[paleocon patriarch]

It doesn't matter what the "Price" in fiat money is for a barrel of oil. When the energy cost to extract a barrel of oil approaches a barrel of oil, the oil "bidness" becomes a zero sum game and we crash. This applies to synfuels, biofuels, tar sands, oil shale, and the deepwater reserves off the Faulklands, estimated to be 30 time the size of the Saudi reserves in deep rough south Atlantic water.

Seizing that area in the middle east the size of Indiana that contains 80% of the "Artesian oil" is a matter of life and death.

[SunkenCiv]

Were the energy cost to extract a barrel of oil to approach a barrel of oil, productivity would fall, because the energy cost of doing pretty much everything would rise, leading to so-called COLAs in labor contracts and so forth, wild wild inflation, etc, worse in degree but similar in quality to what happened in the early to mid-1970s. However, saying that will happen is like saying Soylent Green is a documentary -- the price will rise over time, and as it does, other sources become economical to use. And all the time, the efficiency of various processes (including transportation) will increase, reducing the amount spent. As the late Julian Simon wrote, what does and doesn't constitute a natural resource is a function of human ingenuity.