One of our core missions here at CEA is to promote policies that will make energy available and affordable for all Americans. Summertime, when people take to the road for family vacations, is a good time to gauge our progress: Two summers ago, gasoline prices hit record highs that made gasoline flat-out unaffordable for millions of working Americans. Last year, we braced for another wild ride but were spared. And now, as the summer of 2010 draws to a close, gasoline prices remain stable.

In fact, gasoline prices recently hit an eight month low. You can track longer term trends on this site, which show gas price patterns over various intervals from one month to six years. As it shows, there was collapse in gasoline prices following that difficult summer of 2007, but then a modest rebound. But prices have stayed in a fairly narrow range since the beginning of last summer; they are significantly below where they started before that wild spike two years ago.

The bad news, of course, is that nothing fundamental has changed in our energy policy to produce these moderate prices. Rather, it’s a function of the nation’s economy, which remains plagued by widespread foreclosures, high unemployment and shaky consumer confidence. While consumption may be down across the board, the United States still imports well over half its crude oil, gasoline and related petroleum products. Even in times that we are consuming less fuel, we remain a country that does not even come close to meeting our energy demands.

If you were one of the fortunate ones this summer, you were able to afford a family vacation and you may have noticed that gasoline prices – while not cheap – were reasonable. But far too many less fortunate people had no disposable income to spend on a vacation. It is that widespread economic distress that accounts for the low gasoline prices we’re seeing now.

Which countries do you think about when you think about leadership in renewable energy? China may likely come to mind for its massive manufacturing base of wind turbines and solar panels. Germany is a well-recognized leader in the adoption of wind power, as is the United States, despite some recent missteps.

You probably would not think to mention Costa Rica, which is really too small to be considered a world energy leader. But consider this: Costa Rica gets about 99% of its electricity from renewable energy sources, most of which comes from hydroelectric power. Its goal is to become the first carbon neutral country on the planet, and if it achieves that, it will be in large part because of its hydroelectric dams.

Here in the U.S., we talk about renewable energy all the time, but not much about hydroelectric power, one of the most established forms of renewable energy. This story offers a good explanation why, despite its zero emissions benefits, hydropower is not more widely embraced. When dams are constructed, the natural landscape is invariably disrupted.

Although the U.S. derives most of its renewable power from hydroelectricity, it uses far less hydro power than much of the rest of the world: Seven percent of the electricity in the United States comes from hydro power, compared with 19% worldwide.

So we ask: What do you think about hydropower? Are the concerns about ecological disruption valid enough that expansion should be limited? Or, are we just being unrealistic when we fail to accept the “cons” with the “pros?” When it comes to hydroelectricity, are there more “pros” than “cons?”

There is a new prototype of the classic Volkswagen Beetle in the U.K. that gets its fuel from a nearby sewage plant. That’s right: it runs on human waste. As a car that runs on biogas, VW’s Bio-Bug is not really a new concept. But the specific type of biogas it consumes is raising a lot of eyebrows and questions.

Yes, the sewage is treated. And no, if you didn’t know the fuel source, you’d have no way of knowing it was sewage, the company says. In fact, the U.K. biogas plant that introduced the prototype says that it already uses biogas derived from sewage to produce electricity. It said it had a surplus of gas that it wanted to put to a good use and thought automobile fuel was a natural fit. Volkswagen is reportedly considering converting some of its cars to run on biogas, depending on the outcome of the Bio-Bug test run.

Now, before anyone gets too excited – or too offended as the case may be – remember this: Poop-powered cars probably are not coming to a road near you anytime soon. It is estimated that it would take the annual, “output” of 70 households to get one car to produce enough fuel for one car to travel 10,000 miles. Even under the best case scenario, we’re looking at a pretty small niche market.

But at a time when consumers are raising all sorts of objections to less controversial energy sources like wind and solar power, human waste as fuel does bring up some interesting questions. Could it ever fly in the United States? Or, would automobile fuel derived from sewage just make a lot of people uncomfortable? What about you? Would you buy a car that got fuel from the same stuff that gets flushed down the toilet? If not, why not? Would you rather fill up you vehicle on cooking oil?

Tell us what you think.

Earlier this summer, The National Review asked whether Americans had a realistic view of our energy needs, our energy supply, and our ability to transition away from conventional fuels and toward alternative sources of power.

The story argued that we have consistently taken a decidedly unrealistic approach to these issues, not only two years ago when Al Gore set a goal of producing 100% of our electricity from alternative sources within a decade, but also Jimmy Carter’s pledge more than 30 years ago that we would never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977. (In fact, we’ve used quite a bit more foreign oil since then).

The story also made the important point that transitions to new sources of energy tend to take a long, long time. Case in point: Oil did not surpass coal as the world’s primary source of power until 1965. That detail, and many of the other facts in the story, support the reality that oil will not – and in fact cannot – go away any time soon.

These are all points that are worth remembering now as we begin to see larger scale adoption of alternative power sources like wind and solar. But as we take a realistic view of the future of oil, we also must ask whether we are doing enough to support these up-and-coming power sources. Consider some recent developments that have thwarted the very power supplies that are supposed to represent our future:

–California’s goal to obtain 20% of its power from renewable sources by the year 2020 is being obstructed by environmentalists’ objections to building new solar power plants.

–A wind power plant in Oregon has generated so many complaints about noise pollution, that the plant has reportedly had to pay off nearby residents to silence them.

–Some lawmakers in Maine are complaining that the state’s efforts to rapidly expand its wind power operations have prevented’ it from building these turbines “to fit harmoniously into the landscape.” They now say these expansion plans may need to be scaled back.

Clearly, there is a lot that we do not yet know about the mass adoption of wind and solar power. We need to listen to the people who live and work near these new power sources to better understand their concerns. But at a time that we should all know that all sources of energy bring risks and require compromise, these widespread objections to what many consider the most benign sources of power do make you wonder: Are we being realistic about our power supplies, both conventional sources like oil and alternative sources like wind and solar?

Or, has our not-in-my-backyard objections gone too far?

Tell us what you think.