Chevron uses solar power to get more oil

And this final note. You know more often than not the debate over energy and the environment is framed as either/or. Oil and gas versus, say, wind and solar.

Well, the oil giant Chevron is...doing its part...to bring the two worlds together. As you know, it takes energy to pull crude oil out of the earth. One common way is to burn natural gas to generate steam to heat up the oil for extraction. Chevron has a new project that generates steam a different way: by using mirrors to reflect solar energy onto a boiler.

Yes. They're using solar to get oil out of the ground. And manufacturing a hefty dose of irony in the process.

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This... is hilarious. You don't even have to read the entry to see that.

As for the only other comment on this page: I am a studying physicist and I routinely use the term 'energy' indiscriminately. Nature doesn't distinguish, either; if you think that there is a debate going on that will determine policy, it's just as well that you continue to argue semantics.

Today's final note perpetuates a misleading characterization of "energy." Energy is not oil and gas versus wind and solar...they don't intersect except in certain developing countries where they still burn diesel to generate electricity. Wind and solar produce electricity...and the rival there is coal and, sometime, natural gas.

Oil/gasoline are the liquid fuels that power our transport sector...cars, trucks, ships, planes, tractors, etc. Until we go electric, we need liquid fuels...and we will continue to send tens of billions of dollars overseas to pay for them.

Energy independence is not electricity...we depend on no one for that...it is transport independence that we should want.

The longer you keep using the term "energy" as indiscriminately as you do---and you are not alone---the harder its is to have reasonable and realistic debate about our electrical and transportation future.

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