[jyl]

If you divide current global proven oil reserves by current annual global oil consumption, you get about 40 years.

Now, new reserves will be proven, some currently undiscovered and some known but weren't economically viable at lower oil px. But seems unwise to count on proven reserves growing dramatically (the new conventional oil fields discovered in the past decade or so aren't huge relative to the fields that we've been pumping for 60 years). The unconventional deposits, like deep oil shale, may be much less productive (i.e. low % of oil that can actually recovered).

And consumption will grow, for many years to come. The economic development of China, India, and other emerging countries practically guarantees it.

So maybe that "40 years" is really "30", maybe it is "60", but its probably not "100" and certainly is not "forever".

What happens as we get closer and closer to the end of that "X years"? The price of oil rises, and rises. Because the remaining oil becomes more precious, and because much of it is expensive to produce. Ultimately, we will never "run out" of oil. Oil will just get more and more expensive until we can't actually afford to buy enough to "run out".

And in the meantime, probably oil px remains volatile, and we will continue to face the problems caused by the unstable and unfriendly nations that produce much of the oil.

So, looking out decades, oil probably gives us three problems. First, the long-term trend will be to get more expensive. Second, in the medium/short-term the price will swing up and down, creating periodic oil shocks to our economy. Third, we'll keep sending hundreds of billions of $ annually to the oil producing countries, some of which are our enemies.

The way to address this is to replace oil by other energies. Can't be done all at once, of course. But over time, if the US is serious about it, we can steadily cut our dependence on oil.

Some people here will tell you that this is impossible. Gosh, you mean we can't do what the French have done? What the Germans are doing? We can't develop 80 mpg cars and then non-gasoline cars? Sounds pretty defeatist.

But we really need to get committed to it, because it will be a long road. Better to make good solid progress before oil is $150, $200, $300, etc rather than waiting until then to get serious.