The economics of wind. The role of coal in the energy economies of the U.S. and Illinois. Whether and how to support emerging technologies to burn coal more cleanly. The environmental costs of mining and consuming coal for power generation. Whether and how to effect a transition to renewables and away from fossil fuels. How to make public transit a viable alternative to the automobile and make conservation through efficiency a widespread private habit.

Today's readers will recognize these as very current issues, but they also were in the 1970s and early 1980s, when I started writing about energy. The nation was then in hock, in effect, to the oil sheiks, and when OPEC shut off imports in 1973 it caused a shock that the U.S. would not feel again until 9-11, when Saudis again led an attack on America, albeit of a different kind.

The panic in the 1970s was how to achieve energy independence. The panic today is about how to avoid rendering the planet inhospitable to humans because of the heedless combustion of fossil fuels. But while the ends of policy have shifted, the means are mind-numbingly familiar. Everything that had to be explained, over and over, in the 1970s has to be explained again 30 years later. No one learned. Not much changed, and even what did change didn't change for the right reasons. 

Which means, perhaps, that these pieces will strike younger readers today as fresh and relevant. I hope so.