Again, the evidence is obvious. As long as environmentalists succeed in stopping most domestic production as part of their religious faith, there is no serious argument supplies are short.
We've heard for 40 straight years we are about to run out of oil from exactly the same people. Why are you placing your faith in the High Priests of the Church of Gaia now?
The simple economic fact is new finds and additional oil from old fields all cost more then previous oil.
The law of diminishing returns never sleeps.
We will never 'run out' of oil. But it will get too expensive to burn as fuel.
A Further point, China is becoming oil thirsty fast. Peak oil is academic as the oil supply to oil demand ratio is getting worse. Demand is unquestionably growing faster then supply.
We have no chance of supplying our current demands for oil, that is a simple fact not an opinion. We do have resources that are untapped but currently uneconomical. Research money should continue to be spent on any promising technologies.
What % of domestic production do you think environmentalists are stopping? You said most, I think you're way off.
Personally I think oil is currently relatively cheap. Keeping ours for later may not be the worst move we've ever made (unless we render it worthless by inventing cold fusion or the like).
Think of it this way, we've drained about half the mideasts reserves to date. I think the oil we've gotten till now will be thought of as very inexpensive by our descendants. We should drain the arabs oil before it becomes worth even more. What we don't want is the arabs being the only exporters at the high price end of the oil as energy market.
The cheap energy future scenario also leaves them hearding camels same as the played out oil field scenario. They can't win in the long run.