Myself, I think the day of the small internal combustion engine is drawing to a close. In addition to spewing toxic byproducts and being locked into a single source of fuel -- also toxic and hard to handle -- they're a pain to maintain. Think about the fact that you've probably got a dozen or more small electric motors in your house (furnace, fridge, fans, etc.) When was the last time you did any maintenance on them? When was the last time you did anything to your car's engine? See the difference?
Add to that the fact that electric motors are much more efficient in terms of translating stored power into mechanical power, and you've got a potentially superior technology. The problem thus far has been "energy density" -- you can cram a couple hundred miles worth of chemical energy into the space of the average gas tank, while until recently you've had to fill the entire trunk with lead-acid batteries to get half that. However, improvements in battery technology are (finally) removing that constraint...
Before we all swallow the 'electric cars' kool-aid, let's consider that the toxic materials required to manufacture batteries are unlikely to be benign if they replace internal combustion cars and we continue to drive as much as we do today. Consider the problems we are beginning to realize with the disposal of electronics. Even the much adored solar panels require relatively rare, exotic metals which are toxic to function.
Materials embedded in batteries can be recycled, and it's much easier to deal with a waste problem that occurs once or twice in the ten-year life of a vehicle than it is a chemical waste problem that is present every second the motor is running.
Also, keep in mind that electrical power distribution networks waste huge amounts of power through transmission loss getting to your house. It would be like having an gas station in every house - how efficient is that?
I think transmission loss is around 3% for electricity. Gas is harder to measure, since it's difficult to figure out how many miles are driven to fill up, and I don't think anybody keeps track of how much energy is consumed shuffling liquid fuels between ports, refineries and distribution centers. Point being, "transmission loss" is not a unique problem for electrics.
The electrical grid can also be powered by different means over time. Your utility can switch between coal, nuclear, wind, natural gas, biomass, etc. without you having to do anything. Running an IC engine on anything other than its preferred fuel is pretty difficult.
What I would like to see is an emphasis less on tiny, portable power sources and more on practical applications of tested and safe technology. Passive solar heat for domestic hot water, geothermal water cooling for HVAC.
You forgot "sensibly designed suburbs." Though the real barrier to communities where you can walk to services and either walk or drive short distances to work, entertainment, etc. seems to be the people who live there. On a couple of occasions here locally, we've had people living in vast wildernesses of single-family dwellings pitch a fit when someone tried to insert retail along the edge.
At the end of the day, energy is cheap to most people in North America. While the poor and working poor dread the energy bill, the middle class and upper classes can whine but it really doesn't hurt. The cost of all the gas your car is likely to use over its lifetime is less than the cost of insurance, maintenance and the initial purchase price.
Until wasting energy costs real money to rich people - make it a progressive tax or whatever - I'll keep driving my minivan with no passengers - and so will lots of other people.
I think you're right on this one. The Economist has been advocating a "carbon tax" -- a tax levied directly on the carbon content of fuels -- as the most sensible approach to limiting global warming and related problems. You could make the proceeds of the tax a refundable credit -- all taxpayers divvy up the proceeds, so total income doesn't change, but relative prices will tend to push people to lower-carbon alternatives.
Unfortunately, Americans have this wierd, visceral aversion to anything called a "tax," and we'll probably have to experiment for a long time with an overly-complex "cap and trade" system instead.
