Elephants in battleWe're at a crucial point in our nation's energy history. Peak oil may be imminent. Energy costs are volatile. President Obama has demonstrated that he understands the tremendous role our buildings play in the larger energy picture (70% of the electricity used in the United States is consumed by buildings).

Yet, on this President's Day, it's instructive to bear in mind that none of this is new, and that American presidents as far back as Lincoln have grasped the enormous challenges and opportunities that energy represents for our country.

Here, we highlight 5 American presidents who have understood our energy challenges and presented compelling insights as well as proposed solutions that would help us address them. Some of them were at least mildly successful -- Jimmy Carter's efforts to improve home energy efficiency through insulation retrofits, for example. Others, not so much -- e.g. Reagan's removal of the solar panels that Carter had installed on the White House. We also come across some fairly wacky anecdotes when looking through the archives -- Abraham Lincoln, for example, rejected an offer from the King of Siam to supply Asian elephants to be used for our country's transportation needs.

Without further ado, 5 presidential insights worthy of rumination:

Abraham Lincoln predicts the Age of Wind Power:

Of all the forces of nature, I should think the wind contains the largest amount of motive power … Take any given space of the earth’s surface, for instance, Illinois, and all the power exerted by all the men, beasts, running water and steam over and upon it shall not equal the 100th part of what is exerted by the blowing of the wind over and upon the same place. And yet it has not, so far in the world’s history, become properly valued as motive power. It is applied extensively and advantageously to sail vessels in navigation. Add to this a few windmills and pumps and you have about all. As yet the wind is an untamed, unharnessed force, and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made will be the taming and harnessing of it.

Theodore Roosevelt predicts Peak Oil in 1907:

We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils shall have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation…The minerals do not renew themselves. Therefore in dealing with the coal, the oil, the iron, metals generally, all that we can do is try to see that they are wisely used. The exhaustion is certain to come in time.

Harry Truman spurs research into atomic energy:

The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man's understanding of nature's forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced on a bases to compete with them commercially. Before that comes there must be a long period of intensive research.

Jimmy Carter confronts our energy crisis:

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this Nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our Nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny. In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous tool on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our Nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

Bill Clinton warns of Peak Oil:

We may be at a point of peak oil production. You may see $100 a barrel oil in the next two or three years, but what still is driving this globalization is the idea that is you cannot possibly get rich, stay rich and get richer; if you don’t release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That was true in the industrial era; it is simply factually not true. What is true is that the old energy economy is well organized, financed and connected politically. The new energy economy is underfinanced, under organized, entrepreneurial and in need of the type of research and development work that we routinely did when we were trying to sequence the human genome or go into space. But just with existing technologies for conservation and clean energy, we can more than meet the Kyoto protocols if we were remotely serious about the targets and in the process create jobs in the developed and developing world on a scale that is otherwise unimaginable to me. It is just a question of whether we accept this, but I can only tell you that I have studied this data seriously. I consider it an existential threat to your future.

Al Gore (the "Almost President") sums it up:

Although he never quite made it into the Oval Office, we think that this quotation from Al Gore is nonetheless instructive.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

Visionaries, all. Check our Learn library to discover how you can get started using less energy in your home.