Quote:
Originally Posted by sabotai
Oil is our primary source of hydrocarbons, but it's far from the only source. The reason it's the primary source is because it's the easiest and cheapest source, also because of effecientcy. However, as the oil in the planet runs out, we'd have to turn to new sources, such as natural gas, extracting hydrocarbons from tar flats, or go back to using coal. There are a lot of sources to get hydrocarbons for energy, the problem is cost, but once the oil starts to dwindle, we'd be forced to go to new sources for hydrocarbons.
Coal was once our primary source, but we moved off of that to oil because it was better, even though coal is still plentiful. I'd be very, very surpised if we didn't move off of oil to something even more efficient as technology moves forward, long before we run out of oil.
Besides, it's not like we're going to wake up one moring, drive to the gas station and find out "Sorry, the earth just ran out of oil at 3:41 AM this morning. No more oil." It will be something we'll see coming decades in advance.
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I agree, we will move on to something different once it becomes imminent, though there are still *lots* of things that require fossil fuels at some basic level, things outside of just cars and other obvious fuel guzzlers.
But that's not even really what I'm talking about when I say "scary". So many countries have a *lot* of cash tied up in the oil trade, and whatever ends up "suceeding" oil will lead to another mad resource grab at somepoint, as the rich oil nations, along with the corporations that deal with them, aren't just going to step back and fade away when their oil wells dry up.