Yep, as a thing gets scarcer, its price goes up and people begin to re-evaluate its use. Gold is a lot scarcer than oil and we are in no danger of running out.

Yep, as a thing gets scarcer, its price goes up and people begin to re-evaluate its use. Gold is a lot scarcer than oil and we are in no danger of running out. But I don't think the oil price spikes of 2007 were a harbinger of this. The supply of oil is relatively stable compared to demand. Demand is affected by all kinds of things. Since prices of many other commodities spiked at the same time, the dollar had declined, gold had tripled, its far more likely that the Fed's cheap money overheated demand. And China's building boom probably had a lot to do with it too.