The cheapest and dirtiest source of energy is coal.

That cheap energy is old sunlight in the form of decayed plants compressed over millions of years (a so called fossil fuel, coal).

The future cheap energy is eight minute old sunlight.  Estimates are that enough solar energy strikes the earth every day to provide the power the entire planet uses in a year.

Here is a link to the SOHO Satellite which monitors the sun.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/bestofsoho.html

Warning: this solar observation can become very addicting.

The technology to capture sunlight and convert it to electricity already exists.  We have solar photovoltaics, like we install on the roofs of buildings, and CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) like utility companies are building.

Here are videos about both of these technologies:

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-2-v-5.html

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-2-v-108.html

As the scientist from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory says in the video about CSP, the hope is that America will invest in solar energy the way that Spain and other European countries are.

If a country were looking for a way to invest in economic security and energy security while stimulating a sagging economy, there is no better use of our money than to move from the cheap old sunlight (coal) to the cheap (once the collectors are installed, it is close to free) new sunlight.

Government expenditures on energy infrastructure and incentives for energy projects are not new.

There is talk in Washington of using the money to stimulate the economy to improve the energy infrastructure of the United States.

How would this work?

Proposals are for things like a 1930’s style Work Projects Administration (WPA) that would build things like power lines, solar farms and wind farms.  This is a 21st century version of the things that the WPA built during the great depression using the labor of millions of workers on “relief”.

“Over $4 billion was spent on highway, road, and street projects; more than $1 billion on public buildings; more than $1 billion on publicly owned or operated utilities;” -Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

Other proposals are to spend taxpayer money on incentives to increase the use of “green” energy technologies such as wind and solar power and to encourage energy efficiency measures.

Here is a database of all of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy incentives at the state and federal level.  Maintained by the NC Solar Center at the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University.

http://www.dsireusa.org/

If you hear someone calling proposals for the government to get involved in building energy infrastructure or providing incentives for energy related programs as “unprecedented”, you can respectfully point out their error.

There is precedent for large scale federally funded projects for energy infrastructure.  There is also an ongoing effort by local, state and federal governments to provide incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

We need to focus our economic stimulus efforts on achieving endependence.

Endependence = energy independence that ends dependence on polluting fuels.