Discussion of the concrete meaning of 'wartime mobilization' is long overdue, and personally, I think that something of the sort is the only plausible alternative to real disaster. I've skimmed my way only a short way into the comments thus far, but let me just say that I am skeptical of your seeming belief that any kind of price mechanism would trigger the kinds of responses that are needed, whether in the form of subsidies for insulation which you think are a bad idea, or letting the market set the price. What wartime mobilization means, to my understanding, is deciding which activities are essential, and allocating resources to those activities. If one thinks of all the industries and individuals that depend on activities which are by any rational measure unsustainable (the great majority of us, I'm afraid), should we wish to see them all pursue these activities just as far as possible, up to the moment when they are attritioned - i.e. forced from the market? Let them all tread water as we gradually increase the weights around their ankles, and let the best 'unsustainable swimmers' stay in the cesspool the longest. And then what happens to those who are forced out? Do they all wake up the next day with Priuses in their driveways? In so far as the system does keep going, that would be good in comparison with an outright collapse, for those dwindling numbers who manage to stay attached to it. However, it seems to me that it would be far preferable - indeed much more efficient - to simply decide that activities X, Y and Z have no future. The only choice involves the path to their elimination. Rather than let them each just go on to their slow, painful demises, or worse, try to maintain them far past the stage where they are viable, why not stop them tomorrow? Give the people who lose those jobs a modest ration of basic goods (and the ability to provide those basic goods will depend on the ability to direct resources to activities that truly are essential) and tell them to stay home and propagate useful perennials and otherwise transform the places where they live into something much more sustainable - because they are patriotic, because they are excited about doing something truly important, and because they care about the survival of their grandkids, not to mention their own. Stopping the activities in which they were previously engaged, together with all the associated commuting to work, will save a lot of energy that is therefore left available for some essential purpose.

Similarly, activities P,Q, and R would be gradually phased out or reduced in scale, according to a deliberate schedule - because those activities provide goods which really are essential in the short-term, and which have no immediately available substitutes. Aspects of the currently unsustainable food production and distribution come to mind, as one example in this category.

Finally, activities A,B,C,D,E and F - the kind of skills, tools and infrastructure that will be needed if society is to be sustained, say, for another 500 years or so - will be ramped up with all deliberate speed. Much of the needed infrastructure and manufacturing will necessarily be of smaller scale than that connected with New Deal employment programs and the WWII mobilization. Government efforts to sustain demand will be counterproductive for similar reasons. Though absolute levels of energy available will be greater that what was available during WWII and the New Deal in the case of the U.S. - even assuming that supplies are quickly reduced to what can be obtained domestically - we will be rather limited in terms of what we can do on the large scales of the earlier programs, for two basic reasons: (1) at our current level of complexity, activities of type P,Q and R, will be consuming a great amount of the available energy, and (2) the mobilization activities of those earlier time periods were aimed at creating infrastructure for a civilization of increasing scale and complexity, whereas we will be aiming in the very opposite direction.

These things being said, there may indeed be a place for a few projects on a larger scale - whether these be functioning rail systems, or the F.H. King Canal Project in the southeastern U.S., modeled on the Grand Canal of China.

Finally, while there may be something to the economists' conception which links preferences to efficiency, that is now rather irrelevant to the predicament we face. One way of describing that predicament is that our preferences are those of Hydrocarbon Man. Regardless of our preferences, they have got to change.