Odds are astronomical that one of today's primary school students at
Knightsen will grow up to sail through college, get admitted to medical
school and ultimately work as a physician in California, let alone in his
or her hometown. In contrast, the probability that California will be
shattered by a major league earthquake - even without a transoceanic
tsunami trashing the Port of Los Angeles / Long Beach - is not zero.
Will it happen tomorrow? Not likely, but seismic events happen when
they happen - all one can do is be prepared.
So, outside of 500 students, a few dozen teachers and 1200 or so residents, who cares what happens in
Knightsen? Right now, no one. But, suppose Knightsen is used as a pilot project to illustrate how schools
(and government buildings and private homes) can be used to create a tsunami of quite another kind.
Knightsen schools need more money but unless Measure N passes, there will be no increases in funds from
the residents, the county, the state or the Federal government.
When we asked our mathematical models how the marvelous educational upgrades are to be paid for the
answer we got back was solar power. Panels on or near the schools (note the plural) in Knightsen can be
used to simultaneously save money spent on power, heat and light. Excess power can be sold to the smart
grid. Parents in Oakley, Brentwood or Antioch can dynamically assign some of their revenues from excess
power sales to the schools' accounts. Someone has to make, install and manage all of these panels and the
new grid. What we and our software like, besides the increased jobs, is that the solution is scalable - it will
work from southwestern San Diego County to northeastern Modoc County and for large urban school
districts like Los Angeles as well as small rural schools. So all schools need is someone to fund the solar
panels in return for a portion of the revenue stream. We red-lined a considerable collection of CPUs doing
the calculations for America, the states and territories, counties and school districts. There was only one
problem - the models were quite clear that time is not our friend, so there is some urgency.