Good story. The author ties in some interesting popular theories and then extends them out into several possible outcomes. I think it's more fiction then fact. Entertaining nonetheless.
Oil will not run out anytime soon. Today's prices will rise and as the price rises more and more oil becomes commercially viable to pump. Environmental regulations will be relaxed to suit current conditions. Everyone's heard of the oil shale deposits. They are nearly break even. Even the Arabian penninsula has more oil then the easy deposits they are working now will provide. Remember the first prediction of oil running out was made in 1885. It was taken as fact then also.
New ideas stopping and running out thereby leading men back to the stone age? That's a little far fetched and have as much to do with how you measure the statistics and present them as anything else. Regardless the knowledge base does not shrink and people do not forget how to survive. The smart money is betting on a revolution in computing power driven by Quantum Computers predicted to occur around 2020 or there abouts. Imagine what that will bring. The author left that tidbit out of his story along with hundreds of other potential possibilities that will improve mankinds lot.
The real risks as I see them going forward are war, terrorism and the threat of WMD's as a means of coercion by groups other then governments. Substantial but not insurmountable.
I wouldn't bet against the human race just yet.
