Over at a newish blog called The Ergosphere, "Engineer-Poet" looks at Steven Den Beste's recent post about energy issues, where SDB discusses whether efficiency and energy saving can get us where we need to go.

Den Beste describes the barriers to savings and efficiencies large enough to make a meaningful dent in our energy consumption patterns, and makes a number of good points. Engineer-Poet then replies, noting that significant progress has been made, and continues right now. He follows that up with an equally interesting post about Nanosolar technologies, and some of the key price : energy points that may be on our horizon.

Den Beste is right. This is a huge issue, fossil fuels won't go away, and there are no quick fixes. But Engineer-Poet is right, too. There is hope.

UPDATE: Armed Liberal has more, including some useful energy consumption and GDP data.