A Burning Man 296
Sun shines. And if the Sun doesn’t shine, we have larger
issues. Actually, the Earth is almost entirely solar powered
today. The only reason to why we are not a frozen ice ball is
because of the Sun. So it’s really about taking a little bit of
that solar power and turning it into electricity that people
could use.”^357
The number of solar panels we need if we are going to
replace our dependency on more risky power sources is not
as large as you may first think. Around a nuclear power
plant, there’s a large zone where you are not allowed to
walk. Elon argued that if we covered these zones with solar
panels, then the energy produced from these panels would
be larger than the energy produced by the nuclear power
plants themselves.^339
The US President Jimmy Carter had the same ideas as
Elon when he installed solar panels on the top of the White
House during the 1973 energy crisis. “It can be a small part
of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever
undertaken by the American people; harnessing the power
of the Sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our
crippling dependence on foreign oil,” Carter said.^43
Elon and his cousins set out to reinvent the solar
industry. But there was one problem. Lyndon lost his visa
status and was about to be forced out of the country.
“Because I didn’t have a degree, I couldn’t get a green card,”
Lyndon said. While in high school, he met his wife, and
he introduced her to underwater hockey. Because his wife