The stimulus package that President Obama would like to see passed – and is currently under debate in Congress – has about $100 billion (of $900 billion total) that is devoted to renewable energy and environmental projects. Today CNN published a story that detailed this portion of the package:
$100 billion jolt of ‘green stimulus’
The highlights include money for conservation programs, upgrading public transportation, adding capacity to, and starting the digitization of the power grid, and grants for next generation batteries for electric cars. A sampling from the story:
Renewable energy loans: ($10 billion Senate, $8 billion House) – These work like outright grants for various renewable energy and transmission projects in the early stages of development. They could include wave power, geothermal, offshore wind or innovative solar projects, as well as more traditional renewable energy projects.
Advanced vehicle grants: $3.2 billion – More than $2 billion is slated for loan guarantees to companies developing batteries for electric cars. Many say electric vehicles are what will ultimately move the nation away from oil, but developing a suitable battery remains the main hurdle.
Advanced vehicle grants: $3.2 billion – More than $2 billion is slated for loan guarantees to companies developing batteries for electric cars. Many say electric vehicles are what will ultimately move the nation away from oil, but developing a suitable battery remains the main hurdle.
Small-scale renewable tax credits: $1 billion – Currently, if you buy a small windmill for your backyard, a solar hot water heater or a geothermal heating system you can write off 30% of the cost on your federal tax bill, capped at $2,000 for the heating systems and $4,000 for the wind turbine. This bill removes those caps, although the 30% limit remains.
I really don’t know what to make of the stimulus bill overall. Unless I miscalculated (and I have the flu, so that is certainly not out of the question), the present stimulus package equates to $3,000 for every person in the country. That’s actually not as much as I thought it would be. It certainly seems, from various stories I have seen, that there are lots of items in there that really don’t belong. Some of it appears to be pork, other items appear to be good programs, but misplaced in a stimulus bill.
From the news accounts, Republicans are trying to cut out $100 billion from the package, but still expect the final package to come in at over $800 billion. I still remember when Congress canceled the $12 billion Superconducting Super Collider because constructions costs were too high. How times have changed.
The economy needs a boost. Pork will provide as much boost as meat and potatoes. The money will go somewhere and get spent. Hopefully a number of times. That didn’t happen with Tarp. Banks that got those funds tended to shore up their balance sheets. Not much else.
Only $3,000 per person… not really of the 300+ million Americans… only around 80 million are ‘tax contributors’
In a nut shell…
the rest are either
youth (who feed off parental workforce)…
ever increasing elderly (who feed off workforce entitlement)
Gov, EDU, MUNC or other system quo cogs (who feed off workforce tax for running the rest of us)
oopps almost forgot the 8 million in jails and managing them.
I may have left out a few other million of ‘feed off the tax paying workforce’… all-n-all about one in four carry the rest and their debts (the enablers).
Or about $11,000 per enabler
Being a fulltime tax paying worker since the age of 19, I guess this just makes me an enabler 😉
I never have much of a problem with this until someone tells me…
‘You should donate more’
Why not give everyone in the country a voucher for $3,000? A voucher that must be spent to have any worth and that can’t be saved?
Those vouchers would shoot so much money through the system so fast, all the stores in the country would have to stay open 24/7 and hire a complete new work force.
The only downside I see is that most of that money would end up in China, but wouldn’t American consumers have fun while the money worked its way through the system?
In general I like Obama’s programs, but I still say we need to bite the bullet and start taxing gasoline. I am liberal on many issues, but I also wonder if we shouldn’t just kill the corporate income tax. It raises only $100 billion and change, and G-d knows how many hours are and distortions are put in to avoid paying it.
As an emergency measure I guess I give Obamonomics a B+.
This is a scary recession. We may have to re-cap the banks, and ease terms on every home mortgage in America.
The important thing to remember is that we have our farms, our rails and roadways and millions of hard workers. It is stupid to decrease output.
And as liberal and greenie-weenie as I am, I wonder if EHS Director isn’t right. There is a point past which I don’t want to pay taxes.
I would also like someone fed or state devise programs for every prison in America to become energy exporters. I don’t care if those felons have to get on electricity-generating bicycles. I think prisoners should be sentenced not to time, but to amount of electricty generated. They can pay us back by getting on a bicycle and pumping away for 12 years or whatever. Better than us feeding them.
“I would also like someone fed or state devise programs for every prison in America to become energy exporters. I don’t care if those felons have to get on electricity-generating bicycles. I think prisoners should be sentenced not to time, but to amount of electricty generated. They can pay us back by getting on a bicycle and pumping away for 12 years or whatever.”
Benny,
I love it. Your best idea yet. But wait until the ACLU gets hold of that idea. If you thought they raised a fuss about Gitmo….
Even the green parts of the stimulus plan are massive wastes of money. I saw one of the ideas was for an electric refueling station for $3,700 per vehicle.
Benny – I think I covered this in December when Anon thought some green brainwashing conference for kids was a good idea.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/12/thoughts-on-new-energy-team.html
Let’s recap. An adult on a bike generates about 100 W of electrical power. Inmates on bikes probably don’t generate enough power to keep their own lights on, let alone export any power.
“An adult on a bike generates about 100 W of electrical power. Inmates on bikes probably don’t generate enough power to keep their own lights on, let alone export any power.”
But what else have they got to do?
Put no more than a 40 W bulb in each cell, if they want to watch TV while pedaling, they’ll just have to work harder.
There would be advantages: 1. The prisoners would be exhausted almost all the time and cause very little trouble. 2. They’d all have tremendously developed cardio-vascular systems reducing the Department of Corrections medical bill.
Despite the lousy EROEI, Benny is on to something.
Wendell-
Thanks for noticing. Imagine being sent to prison to generate “100 kilowatts.” Then, it is up to the prisoner how many hours he wants to put in on the bicycle.
I think it is a great idea, and we would win the Olympics every year in cycling.
In addition, it would be nice to see prisons cover their roofs with solar panels, and put up windmills, etc. I suspect most prisons have never tried to cut energy outlays as they get the money from the state. No profit incentive.
The ACLU? Well, I don’t think the punishment is cruel or unusual. In fact, I think it would instill discipline, and these prisoners owe us a huge debt.
Re EHS Director,
You forgot to mention a new group of Americans who haven’t been contributing their fair share. They are a number of recent Obama political appointees.
I would like to have seen a couple of dozen nuclear power plants in the stimulus package. Think of the jobs and the clean green energy. This is a no-brainer, but it would require real leadership.
During the midst of the Great Depression, the Empire State Building was erected in about 18 months.
Over 7 years after Islamist terrorists demolished the Twin Towers, all New York has is a hole in the ground — and lots & lots of paperwork.
If the Stimulus Package were real, it would not focus on money at all. Instead, it would focus on rolling back (at least temporarily) some of the miles & miles of red tape that are binding our economic Gulliver to the ground.
Instead, Obama-Pelosi-Reid give us a tidal wave of pork-barrel spending. Not the change we were hoping for.
On the cover of the Wall Street Journal yesterday it showed a couple of guys in Siberia breaking up coal with sledge hammers. That might be a good way for inmates to generate energy. Put them to work mining coal.
Kinu-
Amen. Actually, the Empire State Building was built in 410 days. I think we do need to waive regs for three years on construction, except safety.
Then issue contracts with bonuses for getting construction done before deadline.
A cottage industry has grown up around all the regs, in the r/e development community. I have heard reports that the “soft costs” of construction can top the real costs. Does the word “Byzantine” come to mind?
King: Yeah, let them dig coal. And if some miners are trapped somewhere, it should be prisoners sent in to try to get them out.
I actually think this would be good for the prisoners, a chance to redeem themselves.
“In addition, it would be nice to see prisons cover their roofs with solar panels, and put up windmills, etc.”
The Department of Corrections in my state, has started enquiries to put a wind turbine at each prison.
“During the midst of the Great Depression, the Empire State Building was erected in about 18 months.”
It takes longer than 18 months now to get the environmental impact assessment through the system.
“During the midst of the Great Depression, the Empire State Building was erected in about 18 months.”
“It takes longer than 18 months now to get the environmental impact assessment through the system.”
Isn’t that part of the problem…designing our existing world too quickly, and without taking into account the long-term impacts? We have an opportunity to recreate this country, beginning now. Why in the world would we continue to do what has brought us to this painful point?
“Isn’t that part of the problem…designing our existing world too quickly, and without taking into account the long-term impacts?”
No, I don’t think so. There is a delicate line between obstructionism and progress.
Many of the things that made this country what it is would no longer be possible by today’s standards
1. The transcontinental railroad. Do you think the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 would have ever been built had the Union Pacific and Central Pacific had to comply with today’s environmental regulations?
2. The atom bomb. Would the uranium enrichment plant at Oak Ridge and the plutonium plants at Hanford been possible with today’s environmental regulations?
3. Hoover Dam?
4. The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral?
5. The Gary, Indiana steel mills.
6. The open pit iron mines in Minnesota’s Mesabe Range?
7. The open pit copper mines in Arizona and Montana?
8. The plants that provided the cement for the concrete in our Interstate Highway System? (It is now virtually impossible to build a new cement plant in the U.S. because of environmental regs, just as it’s almost impossible to build a new oil refinery.)
9. The Interstate Highway System?
The list could go on and on.
We have kids falling into the abandonned open pit copper mines. I think that why they require environmental review now.
Screw wind power. I would like to see the Department of Corrections put in a bicycle with a generator. Lights out is when nobody wants to pedal any more.