Lost Generations – How The US Abandoned Clean Energy Only To Find It Again

BusinessEnergyLost Generations – How The US Abandoned Clean Energy Only To Find It AgainByScott Montgomery,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Scott L. Montgomery is a geologist who writes about energy issues.Follow AuthorJun 08, 2026, 08:16pm EDTSolar and nuclear power have had a rocky history in the U.S. Photo by �� Christopher J. Morris/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Corbis via Getty ImagesIn 1977, while in graduate school studying geology, I befriended a materials science grad student who had a lot more funding than I did. He’d been recruited to work on a new NASA-supported program aimed at improving the performance of solar cells. These were heady years, in the wake of the first oil crisis. Energy security had suddenly become a watershed issue, with Congress passing major legislation to deal with the priority of “energy independence,” a goal that Presidents Nixon and Ford had said could and must be achieved by 1980. The sense of urgency was behind the 1975 Energy Reorganization Act, the first of several such acts launching programs and grant opportunities to advance R&D in fossil, nuclear, solar, and geothermal capacity. Most far reaching of all was the Department of Energy Organization Act (1977), creating the Department of Energy and expanding federal funding for energy research to a level it would never again approach. Human Capital Was The Goal And The AchievementThe 1977 Act required “plac[ing] major emphasis on the development and commercial use of solar, geothermal, recycling and other technologies utilizing renewable energy resources.” The ambition was vast and hopeful. Less than a decade earlier, the U.S. had put people on the Moon and brought them back. The capability was surely there to create these new systems.Nonetheless, Carter expressed a reigning view when he cast the nation as embattled and threatened. His famous speech of April 18, 1977, he declared that the country’s energy crisis was the “mor...