Stimulus Package Specifics

Of the 787 billion spent on the stimulus package 38 billion along with 20 billion in tax incentives is going into energy. Here is a brief list of how that will be spent:

A three-year extension to the tax credit for wind

$4.5 billion in direct spending to modernize the electricity grid with smart-grid technologies.

$6.3 billion in state energy-efficient and clean-energy grants and $4.5 billion to make federal buildings more energy efficient.

$6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy systems, biofuel projects, and electric-power transmission facilities.

$2 billion in loans to manufacture advanced batteries and components for applications such as plug-in electric cars.

$5 billion to weatherize homes of up to 1 million low-income people.

$3.4 billion to the Department of Energy for fossil energy R and D, such as storing carbon dioxide underground at coal power plants.A tax credit of between $2,500 and $5,000 for purchase of plug-in electric vehicles

It will now be interesting to see how this money is actually distributed. It seems that a lot of it while under the guise of "clean energy" will just go to propping up large companies. For example the 2 billion to manufacture batteries will no doubt just go into Detroit's pocket books. Hopefully this will all get enacted as written but as has been proven time and time again writing the legislation is the easy part, lets hope it gets enacted.

Geen Energy's Role in the Stimulus Package

Throughout his campaign Obama stressed the importance of cutting our supply on foreign oil and creating clean, green options to our addiction of oil but is he following through with his stimulus package? Of the 825 billion in spending 10s of billions will go towards green initiatives there is the hope that the stimulus package will create 460,000 new green jobs. The Majority of these jobs will be created through the weathering of some 2 million homes as well as providing tax breaks for the harnessing of alternative clean energy. The LA times called the stimilus plan into question claiming that it was losing steam and that the planning hadn't been done to impliment much of the outlined spending on green intiatives. See below
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-energy-stimulus16-2009jan16,0,922149.story

Obama on Clean Energy

The second half gets into political degridation of Mccain and away from policy, no need to watch it.


In this video, put out over the summer, Obama talks about what he proposes to do with his clean energy initiatives and what kind of new energy he will pursue. This begs the question how will we go about harnessing these powers to provide realistic suppliments, if not substitutions to a gas and coal powered economy.
Here are some cool solutions to these problems.
Solar via the science channel show Ecopolis:

A cool new innovation plus a good basic explanation of solar energy, plus an adorable accent.