Bookmark & Share | © Add This |
Favorites | Del.icio.us |
Digg | |
MySpace | |
Live | |
Furl | Yahoo MyWeb |
StumbleUpon | More... |
Quick, how much is $2.7 trillion? Answer, the entire annual U.S. Federal government budget.
The reason why I'm skeptical of these plans is that they feel a lot like "have your cake and eat it too" plans. For example, Schmidt suggests that his plan costs will be recovered in savings and from half a million new jobs... and this makes it sound like a perpetual motion machine, a logical possibility but otherwise impossible because of various laws of physics, or in this case laws of pork spending and government inefficiency.
19 years after the Loma Prieta earthquake we still don't have a replacement for the earthquake damaged eastern span of the Bay Bridge and that's just a civil engineering project by comparison (which is not only behind schedule but also wildly more expensive than originally projected).
His plan will cost a lot â€" $2.7 trillion â€" but it'll generate nearly as much in energy savings, and create a lot of new jobs, including 500,000 in the wind industry alone, he said.
[From Google CEO Eric Schmidt offers energy plan - San Jose Mercury News]
It's not that I disagree with Schmidt's prescription, but what I do take issue with is the viability of any solution that is billed as "comprehensive" in nature. Let's get on with some tactical initiatives that move in the right direction, like expanding natural gas distribution pipelines, rebuilding power grids to handle new power generation capabilities, increase capacity in nuclear (7 plants on up-power permits before the NRC), and yes, increase domestic production of crude oil. Let's also stop the tax insanity involving corn-based biofuels.
<-- Add URL -->