I spent the morning at the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) 2013 policy forum, listening to a series of speakers express generally optimistic views about the future of clean energy. On cloud hanging over clean energy's future, noted by several speakers, is a dysfunctional national energy policy, in which fossil fuels continue to be heavily subsidized, while clean energy is wildly under-subsidized. In short, despite claims by fossil fuel interests to the contrary, we not only aren't operating on a "level playing field," but in fact that field continues to be heavily tilted towards oil, gas and coal. What's so impressive is that, despite this clear policy bias, clean energy continues to make rapid gains. For instance, this story caught our eyes.