Energy breakthrough.

Big oil out to screw consumers. Again:

"Arabian Alchemy: Shell makes black gold in Qatar." Charlie Martin, The PJ Tatler., 6/4/11.

Commenter snork indicates it's not new technology but that Shell has improved the efficiency of the "Nazi/South African coal liquefaction (google “Fischer-Tropsch) process" and that:

The main point was that even without the proprietary technology, at $80-$100 per barrel, this is economical, and the reason why it’s not in current plans in the US is the green opposition. The greens in the west are hell bent on a wind/solar final solution now, regardless of economics or even technical feasibility. (Emphasis added).

So, maybe "process improvement" would be better than "breakthrough," but size of the improved efficiency will tell.

Energy source of the future.

Snork states the obvious well. We have an asinine national energy policy. It's like two guys freezing to death in a cabin in the Yukon in the winter. Rather than chop up some wood to start a fire in the stove, they elect to pursue promising research into extracting hydrogen from snow, which is manifestly abundant, cheap, and immediately available outside the door. Like sunshine, you open the door and there it is – acres and acres of free snow.

Our national policy is so asinine that people like the Colonel spends valuable time away from video reruns of Miss USA pageants to devise metaphors such as this to try to illustrate it.