$3, i mean $8 billion

i originally wrote this post as $3 billion, but realized quickly that it was actually $8.3 billion that was negotiate.  in order not to change the compassion and luster of the below, i have decided to keep it the same….  just keep it in mind that you can multiply the below by 2.76 and get the actual cost of the government’s new fad.

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$3 billion is a lot of money.  in fact it’s more money then i can imagine.  it’s more money then a majority of americans can imagine.  especially americans under the age of 30 and even moreso for americans over the age of 30!

so what is worth $3 billion?  well, here are a few things…

• the 4th quarter profits of At&t
• Zynga, creator of Farmville and Mafia Wars for Facebook
• the Call of Duty franchise
• arms deals recently brokered by Russia and Libya
• an oil contract between Cuba and Venezuela
• Skype
• a goldmine recently discovered in Montana
• a defense contract between Singapore and India

most of the above are consumerist and intensely inflated because of the bureaucracy they are filtered through.  but they are, nonetheless, grossely short sighted.  the government’s recent dedication of $3 billion in support of nuclear energy is much of the same story.

the beautiful thing about nuclear energy is simple:  it’s not coal.  coal has become america’s scapegoat.  whenever politicans, environmentalists and so-called energy reformers claim the necessity to move away from coal, nuclear has become the new cry freedom.

folks have realized that the farse of “clean coal” was, well, a farse and are looking for a new puppy to play with.  nuclear is it.  so what has the government done to support this puppy through its training school days?  how about throw $3 billion at it.  all considered, this puppy better be the best damn trained puppy ever…

the problem is, nuclear energy has the half-life of a old dog, not a puppy.  we can’t develop further technology to somehow rid ourselves of spent uranium / plutonium.  we can’t somehow make it disappear when we done with this so-called “clean” means of producing energy.  we can’t just bury it in a moutain and expect our kids not to eat fish with 3 eyes and develop all sorts of new kinds of cancer.  we can’t possibly develop technology so safe as to indefinitely prevent the destruction of the eastern seaboard with a reactor meltdown.  we can’t hide under the guise of nuclear-is-better anymore!

the truth is that nuclear is just as bad, just not so bad right now.  this is why it fits into our government’s vistas:  because our government is (and by default our society is…) notoriously short-sighted.  we have this vision that what is good for us now is also good for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren!

when do we get up our heads to realize what good it would do for us to invest in solar panels?  when do we decide to invest in true sustainability?  when do we end the plague….