Those Not Busy Being Born Are Busy Dying

*Bob Dylan

Since the news story was Vice President Joe Biden responding to the Tan Man's bizarre Republican economic ideas, you would have missed the gist of what Biden and Energy Secretary Steve Chu told the press. First, Vice President Biden reported on the effect of the Recovery Act has had on the economy. The CBO that day issued a report that the stimulus funds had created 3.3 million jobs--almost the amount President Obama predicted at the beginning--and that its effect would peak this year and taper off in 2011 and 2012.

But the real essence of the presentation was, in less diplomatic terms, the economy of 20th Century America is dead and that the stimulus package contained the seeds of our future economy. Steven Chu mentioned--a fact that has escaped every reporter to date--the largest commitment by the United States to scientific research and development in our history. He also mentioned that stimulus funds had provided the seed money for innovations in clean energy, new forms of transportation and medical research. Of the whole $814 billion package, over $100 billion has been committed to science, technology and innovation projects. What he didn't say was that of the clean energy projects, the government provides 25% and the private sector 75%. So you have a multiplier effect.

The Biden report on the Recovery Act mentions that by the end of 2011, we will have doubled the renewable energy capacity of solar, wind and geothermal sources so that it would be sufficient to power 16.7 million homes or 55 million electric cars for a year. That sounds impressive but solar power now accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity generation, while wind power produces almost 2 percent. The manufacturing goal is to double the renewable equipment like wind turbines and solar panels, which means the jobs stay in the United States.

Dr. Steven Chu suggested that these scientific developments would have a quantum effect. He mentioned that by 2015 the cost of solar power would be on the par with common grid electricity and that the cost of electric car batteries is expected to fall by 70 percent between today and 2015 and will be competitive with regular batteries. He suggested then that the actual cost for solar panels and these batteries will fall dramatically. He also made note that we know how to make a smart power grid, which would dramatically cut the inefficiencies in our system and save enormous energy costs. Dr. Chu also mentioned the anticipation of huge medical advances in the next few years because of this research money. He claims that we all can get in five years a human genome sequence of ourselves for $1,000. Neat, I'll get one to go along with the electronic photos of my retina. A whole new source of artistic inspiration.

While people don't perceive the recovery, unless you are like me end driving on highways under perpetual reconstruction, the seeds of our future economy are being planted and by an excellent farmer, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Chu. This is still not a substitute for an Energy Bill, but it is the type of stealth actions the Obama Administration are taking to secure our future. Hearing Joe Biden speak, reminded me of the politicians who used to extol America's creativity and innovation and marvel at the wonders of science. Somehow these people died off.

Buried in the report and the comments was a throwaway line about extending broadband to rural areas. Previously, I wrote how this initiative by President Obama will have a similar effect as FDR's Rural Electrification program, which brought rural America into the 20th century. Interestingly, this part of the stimulus package is being implemented by the US Department of Agriculture.

The pace of developing this new economy is hampered by the obstructionism in Congress over the issue of net neutrality and the energy bill. The general idea was to use the stimulus money as the seed capital for the new economy and to reinforce this with larger expenditures in later bills. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem likely given our current political framework.

What does becomes clear is that the new economy is coming, while we watch the painful death of the old one. I don't think we will see the visible effect of this for about ten years. Until that time, we will have the old economy, which is no longer efficient or productive, limping along with unemployment staying in the 7.5-9% range. The economy is simply not producing enough jobs to replace those lost by the Recession.

One of the intriguing things about these clean energy projects is how decentralized they are. Gone are the days of the Hoover Dam and the TVA. Instead, these innovations will be adapted and modified by the American people into different lifestyle configurations. Already the spin-offs from our space programs have generated products that have made living off the grid a viable alternative for thousands of Americans. For a good read on this movement, read Nick Rosen's Off The Grid (Penguin, 2010), which examines both younger and older generations who have managed to live a middle-class lifestyle removed from urban areas. With broadband in rural areas of America, we might see this type of movement accelerate. Rural America became de-populated in the 1990s with the collapse of family farms. One of the pernicious effects of this was the rise of the militia and white supremacy movements in the country. But a return to rural life with modern technology could become a safety valve for our society. The same goes for urban homesteading and the rise of urban farming.

Observers are aware that China is making rapid progress in all these areas of alternative energy sources and new technologies. But the competitive advantage of the United States is that while they are advanced in their hardware, we have the cultural software that will allow us to apply these technologies to reinforce our own social and national identity. The noise you hear are the dying cries of the defenders of the status quo and the financial interests who got us into this mess. Even with our wounded political framework, there is nothing these guys can do to stop it. That may be the real reason you have American conservatives basically give up on the idea of self-government--the world they dominated has collapsed and largely because of their own actions. The tragedy is that the pain of our current economic situation was unnecessary and man-made. But it allows us a clearer view of the future.