The solar panels on Jimmy Carter's farm in Georgia are powering half of his town

Solar panels on former President Jimmy Carter's farmland.
(Image credit: AP Photo/David Goldman)

On former President Jimmy Carter's farmland, where nut and soybean crops once stretched as far as the eye could see, there are now 3,852 solar panels providing clean energy for much of Plains, Georgia.

Carter has long championed clean energy — he was the first president to use solar panels at the White House, explaining in 1979: "A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.