[JimMorrison]

So far, the entire biofuel push has been more or less a sham anyways. The amount of energy used to create biodiesel from corn, for example, is greater than the amount of energy released by the resultant fuel.

The economic justifications hold little water, for all intents and purposes. Pushing very hard on the development of renewable energy sources, should yield at least satisfactory results, once a minimum threshhold of funding is introduced.

And to clarify, even if it took solar panels 20 years to recoup their investment in energy costs, compared to the current cost of oil, it is beyond a win-win situation from day 1 (more American jobs in PV-cell fab plants, less reliance on foreign fuel, less reliance on fossil fuel altogether, reduced environmental impact, etc), but it's also a hell of a lot better expenditure of even say $1trillion, than propping up banks whose greed and avarice did nothing for America but highlight how egregiously abusable our free market is, and how abused it has been.

Even if the expense came out to $1trillion every year for the next 5 years, that sort of outlay would create such a stupendous energy surplus as to justify and allow us to rapidly pay off the debt so incurred by the project.