PV + wind can easily meet current and future electrical needs. Utilities just have to install it and buy what individuals install on their homes and businesses.
And before you go apeshit about what to do when the wind dies or the sun sets there are several ways to "store" excess daytime power:
- dissociate water by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen then burn them together in traditional power plants to boil water to turn steam turbines which generate electricity.
- battery storage - large scale lithium ion storage is going to become huge.
- flywheel storage - scaling up the technology which already exists will be easy.
- pump water up into storage reservoirs then run it down through turbines.
All four of these lend themselves to the efficiencies of large scale central control which the power industry loves. All four are zero carbon except what's required to manufacture and service the equipment.
Coal? Don't worry about coal. After we frack and pump all the oil and natural gas out of the ground (and burn it all) we'll go back to burning coal.
Remember we're going to be around for thousands if not millions of years. Fossil fuels are finite. Solar/wind/water are not.