A Reuters article today posted on Yahoo Financial News illustrates a fascinating aspect of the energy future — the old fossil fuel industries can help create a “green energy” future more cost-effectively than totally green options. This article cites a presentation by a Shell official who discussed how oil refiners can use gasification to turn fossil fuels into hydrogen, and how it’s currently far cheaper to do that than it is to create hydrogen through solar-powered electrolysis. It may not be 100% green, but it’s an incremental step toward generating hydrogen cost-effectively. I call that progress.