Is it just me or does everything cost a billion quid these days?
A new high speed rail? £1.1 billion pounds, please, over the next decade.
A shiny new Innovation Investment Fund to finance start-ups and new technologies? That'll be a billion bob over ten years.
The Energy Technology Institute? Hoping to raise one billion in the next decade.
Carbon capture and storage demonstraters? A billion a pop...over 10 years.
Investing in low-carbon cars? Why you need at least a billion over 10 years.
A new bank for industry? The CBI suggest a billion in capital should do the trick.
A billion here, a billion there...eventually it adds up to real money.
How would you spend a billion pounds?
Me? I'll be scrounging around for spare change to fund EEF's £1bn low-carbon energy 'X' Prize.