All-electric (or better, mostly-electric) is complicated problem. But it doesn't mean it cannot be solved. It is about more ways to generate the electricity, more ways to store it, and more ways to use it.
We need different prices for electricity, peak vs off-peak vs spike. Base load can be nuclear, but peak and spike needs to be stored somewhere and released. Central storage is expensive. Distributed storage (say, home-charged cars at night) can be cheaper.
Base load is cheap. Expensive is peak and spike electricity. We need to generate excess load, to cover the peaks.
We need solar, wind, wave, hydro and nuclear energy. And better ways to store it when not available and release when needed.
One of the brilliant ways to store the energy is to compress the air at night, and decompress it during the day (which makes electricity and cold air for A/C). In every house. Another is trains loaded with gravel, pushing up (using electricity) when excess of electricity, and down (making the electicity) when needed.
We need homes with airconditioning (and other intelligent appliances) which will turn off for few minutes during spike in the consumption, and utilities should pay customers to be able to do it.
Electric cars needs better batteries too. One of the new ideas is aluminuim-based battery. Could last 1K miles, but after that, battery cannot be recharged but recycled. It is about the energy density. Planes would run on hydrocarbons.
Biologists found a bacteria which makes instead of ethanol, a buthanol. It is oil. doesn't need to be distilled (which uses energy), just skimmed of the top of the breeding vat. Another process can make methanol (fluid, CH2OH, easier to store than natoral gas) from CO2 in the air and water.
We need "all of the above" approach.
The problem is, to make this happen, we need government industrial policy (which USA never had, because politicians are allergic to it) and political will to do it. USA can make it much cheaper whan other countries. If we decide to do it, and charge the carbon tax on the carbon used to manufacture stuff, most manufacturing will return to USA because it will be cheaper. Now, manufacturing in China is cheaper, because we don't account for the carbon needed to move raw materials to China, process them, and mode products to USA and Europe. Air pollution is free, so of course we have plenty of it.
