Dear Secretary Bodman,

I couldn't help but notice that you plan to pay $30 million to cover the application fee for a consortium of electric utilities that want to apply for a license for a new nuke plant in Misssissippi. I know you have the money available, as you just last spring requested a cut of $30 million from your department's energy efficiency budget.

So as long as you have that money to blow, I have a couple ideas. On the very pro-business, conservative end, you might consider undergrounding all the big utility wires in the Gulf region, as that will probably do more for grid reliability than adding a new nuke plant.

But since you seem determined to fill your shiny new hole at Yucca Mountain (how yonic!), I have a better idea. Why don't you take those $30 million to the Republic of Georgia and try to buy up some loose nukes?

If you absolutely have to use the money for an energy supply project, how about this. Buy a bunch of Euros. Convert them back to dollars after the currency collapses. Then you can give out paper greenbacks on street corners for people to burn in their cook stoves.

Love,
Hedgey

PS: as an appendix to all the hopelessness and despair of the week (is winter coming or something?) I give you the Rocky Mountain Institute's hopeful vision for a post-oil future. I promise not to lay into it too hard before Monday. Happy Folsom Street Fair. Happy Love Parade. Happy beginning of fall. As this guy likes to say, "Happy, happy, happy."