In a round about way, I think he's dismissing thinking current technology is a panacea - as the (mostly idealistic) environmental movement would have us believe

In a round about way, I think he's dismissing thinking current technology is a panacea - as the (mostly idealistic) environmental movement would have us believe. The real issue though of is what should we target the ratio of deployment versus R&D of of such tech. Whenever I hear a politician brag about how many solar panels they installed, it sounds like corporatism. How about an X-Prize / grants for alternate energy with REAL metrics. Maglevs don't really make any sense compare to standard high-speed electric rail (BulletTrain, TGV, etc.). However, I will agree with you 100% that reducing consumption is rarely mentioned, and is probably the cheapest way of reducing economic and environmental costs. However, it's more popular to fund wiz-bangery than to impose un-sexy fuel/water/etc. taxes.