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Running out doesn't have to mean more than consumption outpacing production. We're there, and with non-U.S. growth it's going to get worse rapidly. Plot growth for China and India over the next decade and figure out where the oil will come from. That's the speculation that's driving current pricing.
However many trillion barrels are hidden away in shale and sand deposits if it isn't pumpable, costs too much/barrel, or someone else bought it, we'll feel the shortage and will have an economic incentive to expand our horizons. Alternatives will become a hot topic in the next couple elections.
I agree with BigBen on the inevitability of nuclear power. It has hot buttons but without some breakthrough in cheap power production our consumer society will demand its fix as a necessary evil.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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