Opportunity knocks

The poet Wallace Stevens wrote of 'the lunatics of one idea... in a world of ideas'. He was referring to ideologues and fanatics, who, blinded by their single idea, couldn't see the world around them. But he might as well have been talking about the energy debate, where such lunacy has been all too common.

The fact is that there is no single idea that will solve the problem. First, we need new ways to use energy more efficiently. But there must be much bigger contributions from solar, wind, biomass, nuclear, and advanced fossil fuel technologies. In our current circumstances, we can ill afford the self-indulgence of those who, however well-intentioned, tell the world they are anti-this, or anti-that.

I have been talking about 'our energy problem', but this is incorrect. We really have three separate problems, each very difficult to solve. And because the solutions to one will sometimes make the others worse, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.