When the algae puzzle is solved, and it will be, all fossil fuels still in the ground become practically worthless overnight. We should be pumping all our valuable fossil fuel out of the ground now like it is going out of style, because it is. The idea of saving it for the future is foolish. Now it has extreme value, in the future its value drops to the point it isn't worth extracting.
The issue is not what we will after some dream comes true, the issue is "What are we going to do NOW". We need resources to develop new technology, and those resources come from PROFITS, not government. If we rely on government to solve problems we simply become another Soviet Union. I will bet you anything you choose that the solution to abundant energy is not anything that's ever been in Popular Science magazine.