The Post Carbon Institute has a video on 300 years of fossil fuel usage.  It isn't entirely accurate (we didn't 'run out' of wood, it got surpassed) but it's interesting.

As they write "While there's a damned good chance we'll fall off a cliff, there's still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future" - the private sector will do it.   There is a reason we are not an alcohol or whale oil economy, after all.