Obama "Smart Energy" Plan Not Very Bright

Meredith Jessup | October 28, 2009 12:43 PM

President Obama visited the small town of Arcadia, Florida yesterday--total population of 6,671--to show off a new solar energy facility built with the help of his stimulus package. Sounds innocent enough, but as with most everything else this administration does, you have to look beyond the White House photo ops...

The president visited DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy center--supposedly the biggest solar photovoltaic center in the country. The company's 90,500 solar panels generate about 42,000 megawatt hours of power/year. Wow--impressed yet?

Too bad the facility--which cost $150 million to build--only provides power to 3,000 homes. This amounts to taxpayers spending $50,000 for EACH home receiving power from this one facility.

Who in their right mind thinks this is a good plan? Apparently Obama does. During his visit, he noted:

There are those who are also going to suggest that moving toward a clean energy future is going to somehow harm the economy or lead to fewer jobs. And they're going to argue that we should do nothing, stand pat, do less or delay action yet again. I just want to point out, we've heard such arguments before. We've engaged in this same type of debate a lot of times through our history. People don't like change, and they get nervous about it.

Uh, it's not that I don't like "change"; I just don't like wasting money. But I guess the president has no problem with that: $150 million down, billions to go...