> I think we'll be way past the need for oil, long before we run out of it.
Oil isn't just used for fuel. What will replace the oil products in pharma, plastics, etc?
Plastics are probably the largest semi-direct user of hydrocarbons other than energy production, and according to the US Energy Information Administration [1] plastics used the equivalent of 2.7% of the total oil consumption in the US in 2010.
If we just stop burning the stuff we'll have enough for other uses for a very very long time.
We can synthetize all petroleum products from carbon feedstocks, so long as we can pay the energy cost. This is generally true of almost everything these days -- all resources that the modern economy depends on are substitutable or synthetizable with energy.
You can't spray your fields with efficient cars.
– Ahmed Zaki Yamani (Saudi & OPEC Minister for Oil)
I think oil is just one of those resources that we're never going to have to worry about. We've got two things going for us these days - first, the majority of oil production goes to powering cars which are becoming increasingly efficient, and, second the technology for extracting oil is also becoming more efficient. Fracking techniques right now only recover a small percentage of the actual oil that's in place - as those techniques are optimized, recovery rates will go through the roof.
I think we'll be way past the need for oil, long before we run out of it.