And besides the pollution issue, as CarolC has mentioned, is still the problem of warming the atmosphere by burning *anything*. Yes, global warming is *real* and it is comin to get us. The equation that works is some form of energy that does not add heat or pollution, balanced with realistic energy use diets that are sustainable.

When I was a kid, most families that had a car at all had one per family, and it was driven far less than 10K miles per year. Now, there is almost one car for every family member (in non-urban settings, it should be mentioned) and 10K per year is considered light use. More people driving more miles. And air-conditioning is almost universal and used every day that heating is not.

Furthermore--and sorry for the thread drift, but this thread has morphed into energy use, in general--there are more people, not just in the US, but in the emerging economies of China and India. If Planet Earth is to survive, we are going to have to dramatically reduce the number of human "parasites" and reign in our appetites for the finite bounty of resources that Mother Nature has given us to get us going until we figured out how to make the whole thing work. We are failing miserably, at the present time. And given political and economic realities, the likelihood is that we will not figure it out until is is way too late. It may already be too late.