A U.S. president inspired Germany on renewable energy

Germany gets 25% of its electricity from renewable sources, and much of the credit goes to President Jimmy Carter.

Bloomberg says the Carter administration's Solar Energy Research Institute was the first to promote renewable energy as U.S. policy, and it alarmed oil-producing nations in the Middle East. However, when Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980, the program came to a quick end.

But the story doesn't end there. Germans stepped in, bought up some of the patents and then set about to make renewable energy on a national scale reality.

Read the entire story on Bloomberg.com.