Electric cars would be really neat things, but… batteries today have 1/40th the energy storage density of gasoline! Theoretical best batteries have 1/4th the energy density, and nobody has ever come close to theoretical best. And, you have to transport those batteries around with…. energy. And you still have to produce the electricity.
Maybe fuel cells will do the trick, but over 40 years of work on them has yet to come close. Then you need something to feed the fuel cells.
The problem with any sort of biological or solar (incl wind) “solution” is power density. It just takes a whole lot of sunlight to make the power. There may be an economical solution in there somewhere, but it hasn’t arisen yet.
Nuclear won’t work because the enviros and the NIMBYs won’t let it.
It will take an energy catastrophe to solve the political problems. Then, I suspect coal, nuclear and additional oil drilling will arise as the interim solutions.
Remember, the ONLY thing wrong in the near and medium term with fossil fuels is the hypothetical long term effects of global warming (renamed “climate change” since the earth hasn’t warmed in 10 years). All the hysterical flapping around is a result of the fear of the dreaded CO2! North America is the middle east of hydrocarbons – if you include coal, oil sands and oil shale.
