President Obama prides himself on being a visionary.  How often have we heard him speak, if not pontificate, about "green jobs," "Sputnik" moments," "high speed trains," and electric cars?  His solar bets have come up a cropper --as we see in the case of Solyndra. But it turns out that he has really played a bad hand in solar energy and has bet billions on yesteryears' technology. A team of Bloomberg News journalists report: U.S. government's $8 billion bet on solar energy that would pave the deserts with mirrors risks following the Betamax into the technological wilderness because of Chinese backing for a cheaper system. The Department of Energy guaranteed loans to six plants that will reflect sunlight to boil water for making electricity, aiming to kick-start commercial projects. Four of those, and a third of $26 billion pipeline encouraged by U.S. aid, may switch to standard photovoltaic panels that generate a charge directly from the sun, said Brett Prior, a solar...(Read Full Post)