James Flaherty
P.O. Box 98
Guilford, CT 06437
(203) 458-3101
March 29, 2009
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
What if, during the next two years, we can raise 1 to 2 trillion dollars apart from the Treasury and apart from Wall Street and then use the money to establish a new profitable national alternative energy infrastructure, and while doing this, create 15 million jobs? Would this help our country and our people? There is a relatively simple way to accomplish these goals, which is not to say it will be easy. Nevertheless, the people of our country need the work and there is a way to do it.
The United States needs a new backbone. The United States needs to begin creating real wealth on a monumental scale and it needs to be doing this right now! The credit crisis has reduced the economy to it's essential minimum and continues reducing it in an absolute sense.
We cannot allow the economy to shrink further. We need to produce positive growth right now and in a very big way!
We need to find investment money somewhere other than the frozen financial community and preferably from somewhere other than the federal treasury, which is already stretched too far.
We need to find a parallel financial source and system that will create a positive economic cycle to jump-start and then maintain a minimal level of economic growth. Rather than simply waiting for the normal financial system to come back on line, we need to act forcefully to create a new, positive and powerful business base apart from the moribund system that is holding economic growth back. This has never been done before, but there is no reason it can't be done, beginning right now!
In the next 24 months, (and the following 24 months), we can raise 1 to 2 trillions of dollars, in $10.00 to $10,000.00 amounts by selling United States Energy Bonds that pay 5 or 6 percent interest per year, to our citizens and others.
People all across our country would invest and save their money in a bond that pays more than the 3%, which is what most banks now pay. U.S. Energy Bonds that finance a new alternative energy infrastructure for our country and employ millions of people, while doing it, will be seen as a very patriotic way to invest money and help the country.
The bond money would be loaned (not given), at 5 or 6 or 7 percent to alternative energy businesses to start, build, and improve the businesses that are creating AE equipment, systems, high mpx vehicles, solar heating systems, selling conservation services or manufacturing the machinery for generation facilities.
The significance of helping all these businesses is that the market for alternative energy products and services would mature very quickly, establishing itself as the dominant provider for energy solutions of all types, replacing the older geo-carbon based solutions. This will happen quickly as economies of scale are realized, as the volume of business increases.
The bond money would be loaned long term to consumers at 5 or 6 or 7 percent to allow them to buy the new solar heating systems and the solar electric systems and the high mpx vehicles, et c.
The key to success for consumers is that money would be loaned so that it costs less per month to buy the new alternative energy product, system or vehicle than it does to continue with the old way. For instance, the monthly car payment and the cost of buying fuel for the new vehicle is less than what the consumer is paying presently. The monthly cost of repaying a home improvement loan to insulate the house is less than the monthly cost of the energy at present.
The bond money would also be loaned to municipalities and businesses at 5 or 6 or 7 percent to finance very large wind and solar generation, storage, and transmission facilities. The loans would be repaid with the money received for the energy that is produced and sold. Amortized over twenty or thirty years, the loans can be easily repaid, while earning their stakeholders or shareholders a good return.. These types of facilities will earn several times their cost from the power they sell over that time span.
This will help towns and cities establish the 8,000 to 10,000 alternative energy generation facilities we need to build across the U.S. They will provide the necessary base load and storage facilities that our national energy system will require. We must build these facilities if we ever intend to develop a viable non-carbon based energy system. Anyone, who says otherwise, simply does not understand the scale and the scope of the problem facing our country. Anyone, who says otherwise, simply does not know what they are talking about!
In these ways we can generate millions and millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of economic activity, and that is to say nothing of becoming the world's leader in producing and exporting alternative energy systems.
In these ways, the people of the United States can solve some of the worst problems now confronting our nation.
To move forward, you, Mr. President, would need to set up a United States Energy Bond agency to begin raising the needed funds. The agency should oversee the raising and the loaning of the funds.
A comprehensive energy infrastructure development plan, that makes certain that the funds are being loaned to the most productive areas and projects first, is also needed. The agency should look for the greatest amount of energy gained at the lowest cost and the greatest number of jobs created for each loan made.
Conservation would be the first area to make these loans. Low temperature solar heating for air and water, which represents about a quarter of the total energy use in the U.S. would be the second area to make the loans. Giving low interest, long term loans to all parties, home and business owners, manufacturing, and installation companies would break the logjam that is presently blocking an enormous amount of potential solar energy development. Three quarters of the energy needed for low temp heating can be provided with low tech, inexpensive, off the shelf designs, that are well tested and of proven reliability.
The same loan methods would be used for manufacturers of high mpx vehicles, solar electric generation equipment, battery systems, industrial power generation facilities, storage and chemical conversion developers and all the other businesses and responsible parties who will be needed to create this new segment of our economy.
One important principal must be adhered to, to succeed. The emphasis and the priority must be on low tech and mid tech development and deployment. Time is of the essence! The United States needs to create a new alternative energy infrastructure on a monumental, industrial size scale, never before attempted. High tech development will certainly need to be pursued, but the priority must be deployment, not research. In a fashion similar to the building of the transcontinental railroad, or the provisioning of the Second World War effort, or the program to send men to the moon, quantity and distance must be the key first goals of the effort. Elegance and best efficiencies will come once the system is substantially in place and wide scale competition comes into play.
Right now, and especially in light of the economic problems confronting us, the country needs to focus at least one half of the available resources on building the thousands of large alternative power generation facilities that are needed near our major population centers across the country. This will provide the enormous increase in our electric generation capacity, we will soon need to power our transportation infrastructure and it will do it quickly! It will also create millions of jobs, quickly.
In the short and the long run, this is the most efficient way to tackle the development of a new, national alternative energy infrastructure, because it will quickly create the necessary anchor points that will be needed for a practical and workable alternative energy system. Wide spread electricity generation by alternative means is the lynchpin and the key to our success in redeveloping our national energy production and use. To ignore this fact, is to continue dancing around the central problem in creating a new alternative infrastructure. On the other hand, embracing this challenge will guarantee our success on the several levels: economic, environmental and in the reliable production of the energy we need.
Time is of the essence! United States Energy Bonds are the key tool to use, to help ourselves overcome the major challenges we face, right now!
If the funds are made available, the creativity and the drive of the American people will quickly turn the tide on these problems, but you Mr. President, must first clear the road and then lead the way. The results will be very gratifying
Thank you for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
James Flaherty
- by James Flaherty
Comments