uranium anyone?

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Shell's CEO announced the world demand for oil would outstrip supply within seven years.

Seven years?! Holy crap!

Well my driving-in-the-minivan-listening-to-NPR-dropping-kids-off-at-school ears completely perked up. [Important note: when Marketplace's Scott Jagow or Kai Rysdall talks, I'm all ears!]

Well since Scott couldn't get access to this particular CEO -- for direct confirmation of this crazy statement -- Scott was stuck having to get the scoop from some European correspondent named Stephen Beard. Stephen's take on this whole dramatic pronouncement is that basically every country is going to have to majorly resort to alternative/renewable energy sources [i.e., bring on the windmills and solar panels] or be prepared to dig up pristine/protected habitats in sub-arctic regions [to get at those untouched oil reserves] because soon we ain't going to have much expendable fuel sources at our disposal. Like no go-go, no click-click, no zoom-zoom.

And obviously all of this has to go down in under seven years! Yeah, that's going happen.

I see a couple of things coming out of this newest development in the "As the Oil Well Dries Up" energy drama:

1. Nuclear power plant lobbyists are going to break out and embrace this "sanctioned" opening as an opportunity to push even more aggressive development plans onto a wary post-Chernobyl generation (but wait a minute - what about nuclear waste! "What nuclear waste? That's not our problem. We got you what you wanted - fast and convenient energy!"

2. Petroleum lobbyists are going use this same opening to whine and wheedle Legislators into letting them stick their smelly drills into the tundra of Alaska in order to prolong the inevitable.

3. Coal. I'm not even going to comment on that. Yikes!

So, unless I manage to figure out how to get my hands on that nifty Mr. Fusion energy device for my car and eventually get desperate enough to chop down the neighbors trees for the winters to come, I guess I'm going to have to take an ole' "wait and see" attitude with this particular drama.

In the meantime, and playing it safe (hah! hah!), I guess I should keeps tabs on the going Black market rate for fuel-grade uranium. Surely I can find an online build-it-at-home reactor kit for all my personal energy needs.