Note that I said "long future". I didn't necessarily mean my (or your) lifetime. My horizon probably doesn't make it past 60 years.
I understand about solar for hydrogen production. The idea is (I've read this, it ain't mine) is that you generate hydrogen during the hot sunny day. Places this can be done: Gobi Desert, Australian Outback, northern Africa, SW USA, coastal South America. You can store hydrogen in tanks and transport it elsewhere.
As for the short-term future, we're going to have to burn increasingly expensive fossil fuels, improve extraction technologies for resources like the Bakken, and take a look at exotic alternatives like deep-sea methane.
Truck in seawater to the desert, electrolyze it and then truck it back to civilization; sort of like marching camels to the oasis, filling up their water tanks and marching them back to the next water hole?