It’s even hidden from him.  The fact is, the virtue of both oil and coal is that we can’t eat or drink them without getting sick or even dying.  They are useless for anything other than producing energy and products we can use for a large number of purposes, none of which interfere with our needs for either food or drink.

All the “alternative energy” schemes use something we are already using for some other purpose. Ethanol is made from either food(corn, sugar cane) or some type of vegetation, and takes up arable land that could be used for food production or housing.  Even the hydrogen car runs on water; what would happen to the price and supply of water if a significant amount of our transportation needs required it?  Of course, it also produces water vapor, which is many times more powerful a “greenhouse gas” than the “evil” CO2.

It is precisely the unpalatability of both oil and coal that make them perfectly suited to supply our energy needs.  That, and the fact that they both work really well for that purpose.