I saw a brief clip of T. Boone Pickens on TV today. Contrary to what many had presumed, based on his wind turbine advertisements, that he was not in favor of drilling for oil. In fact, he is for drilling, alternative energy, and everything else. His main objective is to stop importing foreign oil. I agree with that. What a lot of politicians seem to fail to realize is that we have a fossil fuel based economy because fossil fuels are inexpensive. As oil reaches a price above $100 per barrel, alternative energy sources will become economically attractive. These sources will not become important to the economy unless and until they can compete with fossil fuels on price. Governments can give favorable tax or subsidy treatment to alternative systems to get them started, but ultimately they must be economically viable. That is the reason why alternative energy sources have not yet supplanted oil and other fossil fuels despite work on alternative energy for the past 30 years. It is that simple. Politicians, and particularly liberal Democrats, believe in the possibility of something for nothing, so they seem to think that the laws of thermodynamics can be circumvented, but they can't be. King Canute knew that he couldn't change natural laws by decree; Democrats, and some VP's I worked for, think they can.