Dave C.
We are not going to just wake up one day and find that, no matter which gas station we visit, they all had gas last night but now they don't have it this morning. The existing wells are not going to all run dry simultaneously. Running out of oil will be preceded by years and years of prices getting higher and higher. As they get higher, the costs of using oil will motivate people to switch to other fuels on their own without any government program or anything encouraging them to.
It's your buttertion that the supply will run out before a transition can be completed. I agree that this is possible. What I'm asking you to do is explain WHY you think the fuel needed to make the switch will be greater than the fuel needed to accomplish it.
For what it's worth, one of the reasons I believe the change will be gradual is that there are known oil reserves right now that are not economically feasible to use. As the price of oil increases, some of these will become economical to use. As the price rises further, even more will become economical to use. This will moderate how quickly oil becomes scarce. But it will only happen when economics forces it to happen, and when that happens, economics will simultaneously be forcing people to switch to other fuels.
And there are, of course, other fuels to switch to. We have a limited amount of natural gas available just like we have a limited amount of oil available, but the chances that we will run out of both at the same time are quite slim.
- Logan
