Indeed. There is a huge distance to go before we can simulate things like actual thinking brains. The blue brain proejct and the proposed project use compartmental models, that essentially break down neurons to equivalent electrical circuits. These are plausible models of neurons, but there are many pieces of the biological puzzle that are elusive or highly hypothetical in these, like plasticity, brain rhythms etc.

It's not the first time someone attempts to replicate a "whole brain"; somebody used Izhikevich simplified models to simulate a cat brain (Markram had a very public spat with them) a few years ago. Those results were not very revealing - they did notice some brain waves but nothing like an indifferent catish thought.

That said, this project needs to go forward. It's the LHC of computational neuroscience. It can be completed much faster, though, all we need is computers, lots of them.