[Gasification] Proven oil reserves are not a measure of futuresupply of world petroleum. It is a well known fallacy in thepetroleum industry to treat them in this way, and it has had serious political consequences.

[Greg and April]

While I do not deny that we will eventualy have an oil shortage ( I never 
have ) what I do disagree about is that it's going to be by the year 2020. 
I also disagree that it's going to be a sharp drop, because things like 
synthetic fuel from oil shale and coal are going to start taking up the 
slack - simple economics will dictate this.

Indeed I expect that it will be gassification that will eventualy unlocks 
oil shale, and while eco-activests talk about how there will be debris from 
oil shale opperations, if the material has gon through a gasifier, to remove 
the hydrocarbons, then it should be perfect as the aggregate when making 
asphalt.