When Is It Real Money???
To paraphrase the late Everett Dirkson, “A Billion here, a Billion there and pretty soon it adds up to real money.” So how about $750 Billion? Is that real money? You would think so. After all that is the amount we pay out every year for oil to foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.
Maybe, because we send it out of the country, we lose track of it – like we never had it to begin with. But just suppose we could keep it here in the USA. What could we do with it in just one year?
a) Install 40,000,000 roof top Photovoltaic Collectors at 3KW each. With net metering and proper insulation, each of these homes would be nearly energy independent.
b) Retrofit 75 million residential homes (avg. cost of $10,000 each) to reduce their energy usage by at least 25%.
c) Invest in wind farms for electrical energy on the scale of T. Boone Pickens. Using his investment figures as a guide, $750 Billion would:
1) Install 200,000 Wind Turbines at 1.5 Megawatts each, and built in the USA.
2) Produce 300,000 Megawatts of electricity
3) Provide to power 90,000,000 homes
When seen in this light, it seems like pretty real money producing some real benefits. And none of these suggestions is impossible. The technology is already in place, and it’s not rocket science. Granted, it might take 10 years to implement and we might only be able to devote $375 Billion (half the amount), but think of the benefits:
a) Each individual component can be put in place quickly.
b) It is clean, renewable energy, and it continues to “give” year after year
c) It’s good for our economy, producing millions of good paying jobs that stay here in America
d) It also benefits the environment by reducing Green House Gas Emissions.
The only thing missing is the political will to move forward. Congress needs prodding, and lots of it. After all, there is real money on the table.
