As the millions of gallons of oil spilled and the billions of dollars of corporate and taxpayer assets spent in the Gulf of Mexico attest, the fossil-fuel economy is no cheap fix.

The large-scale development of alternative sources of energy has been put off for decades, largely on the belief that they are somehow more expensive than the petroleum-based powerhouses we have relied on since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. And, measured in the most shortsighted ways possible, they usually are.

If nothing else, solar energy, wind energy and the like are often seen as economic losers because their profits will not accumulate to the same powerful and well-connected corporations that we are accustomed to paying for our wasteful lifestyles.

At the same time, the pollution that is the unavoidable byproduct of a carbon-based economy -- from the strip mine to the smokestack -- is not generally figured into the prices we pay per gallon, or per kilowatt-hour, or even per thousand cubic feet. Those costs show up in our taxes, our health care bills and other things that are detrimental to our quality of life -- such as the need to police the world and protect ourselves from petro-financed terrorism.

And all those costs, when properly measured as taxpayer, employer and consumer subsidies of the fossil-fuel industry, are starting to look more and more expensive when compared to the expenses associated with clean energy sources.

Recent reports show that the cost of powering large numbers of homes and offices with solar power is rapidly declining. The price of photovoltaic solar panels dropped some 40 percent last year. That was partly due to a short-lived glut in supply, helped along by federal tax subsidies of the industry.

The glut slowly will be absorbed. The subsidies will be controversial and, in an era of large public debt, difficult to maintain. But taxpayer subsidies for solar and other clean energy products will nurture the still-young industries when they need it most and will, by their nature, be much more honest and transparent that the sneakier supports for coal, oil and gas.

Those supports take the form of artificially low royalty rates and lax regulation of everything from offshore drilling to underground coal mining, destroyed fisheries, ruined beaches, increased cases of cancer and lung ailments. They also take the form of depressed property values, gutted tax bases and lost productivity in areas surrounding the dirtier aspects of coal, oil and, depending on how it is done, even natural gas production.

Solar and wind energy, on the other hand, may cost us money now in taxpayer subsidies or higher cost kilowatts. But those price tags can only come down as the technology advances and adoption becomes more widespread. And those price tags are much more likely to be complete, with none of the asterisks or hidden charges that come with fossil-fuel power.

Energy should be like that. Clear as sunshine. Transparent as wind.