"Dallas," J.R.'s Nephew, and "Clean Energy"

"Dallas," J.R.'s Nephew, and "Clean Energy" This is not the first time I’ve mentioned, and it will probably not be the first time you have noticed, how carelessly the terms alternative energy, clean energy, and green energy are bandied about, as if they meant exactly the same thing. What occasions me to repeat this complaint is the revival of the television series “Dallas,” which of course epitomized everything we love to hate about oil. In the new version, according to New York Times television correspondent Alessandra Stanley, “the writers have reconstituted the feuds of the second generation of Ewings as an allegory about clean energy versus fossil fuels.” Thus Christopher Ewing, nephew of the infamous J.R. [photo], “has turned his back on drilling and wants to develop methane hydrates as an energy source.” There are a couple of problems here, at least as the setup is described by Stanley: Methane hydrates—or methane clathrates if you prefer—are a fossil fuel; and unless perfectly extracted, an art yet to be demonstrated, they are not exactly clean.