With only a few short weeks remaining until the U.S. elects a new president, John McCain and Barack Obama are sharing their ideas about solving energy issues and quite obviously they have differing opinions on the best way to accomplish such a feat. Check out some of the he said-he said ideas about energy from last week's debate.

John McCain

On energy and climate change
"I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue; I travelled all over the world looking at the effects of green house gas emissions."

"What's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power.”

On jump-starting the American economy
"Energy independence is the way to do that. It's one of them. Drilling offshore and nuclear power are two vital elements of that. I've been supporting those and I know how to fix this economy and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil and stop sending $700 billion a year overseas.

"We can work on nuclear power plants, build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs," McCain said. "We can have all of the above: alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas and clean-coal technology."

Barack Obama

On the need to reduce dependency on foreign oil
"This is one of the biggest challenges of our times."

"We have three percent of the world's oil reserves and we use 25 percent of the world's oil. So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem. We're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if the only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming."

On keeping oil money away from terrorists
"If we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy so that Iran has less money," Obama said. "If we can prevent them from importing the gasoline they need and the refined petroleum products they need, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them."

"Energy is going to be key in dealing with Russia," he said. "If we can reduce our energy consumption, [then] that reduces the amount of petro-dollars they have to make mischief around the world."

» Petroleum World