The peak of world oilfield discoveries occurred in 1965.
United States oil production peaked in 1971.
In 2004, 30 billion barrels of oil were consumed worldwide, while only eight billion barrels of new oil reserves were discovered. New discoveries of huge, easily exploitable oil fields are most likely a thing of the past. (Wikipedia)
Energy demand could double by 2050 (Shell home page)
"The greatest part of the energy needed will have to come from fossil fuels. Oil and natural gas supply more than 50% of the world’s energy today. Yet finding new and diverse sources is getting tougher. This is not because the world is running out. There are still enough resources left to be discovered and developed, but these are in increasingly remote and challenging locations and in “unconventional” oil deposits, such as oil sands and oil shales."
(Fossil) Fuel is running out. Slowly. We will face the effects in our life times.
There will probably be some wars for the remaining ressources; maybe these wars already begun
(See "Oil, Smoke and Mirrors"). I believe, that the change will not be abrupt - but we will encounter
some significant changes in our live styles - as oil is becoming more expensive, most products we use
today without thinking of the origin - fossil oil - will certainly get extremely expensive or dissapear:
Plastic bags, synthetic textiles, outdoor equipment, toys, synthetic colors four your house or printing
books, compact discs, nail polish (and remover), nearly any chemicals we use, and much more.
But the primary and secondary products made out of oil are not the only affected issue by the oil peak. You have to consider, what else is dependent on oil: Transportation (Your car, the food you buy in the supermarket, flights), chemistry (nearly everything around us: pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, pesticides, plastics), production (Machines for harvesting, robots, computers) - everything will get more and more unaffordable.
That's still not the end of the story: not only Earth's population is growing rapidly (500% in the last 150 years), the demand for energy constantly increases. At the other hand, we can't expect to find much more "cheap oil", so the supply is going to decline. We need to find new solutions to the energy question. Atomic energy? Besides the unsolved problem of the extremely hazardous waste, it is still a limited ressource.
For example we could change to renewable ressources, like biomass, solar or wind energy. This is impossible? Too expensive? Not feasible? Far away in the future? With the 1973 oil crisis the Brazilian government initiated in 1975 the Pró-Álcool program - the government forced the industry to build cars, that can be fueled with ethanol, produced from the sugar cane plant. Btw. ethanol is one of the most powerful chemical energy sources, for those who think, we need that "strong" petrol. Well, lot of things are going to change, but that is nothing new.
Panta rei.
Carbon-Nanotubes, only some atoms in diameter, can now be produced in large amounts and used to make strings.
They are very robust, and therefore it would be possible to build an elevator up to the geosynchronous orbit.
The benefits of such a transport system to the orbit are the low energy cost to leave earth's gravity and
the lesser pollution, that would be zero in comparison to conventional rocket motors, burning tons of fuel per start.
