Reply #24: I wish I remembered where I saw this.

[bigmonkey]

I read this in the "living" section of a newspaper, I think in the early 90's. A U.S. science teacher was musing about those solar panels, and wondered if they might be surplus govt. equipment, and so available for use in his classroom. He traced them to a particular warehouse, they were govt. property, and he applied to use them. He got the use, but here's the kicker - the feds made him sign a non-disclosure agreement to not reveal where they came from! It seems they were embarassed by the misuse of taxpayer funds to remove the things from the White House roof. Nowadays I assume it would just be a state secret. :sarcasm:

Of course it makes no rational sense to remove them, once they're up, until they've at least paid for themselves. The initial cost is the major reason it's not a more popular solution, although the costs have come down significantly since the 70s.

Unfortunately, this is just from memory, but it was reported in the newspaper article as factual.