Desirable or not, there's a substantial free market argument in favour of speculative oil trading in that it acts to prevent actual shortage long before it is anticipated to occur--hence, why they're "oil futures." I've debated the merits of futures versus regulation prohibiting them, and I almost think that futures that make oil more expensive, thus stimulating investment in alternatives is likely preferable to a repeat of the actual shortages of the late 1970s.
Personally, I'm supportive of nuclear power as the backbone of any energy strategy, with continued research into alternatives like wind, solar, and ocean power continuing to develop. I tend to have a lot of optimism for solar in the future, because I'm sure we can sharply increase their efficiency, considering that current solar cells only capture a small fraction of the solar radiation that hits them. I'm more pessimistic about wind power, because I consider it an eyesore that doesn't offer enough efficiency, and I question the impact on sea life for underwater power plants. Now, granted, there is the issue of nuclear waste, but the vast majority of it is because of wastefulness in North America. Europe reprocesses its nuclear waste, which is something I think should strongly resume over here. It is irresponsibly wasteful to consider burying it underneath a mountain instead of recycling it for further use!
As for coal, I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy for the industry. Considering the bright orange haze in the sky from coal plants back where I'm from, nobody can remotely try to claim that it's "clean." And considering the timeline for when coal would become obsolete, perhaps the youth of today should take a cue and plan to work in a different industry. It's a lesson I learned at an early age, considering that the downfall of the Michigan auto industry was painfully apparent even 25 years ago, and so it had been inculcated in me from an early age to not even think that I could expect a job in it. Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of other people didn't take a similar cue.
It's fun for tenured and pensioned intellectuals to play God with the economy and come up with unrealistic overly abstract ideas that hurt people. But wait isn't the history of distant bureaucrats hurting people for a great abstract cause typical in the 20th century? It's easy to hurt people when you are far away from them. I can't say it better than this guy:
YouTube - Feel-Good Fantasies of Fighting Global Warming
All these "green" projects look like religious rituals to me. They are just there to make people feel less guilty and some people actually get so egotistical (especially indoctrinated school kids) they think after screwing in a light bulb that they can be Hitler youth telling adults what to do even if they haven't paid a bill in their lives.
I can't excuse stupid leftists anymore than one can excuse stupid right-wingers. The fact is that there are a lot of stupid people in this world, but that doesn't excuse the fact that there are facts that exist amongst all the rhetoric and that there are solutions all the same.
And allow me to state that I am the furthest from "neo-Luddite." I have no real romantic fantasy for some "simpler time" long past, even though I read history books like nothing nowadays; but I should also point out that I'm under no illusion that we're living at "the end of history" or similar nonsense. Quite frankly, I think we're still primitive, in spite of all our shiny toys, and I'd like to see us progress to the next stage. And, for me, that means taking the unprecedented step of merging Lockean progress with Rousseauian appreciation for the environment. I quite firmly believe that we are at the first moment in history where we can achieve such progress without rampant environmental destruction.
Of course, I'm also aware that true opposition to what I propose, ultimately, has little to do with feasibility. It's perfectly feasible with an actual long term strategy, and France has been living proof of how you can primarily power a nation with nuclear power, while reprocessing spent fuel. It pretty much has everything to do with oligarchy, and how our titans of industry would rather continue to make money off of present technology, rather than spending money on investment into new--or, even worse to them, actually be surpassed by new, more efficient corporations. Decades ago, as it was apparent that the telephone was about to kill the telegraph once and for all, we let that dinosaur die and pass into history. Nowadays, not only would we probably let the telegraph companies own the telephones too, we'd also let them degrade the telephone to protect the telegraph market, and we'd also give them massive government subsidies to stay afloat. Can we not see how transparently awful such an approach is to progress?
everyone ignores them 
. Selling short got to the point that the panic feeds on itself underappreciating the economy just as gambling on prices going higher and inflationary monetary policies (and stupid 'affordable housing' policies) overvalue securities and derivatives. Otherwise there will definately be a need for regulations. I still remember my Marxist Sociology professor state "the economy goes up like this and goes down like that. When it goes down like that this is where we come in." The funny thing was Naomi Klein said that about Milton Friedman and capitalists showing that she was misunderstanding the economy and how it rebounds better than before and this also shows mental projections of what leftists think transposed on rightists as if the tactics are the same. 
