The Solar Panels On The White House Roof (1979)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2022
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s June 20th. This day in 1979, Jimmy Carter held a ceremony to celebrate the new solar panels that had been installed on the White House roof. The panels were symbolic support for new energy initiatives, but also looked to reduce the building’s energy bill at a time of soaring gas prices.
Jody, Niki and Kellie discuss the panels, the green energy efforts, and why Ronald Reagan tore them down.
Sign up for our newsletter! Find out more at thisdaypod.com
And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.
This Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.
Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.
If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.com
Get in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Our website is thisdaypod.com Follow us on social @thisdaypod
Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avregan. |
| 0:10.0 | This day Juneth, 1979. |
| 0:13.7 | I went and looked this up. |
| 0:14.7 | You know what the weather was like in Washington, D.C. on that day? |
| 0:16.9 | You can look up the historical records. |
| 0:18.3 | It was pretty warm, low 80s, but it was a little cloudy, which kind of is relevant to what we're talking about today |
| 0:24.0 | because this was the day that Jimmy Carter held a White House ceremony to dedicate |
| 0:28.6 | 32 solar panels that he had installed on the roof of the White House. |
| 0:33.0 | I don't think he had installed them, though we know his habitat. |
| 0:36.7 | He could have. |
| 0:37.7 | From his, you know, we know he's a very good carpenter. |
| 0:39.6 | But I don't think he'd installed them. |
| 0:40.5 | Nonetheless, 32 solar panels are now on the roof of the White House. They were part of a hot water |
| 0:45.3 | system that would heat the water in the cafeteria, in the laundry, other parts of the White House. They cost 28,000 dollars to |
| 0:51.5 | install, but they were much more than just a little infrastructure upgrade. |
| 0:55.6 | They were symbolic as much as anything. |
| 0:57.6 | Carter was reacting to an energy crisis that was dragging the country down around that time in the late 70s and he was also |
| 1:04.8 | building I would say on Nixon's kind of surprising green energy legacy that we've talked |
| 1:10.8 | about on the show a little bit before. |
| 1:13.0 | So let's talk about the solar panels on the White House, |
| 1:15.0 | why Carter installed them, and why, I'll just go ahead and spoil it. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.