A White House Brain-Dead About Solar Energy, Too

When I say the Obama White House is “brain-dead,” which I do often these days, I don’t mean the folks working there are incapable of thinking. On the contrary. They think deeply about all sorts of things. It’s just that their thinking always seems to lead to new versions of old ideas that are either outdated, demonstrably ineffective, or just plain silly.

The well-deserved trashing the Obama White House is getting with its failed $528 million investment in Solyndra, which recently declared bankruptcy, illustrates this brain-dead-is-as-brain-does realty.

Republicans are saying, quit rightly, that the failure here is due to Administration officials using public money as if it were venture capital funds. Is this a new idea? Not at all. During the 1980s a Japanese government agency known by its initials, MITI, was doing the same thing, picking companies it thought would be technological winners and throwing government money at them.

It actually seemed to work for a few years. Probably the time today’s White House thinkers absorbed the notion that this was leading edge stuff. The fact that the MITI approach soon failed, and proved to be one reason why Japan has been in economic decline for almost two decades, seems not to have been noticed in today’s White House.

The astonishing thing about the Solyndra-like approach to promoting solar energy via direct government investment in solar companies is not just that its an obviously circuitous way to achieve that end even when it doesn’t turn out to be outright stupid, it’s that a really sensible alternative that is really working to promote solar use is operating in onr branch of government — the DOD.

The DOD is purchasing a lot of solar equipment. PURCHASING, you know, like buying, because a) this equipment is reducing heating and cooling costs in government buildings in the US, and b) because its needed in places (like Afghanistan) where infrastructure is poor or non-existent.

So here’s my suggestion to you best-and-brightest geniuses in the White House. What I’m going to suggest is not counter-intuitive like you folks like, but is perhaps worth taking to heart anyway.

To promote not only greater solar acceptance more quickly, but boost the U.S. solar industry in the process, use the enormous purchasing power of the nation’s largest landlord — the federal government — and buy American made solar products for its properties. Set the basic parameters for these products, call for bids, accept only those from US.-based firms, and watch private capital flood into the coffers of domestic solar manufacturers because there’s a guaranteed market for their wares.

No. Don’t invest public money in helping a manufacturer come to market. Because it ain’t your own money. It belongs to the public. And public money can appropriately be used to purchase infrastructure improvements — which installed solar equipment is —but not in venture guesses.

And to you, Mr. Obama, on the off-chance you still might want to really promote solar, I suggest visiting a military base where solar equipment has been installed, creating jobs, lowering heating and cooling costs, improving infrastructure.

I know, I know. Standing next to a barracks with a solar water heater on top may not have the photo op appeal of standing in front of a glass-enclosed ultra-modern solar manufacturing facility. But consider it anyway. ‘Cause (and you’ll have to trust me on this) voters really do prefer actual infrastructure improvements created with public money to glitzy photo ops

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