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QUOTE=Malkavian;167193 Oil will be more expensive, so demand will much reduced, and in transportation virtually eliminated (except the super rich)....
If you eliminate transportation and most of the industry (commodity chemicals) from the below plot, you'll see that the demand will drop dramatically... This will enable the existing supplies to last much longer.
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If you think about our current technologies which propel our ground, water and air vehicles, except in those situations where there are little demands for torque/HP or thrust, as in common automobiles, all of them require an oil by-product such as gasoline, diesel or jet fuels. All the construction equipment, all the emergency equipment, farm implements, the cargo trucks, the cargo ships, all the commercial jets, the trains, all the military vehicles, etc. As of today there are no new technologies that will propel our jets, or tanks, or Caterpillar tractors but trains do have some options.
So, unless there is some new whiz-bang technology that comes out in the next 20-50 years that can propel a military tank, or a cargo ship, or the commercial jets, and the entire military apparatus, then it appears to me that in spite of less personal use of our automobiles, that the US will be a fuel oil guzzling nation for many decades to come.
And when new technologies are finally available (like hydrogen), unless they are dirt-cheap, they will be unaffordable, and any transition from oil to whatever drive-trains will be many many decades away.
What is bothersome about this for me, other than our continued dependence on oil and the CO2 emissions, it seems like those areas mentioned above will take priority over personal use of automobiles, etc. and we'll either be paying $10/gallon for gas or doing without...