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I work in the energy industry, my customers are small electric utilities in Arkansas to ISOs (or the equivalent of ISOs) in New Zealand, and while that doesn't make me an unimpeachable authority, my small view of the industry indicates that it isn't some insane addiction to evil black goo that has stopped us from pursuing the solar/wind types of solutions; it's that they're not feasible or they're cost-prohibitive. On top of that, these are solutions for energy for the grid, not energy for transportation, and it's transportation that uses the vast majority of petroleum resources so quit conflating the separate issues. Solar does jack to power your car and never will.
The only way solar and wind will ever contribute is if they are used to power the grid, which we then plug hybrids into. But nuclear will be used far, far, sooner because it's actually feasible unlike these other pipe dreams. You can't force investors to go down the road of something that is, at best, destined to provide a teeny tiny amount of energy at high cost. For Pete's sake, France isn't exactly the conservative bastion, why is France using nuke to mainly power their grid? Because aside from coal or gas-fired plants, nuke is the only other option that doesn't require your economy to collapse.
If we don't want to use coal/gas we will use nuke, that is a lead-pipe lock. If we don't want to use imported oil we will drill, that is another lock. The rest of the choices are fantasy unless you think America will stand for economic disaster, and they won't. There aren't enough suicidal greenies; all the liberals without armpit hair will face the hard choices long before ruin becomes an option.
