JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I'd be all for covering Arizona with panels.. I just know a few folks there who might not like it...

Actually.. maybe we should cover Alaska with panels.. no one lives there anyway..

I think a dramatic rise in price would do 2 things. One it would force a cut back in usage and two it would raise some of the money needed to fund infrastructure.

The USA had a very weak and outdated military going into WWII. We ramped up across the nation and that ramping up actually led to unprecendented growth in all other areas of our economy, productivity and quality of life. I suggest we go into wartime mode once again where we bludgeon the problem with massive focused effort for a short time and fix it.

Nuke plants don't take 30 years to build. Especially if our entire country is ramped to build them. France gets 80% of their energy from nukes.. most of the plants are new.

Does anyone have actual data on how fast a plant can be built fron scratch? Whatever that time is, I bet in a ramped up situation, we could cut it in half easily. We'd also put a LOT of people to work.. in a similar way we put people to work in WWII (both in the military and at home).

One thing I would suggest is to let retirees keep all their benefits AND get full pay to come back to work full time. Right now we have a disincentive for many to work because they cut their benefits. Screw that.. we're in a war right?

With our productivity zooming forward and everyone working and getting paid for that work, the economy will actually do okay. In the 70's under the Carter years, the problem was that everyone was unemployed.. and we had gas rationing. Why ration gas? Let's just make folks pay for it. You want to keep driving more than you need? No problem. .just pay us for it. Want to drive a gas guzzler? No problem.. that's just more money for us in taxes. Want to save money? Get a new electric car... the money you save in fuel will cover a lot of your monthly payment!

We could have the entire infrastructure for Electric and Hydrogen in a couple years or less if we focused on it. They can put up a McDonalds in a month.. they can put up an electrical station. Sure.. at first, the coal plants will be humming along like crazy.. but their days will be numbered. While they cash in short term, they'll need to either invest that money in the new technology so they can be viable companies beyond the change, or be taxed on it if they don't and go the way of the dino's that made the fossil fuel.

Great points Colin.. thanks for the input!

Brian