Thanks for your good coverage of the need to address climate change and the controversy surrounding various strategies. It all reminds me a bit, though, of a detailed discussion of the best strategy for typewriter improvement in 1980 -- rather irrelevant since typewriters were about to be replaced by computers.

We have numerous solar technologies poised to take off in the next several decades and large utility scale concentrating solar power is ready to go now. The EIA projections of future coal use are about as helpful as any other EIA projection. Just a couple of years ago, the EIA was predicting the price of a barrel of oil in 2025 to be under $30. So much for EIA projections...

In order to stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere we need LARGE (60-80% at least) reductions in carbon emissions and we need them ASAP. The good news is that we can get a large part of the way there by simply making two paradigm shifts and starting to use two technologies that already exist.

First, we need to get serious about using the solar resource of the southwestern United States to fuel the electric grid, along with our abundant wind and other renewable resources. Instead of investing massive amounts in our decrepit railroad system to transport our declining coal resource and trying to build a carbon sequestration network, we can make the investment in a national grid to ship electrons from wind and concentrating solar facilities to parts of the country that are not as well endowed. While not easy, it makes a lot more sense than what we are doing presently by shipping mile-long trains of coal everyday hundreds of miles over our rickety railroad system and praying that there isn't a train derailment or a bridge washout that will back things up for weeks and months on end. Climate change aside, balancing our economy on our teetering 19th century railroad system is hardly a stable way to proceed. Moreover, we are probably already past the peak of coal in terms of e nergy content as the Energy Watch Group recently pointed out. In addition, a careful analysis of our coal industry (as opposed to a blind acceptance of the "250 year supply" claim...) indicates that there are numerous and very serious geologic and economic constraints on increased coal supply. Just start looking and you'll see what I mean.

Secondly, we need to transition away from the internal combustion engine and start using electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. They have more than enough power to keep Americans happy and with hybrid technology they can provide the range that consumers desire. All we have to do is to realize how terribly inefficient, polluting and expensive the internal combustion engine is -- and how nice it will be not to pump gas and instead to plug into fuel that is the equivalent of less than a $1 a gallon. Moreover, even plugging vehicles into a fossil fuel dominated grid reduces greenhouse gas emissions. That is how inefficient the internal combustion engine is! As we transition the grid to a renewable grid, then we will reduce carbon dioxide emissions even more. Finally, the batteries in EV/PHEVs can help firm the grid and store renewable energy for times when there is less solar and wind energy available.

More information on these ideas is available throughout the web and we've gathered a lot of it on our website at www.cleanenergyaction.org.

These technologies exist now. They can help us achieve the large REDUCTIONS we need to stabilize the climate of the only planet we have--and they will clean our air and save our pocketbooks at the same time. It is time to break the stranglehold that the fossil fuel industry has had on our economy and move into the exciting future that awaits us.

Looking for new energy? Look up, not down.

Leslie Glustrom
Boulder, Colorado

As a former 30-year veteran of the energy business it deeply saddens me to witness the energy industry surrender to the Greens and the acceptance of C02 as the cause of Global warming. The only thing that scientists agree upon is that the earth is warming. I know that the regulators and lenders ultimately decide which power projects go forward and which do not. I understand that the lending and regulatory community is bias in favor of the popular but unsubstantiated view that anthropogenic global warming is an established fact. However popular this view, it is very unwise. We will be wasting billions of investment dollars on costly technologies.

The clue as to how unwise and foolish the Greens, regulators and lenders is their irrational bias against nuclear power. Nuclear power is the simple answer to global warming, yet you cannot get carbon credits for operating one and you have difficulty getting a permit and the funds to build one. Go figure!

I was so frustrated by this foolishness I left the power industry and started designing medical equipment. At least now I know exactly what I am doing.

William Malenius
Vice President, Chief Operating Officer
Applied Cardiac Systems, Inc.

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