What will happen when oil runs out?

WIll we be lazy and make electric cars,or ride bikes and horses?

The problem isn't that we're going to run out of oil completely, the problem is that we're running out of the easy to get to, and therefore cheaper, oil. It's what's known as "peak oil". The link below has a rather grim vision of what will happen, I personally think we'll develop alternatives before much of the really bad stuff occurs.

There well could be a nuclear waste land at the locations were the last great oil deposits existed, as a result of the war that will be fought over the last of it. If there is not an alternative to oil, life will change dramatically for western civilization. We will have to wait for mass transportation to catch up. We may have to start riding trains again, and depending on ocean vessels for personal transportation, more so than aviation. The communication infrastructure in place now, should keep everybody entertained if they are forced to stay home more frequently.

To help you answer the question let me ask you one.
If you fall off of whatever means of transportation you choose and you bust your head open on the concrete, do you want the surgeon to ride a horse or a bicycle to the hospital.
You seem to think it will be a good thing when oil runs out. I am probably mistaken.

since there is currently enough known oil reserves to last the world about 150 years, we dont have to worry about oil running out any time soon. at that point however we can switch to liquefied coal and have enough coal to power the world for another 500 years. after that new technologies will have been developed to power the world, and perhaps the solar system.

We can go back to riding trains and trolley cars. They run off coal, nuclear, or wind-generated electric power, and they work quite nicely. It may turn out that the era of individually-owned gasoline-powered vehicles was just a brief aberration in the progress of technology.

Well whoever said we have enough oil for 500 years is close to correct. 200 years is more realistic. It will only last us 500 years if we manage to kill ourselves off in the process. What I mean is, the only way oil will last THAT long is if we continue to develop tar sands around the world. Tar sands development is the worst environmental crimes of all times, and before a couple of years ago, it wasn't attempted because the extraction process is so expensive. Now that the price of oil is so high they have started to develop the tar sands because the big oil companies can make money. It's happening a province over from me, in Alberta. 2 weeks ago, 500 ducks were found dead in a toxic waste pond of wastewater from the oilsands aka tar sands development.. a toxic soup of oil, wastewater, mercury, arsenic, and other chemicals. These huge wastewater ponds are so big and so dirty that they can be seen from space. They are also planning on developing 24 more major tar sands plants and levelling virgin boreal forrests the size of the state of florida. This will displace several animals and they will have no where to live. It is already polluting the water and air to such an extreme that Canada will now not be able to meet it's Kyoto protocols. It is causing cancers and strange boils in fish in the rivers surrounding the area, and cancers in people downstream. There are all sorts of protests going on but the Alberta government is very greedy and we are up against some of the richest oil companies in the world so they will not stop.. They MAY slow down the development of the tar sands if the States stops buying the tar sand oil.. 70% of it is being shipped to the states.. Already Bush passed a legislation banning u.s. postal trucks and military vehicles from using our tar sand oil because of the environmental destruction. In California they will not buy it either. I hope the rest of the states follows suit and stops buying our tar sand oil. It's killing our environment, animals, fish, and humans.

Well buses & trains will be used extensively.
2- Coal burning autos mite return as in world war 2 days?
3-Electric re-chargable -battery driven cars will be very popular.
4- A more efficient Hydrogen powered system may be developed~ for cars (maybe?)
5~Horses , cattle drawn carts may return in some countries?areas?
6~Bikes & walking may be very popular?
All these options may be used -who can tell?

NO !!! WE will never run out of fossil fuel.
Do U understand about the water cycle,we just use it over and over.
Do U understand how plants process CO2 into oxygen for us.
The plants give us the O2 but they keep the C. When the leaves die the C in the leaves float down the rivers to the delta where it will break down into fossil fuels.

It won't, we have enough oil to supply the world for 500 years in Colorado and Utah. Thier is 3 times more oil thier than ALL OPEC countries have combined. We need to get the democrats and enviromentalist off thier butts and wake up.

Guess the people in 200 years will have to figure something out then because too many people get in the way of finding something useful to use today like Nuclear Power and want to invest in stupid bio diesels like corn ethanol or solar and wind power which do not work on a large scale.

the oil companies and the republicans will find something else to control and tell us it is in short supply, so they have to make outrageous profits.

if the oil companies take over horses, we will use electric cars and vice versa

What makes you think we're lazy? It's just a different world so, bikes and horses are out of the picture when it comes to meeting the demands of today's society. There would, most likely be electric cars.

If we drill in Alaska, we won't run out for a very long time. There is so much crude oil up there, that it could supply the United States of America for 200 years! Check out this link. It is very interesting.

I am in the process of buying a couple of horses and a wagon myself. I said it would get like this over ten years ago and most everyone laughed at me. . . now nobody is laughing. . .

It will mean a drop in quality of living for people in developed countries. The alternative stuff will be expensive.

by the time oil runs out i'm sure we'll come up with some other way to power cars. Um like say electrical cars oh wait they exist already! You have nothing to worry about. We'll all survive.

I'm already riding the bike - so I hope that's what happens! I want my roads back...

But I think people will still generally opt for the "convenience" of some type of automobile.

Uhh oil wont dry up for centuries, even at our current rate of consumption... we will have changed to something cleaner well before oil ever runs out. Or we will blow ourselves up first

Not for another 500 years. But then someone will blame a rainstorm on the use of atomic power. It never ends.

It probably won't.

our grandsons will run out of petrol in the future. there are no more petrol cars. only vege cars or elctro cars.

anarchy probably, unless we start to switch now.

We will freeze in the dark.

Earth_gypsy is right that there is a lot of oil locked up in tar sands, they're extracting a lot from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, Canada. They estimate they can extract 1.3 Trillion barrels of oil from Athabasca. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_T...
Like anything, without regulation there will be serious problems with pollution and enviro impacts, but the oil is there. We honestly don't have any idea what the oil reserves of the US are since we've only done test drilling on a very limited basis. That said, this is a good chance to switch from using fossil fuels to alternatives, and we have the OPEC producers to thank for that.

There are several really promising ideas being developed, with some ready to hit the market. Electric cars, mostly with batteries but there is talk of a new way of using super-capacitors to store the electricity instead. Some are going to be licensed as motorcycles so you get some idea that they won't be the size of most cars driven in the US. http://www.teslamotors.com/

There is hydrogen, using nano material to make electrolysis much more efficient (up to 85%), and this may allow you to run your car using a battery, water tank and fuel cell or combustion chamber (with no big tank of flammable hydrogen). http://www.qsinano.com/news/newsletters/...

The CAT or compressed air car is going to be sold soon by Tata Motors in India, though I still don't see how they solved the thermodynamics problems to make it work. http://www.theaircar.com/

There's no reason we have to return to bikes or horses or even more primitive transportation but it's may be time to switch to mass transit like they use in Europe. There are several new applications to build nuclear power plants, which can provide a lot of electricity, though there is still a lot more resistance to this than there is in France.

They have also found that switchgrass, grown on marginal land not currently being farmed in the US, will produce ethanol far better than corn. Corn produces at most an excess of 25% more energy than is needed to produce the fuel, switchgrass produces 540% more energy, doesn't tie up farmland or reduce food supplies, the roots are permanent so it doesn't need to be replanted and the roots soak up CO2 as well.http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=gras...