In total agreement with gus @5. I would further argue, as he might or might not, that Obama has squandered a major opportunity to stake out natural common ground with conservatives: we ought to seek energy independence as a major policy goal, to avoid culpability for further human-rights disasters at the hands of tin-pot dictators in the Middle East, Africa, Central America, and wherever else significant oil/natural-gas reserves are discovered or made available through "technological advancements" such as fracking (and the temptation to start wars for strategic advantage in regions that could host oil/gas production or pipelines/ports). STIPULATIONS: allow offshore drilling only with state-of-the-art technology required, such as blowout preventers that actually work and continual regulatory oversight by an agency staff that doesn't have industry cum running down its legs; require full remediation and realistic trust funds for same; disallow offshoring of corporate headquarters for any company wanting to sell its oil/gas products in the U.S. (directly or indirectly) and require repatriation and fair taxation of all revenues both domestic and overseas, in addition to requiring all overseas producers selling in the U.S. to meet updated U.S. environmental laws in all production and distribution facilities. I could go on. But it should be possible to sell energy independence as a patriotic goal and duty.

Even in my jagoff ultra-conservative rural town, the grammar school has a roof full of solar panels, as do the county fairgrounds exhibition buildings and grandstand; our local quarter-billionaire built a barn in back of his wood-shingled Gormenghast just so he'd have the flat surface to put in 40,000 watts of solar panels; and at least half a dozen of our retirees have put 4-6 kW of solar panels up.

@10, not true or not applicable, your choice. I've had an up-close demo of the BMW 7-series hydrogen internal-combustion vehicle; with the availability of modern sensors and engine-control computers (airflow, timing, injection volume, etc.), hydrogen works great with existing piston/crankshaft engines and is safer than gasoline: if the tank ruptures, hydrogen vaporizes and rises, as opposed to gasoline drenching and immolating vehicle occupants. Moreover, distributed rooftop solar works well with home-based electrolysis/hydrogen-compression units to supply your motor vehicles without the need for a national network of service stations. All the connectors and safety protocols have been developed and tested in Iceland, which uses surplus geothermal electricity to produce hydrogen motor fuel; it's a bit like filling a propane tank but with better-engineered connectors and more automation/idiot-proofing. And your home-produced hydrogen can also run your water/space-heating boiler if you don't drive or if you deliberately size your system to produce surplus.

Who knows whether plug-in hybrids with their expensive batteries or home-produced hydrogen for motor fuel will prove cheaper, but both are optimally powered by distributed rooftop solar.