The practical necessity of Mark Davis?

I'm not sure I see one.

Davis writes:

We might start to develop a greater interest in them as oil prices leap ever higher, but there has never been a practical necessity for running our cars on ethanol, solar, wind or bean power.

Never been a practical necessity? How about cheaper fuel prices? How about renewable energy sources? How about lessening the enviromental damage of drilling for oil? Or the damage of burning fossil fuels? How about the impact on the health of our children?

And that's just for starters. Imagine if we as a country were not reliant on the worlds disappearing reserves of oil. Imagine if we held the patents for these fuels. Imagine the political and financial impact of such a thing.

But there's no practical necessity otherwise.