Why is oil expensive? Are we running out?

I think rather than concerting our efforts at discovering new oil I think we should spend our efforts toward discovering bio fuel. Even if we do find more oil it doesnt burn clean. We need to find more renewable resources.

The demands for oil is very high and when this is so far any particular products then the prices are going to go up and up. I remember when persons in the country areas used to make gases from animals manure but this is not happening again. Yes bio-gas is a thing of the past. I think we need to go back to those days when we used to have cow, hog and horse manure use to make fertilizers and gases. Although things was as what they say backwards in those days things was much better. Food was cooking better with coal and yams, cocoa etc and fruits was eating and tasting much nicer.

Hi tractorboy, That's an unusually intelligent post for this particular subject. I do believe you are quite correct in your assessment of the underlying cause of the current expansion of oil prices. In short, it's a speculative mania driven by profit-hungry derivative players. What this means, if true, is that like all such manias, sooner of later the price of oil will skyrocket in a final feeding frenzy, and then the price will collapse. Drop off a cliff, so to speak. Unfortunately, knowing this to be so doesn't really help the people who are caught having to use an ever-increasing proportion of their limited budgets to put fuel in their cars. Or to pay for inflated food prices owing to the increased transport costs. So this might indeed be a market-driven mania, but it's a mania that's sure burning a hole in the average guy's pocket! I guess, if it drives people to find viable alternatives to petroleum oil, then some good might come out of it. IMO the best available solution would be to develop dirt-cheap electric vehicles and an electrically powered public transport system, and drive the whole electric power grid with dozens of nuke power stations. I'd be happy with that.