"hls" wrote in news:0f-dnWbLz-hRWvDWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
They've been predicting we'd run out of oil since the 19th century.
I remember reading the "proven and probable" number was closer to 200 years. Remember that "proven and probable" is measured at that day's prices. If you exclude price, proven and probable goes up to the thousands of years. And that's assuming technology goes nowhere in that time, which is a ludicrous idea.
Also, even if, in the /highly/ unlikely event that oil does actually start to become /truly/ scarce instead of just being /politically/ scarce, the resulting runup in prices will spur massive efforts in finding alternatives to oil.
What would seriously damage efforts to replace oil and cause terrible problems is if government employees got involved and started trying to pick winners and losers. That would doom any technological advancement and cause real problems for everyone.
Any oil shortages are purely and totally political. They consist of legal injunctions on drilling and/or refining, or civil unrest, or political control, all of which hamper production.
I'm not in the slightest worried about shortages, except for the political component.