Jimmy Carter leases his land to solar power much of Plains
Jimmy Carter leases his land to solar power much of Plains
http://www.ajc.com/news/jimmy-carter-leases-his-land-solar-power-much-plains/XwFS50Kf1wEI9fXxpvSUnM/
Plains — For anyone looking for a sign from above, this one was awfully hard to miss.
For much of Wednesday morning, fog and even some intermittent drizzle had shrouded the field of solar panels recently constructed on a piece of farmland owned here by Jimmy Carter. Then, just as he and his wife, Rosalynn, cut the ceremonial ribbon on a project that will bring renewable energy to much of their beloved hometown, the sun burst out overhead, as if to underscore the significance of this long-in-the-making moment.
“This site will be as symbolically important as the 32 panels we put on the White House,” Carter had earlier told a crowd of about 100 people — and one persistently crowing rooster nearby. “People can come here and see what can be done.”
The 45-minute ceremony officially marked the completion of an ambitious project by Atlanta-based SolAmerica Energy to construct solar panels on a 10-acre site leased from Carter. It also brought full circle a personal commitment to renewable energy on Carter’s part that first burst into view in 1979 when he had solar panels installed on the White House roof.
Now, some 37 years after voters turned him out of that temporary home in Washington D.C. — and his successor, Ronald Reagan, dismantled his ahead-of-its-time roof project — the field of 3,852 panels that rotate with the path of the sun lies about half a mile from the modest ranch house where he and Rosalynn have lived since 1961.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Still doing the next right thing! 
