WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2010
White House Goes Green: Obama Home to Go Solar
Solar Panels to be Installed Above the White House's Living Quarters; Military Also Looking to Renewable Energy
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During the Bush administration, solar panels were used to heat the White House pool. The new panels, to be installed by Spring 2011, will sit atop the Obama living quarters, heating water and providing some electricity. (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.
American solar panels are also making a foray into Afghanistan. That's because the U.S. military is pushing rapidly forward to develop and deploy renewable energy to lessen its need to transport fossil fuels, the New York Times reports.
The newspaper reports that last week Marines brought an array of solar equipment - panels, lights, tent shields and chargers - to Helmand Province.
"There are a lot of profound reasons for doing this, but for us at the core it's practical," Navy secretary Ray Mabus told the newspaper.
?MMX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Will the idiot put in a couple windmills too??? You know the "green" montrosities that everyone is finding to be failures in providing reliable energy. These clowns will probably install the crap with a CBS/NBC/ABC showtime and then laugh as they continue to buy energy from constellation to ensure a reliable source........What a joke these people are.....
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- This is a political stunt, just like Gore trying to come off as an environmentalist while using a private jet and lots of suvs to flit around. How much is this going to cost the taxpayers and how many years will it take before the piddly savings matter and there's a break-even point? And, what if the next president doesn't care for solar power? He's pretty very presumptive that he'll still be in the big house after 2012.
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- Repubs want to go backward.And nothing symbolizes that more than Reagan tearing out the solar panels.
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- Well here is Obama following in the footsteps of his Daddy.. Jimmy Carter I use to be the worst President in history but now we have Obama... Save the county vote against Obama vote Republican.
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- Good symbolic move. Unlike Reagan who said "tear down those panels" that Jimmy Carter had installed and bring in the ME oil. The outrage that Americans should feel is that the R&D credits that US taxpayers subsidize through big tax breaks for business is sent and used in plants off shore. This has happened for 60 years with all of the USA technology, from transistors to TV, to the latest in alternative energy. Corporations make the USA pay and then create the jobs in Japan, or China or Taiwan, etc. It was always about cheap labor and no constraints on the environment. Now we've lost our economic clout as China has moved into our number one economic position. The corporations don't mind as they are interested in markets and cheap labor and don't give a damn about the USA. Yet the Supreme Court gives them the right to influence our elections as though they were American citizens. They aren't Americans, nor are they citizens of any country except GREED looking for profits at any cost.
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- China also has all those GE workers that GE couldn't put to work here because they couldn't get their plant up to par for the regulations.So they had to send the plant to China along with the jobs. So does it make since to put a green light bulb plant in China and then spend all that energy to bring them back? This does not sound green to me.
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- This is wonderful news. We'd have an immeasurably better world if Jimmy Carter had been re-elected: Consider the number of fossil fuel wars there've been (and the hundreds of thousands of people killed); witness the terrorism caused, at least partly, by our dependence upon such fuels -- and that our energy dependence funds terrorism and terrorists; consider the fact that the polar ice caps are quickly melting and numerous cities world-round will be under water. The only smart choice is to vote Democrat the first Tuesday in November. Congratulations, President Obama, for this wise, emblematic action.
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- The big move may be an announcement about space-based solar power during his visit to India next month. 24/7, no clouds, 5GW apiece, scalable over the course of the century.
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- From National Wildlife Federation: -- "In the two years that Congress has been dragging its feet on clean energy reform, China went from having very little new energy manufacturing capacity to becoming the largest manufacturer of wind turbines and the number-one producer of solar panels in the world. During the height of the recession, China decided to take that opportunity to build high-speed electric rail service to every major city within its borders. It is halfway to reaching that ambitious goal and projects completing it by 2014. While the Senate fiddled, China was burning up the new energy markets." ------ The Chinese are working at breakneck speed to install over 8,000 miles of high-speed rail by 2014. By contrast the U.S. has been moving at a snail's pace on our high-speed rail projects that pale in comparison to the bold transportation initiatives in China. ------ It's time for the U.S. to get-it-in-gear and quit wasting so much time on old technologies like oil-drilling and clogged highways full of one-passenger cars stuck going nowhere. The future belongs to the alternative, green energy projects; to high-speed rail transportation projects. We are saddled with thousands of lobbyists from these old dinosaur technologies influencing our legislators daily, holding back progress in the new technologies of the future.
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- Of course, China can work at a breakneck speed to install the high speed rail because they have the resources to hire 1000's of workers for its construction. And, at $1.00/hr on average for this type of labor, their cost for the railway is very affordable. We're working under different economic, minimum wage, and worker safety conditions here in the U.S. I'm not disagreeing that renewable energy resources are necessary and we need to move in that direction. I just think it's a little unreasonable for us to expect to move as fast as countries that don't have our legal constraints. And, even with the low cost to build it, China has admitted the operation of their railway will be at a loss. Instead, they are looking for a gain in employment of workers to build and maintain the line.
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