I had no idea that the leadership of Alaska was so foolhardy!

"We can see, likely, the end of the petroleum era," Mallott said. "But there is a ways to go. It will be hopefully an orderly transition. It will be a transition that is probably 25 or 50 years away, in terms of graduation to a different energy future."

Transition to what???  There is no energy source anywhere on any horizon, with any know technology, or any technology that might reasonably be developed, that can even begin to replace crude oil. Mallott is fantasizing that some magic energy source is going to come along.  We are not in good hands!!

It is likely that oil production is going to fall world wide in the coming years, but it will not be due to demand (the desire for people to burn it), it will be due to the lack of available supplies which can delivered at a price that economies can afford to pay. Read about the peak of oil production and also the concept of the olduvai cliff.