oil is a lot more efficient than solar, wind, or tidal energy...it's cheaper per kilowatt hour, and all the infrastructure is already in place...IMO the two main problems with oil are that the usa doesn't have enough oil to supply itself, and there is a limited amount of oil left in the world...we could wait until the free market decides alternative energy is a better choice but the markets are imperfect and corrupt, and would blindly lead us to disaster if there was a profit to be made in doing so