Dave I heard out your way there is suppose to be a huge amount of oil untapped as of yet? Like you I'm finding it hard to trust just about any media source, but I've heard that the Dakotas are suppose to be oil rich reserves. It would be nice to tap some of that if true, while also putting money into future alternatives. I think anyone with a plan needs to hedge as many energy sources at possible, especially as we become more dependant on electricity and gas as a form of daily life.
Funny enough, I was just talking with my cousin about our Grandma. She had a 60 acre grape farm in the central valley. When her parents moved there from Russia in the early 1900's, they pretty much grew everything they needed. At first they had horses for plowing. Her house had only a few electric sockets for lights and a few plugs for the family radio. They 2 bedroom farmhouse was heated soley by wood for her whole life(up to about 13 years ago when she finaly passed at 94 years of age). She did have a gas stove for cooking. But point was she used few resources, bought what they couldn't produce and made do.
Today I don't know anyone without a cell phone, and only a few without a computer. Almost everybody has a car, and most of us have a ton of electrical appliances and some sort of heating or cooling that requires electricity or natural gas.
Instead of conserving these resources we develop more ways to utilize them. Some things are mush more effiecient, yet others are not.
I'd like to see a comprehensive energy plan from both candidates, that one focuses on conservation, 2) development of new sources and resources of fossil fuels, and three some intergration of modern devices that work more efficiently or provide alternative power means. Only by doing all of the above will we be able to become less dependant on foreign oil, and continue down the path that our current lifestyles consume power and resources.
Their are a lot of simple devices that reduce individual power consumption. On demand water heaters save a tremendous amount of natural gas usage, passive solar heating(especially for pools), solar(yes this is a good form of energy!),wind, and water power. We had some huge energy plants that were ultra hot burning/relatively low emission electricity producers, that were running on agricultural waste such as grape canes that are trimed off the vines each year. I agree we need to start drilling here where we can within reason to environmental impact, but also will need much more forms of power , so these green resources do need to be developed now, not when we go to war over fossil fuels because they became too scarce! It is unfortunate that companies like Solyndra have sort of become a campaign to avoid research and development. Not sure what is the answer but can tell you that here in good old petaluma we have a company Enphase which makes micro power inverters for solar cells that maximise the energy produced from each solar cell in use, as to oppsed the old way of a large central inverter, that only produced the maximum amount of electricity from the weakest producing cell in the system. The new microinverters, maximise each cell to the fullest, and are monitored constantly via internet of all things to make sure there is no problem or drop in power. Pretty good concept, that does make a big difference over time.