New Manhattan Project:
New Mexico and Energy
Recently, a Senate
Resolution passed easily which calls on our Congressional
delegation to take the lead in pushing for New Mexico as a
focal point in a national alternative energy initiative.
We have wind, sun,
geothermal resources, and lots of publicly-owned an
agricultural acreage. We have intellectual resources in two
national labs, a network of University and private sector
high tech research and development organizations, a
concentration of PhDs from Las Cruces to Los Alamos and the
supercomputing capability at Intel.
What we lack is the
financial wherewithal and the political will at the highest
levels in Washington to make it happen.
SJM33 didn’t get a lot of
Press when it was debated and approved because it calls on
the Obama Administration to commit $7 billion each to Los
Alamos and Sandia for the project and another $7 billion to
a consortium of State Universities in New Mexico to pull it
all together. $21 billion at the time seemed unrealistic,
so few reporters took an interest until the Administration
began dishing out that kind of money right and left. Now it
seems downright frugal.
The man behind SJM33 is a
Croatian émigré and macroeconomist named Miro Kovacavich who
now lives in Santa Fe. He chose to come to New Mexico four
years ago because he is convinced this is the ideal spot to
successfully produce a new Manhattan Project for sustainable
alternative energy. Kovacavich persuaded Governor
Richardson, Cisneros and the rest of the Legislature. Now
he is pushing Obama to support the idea.
Could it happen?
After all, New Mexico was
the site of the first Manhattan Project.
As you fly across the
state, you can already look down and see the distinctive
shapes of windmills dotting the land here and there.
Ranchers are starting to make the investments.
