Just want to set the record straight about "days of dwindling oil stocks" US $120 per barrell has made viable to mine several hard-to-extract forms of oil, like the Alaskan/Canadian oil sands and some other stuff in rock in Venezuela. As well as the more expensive to extract deep offshore stuff.

Venezuela's rock embedded oil is estimated to be as much volume as Saudi Arabia had to begin with. So oil is more expensive (and how!) but now more plentiful than ever.

It also makes other forms of energy for automotive propellants and home heating more desirable and more viable. If necessity is truly the mother of invention, we could be giving the fingers to OPEC ( but not to the oil companies, who have enough money to buy any new technology) within a decade. I look forward to it.