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When announcing the construction of the permanent facility for what is now NREL, on May 3, 1978, which he had declared Sun Day, then President Jimmy Carter, who is the same age as Palmer Carlin, said: “We know that most of the technology for using the Sun’s power already exists. And in my youth, as in many of yours, there were millions of windmills around the rural areas of our country. Hundreds of small damsites provided electric power. Some 10,000 years ago, in your area, Indians were using solar principles to heat dwellings at Mesa Verde and elsewhere. The historically brief availability of low-cost energy from fossil fuels drove much of that early solar technology into temporary disuse, but now we are rebuilding on those earlier techniques.” (“Golden, Colorado, [Jimmy Carter] “Remarks at the Solar Energy Research Institute on South Table Mountain. May 3, 1978“)