The concept is totally missing from the article by Gerald E. Marsh (Workable energy solutions). Unfortunately, much of his data reflects last year’s technology, and his reliance on large electric generating facilities represents strategic thinking that is old news.

He is correct that the production of corn based ethanol and soybean based biodiesel can only be considered an intermediate step and not a solution. However, his claim that the only way to produce cellulosic ethanol is to plant thousands of acres of straw and switch grass is false. Not a single acre needs to be planted as new technology focuses on recycling agricultural waste and forest waste from the lumber, papermaking and furniture industries.

Specialized algae and sunlight can produce 30 times more biodiesel per acre than soybeans. This technology will be commercially available within two years. It is true that wind and solar require relatively large land areas – but these are readily available. Less than one-half of one percent of the land area of Nevada, for example, could produce all of the electric energy needs of the country. So could wind farms in the northern Great Plains. So could solar farms on about half of the acreage of existing brownfields (land polluted primarily by industry). So could a combination of rooftops and solar mini-farms. So could geothermal where molten rock comes closer to the surface.

The challenge is to capture this abundance of free, clean, carbon emission-free, non-polluting energy available in a sustainable, economically feasible way. Current technologies and those nearing commercial development are meeting that challenge.

Every manufacturer of solar components and systems, for example, is doubling, tripling, quadrupling production every year. Thin film production, solar roofing materials, concentrating photovoltaics, concentrating solar power (large dish systems) create a near revolution in solar energy technologies..

New energy storage techniques overcome the objection that solar and wind power is too intermittent.

Marsh’s statement that carbon emissions produced by coal plants could be sequestered in coalmines is a fantasy. Georgia Power, for example, hauls in trainloads of coal from Montana. In Appalachia, underground coalmines are being replaced by blowing off the tops of mountains, leaving an ecological disaster.

His reliance on coal and nuclear power perpetuate the development of centralized power production, although it is far more energy efficient, and less polluting, to develop sources of electric power closer to areas of demand.

Saving energy is much less expensive than building new power plants. We can reduce energy demand both by conserving energy (controlling lights and thermostats, improving insulation, car pooling, mass transit) and by increasing energy efficiency (replacing incandescent light bulbs, older appliances, heating and air conditioning systems).

Once a region is on the road to reducing demand, meeting solar and wind power requirements become more economically feasible.

This new model, of local energy conservation, improved energy efficiency and regional alternate energy production, works. Austin, TX provides a prime example. During a decade in which the local economy grew by 46% and the population doubled, the city avoided building a 450-megawatt, coal-fired plant.

Austin is one of 13 cities to receive matching grants from the U.S. Department of Energy under a new Solar America Initiative to develop Solar Cities across the country. The city has aggressively embraced green building technologies, solar energy installations and wind power.

The State of Texas projects 123,000 new jobs will be created in alternate energy industries.

While politicians argue, the nation is beginning to move in the right direction. The mayors of over 600 cities have signed the Climate Protection Agreement to reduce energy demand. Administrators of nearly 300 college and universities have pledged to make their campuses carbon neutral. Some developers are building Near Zero-Energy communities. Over 10,000 professionals in architecture, engineering and construction adhere to the standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.