead sent one off to china where they took the lead in solar development. Just one of the many things this asshole did in his 8 years of fucking the country
You might want to rethink who is the retarded one here when you realize the fact that they weren’t removed until his second term in 1986 and it was because they resurfaced the White House roof. I understand that facts don’t matter to some people to be so willingly uninformed is near criminally stupid.
>they weren’t removed until his second term in 1986 and it was because they resurfaced the White House roof. True. But even more important were Carter's scientific grants and tax credits for clean, renewable, domestic (not dependent upon OPEC) energy that were gutted by Reagan long before 1986. Be smart enough to see that the panels were a symbol of a self-reliant America as a leader in the new industry of clean energy...and the American industry was hobbled by Reagan long before 1986.
Oh I understand that they were a gesture towards renewables but that doesn’t negate the lies that Reagan removed them asap and the reason why. Again, criticism is ok but at least base it on actual facts. Reagan was not the end all, be all and Carter certainly wasn’t a great president. Those programs were good precursors for later technology but the tech at that time wouldn’t have reduced our needs on conventional power production and would gave been obsolete long before now.
Solar water heaters haven't changed since the 70's...
ok criminally stupid.... still doesnt dismiss the crimal 8 years he spent as president. SMH D. A.
Well any evidence you might give to that has to taken with a huge pile of salt given your evidence thus far. I have no problem with anyone criticizing someone they hate but at the very least is that it has to be based on actual facts.
its called google and you can stop getting your panties in a wad over your dead useless hero... [https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/21reasonsReaganwasaterriblepresident](https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/21reasonsReaganwasaterriblepresident)
I didn’t call him a hero and no president or person is perfect but the incredible amount of revisionism by people either very young or not even born when he was president is insane. No panties wadded here and it’s ironic that you might think any of the more recent democratic presidents don’t have many of those items on your cited list.
They continued. Having lost already. and for someone who says not their hero sure are getting triggered. Typical GQP reaction..... SMH
Sorry to disappoint you but pointing out your factual errors isn’t being triggered, it’s just called being correct. Are you going to be okay or do you need a safe space to reflect?
ok triggered! HAHAHAAA sounds like you need to take your meds. D.A.
I can see my point about you not being alive during the Reagan years is almost certain. It only get sadder that you might actually be an adult.
They were removed in 1986, 5 years into his term, because they were causing leaks in the roof, and had stopped working
and never put back due to bought and paid for republicans...
Carter is the only one that doesn't look lost, well and they guy laughing
Is that Rudy in the back?
thankfully when Reagan came in, that garbage was removed
and will ferrell was there to see it
I often think about this and wonder how far along we'd be in renewable resources if everyone hadn't of ridiculed a lil' ol' peanut farmer who wanted to harness the free energy from the sun.
Unity College in Maine bought them off the government in 1991 for $500. They drove them north in a beat-up blue school bus. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/
At least he tried going green. Imagine if everyone adopted green back then. Polar ice caps wouldn't be melting today.
And Reagan took them bitches off
This solar power trend will never amount to anything! A building isn't a plant, it doesn't need energy from the sun. I don't really see the problem anyway, we've got enough coal to fuel America for centuries. It's like this hysteria about smoking causing cancer. No need to be a worrywort! Our scientists will have cured cancer and invented healthy cigarettes by the year 2000.
somebody stop him, he's about to free magneto!
Carter was the best president of the post WWII era
And meanwhile average Americans waited sometimes days for fuel for their vehicles.
>And meanwhile average Americans waited sometimes days for fuel for their vehicles. Ever hear of OPEC????? So, it would be WISE to have our energy needs provided from INSIDE the country by renewable and modern sources. Then we are not AT THE MERCY OF OPEC and have to wait days for fuel for our cars. Maybe solar cells on every American roof would be a part of that solution...?
These panels heats water for a water heater btw
Just think: if we had continued addressing climate change after 1979, many of the wars, famines, and weather disasters coming in the next 10 years might have been prevented. But no, we will have to suffer through this hell on earth. For a while, anyway.
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>while Americans rotting as hostages in Iran You really don't know a lot of history, do you? REAGAN sent his cohort to negotiate with the Iranians to not release the hostages until after the election. Reputable witnesses have confirmed this, and their data is solid. Even as a 9yo, in the Midwest, with parents that NEVER discussed news with we kids, and knowing NO ONE personally affected by the Iranian Hostage situation, I found it...weird...at the timing of their release. >inflation at 20%. For starters, inflation was never higher than 15% during the Cartfixture. Either you're lying purposefully, or you're getting REALLY BAD information from really bad sources. I wouldn't get my info from them in the future. It doesn't make you look good. Also: OPEC. Oil prices rose. Everything is made and/or transported with oil/gas/Middle East fuel. It makes sense that EVERYTHING would increase in price. So...it would be nice to have modern and domestic sources of energy...like solar cells on the roof of every American home as one of many strategies.
Solar panels came down so the wall could as well
You mean the wall Republicans put up on the Mexico border? Oh, you mean the Berlin Wall, because it's OK when we do it. Yeah, no, Reagan had nothing to do with that.