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When I was in college, 1960 or so, some people were predicting that we would run out of oil by the year 2000. The reason we did not run out of oil is that have better equipment to get the oil, better science to discover oil, and we have become more efficient in our use of petroluem products. The law of supply and demand dictates that when the price of oil (or any product) becomes too expensive to use efficiently other sources will be developed that will take the place of oil, This point will come long before we are out of oil. In other words if the price of oil reaches say $5.00 a gallon at the pump, we will gradually switch to some other energy source. Maybe solar, hydrogen, atomic. who knows, may be it will be something we do not even know about at this time. That is the beauty of the free enterprise system. I grant you, the price of transition may be painful and uncomfortable at times but it will be done. I will be long dead before this happens. Any way, these are my thoughts.

By the time gas and diesel reaches $ 4 a gallon our economy will be stumbling to a halt. Fuel costs effect the cost of everything from the cost of products in stores (food, clothing, cosmetics, medicine, etc.) to the cost of local services. If fuel costs ever reach $ 5 a gallon, there will be thousands losing their jobs because of a severe recession. A few months later, there will be many bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Out dependency on oil for fuel is idiotic beyond belief. It also guarantees increasing tensions in the Middle East and other oil producing nations. Venezuela is just one more example. Who controls Chavez? Castro. Why is Venezuela reducing its oil production? Castro may have more to do with oil production than the we would like to think about. This dependency on foreign oil has too many hidden social, political and economic costs to list here.

Feel free to flame away. I wear asbestos underwear. Just an old geezer living in the Peoples Republic of Oregon.

When I was in college, 1960 or so, some people were predicting that we would run out of oil by the year 2000

In those days nobody had a clue about the odds of running out. They knew we had 20-40 years of proven reserves, which is quite a bit different from thinking we will run out. Proven reserves have always been in that range, ever since Oil City. Proven reserves are in that range even now.

What is changing is the quality of the oil and the cost to produce it.