Vermont Yankee, Hydro-Quebec Are Energy Lifeline

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri
For the Valley News

The University of Alaska’s report on the impact of global warming released last Wednesday made somber reading. Higher temperatures, melting permafrost, a reduction in polar ice and increased flooding are expected to raise the repair and replacement cost of thousands of infrastructure projects by $6.1 billion—a 20 percent increase—between now and 2030.

Reports like these are a call to action and a clear signal that the time to begin changing to a “greener” world is now. There is, however, another dimension to the discussion on climate change detailed in a book, just published in London.

Out of the energy labyrinth by David Howell and Carole Nakhle, points out that there is little that can be done to affect global warming for the present generation because the changes being seen now are the result of greenhouse gases that have already been emitted over the last century.

The environmentally friendly policies that are being implemented now are mainly for the benefit of future generations. The critical short term issue that needs to be dealt with immediately, the authors point out, is the reliability of America’s energy supplies.

If there were to be a serious energy supply disruption—ever more likely given today’s lethal mix energy supply, geopolitics, and the generally availability of high-technology weaponry—with resulting shortages of heating fuel and electric power to keep the lights on, there will not be much enthusiasm left for worrying about projects to protect the environment for future generations.

As Maynard Keynes famously said, in the long term we’re are all dead.

New Hampshire and Vermont, together with the other New England states are particularly vulnerable in the short term because of their colder weather patterns, and because they are at “the end of the energy pipeline.” So policies that insure the states’ energy supplies and prices in the event of an increasingly likely interruption ought to take center stage in both states.

In Vermont the countdown to a potential energy crunch has already begun. The state consumes approximately 900 Megawatts (MW) of power—one MW powers 100 homes. Most of this power, 640 MW is supplied by the Vermont Yankee nuclear power-plant and the Canadian utility, Hydro-Quebec. Thanks to long term contracts with these two utilities Vermont’s citizens and businesses get some of the cleanest and cheapest energy in the country.

Unfortunately, the existing agreement with both companies will end in 6 years. Renewing these contracts, especially the one with Vermont Yankee, should be Vermont’s priority No. 1. Efforts to find renewable energy sources, bio-fuels, etc., as important as they are, must take second place There is simply no way that renewable energy sources can make up the shortfall; for instance it would take over 900 large pylon windmills to replace both utilities’ energy output.

I realize there is opposition in Vermont to Nuclear power, though there is some debate about how extensive the opposition really is.

But if Vermonters want to ultimately get to a sustainable and affordable energy future they should re-think the bias against nuclear energy. It is one of the cleanest (no carbon emissions), most plentiful, and safest energy sources around. Hundreds of nuclear reactors, including Vermont Yankee, have been providing power safely around the world for decades.

(The accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine need to be kept in proper perspective: the reactor at Three Mile Island did what it was designed to do when faced with potential nuclear leakage—contained it; Chernobyl was the product of the Soviet economy that had a hard time putting a bicycle together, so one ought not to be surprised at that catastrophe.)

There is the issue of spent fuel storage in the United States because the Federal government changed its rules in mid-stream and reneged on the original plan to allow the reprocessing of spent fuel. But my conversations with Vermont Yankee officials lead me to believe they have a safe and cost-effective solution to storing spent fuel at their site until the Federal Government lives up to its responsibilities and either arranges for a national storage site or re-thinks the ban on the reprocessing of spent fuel.

Responsibility requires that Vermont’s political and business leaders begin to explain the energy conundrum as a short-term (energy security) and long term (sustainable and greenhouse gas emissions) problem.

Yes, the Federal Government bears ultimate responsibility for energy stewardship through national initiatives and international multilateral projects that encourage carbon-emissions reduction policies, energy-efficient automobiles, solar and wind energy projects, mass-transit, and clean coal technologies.

But in the interim Vermont should safeguard its citizens’ energy supplies through another set of long-term contracts with Vermont Yankee and Hydro-Quebec. They are Vermont’s life-line to a green energy future.

This is my last Business Climate column. Thank you for all your support over the last three years. You can comment on this column and stay in touch via my blog: http://www.sakbizcol.blogspot.com/.


Sarwar Kashmeri is the author of the recently released book America & Europe After 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a strategic communications adviser, and lives in Reading, Vt.

The Green Mountain E-State

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri
For the Valley News

In the 1960s, Bermuda (population 66,163) enacted legislation to permit corporations to set up captive insurance subsidiaries on the island. The word “captive” derives from the fact that these special-purpose companies are wholly owned by a corporation and insure only that company's products and services.

Once established, these captives collect premiums from their parent company. Premiums are tax-deductible so the parent company saves on taxes; but because it has paid the premiums to itself, it still has control of the cash, which can be invested. Bermuda has no corporate tax, which means yet more revenue. Not a bad deal any way one looks at it.

Law firms, banks, accounting firms, computer systems providers, investment advisers and insurance specialists all set up shop in Bermuda to service the captive insurance sector. The canny Bermudians grew an entire industry out of thin air, dash and elan (all attributes that have existed in Bermuda since the days of the pirates!) and asked only to keep a small percentage of the money generated through this business. Even a small percentage of a lot of money is a lot of money, and Bermuda is far and away the leading captive insurance market in the world.

And the second-biggest captive insurance market in the world? Against all odds, it's Vermont.

Creative legislation has allowed a thriving captive insurance industry to grow up here over 25 years and the results are impressive: 42 of the Fortune 100 companies and 19 of the companies that make up the Dow 30 have captives in Vermont, and 2007 brought the 800th captive insurance company to the state. The industry generates $23 million in revenues and provides jobs to 1,400 Vermonters.

Companies don't even have to come to Vermont to get started. There is an interactive form at http://http://www.vermontcaptive.com/ that gets them going and teams of advisers to ensure their captive is in conformance with state and federal laws.

This is a job- and money-producing business that any Vermonter can learn to love: environmentally pristine, part of the creative economy, negligible energy consumption, virtually no carbon dioxide emissions, and a potential market that stretches from sea to shining sea.

Vermont state Rep. Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock, (aclarkson@leg.state.vt.us) said she believes this approach to creating jobs and wealth in Vermont has so much potential that she'd like to make Vermont the country's foremost “E-State,” not just in terms of providing broadband but “to make it possible for corporations that incorporate in Vermont to do much more of their work online,” she told me.

This will require substantial amendments to Vermont's statutes, and she introduced legislation during the session just ended to enable companies “to use the Internet more effectively and actually function on the Web -- file online, hold meetings online, and conduct more and more of their corporate business online,” she said.

House Bill 458 (“An Act Relating to Digital Corporate Transactions”) proposes to amend the statutes governing corporations and limited liability companies to address organizational and operational activities, including matters pertaining to share and stock ownership, voting, the conduct of meetings, and the use of electronic documents and means of communication.
Other countries allow corporations to be formed online, “but no state in this country, that I am aware of, does. There is a huge demand for it and we might become the first state to permit it,” Clarkson said.

The bill would create another niche industry, just like captive insurance, giving Vermont “first-mover” advantages with sizeable annual fees for incorporating here.
“It is perfect for us,” Clarkson said, “in keeping with the state's objective to increase the size of the creative economy. It will create supporting jobs and lure young creative workers to the state.”

(The bill, incidentally, is also another example of the close cooperation that exists between the Vermont Law School and the Legislature: It was the law school that brought this opportunity to the Legislature's attention.)

Unfortunately the commerce committee's workload prevented it from acting on the bill in the last session, although the committee did take testimony on it and the legislation has wide bipartisan support, according to Clarkson.

She said she expects there will be some work done on the bill during the remainder of the year so that “we can hit the ground running in the next session that begins in January 2008, and ensure Vermont gets all of the first-mover advantages,” she said.

I certainly hope this bill sails through the Legislature. It represents the kind of thinking that Vermont and New Hampshire should focus on for tomorrow's jobs and to create an environment that will draw and keep the next generation of Vermonters. After all, both states have a substantial advantage over Bermuda: Vermont's population is about nine times larger than Bermuda’s, and New Hampshire’s is 18 times larger.

If there is a downside to passing this enlightened bill, it is this: Vermonters are likely to ask their esteemed legislators whether, in this always-on Internet-driven world, can the Legislature really afford to take a six-month break between sessions?
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Sarwar Kashmeri is the author of the recently released book America & Europe After 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a strategic communications adviser, and lives in Reading, Vt. Readers may comment on Kashmeri's blog:www.sakbizcol.blogspot.com

Green Is The New Black

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri
For the Valley News

Margo Baldwin, president and publisher of Chelsea Green, one of the Upper Valley's best known companies, enjoys tough challenges. In the 1990s, she had stepped back from the business to spend more time with her family. When the business started to founder, Baldwin returned in 2002 and turned the company around. She also refocused it on environmental stewardship and politics.


Now Baldwin has taken on a new challenge: She'd like to convince the publishing industry to transform itself to a “zero-waste publishing” model.

I had always assumed that bookshops took books that were no longer new or selling as well as they used to and moved them from one shelf to another to put them on sale, just as clothing retailers do. Not true.

“That would make too much sense,” Baldwin said.

Here's what actually happens: The publisher ships new books to a store. Unsold books are shipped back to the publisher by the store. The publisher then sells these unsold books to a remainder dealer and ships it there. Bookstores then order these unsold books from the remainder dealer, which ships them back to the original store. “It is a completely insane system,” said Baldwin who would like to see the industry move to a non-return sales model, a change that the big publishing companies refuse to adopt.

The resistance to that model doesn't make any sense to Baldwin. “We already sell in this way to the big online bookstores such as Amazon,” she said. “Amazon has perfected an electronic system of on-demand ordering and selling in which computers predict the following week's demand and order accordingly. There is absolutely no reason why other stores cannot have access to the same technology.”

This convoluted way of doing business also damages the environment. According to the Association of American Publishers, global gross sales of consumer books in 2004 were 1.4 billion units. Almost a third (around 434 million) were returned unsold. Assuming half (217 million) of the unsold books were shipped out again from the “remainder houses,” Chelsea Green has calculated that an extra 1,305 million pounds of books had to be shipped an extra 59 million miles using 8.4 million gallons of diesel fuel and releasing 188 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“And that doesn't even account for the energy and environmental costs of the remaining 217 million books that are dumped, usually in to a landfill,” Baldwin said.

She wrote an article for Publishers Weekly last August that documented the waste and extra energy consumption the current publishing model requires and proposed that the industry change its existing practice and sell to stores on a non-returnable basis only.

I'd always thought it was the large chain bookstores that dictated the conditions under which they would purchase books from a publisher. “Absolutely not,” Baldwin told me. “It is the other way around. The publishers are the ones that insist on selling books on a non-returnable basis to keep their market share and work off their cash flow. Their mantra is: Get out as many books as you can and keep billing.”

The reaction to Baldwin's article was lukewarm. Some of the smaller publishers and stores were in favor but the big publishers were not. Convinced that the rest of the industry will eventually come around, Chelsea Green has decided to move out front and will announce its new “green” publishing model in June at the Book Expo in New York -- the publishing industry's annual gathering. “At the Expo, we will announce our ‘Green Bookselling Partnership Program,' and that we already have seven key independent booksellers that have joined it,” Baldwin told me.

Chelsea Green, which publishes its books on recycled paper only, is introducing a non-returnable model with built-in monetary and environmental benefits for the booksellers: The company will give the participating booksellers a larger than normal discount, pay for shipments to the stores (that adds around 7 percent to the stores' margins), and make the entire transaction as close to carbon-neutral as possible by buying offsets to balance the shipments' estimated carbon release.

“The stores that join our Green Partnership will get first dibs on our authors and there will be additional benefits that we will build in as the model gets under way,” Baldwin said. “And if the books are not coming back to us, we cut that out from the environmental costs also.”

It is a bold gamble, but I believe Chelsea Green is on the right track. Consumers have already shown they will pay a slight premium to buy environmentally friendly items, and major companies (think Volvo, Wal-Mart, Conoco, British Petroleum, Toyota) have begun to transform their brands and practices to more eco-friendly ones. “In our view, going green is not only the moral thing to do in an age of global warming and peak oil, it's the only viable economic thing to do if we're to survive and thrive in a future of skyrocketing energy costs,” Baldwin said.

Sooner or later the rest of the book industry, with its increasingly slim margins, also will discover that on today's balance sheets green is the new black. It will be fun then to say, oh yes, it all started back in the Upper Valley, where this small publishing company called Chelsea Green placed a calculated bet to buck the industry.

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Sarwar Kashmeri is the author of the recently released book: America & Europe After 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a strategic communications adviser, and lives in Reading, Vt. Your comments may be posted on the Business Climate blog: www.sakbizcol.blogspot.com.

Let There Be Light

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri
For the Valley News

Travel where you will in the Upper Valley, the topic of rising energy costs and what to do about them is a prime topic of conversation.

Alternative forms of energy, such as wind, solar, biomass and other nonfossil, renewable energy generators, are actively discussed but lead quickly to frustration for a number of reasons: The substantial cost to install even an entry-level systems (a reasonable solar system, for instance costs as much as an automobile); absence of adequate federal incentives; the absence of any incentives in New Hampshire and the marginal incentives that Vermont can afford; and environmental and aesthetic concerns.

All these crosscurrents were evident at a breakfast forum organized by the Upper Valley Computer and Information Industry Association at the Fireside Inn and Suites last week to discuss whether the Upper Valley can become energy independent.

Ably moderated by former state Sen. Matt Dunne, the panel of experts discussed renewable energy alternatives for the Upper Valley. At the end, however, they conceded that energy independence for a small and relatively sparsely populated area was not realistic. Participants left with a wealth of knowledge, however, and the UVCIA is to be commended for its effort to illuminate the complexity of this important issue.

As one small example of the complexities involved in alternative energy generators, one of the panelists discussed the installation of a residential water-turbine. Should you have a fast running stream on your property and your family has considered installing a water-turbine to generate electricity, you might want to will the installation to your grandchildren.
The permitting process involves a long list of permits, licenses and inspections by local, state, and federal officials to assess the impact of diverting the water on fish and other organisms, the impact on wildlife, the possibility of damaging a wetland that may be connected or fed by the stream miles downstream, and so on.

The stream that runs alongside our property in Reading, Vt., flows into a bigger water drain that later connects to the Connecticut River, which finally flows out into Long Island Sound. I shudder to even contemplate the layers of permits we would have to get to use that stream for power generation.

No, it is not easy to contribute to controlling global warming.

So it was with some excitement that I learned about the European Union's decision last week to replace every energy-inefficient incandescent bulb in Europe with fluorescent lamps by 2009. An incandescent bulb (the ones in general use throughout America and the rest of the world) converts less than 5 percent of the energy it uses to light, and is little changed from the time Edison invented it in 1879. The EU's decision will save Europeans more than $9.2 billion a year in electricity costs and cut out about 25 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions to boot. It is an idea that can be put into place with existing technology combined with a healthy dose of political and business leadership.

The reason fluorescent light bulbs have failed to gain traction with consumers is mainly because of their cost, even though they are cheaper to operate and last longer. But their price is bound to decrease as the European market responds to a demand for billions of the new light bulbs annually.

The success of the EU switchover seems assured because all the manufacturers of light bulbs support the change. It turns out that one of these manufacturers is United States-based General Electric. So here is an idea for the Upper Valley's energy and environmental champions: Why not start a movement to convince New Hampshire and Vermont business and political leaders to hitch a ride on the European juggernaut and replace all of the Upper Valley's incandescent light bulbs by -- let’s give ourselves one more year -- by 2010 and then extend the project to the rest of both states.

A rough calculation tells me that there are something like 14 million incandescent lamps in use throughout the Twin States. Assuming the Upper Valley has a third of these, that is around 5 million lamps. A drop in the sea compared with the estimated 3.2 billion inefficient lamps that are plugged into the EU's grid.

If New Hampshire and Vermont followed in the EU's footsteps, using the savings estimates developed by the EU, the Twin States would save about $34 million annually in electricity costs (Upper Valley estimated savings: $11 million), and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by some 90,000 tons, with the Upper Valley's emissions dropping by 30,000 tons.
Vermont and New Hampshire already have a sizeable commercial relationship with the EU. The two states' exports to Europe exceed $1 billion, and EU investment in both states is around $8 billion, which supports more than 30,000 jobs. The light bulb project would add more depth to these business links and expand the regional economy.

Brussels starts putting together an impact switchover assessment review in May. Perhaps a Twin State business-government delegation could be sent to the EU to use that assessment as a template. That would provide the governors and legislative leaders of both states with hard numbers to quantify the costs and benefits of adopting the European idea.
As a regional organization that is supported by business and nonprofit groups throughout the Upper Valley, the UVCIA seems ideally suited to act as a catalyst to jump-start this initiative. What do you think?
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Sarwar Kashmeri is the author of the recently released book: America & Europe After 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a strategic communications adviser, and lives in Reading, Vt. Your comments may be posted on the Business Climate blog: http://www.sakbizcol/ .blogspot.com

Do we need a Sputnik moment?

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri
For the Valley News

My column last month drew more than its usual share of responses from readers. You may recall the column argued that, no matter which side of the Iraqi war one was on, the $300 billion that has already been spent on it limits the ability of the federal government to do anything meaningful to reverse the serious decline of American engineering graduates.

The National Association of Manufacturing predicts a shortage of 12 million to 15 million skilled manufacturing workers by 2020 if present trends continue. Local high-technology firms, such as Hypertherm, are already strapped for qualified workers. Yet, it is these highly skilled manufacturing workers who will increasingly determine the ability of America to sustain its standard of living in a globalized world.

Absent a recognition of this problem and its successful resolution, the country is headed for serious trouble.

The e-mail responses my column ranged from taking me to task for criticizing the war (one memorable e-mail was titled: Peace At Any Price) to those that complimented me for using a nonpartisan perspective to illuminate a critical problem.

I am not a big-government fan. In fact, exactly the opposite is true. But there are times when government financing is an efficient tool to move a long-term national strategic agenda forward. President Kennedy's 1961 challenge to land an American on the moon was an example of this.

The man-on-the-moon project unleashed a decade of engineering invention and creativity matched by an explosion of excitement that propelled young adults into engineering and scientific programs. Entire technologies had to be invented from scratch (systems analysis, miniaturization, numerical analysis, robotics, etc.) and the benefits continued to flow into the economy for years through the commercial applications of these inventions.

For example, ablative materials developed to dissipate the fearsome heat of re-entry gave rise to Teflon coating that is still used for coating cooking utensils (and ostensibly some presidents). The disk drive in Apple's iPod is a direct descendent of the computer storage drives used on the lunar lander.

“The huge crop of engineers we have had since the '70s is a direct result of that national resolve following the launch of the Soviet sputnik,” Bill Canis, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers and executive director of its Manufacturing Institute, told me.

For those of you for whom Sputnik does not mean much, it was the world's first artificial satellite. It was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, ushered in the space age, and jolted the American scientific and security establishment to action by revealing the science and engineering gap between the United States and the Soviets.

Kennedy's masterfully conceived challenge reversed that gap, and American technical superiority remained unchallenged, until now.

Perhaps the threat faced by American industry due to the forces generated by globalization and the diminishing attraction of technical careers is today's Sputnik moment. So, is it time for another national challenge to reverse this threat? And what form might that challenge take?

Computers dominate today's economy, and I put the question to David Kotz, professor of computer science and director of the Center of Mobile Computing at Dartmouth College.

Kotz recognizes the need to inspire America's young people to remain interested in science and engineering. “In my field … there continues to be tremendous excitement about the applications of, and potential for, computing,” he told me. “I've noticed that every 3-year-old is a scientist, exploring his or her world. Every 5-year-old is an engineer, building contraptions to see how they work. So how do we capture and sustain that natural excitement and curiosity?” he asked.

For Kotz, today's equivalent of the man-on-the-moon challenge is clear: to bring our nation, and our world, into a more sustainable relationship with our Earth. “Science and engineering will play a fundamental role in any solution to this long-term goal. We need fundamental science -- understanding the Earth's natural processes and our affect on those processes, and the chemistry and physics involved in producing clean energy, for example. We need to develop new technologies -- efficient engines, cleaner industrial processes, methods to conserve water, and communications technology that reduces the need for travel. And we need teachers who can communicate about science and engineering so that everyone can understand the science underlying new policy and that everyone can benefit from new technologies.”

Kotz presciently warns that this challenge is global. “As scientists and engineers -- as a nation -- we have the opportunity to lead, and we must ensure that the whole world benefits. Otherwise, our world will continue to see conflict -- driven in the future by disputes over water and arable land if not by oil and other 20th-century resources.”

Kennedy's bold moon landing challenge harnessed American ingenuity, creativity and leadership for two generations. Yet its success was largely determined within the borders of the United States. What impressed me about Kotz's formulation of the next challenge is his clear understanding that today's challenges require a global frame of reference.

Making it a better world for Americans alone without consideration of other countries' needs is no longer, if it was ever, a recipe for success. Without regard to the condition of human dignity, without improving the lot of others, we cannot improve ours.

What do you think?
***

The discussion generated by my last column was so interesting that I felt your opinions ought to be more widely available than they now are as e-mails addressed to me. To that end, you will now be able to comment on Business Climate columns online at my new public blog: http://www.sakbizcol.blogspot.com. You can still write to the editor of the Valley News at forum@vnews.com.

A Question of Priorites

By Sarwar A. Kashmeri For the Valley News
Published: January 28, 2007

Regardless of your position on the Iraq war, there's no denying its damaging impact on America's long-term economic health.

I was reminded of this recently during a conference organized by the Leadership Upper Valley program that is coordinated by the Greater Lebanon Chamber of Commerce.

The year-long program identifies individuals with leadership potential and brings them together over weekend retreats and conferences to educate them on the issues, opportunities and problems that affect the Upper Valley.

The individuals are assumed to be among the area's future leaders, and the program is aimed at equipping them to fulfill their responsibilities. The conference was held at the Lebanon offices of Hypertherm Inc., an international leader in manufacturing steel cutting equipment.

Hypertherm's cutting technology uses laser and plasma torches that operate at nine times the surface temperature of the sun. The company maintains its global leadership because of its research and development spending and constant innovation.

During the question-and-answer period following a presentation by Evan Smith, Hypertherm's general manager, I asked him to imagine being in Washington, D.C., with a group of powerful congressional committee chairmen. He has the opportunity to describe the biggest business impediment that Hypertherm and other hightechnology businesses face.

What would he say?

Without hesitation, Smith said, “Immigration reform.”

“The issue for us is that the U.S. simply isn't producing sufficient engineers, particularly in certain specialty areas, to meet the need,” he said.

“You've no doubt read about this generally. We've felt it most recently in recruiting microprocessor programmers. Our best candidates were non-U.S. nationals, but to do this, you go up against visa allocations and long waiting lines. We pushed through and hired them, but it is a very difficult process. So, either the U.S. needs to help reenergize engineering education, or liberalize immigration policy. It's a global economy,” Smith said.

Hypertherm's concerns are reflected nationwide. But they are of particular relevance to the future of the Upper Valley's economy, given that so much of its future depends on the creation of environmentally clean, high-technology businesses that draw on the area's ability to leverage assets such as Dartmouth College, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and the growing cluster of high-technology businesses.

The $4.5 million, 48,000-square-foot Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, a business incubator located at Centerra Technology Park in Lebanon, and the National Center for Precision Manufacturing that is being established in Windsor, are but two of many examples of how the area is being propelled toward a future of cutting-edge technology and high-tech businesses.

But all of this innovation and drive will come to naught if the businesses spawned from the incubator, college and hospital complex cannot continue to expand for lack of qualified workers.
And, in today's world, that means engineers, scientists, mathematicians, physicists and computer science specialists.

In its landmark 2005 Skills Gap Survey, the National Association of Manufacturers warns: “The vast majority of American manufacturers are experiencing a serious shortage of qualified employees, which in turn is causing significant impact to business and the ability of the country as a whole to compete in a global economy.”

The report said countries with rich educational heritages -- India, China and Russia, for example --graduate millions more students each year from college than the United States does. “These highly educated individuals are actively participating in the development of innovative new products without regard for historical barriers, such as geography -- thanks to technologies such as broadband, inexpensive Internet-ready laptops, and collaborative tools,” the report said.

Senators from both New Hampshire and Vermont have done wonders procuring federal money to jump-start innovative ventures in both states.

But unless the skill gap is closed, these efforts may not be able to fulfill their longterm promise of transforming the area's economy with the kind of jobs that America will need to compete with the powerhouse economies of the Far East.

Which is why the decision to spend $300 billion dollars -- so far -- on the war in Iraq (not to mention the billions more that will be needed each week for the foreseeable future to continue operations and to repair and replace wrecked equipment) may well come back to haunt us within the next decade.

Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor in the first Bush administration, said the Iraq war has sucked all the oxygen out of America's foreign policy.

A greater tragedy may yet unfold if the Iraq war has also sucked the oxygen out of the country's ability to direct government resources into transforming our education system, thereby leaving Hypertherm and other high-tech companies without the highly skilled assets they need to continue to grow and create jobs.
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Sarwar Kashmeri is the author of the recently released book America & Europe After 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association, a strategic communications adviser, and lives in Reading, Vt.