The weird 'genius' of Austin's eco-boondoggles

This invite on Linked-in to Clean Energy Venture Summit, went over the top in Austin clean-energy self-congratulations:

If having a “near-genius” public utility, all of the resources to kick off a trillion-dollar industry, a leading Green Building Program, the most aggressive smart grid project in the nation, and one of the top ranked incubators in the United States is weird, then Austin epitomizes the meaning of the word. As if all that is not enough, Austin jumps even further ahead with the Clean Energy Venture Summit: Bringing the Smart Grid to Life. Growth stage companies will contribute technologies that help make smart grid a reality while competing for prizes from local companies.
For more information, visit: http://budurl.com/CEVS2009/

I have to respond to "If having a “near-genius” public utility"Did they mean the utility that, at the behest of our Austin city council, ended up buying a bunch of expensive renewable energy for the Green Choice program and now has 99% of it unsold and now plans for all Austin Energy ratepayers to share the load of this added cost? And that will be required, due to city council decision, to spend $2+ billion on energy from burning wood chips, when a natural gas-fired plant would provide more energy at fraction of the cost and lower emissions? Not to mention that very expensive ($250m) solar power array in east Austin; they turn down a chance at more emissions-free nuclear energy because they fret about 'cost', then they blow money on solar array thats are almost ten times more expensive on dollar per Kwh basis.
Yes, if these rate-hike-inducing policies are 'genius' then Austin is indeed 'weird'. Ah, the 'genius' of spending $9.50 for $3.60 worth of energy!

See: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/07/12/0712greenchoice.html