CHAPTER 2 Empires of the Sun

Dirty Energy’s Petty Politics

The fossil-fuel industry and its allies in Congress clearly see the solar and wind industries as a threat and will try to kill these industries as they have for the preceding two generations. They want this to be a five-year aberrational period.

—CONGRESSMAN ED MARKEY, WIRED MAGAZINE, JANUARY 2012

PICTURE ME IN APRIL 2010, JUST OVER A YEAR AFTER BARACK Obama’s inauguration. I’m at the White House representing Sungevity at a lavish Earth Day reception, where environmental champions, such as solar pioneer Denis Hayes, are being celebrated. (Oh, how grand this all is: the manicured Rose Garden in bloom, the bow-tied servers, the slender flutes of champagne, the tasty hors d’oeuvres—real treats for all us overworked and underdressed activists and entrepreneurs.) After the ceremony, I and Rhone Resch, the head of the Solar Energy Industries Association, move with the dazzled throng across the lawn toward the president. As I approach, I’m not exactly sure what I’m going say to him. But when face to face with the leader of the free world, I deliver the message that’s been on my mind since long before his election: “Mr. President, you should put solar panels back on the White House.”

Obama doesn’t skip a beat. He nods firmly. “Good idea, Let’s do that,” he says before being swallowed up by the wave of well-wishers.

Let’s do that.

His response rings in my ears, and I recover from the brief connection over a stiff drink with some solar-industry friends at the bar on the South Lawn. Some of them had heard the executive imprimatur I’d just received, and we all agree that the time is ripe for us to urge the president to reinstate solar on the first family’s home.

Thus we kicked into high gear what we would call the “Globama Campaign.” Our team at Sungevity had already sent First Lady Michelle Obama an interactive quote, using our proprietary satellite and aerial-imaging software to design and engineer a solar system for the White House roof. To promote the plan, Brian Somers had created a website (www.solaronthewhitehouse.com), but after the president’s statement at the Earth Day reception, we were prepared to make a more public call to put solar back on the world’s best-known residence.

As we said in the letter to Mrs. Obama, “We need a bold statement from the first family, saying that clean energy works, saves money, creates jobs, and is something that ‘I want for my home.’” In particular, we wanted to shine a light on the economic benefits of going solar—the jobs and the savings on energy costs in the household budget, even if it is an unusual home—and to see the power of the office used to make these benefits plain to people across America.

Will Obama make good on the “Let’s do that” proclamation he gave me and every solar advocate within earshot? We’re hoping he will, but we’re not holding our breath; instead we’re taking steps to ensure that he does. (You can help; see “What You Can Do as a Rooftop Revolutionary” at the end of this chapter.)