Heavy weights

It seems that major players are coming forward to push for a dramatic change from business as usual with regard to energy usage in the U.S.
Thomas Friedman has a new book entitled: Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Wired Magazine has an article about his call for a change in the way we all deal with this stuff.

Thomas Friedman is about to dive into the green-tech fray. In his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the multi-Pulitzer-winning journalist says everyone needs to accept that oil will never be cheap again and that wasteful, polluting technologies cannot be tolerated. The last big innovation in energy production, he observes, was nuclear power half a century ago; since then the field has stagnated. “Do you know any industry in this country whose last major breakthrough was in 1955?” Friedman asks. According to the book, US pet food companies spent more on R&D last year than US utilities did. “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stone,” he says. Likewise, the climate-destroying fossil-fuel age will end only if we invent our way out of it. (emphasis mine)

Then there is T. Boone Pickens’ plan. Recently, NBC refused to air his most recent commercial, the latest in a series where Pickens advocates for reducing our dependence on foreign oil by increasing our production of wind power and natural gas.
Here is the “Iran” commercial that is causes the rouse.