Although solar steam, geothermal, and wind technology electric generating plants are well developed and in significant use, there are serious plans to vastly increase the use of coal for generation. We need a major public outcry to demand that the money be diverted from coal to these other options.

John Amy jonwamy@msn.com

John Amy,

I agree. We definitely need renewables and electric vehicles for the future. Biofuels are not the answer, even for the short term. They are already causing serious damage to Brazil's rainforest. They put wealthy drivers, such as nearly everyone in the U.S., at odds with food for the poor. We need real renewables, not biofuels and certainly not more fossil fuels.

The American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest strongly disagrees with the Stanford computer model, which we believe is flawed.

We would NEVER support a fuel that would worsen air pollution. We stand by our strong support for E85 as a cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline.

Bob Moffitt
Communications Director
American Lung Association of Minnesota

Carbon free proven power? Nuclear, and large scale hydro (i don't care about salmon runs when discussed in the context of soldiers dying in Iraq for oil and global warming) on top of the boutique renewables. Significantly ramp up new nuclear power generation, allow new clean coal if necessary, divert natural gas from energy production to strictly home heating, hopefully to bring some price pressure on heating oil (or lose market share to natural gas) and then we can minimize the impact of peak oil and maybe give up policing the Persian Gulf!

Cameron Lufkin,

Just out of curiosity, have you seen how much power is available from wind? Have you heard that it's as cheap as coal, oil, and natural gas, even ignoring the huge subsidies for fossil fuel extraction and the huge cost of defending the world's oil supply?

Have you heard how expensive nuclear power is? If you take away the truly enormous federal subsidies for nuclear power, it's about the most expensive power source there is. Further, the amount of waste we have already generated will more than fill the disposal facility at the Yucca Mountain, when and if they ever open it.

Lastly, for the world to get any significant power from nuclear, we need about 25 times the current number of power plants. They can't all be in the developed democratic nations of the world. How will you assure their safety from accident and terrorism? How will you assure that they will not be used to produce weapons?

I wish it were that simple, but nukes are just not the answer.

Wind, solar, and tidal are all now fairly well established. Perhaps the last is a bit less so. But, these are viable real solutions. They are not "boutique"; they're our best bets. Geothermal will probably make it into the mix as well. I'm not sure of its status personally.

to address the issue of sustainable energy from the position of absolute dominant species fails because of the un/mis-informed politics and fiscal greed inherent within that flawed species. If there is to be any sort of "lasting" solution to this issue, it MUST be from an informed, holistic and far-sighted source/viewpoint. in any "long run," that will be difficult at best; it does, however, seem to be one approach that hasn't been pursued with the intensity it deaerves.

For one, never in a million years will every person be united under the same usage of alternative energy... so compiling facts on what would happen if this is so is ludicrous.

Two, there are tons of other alternative energies to explore.

Let's invest in Hydrogen, which has ZERO emissions. Solar panels which can make electricity at few little emissions (which come from the production of 'em), and numerous others and others we haven't even heard of yet.

I like this Earth, I want to see it prosper and not be destroyed because of a greedy government and even greedier corporations. When people start to side with the corporations and want to destory our planet too, then I get even more mad.

Either Hydrogen or Electric are the only real options.

First we had "Big Oil" now were gonna have "Big Corn"?

Time to say gbye to both.