[3rensho]

This article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7549530/ attempts to explain why we won't be seeing our reliance on oil die anytime soon. It also points out why we can expect a long transition period to renewable energy sources.

Some choice quotes:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')"There’s just no silver bullet here," said Ryan Wiser, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes in the economics of renewable energy. "There is no singular technology — renewables, nuclear, what have you — that’s going to replace fossil fuels in the near future. We’re going to be talking about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels for many, many decades to come. There’s no way around it.”

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('3rensho', '
')“Frankly, even if we had the technology right now to supplant the current energy system with something new and sustainable that was cheap and wonderful it would still take us several decades to do it because its such a big enterprise,” said Richard Smalley, a Nobel-prize winning physicist at Rice University in Houston. “But we don’t even remotely have that right now. And even if we get really intent about this we'd be lucky to get those breakthroughs with the next 10 to 20 years.”