The relevant words,

"If the process can scale up"

There are only about a million different alternatives right now that are all waiting on that same "if."
Scale, infrastructure, price--the big three hurdles for virtually all alternatives.
We do have alternatives for "energy"; what we don't really have is alternatives for OIL. It's more versatile, more flexible, easier to use, and more powerful than just about anything else. And nothing in the current energy "plan" is really addressing this.