the market is not going to move away from oil on its own, even if you allowed nuclear plants.
The reason why everyone is talking about alternative energy today and not the gas guzzling SUV’s of the 90’s is because the price of oil is much much higher.
The reason the market doesn’t want to move off oil is because there’s nothing out there that is competitive. Where there is - it is already in use (hydro). Nuclear power is uncompetitive only because of the regulatory restrictions upon it.
The reason you hear talk about alternative energy today is government money. None of these alternatives would be competitive on their own.
Oil is proven and oil works. Oil results in a whole host of other products from refinery byproducts, for which we will need to refine oil whether or not that oil is used as an energy source. In addition to being a source of energy, oil is also a storage medium, something which other forms of power have to convert at sever loss (into hydrogen as proposed). There is nothing else available that can supply energy on a scale sufficient to have a significant impact our economy’s needs except for hydro (fully exploited in the US), coal (restricted by law), and nuclear (effectively banned by law).
And it just so happens that the US has a ton of the stuff, if only the government gave permission for someone to go and get it.