As for your comment, it is such a left-field strawman I scarcely know how to respond.

Well, while we should certailny not wait to begin rapidly deploying off the shelf technologies immediately, the tone and implications of this post are that "we have all the technologies we need, all we lack is the political will."  That, my friend, is the real myth, according to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.  Certainly, if the world could summon untold political will to do whatever is necessary to tackle climate change, we would make do with the technologies we have today.  That much is basically a truism.  But while many technologies on the shelf today are ready to be scaled up dramatically, anyone with a clear-eyed view to the scale of the climate and energy challenge sees a a clear imperative to accelerate the pace of technological innovation in the energy sector, including efforts to spark transformational, non-incremental developments (aka "breakthroughs"). 

And there's nothing inconsistent about that position.  The absurd position would be that we need to have all the technologies on the shelf today to transform the entire global energy system over the next fifty years in order to get started.  That's the myth you should be assaulting.  But by implying that innovation in the energy sector is not required, beyond minor incremental changes to on-the-shelf technologies, you ignore the scale of the energy challenge and do a disservice to those, like Chu, trying to summon the political will to tackle that critical aspect of the climate challenge.

Whether speaking before reporters or the United States Senate, Secretary Chu has not been afraid to directly challenge the myth that today's energy technologies are all we'll need to power a sustainable and prosperous 21st century global economy, nor is he shy about calling for transformative technological innovations in the energy sector - even while he calls for the rapid deployment of current technologies at scale.

Testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a hearing in which the Secretary defended President Obama's plans to significantly increase public spending on clean energy innovation, Dr. Chu had this to say (sounding quite familiar): "Our previous investments in science led to the birth of the semiconductor, computer, and bio-technology industries that have added greatly to our economic prosperity. Now, we need similar breakthroughs on energy. We're already taking steps in the right direction, but we need to do more...

Just as the Breakthrough Institute has repeatedly advocated, Secretary Chu called for public investments in both "transformational research" (as in, "game-changing, as opposed to merely incremental" - Chu's words, not mine) as well as "efforts to demonstrate next-generation technologies and to help deploy demonstrated clean energy technologies at scale." He then went on to pledge: "We will move forward on all of these fronts and more, as we invest in the transformational research to achieve breakthroughs that could revolutionize our Nation's energy future."

You see, while Steven Chu understands clearly the scale and urgency of the climate challenge and can advocate immediate action, he also recognizes the potential of innovation to open drammatic new options in our efforts to build a sustainable and prosperous global energy system.  Secretary Chu simply has a faith that even as we begin to deploy the technologies available today, "science and technology can generate much better choices" in the critical effort to build a sustainable and prosperous global energy economy. "It has, consistently, over hundreds and hundreds of years," the new Energy Secretary said.  That faith in the potential of transformationla innovation stands in sharp contrast to the pessimism Joe Romm exhibits in the post you link to above.

Chu's obviously not alone in this position. President Obama's chief science adviser John Holdren in a "required-reading" essay entitled "The Energy Innovation Imperative," sums up the energy/climate policy challenge this way: "The multiplicity of challenges at the intersection of energy with the economy, the environment, and international security--led by the oil-dependence and climate-change challenges just described--add up to a need for policies designed for two ends:

1) to help society find and implement a satisfactory compromise among competing economic, environmental and security objectives--which includes trying to leave the biggest margins of safety against the biggest dangers--given the resources and technologies available at any given time, and

2) to accelerate the processes of energy-technology innovation that, over time, can reduce the limitations of existing energy options, can bring new options to fruition, and thereby can reduce the tensions among energy-policy objectives and enable faster progress on the most critical ones. ...

Without an accelerated transition to improved technologies, societies will find it increasingly difficult-- and in the end probably impossible--either to limit oil imports and oil dependence overall without incurring excessive economic and environmental costs or to provide the affordable energy needed for sustainable prosperity everywhere with-
out intolerably disrupting the Earth's climate.

I'm sorry David, but when it comes to energy innovation, you should probably take your queues from Steven Chu John Holdren and the wide body of other energy experts who recognize that both transformational innovation and the rapid deployment of existing technologies will be required to solve our energy challenge, not Joe Romm.