How Obama will steal credit from the free-market

It is a well documented fact that Al Gore invented the internet.  The basis for that claim?  He voted yes on a bill that may or may not have helped the internet grow faster in its early years.

In a highly similar move I fully expect Barack Obama to take credit for the giant leap forward that solar technology will take during his presidency.  I guarantee you it will become a talking point during his 2012 reelection campaign, and this time around, most everyone will buy into the idea.  How do I know?

Because one of Obama’s first moves as President was to tie his image to solar energy by hosting a press conference with the president of Namaste Solar Electric before signing the $787 Billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” which while not directly affecting solar he claims will double the amount of renewable energy produced over three years, just in time for the election.

At least, most everyone who already buys into everything Obama tells us will.  But if you are reading this now, then you like many others who understand that politicians consistently take credit where none is due and exaggerate their involvement will know what is really about to happen.

Considering the small fraction of renewable energy currently produced in this country, doubling and even tripling it won’t take a lot of effort.  What’s more, where in the past solar technology has never really been an economically viable solution, new technologies developed in the last two years look to be about to rush in a new era of cheaper, more efficient, and longer lasting solar units that just might make solar powered homes and businesses more affordable and commercial solar plants competitive in the energy market.

Why? For starters existing technologies just keep getting better, but that’s not the fun part.  The last year has seen two extremely creative technologies that individually, and might I add extremely cheaply, can enhance existing and new solar units to previously unheard of abilities.  What’s better, these don’t look to be mutually exclusive technologies, no HD-DVD vs. Blue Ray debate here.  The innovations work in vastly different ways to achieve the same goal but also look to be combinable for even greater success.

The first, a thin film plastic balloon developed by Cool Earth that refocuses sunlight to increase the efficiency of the average photovoltaic cell and produce up to 400x as much electricity. The only thing better than the efficiency boost?  The cost.  $2 per balloon.

The second is a little more difficult to explain.  Essentially, a team of engineers at MIT came up with a set of dies which when scattered on ordinary glass windows will redirect sunlight to a photovoltaic cell in the window pane.  The dies are fairly inexpensive and transparent, the effect being the light is let through while the energy from the light is redirected.   Tests show an increase of up to 40x more electricity generated from solar panels enhanced with the dies.

The result is that instead of installing solar panels on your roof you can convert your windows into highly efficient solar power generators without anyone even noticing.  The downside is that the efficiency falls below 92% after only three moths because of break down in the dies.  The inventors stand behind their product’s viability, however, because advances in organic OLED displays in televisions overcame a similar stability problem with technologies that will likely transfer well to the dies.  They expect the technology to be perfected and on the market within a few years.

The nice thing about the dies, they can be easily added to existing solar concentrators (ie the solar balloon) to compound their effectiveness.  So expect the solar market to revolutionize itself in a few years, perhaps not overnight (tech adoption takes time), but certainly enough for Obama to step in and take credit where none is due, and especially considering solar isn’t the only alternative energy source likely to make gains over the next few years.

Remember this, in three and a half years you will hear Obama talk about all the things that he has accomplished and the success of the democrats’ bailout plan, only it won’t have been him, it won’t have been the democrats, and it won’t have been the bailout.  It will have been the free-market.

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