Regenerate the U.S. and World Economy "Top Down"
February 19, 2009 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche emphasized in discussions today that we have to correct the mistakes the Obama Administration is making with its stimulus plan. The machine tool part of the former auto sector is the crucial factor in this development. With the collapse of the auto sector now in Europe as well as in the U.S., we have to have the same policy in Europe as in the U.S. We need an international policy, not merely a national policy. We also have to get the Russians in on the same policy. Then you have it. Take the machine tool capacity of the former auto sector as the crucial factor. Save it. Save the employees of the former auto industry. Forget automobiles. Use the machine tool part of the former auto sector as the driver for recovery.
The only way to revive the expiring U.S. and world economies is to take a "top-down, physical science" approach in emergency measures to regenerate basic infrastructure, essential functions, and agro-industrial capacity. The `stimulus' plan must be revised on this principle. Lyndon LaRouche has discussed this in detail in three webcasts since mid-January. In his Jan. 16 webcast, he recounted the history of how the U.S. successfully built river management systems, rail systems, and accomplished other feats of production such as mass aircraft assembly in World War II. He said, "We did it on the top-down approach. We start from science at the top level, physical science! You go down from physical science to machine-tool design, as a by-product of science for production design, of production of the essential components which go into anything..."
The following list reviews in brief, indicative parameters of what is needed in three sectors of the U.S. economy. At present, at least 21 million persons--13 percent, of the total U.S. workforce--are out of work, or very under-employed. Multi-millions of new jobs will be created in the course of carrying out a real, science-based development program.
I. High Speed Rail and Maglev
Today's U.S. rail grid (about 99,250 miles of Class I track) is nearly 60 percent less than in 1929, with freight and passenger services almost non-existent for most parts of the country. The place to start to modernize and expand, is with electrifying 26,000 route-miles of the rail system. In the second stage, another 16,000 route-miles should be electrified, bringing the total up to 42,000 route-miles. This would cover all key passenger and freight rail corridors that transport more than 60 percent of all U.S. rail traffic. Maglev lines can run along strategic continental routes.
The requirements for this are worked out, including for building nuclear power plants, transmission lines, step-up and step-down transformers, and for what is "saved" in eliminated petroleum fuels. The impact would be tremendous in increasing manufacturing and economy-wide productivity.
This program will be re-published in the EIR online Feb. 24, from a 2005 article by Hal Cooper and Richard Freeman (June 10, 2005, Vol. 32, No. 23, "Congress's Mission for Bankrupt Auto: Build USA Electrified Rail Network.")
II. Nuclear Power
The threat and incidence of black-outs and brown-outs in the U.S. electricity system are now a constant feature. Whereas per capita electricity generation grew at a rate of 7 percent a year from FDR's 1930s until the late 1970s, then came the decline to where over the 1995 to 2000 period, overall U.S. capacity grew only 1.5 percent, and thus, it went negative per capita.
What is required is to resume an all-out nuclear power development program, along the lines originally planned for "2000 by 2000" U.S. nuclear plants for the 21st century. Worldwide, there are only some 400 nuclear plants in operation today.
In the U.S., applications have been filed for 28 new power plants, to be constructed on the "brownfield sites" where a generating plant or two may exist, but the full complex of several plants was never completed. This is a start. But additional sites need to be selected, in order to fill out the national "economic map" for the future, where new generation centers are in place to power intended industrial, agriculture, transportation and residential purposes. Accordingly, the transmission grid must be expanded, and employ such technologies as superconducting cable.
There are "off the shelf" designs for power plants, including the Westinghouse AP-600 and AP-1,000; the General Electric Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR); and others. In addition, "fourth generation" nuclear plant designs can be readied for mass production. These are advanced, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.
To go nuclear, requires reconstituting the U.S. capacity for heavy industrial output, to produce the required components, especially pressure vessels; this is in line with the renewed manufacturing capacity needed for refurbishing the entire infrastructure base of the nation.
Some rough parameters of job creation: "Approximately 4,000 workers are needed at each site at the peak of construction, and each new plant requires 400-700 employees. To build about 35 new reactors, about 38,000 jobs will be created in the nuclear manufacturing industry." In addition, another 20,000 are needed over the next five years, to take the place of the estimated 35 percent of the current nuclear workforce who are retiring over this period. (From EIR, Feb. 13, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 6, by Marsha Freeman, "Do You Want to Stimulate the Economy? Then Build New Nuclear Power Plants").
III. Waterways and Ports
Much of the 12,000 mile U.S. waterway system, of inland and coastal channels, is long overdue for improvements in its critical infrastructure of 240 locks and dams, and flood control structures and related. "The average age of all federally owned or operated locks is nearly 60 years, well past their life planned design of 50 years," stated the report released Jan. 28 by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There are locks and dams on the Monongahela/Ohio System that are over 80 years old.
Of the 27 locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi, including the Illinois River, 26 need renovation/repair, due to age. Seven of these rehab projects were approved in the 2007 Water Resources and Development Act, but the just-passed "stimulus" bill excluded these projects from funding, because of a provision inserted by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to prohibit allocations of funding for so-called "new starts," that is, projects that had not previously received construction monies!
What is required is the go-ahead for the across-the-board restoration of the 12,000 mile navigation system. The January ASCA "report card" stated, "The cost to replace the present system of locks is estimated at more than $125 billion."
Technologies exist that can expedite both renovation and new-starts of needed waterway infrastructure. E.g. "Hollow" dam walls can be built off-site and "floated" into place. These kinds of components required for locks, dams, gates, weirs, levees, port infrastructure (traffic tunnels, piers, breakwaters), plus dredging equipment and vessels, creates the necessity for re-establishing heavy industrial capacity to feed the supply lines.
A rough parameter of job-creation is that 35,000 jobs result from every $1 billion of funding for navigation projects, according to the Department of Transportation.
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2009/02/19/regenerate-u-s-and-world-economy-top-down.html
February 19, 2009 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche emphasized in discussions today that we have to correct the mistakes the Obama Administration is making with its stimulus plan. The machine tool part of the former auto sector is the crucial factor in this development. With the collapse of the auto sector now in Europe as well as in the U.S., we have to have the same policy in Europe as in the U.S. We need an international policy, not merely a national policy. We also have to get the Russians in on the same policy. Then you have it. Take the machine tool capacity of the former auto sector as the crucial factor. Save it. Save the employees of the former auto industry. Forget automobiles. Use the machine tool part of the former auto sector as the driver for recovery.
The only way to revive the expiring U.S. and world economies is to take a "top-down, physical science" approach in emergency measures to regenerate basic infrastructure, essential functions, and agro-industrial capacity. The `stimulus' plan must be revised on this principle. Lyndon LaRouche has discussed this in detail in three webcasts since mid-January. In his Jan. 16 webcast, he recounted the history of how the U.S. successfully built river management systems, rail systems, and accomplished other feats of production such as mass aircraft assembly in World War II. He said, "We did it on the top-down approach. We start from science at the top level, physical science! You go down from physical science to machine-tool design, as a by-product of science for production design, of production of the essential components which go into anything..."
The following list reviews in brief, indicative parameters of what is needed in three sectors of the U.S. economy. At present, at least 21 million persons--13 percent, of the total U.S. workforce--are out of work, or very under-employed. Multi-millions of new jobs will be created in the course of carrying out a real, science-based development program.
I. High Speed Rail and Maglev
Today's U.S. rail grid (about 99,250 miles of Class I track) is nearly 60 percent less than in 1929, with freight and passenger services almost non-existent for most parts of the country. The place to start to modernize and expand, is with electrifying 26,000 route-miles of the rail system. In the second stage, another 16,000 route-miles should be electrified, bringing the total up to 42,000 route-miles. This would cover all key passenger and freight rail corridors that transport more than 60 percent of all U.S. rail traffic. Maglev lines can run along strategic continental routes.
The requirements for this are worked out, including for building nuclear power plants, transmission lines, step-up and step-down transformers, and for what is "saved" in eliminated petroleum fuels. The impact would be tremendous in increasing manufacturing and economy-wide productivity.
This program will be re-published in the EIR online Feb. 24, from a 2005 article by Hal Cooper and Richard Freeman (June 10, 2005, Vol. 32, No. 23, "Congress's Mission for Bankrupt Auto: Build USA Electrified Rail Network.")
II. Nuclear Power
The threat and incidence of black-outs and brown-outs in the U.S. electricity system are now a constant feature. Whereas per capita electricity generation grew at a rate of 7 percent a year from FDR's 1930s until the late 1970s, then came the decline to where over the 1995 to 2000 period, overall U.S. capacity grew only 1.5 percent, and thus, it went negative per capita.
What is required is to resume an all-out nuclear power development program, along the lines originally planned for "2000 by 2000" U.S. nuclear plants for the 21st century. Worldwide, there are only some 400 nuclear plants in operation today.
In the U.S., applications have been filed for 28 new power plants, to be constructed on the "brownfield sites" where a generating plant or two may exist, but the full complex of several plants was never completed. This is a start. But additional sites need to be selected, in order to fill out the national "economic map" for the future, where new generation centers are in place to power intended industrial, agriculture, transportation and residential purposes. Accordingly, the transmission grid must be expanded, and employ such technologies as superconducting cable.
There are "off the shelf" designs for power plants, including the Westinghouse AP-600 and AP-1,000; the General Electric Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR); and others. In addition, "fourth generation" nuclear plant designs can be readied for mass production. These are advanced, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.
To go nuclear, requires reconstituting the U.S. capacity for heavy industrial output, to produce the required components, especially pressure vessels; this is in line with the renewed manufacturing capacity needed for refurbishing the entire infrastructure base of the nation.
Some rough parameters of job creation: "Approximately 4,000 workers are needed at each site at the peak of construction, and each new plant requires 400-700 employees. To build about 35 new reactors, about 38,000 jobs will be created in the nuclear manufacturing industry." In addition, another 20,000 are needed over the next five years, to take the place of the estimated 35 percent of the current nuclear workforce who are retiring over this period. (From EIR, Feb. 13, 2009, Vol. 36, No. 6, by Marsha Freeman, "Do You Want to Stimulate the Economy? Then Build New Nuclear Power Plants").
III. Waterways and Ports
Much of the 12,000 mile U.S. waterway system, of inland and coastal channels, is long overdue for improvements in its critical infrastructure of 240 locks and dams, and flood control structures and related. "The average age of all federally owned or operated locks is nearly 60 years, well past their life planned design of 50 years," stated the report released Jan. 28 by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There are locks and dams on the Monongahela/Ohio System that are over 80 years old.
Of the 27 locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi, including the Illinois River, 26 need renovation/repair, due to age. Seven of these rehab projects were approved in the 2007 Water Resources and Development Act, but the just-passed "stimulus" bill excluded these projects from funding, because of a provision inserted by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to prohibit allocations of funding for so-called "new starts," that is, projects that had not previously received construction monies!
What is required is the go-ahead for the across-the-board restoration of the 12,000 mile navigation system. The January ASCA "report card" stated, "The cost to replace the present system of locks is estimated at more than $125 billion."
Technologies exist that can expedite both renovation and new-starts of needed waterway infrastructure. E.g. "Hollow" dam walls can be built off-site and "floated" into place. These kinds of components required for locks, dams, gates, weirs, levees, port infrastructure (traffic tunnels, piers, breakwaters), plus dredging equipment and vessels, creates the necessity for re-establishing heavy industrial capacity to feed the supply lines.
A rough parameter of job-creation is that 35,000 jobs result from every $1 billion of funding for navigation projects, according to the Department of Transportation.
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2009/02/19/regenerate-u-s-and-world-economy-top-down.html
A study done by Amory Lovins for FOE back in the 1970s showed that the UK reactor program was a net drain on the country's energy supply. This is because it costs a huge amount of energy to construct a nuke, which is not repaid until the plant has been in operation for a number of years. A crash program of nuke development makes this proportionally worse.
If you have billion dollars, or ten, or a hundred, you will affect the balance between energy supply and demand much more by spending the money to develop and implement technologies for better end-use energy efficiency. Who wouldn't want the same hot showers and cold beer they have today for half the energy input, and half the cost?
We need to maximize the bang for a given amount of buck.
February 25, 2009 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
LPACTV Feature: The Fraud of Free Energy
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/8022
March 9, 2009 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink