Sutainable energy strategy: "Build one of 'em"

Our gilded-tongued president has sung the praises of high-speed rail ("imagine yourself speeding along from city to city on the high-speed rail system of the future" or something to that effect, he said in introducing the $8 billion for upgrading railroads). Yet when everyone is clamoring for what turns out to be a relatively small amount of money compared to the task, it is not clear to me that we will get a single from-the-ground-up, truly high speed train link between any two U.S. cities. Similarly, we have been in the midst of a so-called nuclear energy renaissance since 2002, yet not only is there not a single new plant on line (and our aging existing plants are wearing out), but there is no clear timetable for when a single new reactor will be completed and brought on line.

So, I have a simple strategy suggestion: "build one of 'em." Build ONE all-new high speed rail line somewhere in the lower 48 states, from the ground up, that can travel at speeds similar to the TGV or Japanese bullet train. Also, build ONE nuclear reactor (either in a new location, or on the site of an existing nuclear power plant) to see what happens, to work out the kinks. Similarly for any other large, novel, sustainable energy system: build one of them to make sure we can. Once we have built one, we will know what it takes to build more. The opposite is also true: in the future we might get into a situation where we really need to build one or more quickly, and if we don't have the experience of building ONE of them under our belt, we may be in tough shape.