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Sluthog,
There are lots of energy alternatives that "suddenly" become practical or economicly viable when the price of oil rises high enough. Part of the reason they have not been developed up until now is that the price of oil has been kept artificially LOW. I know that is a bitter concept to swallow when the price of a tank of gas has recently shot up so much so quickly, but think about it.
In 1975, shortly after the first oil price shock, the price of a barrel of oil was about $27. The cumulative inflation since that date has been 266%. That means if the price of oil were on par with the rest of the economy it should now cost $72 per barrel or actually a little more than it does now. The fact that it only recently shot up to that amount, while the inflation rate for the rest of the economy was fairly flat, suggests that it was actually a relative bargain up until now.
Another thing to consider is what economists refer to as the concept of external costs or the costs that are not reflected in the price charged.
The oil companies do not have to pay the cost of sending troops to Middle Eastern oil sheikdoms to prop up friendly (or at least cooperative to US oil interests) but corrupt regimes. The oil companies do not have to pay the cost of the anger of the arab citizenry, who watch their leaders go off to places like Monte Carlo to fritter away the wealth of their countries on gambling and blonde haired bimbos while they remain at home mired in poverty. Or waste it on government projects purported to be designed to help the poor but which ultimately are as much a source of graft, corruption and the siphoning of funds into swiss bank accounts. Such things as much as anything else are the source of arab anger, not a hatred of our way of life as Bush would have us believe. And when we catch the blowback in the form of terrorism, we all pay the cost while the oil companies just have an excuse to raise their prices and profits. Terrorism has its roots in our dependence on oil.
Incidentally, increasing domestic sources of oil, whether its the only 90 days worth of current US consumption that is estimated to exist in ANWR or the billions of barrels of hard to extract oil that might be extracted from shale, will have little impact on the domestic price of gasoline. Oil is a world commodity. Oil companies sell it whereever they can get the highest price. Do you really think the Bush administration or any other is going to tell the oil companies "you can extract oil from the shale but only if you sell it in the US and not shift any of your other current production elsewhere". I don't think so.
The other major "externality" that is mostly overlooked in the price at the pump is the effects on the environment. Even if we could find all the fossil fuels we need to sustain our growing rates of consumption, it is ultimately untenable because of the life-threatening effects of the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The oil and coal companies are not paying the costs of the increased rates of cancers due in large part to the release of toxins into the air, water and soils as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. They're not paying for the costs of more frequent and severe weather that we are already starting to see and which will get much worse in years to come, such as droughts here in the US and across the world or most dramatically with this recent hurricane.
The various fossil fuel interests will deny there is any connection. They'll trot out their own scientist who downplay the dangers and plant media reports to try and make us think it is not a problem (in much the same way that the tobbaco companies used to do with cigarette smoking). But for every scientist on their payrolls or receiving grant money from them, their are many more that speak the plain unvarnished truth. And the evidence before all of us makes it harder for oil defenders to ignore or deny. The president up to now has upheld the line of his oil backers by denying that global warming is even a problem we have to worry about now and refusing to sign the Kyoto accord that has been accepting by all our major allies. If Katrina has done one positive thing it will have been to show us how the cost to our economy of doing nothing will be far greater than any cost of biting the bullet and taking action now.
So what do we do? Extracting oil from shale is certainly one thing that might help... in the medium term. I'm not sure I'd call it a stop-gap as it doesn't really do anything to help us now. Just like ANWR, it will take years to develop and won't do anything to reduce the cost of gas in the short-run. It may help us down the road and extend the life of the fossil fuel era, but if we use that extension to postpone dealing with the real problem rather than doing more to develop alternative [b]renewable[/b energy solutions, it could do nore harm than good. It might do something to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil, but as long as our consumption rates continue to climb and the demand for oil by newly developing economies like China rise closer to our own levels of per capita consumption the world is going to be dependent on arab oil and the world price is going to have to reflect that eithter directly or indirectly. Turning to shale will also not do anything about the other extrenality of the environmental effects.
So what else can we do? In the short term, not a lot. One thing we all should do is not rely on the government or the fossil fuel companies to do what needs to be done on their own. The most immediate thing we can do is reduce the amount of oil we us. This can be done by foregoing certain "luxuries", e.g. taking fewer car trips, but can also be done by simply being more efficient, e.g. combining errands so that fewer car trips are needed. It may be anathema to some of you, but maybe its time to trade in those gas guzzling SUV's for more fuel efficient models. Keep your car tuned up , your tires properly inflated and most importantly SLOW DOWN (that's the hard one for me). Obeying the speed limit not only saves lives, it saves gas. We can also be more fuel efficient at home. Turn up or down, as appropriate, that thermostat when you leave the house to go to work. Electric companies burn oil too.
There's much more but ultimately it will take some centralized government mandated action and we should all urge out government to act. The Bush administration has blocked raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and other vehicles. In fact it has done little in terms of finding a sensible balanced approach to our energy problem rahter than steadfastedly trying to hammer through the policies that Cheney worked out in backroom dealings with the oil and coal industries. I'm sure those same oil interests would love to see our current dependence on oil used as an excuse to loosen the environmental rules so they can make even more money out of oil-shale. If rising prices have suddenly made extracting oil from shale cost -effective (ignoring the environmental costs), maybe it has also made other hitherto cost ineffective energy alternatives cost effective (solar, wind, geothermal, hydro). How many of you have seen the huge windturbines near Tilaran or the hydro dams at Lake Arenal and near Cachi in the Orosi Valley? I think CR even has some geothermal power generation in the north near Santa Rosa. The US is also doing a lot in those areas, but we could undoubtedly be doing a lot more. Maybe instead of costing the US economy money by just going along with the Kyoto accords it could actually benefit the US economy if we embrace it by applying our knowhow and scientific base to producing new technologies that we can market to the rest of the world as well as using here at home.
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We are getting ripped off!
i will have to work some ot to build up my kitten fund 
