HAMMOND | Whoever wins Tuesday's presidential election will see the need to do something about the energy economy, said a staffer for U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar.

"Whoever is elected on Tuesday will see or experience that pressure firsthand," said Celina Weatherwax, director of the Northwest Indiana office for the Indiana Republican.

Indiana's energy needs were the focus of a community forum Tuesday hosted by Purdue University Calumet and sponsored by Chicago Public Radio WBEZ 91.5 FM and its series, "Chicago Matters: Growing Forward."

The forum broadcast live on WBEZ featured Chicago Public Radio's Gabriel Spitzer and WBEZ Northwest Indiana bureau reporter Michael Puente discussing energy needs with a panel of local policymakers, business people and environmentalists.

"We picked energy because it's a timely topic both locally and nationally," said Sally Eisele, managing editor of public affairs for Chicago Public Radio.

Ralph Corriere attended the forum because he wanted to see what kind of suggestions the panel could come up with.

"I thought it would be interesting," said the Hammond resident. "I'm interested in solar energy. We're thinking of putting solar on our roof."

Panel member Otto Doering, Purdue University professor of agricultural economics, said solar panels were fine as long as the home gets a lot of sunshine.

"You don't have sunshine eight hours a day every day all winter here," he said. "You need that sun to keep that solar system going. The kind of solar system that would do best in Indiana is in the summer."

Other topics of discussion included "green collar" jobs, diesel and electric cars, and turbine wind power.

Spitzer asked the panel if either presidential candidate has the power to make fundamental changes in the energy economy, and if so, how that will happen.

"Whether they have it in them or not there's certain things they have to do," Doering said. "We've got a serious financial crisis. Any talk of serious tax cuts (for alternative energy) is frankly off the boards."

Doering said the information discussed during the forum might be addressed if the public and body politic decides that a fairly large amount of our scarce resources need to go toward infrastructure development like railroads, roads, and public transportation.

"This is where the country is going to have to make some investments to move green energy and also to create jobs," he said.

Doering believes we're in for "two or three or four very, very tough years," and the idea of giving tax cuts and increased benefits to people (for using alternative energy) isn't going to happen.

"But energy and infrastructure can benefit through this in kinds of expenditures the federal government I feel is going to have to make," he said.