--A woman from the San Francisco Bay area who submitted the first question on energy did so on a YouTube tape filmed in her bathroom, because she says she can use compact flourescent light bulbs there. Personally, this Barrel author has many of them in his childrens' rooms, since teenagers view turning off lights as illegal.

--Chris Dodd was probably the most specific, calling for a corporate carbon tax. "You've got to tax polluters," he said. "You've got to separate the price differential so that we can move away from fossil fuels that do so much damage to our environment, to our economy, to our future, to jobs in this country... Until you deal with the issue of price, until you impose a corporate carbon tax, we will never get away from fossil fuels." The linkage to price is something rarely heard from politicans, because obviously, it raises the specter of higher prices. So Dodd gets high grades for tackling it. But a person driving down the road is a polluter too, and is using fossil fuels. Making fossil fuels more expensive -- the price differential he refers to -- can't be accomplished solely through corporate taxes.

--John Edwards backed wind, solar and cellulose-based biofuels, but opposed nuclear power, citing the cost of building new plants and the disposal of waste. He also opposed coal liquefication: "The last thing we need is another carbon-based fuel in America."

--Barack Obama said there were no "silver bullets," and that nuclear power should be "explored" as "part of the mix" (which it already is, still about 20% of electricity generation in the US). He also called for tougher CAFE standards, and a greenhouse gas cap, though he didn't refer specifically to a cap-and-trade system. He also gave the usual criticism of Dick Cheney's energy policy group.

--Hillary Clinton called for taking away oil industry tax breaks passed under the Bush administration, focusing on innovation and technology, setting up a strategic energy fund backed by the revenue from those tax changes. She put a $50 billion price tag on it. She said she was "agnostic" about nuclear power, but didn't sound too agnostic when she said that without a solution to the issue of "waste and cost...it's very hard to see nuclear as a part of our future." One problem: the cost of building everything has risen, along with nuclear power plants. The cost of steel, the shortage of labor, etc. all are guaranteeing that any sort of heavy construction is going to face big, big bills, even if it's for windmills or solar panels.

The one shocker that wasn't heard: a full-throated blast at oil profits and the price of gasoline.

The one "gotcha" question about energy came from host Anderson Cooper, who asked the participants whether they flew to the debate in a private or chartered jet. The private jet is rapidly developing the social stigma of a Hummer, but in the air instead of the road: a wasteful, rich person's carbon-spewing method of getting from point A to point B, when other alternatives exist. Most of the candidates raised their hand, but Mike Gravel, in one of the most amazing answers of the night, said he had gotten there by train, which is pretty tough to do given that Amtrak runs only two trains through there each day. Now if he stood on the back and campaigned like Harry Truman, then it would have had some nostalgia value.