When all is said and done - more is said than done.  This was a popular phrase from a poster from about thirty years ago.  This is  true when you think about all the talk for the need of alternatives to the allure of Black Gold – oil for the lamps of china but more importantly , oil for the fuel to make our love for comfortable and fast cars a necessity.

The proposal to erect a “wind farm” offshore near Nantucket might be blocked by a forthright Senator from Alaska who was not offended  (as was most of the rest of America) by the pipelines bringing north shore oil down to the lower 48 through pristine and wild country where fauna reigned in frigid Alaska.

Wind-farms extract power from air currents at little cost and no pollution except for unsightly-ness far away from routes used by pleasure water craft.  Fossil fuel depletion is not in the equation.  Who benefits? The huge area supplied by electricity supplied by these windmills out in the sea.  We could follow Europe’s lead in using this source of energy but oil is still king and enriches those countries lucky enough to sit on top of ancient forests that now are pools of smelly stuff.  It burns well but smells worse and when gone and gasping for more there will be no more- ever.

I have seen the wind farms that dot the California hills near the Pacific.  It is a great idea that was begun when the price of energy in that long state was invested first in highways instead of public transportation.  That was a bubble that burst and it had no forward motion and those wind-mills have not lived up to their expectation because they did not produce power for automobiles.

The sun, however, is still up there.  Even in short winter days the energy keeps pouring down and is ignored because priorities are controlled by lawmakers owned by the controllers of that oil.  In California, it seems that every backyard had an oil pump installed and some think it cute to have cattle grazing nearby.  The two logos, one for milk and the other for oil do not really compute. We have curious ideas of what looks appropriate where forests once were thickly coating the land.

Remember when enterprising homeowners or small businesses hoisted an empty drum up on the roof, filled it with a hose and after a day in the sun that drum provided hot water for showers as minimal cost? Extrapolations on this neat idea could get the sun to work for us on a large scale and even be put to use to move those ever present cars around. We say a lot, but do not do a lot.