I'd say you should start at the beginning: chemistry. First find out why we use oil at all then compare oil's intrinsic potential energy with all the alternate sources you can think of, factor in the cost of market implementation and you'll get a better understanding of the issue.

Be honest and willing to challenge your stated thesis, if you're serious. Or you can just blame it all on 'they' and 'them'-whichever you like.

Nothing is yet as cheap and flexible as oil and gas.  In the right situations, wind power is close.  Solar heating is also a very cheap (and really should be mandated for new construction in socal), but depends on the climate.  Nuclear is close - but look at the horrible risks.

The reason why is that "oil" is created from biomass - plants mostly - that got trapped in rock, heated, and broken down into simpler hydrocarbons.  All the energy in oil is basically solar energy stored as chemical bonds.

Since it takes so long to form oil, our extraction of it is like mining the past for all its energy.

We're probably near, at, or past "peak oil", where the cost of extracting it is pretty high and oil can no longer be the engine of growth.  (In fact, most productivity gains in the first world seem to involve computers and robots, not more extraction of oil.)

Anyway, I don't think there's a huge conspiracy to keep alternatives hidden.  I think it's really tough to beat oil.

The real gains, I think, are in "diversity" - the ability to analyze a specific location, and design energy consumption and production into buildings and communities.  Reduce the use, and add some energy production into the buildings and community.  Augment and maybe even move away from the one-size-fits-all infrastructure we've built.

The real challenge of this change, however, is political: how do we make it work for poor people, who don't have the money to buy their own power plants?  We have a "digital divide" with regard to using computers.  We have an education divide, due largely to private colleges.  Physically dispersed power generation will probably create an "energy divide."

so what's the deal with this nickel fusion guy?

why is he so secretive about the technique, but seems ready to find buyers of cheap demo models?  it sounds fishy to me.  if it's real, then he's going to at least get a nobel prize for physics.  also, if he got an italian patent, then he can reveal the patent, no?  the patent should reveal much of his work.  that's the whole point of a patent.

the journos aren't doing a very good job.