Thursday, August 5, 2010

What could be done with 8.7Billion



8.7 billion dollars has gone unaccounted for in Iraq.

I did some research and based on First Solar's financials we could have done the following.

Spent half of it on education/training for

14,601 workers

And built 31 solar panel factories yielding 100 megawatts of panel per year.

By year 7 we'd have 39 factories with enough profit to finance 11 new factories.
year 9: 50 factories finance 14 new
year 11: 64 factories finance 18 new
year 13: 82 factories finance 23 New
year 15: 105 factories finance 30 new
year 17: 135 factories producing $5.4b profit

year 21: recouped initial investment with (US cut of) 2.7b profits each year. 63585 jobs created in Iraq.

Over 25 years it's less than a 4% APY, but it would curb the insurgency, create infrastructure for jobs and education, reduce the 25% poverty rate, keep Iraq in the energy production game, AND we'd get our money back.