Investors Business Daily ran an editorial earlier this week on the folly of politically driven moves toward renewable energy sources. The editorial is geared at the congressional level, but with states considering renewable fuels mandates, it's relevant to anyone concerned with state-level policies as well.

Here's a sample:

"Wind provides only 1% of our electricity compared with 49% for coal, 22% for natural gas, 19% for nuclear power and 7% for hydroelectric. To replace natural gas' 22% with wind would require building 300,000 1.5-megawatt turbines occupying an area the size of South Carolina. Ask the Nimbys where they want them."

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, offered up an editorial on hypcrites who call for wind energy but then block efforts to implement it:

"Texas is now the wind capital of America (though wind still generates only 3% of state electricity) because it streamlined the regulatory and legal snarls that block transmission in other states. By contrast, though Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor Ed Rendell adopted wind power as a main political plank, he and Senator Bob Casey are leading a charge to repeal a 2005 law that makes transmission lines slightly easier to build."