What proponents of a lot of these green energy initiatives don’t often get is that mother nature is not a constant. Everything is cyclical - everything.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday.

You have to have a “toolbox” approach to life. Trying to build a house with just a hammer is short-sighted. Wind turbines fail, the conditions which make the successful are not constant, and the enviromental cost of wind turbines is far from ideal.

It is nice to know you can create energy that is renewable, but to put people in a position where a lack of wind means they get no service is dumb, dumb, dumb.

Another thing I find appalling is that in many places you used to be able to enjoy vistas of enormous natural beaty, now what you see is this. I think I’ll take a .5 degree Celsius temperature change over ruining the landscape of every windy place on earth.

In the State of the Union address, President Bush spoke about investing in technology that produces coal-fueled energy, while capturing (sequestering) the CO2 emissions of the coal-fired power plant. the project this refers to is FutureGen - a joint venture between the US and China, which is slated to be built in Mattoon, Illinois.

However, only a day later, Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman made statements in a closed-door meeting with Illinois state and federal lawmakers that he was considering pulling the funding for the project.  He cited soaring construction costs and new technology, but was not specific on either. He was also quoated as stating he inherited FutureGen and did not believe in it.

If these statements are true, I am curious to know if he shared these beliefs with the President prior to the SOU. It seems like the worse kind of blindside - assuming the president himself believes in a manifestation of a policy he has been supporting since 2003.