Tim Draper, a prominent Silicon Valley VC, was on a mission this morning during his panel about Silicon Valley's future at Joint Venture's State of the Valley. With him on the panel was also San Jose mayor, Chuck Reed.

Three things I got out from Draper's controversial comments:

- nuclear power is the way to achieve fossil fuel independence, in the short run;
- we need more competition in the education system;
- less regulations on building houses to reduce overall cost/price;
- less bureaucracy in our government;
- and global competition is good for Silicon Valley jobs.

Tim Draper on Nuclear
According to Draper, 90% of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels, 10% is nuclear and less than 1% comes from all the other renewable energy sources combined like solar, wind, hydro-electric. So for Draper, the conclusion is simple: we need more nuclear fuel, if we want to be fossil fuel independent.

"France has done this and it's been very safe for a long time. Japan has done this and it's been safe for a long time... We should consider the idea of more nuclear power in the Bay Area and all parts of America... It is a real potential solution at least for the short term while solar, wind, hydro-electric and all the other sources are rising".

Tim Draper on Education
Draper also mentioned alarming high school drop out rates, that raised from 5% in 2001 to 13% today and advocates "home schooling", an area his VC firm is actively investing!

"If that continues, nobody is going to go to high school... Our education systems is focused on test taking and sameness and there's no competition in the education system... Teachers have become baby sitters at best!... The principal does not have any power to fire or hire teachers. The boards don't have any power to hire of fire the principal... Without that competition you're going to see a continued down and we need choice in school, parents to be able to choose what's right for their kids and if our education system continues in this way, our Valley is in big big trouble".

Tim Draper on the Government
That one was quite interesting. For Draper, the fact that the U.S.A. is started to be run by a bureaucracy that can not be hired or fired is a huge drag on our economy.

"I don't believe any tax dollars should be spent on any individual that can't be hired of fired!".

Stiff building regulations reason for high housing cost
Well, that's an interesting one that San Jose mayor Chuck Reed quickly refuted.

"That $800,000 house will be a $500,000 or a $400,000 house if we didn't have such stiff regulations on building. I think people should be able to build much more easily than they do today. And our houses will be all a lot less expensive".