ONE of the first major milestones in the development of renewable energy was way back in 1979, when US president Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the White House in order to power a water-heating system.

Clunky, inefficient and expensive by today’s standards (they weighed 45 kilos each and cost a whopping $28,000 to install) these panels served to heat water for the White House until they were removed during the Reagan administration, undoubtedly as a signal that the new Republican president preferred good old fossil fuels to these hippie-inspired and possibly commie ideas like sustainability and environmentalism.

The panels went into storage until at least one of them ended up in a museum in China. There’s a certain irony to that, as China is currently leading the world when it comes to scaling up renewable energy, with twice as many solar and wind projects under construction as the rest of the world combined.

Right now, China has 180GW of solar po­­wer under construction along with 159GW of wind power, which far outshines the comparatively measly 40GW under construction in the US. In the first half of this year, China’s clean energy generation has already exceeded the total amount of energy produced by the UK........

© Dawn