Three of the nation's largest financial institutions -- Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley -- now accept that carbon caps will be coming to the U.S. soon. The three say they will require companies wanting to borrow money to build coal power plants to prove that the projects will be financially viable.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the companies will announce today new policies regarding power plants.

Wow, on the heels of last week's federal withdrawal from the clean coal FutureGen project, it is a bad time to own stock in coal-dependent companies. Citigroup et al are as mainstream as capitalists go, so if they see the writing on the wall, then greenhouse gas caps must be inevitable.

This won't help Wall Street's woes, although it may put a rise in clean energy stocks that include wind and solar. With energy demands steadily increasing, the power has to come from somewhere, and if isn't from coal or nuclear, then wind and solar are the answer.