An elemental source of electricity would be those that dont require fuel. Water, Wind, Solar, Geothermal, Tidal, and more.

An elemental resource may cost to build and for maintenence but there is no fuel requirement like there is for electrical generation from gas, ethanol, oil, natural gas etc.

Because there is no fuel as such the price of the electricity generated is not governed by the price of the fuel.

So I think that electricity in the USA should mostly be generated from Elemental Energy sources.

Provide an incentive to companies that use elemental systems and to grid companies when they buy from those sources. Provide more grants for technology that uses such sources. Make a point with legislators to favor elemental energy sources.

This is very important because as long as electricity is generated using fuels who's value fluctuates (or just increases) we allow this commodity; electricity, to fluctuate with that fuels market.

Congress has shown time and again that it cannot balance the budget. When a small business doesn't have enough money, the people running it (the owner/managers) do not pay themselves. I think we should do the same thing with the federal government- members of congress get paid only if there is enough money left in the budget to pay them after all other federal expenses have been paid. I suspect this will result in the budget always being balanced. Admittedly, this is really a public incentive, but this seemed like the best place for the idea.

The markup on new patented pharmaceutical drugs can be immense. The cost of sunitinib, an anticancer drug that only prolongs life for some months, is roughly 230 times its weight in gold. Yet the industry is still under immense pressure, because venture capital sees investments as very risky, paying back only in the very long term. In theory a perfect market would spread risk and reward rationally, so that the one lucky winner pays for all the losses, but in practice we face unreasonably expensive drugs and the potential loss of private research capacity to other nations.

I propose that we begin a series of grants intended to ameliorate the risk and reduce drug costs, with an eye toward the long term goal of replacing patents with a funding mechanism that does not tax the sick to pay for research. The way that this would work, is that we would authorize lump sum payments to companies for documented milestones in drug development, provided that they are willing to surrender some of the rights they would ordinarily have as patent holders.

Specifically, we would offer lump sum payments in increasing amounts as drugs reached specific milestones. For example, one might arrange:

1. In vitro efficacy - provided that the company agrees to allow any American competitor to have full access to the drug after a certain period of time, much less than the duration of the patent. The company would retain exclusive rights to uses for which the company has documented further milestones before this period expires.

2. Successful animal tests - provided that the company agrees to limit its profit margin on the approved drug to a certain value for the duration of the patent.

All of the specifics would need to be negotiated far more carefully than in this simple-minded example, but my point is: we should be able to work out a system where the government pays these companies for work done in a fairly straightforward way, in order to bring them through the morass of venture capital funding, while facilitating faster research and better access to medicine.

The long term goal should be eventually to move to a system where companies do not need to invent in secret, but can work in the open for fair and immediate payment, and where they have no motive to exaggerate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs, nor to invent dangers from those approaching patent expiration.

A monetary incentive should be provided for companies and individuals that create technology or designs that directly benefit middle class and poor homeowners by helping them save money on heat, electricity, food, shelter, maintenence, etc.

An award would be provided for the finished product having been successfully marketed and grants could be provided by the energy department, HUD or others to assist in certain types of research that results in the technology.

A fuel cell that heats your home while generating electricity that can be sold to the grid in exchange for the revenue to pay for the natural gas used in the process. Potentially you might be able to heat your house for zero cost (the fuel cell would cost about what a furnace costs now). The DOE would provide the grant here.

Another possibility would be housing designed in modular units that are completely self contained and could be shipped into an area that needed housing and inserted into concrete modules that were tornado proof. Each unit would take advantage of available technology that helped save money like special skylights that bring in outside light similar to the intensity of a ceiling light but doesn't need electricity, and a miniature, solar powered sewage tratment system inside so it wouldn't pollute without requiring a drainage field or a sewer hookup. A grant from HUD might be provided for this.

Solar powered airconditioning or freezers for food storage.