check out the PWU comprehensive energy plan at
abetterenergyplan.ca

I believe a 5 D interconnected solar cell is possible if this prototype is developed I also believe it would revolutionize the computer industry as well as energy efficient LED lighting.

too bad there is no one doing it yet!
D~W

I don’t; but I recognize that figuring out *which* investments and what *directions* of support will actually *work* needn’t just be a matter of throwing as much money as possible at as many different targets as possible. Sometimes having to work on a budget can be a good thing, in the long run; it forces you to make smarter choices rather than scattershot hopeful ones.

And any cleantech that does offer real solutions is going to have to be, by definition, economically viable; enforcing that restriction at the start of the process, rather than trying to reverse-engineer it into something too expensive to work outside the lab, also has its advantages — not least the fact that one of the most significant discouragements to future cleantech investments is a record of expensive, money-wasting failures that can’t recoup their losses by translating into practical product. Minimize the record of failure, and control the monies spent on each round, and you have a better chance of being able to build a sustainable cashflow rather than a disruptive, boom-and-bust cycle of windfalls followed by paucity.

And I disagree that percentages are more important than absolutes, as a matter of fact. Some pies are so much bigger than others that a small piece of the big pie *is* better than a big piece of the small one; a shrinking Canadian GDP still beats a growing Turkish GDP, and will for some time. Focusing too much on percentages is a good way to forget the size of the absolutes; $159 million is nothing to sneeze at, and a good deal more than most of the countries on this planet can even begin to dedicate to this. If it means we have to make smarter, more careful choices about how we invest it, that may not be such a bad thing.

Indeed, smarter, more careful choices overall are not a bad thing; remember that the last line of the quoted Wikipedia article about Dutch disease notes that some economists have argued the primary cause of the Netherlands economic disruption was “unsustainable spending on social services”. Unsustainable spending on *anything* — resource exploitation *or* cleantech development — is generally a bad idea.

On your point about absolutes versus percentages, I think the percentage comparison is most important. That’s how we measure GDP growth,right? Imagine if we ignored the fact that GDP is shrinking and said, well, you know, compared to Turkey we’re not doing too badly.

That the Canadian government is not doing more is a genuine indictment and I think a real pity.

And it might be worth remembering that comparing percentages to absolutes is not always useful, either. If our fall-off in percentage is disheartening, I can’t help but think $159 million in absolute investment is still a lot better than a number of other countries are doing.

The overall volume of money is less important than the right amount being spent on the right potential prospects.