By Strangebuttrue

I'm an American, and far from a Bush lover. But it's only fair to point out that Texas is the American state that generates the most energy from wind power, and this is largely because of initiatives that George Bush championed when he was Governor.

I point this out not as a "gotcha" but to note that you can find support for renewable energy across the political spectrum here and in many other countries.

Having said that, I ultimately feel that investment in wind and solar are both dead ends.

First, no matter how you slice and dice the numbers, the fact is that wind and solar are both unbelievably, staggeringly inefficient ways to generate electricity. While it's easy to demonstrate wind and solar supplying power to a single family home or a small neighborhood, there's no chance that we could ever use these sources of energy to supply our major cities, or our current and future industrial base. They simply don't have the bang for the buck.

Secondly, I feel that it's just not a good idea to bet on the weather as a power source when we're, unfortunately, entering a period of erratic and unpredictable weather due to global climate change. Many African countries that rely on hydro power are already having major problems with electrical generation because of this. The only way I can see solar working is if we looked into solar satellites, with is a tall order.

I'm all for renewable energy, and energy sources that don't increase the carbon load in the atmosphere. But let's focus on realistic options like geothermal, large scale hydro, and especially nuclear that can provide the scale we need in a reasonable footprint.