Even if EVERYONE wanted a new alternative vehicle today, production would not catch up to demand for many, many years. Worldwide, we do not produce one car per year per driver. Also, think of all the other pieces of equipment reliant on our gasoline and diesel infrastructure. It would likely be that it would take 15-25 years to completely phase out our current system. I do believe the next wave will be dependent on electricity as it's medium. What way the energy is stored is where it will get interesting. You could use solar to power a compressor while you are at work and then just refill it at night. You could also do that with some sort of interchangeable battery pack system like you have now with cordless tools. Also, gas prices would likely come down if a new system is introduced as it would cut demand. We could then, theoretically use a higher and higher domestically produced percentage to fuel our machinery and cut the amount of oil imports, thus stabilizing the US economy. Make no mistake: the price of oil is the number one problem we face economically. It is used in every single thing we buy, even if it contains no petroleum products in itself.
Oh, and E85 and biodiesel are NOT the answer. All they do is drive up the price of grain and cut the amount of arable land dedicated to food production worldwide. This drives up the price of food both here where it is inconvenient, and in poor countries where it can be deadly. It also can't replace ALL of our oil based products, only supplement fuel production. Plastics, paint, etc. will still require oil to be made. Also, E85 is not as efficient at producing heat when burned as gasoline, so you need more of it as compared to gas. IF we can genetically engineer a fast growing crop that can grow in poor soils quickly, with high yield, and that requires no fertilizers or maintenance other than planting and harvesting, we may have something. Current bio-fuel feedstocks, however, cannot replace petroleum based fuels using strictly our own land inside our own country. Instead, it winds up being produced in developing countries in place of indigenous food crops, or by clear cutting forests, jungles and peat bogs to plant fuel. This is not a new sustainable way of life. We need a sustainable means of de-centralized energy production that can be carried out at the local or national level without relying on other nations to do it for us.
The problem is, oil intrinsically has energy value. Everything else requires significant processing and energy input to deliver an energy yield. Planting, fertilizing, harvesting then processing takes a lot of energy as compared with drilling and pumping then processing. It is very efficient to use oil, and that is why it is used. We need a sustainable energy source that has equal or better yield per unit of energy used for production that oil has. This is the big dilemma. This is why solar shows so much promise if it could be made to work efficiently enough, and cheaply enough. We have been at this point before. It was called the 1970's when the first and second OPEC oil crisis happened. Then, when we were on the verge of spending the money to make alternative energy sources work, OPEC dropped it's prices and killed the research in the 80's. I hope we are not stupid enough to let it happen again. OPEC is like a drug dealer who "gives" a customer a hit for free or cheaply to keep them hooked. We need to fire our drug dealer and get clean.
I'll finish by saying I AM NOT AN ENVIRONMENTALIST!!! I do not believe in global warming, or anything else like that. I just want to see a better solution to our energy needs than what we have now because what we have now is not stable. Being beholden to OPEC and South American Marxist dictators leaves us too vulnerable. We need to hold them by the balls and not the other way around. Hopefully if we solve this, we can return to being the big bully on the playground of world affairs and not have anything we can have used against us.
