The Solar Technology Roadmap Act
Finally facing a looming energy crisis, the federal government is nearing the launch of an effort to massively improve solar technology. It is known as the Solar Technology Roadmap Act.
The government is often viewed as, how shall we say this, incompetent! Whatever your feelings on the issue, there are some areas where this is not the case. One such area is in weapon development. When it comes to blowing things up, we simply are the bee's knees! We went from barely understanding the atom to wiping out two cities in Japan in about 30 years.
The government is a slow moving beast. Once it gets rolling, however, it can achieve immense things. There is a bill winding its way through Congress now that may launch a massive revolution in solar energy. The bill is known as The Solar Technology Roadmap Act, HR 3585, sponsored by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). This bill aims to use the military resources for weapon development for the purpose of moving solar energy technology out of the Stone Age and to a point where it can become a large scale energy platform.
How does the bill work? Well, it sets aside $2.2 billion for the sole purpose of revolutionizing large scale solar technology. That sounds nice and all, but the real key is who is being charged with developing the technology. There are four - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, working on concentrating solar thermal), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Argonne National Laboratory.
These four labs represent the big boys in technological development at the government level. The Act is designed to bring their technical brilliance to the task. It is also written to be renewed every three years. This may seem a bit dangerous in that there is a chance a new administration might cancel the program. A better view, however, is the excitement this should generate in that the labs are expected to spend the full $2.2 billion in three years. This means a major push to move solar technology forward in leaps and bounds.
Will the Solar Technology Roadmap Act become law? It is hard to imagine how it will not. The time is right and the political makeup of Congress and the White House is perfect for making it so.
