I agree w/Suk. Nuclear power is really the only realistic way to switch from oil to electric based transportation. And even then it would have to be a gradual switch based on the construction of new power plants...the change over in infrastructure...etc. There will never be an "Oil today...electric tomorrow" scenario.
There is a reason that hydrocarbon-based energy remains popular, and that reason is never addressed by tree-huggers; they prefer to pretend it does not exist.
Theoretically, one form of energy is equivalent to another, provided it can do the work. Electricity does not care what is used to generate it. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, coal, they're all the same at the delivery point where electricity is put to use in the home or industry.
The problem is twofold. First, energy sources do not store well in general, and second, they don't ramp up well to meet fluctuating demands in general.
The reason we use nuclear, hydroelectric, and coal options most often to generate electricity for the nation's electrical power grid is not just because they are plentiful or cheap, but because they store well and ramp up well. Wind, geothermal, solar, and other 'green' sources of energy do not do that.
They can neither be 'ramped up' to meet fluctuating demands, nor stored easily or efficiently against future needs.
The only solution for overcoming the problem of fluctuating demand is to build for maximum capacity, which means a large part of the money for infrastructure goes to build capacity that will only be used a fraction of the time - more wind turbines than needed, more wells than needed, more solar panels than needed, etc. That makes these 'green' options far less economically advantageous; but you won't hear that from tree-huggers; they like to quote the 1:1 costs of a solar watt versus a hydrocarbon watt as if that were actually the comparison that would be made when building a solar power plant or a coal-burning plant.
As for storage, that's a bigger problem. Currently-popular power generation is able to overcome it by generating power on-demand and not storing it for any significant periods of time. Storage methods remain inefficient; chemical (battery) or thermal (heating large objects) or mechanical (spinning up huge wheels) and then attempting to turn them back into electricity when demanded. The loss is staggering, reducing the efficiencies of 'green' power sources even more.
And that's just for home and industrial use of electricity. When it comes to automobiles, one is likewise faced with the issues of energy storage.
One potential solution for overcoming this issue is a basic and complete reordering of society; necessary because our nation (and many other Western nations) have grown up around the notion of cheap and reliable personal transportation, available on-demand and able to produce ad-hoc destinations equally easily. It it not just our psyches that are used to jumping in the car and going where we will; our infrastructure and the distribution of cities, suburbs, towns, and villages also depends upon it. It could be changed, but not without a massive reordering of how our world functions, where people live, and how they get from place to place.
Another potential solution for overcoming the issue is to accept the place of the personal car or transportation in current Western societies and working to replace hydrocarbon internal combustion with other, 'greener' methods. This holds the most promise, as newer and more efficient battery technologies are promising, as are fuel cells and even cleaner-burning internal combustion technologies such as hydrogen (if it can be made safer). Moving from hydrocarbons to alcohol is not a solution, however, as it diverts grain production that is currently used for food for people and animals; it is only a stopgap.
In the end, I have no personal objection to the use of green technologies to provide power for cars, homes, and industry. But I also recognize that there are significant problems with power sources that cannot be ramped up to meet fluctuating demands and not stored easily once converted to power. I do not see solutions to these basic issues using the current 'green' technologies, so I do not see us moving from traditional sources of fuel, such as coal, natural gas, oil, hydroelectric, and nuclear power.
And by the way, for those who would say that hydroelectric is green, you're right; but environmentalists have always hated them because they destroy habitats, endanger wildlife, and change the natural progression of rivers, and dams are inherently dangerous to those who live below them. So green or not, they're usually hated by the tree huggers too; and of course it's not always possible to build a dam where the power is wanted; we've pretty much done them all.
