Renewable resources are great, but no elitist posturing, please?

It's great that renewable energy sources are all the rage, especially on college campuses, but hold off on elitist jabs at those of us who espouse ramping up systems that already exist to ease the pressure brought about by our current scarcities. These "renewables" are all so esoteric and years away, so it just won't do to hammer the model of yesteryear that it will take 10 years to get Anwar oil cleanly online.

But, alas, the barriers of endless lawsuits are sure to shave off a good portion of profits/savings we all may feel. It is appalling to be reminded that, to some, the difficulties "Main street" is experiencing are celebrated not just by Jihadists, but also by people who know that the level of pressure brought about by high prices at the fuel pump is what is needed to further expansion of renewable energy.

I beg to differ. America has always been a proving ground for new ideas, given enough venture capital funding exists for research. My financial squeeze only helps your cause by misery loving company. All this* research in renewable energy(*can anyone get specific here?) can be just as easily tapped during times of plenty. Underground steam generators at Yellowstone could generate lots of energy, if storing were refined. So many "ifs". Many approaches have been tried that take "x" amount of energy to result in "x" returns. If x=x, what has been accomplished? The combustion engine is brilliant! Free markets in effect create a global competition whereby the best fine tuning of these engines survives. But then, bringing something to market requires politics and lots of money to keep predators at bay.

American manufacturers for years dictated what "we wanted", so it took Government intervention through mandates to get the monoliths to change course. Honda's Accord presented a whole new business model. Necessity is the mother of invention. In a global market, perhaps survival of the fittest in super efficiency of combustion will be realized by engineering rather than government mandates. Don't mind me; there's an idealist who's not completely cynical yet. Oh, and I suppose I need to get real? I think it's all about how a challenge is framed. Proper framing of challenges brings out more than we can dream!