"So only $1.5 trillion?"

Here in this CNN article they're crying out for something called a "smart grid" nationwide, in the apparent hope of moving forward the day when we can all not only be equally squalid but equally in the dark. Not one mention in 1500 words of the possibility of, I don't know, maybe building a power plant or two. I know, that's crazy talk. Instead:

Some of the most reliable utilities are in the heartland states of Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas.

In those states, the power is out an average of only 92 minutes per year, according to a 2008 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study. On the other end of the spectrum, utilities in New York Pennsylvania and New Jersey averaged 214 minutes of total interruptions each year. These figures don't include power outages blamed on tornadoes or other disasters.

So let's not increase the supply, let's spend gigabucks spreading the (no trans-fats!) margarine a little thinner on the Wonder Bread.

Here in my little patch of nowhere the countryside is dotted with powerplants, more-or-less one per town. On cool mornings I can see steam plumes from at least three on the horizon. It's good to decentralize, I suppose, because the one that serves the small town nearest me is famously falling to pieces. A few years ago a couple of local guys were nearly squashed when a major portion fell off. It's the biggest employer in town, the tail sort of wagging the dog, and considering how much effort the utility company that owns it spends just keeping the poor ancient thing running it's hard to believe they're really making any money on it. They can't build any new ones, of course. These are coal-fired, grandfathered in under weighty layers of regulation, and the cost of new ones - shudder.

Connect that to a national "smart grid," so New York and Jersey City can last a few more weeks? I wouldn't be looking at steam plumes, I'd be watching smoke columns as the poor things burned themselves down.

As far as I can tell, letting the great national infrastructure built by earlier generations just fall into the dust till we're all reading the Prophetess Ayn Rand by tallow lamps is the plan. Maybe Utopia will only come when nobody can still read.

It's gonna be really ironic if I'm the only one left with a functioning toaster within my lifetime...