Joe, you make the usual mistake of assuming we will continue to use internal combustion engines at an increasing rate. You claim global warming is not a problem (got a science degree to back that up?) so presumably you have no problem with increasing use of coal fired power stations to supply electricity and a slew of nuclear stations to supplement them?
Gas engines won't be "replaced"- they will be improved and made more efficient, at the same time we need to face the fact that we can no longer assume that using an auto is a Right hidden in the Constitution, the US needs to invest billions in alternative energy, public transport (trams, electric buses and subways in larger cities, passenger and freight rail lines to remove the guzzling 18 wheelers from the Freeways).
Getting more and more desperate for more and more oil, of which there is a finite reserve will only delay, not stay the gradual decline in production and a corresponding rise in price.
Increasing crude oil supply poses another problem, no new refineries have been built in the US for some 30 years, the existing ones are at almost full capacity already and many are reaching the end of their useful life.
Can we persuade the oil companies to spend some of those billions of profits to find land, get local authorities to agree to the building of environmentally damaging and astonishingly ugly complexes, negotiate State and Federal regulations and build and operate them?
We've had it too easy for too long, and our gas is still HALF the price of that in Europe, we need to wake up and get ALL politicians to face facts, give us the bad news and DO something to fix things, not just continue to make obscene profits for their oil buddies.