Our rosy future if we do nothing to develop alternate sources of energy:

The world's increasing demand for energy will require total investments of $16 trillion by 2030, most of it needed to maintain and expand the electricity infrastructure, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The report - a yearlong study by the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group set up by leading energy-consuming nations in response to the oil embargo of the early 1970's - finds that oil from the Persian Gulf region will play an increasingly important role in the world economy despite economic, political and geological questions in the region. ...

By 2030, it predicted, 43 percent of the world's oil will come from the Middle East - a 50 percent increase from today....

It calculated further that if Middle East oil countries proved more hostile to foreign investment, that would increase the need for worldwide investment a further 8 percent, driving up energy prices.

The report estimated that worldwide demand for oil would reach 120 million barrels a day by 2030, up from 77 million barrels now. But the $2.2 trillion that will be needed to explore and develop oil production will be mostly spent - 75 percent - on maintaining existing fields, with the remaining 25 percent spent on finding new oil to meet the greater demand....

--New York Times

Remember this when you're told that a program to make alternate energy sources viable would be just too expensive.