Michael Hicks is a skeptic.
He said he hasn't heard a realistic goal to get America off of foreign oil yet.
As the Director of the Bureau of Business research at Ball State University and a published author on alternative and traditional energy, he keeps looking - especially to the political arena - to no avail.
With four days until Election Day, he is continuing to listen.
"The notion that you could replace fossil fuels easily defies math," Hicks said, "It's easily a 30 or 40 year project. Two generations is most realistic and even that won't remedy global warming."
Chris Klarer, a Midwest field organizer for the Energy Action Coalition, said the youth generation is the place to start.
"They get it," Klarer said. "They realize this world right now is the one that we're going to inherit, occupy and will provide leadership for throughout the next 60-80 years."
American energy problems don't have a one size fits all solution, Hicks said, each region of the country needs to specialize in what they can produce well.
Statistics from the Department of Energy show Indiana mixed in the national rankings. Indiana sits 10th in alternate fuel vehicles, but second in coal consumption. It's 11th in total energy consumption, but third in ethanol consumption.
As a country, the United State consumes 25 percent of the world's fossil fuels, but produces about eight percent, according to the Department of Energy. The United States spends about $440 billion annually for energy, according to the same department.
"Different regions are going to have different capacity for different things," Klarer said. "It really will require innovation and constantly coming up with new technology that can lead to clean and renewable energy."
Hicks, who holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, said America's oil imports from friendly countries, such as Canada, need to play into the decision. During the month of August, America imported 1,833,000 barrels a day from Canada, the most among America's oil-trading partners.
"There's no reason to get off of foreign fuels when a lot of our oil comes from Canada," Hicks said. "No one is afraid of them, all they want us to do is eat donuts and play hockey."
The presidential candidates have connected energy spending to the nation's economic woes and international security issues.
Democratic candidate Barack Obama wants to provide short-term relief to families having trouble paying for fuel costs. Obama wants to help create five million new jobs by investing $150 billion in the next 10 years to help private efforts to develop clean energy.
According to his plan, within 10 years Americans can save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined. The plan would build one million plug-in hybrid cars, that could get up to 150 miles per gallon, and put them on the road by 2015. It would ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.
John McCain wants to expand domestic oil and natural gas exploration. McCain would lift restrictions on drilling and work with states to put their own reserves to use.
McCain also wants to increase America's use of nuclear power and commit to advancing nuclear energy technology.
"The international security of oil is a emotional issue," Hicks said. "We've been protecting seas lanes for a long time and as the world matures we're less likely to respond to an invasion of an oil field."
After working with campuses across the Midwest, Klarer said students are starting to stand up to their administrators to get something done about the economy, if its not too late already.
"People have been sounding the alarm about this for decades," Klarer said. We've known this is a brick wall and we've still been heading towards it. Instead, now, we're flying at the wall and people have been scrambling to avoid the crash."
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