Well sure, because it's cheap and available! The point here is that when price points change replacement good emerge causing us to never actually run out of the

Well sure, because it's cheap and available! The point here is that when price points change replacement good emerge causing us to never actually run out of the good in question. This process of substitution is a cornerstone of cornucopian theory, as described by the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager. It's not clear demand would evaporate, by the way. Right now we produce oil at a variety of price points - from cheap light crude at a few dollars per bbl to shale oil at ranges from $30-90/bbl. Most folks expect electric cars to undercut oil at higher price points. It's certainly possible we might some day develop technology to obsolete even oil at light crude extraction prices. But it's also possible that we would opt to produce petrol products in a net-negative energy process because petrol is just so damned convenient for energy transportation. In a sense we already have, as Fischer-Tropsch can produce at around $40/bbl. We see it used today in special cases such as on aircraft carriers to work around logistical complexity. Producing jet fuel from seawater is very handy, if costly in terms of energy consumption. Oil and oil products are very much renewable. The price points relative to substitution tech will change over time and some day we likely will decide that oil just isn't attractive anymore. Above, I suggested this might happen before we run out of light sweet crude (mostly from Saudi). I think this is a very reasonable thing to wonder.