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Here Comes the Sun: White House to Go Solar
WASHINGTON —Solar power is coming to President Barack Obama's house.
Last month, global warming activists with 350.org carried one of Carter's solar panels - which were removed in 1986 - from Unity College in Maine to Washington to urge Obama to put solar panels on his roof. At the time, the White House was non-committal, but it now appears that the activists had quite an impact. (AP) The most famous residence in America, which has already boosted its green credentials by planting a garden, plans to install solar panels atop the White House's living quarters. The solar panels are to be installed by spring 2011, and will heat water for the first family and supply some electricity.
The plans will be formally announced later Tuesday by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush both tapped the sun during their days in the White House. Carter in the late 1970s spent $30,000 on a solar water-heating system for West Wing offices. Bush's solar systems powered a maintenance building and some of the mansion, and heated water for the pool.
Obama, who has championed renewable energy, has been under increasing pressure to lead by example by installing solar at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, something White House officials said has been under consideration since he first took office.
The decision perhaps has more import now after legislation to reduce global warming pollution died in the Senate, despite the White House's support. Obama has vowed to try again on a smaller scale.
Last month, global warming activists with 350.org carried one of Carter's solar panels - which were removed in 1986 - from Unity College in Maine to Washington to urge Obama to put solar panels on his roof. It was part of a global campaign to persuade world leaders to install solar on their homes. After a meeting with White House officials, they left Washington without a commitment.
That campaign followed calls by the solar industry for the White House to become a national billboard for solar power.
"Putting solar on the roof of the nation's most important real estate is a powerful symbol calling on all Americans to rethink how we generate electricity," Solar Energy Industries Association President Rhone Resch said.
55 Comments so far
Show AllI care. Of course it is minute compared to the rest of our problems but it is a good symbolic gesture that can be used as a case in point for bigger agendas/projects. When the solar energy industry lobbies on the state level, they can make local politicians squirm a little at not having panels on the roof of their state buildings. C,mon ardent, your just being pissy, when you know it's a good thing.
Is this sudden change of heart in reality just A product of frantic Political desperation on Obama's behalf or is this guy finally waking up...I have A sneaking hunch that this is A springboard for the First Lady to fire up her strategy for voter support in 2012...All things considered, It is A positive step in the right direction. Bill McKibben is happy I am sure...
Frankly, I think Obama should apologize for the shabby treatment of those students that came with McKibben, but I doubt that will happen. I'll be cynical as far as Obama's change of heart on anything. It's a month before Election Day. I would expect a few more "crumbs" to be announced, just enough to make the fools "hopeful"
It's a month before election day. Thus a gesture. But hey, at least it reflects a change in public consciousness. And by installing solar and wind facilities in Afghanistan, we may leave those people with something beside death and chaos.
Joe
Exactly. It's a gesture. A PR gesture with no substance.
And they might put solar panels up in Afghanistan to make it easier for the predator drones to see where to aim (solar panels have high reflectivity).
The Pentagon has also shown interest in solar energy. That way, they can maintain the police state when the rest of us cannot afford to heat our homes.
Don't hold your breath waiting for them to do anything significant for us. That would offend their sponsors.
Today's NYTimes has an interesting article on the use of alternative energies in the military.
This is a good thing. However, if the "White House has been considering it since Obama took office," they are pretty slow to act. Just maybe, Jimmy Carter pushed them into this with his talking about the original solar panels installed when he was President in the late 1970s.
So what? We need agressive steps to move people toward alternative energy, and we can only do this by subsidizing its use, as we do for gas and oil. But this is the last thing the Corporatocracy wants, and it's the last thing we'll get. We'll get lip service and panels on the White House.
Perhaps this means that a ray of light will now shine through these solar panels that will be placed into the White House which will allow Obama to discern the error of his ways in order for him to change into a man of peace and to finally help the working class and the poor in this country. Unfortunately, even if Obama has to end up wearing sunglasses when he is in the Oval Office, one should not bet the mortgage on this miraculous transformation occurring any time soon.
Wonder how solar collectors will fit with a building constructed just after the War of 1812. What sort of ornaments will they have? It is the White House, after all--so how does that go with the black collectors? How about mounting the system in the backyard, out of sight? Or, if the purpose is to proclaim its presence, why stop at solar? Perhaps a couple of windmills whirling on the roof could be installed to advertise that form of energy. Hell, let's kick out the jambs: a bicycle path leading to the front door with plenty of bike parking, energy-saving shades for all the windows; laundry lines out back; a billboard out front declaring the owner's intent to gain the highest green rating for his residence. Dress the Man, himself, in recycled clothes. There is no end to where this can go.
Indeed.
But this White House is a potemkin structure. It reminds me of the first terminator flick when Arnold's skin started coming off and you could see the robotic red eyes. I guess solar panels beat the hell out of a predator drone parked on the roof.
FUBAR
A "star-powered" White House is indeed a fine example for the nation and a nice gesture. I wonder how many of Obama's critics have installed solar/wind power in their own homes/businesses. New advances in photo-voltaic technology include gains to 100 percent efficiency, a far cry from the very expensive 12% units my wife and I installed back in 1980. Even at that, we estimate savings over $100k these past 30 years.
"Be the change you want to see" ...
And good luck to the United States of America!
I Don't think they are Right Wing, in this case more like "Liberal Elite" not recognizing the audience.
Your criticism, aside from the accusations of character, is quite valid, however. When living from paycheck to paycheck (or unemployment check to unemployment check as the case may be,) installing solar panels on the roof of the building you rent a room in is not exactly a feasible option.
Very good point!
Ah yes, "championed". As you and other posters have asserted in myriad ways here, these PR folks are clever. They are consistent in trying to shoehorn into our subconscious a false 'Obama is a man of the people' premise through the back door of a press release.
I saw the same modus operandi with Rove. Remember when he said of Bush, "the president is well liked, but ...blah blah"? Say what?
Orwell + Huxley equals unending cognitive dissonance. I wrote a term paper in college about the limits of cognitive dissonance involving Orwellian propaganda. I asserted that there comes a time in even the most brain washed individual when he realizes that getting a smaller chocolate ration (see 1984) is not an INCREASE in the chocolate ration AND the entity that makes said claim is lying, bankrupt morally and not to be trusted ever again. The result is that the individual becomes resistent to propaganda (see Russia in the 1980s) and the government loses all credibility.
We are almost there.
Interesting.
They certainly have a lot of options. Violence is expensive and the elite consider it inefficient. Yes, a high tech circus would certainly go a long way to distract people. Perhaps that was what this government push to make broadband internet available (and cheap) to more people is about.
But that leads us to Maslow's hierachy of needs. If we are hungry, we won't be appeased by entertainment. If the elite push too far in their attempts to milk us for more profit, we stop en masse our cooperation with the government. These things have inertia. However, as long as we have shelter, enough to eat and some access to health care, we will probably take all the despotic, gestapo tactics lying down. Disappeared relatives won't be talked about. It goes back to the colonial period here and that clause in the Declaration of Independence about the 'long train of abuses'. It makes it clear that people will accept an enormous amount of abuse. I wish it weren't so.
But once the credibility dam breaks, the whole mindset shifts to anti-government status quo until a new regime consolidates power.
Just a lame gesture to make it look like Obama and his oil and coal happy crew actually care about alternative energy, sometime in the far future when the oil and coal supplies have run out and the earth is scorched. Put up a few solar panels and power a few light bulbs--hell, even W used them to heat his swimming pool. If this proves promising to McKibben, he's even more naive than he seems. It won't be followed up with ANY serious initiatives or funding for solar or wind, so that only private use will continue, by those who can afford the exorbitant price of setting up these systems. You might save over the very long haul, like in 20 or 30 years, but set-up costs are far out of reach for about 98% of us. It's sort of like decent health care, isn't it? The top 2% can get it, the rest of us are on our own.
Oh, so now he does this?
What a lame attempt to boost his ratings. What an incredibly cynical attempt to capitalize on what he perceives as the stupidity of his progressive base.
What a joke. I can't wait to see what John Stewart does with this.
The use of the past tense in describing the solar systems installed during the Bush administration is troubling. Were they taken away when the Obamas moved in?
I am dismayed by the cynicism expressed in most of the comments. Getting American business to actually do the real work of manufacturing and installing solar technology has been very difficult. Leaders can advocate, but they--and most of us--are not up to doing it ourselves. Meanwhile, northern Europeans are buying and installing solar panels, in a lousy climate, while we deny the value of it in better climatic condition. The cynicism should be directed at American business, which, as Ariana Huffington says, has changed from making things to making things up. They'd rather charge your credit card for some crap from China than sell you a real product or service that they design, build, and install. Jimmy Carter tried to lead by example, so we just turned to an example we liked better, Ronny the actor Reagan. I've got two south-facing building rooves that would be ideal for solar panels--but finding them, getting them installed, hooking them into the grid, and getting them financed are barriers.
Your comment is more cynical than most. Maybe because you're looking at this realistically?
"See, I was trying to explain to someone the 'okey-doke.' Y’all know the okey-doke? It’s when someone’s trying to bamboozle you, when they’re trying to hoodwink you."
-- Bonnie Prince Obama on the campaign trail, 2008
__________________________________________________
Hmmm, let's see. Team Obama stiffs mild-mannered climate activist Bill McKibben in September, and rejects McKibben's symbolic return of a solar panel famously mounted on the White House during the Carter Administration.
On that occasion, the White House simply brushes off the gesture, i.e. it doesn't even bother to inform McKibben and his cohort, "No, sorry, we're not returning THIS antique to the White House roof, but wait until you see the state-of-the-art solar panel extravaganza we're launching NEXT MONTH!"
Given McKibben's diffident, low-key approach, he surely would have leaped aboard to spin this as a win-win outcome. But then Team Obama wouldn't get the thrill of openly stiff-arming someone that, incredibly, passes for a Dirty F**king Hippie among Beltway insiders, the corporate media, and the teeming yahoo masses-- including those chimerical "swing voters".
However, given persistent "calls by the solar industry for the White House to become a national billboard for solar power", and a LOBBYIST'S assertion that "Putting solar on the roof of the nation's most important real estate is a powerful symbol calling on all Americans to rethink how we generate electricity", this month Team Obama decides to accede in spirit to McKibben's offer after all.
This was a BETTER "win-win" outcome for Team Obama, according to their depraved amoral pseudo-pragmatic realpolitik. They calculate that "sensible" voters who even bother to pay attention to this stuff will conclude that the IMPORTANT thing isn't who blew off who, but that those solar panels are going back up on the White House for the world to see.
After all, in the hardball world of Inside Politics, the ends justify the means. This concept is the devil diabolically buried under the mountains of analytic detail generated in Team Obama's calculus-- and it ALWAYS ultimately bites everybody in the ass.
So Team Obama reaps the reward of dissing a vaguely Sixties-style activist, then hugging an eco-friendly industry. Coincidentally, this happens during the home stretch to midterm elections.
And fruitwriter, YOU'RE dismayed by the cynicism expressed in most of the COMMENTS? Okey-doke!
Apparently some people are dismayed at the cynicism of comments. If one is not dismayed, they must be either benefitting from the status quo, in deep denial, or just plain lacking information (thus making them more gullible or naive). It would be too cynical of me to brand this person an apologist for the D faction.
The comment seems to smack of a bit of blame the victim. Victims of a corrupt system cannot be cynical, they must blame themselves.
Cynicism is always appropriate when substance is absent from an action.
Green Mountain Power in Vermont is actively helping people and businesses go solar. Now that is real.
There is a difference.
That this long-overdue bit of symbolism (which should have happened within the first week of Obama's taking the oath of office) is finally occurring is good. Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) getting rid of the solar panels on the White House, hindsight has shown, was one of his more damaging moves of his whole misbegotten reign, as it foreshadowed another 30+ years of corporate petro-chemical plunder. Nor is the possibility that this grievous error could not be repeated again, considering the wealth of politicians quite willing to dance to the tune of the Oil industry.
The difference between "making things and making things up".
I wonder how often that difference can be discerned even by those who bring up the phrase.
The malaise on the left is evidence that the Democrats have accomplished EXACTLY what "Obama" was created to accomplish -- the substitution of the simulation of "Change to Believe In" for the real sort of changes the public was beginning to entertain prior to his election.
Until the tremendous power of image-making and marketing is really understood (far more deeply than Lakoff and the way he himself is actually used to sell "products" (ie the Democratic Party) unwittingly against his own interests -- progressive sentiments will remain at least ten steps behind those calling the shots.
The AP is doing its bit for the US mainstream media to blow hot air up our booties. Give it a rest, your and the right wing's man's day is over. Colin Powell should be warming up to make the big move to go after the presidency to take it back for all the people. Then the current president can get his free trip back to Chicago.
AD
The WH already went solar over 30 years ago in 1979 I believe. The solar panels were promptly torn out shortly thereafter.
Hey, but it makes for some feel-good public relations blah blah for the Lexus Liberal crowd. Well done.
Now, where are the billions for infrastructure projects and R&D to develop low-cost solar technology?
Oh, that might damage the interests of BigOil? Feggedabout it, can't afford it.
Bill McKibbin and company brought back to the white house the exact same solar panels that were torn out. They still worked. Perfect environmentally friendly re-use setup. Those were the rejected panels.
I have a friend who put up panels in the early 70's. The have been pumping out juice for the past 28 years with no maintenance or loss of performance. He tells me that the life of these panels will be at least 50 years. The cost of solar in the 70's was $60/watt today $2.50 and dropping fast. Solar will be a big player in the energy mix regardless of big oil or anything else. "Plug and Play" solar.. started happening a few years ago and shows that grid connected PV is doable by anyone with a few basic skills.
Let this be a lesson to radicals. If you bring a solar panel to the White House, they will tell you NO! However, they will then turn around after a carefully measured period of time, and say yes to a liberal. All that remains for justice to be done, is for the liberal to turn around and quietly reward the radical who made everything happen. (That's not going to happen!)
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This is the TINIEST of nods to the progressive base after two years of constant White House bashing of them coming 6 weeks out before elections that are predicted to be a bloodbath for the failed DLC. Obama is so stoned on his own neo-liberal propaganda he probably believes that's all he needs to do. Rest in pieces Dimocrap Party.
Getting desperate, Mr. President?
What a joke.
Too little too late.
IT'S THE BLUE DOGS, STUPID!
Who you callin stupid? You think this post is intelligent?
I think he means it's the blue dog Democrats that are causing the party to fail. He may be right since the Republicans and blue dog Democrats put together are a majority. How many progressive and liberal Democrats exist in Congress?
saying no in the first place was a mistake...
this is their do-over...
the whole gesture is goofy, as the conversation is limited to supply, and never enters the realms of storage, distribution, demand, or the devastating industrial processes of production behind, that are poisoniong everything we have...
nor the resulting mountains of toxic wastes...
Sadly, Bill McKibben will actually think this means something, and that his attempts to enlighten the White House were successful.
The sad truth is that Obama is using this publicity stunt to keep his corrupt party in power.
Oh, how we are screwed!
Yeah, right. More PR fluff until after the congressional elections. It seems every election cycle the 'we care what people need' meme is dragged out when ridicule of the base by the leadership doesn't work.
Leadership bankruptcy at it's most nauseating.
Besides the White House, what about the American people? How about government overriding the HOA hell? Oh wait, hands off lest the bankers and landlords get "offended". How about plans on cutting subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear? Wait, they get their campaign contributions from those cronies. How about making those panels here at home and lowering the prices to reasonable levels? Well they wouldn't want to "offend" those "free" trade gorillas behind the scenes or make room for competing with fossil fuel and nuclear giants it seems. As always, this article is nothing but all sizzle and no substance from this lame brain administration. Just let the nation FAIL.
And it just gets worse. I read about an amazing geothermal plant here in the USA which cracked an efficiency barrier that had always held geothermal technologies back. They boasted of competitive (or better) electrical generation efficiencies as compared to hydrocarbons. And as to nuclear, they are much cheaper.
Along comes a large nuclear plant consortium in the USA and buys the geothermal plant and the technology. End of story. That was this year around Spring time. They can't put a meter on geothermal heat and they can't claim it will run out so they kill it with money.
These monsters never stop.
I heard that nuclear power plants guzzle far more water than geothermal plants alone. I know France and Germany ran into snags on going nuclear for energy but the USA will probably try to spin the issue around. My older friend, JWVerez (wherever he is these days), once discussed how nuclear energy can be used to produce nuclear weaponry "cheap" from the waste. The military and electrical companies can then both manufacture another energy crisis and stock up for war. This nation's love for military and money isn't about to die down.
JenniferBedingfield:
I just read an article about ideas from 34 people on how to "fix the fiscal crises"
{link below}
A very intelligent man named Emory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute suggested no more Energy subsidys for any kind of Energy, be it coal, oil, nuclear, or Green...Emory, being into Energy Consevation and Green must figure that Big Oil Nuclear and Coal will be less competitive with Alternative Energy without the Government Subsidies. That is my "take" anyway....
“I would be happy to see all energy subsidies eliminated. With a free-market ideology, all forms of energy would play on a level field, and the cheapest, safest and most abundant forms could provide us with cost-effective and abundant power.”
— Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, the Rocky Mountain Institute
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Issues/The-Economy/2010/09/30/Fiscal-Resolution.aspx
That would be a truly free market we all could agree on. :)
"a powerful symbol"
Yeah, I used to have one in my pants when I was young.
It didn't help; we still ended up with Cheney and the Barons.
Does this matter?
Last time a president (Carter) put solar energy into the White House, the pathetic Bush Senior took it out immediately upon being voted in. Just goes to show you how seriously the Republicans take our environment.
Politicians are a bunch of babies. I'll take my ball and go home mentality.
It is not possible to be too cynical in these times. But let's keep in mind that this cynical act is not a bad thing, and might help teach some people about solar energy - not that we should need to be educated about solar power several millions years after ancestors knew about and used it.
Do we have a good book on how could/would be if we didn't have profits over all life as a economic system? Anyone?