[Joe R — It wasn’t Earl. I deleted the comment, making this thread even more confusing. My apologies. My IT folks tell me they are working on this.]

Joe – I’ve noticed that occasionally when I open the comments, the ‘name’ and ‘mail’ slots are already filled. But not with my own information, but that of someone else who just posted. If the deleted post was written by a user who didn’t notice that and asssumed it contained his own info, (as it usually does for me), that could explain the mislabeling.

[JR -- It wasn't Earl. I deleted the comment, making this thread even more confusing. My apologies. My IT folks tell me they are working on this.]

I’d second Earl’s comments about the CPUC decoupling of utility profits from revenue (i.e., in favor of efficiency): a few weeks ago, I heard the CEO Peter Darbee of PG&E, and he highlighted this as something that simply had to happen in more states to enable serious improvements in efficiency.
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In any case, I just finished a book I’d strongly recommend as an excellent resource relevant to this discussion:

Benjamin K. Sovacool, Marilyn A. Brown, “Energy and American Society – Thirteen Myths”, 2007.

This includes a nice set of articles, including:
Energy Myth Four – The Hydrogen Economy is a Panacea – Joe Romm

Energy Myth Eight – Worldwide Power Systems are Economically and and Environmentally Optimal – Tom Casten & Robert Ayres

Energy Myth Nine – Energy Efficiency Improvements have Already Reached their Potential – Amory Lovins

This last chapter has a good discussion (p.253-262) on nuclear energy versus other options (i.e., it loses on economics, even ignoring issues like disposal and security.) [Note: no knee-jerk anti-nuclear-power here: I was working on a career in nuclear or high-energy physics for most of my undergraduate college days.] If anyone thinks building more nuclear plants is a good *economic* choice compared to negawatts + other alternatives, they really need to read this and explain why Lovins’ analysis is wrong. I’m on a beach in Malaysia, so I haven’t yet checked out his numbers, but on first read they seem pretty good.

Naturally, the site is located on a California energy link. But interest is not restricted to the
west coast –
http://aceee.org/conf/06et/TP1-5_mears.pdf

The graph is a nice antidote to one mistaken idea. After people learn of California’s low energy use they often attribute it to a mild climate (and ignore Texas waste). But US and Calif. usage and trends were nearly identical from 1960 to 1972. But they clearly diverge after new policies were applied following the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and oil embargo.

Wind and solar have the disadvantage of being intermittant, but loads can be leveled out with energy storage technology. One such system is the NaS fuel cell. They were invented by Ford, used by NASA and then ignored by American industry while the Japanese perfected better ceramics and (of course) a marketable system. The large cells store intermittant power and release it on demand. The rate at which they can be discharged is very flexible, from 250 KW in 15 seconds to 50 KW over 7 hours. (see pg 14)

http://climateprogress.org/ 2007/ 11/ 29/ california-energy-environmental-leadership/

They were first installed and proven in Tokyo. Some US utilities are placing them in growth areas to avoid / delay extending expensive high-voltage lines there. Pairing the fuel cells with local wind or solar generation would make the system flexible and less centralized.