Alternative Energy: Will U.S. Lead or Follow?

Oil Spill Turns American Minds to Renewable Power Sources As Inventors, Investors Wait for Gov't to Get Serioust

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   (AP)

• INTERACTIVEEnergy Ed.
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• INTERACTIVEAlternative Energy
  Learn about the types of renewable energy that are used in the U.S. and the regions of the country considered to be most suitable for each kind.

(CBS)  Imagine a future in which abundant energy could be ours, simply by harnessing the wind, or capturing sunlight, or tapping into the heat of the Earth itself. Seth Doane explores America's alternative energy hopes and challenges: 

In the wake of the Gulf oil disaster, calls for cleaner, greener energy, are growing louder.

"Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation to seize control of our own destiny," President Obama said in June.

If that rallying cry sounds strangely familiar, it should.

In January of 2006, Mr. Obama's predecessor George W. Bush said America "must move beyond a petroleum-based economy to make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

In June 2000, then-President Bill Clinton stressed the need to, "maximize conservation and maximize the development of alternative sources of energy."

Going back even further, Richard Nixon declared in January of 1967 that the U.S. would "break the back of the energy crisis" by the end of the decade.

Read more at CBS NEWS