JAN 23

As we have seen for the past 5 years, the oil companies have achieved the greatest profits in their history. The coal companies are big players in Washigton. They will spending $35 millions to convinced America that coal is safe.
We are against great opponents entrenched in our political system. If there is a place where it can be broken is in the Southwest. :)

Whos their backer? Ted Turner? Doesn't he own like a million acres of New Mexico?

Lived in the 4 Corners for a few years, it's a beautiful place, there's lots of sun, but to open this article citing 'some of the best food in the world' is, mmm, a bit of a stretch.

The author probably considers pizza with everything on it right up there with spicy chicken wings.

That's a pittance compared to what our current energy system is costing us. How much have we spent in Iraq to date? How much money do we send to the middle east every year? That money props up the price of oil, so even if we are not directly buying oil from Iran, we are boosting their economy. And that is not even touching on the death toll from air and water pollution from our coal power, or the devestation of mountain top removal.

All the money going for tax breaks and incentives fot the oil companies should be allocated to this. If you're curious what the war in Iraq is costing us check this out.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

@Denny: The author considers southwestern cuisine, Tex-Mex and Mexican food delightful; keep your wings!

The SciAm article seems reasonable and admirable on its surface but is highly flawed, naive and self-serving. There are many competing solar technologies at present. No one knows today which, if any, will ever have the efficiency, scalability and practicality required to be implemented on a grand scale. There also massive water consumption and chemical toxicities associated with manufacture of theses gigantic solar arrays. DC transmission is the proposed way to distribute power over long distances in the article. Tesla demonstrated to Edison and the world at the end of the 19th century that such distribution of power is not practical and extremely dangerous due to the extremely high voltages required. Finally, one of the authors, head of his own commercial Solar Company, is trying to blatantly push his own brand of inefficient solar technology in this article. If you want a model of a grand scale sustainable, profitable, very green government sponsored energy program that has worked since 1973, look at France's nuclear program:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm

This article also demonstrates the great progress made by world scientists in nuclear power technology reactor efficiency (less fuel to produce more power), safety and re-usability of "spent" fuel rods (recycle spent rods to extract still usable fuel thereby reducing the spent rods storage problem).

Solar is the future, nuclear is the past. Speaking of highly subsidized industries...

Actually read the SciAm article, and then take the time to leaf through the 28 pages of comments (about 420 so far). The authors are actively involved in the discussion and have defended all comers regarding the efficiency and feasibility of their system. Let's get this done! I wrote to my congressional representatives referencing and attaching this link; we should all take the same and more action to make sure that we don't waste another 35 years after 1973's oil embargo with nothing to show for it. Thanks for your support - and action. This article can be a game changer if we do something about it.

The government has done large power projects in the past: see BPA, TVA etc. Don't wait for industry to determine there may be profits in this venture. Profits aren't the objective. If the government is going to go deeper into debt do it for renewable infastructure not oil and the war for oil. There is also an opportunity cost so delay is costly on many levels. Better to start with best available technology and refine and update as we move forward. Also there should be great effort put toward geothermal renewable energy as it is 24/7/365 and also widely available in the West.