> we need oil for too many things, from tissues to joints to lubricant, electrical insulation, plastic, ... without something able to replace it on scale
This is right. The next thought I had in this line of thinking is: how much will it cost to extract oil when it's only for these things? What will that do to their price?
I can't answer beside the obvious hyper-inflation BUT in human history we generally have changed (almost) "in time" depending on the what we can source in nature, so if oil it's almost depleted today we are just dead, but in 40-50 years maybe we will have had enough time to substitute it gradually for almost all applications.
Actually we know how to substitute oil for most applications but nothing that scale, for instance we can just switch from plastic packaging, common containers, car's part etc with various other things, from bamboo to paper to metals and glass but we can't meet the demand, no matter the price. Perhaps in a significantly far future, but still in time the actual society have changed to a different one with different needs and basic resources, something we already see: Green New Deal is an example.
We are substituting ICEs cars for electric ones, we already state that most EVs we be just "glorified golf carts" to be "cheap enough", railroads will probably get expanded, dense cities for poor people will be even more dense etc that's already a very big shift and happen at a certain speed. Perhaps in 30 years nuclear and renewables have substituted completely the need of oil for grid-scale electricity generation and industrial electricity usage grow to cover many more usage (perhaps also for most metallurgical activities) and perhaps in 50 years nuclear fusion will be developed enough to became a common means for electricity production. That's still do not solve the oil usage for plastic etc issues BUT lower much oil usage. A new economy, less centralized, might reduce packaging much and in 100 years we will have something to substitute oil entirely just in time. I do not have the crystal ball (unfortunately) but I'm pretty sure that for a reason or another the push against oil it's here to stay and the push to renewables can't really work at a society scale. What I imaging for the not-that-short term is nuclear for industries who need near-constant 24/7/365 energy and renewables for civil usages. Speculate further is more a game than a real prediction so I have to pass...
This is right. The next thought I had in this line of thinking is: how much will it cost to extract oil when it's only for these things? What will that do to their price?