You're right about ethanol (corn, switch grass, or magic beans) will never be a replacement for oil. I'm not aware of any alternative products that are anywhere near as good as oil.

In our lifetimes, the most likely scenario will be oil derived from shale, tar sands, and coal liquification. All of these are dirty, labor intensive, expensive, and undesirable on many levels. However, barring some sort of "Star Trek" solution, oil is going to be the power of the future. Oil is just that important.

This WILL encourage alternative half-solutions to help mitigate the cost (environmental and monetary). . . ethanol blends, hybrid cars, that sort of thing. But we're a long way from anything like a unified energy strategy.

For example . . . natural gas could very easily be used to power things like cars. It has the same problems as gas . . . non-renewable and most of it foreign based to name two. And yet, in the US, we're STILL building NEW natural gas fired electric plants! It's insanity, but there you have it.