Easy on the happy juice ...

"Right now, in 2009?" Are you kidding? Let me get this straight: construct the untold number of solar arrays needed for the leasing project (a production capacity that doesn't exist as of now). Then train an untold number of people to install them. Then convert the hundreds of millions US homes and businesses with those solar arrays after they're built and the people are trained. Then expect that lower income people will have the capacity to do this. Then assume that places like Washington state don't even qualify because the lack of sunshine per year. Then convert all traditional (or most) gas stations to natural gas... look this is NO "quick fix" (and while we're at it, just WHO has invented the vehicle fuel conversion your talking about installing? I'm not aware the technology exists to convert my F-150 to a natural gas car). My guess is 5 to 7 years before it became reality. Hell, they can't even go from analogue to digital in less then a decade, and we are talking TV's. This argument that it will take X amount of years to do nuclear or build refineries, or tap domestic oil reserves - is a silly argument. It was made last 10 years ago. I'm not necessarily looking for a "quick fix", I AM looking for a sound and serious energy policy, and taking ten years is a very reasonable estimate for something so monumental as becoming energy independent (or at least reasonably so). And in all of that which I'm proposing I expect the feds reduce the red tape to make it feasible. Refineries aren't illegal you know, the reason they haven't been built in 30 years is due to asinine over regulation causing its cost effectiveness to prevent it, as was the intention of these over burdensome regulations.

Look, 5 years, 10 years that is not the point - no matter the course its going to take at least that long get things on the domestic energy front up and running. The point is to enact a serious energy policy with proven technology. Nuclear, domestic drilling, more refineries, and the ingenuity of the American people pushing us towards that next new source. I'm skeptical in the extreme about natural gas car technology existing now, and only slightly less skeptical about the practicality (in expense and application) of "solar homes." But hey, there's no reason we can't enact both plans simultaneously and let localities decide which they'd rather have in terms of new sources of energy ... its not a zero sum game.