How to Solve the Foreclosure Crisis

by Kelly Kinkade
Oakland Univeristy

Semifinalist

"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone ... " This is the music that was playing in my mind when a solution to our foreclosure crisis took shape. I was in one of my electrical engineering classes and was thinking very deeply about my assignment. Simultaneously, my mind kept flashing the images of hundreds of homes in my county going into foreclosure. More homes went up for sale every week. Driving to school as the semester dragged on showed us all how hard our neighbors were struggling and failing in Oakland County. My county was weathering a financial storm that spread across all of Michigan and most of America. Economic clouds on the horizon looked even darker. That was the rain. Then I saw a clear solution  — The Rainbow Solution. This multi-faceted solution is more than a Band-Aid that merely treats a symptom. We can solve the foreclosure crisis with a more permanent, more comprehensive approach. Rather than treat one segment of the crisis, the Rainbow Solution addresses the full spectrum of America affected by this problem.

"I can see all obstacles in my way ... ," the singing continued. Such a win-win-win-win approach might lead some to dismiss this solution as a "pie in the sky" plan. Even the description "The Rainbow Solution" can sound naïve or immature  — but only to those who have not thought it through. In general, there are two reactions to ideas described as "pie in the sky." Some say any comprehensive solution is an idealistic dream. Others say such an approach is optimistic or inspired creativity. I say let us solve this problem and let us do more. Let us solve our crisis so it will not afflict us again anytime soon. Let us solve our problem in a way that benefits homeowners, our environment, utility companies, and lending institutions.

"Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind ... ," With an unprecedented crisis in home foreclosures it makes sense to think in fresh ways. The foreclosure crisis calls for all the resources America has to offer. Yes, we can and should respond with the old ways of adjusting interest rates, lending policies, government programs, and economic development. Centuries old methods alone, however, can cloud new solutions from the recognition they deserve. My approach is to no longer be blinded as if those old methods are still all that America has in its fight against pandemic foreclosures. The Rainbow Solution involves mature technology, available infrastructure, and negligible disruption to financial institutions or municipal policies. As America grows up so can her solutions. "Why not apply developed science to a new field  — the homeownership industry?" I asked myself in that electronics laboratory. "Why don't we turn darkness into light? Why can't we turn anguish into prosperity? Why not turn crying into singing? Why? Why, I'll be darned! We can." I heard singing in my mind about better times.

"It's gonna be a bright, bright Sun — Shiny day." The Rainbow Solution uses the sun to get us out of our foreclosure crisis by helping the four areas of homeowners, our environment, utility companies, and financial institutions. The first benefit of the Rainbow Solution is to the homeowner. Our sun is that "pie in the sky" and everyone deserves their own slice of its power. Giving every homeowner a $285.00 reduction in their monthly mortgage payment to start would have a significant impact on our foreclosure crisis. Many home buyers have gone into arrears for less than $285.00 each month. That was the United States average cost per home for utilities during a recent month according to http://www.whitefenceindex.com/.

The Rainbow approach would save homeowners somewhat more than the cost of their utilities. Additional credit from excess power production would also go into mortgage payments until homes were paid in full.

All of these benefits and more will occur in local power plants that would be similar to one average house per neighborhood. Homeowners would share the energy proceeds from a new generation of completely clean power plants. Localized energy production would also create added benefits to homeowners in the form of increased employment in every community due to construction, maintenance, parts, and running the facilities.

The Rainbow Solution uses solar energy to separate water into its components and then burn them to produce energy. Solar panels by themselves have a relatively low energy output. Combustion, however, produces a high level of energy. This is one reason the automobiles we drive still have engines in them rather than being covered with solar panels. Similar principles can be used for residential energy needs. The Rainbow approach uses solar panels to produce only the energy necessary to turn the water into hydrogen and oxygen. These fuels will then be ignited and used to generate completely pure electricity.

The technology used in the Rainbow Solution is simple and commonplace. We would be carried out of our predicament on the back of the sun. It has enough power to do the job. Using sunlight, engineers and scientist often take ordinary water and divide it into hydrogen and oxygen. This is easy and routine technology. Hydrogen and oxygen are extremely efficient fuels. Amazingly, they have a fascinating property when used together. They burn with great energy and have zero carbon emissions. They also release no harmful chemicals into the environment. We know this because chemists have long observed exactly what happens when they use hydrogen and oxygen together. The only results are great energy and ... water.

Yes, water. Think of a power plant that produces enormous energy and releases only pure water. We would no longer look at a facility and say that it had a smoke stack. We might start calling them "water stacks" or, since water vapor in sunlight makes bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, we might call them "rainbow makers." Instead of looking at a skyline punctuated by exclamation marks of billowing black soot, an individual would see a column that seemed to cast a rainbow into the air over the community. This is the rainbow in the Rainbow Solution. True to the legends, the power plant would be a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow for the whole community.

Water could be released harmlessly into the environment in this way. Alternatively, the water vapor could be collected and used as bottled water, or recycled into the power plant to be divided into hydrogen and oxygen again. Think of the economic benefits to homeowners of being part owners in a power plant that can profit from its exhaust by selling it to people to drink. Think of owning a money making generator that can recycle and run on its own exhaust.

The second benefit of the Rainbow Solution is this positive impact on the environment. Each Rainbow facility will have a negative carbon footprint of several percent. This is because the system produces energy without inputting carbon fuel or emitting any greenhouse gases and it uses solar radiation that would otherwise warm the environment or increase carbon dioxide. The point is that the science is solid. The technology is here. The new and exciting part is applying common technology to solve the foreclosure crisis.

The third benefit of the Rainbow Solution is how it helps utility companies. Energy companies have a vested interest in people living in homes. An economy with many vacant homes is an economy with declining residential income for the power company. The Rainbow approach addresses this important segment of our economy. Using a new paradigm of how to produce residential electricity opens up a new way of thinking about what facilities we will use for that purpose. Using the sun to make clean combustion electricity lends itself to localized small power plants. A new ideal would be plants approximately the size of a house serving the energy needs of a single neighborhood. In more rural areas a township could be served by its own plant. Excess production for a neighborhood will occur during normal climate conditions for each region. This extra energy would first be stored to build up a buffer amount for times of peak demand in each neighborhood. After the storage reaches an acceptable level, extra energy is fed back into the power grid. Utility companies will profit by selling this clean energy to residents around the country or world with a deficit production. The Rainbow Solution would ease problems our energy grid experiences due to demands that are soon to exceed our production capability.

The fourth benefit of using the Rainbow Solution to get us out of our foreclosure crisis is how it helps the home lending industry. Institutions would have an interest in a house's local power plant in proportion to the balance owed it by the homeowner. In addition to profiting from interest on the loan, a bank would have an additional type of collateral in the form of a stake in the local community's energy production and usage. During the time of the loan, the lender would profit from interest as well as a percentage of energy production and consumption from the local power production facility.

"Look all around, there's nothing but blue skies ... ," the beat continued that day in class. My experiment required all the resistors and other components in the packet we were all given. Not one could be left out. Every piece was needed to complete the assigned project. In that laboratory a more and more complete picture of new electrical properties was pieced together. At the same time I progressively realized our future can be a "bright, bright Sun — Shiny day" if we put together all the resources at our disposal.

"Look straight ahead, nothing but blue skies." We have technology waiting to be used. We can introduce fresh and improved thinking to solve the foreclosure puzzle. Relatively simple technology can turn homeowners into stake holders in their own mini utility co-op. The savings in utility costs would be only the beginning of relief to homeowners. Neighborhoods could also become energy exporters if they wanted to and the additional revenue would go into their mortgage. Added together these benefits can help many piece together their picture of the American Dream. We have this ability now.

A curious thing happens when someone first hears about this multi-faceted approach. At first, a person is definitely for it or thinks of it as "pie in the sky." The curious part about the Rainbow Solution is that the more someone considers this full-spectrum plan, the more I notice them humming, "Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for. It's gonna be a bright, bright Sun — Shiny day."

Back to the top