Salem, Eugene, Medford, Coos Bay and Redmond have been in the news lately for losing some of their airline service. It's yet another unfortunate outgrowth of our insufficient energy policy.

The policy has been to stress efficiency, conservation and alternatives such as wind and solar. But the policy does not work in the transportation sector, at least not in mass transportation of people and freight.

Developing power from windmills and solar cells does not do an airplane any good. Nor does it help an airline that houses are better insulated so they quit wasting heat.

Truckers are in the same boat as airlines. They can't run on improved average fleet efficiency standards for passenger cars. They need diesel at a price they can afford, or they shut down.

Maybe we could have made a different choice 60 years ago. We could have decided that long-distance transportation was going to be provided by trains. Then the nation could have expanded the national rail network, built high-speed lines and electrified the entire system.

Had we done that, and had we built the requisite number of nuclear power plants, we could now scoot from Eugene to Los Angeles on high-speed trains running on electricity supplied by generators that produce no greenhouse gas.

But we didn't. The country decided to scrap the passenger trains and go with interstate highways for freight and with aviation for passenger transportation over long distances.

That decision, whether it was deliberate or not, entailed an obligation to make sure we had the fuel to run all this. On that point, the country as a whole failed completely.

Now we are committed to the system we have because even if we change course, it will be decades before a new and different economic system is built up in the transportation field.

For ground transportation, we may have options such as hydrogen and fuel cells. But for planes, there is no alternative to aviation fuel.

The prospect is that airline service to smaller towns will disappear. Get ready for long drives or rides, maybe on a crowded bus, to the airport in the nearest big town. (hh)