"Be Careful What You Wish For"

Suddenly, everyone has a plan. Veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens is spending millions promoting his proposal to replace foreign oil with massive wind farms and increased natural-gas production. [President] Barack Obama proposes spending $150 billion over the next 10 years to "deploy climate-friendly energy supplies." Sen. John McCain backs plans to build nuclear power plants and open more U.S. waters to drilling, and wants a $300 million prize for whoever develops a breakthrough electric-vehicle battery. And Al Gore believes we can convert our electricity grid entirely to "renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources" within 10 years. Virtually everyone who proposes a grand scheme to overhaul America's energy supply cites as a model John F. Kennedy's audacious 1961 call to put a man on the moon.

So, do we really need an Apollo project for energy? It is tempting to believe that a huge government initiative, backed by ample tax dollars, could solve this problem. But be careful what you wish for.

Yes, the moon landing was a towering achievement. But, as aerospace analyst Rand Simberg notes, it was also a "well-defined engineering challenge, and a problem susceptible to having huge bales of money thrown at it." Retooling America's energy infrastructure is far more complex. It isn't one challenge, it's thousands—a total overhaul of the American lifestyle involving deep changes in every home, vehicle and business in the country.

Read more here.