During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama gave lip service to nuclear power (with provisos that would appear to rule out much support, at least for the foreseeable future); "clean coal," which of course exists only as a slogan of a can't-be-bygone-soon-enough inddustry; offshore drilling; biofuels; and other environmentally questionable choices.

At least, I'd hoped it was lip service, but it appears he meant it. I'll give him points for being truthful, but I'm disappointed nevertheless.

It was especially clear why a candidate wouldn't rule out a future with coal in it during a campaign, even though that's exactly what we need, at the earliest possible moment. Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, and other coal states are also swing states, so it wouldn't be very bright to pee on the black rock.

But to judge by Interior Secretary-designee Ken Salazar's comments during an appearance before the Senate, Obama has too open an mind on approaches to a more secure, more sustainable energy future. Just the fact Salazar is an appointee raises questons — he brokered the Senate deal on expanding offshore drilling last year.

Also, he says that the nation shouldn't proceed recklessly on developing oil shale as an energy source, when in fact it shouldn't proceed at all. Oil shale has never made economic sense as an energy source, because it requires greater processing than oil (including being heated to 875 degrees F, and yields less energy. It makes no sense environmentally because the combination of processing and burning emits relatively high levels of greenhouse gas and its mining has a huge effect on water use. Reckless, indeed.

As I've said before, I can live with the offshore drilling. I think it is a bad idea, but the greatest downside is potential deep-water spills from new platforms. I'm not very schooled on this point, but I do consider offshore drilling to be a mature industry, and take from that that spills are relatively unlikely.

Beyond that, the drilling is someone else's cost — public money won't fund the work, and taxpayers would, in fact, be enriched by whatever royalties would result.

But these other pursuits directly affect our pocketbook. I am convinced that government funding is necessary to fund the private and academic research that will lead to energy breakthroughs. But today more so than ever, we can't just pay for whatever we want, which means we have to make smart choices.

What technologies are already proven small-scale, but need help to be brought to scale? Which ones have shown considerable promise, but haven't yet reached the efficiency level to have broad impact? And on the other side, which ideas will still have significant downsides, even if the scale and efficiency issues are solved?

Wind and solar, though not nearly perfect, are clearly where we should put our greatest investments. They're being deployed already, and when they are mature, we'll be reaping "free" natural resources.

Clean coal simply does not exist yet, so it's starting out way behind. But even if perfected, we'd still be exploding mountains and fouling streams to get at the stuff. And no nuclear plant has ever been built without considerable public subsidy, because they are simply too costly otherwise. In either case, why go there?