[wistlo]

"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 a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people,” Mr. Carter said. Reagan removed the panels in 1986."

All you need to know about the respective legacies of Carter and Reagan.

[RC_ITR]

Notably, the 32 panels Carter installed were thermal water heating panels.

This means that there was no innovative technology in them, and they represent a technology path that is significantly less space efficient and less useful vs PVs.

It is also worth noting (especially on a platform that believes in American excellence as much as HN does) that modern PVs really trace their history back to Martin Green, who did most of his work with Australian Japanese and Chinese researchers (since he was in Australia), so funding the projects of American scientists might have not yielded the best results anyway.

So in many ways, you could argue that Carter’s solar focus was symbolically great, but stronger US subsidies would just make the US look like Germany - expensive and inefficient PVs that are increasingly becoming a liability (though bless them and their utility customers for powering through and continuing to install new, more efficient equipment).

[adev_]

> [...] US look like Germany - expensive and inefficient PVs that are increasingly becoming a liability (though bless them and their utility customers for powering through and continuing to install new, more efficient equipment).

Well tried but factually wrong.

Thermal solar is a battle-proofed low-tech for water heating (or even residential heating) that does not require any expensive Gov subsidies or public money to be deployed at large scale.

It is currently common to find such panels in developing countries as a cheap way of providing hot showers to people without power grids. In countries where the notion of gov subsidies often does not even exist.

That has very little in common with the giant public money sink shitshow that is the German energiewende.

[tekknik]

Let’s not forget the $5 gallon gas in the 70’s, 22% mortgage rates and the reason (these) Reagan was elected to fix it.

[TheDudeMan]

What panels? What is this about?

[tiernano]

Solar pannels on the white house.

[swiftcoder]

solar water heaters specifically. not the electricity-generating sort of panels

[hansthehorse]

And they were not removed by Reagan. The roof had to be redone and they were simply not re-installed because they leaked so badly and weren't worth the time and expense.

[zeven7]

“ Three of the panels are part of museum collections. One of the panels was donated by Unity College to the National Museum of American History in 2009. Another is on display at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center. A third panel has been part of the Solar Science and Technology Museum in Dezhou, China since 2013.” [1]

Sounds like America chose “museum piece” from Carter’s options.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_Hou...

[cyberge99]

It represents the road not taken. Reagan removed solar panels.

[data_maan]

Don't worry, China is more than happy to take the road Americans haven't.

[bpodgursky]

Sort of. They had to replace the roof, and they didn't reinstall them.

(they were also not "solar panels" it was solar water heating and it was sorta useful but mostly symbolic).

[anonu]

No the Carter solar panels were electric and not solar thermal.

[bpodgursky]

No, they were solar heating panels. This is so easy to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House

[blharr]

I mean a 30 year old solar panel isn't going to be useful to be fair

[otteromkram]

Who's "be fair" and why are we concerned about their solar panel usage?