Chart: The Cost of the War in Iraq vs. Spending on Solar Energy Research

November 10th, 2007

In The Power Crisis Mythology, the 40% Efficient Solar Cell and the Cost of the War in Iraq, I wrote:

Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, has developed a solar cell technology that has a conversion efficiency of 40.7%. They accomplished this with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The annual budget of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory: $210 million

The cost of America’s war in Iraq per day: $300 million

The U.S. spends more on the war in Iraq in one day (about $300 million) than it does on the ANNUAL BUDGET for the primary government laboratory that is tasked with renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. As absurd as that is, a recipient of a grant from this lab has developed a 40% efficient solar cell.

What if that lab had the funding equivalent of what the U.S. is spending on the war over a period of two or three days?

In that post, I also wrote that the energy scarcity argument is like the American dream: you’d have to be asleep to believe it. But that was far too kind.

You’d have to be retarded. Or in on the swindle.

The world is suffering under a good, old fashioned shakedown. Think about this obscene chart the next time you fill your vehicle with gasoline, or the lights go out, or your power bill goes up, or smog burns your throat:


Clean energy is expensive? Hmm.

Via: Solar Power Rocks:

These figures are in millions. The source for energy R&D expenditures is from the National Council for Science and the Environment. Take a look here: http://www.ncseonline.org/Affiliates/Handbook/cms.cfm?id=904

Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15499.htm

…

That $2,000,000,000,000? Well, that amount of money could’ve built solar thermal plants here that would have provided energy for 2/3rds of our nation’s energy demand…

More: Energy Scarcity vs. Cost of the War in Iraq

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