Chicken littles have been running around frightening everyone into believing that we only have X number of years left, with X usually equalling a very small 20 or less. There was a theory that the Russians and the Ukranians once held to... that oil is abiotic (not from bio-material.) This theory, which fell into disrepute, has been given new life recently and has been gaining ground amongst scientists.
Dudley Herschbach*, Dr. Russell Hemley**, and Henry Scott*** as well as other scientists have succeeded in creating Methane from purely abiotic materials, namely water, limestone, and iron oxide. An article can be read here or looked up in the autumn 2004 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
If proven true this will change not only energy policy but foreign policy as well. Would we have gone to Iraq to protect oil when our own resevoirs may well be filling up as we speak? Would we worry quite so much about these renewable energy sources (wind/solar etc.) Some would say we need to worry about it from an enviromental standpoint and they may be right, but should we muddy the waters with irrelevant issues and scare tactics? If all you have is FUD then you dont really have an arguement but you may well have a career waiting for you here.
*research professor of science at Harvard and recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry
**a Harvard Ph.D. who now works at the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC,
***of Indiana University