I spent some time reviewing the current version of the Senate Stimulus bill.  This is the ‘compromise’ version led by Ben Nelson and Susan Collins.  They have proposed a reduced bill size of approximately 780B dollars.

I will ignore the huge amount of waste and non stimulative items in here, (as will most of congress) and focus on the supposed investments in either Clean Energy or ‘Green Jobs’.

Weatherization Assistance Program $2,900,000 – Mostly supported by Northern State Senators including Susan Collins, previous year spending was about $240M, so 10 times the funding for this program.

The Weatherization Assistance Program is the government’s largest residential energy conservation program, and provides important assistance to low-income families facing high energy bills.  Since the program’s inception, more than 5.8 million homes have been weatherized using federal, state, utility and other monies.  Each of these households now has more money to spend on other necessities that it would have spent on heating and cooling an inefficient house.  According to the National Association for State Community Services Programs, for every dollar spent, WAP returns $2.72 in energy and non-energy benefits over the life of the weatherized home.

Review – Looks like an effective program, which will save energy.  I think the amount is a little much, not sure the program will be able to ramp up that quickly.

Advanced Battery Manufacturing   $2,000,000 – A big push from Carl Levin and the automakers.  The automakers will receive the tax credit for the purchase of a new car, a replacement of government vehicles with more efficient, worth 1.5B, but also support for this spend.  A123 in Massachusetts had asked for a 1.8B grant to build manufacturing facilities in Michigan and other places, it supports that.

Review - Would actually create jobs

FutureGen – $2,000,000 – Dick Durbin who has been involved directly in the negotiations, slipped this one in there.  The project site is in Mattoon, Illinois.

Review – CAN IT – This is a carbon sequestration project.  An attempt to build a zero emission coal based plant.  Please don’t waste are time, there are better more efficient ways to spend our money.  This is an Illinois boondoggle.  Oh, by the way, the plant startup is scheduled for 2012.  How is that for ‘timely’ ?

Renewable Energy R&D through the EERE – $2,648,000 -

Review – CUT in HALF – No idea what is in here, other than support for the Federal bureaucracy of the Energy Department.  They have 11 stated programs ranging from a Biomass program to a ‘FreedomCar’.    I am sure there are specifics, but there is the potential for overlap of programs here, with the Weatherization project for example and other than it is another department I am not sure the goals differ.

BPA Borrowing Authority – $3,350,000 – Pushed by the Northwest senators, Patty Murray in Washington.

Review – CAN IT – This is the Bonneville Power Administration.  A group of utility companies that want loans to rebuild transmission lines, projects at the Grand Coulee dam and other projects.  They talk about hundreds of jobs and there ability to repay the previous loans. Hopefully this money on grids is done per the guidelines in the SmartGrid initiative.  I am sure it is not…If these Utilities are such a good risk and repay their loans why do they need the government?  Can’t they issue bonds?

WAPA Borrowing Authority – $3,230,000 – Pushed by the Western senators, seems like abuy off of many republican senators in the West.

Review – CAN IT – Again, another agency of the US Energy Department.  Transmission line and education focused, they rent equipment to Utilities.  It is business as usual.  Government in bed with the Utilities.  There has to be a better way to use this money.  How many jobs?

SmartGrid – $4,400,000 – Pushed by the lots of people, who think they are high-tech.

Review – INCREASE  IT – This spend needs focus first.  Is it for smart meters at households, new better transmission lines, or renewable generation ?  Focus this project into the grid management technologies only.  Install monitors at homes, power distribution center monitoring, transmission line monitoring and measure, and manage the current use of power.  Monitors in 40M homes would cost more like $10B.  This should be a national goal and an incentive for all Utilities.  The previous line items for borrowing by large utilities and consortium, should be granted on the bases of what percent of their transmission network is ‘smart’

These are the major items in the current stimulus bill.  There are some continuation of tax incentives or new ones for efficient vehicle purchase, but overall this is disappointing.

I don’t see the change.  The rhetoric is there, but when push comes to shove we support the industries that lobby, such as Coal, Automobile, and Utilities.  We support pet projects  for Senators, who think locally and not nationally.  Lastly, we support the bloated, inefficient federal government.  This is not change.

This is a lot of money and it does not support the objectives of job creation, alternative energy production, and timely investment.

The original article published by Alan Blinder, in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/business/27view.html?ref=business

This idea has some advantages and some pitfalls, but in an age of energy and environmental crisis, it is worth considering.  The annual cost of $8b to $20b, depends on how fast we want to ramp this program up.  The lower amount is for providing incentives for 2M cars a year and the higher amount for 5M cars a year.  It is estimated that of the 230M cars in the US about 60M cars are 15 years or older.  That is 15M cars that spew carbon at a higher rate (10 to 30 times!) than current emission controlled cars.  Newer cars also use less fuel.

The basic idea of this plan, is to provide an incentive check to people who sell their older cars and ,in return, buy a newer more efficient one.  This is an active program in several states, like Texas.  Real world experience always provides great feedback, and there is some positive and negative. Some blog feedback from these states is that the process is overly complex and bureaucratic.  An emphasis on streamlining the process for consumers would need to be made prior to launching this nationally.

Texas gives consumers, who are mostly lower income class, up to $3,500 dollars toward the purchase of a newer car.  This stimulates the right environmental behavior and also provides an economic stimulus.  Many people do not spend the full refund on the new car but spend it elsewhere in the economy or even save it !  Amazing ! We also get less efficient vehicles off the road.

These are the kind of ideas we need to be debating, not windfall profit taxes, not gas summer tax refunds, not DRILL or NOT DRILL.  Politicians should shut up and get on board with game changing ideas, show some leadership and creativity on these issues !

I think this is a simple logical plan. Electric companies that have the equipment, manpower and motivation to supplement their local power grids should install pole mounted solar and/or wind on top of the numerous utility poles they have across the USA.  The technology is already here for the mounts and for the solar panels, installation would be handled by the electric company.  The tap into the existing power lines is probably some adaptation of existing equipment.  This simple idea times thousands of poles seems like it would make a difference.

Pole Mounts

Pole mounts are divided into 3 subcategories: top of pole mounts, side of pole mounts, and poll tracking mounts. These poll mounts are differentiated by how they are positioned on the pole. Pictured is a typical top-of-pole mount.

Top of Pole Mounts are comprised of a metal rack and rail unit that is bolted to a large sleeve that rests on top of the pole. In order to install a top of pole mount, you will need to use an existing pole at least 3-8 inches wide with a concrete base, or construct one yourself. The mount simply slips over the top of the pole, and you can bolt (or weld) your solar panel unit into place.

Large Top of pole mounts can encounter a substantial measure of wind resistance and can be very heavy, so you may need a small crane or several able-bodied men at hand in order to install a large top-of-pole system.

Side of Pole Mounts are typically fastened and bolted to the side of telephone or utility poles. Side of pole solar panel mounts typically involve small solar panels, for larger units, it is reccomended that you use a top of pole solar panel mount.

Tracking pole mounts are top of pole mounts with a special function – tracking pole mounts track the motion of the sun in the sky throughout the course of the day. This maximizes the operating efficiency of the solar panel unit.

UPDATE:

In thinking about this more, let’s kill several birds with one barrel. Or more specifically, how about we (the government) sell the oil to the oil companies at below market rates instead. After all, this was an investment the government made with our money, and for once it actually had a return. Unlike almost all other ‘savings’ plans administered by the bureacracy. The overall average cost per barrel of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is $24. Wow, $24.

So, as a mechanism to increase the supply of non-foreign imported oil, we release 50% of the reserve over the summer as stated below. We do this by selling it to US oil companies at a rate of say $75 per barrel. Whether we like it or not the existing oil companies have the distribution network, it has to get into their hands at some point. Conditions to place on this oil are that the ‘standard’ mark up is in place all the way down the distribution chain. Those numbers look something like this:  9% for distribution, 19% for profit and refining costs, 19% in taxes, and the rest, 53% for the cost of the oil.  No profit above and beyond the current mark ups. This would ensure that the gasoline price would come down at the pump.

The proceeds from this sale would net the government around 15B dollars. This should be set aside for some of the ideas listed below, such as the Conservation Corps. I am sure we can come up with other ways to use this oil dividend.

UPDATE END:

Remember the strategic oil reserve that the US has been buidling since 1975? Yes, in three hidden locations around the US, we have 700 million barrels of oil stockpiled for whatever emergencies await us from terrorists, OPEC shortages, or natural disaster. A bill in front of congress will add an additonal 350 million barrels by 2009. Do ya think that might drive up demand for oil and the price also… I must have gone to another economics class in college.

700 million barrels, we add about 100k barrels a day to the reserve from a total worldwide consumption of 82M barrels a day, so that is not the real answer. We should stop buying just to save the money. The government has spent over 20 billion on this initiative, since it’s conception.

John McCain’s plan to help you this summer is with a tax holiday by eliminating the federal gasoline tax during the summer. The fed tax on gasoline is around 18 cents or 5% reduction. OK, big whoop.

My plan is to release some of this reserve. Shake up the petty dictators and lower prices. Some ever larger percent of the $115 for a barrel is speculative BS from the market. Oh, China is growing, India, we all need oil, we all want oil. Well how about if we didn’t need as much for a few months, what would happen then. Last time we released reserves was in late 2000, about 30 million barrels. The price of gas fell 20%.

Ok, so let’s do it again. The US consumes 20 million barrels a day, about half of which is imported. The Strategic reserve estimates is can release 4.5 million barrels per day. So, let’s do that for the summer instead of the fed tax relief. Let’s release 4.5M barrels per day for 12 weeks for a total reduction of 378M from the reserve or cutting it in half.

So I am proposing reducing our imports from foreign countries for three months by %50. Do you think they would notice ? Do you think Wall Street would react favorably ? Remember we the taxpayers already paid for this, isn’t this a good time to use it? Yes, Yes, Yes.

Let’s shake it up. No more sissy ideas of tweaking around the edges. Bold ideas, Bold decisons.