One knock you often hear from the Left on environmental issues is that conservatives underestimate technological solutions to costly tradeoffs. Sounds weird, given the often-Luddite source, but it?s a pretty good rhetoric trick ? used to defend higher fuel-economy mandates, for example, or greenhouse-gas regs. It?s just a trick. The point has never been that American entrepreneurs and tinkerers couldn?t figure out technological fixes, only that it is often doubtful that legitimate health or safety benefits of new regulations will truly exceed even costs driven down by innovation.

Out of the Christian Science Monitor comes this cool example of green-power tech coming about because of real demand rather than laws. A Virginia start-up is marketing new solar and wind-driven electric generators designed to produce small but reliable streams of power for lengthy periods without maintenance. Who?s demanding such units? The military, disaster-relief agencies, and the CIA. The tech may eventually have broader commercial or residential applications, but doesn?t require a mandate to make viable for immediate production.