Is it real? A conspiracy? A year away, 10 years away, 20 years away, 100 years away?

Will humanity do what is necessary to save itself?

As always, Wikipedia.

A conspiracy? Not likely.

It will probably happen sooner than later, most likely the next 20 years.

The big problem is that oil producing countries are starting to become big oil consumers themselves so they will start holding onto more and more of the oil produce as they develop. Apparently Iran consumes more oil than they produce these days. The rise in consumption is also sky rocketing because of developing places like India, China, Brazil, Malaysia, etc. etc. etc. plus developed countries such as in areas such as Western Europe and North America having ever rising consumption rates too.

There are no viable alternatives in sight either. Hydrogen requires electrolysis to produce which wastes energy and platinum as a conductor which in nature is in short supply. Ethanol also wastes more energy to produce than it creates. Solar and wind power take up too much room to produce adequate amounts of energy. Water dams and geothermal energy are geographically limited.

This best option seems to be nuclear energy but it will always be controversial.

Is it real? Of course. It's a sound idea, too. One would think that we're good until the oil runs out, but that's not the case. We're good until production can meet demand, which despite the outrageously high prices, it still can for at least 20 years. The reason people predicted it would happen about now is because they underestimated discovery/production abilities.

As for alternatives to oil, I know my area can use solar/hydroelectic, places like Iceland can use geothermal, and many others can use nuclear, which is an inevitability.

Don't underestimate ethanol, either. Corn ethanol sucks, but sugar ethanol, like what they use in Brazil, is a very sweet alternative.

How feasible is nuclear energy? It seems to require a certain amount of a hard-to-get element, Uranium.

Uranium is abundant in nature. And the consumption of it to generate power is significantly less than oil or coal consumed to create energy.

Solar doesn't take up that much space actually. All the needs to be done is use new mexico and spend money on improving transmission efficiencies. You can also theoretically store the energy as steam in a cavern.

Only hard to get because governments restrict purchasing of U238. And fission is viable to a degree, but once fusion is cracked, we are set for next 1000 years or so.

Oh, peak oil is real.

Can't you power your house by coating the roof with Solar energy cells or whatever those things are?

I've heard that's pretty expensive. Not just for the solar cells, but for the battery used to store the energy.

Of course they're initially expensive, but do they eventually pay for themselves?

yes, as long as you maintain them. You could also profit if you sell electricity back to company during peak hours.

Also it'd probably be better to just call the power company and have them do an energy audit.

Actually, the amount of power required to supply a house for a day is more than you can get with only a single roof of solar energy. Unless it's a huge roof.

Yes, and it's getting to the point where it's feasible to do as long as you have a backup power source as well. I'd say in the next few decades we'll see more and more people making a shift to this.

As for peak oil, yes, it's real, but it's not the cause of our gas problems...the current low value of the dollar is the reason gas prices are so high. Adjusted for inflation, gas has risen by less than 50 cents since 2001.