I was just musing last week about what we were going to do when fossil fuels ran out. You know, I would have been perfectly content for the question to remain in the realm of idle speculation a while longer:

The world will run out of oil around 100 years before replacement energy sources are available if oil use and development of new fuels continue at the current pace, a US study warns.
In the study, researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC-Davis) used the current share prices of oil companies and alternative energy companies to predict when replacement fuels will be ready to fill the gap left when oil runs dry.
And the findings weren’t very good for the oil-hungry world.
If the world’s oil reserves were the 1.332 trillion barrels they were estimated to be in 2008 and oil consumption was some 85.22 million barrels a day and growing at 1.3 percent a year, oil would be depleted by 2041, says the study published online last week in Environmental Science and Technology.
Wow, 2041 as a depletion date? Of course, oil will be prohibitively expensive well before then. But I read the comments to the story, and apparently there are all sorts of new technologies and magic gadgets that will save us, so I’m not concerned. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drive the sixty yards down my driveway to check the mail. Who has time to walk that far?