Oil, when will it run out?

[Crono]

elprincipe said:

Entroper said:

a.l.e.x59 said:
Before oil could run out, we may replace it with a renewable resource. Also, if oil does run out, it'll be back in a few million years, so it's okay!

Well, oil is made from the remains of dinosaurs compressed and heated over millions of years. We have the technology to compress and heat biomass to create new oil (see the butterball factory for an example), but it only creates the lightweight oils useful for heating and such, not useful to make gasoline. This is because we use chicken remains as the inputs. If we could grow our own dinosaurs, we could make the crude stuff and have a renewable supply of gasoline for our cars. Some scientists tried this with advanced DNA cloning technology, but then Dennis Nedry came along and turned off the electric fences, and basically ruined it for everybody. You think living near a nuclear power plant is scary, how about a T Rex in your rearview mirror?

Don't worry, just stay calm and remember they only respond to movement!

The real question on this issue is do we have enough supply at cheap enough prices to last us through until we can come up with that new technology to replace oil?  There are a lot of things like oil sands and oil shale that can be utilized if they become cost-effective, but even at that point there will be a big shock to the economy as gas prices would have hit $5/6+ per gallon, basically increasing the price of everything (transport, you know). 

There will be a point when the increasing cost of rarer and rarer oil intersects with the decreasing cost of the renewable alternative. It is at that point when the nation will see a massive switch to renewable energy away from oil.