True, and nor can we can conserve our way out of the problem. I'm not opposed to offshore drilling - we can apply lessons from this tragedy to future projects. but I do think that partial improvements have great potential when considered in aggregate. wind is constantly improving, the energy itself is free, and capital costs are falling to be competitive with those of fossil fuel installations. The same is true of solar.

I'm strongly in favor of adding more nuclear power too - both for its large generation capability, and because the US badly needs to recover erstwhile technological and industrial lead in this area. South Korea recently snatched a big contract to build a nuclear station in the Middle East, and it's a depressing fact that the world's only steel plant capable of manufacturing the large single-unit containment chambers for a reactor is in Japan.