Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

Energy, Politics

Why Didn’t the US Develop Solar Energy 45 Years Ago?

The following interview was originally broadcast on August 20, 2014, when this website was called the ECOreport and all of my long distance interviews were over Skype.

Solar technology was invented in the United States and the world’s first solar company was American. The initial race to develop wind energy was closer, but once again the first prototype was built in the U.S.  

In 1978 Dr Alan Hoffman handed President Jimmy Carter a plan to fast track the adoption of renewable energy.

Only Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and for the next three decades, Hoffman watched as other nations took over the leadership in developing renewables.

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Politics

How America Adopts Energy Policies

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Thirty-seven years ago, the United States was poised on the edge of an energy revolution. The interdepartmental plan that Dr. Allan Hoffman presented President Jimmy Carter outlined how the nation could derive 20% of its’ power from renewables (principally wind & solar) by the year 2000.  What could have happened, if Carter’s successors had pressed forward, is another of the great “ifs” of history. Hoffman answers another question in his book THE U.S. GOVERNMENT & RENEWABLE ENERGY: how America adopts energy policies.

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