Susan Kraemer's Climate Chronicles

California has a requirement that all new buildings be zero carbon by 2020; every electron a building uses must come from power generated onsite. Obama plans the same requirement nationwide by 2030.

So you would think that to meet their new neighborhood certification, on-site renewable energy would be a LEED requirement, not just an option. But it won’t be. What’s worse, it will be worth a measly 3 points out of the total 110 possible points to get LEED certification. But you can change that.

Nano-engineering students at Rensselaer have created a solar power game-changer: more than 96% absorption of sunlight from all angles, from sunrise to sunset.

The two biggest efficiency hurdles for solar efficiency have been:

1. Solar cells absorb only part of the light spectrum.
2. The sun always moves in relation to the panel.

To solve problem number one, researchers nano-invented an anti-reflective coating to make the solar cell capture the full light spectrum. Currently, solar cells reflect almost 1/3 of the sunlight that hits them. That reflected light is not harvested, which has reduced solar cell efficiency. Problem one solved.

To solve problem two, they stopped the sun in its tracks.

Who hasn't been enraged to read about how Ford and G.M. can make perfectly good little gas sippers for Europe, but just can't bring themselves to make a fuel efficient car for us back home?

Well, now that they need some funding from us, here's an idea. Let's fund Detroit just to set up their efficient European car factories — back here, where they are really needed. Let's get some better gas mileage out of their money troubles.

Apparently, it only costs $75 million to completely retool a plant, to produce an efficient little car instead of the gas-guzzling behemoth they were fobbing off on us fools all these years.