True, it's unlikely that we'll every be able to stop using petroleum based products completely but we can cut down our use quite a bit.

The deindustrialization and the destruction of the culture (if Amercia had any)are the core problems and they cannot be solved by printing more money by the private bank FED. But notice that in the 60's there was not much crime in the US. This changed dramatically and is also one of the many causes of the systemic collapse. This structural downturn started in the 70's and we are now in the grand final. The glory of the US will end in a hyperinflation of the USD. Not that Europe is in a much better shape. I know the true story of the US and not the hoax version you heard in the indoctrination camps (school, university). If the Americans would know the true story then immediate revolution will happen if they are not too lazy.

Best to accept the inevitable: oil is going to run out no matter what we do. I always wonder why our leaders will not address this issue now while there might be a chance to reverse this, however small the chance.

Because it doesn't win their elections or pad their bank accounts.

And arrest the Congress and Presidents past who either created or undid legislation that allowed the problem to become as big as it did. Arrest Greenspan for leading the Fed to keep the interest rates too low for too long, which was as large of a factor in the housing bubble as anything else.

You're vastly underestimating the amount of energy the average American burns daily. That Mars Oil field that everyone talks about? If we could somehow pump it out tomorrow it would be gone in 46 days at current usage rates of oil (presuming no imports). There is no domestic production that can hope to keep up. We have around 30 years of coal left at current production rates (which have peaked and are falling off) and we're topping mountains to get at what's left.

Renewables are great but they don't do baseload (save hyrdo and that's limited) and you mention batteries but can you imagine the sheer amount that it would take produce enough chemical energy to power one single city during the night? Yeah, you can make hydrogen with excess energy during over production and then burn that but it won't compensate.

No one is saying there won't be electricity left, clearly there will be, but there won't be much. Farming alone is burning (depending on who you believe) between 3 and 8 calories per calorie of food produced. In 2000 the US estimated 10% of domestic energy was burned in farming and as production rates have climbed the energy burned has increased far more!

It takes something ridiculous in acreage per US citizen to support them (sewer, electric, food production, etc.); something like 20-25 I think; the home where they plant their ass for the night is actually the least space consuming. Building out enough wind and and solar to even get 50% of what we get from fossil fuels today could well increase that by an order of magnitude take more space than the US has.

Of course shit won't get burned out at every increasing rates as it gets rare, it'll get expensive instead (like those 250 dollar per barrel oil prices 2-3 years ago), that will happen more and more often... and then what will we do when we want to turn on the lights?

I think you missed part of my original statement. Anything that's plugged into the grid isn't the concern. That's where the thorium comes into play. The battery technology is strictly for mobile requirements (aka cars). If we really want to get off of our dependency on fossil fuels we should start with the coal plants a good chunk of the country uses for grid power, and go from there.

Thorium is a great idea but it will take 20 years to build the reactors we'll need if we start today... and we are not starting today...

Also, it only prolongs the inevitable (although I'm not advocating skipping it by any means), eventually the Thorium will be burned up, far faster than we thought because usage rates will go up year after year. Eventually we have to face facts, there is literally not enough energy for everyone unless we luck out with fusion at some point.

Can't drive a fusion powered car, though.

Yeah, but you could make liquid fuel, such as hydrogen, which is very portable, some cities have hydrogen buses. Fusion would be awesome but at this point we probably need to realize that it's in the realm of fiction. Even if we do develop fusion, as you and others have pointed out, we're raping the shit out of our other resources at an alarming rate and apparently willing to pollute our wilderness and drinking water in the process of getting the last bits of fossil fuels out.

Because he is working for the bankers? The same bankers you are attacking FINANCED his election just like they have for the other presidents as well. Is he really going to go after those who financed his election, who run his government? No. We are tools of international bankers and they get what they want, period.

And if the bill is called the American Jobs Act, you can rest assured the jobs will be going overseas. I learned that lesson with the Patriot Act which was a direct attack by gov't on individual liberty.

Could just start letting people die off. If you didn't luck out enough to be born into a family that can set you up, or chance onto the right set of circumstances that lets you prosper you're just SOL and not worth worrying about by the rest of the population. ;)

But to make and maintain the machines responsible for making hydrogen fuel you would still need fossil fuels somehow, somewhere ad infinitum. :P