1931: Edison Advocates for Solar Energy over Fossil Fuels

In a conversation with fellow inventors and entrepreneurs Harvey Firestone and Henry Ford, Thomas Edison says of renewable energy sources: “We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide.… I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” [US History, 2013; About Thomas Edison, 8/19/2013]