I'm not so pessimistic.

First of all, the advances that can be had in internal combustion engines have been held off by initial cost sensitivity of the American Buyer. 100MPG Diesel fueled vehicles are perfectly real, they are a little more expensive.

Tesla Motors has shown that an electric car is practical, fast and (for now) really expensive, however, the boogeyman of insufficient range is rapidly being scared off.

Growing food for fuel will soon be seen for the idiocy that it is, and we'll move to non-food crops and other sources for "bio-energy".

It's also pretty clear that worldwide, nuclear power is going to be a factor, as will allegedly "alternative" energy, which seem to be to be better called "expanded source" energy.

But I don't think all this is going to happen until we have a few years of $5 to $7 a gallon oil, which will drive investment, and even if there's "20 years of Sweet Crude" under US Soil, so what? I mean, I was in high school 24 years ago and it does not feel that long ago. 20 years is a blink when you look at the long view, especially when it comes time to change your national infrastructure.

We killed off trains and trolleys in about 25 years, what's to say we can't do the same to an oil-based transportation infrastructure? I mean, really, what's to say that we don't take those idiotic HOV lanes and turn them into something that's somewhere between a street-car and a bus, it goes 60 to 70 MPH, it's something equipped with ultra-capacitors, rides on rails bolted to what used to be an HOV lane, and has a charging system that works in 60 seconds or less at each station? Heck, I could even see stations as a self-contained solar-powered thing that tops off the ultra-capacitors or flywheels in between road trolleys. Plop this into the median of the interstate and you have something that could work - drive your expensive vehicle to the station, and have a road trolley come every 3 to 5 minutes.