Back in 2000, Mother Jones delivered a really solid article on solar history and policy from the oil crises through the 1990s. Particularly noteworthy were the references to the book The Sun Betrayed and Who Owns the Sun?. The two books both argue that the vision for solar power originally proposed by decentralization and appropriate technology fans was co-opted by corporate entities with the DOE acting as apparatchik.

This is all a bit too Naderific and flat for my taste and reading of history, but in recent years, this entire viewpoint has been given nearly no attention. It’s All Big Green, All the Time, and corporate interest is seen as the proof of feasibility not the mark of the corporate beast.

• Prodigal Sun | Mother Jones
  “Today solar and other renewable alternatives provide barely five percent of America’s energy. The solar-powered present never arrived, postponed by opposition from big utility companies, government support that favored oil and nuclear, and unproven solar technology that left the entire concept of solar energy open to ridicule. The story of what happened to solar during that first, failed revolution is more than a footnote to forgotten history. It provides a primer for the current resurgence in alternative energy, an indication of what we can expect from solar power in the decades ahead.”
  (tags: solar SERI DenisHayes)