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Some good points, but ignores one important factor, which is that it's often not the amount of energy, but the portability/transportability of it that's the critical factor. For instance, it's fairly easy (at least in the sunnier parts of the country) to use solar power to produce all the energy a typical home requires. It's not at all easy to get that energy into a form that lets you drive more than say 70-80 miles (Nissan Leaf). So if you need to travel longer distances (on routes that aren't heavily-travelled enough to make investment in e.g. rail practical), then you need to convert that energy into a more portable form, say ethanol, even if the conversion is inefficient.
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