When it comes to paying the utility bill, there's always a price to pay. No, I'm not talking about that $700 you parted with to fill up the 250-gallon tank. Or the $150 gas bill for keeping a one-bedroom apartment at 60° F. Or the hundreds some of us spend each month to keep from sweating all summer.

No, I'm talking about the price of guilt, which many seem to think can be avoided entirely by placing solar cells everywhere. An energy source with no downside sounds nice.

Not quite so fast, says the Washington Post. In five years, the price of polysilicon has increased 15-fold. Catapulting demand for the stuff-used in solar cells everywhere-is wreaking environmental havoc in China, one of its biggest producers. Silicon tetrachloride created in the production process for polysilicon layers is being dumped by unscrupulous manufacturers in an attempt to gain an edge in this hot market.

Which brings me to the fallacy any existing power source is 100% clean. That's simply not true. Wind turbines kill birds, hydro plants impact fish stocks. Fossil fuels? In the next 150 years perhaps, we may be mining helium on the lunar surface over loud protestations. But if we want cheap energy-and the human progress that enables-we may just have to do the best we can not to deface the Man in the Moon in the process.

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