Need Opinions on a JOBS + ENERGY proposal (Detroit: rent, unemployment rate)

[212david51]

I sent the following letter to President Obama and Senator Harry Reid. I need opinions of people living in Detroit to see if what they think of this idea.

LETTER STARTS HERE:

The USA has two growing needs, jobs and energy.

Starting with jobs, as you know the unemployment rate in the USA is around 10%. While giving incentives to create jobs is good, that is not a good long term arrangement. A good long term arrangement is to create a product and then be the only supplier of that product. More importantly we need to create product that no other nation can fill or has even considered. A product that can not be filled by outsourcing to China, a product that is made in a uniquely American way.

Energy is the other need of the USA. We must stop relying on foreign oil. More importantly we must be proactive in stopping global warming and the rising CO2 level. While wind generators, hydroelectric dams, solar plants, geothermal plants, nuclear power plants and even jet stream generators are non-polluting, they each have a limitation, one of location. We need an energy source that can be put where we want it and where we need it. We need a system that can be upgraded as necessary to meet increasing demand or to add newer safety devices. I am talking about nuclear power.

However I am not talking about nuclear power the way we currently do it. Under our current system each power plant more or less is designed independently and is unique in construction. The designers and workers must be moved to that location, housed at that location and when done, they leave. That is not an efficient way to do things. It is also disruptive of the community they left and disruptive of the community they come to during the construction. And the crew to man the power plant have to be individually trained to operate that particular power plant as they are each made as a one-of-a-kind facility.

I am suggesting something new, nuclear power using all the skills we have as a nation for mass production. Imagine the following.

Detroit, Michigan. The people are there, the factories are there, the housing is there. We
employ the people and use the factories to make parts for nuclear power systems. Mass


production of the systems all in a controlled factory environment. Quality control on site, before any of the parts leave the factory. Jobs in one of the most depressed areas of the nation. And more importantly jobs that will keep on going into the future.

Elsewhere in the depressed factory belt of the USA, often referred to as the Rust Belt, other factories making other parts. Each factory making parts for nuclear power systems.
This will put the jobs where the people are rather than forcing the people to move. An entirely new industry for an aging part of the nation.

The parts are all transported down to the Gulf and out to the Atlantic cost where we have ship building facilities. Facilities that are currently closed. We open them up and build hulls for nuclear power plant ships. Each ship will be of a class, all the same, all standardized. And to supervise this whole thing we put the one government agency that has dealt with nuclear power for over 50 years without an accident in charge, the US Navy.

The Navy will do all the quality assurance at the factories, supervise all the transport of parts, oversee the building of ships and the testing of all components. Only when the Navy is satisfied will the ship be put into operation. And it will be run with Navy train crews both in seamanship and in nuclear reactors.

Once the line gets running, we could build a new ship every six months or perhaps even faster. And the ships can easily be placed where we need power. San Francisco Bay. Off the coast of Los Angeles, San Diego or New York City. Any where we need power we can place a ship including near the cities of the Great Lakes. All that would be required is an electrical connector to the existing power grid. The ship will be secure as it will be Navy run and operated and can have Navy assets on board for defense. If there is a nuclear problem, the ship can put to sea until the problem is resolved. With an increase in nuclear power, we can go more and more with fully electric cars, greatly reducing our carbon emissions and our dependence on foreign oil.

Should we desire, we could increase production speed and sell or rent these ships to other nations. We could have ongoing control by insisting the US Navy operate the ship and/or by an American crew running the reactor. Either way we would be the parts supplier for fuel and upgrades. We could help the poor nations of the world with the one greatest expense they have to improving the quality of their lives, a reliable energy supply.

This does not cover all the details of my idea, rather it just gives a quick overview of it. This would supply long term jobs for the heart land of America, revive our ship building industry, help maintain our Naval traditions and address our growing needs for energy in an uncertain world.

In my humble opinion, this would be equal to President Eisenhower’s interstate highway proposal and President Kennedy’s proposal to land a man on the moon. It would take a President with a lot of courage to propose but in the long run I think it would ensure a legacy to the nation to be proud of. It would definitely be a change in how we do things in the USA.

Thank you for your time.

LETTER ENDS HERE.