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What Will The Next Big Green Energy Source Be?
Solar and wind energy took the world by storm. What comes next?
Renewable energy has experienced an unpredictable journey towards mass adoption. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels at the White House as part of a broader effort to gain energy independence. Of course, since the year was 1979, the solar panels were incredibly inefficient, managing only to heat some water for the laundry and cafeteria. Still, many experts at the time thought the technology was beginning to catch on. That same year, the Energy Information Administration projected a huge take-off in solar that, in reality, wouldn’t materialize for decades.
This changed when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981 and ordered the panels be removed. For many years after, the small solar industry seemed to be dead in the water.
In 1990, the first IPCC report laid out the new challenge of climate change. The policy respond was initially tepid; Finland and Poland enacted the first carbon taxes that year. Over time, climate policy started to pick up a little steam. The Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, and gradually more countries enacted climate policies.
In the early part of the 21st century, wind and solar energy began to come back to life. In 2003, President George W…
