I would double the investment below and create 1M jobs and not limit it to high school or other students.

Obama is ready to spend all the money from the war on new programs, whether it is 30 billion to bail out mortgage holders, health care, federal education dollars and Hillary will freeze rates and stop foreclosures for 90 days and then spend it on healthcare.  I appreciate that this is a campaign and people will say just about anything to people in pain.  The bigger picture is, we mess with the middle east because of oil, we should invest our hard earned money into ways to eliminate this dependency.

One way would be a summer program to drive conservation.  For how many years have you receive promotional materials from your electrical company to use lower use lighting, low flow shower heads etc..  There are probably tax dollars behind this if I were to look into it, but there is an incentive for the electrical company, it is called peak demand.  They can’t meet peak demand.  Their infrastructure is crumbling, we will not let them build any new plants, coal, nuclear, whatever, they need ways to reduce usage.  Well maybe we can help them.

Hire 500,000 high school and college students during the summer.  Provide them with all the materials, such as low usage lighting, window sealants, shower heads, a long list of materials.  Go from house to house and replace these units.  How much would this cost ?  500,000 x $10/hr x 40 hrs x 12 weeks = $2,400M, plus materials, guess of another 2,500M, plus management, coordination and Marketing of 500M. Program costs of just over $5.4B per year.  What do we gain?

Talk about a stimulus package, what are these young adults going to do with the income???  Yes, wouldn’t you like to believe save for college, not likely. They will spend it, several billion into the economy.

How many houses can they get to?  500,000 = teams of two = 250,000 teams, five places a day, two not home, they do three houses per day = 750,000 homes a day x 60 days = 45M homes.  Pretty aggressive, so say it is half that to be conservative, 22.5M homes.

111 million households in US – we get to 20% in one summer.  How much electrical savings? 1,139 (billion kWh) per year from all households.  We reduce by 10%-12%, which are numbers I have seen for conservation and what Germany has achieve with similar programs.  Per year electrical reduction = 20% of 1,139 billion x 12% = 27.3 (million kWh) or the equivalent elimination of 2,600 housholds from the grid.

We are at a key moment in our economic, political and environmental futures.  There is an increasing awareness of the need for energy independence and environmentally friendly energy.  We have an opportunity to solve these legitimate issues in a far reaching, planet saving, approach or fall back on the easy way.  I, for one, do not want to be part of a generation that takes the easy way.  We owe it to ourselves and our children to fight the right fight, however difficult that may be.  The right fight is one that makes these two issues into one issue.  We can find solutions that free us from foreign dictators AND are environmentally friendly.

Our energy plan for the future needs to be one that relies on efficiencies in our distribution and use of electricity, comes from renewable clean energy sources, and is local to the electrical users.  It will require innovation, new technology and a consumer commitment to make this happen.  The government needs to provide guidance, lofty goals, limited support where needed, and for the most part get out of the way.  Tom Friedman in his new book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, is calling it the ‘ET’ revolution or Energy Technology.  He compares it to the IT revolution which led to amazing productivity enhancements across our economy.

Whatever we call it, how we move forward on these issues will define us as a generation.

Drill, Baby, Drill, is a sad commentary of how things work now.  Oil companies and lobbyists, that both campaigns swear off as having no place in Washington, have made oil drilling a top topic and wrapped it in the, ‘Energy Plan for the Future’ blanket.  Although it may help with reducing oil dependency on the Axis of Oil, it does not do it in a way that is respectful of our planet. The more time we discuss this in public debates, the less time we spend on real solutions.  Solutions that can meet both goals of energy independence and renewable, clean energy.  Drill, baby, drill does not meet the basic principles outlined above, it is not clean, it is not local, and it is not renewable.

Let’s change the debate to a discussion of how we as Amercians can show humility, by admitting we have a problem, show fortitude, by applying our best resources to solving the problem, and show respect, for our planet and all of it’s residents.

I will spend some time reviewing the Obama and McCain campaign materials for Energy Policy. As this blog highlights, my interests are reducing/eliminating our dependency on foreign oil, incentivize private industry to develop alternative energy sources, reduce our overall energy consumption, and reduce our carbon and methane emissions from the production of energy.

I would like to do this as quickly as possible, with private industry and individuals taking the lead, with incentives as opposed to punitive fees or taxes, with economic development in mind, and with transparency and collaboration wherever possible.

With these in mind, I have established a scoring system to rank some of the current ideas being talked about or not being talked about by the 2008 Presidential candidates.

All factors are 1-10, 1 being the weakest in supporting the goals, 10 being strong.

Time to Market

Foreign Oil Use Reduction

Funding

Promoting new Technology

Environment

For a total of 50 points.
More to come.

What we are trying to fight is the constant naysaying and defeatism in the language used by our clueless leaders.  A common avoidance mechanism is saying things like  ”that is 20 years away from being viable”, “it works but it just costs too much right now”, ” the American people would never accept that, they are used to power and large cars”.  Well excuse me if I can think on my own.  I have faith that the American people when confronted with non-biased information, viable choices and a free marketplace will make the right decision.  They have proven this time and time again.

The question is should the behemoth government, mandate us to act accordingly to save energy or should they take some of our money (yes taxes are our money) and provide a jumpstart to companies and individuals toward a common goal.  Should the government work with the electrical companies, to monitor your household electrical usage and potentially lower thermostats in homes remotely, as in California, or should they provide an X-Prize foundation type incentive for innovation.  Let me guess….

Five billion dollar prizes, yes five billion.  You know what use to be a lot of money, five billion.  Spent each  12 days in Iraq.  Five billion dollars to a company that produces a mass market auto with 100MPG.  A committee to determine the exact specifications and requirements wouldn’t be hard to find.  The X-Prize foundation could easily accomodate it now.

I know the technology is there let’s use our money to promote the innovation and let the american entrepreneurial spirit shine.