Context
Why this one keeps getting quoted
This is the single most-cited piece of evidence that Thomas Edison “predicted solar power,” and it turns up in climate journalism, renewable-energy pitch decks and conference keynotes with a confident date attached: 1931, the last year of his life. The date comes from a memoir published in 1987 by James D. Newton, a younger friend of Edison, Ford and Firestone, who wrote that he had kept a diary recording “times and places, key phrases, and vivid impressions” across nearly fifty years.
The honest picture is layered. Edison really did argue, on the record and in print, that burning fuel was a waste and that the sun, wind and tide were the sensible sources — he said so to Elbert Hubbard in an interview published in The Fra in April 1910. What is not documented is this particular, much punchier sentence. It exists only as one friend’s recollection, printed fifty-six years after the conversation it describes.
Edison’s solar views are documented. This specific sentence is remembered.
The two records, side by side
April 1910 — documented, in print. In an interview with Elbert Hubbard published in The Fra: A Journal of Affirmation, Edison said “We should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy,” and predicted that “some day some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing up sunshine.” Quote Investigator credits Edison for these statements ↗.
March 1931 — recalled, published 1987. Newton’s Uncommon Friends places the “money on the sun” exchange in a conversation with Ford and Firestone. Edison died on 18 October 1931, the same year; the passage ends “I wish I had more years left!” That closing line is almost always dropped when the quote is reproduced, which turns an old man’s wistful aside into a crisp technological forecast.