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Your point is well taken, and I have faith, but I have more cynicism. Gas engines are approaching thermodynamic limits - not there yet, but not a whole lot more to be squeezed out either, and the "improvements" (I don't consider mandatory expensive air bags* and mandatory expensive anti-lock brakes to be improvements**) have not come at a cheap price. Even adjusting for inflation, a car today is significantly more expensive than in the'70s Just had my fuel injected car worked on for misfiring. Problem: intermittently shorting wire in injector control circuit. cost to find and fix $450. Like I said - efficiency at a price. Even today $450 buys a lot of gas.

*Just buckle your seat belt and you don't need an air bag - Seems to me with air bags the mandatory seat belt laws are just there as fund raisers (see cynicism justified)

**Insurance institute studies of cars with and without anti-lock brakes show no difference in the numbers of accidents and no difference in the costs of accidents between the two, so why do we have to pay for them?

You too have a point. The safety has come at a price. I know about those car repairs. Taking mine in tomorrow becasue the air bag light is on.

Getting back to my optimism, I do think we can do it. And if we could see the answer in an instant, well, we would not need engineers.

We will have to keep working on this one but I remain convinced (not a blind optimist, mind you) we do not need to expand nuclear to solve our energy needs.

And we do not need to return to the dark ages as the environmental religion (hacky sack crowd) would like to see. They just hate cars and air conditioning and technology and their every move it geared towards eliminating these "evil forces."