White House Says No to Solar Panels?

Maybe you’ve been following the road trip headed by Bill McKibben to get solar panels installed on the White House once again.  If you have, then I’m sorry to say the group was not successful – at least not yet – but I wouldn’t dismiss the idea that solar panels will land on the White House roof sometime in the next year.

Bill McKibben started the journey with a bunch of students at Unity College in Maine.  Why Unity College?  That’s a really good question.  The story starts back in 1979 when Jimmy Carter commissioned the installation of 32 solar panels on the White House roof.  He did it as sign, in the midst of the oil crisis, that we could obtain our energy independence.  However, just seven years later, in 1986, President Reagan asked that they be removed when the White House roof required repairs.  The solar thermal panels were never reinstalled and were found years later in storage.  In 1991, Unity College was able to acquire and refurbish 16 of these panels to install on their dining hall roof.  These solar panels are no longer in use, but they are still atop the cafeteria building as a symbol of what it once was.

Unity College has donated one of these panels to Bill McKibben and 350.org.  The panel was delivered to the White House in a biodiesel road-trip from Maine to DC.  The group did have a chance to stop in Boston, MA, with tremendous support from the community, with over 200 people attending the meeting at Old South Church. When the rally finally made it to the White House, President Obama and his administration met with McKibben and three Unity College students.  Although they did not agree to reinstall solar panels on the White House roof, they did say there was a deliberative process going on regarding the subject.

McKibben is still optimistic about the future.  Perhaps the White House is spooked with the upcoming mid-term elections to take this sort of action right now.  For now, the original panel is still in Washington, DC, being watched by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.  But, McKibben and 350.org believe that someday there will be solar panels on the White House roof again.