Here’s a brilliant question I never thought to ask, but someone at Google did: whatever happened to those solar hot water panels President Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House in 1979 (and which were ignominiously dumped seven years later by President Ronald Reagan)?

Well, Google not only found the answer, but acquired one of those panels for display in its Washington, DC, office for the rest of this year:

Unity College, an environmentally focused institution in Maine, obtained the Carter panels six years after their retirement by the Gipper, restored 16 of them and used them for 12 years to provide hot water in its cafeteria. With the college’s OK, one of those panels is now enjoying a measure of celebrity at Google.

Writing on the official Google Blog, green energy project manager Alice Ryan said, “As we welcome our new US president to office this week, we wanted to share this piece of this history with you. Google is committed to a clean energy future and we hope that you will join us in supporting the creation and adoption of renewable energy technology — what could still be one of the greatest and most exciting adventures for all of us.”

And what about the rest of those old solar panels? Here’s hoping new President Barack Obama can once again find a home for them — or, possibly, something more high-tech but equally green — at the White House.

Tags: google, Jimmy Carter, solar heating, solar panels, Unity College, white house