Wind and water can only for do so much for us. If we really want to make progress in green energy, we need to look to the experts: plants. We've invested a lot of resources in hydroelectric power, solar cells and the like. There have been advances, but it's still far from cost effective for average Americans. Pseudo-environmental solutions like clean coal or nuclear power won't bring us any closer to sustainability, and do nothing to solve the problem of pollution.

A recent article in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society an enzyme has been found that increases the efficiency of a plants separation of H20 molecules during photosynthesis. Scientists are looking for a way to synthesize this enzyme in order to more efficiently turn water into oxygen and hydrogen fuel. Although current research into biodiesel and ethanol fuel is promising, in the long run it just doesn't make sense to make fuel out of food.

The real progress will come when science can catch up with nature, which can obviously teach us everything we could ever want to know. I'm not saying that we should scrap our current alternative energy strategies, just that we need to expand our efforts into pure science, and not compromise our strategies to fit existing knowledge.