The problem is not going to be running out of oil, i don't think
we would ever be running dry on oil in any sense of the word.
The key point is when would oil production be unable to keep up
with oil demand in any reasonable economical sense.
The city state of Singapore runs only with the assumption that a
sufficient amount of oil/NG (And in the future: coal) comes in
through the port and terminals on time every day.
We can continue to build fancy new things like the IR(increased
consumption) only because we could afford to buy enough production
of oil/NG to support it and there is enough excess production to
purchase.
We can argue as much as we can about alternative energy but oil
isn't just about energy, oil is also a neccessary raw material to
build plastic and an assortment of chemicals for us to use. NG is
also used to make fertilizers and is one of the main reason that
the world could support its unprecedent population.
Oil is also considerably more energy dense and easy to transport
as compared to NG and coal since it is in a liquid form. Liquified
NG has to be frozen (for lack of a better word) in order to be in a
liquid form for transport, that means you already have to invest an
amount of energy to convert it to a transportable form in addition
to pumping out from the ground.
While we may be able to survive without oil, we probably are not
going to be able to enjoy as much we do currently.
