The government should focus renewable energy efforts on funding basic research instead of lending money to companies.

Finding a cost-competitive, renewable, clean energy supply would be an enormous boon, and the government should be trying to make that happen. However it must distance itself from picking winners and losers as much as possible. It should not be lending huge amounts of money to individual companies, such as Solyndra. Funding of basic research that eventually leads to new sources of wealth is something the government has a good track record with. It's ability to make good decisions about to whom to lend money to is less stellar.