I heard a quote attributed to Edward Abbey of monkey wrench fame. He said to basically use it till its gone, or in the particular case being discussed it was shoot them all. He was talking about buffalo. It seems that it was buffalo hide leather that made all of the belts that were powering the early industrial revolution. When the great herds ran out there was a danger that this vital resource would be no more. Along about that time somebody discovered how to vulcanize rubber and new belts of canvas and rubber were invented. Necessity is the mother of invention. As a college student when the oil shocks of the mid 70s hit I was really surprised when oil went to $10/bbl (and below) for so much of the 80s and 90s. Back about 07 I was talking to a recently graduated geologist who was working his first career job, in the oil patch. When he told me “this boom will never be over” I just kinda smiled and said something about the entire history of oil from Titusville to present was one of boom or bust. 50 years from now we will be using technology that today we don’t even anticipate. but we will still be drilling cause the more we play with it, the more things we discover we can do with that ook that comes out of the ground. As for when will our government get it together for a coherent energy policy, that has a history that also goes back about as far as Titusville just like the press likes to blame “big oil” for squeezing unfair profits out of the people. this horse pulling the cart might have some flaws, but look at PEMEX or PDVSA yikes, what a mess those are