We need products from crude oil for more than just fuel, they are used for building roads, plastics, foods, medicines etc etc etc. and these compounds form just a very small part of the crude we get out of the ground - so if we want to keep using these compounds and don't need the petrol and diesel that we still get from the refinery what are we gonna do with it - store it in huge bunkers, use it for domestic heating (still burning it and producing carbon).
Could probably get products from coal (as Germany had to do in the war) but still using fossil energy.
I want alternative energy supplies to work - if only to free us from relying on middle east governments for our energy and watch them sink back into obscurity and lose the world influence they presently have but have not earned, and then they will have to get their democracy and human rights up to speed before we even talk to them in future.
Reliable tidal power (which we have plenty of in UK both from rise and fall and tidal stream sources ) needs more effort putting into it as a long term solution, as well as geo- thermal. With wind and solar we are just picking the low hanging, not very efficient fruit from the energy tree.