To quote Doug Cocks'comment on the Future Dilemmas debate, "anyone who makes predictions on the nature of Australian society in 2050 needs counselling." But the likely scenarios arising from the data currently available don't provide much to cheer about.
I go along with Peter McMahon's comment "we need to construct new ways of interacting that place need over want, scientific evidence over ideology, and to develop an awareness that in this matter we sink or swim together". But, should such construction take place, what scenarios are reasonable, and in what time frame could they be implemented?
In the two centuries of industrialisation, oil - and fossil fuels generally - have enbabled world population to grow from one billion to six and a half; in spite of warfare, disease, and malnutrition. In about two generations from now, if present world population growth rate continues, the world will have about double the present - about 13 billion; although for various reasons demographers point to a peaking at maybe 9 billion.
Inexpensive fossil fuels - and particularly oil - have impacted tremendously on agriculture. They have mechanised it, provided artificial fertilisers, enhanced irrigation, and facilitated distribution of produce. They have not increased resources. Rather, they have enhnaced exploitation of resources which are being seen, increasingly obviously, to be finite.
Courtesy of inexpensive oil, not only have numbers been able to increase, but per-capita consumption is greater than it has ever been. Apart from the pressure upon inexpensive resources, the burden imposed upon the earth's biosphere by human wastes has never been so evident; for land, sea, atmosphere, climate.
Continuing availability of inexpensive energy for present, or increasing, human numbers is just as perilous as its cessation.
The best scenario for Australia (and the world, from which it can not be divorced) would be a steady-state economy and a stable population of a size which is in balance with the resources available.
It is unlikely to be given the nod by a government enmeshed in the fairly-land economics of growth forever, and a society unwilling to elect any other.

Realist are you saying there is no REAL NEED for a cure for cancer, AIDS, diabetes, Muscular Dystropy. I suppose if there was a REAL NEED then humans would have found those cures.

And the billion people without access to clean water. Do they have a REAL NEED?

I worry that the solution to the end of cheap energy will be that lots of people will die and most people will just enjoy a much lower standard of living. Problem solved. No need for any planning or analysis of what might happen or what might be sensible actions to take now so that we can get ready for it.

"My physics is a little rusty to say the least but I confess bewilderment at, Hydrogen is an energy carrier not source. Surely the same applies to oil perhaps even electricity."

No, they are different. Oil is both a carrier and source of energy, while hydrogen is only a carrier.

To get oil, you stick a pipe in the ground and up shoots oil. You process it a bit and it yields an amazing amount of energy, much more than you used to get this oil out of the ground. It is a source and a carrier of energy. Of course the original source is solar energy but that doesn't apply because it is sitting in the ground ready to be used. We weren't there for the "taking solar energy and turning it into oil" part of the equation.

There are no sources of hydrogen to mine anywhere on the planet. In order to make hydrogen, you have to use a greater quantity of energy, whether using electricity or natural gas or coal, than whatever you will get by consuming the hydrogen later.

Show me one example of our species acting cohesively, or sensibly, or any other way when the chips are down. The response of any species in the presence of abundance has always been to consume, reproduce, overshoot, and die off. We will do the same and no one will deny that the Earth is a better place without the human race. At least now we have alternatives to thermonuclear war.

Some of us forget that we dont know everything, we are not fully informed, we are not on the technology threshold like we like to think and there is much money to be made in alternate energy, just like bill gates and microsoft being the first to market the opportunity is immense.

Why worry about something you cannot fix or control?

If you think the world is going to revert back to the middle ages you are all kidding yourselves. Using combined alternated energy sources i have a completely self sufficient property in the Eastern Scarp of NSW, and i know from this inefficient technology that the scope is enormous.

Just like computers in the 50's we have a long way to go. Being a survivalist does not mean i expect the world to stop, it never will, but the chaos factors such as environment will mean we cannot predict the future.

Poeple take pleasure and always have when talking about the end of the world as we know it. There are many theories regarding, rubber band effect and the like, but we have reached an unmatched point in civilization via communication.

Have faith in humanity folks, there is so much cutting edge stuff out there that even a mug like me has info on without even thinking of what the oil companies, alt. energy providers and the like have under wraps.

Find something else to worry about, oil woes are not one of them, it is a psychological tool of dependance as people think that we are not smart enough to develop solutions.

How on earth did we get to the moon? no oil needed.

Like the positivity of Realist.

One must wonder why our governments are selling off the Snowy River hydro electric scheme when energy resources and this is a clean sustainable one, are going to become so valuable.

Where are our rent a crowd demonstrators when you need them?