This thread is going in sixteen separate directions within four or five planar surfaces, which is fine, but...
I re-emphasize my initial points, and add: mankind cannot and should not be expected all to live either as "Amish" (a poor choice but I understand the poster's intent) or, more extremely, as upper Amazon Kree-Akarore. No, it is not possible nor do I believe it should be that we expunge from our collective global society all forms of hydrocarbon consumption.
We can look at the situation along the following broad lines, though. In general, our and other societies use sequestered hydrocarbons, aka fossil fuels, for the following purposes: (1) electrical production, (2) space heating and (3) locomotive force. Now, the extremist stance is to eliminate this consumption entirely. Wiser men than most of us, though, have said Choose your battles carefully. And Messrs Musk & Co. have, I think we collectively agree, successfully demonstrated that this third category now can be eliminated. Today - for personal transportation and most likely in short order, for probably all over-the-road locomotion.
That, I aver, is a magnificent step forward. I am especially sensitive to the task of diminishing hydrocarbon use in space heating: even through now, mid-June in the northern hemisphere, we are keeping two wood stoves burning 24 hours a day (this is an outlier year, thank goodness). At least we're using something other than fossil fuels, but my point is that the energy density of fuel oil and the excellent transportation characteristics of natural gas are such that I don't believe they can't responsibly remain a part of the human condition for some time to come.
Lastly, we have electrical generation. What is important to stress here is not that a lot of this state's, that province's, yonder country's electricity does or does not come from fossil fuels. Rather, it is that a point source of electricity, such as a large-scale modern generating station, can produce energy vastly more efficiently - with far fewer pollutants - than can an equivalent number of internal combustion engine automobiles. And THAT brings us back to EVs and the new paradigm of transportation.
This now beings us back to my first post's anguish over funding, fueling and fomenting terror in many parts of the world, specifically but absolutely not solely in the Middle East. And I say this:
To the extent that the United States can extinguish its appetite for petroleum as a means of locomotive force is the extent to which this nation can unhitch itself from the world oil trade. I am a bit too lazy tonight (and can use the always handy but absolutely true excuse of hyper-slow internet connection) to put forth the hard data, but this country's consumption of crude oil - minus the amount used for transportation - is very close to equal to that of our own domestic production. So I argue thus: if we - still the largest coherent economic presence on the planet - can end our role in world oil trade, then we can concomitantly end the fungibility of that product. And to the extent that the US can do it, so the other nations of the world can follow. And that is what can break the connection between bullets and barrels.
Once one realizes that, other possibilities open up. I was thinking of the need each gigafactory will have for some 6,500 employees. I also am acutely aware of the situation amongst many, many US (mostly male) high school graduates of this age. It is not an electrical engineering degree from Stanford that is their short-term future: it is a term in the US armed forces. How much more attractive, how much more long-enduring, how much more productive, how much more patriotic it would be to work in that kind of job in the private sectore towards something that incontrovertibly is positive for [the United States] (please fill in your own country here), than for these youth to spend their most dynamic years in another futile effort to...accomplish....what...in some part of the Middle East where we aren't, never have been, and never will be wanted?
