Can you afford $20 per gallon?

The answer is Peak Oil. The question is what will make $3 a gallon gas seem like the good old days.

In the early ’70s a geologist working for the oil companies, King Hubbert was his name, predicted that in the early years of 2000 world oil production would peak (it has, at 84 million barrels per day) but oil consumption would surpass supply (it has, by a million barrels per day so far). The oil companies believed him, so they stopped building refineries 30 years ago (no oil to refine, no need for new refineries), so when a few refineries go offline it hurts supplies and prices raise. They also started trying to find a replacement to oil but nothing can and they have looked.

You probably have not heard this, for the society we have constructed is built upon oil and to lose it would be apocalyptic. So we, being human, try to ignore it or we try to wish it away by saying technology will come up with something, but oil is an energy source and technology is not energy (so any sci-fi wishing is just that