[demallien]

Yes and no. In the medium term, we can expect hybrids to play a bigger role, whilst we wait for battery technology to cover the energy density gap. In less than 20 years, simple economics are going to force us to a solution of full electric cars for urban use, and hybrids for longer trips, with the hybrid normally being charged from the wall, but using oil-based fuels for longer trips (or when the owner forgot to charge the car overnight). That should reduce oil consumption enough to make alternate sources, such as algae-derived diesel, a viable alternative.

[gaius]

Hmm, the thing is tho', there isn't much upside to shifting burning fossil fuels from the engine to the power station. Sure the power station is more efficient in burning the fuel - but then you have to charge batteries too, so that efficiency goes away again. There's really not much point to electric vehicles until you can run them all on batteries charged by nuclear power.

[demallien]

I agree, but the article was specifically talking about oil, not fossil fuels. But I don't think we're dead in the water on the electrical utility front - fusion research is finally starting to enter the final stretch before commercialisation - ITER is expected to get us to the point where we can construct the first commercial-break-even reactor: http://www.iter.org/proj/iterandbeyond

Actually, I find ITER as a pretty good indicator that governments around the world don't feel like they won't be hurting too much on the energy front for quite some time. If they wanted to, they could up the (in context) risible investment in fusion to get a working reactor up and running by the mid-2020s. I mean they're talking about investing about $1billion per year for the next 30 years, from the entire planet. Up that to $5billion, and you can halve the development time. They really aren't terribly concerned at the moment.

On other fronts, Laurence Livermore is starting to get interesting with their inertial fusion designs: https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/ife/how_ife_works.php

And of course nanotech may yet allow us to produce the cheap, efficient solar panels that would be needed to use solar as a baseline energy source. So no, I don't think it as being much of a risk to move car energy over to electricity, starting today.

[ck2]

NIF is a well designed/funded scam to do weapon research, it will never have a consumer benefit.

[mchouza]

I would not say that NIF is a scam, as they are quite open about their priorities: https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/

[simpleTruth]

Except coal cost's ~1/10th what refined Oil does.

1 short ton (907kg) of coal costs $71.25 as of October 2010 coal has an energy density around ~32.5 (MJ/kg). 907kg * (32.5MJ / kg ) / $71.25 = 413 MJ per $.

Compared to gas at ~3$ / gallon. So, 121 MJ / gallon / (3$ / gallon = 40 MJ per $.