On Energy, It Takes More Than 'Eureka'

"Admit it: When you think about our need to be less reliant on nonrenewable, greenhouse-gas-emitting sources of energy, part of you wishes, hopes, believes that technology will come to the rescue."

It's certainly a common enough view – the fact that Americans have faith in technology is nothing new. But surprisingly it's not necessarily a majority. In Public Agenda's Energy Learning Curve, we found 41 percent who believed technology will solve the global warming problem "without requiring major sacrifices." But 48 percent said society would have to make major sacrifices to solve the problem.

That also depends on your definition of sacrifice. Actually bringing any energy technology to market, even the ones we have now, even the ones that sound like "magic bullets," requires some tradeoffs, as you can see in these stories about renewable energy and in the controversy over solar plants in the California desert.

Getting the technology to work is only part of the problem. Whatever choices we make have to be economically viable and publically acceptable. And that's always the hard part.