Where did the Carter White House's solar panels go? (2010)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/

by rndmize • 3 years ago

79 121 3 years ago

neonate• 3 years ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20230915220736/https://www.scient...

elihu• 3 years ago

The thing I didn't know until I came across a similar article posted here on HN a few years ago (maybe it was the same one?) is that the White House panels weren't photovoltaic, they were solar-thermal for heating hot water.

Basically, Carter wasn't deploying some cutting edge and extravagantly expensive (at the time) technology that could be deployed as a high-profile technical demo but not actually economical to use, he was deploying a cheap, practical technology that could be used on most houses, during warm months at least.

interestica• 3 years ago

I didn't know they were solar water heating until right now. Barbados has been a cool case study of large scale adoption of solar water heating:

https://cdkn.org/resource/cdkn-inside-story-seizing-the-suns...

whoisthemachine• 3 years ago

I was just on vacation in Greece, and solar water heaters are on every home and building there.

morkalork• 3 years ago

In Canada it's not uncommon too see some homemade looking solar heating setups connected to people's pools. The coiled black tubing on shed roofs is very distinctive.

swasheck• 3 years ago

i grew up in central florida in the 80s and we had solar-thermal water heating. we were not wealthy (dad was a construction worker and mom was an odd-job secretary) but my friends were all mystified by the things. i remember climbing up on our roof giving tours.

something really did a number on society and it politicized so many things that needn’t be politicized

Loughla2• 3 years ago

So my grandfather turns 101 this year. He's kind of an ass in his old age, and wildly out of touch with the world. Like shockingly out of touch.

But he talks about politics from back in the day. Everything has always been super politicized. Everything. But our memories are short as a country.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 3 years ago

Sadly, I read often that at this point, PV is so good that it makes more sense to install PV panels and power a water heater via electricity. I don't want to believe it, but it's been said often enough that I am starting to do so.

nerpderp82• 3 years ago

I think electric solar heating makes sense for a lot of installations.

Wires are easier than pipes, we still need electricity, make the existing system larger rather than split between the two. Heat water during the midday when output is high. I use almost no hot water, so the system would have a long payback period. But I can heat water in a 15A kettle.

I love solar thermal, Trombe Walls should be integrated into the construction directly or added after the fact. They are for building heat, not water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombe_wall

thsksbd2• 3 years ago

PV can beat solar thermal once a heat pump is used.

However that ignores the externalities of PV and heat pumps manufacture, replacement and disposal so I think the argument is BS.

Solar thermal is an aimed aluminum trough and a stainless steel pipe painted black on its focal point.

kevin_thibedeau• 3 years ago

It's an easy intermittent power sink for supplemental hot water if you don't want to be grid tied or bother with a battery bank.

the_third_wave5• 3 years ago

The best would be too use water-cooled PV panels with a heat pump to cool down the coolant and transform the heat. Cool panels produce quite a bit more electricity while the heat can be used elsewhere. Water-cooled panels are available commercially (with promises of far too high efficiencies, salesdroids gonna salesdroid) so this is not a pipe dream, especially not there where a water/water heat pump is available anyway - just install some valves to re-route the coolant through the panels.

WalterBright11• 3 years ago

There were many books and how-to guides at the time to add solar water heaters. Anybody who wanted one could install one. I know people who did. They didn't need permission from Reagan.

Few wanted one.

bombcar3• 3 years ago

They still can be installed today, the sun hasn't changed much.

And still they're rarely installed. I knew more people in the 90s who were ripping them out or leaving them dry (they were popular for pool heating in some areas) than installing them.

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers.

Crazy. You see all these wind turbines all across the U.S. If not spread across the plains or along foothills, they're being shipped along the highways one blade at a time. I look at the transformation going on and figure we could have had this tech in the 80's. What happened in the last four decades? Talk about a lost generation.

It was so weird to grow up in the 70's when they were teaching us the Metric System in public schools, when National Parks were adding meters, kilometers to signage. Reusable spacecraft, renewable energy, (and nuclear energy), computers, micro-electronics....

To be sure there were warnings of an ominous, overcrowded, polluted future ("Soylent Green", "Silent Running", just to call out a couple films of the era) but as a kid I was infused with the optimism of the time. Buckminster Fuller, NASA ... even the hippies and their communes.

I think I still live in that world in my head. I hope maybe I have expressed a part of that optimism to my kids as I raised them.

bdcravens4• 3 years ago

"Hippy", "green", "woke": as time goes on, names change, but the battles of us vs them don't. There's a lot of partisan discussion around the idea of pushing back and "reopening" the spigot of oil and pushing back on EVs, for example.

rootusrootus3• 3 years ago

It's too bad, I hoped EVs were one thing everyone could agree on. Maybe because it's good for the environment. Or because it's good for energy independence.

lotsoweiners2• 3 years ago

Is woke really the modern version of hippie/green? I feel like a lot of people myself included can support and appreciate environmental issues but have no interest in this woke culture nonsense.

Justsignedup• 3 years ago

It's always the battle of should someone who has access to something valuable but harmful have the ability to use it and have society clean up the consequences.

When phrased this way it sounds pretty darn easy of a choice, but reality never phrases it that way and that person had money to bribe politicians.

And so we struggle. Because those with wealth do not want to give up their wealth.

fbdab1032• 3 years ago

Metrification was also killed by Reagan.

WillPostForFood3• 3 years ago

Metrification was dying, and the plug was pulled by the Reagan Admin. Biggest blow was probably the abandonment of converting highway signs to km in 1977.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1977/06/30/metr...

akira25013• 3 years ago

What, fundamentally, would be actually different if the US was "metric?" Why should a federal government enforce one particular standard or another?

hindsightbias• 3 years ago

I don’t think anyone not from that generation can understand how much we’re still living in Reagan’s world.

WalterBright11• 3 years ago

I like Reagan's world better than Carter's world of hour long gas lines and "Malaise Forever" stagflation.

heresie-dabord• 3 years ago

I still live in that world in my head. I hope maybe I have expressed a part of that optimism to my kids as I raised them.

You have been good to them, then. Those hopes were grown by a generation of survivors, thinkers, and humanists who expressed humanist principles in their work. They were agents of change. Knowledge, compassion, and fairness have been almost completely replaced in public discourse by cruel raving and demagoguery.

xg153• 3 years ago

What happened in the last four decades? Talk about a lost generation.

Neoliberalism and the Chicago school of economics happened.

anonu• 3 years ago

We had solar-thermal panels on the roof of our house in Beirut in 1995... they're still going strong - just need to wipe them of dust every now and then. Hands down one of the best home appliance investments - especially in a country where electricity is sporadic.

The reason they haven't picked up in the US is because infrastructure is good - electricity delivery is reliable. It's much cheaper to install an electrical or gas water heater rather than the complicated plumbing needed to add solar-thermal.

nemo44x• 3 years ago

Pretty much. All in all they’ve been a very poor investment for home owners in America. At best you break even after ~20 years if they’re even still functional.

Could change as tech improves but as of today they are pointless for most people.

154573452342• 3 years ago

At best you break even after ~20 years if they’re even still functional.

This is misinformation.

I searched on google, bing and Yandex and all the results I found implied that breakeven would occur substantially before 20 years. The lowest breakeven time figure I found quoted was 5 years. The usual quoted breakeven ranges were, I'd say, 6-12.

ComputerGuru• 3 years ago

You’re talking about PV, not solar thermal. Break even for solar thermal can be one year.

Kerb_• 3 years ago

Source?

Tijdreiziger• 3 years ago

IIUC investing in PV is actually more efficient for heating/cooling than solar-thermal, because you can use them to run a heat pump, and heat pumps have something like 400% efficiency (i.e. with 1 kWh of electricity they can pump 4 kWh of heat).

Here in the Netherlands government is now trying to ramp down PV subsidies, because PV has been so wildly successful that electricity spot prices are actually negative at peak sun (midday). (Even without subsidies I believe the panels are now cheap enough to be worth the investment, though.)

BoiledCabbage3• 3 years ago

Here in the Netherlands government is now trying to ramp down PV subsidies, because PV has been so wildly successful that electricity spot prices are actually negative at peak sun

Which means people should start buying batteries. Pull in power during midday at a profit, and then send it back out in the evening at a profit. I'm curious how long it'd take to pay back the price of a battery.

sneak• 3 years ago

I just a few days ago watched a really good fairly deep dive video about the US' historical reasons behind this:

https://youtu.be/fAyY0kGmgmc

Where did the Carter White House's solar panels go? (2010)

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