What happens when the oil runs out?

We go back a couple hundred years and live the Amish life...

further. The amish use petroleum oil in lamps. The amish use cloth woven on looms using petroleum power.

I wish it were that simple.

we will use or own untapped oil right here in the US

"our' i meant

We still have shitload of oil that will last us for centuries.

I read years ago that some dryed up oil wells in Texas where half full after they had been abandoned for a few years. Here is another story from NYtimes. Perhapps we have been lied to about the whole evolution and oil issue...

[link to www.nytimes.com]

The entire world only has about 30 years of oil left. The only oil left in the US is oil that is really hard to get.

Economic downturn, higher gas prices, resource wars.....

IOW, we are already there.

HEMP

We go back to the standars of life of 1800, but with overpopulation, no resources (because we used up everything), a destroyed ecosystem, and not knowledge how to live without modern appliances.
Therefore is not only a return to the 1800s, is a complete breakdown and dark age.
Granted, there may be a couple of (lucky) generations living like mad max, basically basically subsisting scanvenging what remains of our civilization, but that only lasts so far.
Enjoy the best time in human history.

yes exactly the point

Plastics can be made from biological materials as well. The problem is not oil running out, rather it will dwindle slowly. Major price instability will be the rule. Gradually each price spike will drive more transition away from oil.

Oil won't run out, not to say we shouldn't develop alternatives.

Take a drive to the Jersey Shore or Long Island NY and find out first hand.

Oil isn't running out... Production has been growing every year...
Have you heard to the shale oil boom?

Here's one recent article -

U.S. Oil Production Increases to Highest Since December 1994

U.S. oil production rose to the highest in almost 18 years as a shale drilling boom cut reliance on foreign fuel and nudged the country closer to energy independence.

[link to www.businessweek.com]

After shale oil is fully exploited, there is some kind of heavy oil off the coast of Brazil...

Then all the fields that were capped in the 70s & 80s can be re-tapped (back then only 30% of oil could be removed from a deposit - new technologies are coming out that up that percentage)...

Peak Oil is a no longer a problem...Pollution will make this planet uninhabitable years before we run out of oil...

fyi, the oil will never run out.

We have a HUGE natural gas reserve in USA that would sustain USA for centuries!

[link to news.investors.com]

This is not true. There is less then 30 years of oil left. Been reading geology books, and "The Long Emergency". Look into it. They have known for years.

It is the hardest oil to get and proves that they are getting desperate. Look into Shale Oil drilling and how they are getting the last of the oil out. Saudi Arabia is hitting Peak oil, we hit ours in the 70s.

Death. Destruction. Despair.

The earth will make more.

Hint: Dinosaurs did not make oil.

Oil will not run out. Look into Abiotic oil. It goes against everything you've been generally taught about oil. Can't drive the price up of an almost unlimitef resource. Amazing how wells go dry only to be able to produce again in the future. Shale oil is abundant and being researched not out of desperation but probably more from the over regulation of drilling. Over regulation is beginning to make shale oil production cost effective. On another note it is said that their is more shale oil in Colorado than the entire Middle East combined.

NO need to worry mankind will breakout the big cans of whoop ass and take turns pouring it over each other way before we ever run out. Problem solved.

do you know how much plasic waste is swimming through our oceans?
with this machines the next 250 years will be no problem even if the oil runs out.(if it really works tho)

We are seeing it on the east coast in the hurricane devastated areas.

However, the USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal and have more than enough to turn that into oil and gasoline if needs be and if Obama doesn't allow his regulators to regulate it right out of existence.

Short term, it would not be pretty but most homes have moved away from using oil as a heating fuel and most of our electricity is generated by natural gas, coal, nuclear or water power with some wind and solar beginning to be a factor as well.

Over time, that will do.

No more teh interwebs.

Agreed.

I have always enjoyed asking the tree huggers if they really believe that oil came from dinosaurs and decaying plant material. Consider the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia. They have pumped 65 Billion barrels of oil from the field since 1951. There are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel. This equals out to 2,730,000,000 gallons of oil that has been extracted from this field. All that oil, from just this one field, came from some dead plants and a dinosaur's ass? Bullshit!