Pumped Hydro or simple hot sand (I shit you not) are good ways of storing excess energy without resorting to direct electrical storage solutions (which are improving year on year at a swift pace too).

There are a lot of other ways being explored too. To name but a couple; pumped geothermal storage using everything from old mines to aquifers (a few degrees C in a lot of water is a lot of energy and deep mines will add it for free), and underwater pressure energy storage (I like this one for it's simplicity and sustainability).

But you're totally correct. The oil industry has almost infinite money and power, and thus an almost unassailable influence on politics and policy.

The hope lies in the almost. With a bit of luck, things will get bad enough that the populous at large start to question whether being so dependent on other countries for the ability to move shit around is such a cracking idea when the alternative is right there, today, not in a decade when any local oil begins to flow, if there is any to be had.

A smart politician would spin a wholehearted policy shift to renewables as "ensuring the sovereignty of our nation's energy supply, the backbone of our economy, which should never be beholden to foreign governments or corporations". Done right, it could be used to rally the "rabid far right" and the "loony left" of any country to the same greater good for all of humanity.