Category Archives: Quotes

What Edison Said About Energy

Written by Mike Ellsworth

I’ve just found the most delicious quote from one of the giant intellects of the 20th (heck, also the 19th) century: Thomas Alva Edison. Speaking in 1931 with fellow industrial giants Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, Edison, who knew a thing or two about energy said:

“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.

Seventy-eight years later, we’re waiting until we run out of oil and coal before getting serious about renewable energy. Too bad Edison couldn’t have invented a way to live another hundred years; we could use such clarity of insight from a man who was born before the Civil war.

His quote is my new sig.