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Hi WFTR,
Thanks for the response. I agree with you that we need to fight fundamental religionists (the like of O.B.L), however-- I disagree with you that this is a fight for civilizations (that is, between Islam and the West, as it were) on such a scale that we as the US have a need to invade one of these nations (again, without provocation from Iraq) to control their resources.
Believing the universe has more possibilities and energies than what is happening on our one (and very isolated planet) is not naive-- not naive, necessarily. I suppose it is a problem of imagination. I desire a place with more freedom, not less-- more freedom of energy is part of this. There is power from the sun, and power from the wind. We can create electrical vehicles that run on hydrogen cells (which their only byproduct evidently is water). These are three energies (and it seems to me, if they are never exhaustible-- then they are truly 'conservative', aren't they?). The next question is to me, is that-- if we do have the power to create vehicles and machinery to run on such energy-- and with some work I believe we can-- remember, this was the same nation which had the fortitude to send men to the moon-- why do we as a nation feel that we need to invade and murder other people (and have our youth murdered in turn) for something (in this case, oil), that has alternatives..now..we may have to use oil to a point, yet-- I believe we as a great people can use our minds and accomplish something that propels us further into the 21st century-- instead of being stuck back in the 19th.

Thanks again, WFTR, for your intelligent responses, and if we disagree on some things-- that's the great thing about having free speech (and the fact that people can still remain friendly and civil), and I believe we can both 'be right', but to me-- what paths should we take collectively that are more wise?

We disagree about the necessity of a war against Iraq, and we can leave it there. While it appears that a war is likely, nothing is certain.

I think that we're further away from an alternate energy source than you might think. I read recently that most solar cells have to produce for twenty or twenty-five years before they produce as much energy as was required to make them. At that rate, a solar cell would have to work forty years before it even started being a sustainable energy source. It would need twenty years to make up the energy used in its construction and twenty more years to produce the energy that would be used to make its replacement. Then the energy that it produced would start to be useful for all of the uses that we have. I'm not saying that it couldn't work someday, but I think we're a long way off.

Hydrogen cells aren't truly an energy source. Naturally-occurring hydrogen is rare, and we wouldn't be able to harness it in any meaningful way. Hydrogen cells use hydrogen that has been split from other sources. Typically, they split water molecules to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen produced in this way can be used to fuel a hydrogen cell, but the energy from that cell is just the release of the energy that was used to split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. With losses due to natural inefficiencies, the amount of energy that comes from the cell will always be less than the energy needed to make the hydrogen.

Wind power might be a true energy source, but I'm not sure. We need to know how long the average windmill has to produce before it produces as much energy as was needed to build the windmill.

I don't mean to be completely discouraging about all of this, but there are big obstacles to making any of these alternatives work. If there weren't these obstacles, I'm sure that we'd already have more energy sources working. Of course, the big alternative is nuclear, but too many people don't like nuclear power.