The nation’s troubbled energy situation—soaring natural gas prices, rolling blackouts in California, and gasoline pump prices heading north again—has revived the old arguments about how we should supply our energy. Environmentalists stress conservation and “renewable” sources of energy such as wind and solar power. The Bush administration and other voices urge stepped up production of traditional fossil fuel energy.

At first glance this appears to be a rerun of the original energy crisis of the 1970s, when we were told that it was urgent for us to develop alternative “renewable” sources of energy because we were running out of fossil fuels any moment now. Today we are told just the opposite-we must develop renewable sources of energy because we aren’t running out of fossil fuels fast enough. Proven reserves of oil, gas, and coal have increased over the last two decades, contrary to the dire predictions of the late 1970s. Natural gas reserves, for instance, have risen four-fold over the last 30 years, while the world’s proven reserves of coal could last over 1,000 years at current rates of use. “Oil, gas, and coal are virtually unlimited resources,” says Joseph Stanislaw of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

That’s exactly the problem for environmentalists. “We are running out of sky, not oil,” says Gary Cook, legislative director of the Greenpeace Climate Campaign. Fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, are politically incorrect because they contribute to air pollution. But alternative “renewable” sources of energy are still not suitable for America’s mass energy needs, and while conservation through increased efficiency is always possible, there are limits to how much conservation can achieve by itself. California, for example, is the most electricity-efficient state in the nation; telling California to solve its current electricity shortage by conservation is like telling an anorexic to diet more.

“Renewable” energy, meanwhile, remains uncompetitive in the marketplace, even with government subsidies. And just because an energy source is “renewable” does not mean that it is environmentally benign. To the contrary, renewables have significant environmental impacts. Hydropower has already lost its luster with environmentalists because river dams disrupt fish habitat. Biomass actually involves higher CO2 emissions than coal. Windpower is arguably the worst form of electricity generation from the standpoint of harm to wildlife. For example, the world’s largest windpower facility, located in Altamont Pass east of the San Francisco bay area, is estimated by the California Energy Commission to kill 39 Golden Eagles every year-eight times higher than the mortality rate of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. Nationwide, it is estimated that windmills kill 10,000 birds a year. Solar power is the most expensive renewable technology, and would require huge amounts of land to produce any significant amount of power. A recent study from Resources for the Future concludes: “[T]he reality is that renewable technologies have failed to emerge as a prominent component of the U.S. energy infrastructure.”

So this leaves us with fossil fuels, which we are finding ways to make cleaner all the time. And the fossil fuel we have most in abundance in the U.S. is coal. The U.S. Geological Survey recently concluded: “[F]or at least the next decade, [coal] will continue to be the primary indigenous energy source used by the U.S. economy.” As Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ Joseph Stanislaw argues, “technology has made it possible to burn all fuels in an environmentally acceptable manner.” The ambient level of sulfur dioxide-the principal emission of coal-fired power plants-has declined 64 percent since 1976, even as the amount of coal-generated electricity has increased.

There are still major gains to be made in reducing pollution from coal and other fossil fuels. The experience of the last generation shows that we can have reasonably priced energy from fossil fuels and reduce pollution at the same time.

Steven Hayward is senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, and the author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. Neither Mr. Hayward nor the Institute receives any funding from the coal or electric utility industry. He can be reached via email at hayward487@aol.com.