How can the energy market scale up technologies that don't pump copious quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?

Put a price on carbon that sends those markets a price signal that burning carbon-rich fuels, including coal and oil, have economic, environmental, and national security costs that energy prices today don't communicate.

With that price signal in place, the market would open up for low-carbon alternatives - efficiency and renewables, for example - the development of which would create jobs, seed new industries, and lower demand for oil.

The price signal is the linchpin of the deal that the tripartisan trio of Senators Lindsey Graham, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman are attempting to negotiate.

Which is why all of the recent talk of settling for a shilly-shally, small-bore, energy-only bill that takes a pass on pricing carbon caused Graham to push the envelope on his word choices in an informal talk with business leaders last week.

"If the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that is moving the ball down the road, forget it with me"....

For more than 50 years, beekeepers have been taking bees to the almond orchards of California. For the first 25 years or so, almonds were simply a place to go for California beekeepers early in the season. A few from nearby states came over too, pollinated, and left. When done, they took a pittance for their trouble and went home. It was a simple game.

But then, the almond industry began to grow as demand for the crop expanded and growers needed more and more bees to pollinate those trees. At the same time other crops in the California valley began to decline as less expensive almonds were imported from other parts of the world. That freed up valuable space, so expanding was easy. Almonds take about three years from planting to production and it was an easy investment. The price of the nuts continued to increase so money was easy.

But then, the next limiting factor on the horizon became bees. These were the years, in the 70s and 80s, of real cheap honey, and beekeeper businesses began to shrivel because they were designed and managed to make money on honey, not pollination. Pollination was simply extra money, not bread and butter.

Next, tracheal and varroa mites came to stay, and again, beekeeping outfits began to disappear. At an alarming rate, it turns out. Suddenly, the almonds didn't have enough California bees, or nearby bees, or even bees from far-flung states.

Now, wouldn't you think some sort of visionary would emerge here and see the future? See that when beekeepers want the highest possible pollination price for the smallest (least-expensive to produce) colonies possible, and growers want the lowest possible pollination price for the largest (most-expensive to produce) colonies possible that something had to give?...

Striding across the countryside like metallic cartoon characters, transmission towers grasp in their stiff, unwieldy arms the wires that enabled me to write this and enable you to read it.

The long-distance lines don't care where the electricity that they're carrying comes from. For the record, half the electrons that they shunt around America are generated by burning coal, which comes with steamer trunks of environmental baggage - billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon pollution, particulate matter that sears lungs, toxic mercury that sears brains, and disfigured landscapes in the Appalachians.

Many greens would like to replace much of that coal with wind and solar energy. Both have a long way to go; wind and solar combined account for less than 3 percent of U.S. generating capacity. The rub is that the best wind resources in the nation are in the short-grass country of the Great Plains and the best solar is in the sun-blasted expanses of the Southwest - in both cases, far from where people expect electricity to light their homes, power their businesses, and energize their plethora of electronic toys 24/7/365.

Without transmission lines, there is no way to move ...

ExxonMobil's CEO went before a House energy subcommittee last week to talk about the plan for America's biggest company to become bigger. Exxon is getting into the natural gas business, big time, with its proposed $41 billion acquisition of Texas gas produer XTO Energy, which holds the nation's second largest gas reserves.

Exxon plays a long game, so its entry into the gas world is a strong signal that gas might have a much bigger role in the nation's energy future. Once burned off by oilmen as a nuisance, gas has attained a charmed image as the elixir that could deliver both energy security – take that, OPEC! – and clean energy – take that, King Coal!

Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee's energy subcommittee, likely is not on Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson's Christmas card list. Markey has had numerous policy run-ins with Exxon, but at the hearing, he pointed out that the company's proposed merger with XTO signals a "fundamental shift" in America's energy markets. The shift, he explained, is the boom in "shale" gas that has attracted Exxon and other big players in the energy world.

At Markey's hearing, Tillerson said that shale gas and other "unconventional" gas sources are expected to meet most of America's domestic gas demand by 2030.

So, what is shale gas, why is production booming, and why is it unconventional? ...