Solar Power On the White House

CartaNova writes "The Obama administration has announced plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the White House. The Carter administration had previously installed a 32-panel solar system at the White House — which was quietly removed during Reagan's tenure in office. Solar hot water and Photovoltaic firms had been campaigning on this issue for some time."

Comments

How does it get any light?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I've seen the White House on Google Maps and Google Earth and there seems to be some kind of thick cloud obscuring the area. Will they generate any electricity with these things or is it just another feel-good liberal gesture with no real world effect?

Re:How does it get any light?

[BetterThanCaesar]

Maybe Obama should build a wind turbine farm over sco08y's head.

solar hot water

[bhcompy]

I've had solar hot water at my family's home since the early 80s. Looks kind of weird, like giant lasagna pans on the roof, but I'll be damned if they don't work great and keep the gas bill down. Not sure how much it will help in Washington, but worth it in So Cal, especially with the govt kicking in a large tax credit

Re:solar hot water

[santax]

Once I had a job making swimmingpool-installations. We also had the option of using solarpanels for warming the water. Worked great and the people that bought them had way lower operating costs of the pool. It's an investment at first but it's worth it. In Germany solarpower is huge btw. They have a law there that obligates the powercompanies to actually buy the leftover-green power from the citizens back to the network. Really a country-wide win-win.

Re:Why do Americans have problems with solar power

[feepness]

Why do Europeans have problems not generalizing about Americans?

I just signed a contract to get solar power installed, and the sales guy said business was booming. His phone didn't stop buzzing the entire time.

Also, our President is getting solar power, if you hadn't heard.

Reagan did not remove PV panels AFAIK

[rolfwind]

He removed solar thermal panels, probably much less efficient than the evacuated tubes used today, when the roof was being repaired in 1986:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DF113BF937A1575BC0A960948260

They were not reinstalled because of cost effectiveness issue. I also heard maintenance was a pain. They were donated to a university, IIRC.

Bush also had solar panels installed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/technology/how-it-works-from-a-white-house-roof-solar-power-proclaims-gains.html

Many places are spinning this story politically no doubt.

BTW, I think solar thermal and more insulation is a great, cost effective thing. PV, otoh, not so much yet.

Re:No payback

[CrazyJim1]

Actually its not solar power. They're putting Sterling Engines on the roof of the Whitehouse running off the differential of heat between the atmosphere and the hot air rising to the roof.

solar & wind power

[Max_W]

The most effective solar and wind power device is drying clothing outside. It not only saves electricity, but actually cooling down an environment.

The problem is that it may look unaesthetic, unless a nice looking dryer is invented. Meanwhile drying clothing in the air is forbidden in many districts and even entire cities.

The effectiveness of drying is 100%. No energy is being lost. And the volume is enormous, - billions of people wash and dry clothing everyday.

Production of dryers does not involve any toxic material and is not expensive. But if clothing is dried in electrical driers then a lot, a lot of electrical energy is being used.

I would argue that the problem of global warming would be solved, if drying outdoors would be not forbidden, but promoted. Of course, after an invention of a aesthetic outdoor drier.

Quietly my ass

[mbone]

"...— which was quietly removed during Reagan's tenure in office"

I don't know what the OP is talking about. This was done very early on and was publicized widely, as a way of showing how the Reagan administration was forward looking and confident, as opposed to the defeatist Carter administration (or something like that - I could never really grasp Reagan's propaganda). What was done fairly quietly was the complete evisceration and cancelation of the Carter era alternative energy research program, which was just at the stage of showing promise. What was left unsaid was how pleased the oil companies were by all of this.

Re:lol

[je ne sais quoi]

Reagan didn't just take the solar panels off the white house, that's symbolic. Reagan also slashed the budget of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory by 90%. This facility currently holds, and regularly held in the past decade or so, the records for the highest efficiency photovoltaics and other types of devices. So if you ask me why solar panels sucked in the past, it was because there was not very much research in solar power going on for the entire decade of the 80s.

I'm guessing Reagan rationalized these actions as reducing the federal budget. The only problem with that logic is that the guy ran up a bigger deficit in defense projects than Carter (or just about any other president besides Bush, Jr.). But that's typical, when conservative politicians speak about reducing the deficit, that is usually code for cutting programs that they just don't like and has nothing to do with the actual deficit.