Lost Generations – How The US Abandoned Clean Energy Only To Find It Again
Key takeaways
- Energy Lost Generations – How The US Abandoned Clean Energy Only To Find It Again By Scott Montgomery,
- These were heady years, in the wake of the first oil crisis.
- 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.
Energy Lost Generations – How The US Abandoned Clean Energy Only To Find It Again By Scott Montgomery,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Scott L. Montgomery is a geologist who writes about energy issues.Follow Author Jun 08, 2026, 08:16pm EDTJun 08, 2026, 08:19pm 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 Images In 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.