Dean,
Good post, I agree about attacking short and long term. Thinking outside the current energy box is needed. But the powers that be want things to stay the same. Lots of money involved here.
Take this for example:
http://www.eyebeam.org/reblog/archiv...grid_effi.html
We could have all America's power needs meet with 100 square miles of these. Not to mention wave power (GE and Ireland just teamed up on a big project), wind power and grid tied PV powered homes.
Speaking of PV home systems. Here is a good site:
http://www.solardaily.com/index.html
If cost on these systems came down and they became widespread think what would happen. Terrorist could not take down our power grid. We could cut our
oil usage in half. Appliances would become more energy efficient. The nations electric supply would not be so strained, etc...
Also, I believe there are going to be some great investments in this sector-check out this book on Amazon:
Profiting from Clean Energy: A Complete Guide to Trading Green in Solar, Wind, Ethanol, Fuel Cell, Carbon Credit Industries, and More (Wiley Trading)"
Richard W. Asplund