Not Spaghetti

It's understandable that with all the concern about climate change and talk of "peak oil" that the central issue in both cases, our use of energy, has received a lot of attention. It is also understandable that with that attention have come many instances of what may charitably be called "optimistic business plans", acclaimed for some time, even quite lengthy periods of time, as "the" solution, or a "core" solution to our energy problems. There are some real solutions out there; there is also a lot of hype and hucksterism. With this and one or two follow-on articles I hope to help people not so familiar with the underlying science get a better grasp of the distinction.

Kevin Kelly has another post on The Cosmic Genesis of Technology. I sent him the following comments as corrections or perhaps refinements of the ideas. The introduction is quite poetic, and I think close to correct.