Energy is widely rumored to be one major focal point of the president’s State of the Union speech tonight – so be prepared to have your head spinning around on a swivel and keep all sharp objects safely out of easy reach. The gas production out of the president may rival what we’re seeing from the Bakkan formation.

There's good news and bad news from Detroit this week.

The good news, according to this blog, is that greens and automakers, after decades of being at loggerheads, now seem to be singing from the same sheet music on the need to produce environmentally-friendly cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf. The shaming, badgering and blunt-force bludgeoning of automakers by Gang Green and government regulators finally has bent Motown to the will of the efficiency enforcers. Now these former adversaries are as cozy as two peas in a pod.

And the bad news?

You'll probably be hearing a lot more about how so-called renewables are overtaking nuclear power as a national electricity provider. But like just about everything else involving alternative energy, it's mostly just hype, generated by those who want to show progress where progress is lacking.

Much depends on how one defines "renewable energy," as this Washington Post blog explains. Subtract hydropower, which isn't exactly a newfangled thing, and the slice of America's energy pie being supplied by solar, wind and gerbil wheel power is still embarrassingly small -- especially in light of all the government support they get.