Demand for energy and oil is increasing throughout the world (this is what really matters).
Here is the proof:
The oil consumption might be stable in the US and the EU. But in India and China, it is rising sharply.
What is especially important to note is that these two countries comprise something like 34% of the entire worlds population. As standards of living in these places continue to rise and more members of these countries can afford things like cars or other luxuries, there is no reason to think that demand for oil will do anything but rise, especially in the near term.
It would be probable that increased oil/energy prices would stiffle the increases in standards of living in China.
What the world needs is more efficient ways to harvest energy. There are two possible solutions to having to use so much oil that costs skyrocket. One is Nuclear energy, it is very cheap and once infrastructure is in place a lot can be generated per square foot of a nuclear power plant. The 2nd possibility is to somehow harvest solar energy in a much more efficient way.
This is speculation but if heat energy can somehow be transferred back into kinetic energy in a cost efficient way then all of the worlds problems would go away. My understands of physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed only transferred into different types and that all energy eventually gets transferred into heat energy. But if there was a way to transfer heat energy into kinetic (battery) energy we would be good to go.
