It may be that renewable energy sources will become cheap enough to someday be the Golden Goose, but it seems apparent that squeezing electricity out of wind, solar, biomass, etc. isn't enough. There's also the pesky problem of transmission — getting the juice from the place where it's generated to the location where it's used.

The U.S. Department of Energy has a target: generating 20 percent of the nation's electricity through wind power by 2030. But the head of the American Wind Energy Association, Don Furman, told a Senate Energy committee that the biggest obstacle to achieving this benchmark is our aging system of electricity transmission.

And capacity is the key. When there's not enough capacity — congestion in the grid — utilities lose the ability to buy energy from the source that's the cheapest, causing the price to go up. Yes, the Golden Goose of truly sustainable energy will most certainly be coming online in the near future ...

Furman reminds us to get a better basket for the eggs.

Questions can be sent to Jim Parks at jrparks@mac.com. To find out more about Jim Parks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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