Chicago IL Saturday PM, May 3, 2008

WSJ editors

Gentlepeople:

William Tucker's Friday, May 2 'Notable and Quotable' makes a surprisingly rarely heard, but most significant point about the vast amounts of land required by the allegedly "clean, renewable, and sustainable" so-called 'green' energy sources.

An even more significant point can be made by considering that land is a two-dimensional space, and at that only 30 per cent of the earth's surface not covered by water.

Oil, on the other hand, comes from a 3-dimensional space, a space under every square inch of the earth's surface. And with all the exploration that's been done for oil, it has been significantly limited to places where it could be economically extracted, which at this time doesn't include a very major part of the 70% of the earth's surface covered by water. Add to that the constant redefinition of the economics of oil extraction by ever improving technology, and the green arguments become even less realistic. And continuing study of abiotic sources of oil (as discussed in some detail by David J. Bardin in an article "What if Methane's Inexhaustible?" in the Thursday, January 26, 1984 Wall Street Journal) make the greenies' positions yet more precarious.

Arnold H. Nelson5056 North Marine Drive B-8 Chicago IL 60640773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com