Our 'alternative' energy future really means no energy at all

Do the forces now in charge of our energy future prefer that the American economy continue to grow based on the exploitation of plentiful and less-expensive coal and other fossil fuels, or by replacing those older power sources with wind, solar and other "renewables," regardless of the cost?

Based on developments here in Southern Nevada last week, the answer would appear to be ... that it was a trick question to begin with. Those in charge today have no intention of providing the foundering American economy with the new energy resources it needs to resume its growth, at all.

Last week, tired of wasting time promoting a relatively clean, low-cost energy option opposed by the entire ruling political class, from President Obama and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid on down, utility NV Energy formally withdrew its application through the state Public Utilities Commission to build the Ely Energy Center.

The $5 billion, 1,500-megawatt central Nevada plant would have generated enough energy to power 900,000 homes. It will now be delayed at least a decade, until costly technologies can be developed to capture all such a plant's harmless emissions of carbon dioxide -- a gas necessary to life on Earth, a gas of which mankind's production is dwarfed by that churned out by the oceans and volcanoes, but to which eco-extremists attribute the supposed danger of "global warming." .......