Do we have the energy?

With Peak Oil approaching, the middle east more unstable than ever, and countries like India and China developing a taste for cars and AC, we need clean renewable energy more than ever before.
Everyone has heard the stories about the big oil companies buying up the patents for brilliant new energy technologies and then locking them up in a vault to protect their core business.
Most likely this is wishful thinking by the conspiracy contingency.
If it is true however, now must be the time for the Exxon and Shell executives to enter the vaults, brush the cobwebs of those prototypes and save our lifestyle as we know it.