Super Eco

Photo credit: AMagill, Flickr

President Obama’s $825 billion proposed stimulus package dedicates some $24 billion dollars for wind and solar power, and an array of other green initiatives. If it passes, America’s renewable energy capacity could double over the next three years, doubling the need for green jobs.

The President’s unprecedented push for direct green spending (which reportedly adds up to nearly a third of the entire stimulus package) is aimed at boosting green employment, green energy and green infrastructure. All are suffering amid an ailing economy and the subprime mortgage crisis.

Additional green spending proposals in the stimulus package, some short-term, others several years long, include:

• Energy-efficiency retrofits for older homes and schools
• Constructing new solar farms, greener power plants and fueling stations for flex-fuel vehicles
• Introducing high-voltage, lower carbon footprint transmission lines
• Creating new, cleaner municipal sewer systems

Though not nearly as much as environmentalists had hoped for, just short of a third of the $550 billion Congress of the proposed plan is dubbed “green,” including the cash to help solar and nuclear power get off the ground.

"To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills,” Obama said in a speech earlier this month.

The stimulus funds would help modernize electricity transmission, paving the way for an experimental "smart grid." Still, the questions remains, which of those stimulus-powered green projects will generate the most power to energize our sorely in need of a (solar) recharge economy?

We’ll have to wait and see what the Senate thinks of all this. Either way, a few billion isn’t a bad first step toward a “clean energy economy.”