History Main / PostPeakOil

* There is a YoungAdult book (I believe it was ''Literature/TheEarTheEyeAndTheArm'') where there is no oil, and because of that, plastic plates are treated as a status symbol on par with fine china. Because of this, and the long life of plastic, people have taken to mining for plastic in old garbage dumps.

* Literature/TheMagicGoesAway is a magical variant of this scenario, with the {{mana}} that sustains magical might increasingly used up and magic-using empires in steady decline.
* In Literature/DownToASunlessSea, the United States used up all its oil while Great Brittain conserved theirs. The Arabs refuse to sell due to hatred of Israel and fears the dollar has become worthless. As a result, the United States is the equivalent of a bankrupt third-world nation, having to find a substitute for oil, while civil society disntegrates. Bootlegging of gasoline from Canada into the United States in punishable with death, and people trying to sneak onto the few international planes still operating, will be shot by armed soldiers that guard the planes. The fuel for the planes even has to be flown in, and is also guarded.

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[https://www.flickr.com/photos/azrainman/991225765 Photo by Mark Rain]], used under [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ CC BY 2.0]] license.]]-]

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[https://www.flickr.com/photos/azrainman/991225765 Photo by Mark Rain]], used under CC BY 2.0 license.]]-]

How it is explored depends on the work in question. In some works, it could just be a nasty bump on the road in the fiction's backstory that led to some troubled times, but was overcome by discovering a new fuel source, reverting back to a simpler time, or [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]]. Typically, though, this trope doesn't have a positive side, and is usually a device to explain why the setting [[CrapsackWorld sucks so much]], or in a AfterTheEnd setting, what caused the apocalypse. What little fuel remains to be sold will have sky-high prices that only the wealthy can afford. Prices of everything else will be extremely high, thanks to increased transportation costs, usually leading to people starving in the streets. Law and order will break down as people become more and more desperate, resulting in mob rule in most cases.

In a worst-case scenario, nations go to war over the last remaining fuel reserves, resulting in a massive global war, the outcome usually being an AfterTheEnd setting at worst, or at best, an even crappier world than before.

* Lampshaded in ''Literature/TheCityWithoutMemory'', where the heroes are looking at a planet with which all contact was lost three centuries ago, and see it is low tech. One of them (a WrongGenreSavvy guy) states the planet must have wasted its fuel, but the others point out the planet was advanced enough for alternatives. In the end, it turns out the matter was much more serious ([[spoiler:a planet wide LaserGuidedAmnesia field]]).

* ''{{VideoGame/Oiligarchy}}'': The game is about you playing an oil company executive and engaging in extremely evil actions to get the oil. No matter what you do, the oil reserves will eventually run out. Your choices: [[spoiler: GDP crashes thus bringing an end to Western Civilization, a nuclear war breaks out, and you spend your last days thinking how you brought the world to the end, start turning humans into oil, or stop bribing the US government so they can create a world that is less dependent on oil.]]

* The AlternateRealityGame ''[[http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/ World Without Oil]]''.

* Shapes the world of ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne''. With gas prices so high, America could no longer afford to be as spread out as it was. Most everyone lives in a major city, or in the slums immediately outside them in what were once trailer parks, where trailers were stacked on top of one another to fit in more people. Also, the lack of easy transportation certainly helped increase the popularity of the VirtualRality OASIS.

* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Always Coming Home'' features a post-industrial society without oil. Most societies manage without advanced technology, but there are AI's maintaining a database and a version of Internet (the book was published in 1985!). One expansionist state decided to build a few military planes. Turned out it was AwesomeButImpractical under the circumstances. As in "the empire collapses after a year due to wasting all their food making biofuel".

* ''VideoGame/Doom2016'': Earth has undergone this centuries earlier and it's gotten so bad as it was running out of [[UpToEleven uranium and plutonium]], this changed when they discovered [[{{Phlebotinum}} Argent Energy]] on mars. However this comes with it's own hazards, namely if something goes wrong it could open a {{Hellgate}} and lead to an invasion by the LegionsOfHell. Even without that it's extraction and refinement is being monopolized by a downright monstrous MegaCorp.

* In Literature/DownToASunlessSea, the United States used up all its oil while Great Brittain conserved theirs. The Arabs refuse to sell due to hatred of Israel and fears the dollar has become worthless. As a result, the United States is the equivalent of a bankrupt third-world nation, having to find a substitute for oil, while civil societ disntegrates. Bootlegging of gasoline from Canada into the United States in punishable with death, and people trying to sneak onto the few international planes still operating, will be shot by armed soldiers that guard the planes. The fuel for the planes even has to be flown in, and is also guarded.

Bottom line, without petroleum, the world could very well go to hell. This trope explores that fact.

How it is explored depends on the work in question. In some works, it could just be a nasty bump on the road in the fiction's backstory that led to some troubled times, but was overcome by discovering a new fuel source, reverting back to a simpler time, or [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]]. Typically, though, this trope doesn't have a positive side, and is usually a device to explain why the setting [[CrapsackWorld sucks so much,]] or in a AfterTheEnd setting, what caused the apocalypse. What little fuel remains to be sold will have sky high prices that only the wealthy can afford. Prices of everything else will be extremely high, thanks to increased transportation costs, usually leading to people starving in the streets. Law and order will break down as people become more and more desperate, resulting in mob rule in most cases.

In a worst case scenario, nations go to war over the last remaining fuel reserves, resulting in a massive global war, the outcome usually being an AfterTheEnd setting at worst, or at best, an even crappier world than before.

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** At the very least, ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'' is a definite TropeCodifier for this, and a lot of dystopias where oil is valuable as gold are explicit references to the series. It is the oil shortages that began the nuclear war that resulted in the AfterTheEnd setting.

* ''Film/Waterworld'' being Mad Max [[RecycledINSPACE ON WATER]] deals with most of the world covered in ocean, so the only oil readily available is in giant oil tankers that stayed afloat AfterTheEnd. No new resources are gained.

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* ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'': Before the Great War, peak oil was the cause of the Resource Wars that devastated both Europe and the Middle East. Gas prices reached up to $1450.99 per gallon for regular (possibly also reflecting [[RidiculousFutureInflation inflation of the dollar]]). The United States (and China) were temporarily saved by going to a nuclear power based society, but this meant the world was heading towards ''Peak Uranium''. The issue was all made moot however, when [[WorldWarIII everyone started to sling nukes at each other]]. A solution actually was possible in the form of nuclear fusion (the fusion cells powering your laser rifles), but wasn't adopted quickly enough to avoid the apocalypse due to paranoia, mutual distrust and hostilities preventing the tech from being shared nor adopted in time.

* ''{{VideoGame/Oiligarchy}}'': The game is about you playing an oil company executive and engaging in extremely evil actions to get the oil. No matter what you do, the oil reserves will eventually run out. Your choices :[[spoiler: GDP crashes thus bringing an end to Western Civilization, a nuclear war breaks out, and you spend your last days thinking how you brought the world to the end, start turning humans into oil, or stop bribing the US government so they can create a world that is less dependent on oil.]]

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'': Before the Great War, peak oil was the cause of the Resource Wars that devastated both Europe and the Middle East. Gas prices reached up to $1450.99 per gallon for regular (possibly also reflecting [[RidiculousFutureInflation inflation of the dollar]]). The United States (and possibly China) were only saved by going to a nuclear power based society, while the rest of the world ended up collapsing, and even then it's implied that the world was heading towards ''Peak Uranium''. The issue was all made moot however, when [[WorldWarIII everyone started to sling nukes at each other]].

* In Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/ToTheStars'' trilogy, characters occasionally refer to old rulers who squandered the world's resources without thought for the future, resulting in chaos and poverty. The current state of the world has a totalitarian OneWorldOrder with only a few "rogue" states like the democratic Israel remaining. The government imposes a sharply-defined class system, where the poor are contained in their own districts. The resource problem is solved by mining off-world colonies, which are kept on a leash by making them dependent on something only Earth can provide.

* ''{{TabletopGame/Cyberpunk}}'': The world came through this one relatively unscathed, thanks to the high-energy alcohol blend called "CHOOH-2", and a specially genetically engineered grain which yields it in high amounts, which has become the favored fuel for all types of combustion engines. However, since the grain is patented by [=PetroChem=], fuel is effectively a monopoly in large parts of the world. Oil is still an extremely valuable commodity, and widely used in a variety of chemical processes.[=SovOil=] gained MegaCorp status pretty much on the value of its untapped oil deposits alone.

* ''{{TabletopGame/Cyberpunk}}'': The world came through this one relatively unscathed, thanks to the high-energy alcohol blend called "CHOOH-2", and a specially genetically engineered grain which yields it in high amounts, which has become the favored fuel for all types of combustion engines. Oil is still an extremely valuable commodity, and widely used in a variety of chemical processes.[=SovOil=] gained MegaCorp status pretty much on the value of its untapped oil deposits alone.

* ''{{TabletopGames/Cyberpunk}}'': The world came through this one relatively unscathed, thanks to the high-energy alcohol blend called "CHOOH-2", and a specially genetically engineered grain which yields it in high amounts, which has become the favored fuel for all types of combustion engines. Oil is still an extremely valuable commodity, and widely used in a variety of chemical processes.[=SovOil=] gained MegaCorp status pretty much on the value of its untapped oil deposits alone.

* ''VideoGame/FrontlinesFuelOfWar'': The reason behind the war in the game. One of the loading text notes the irony of using fossil fuel-powered vehicles to fight a war fighting for the last remaining fossil fuels, mentioning that some citizens lamented that the last drops of oil would be burnt up by a tank.

* The ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'' series.

* This is the overriding theme in the 1982 Mad Max imitator ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battletruck Battletruck]]'' aka ''Warlords of the 21st Century''. The intro makes mention of "the Oil Wars", and the titular truck is driven by the antagonists - a crew of mercenaries led by a warlord - who resort to obtaining diesel fuel at any cost.

* Lampshaded in one of the Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture books, where the heroes are looking at a planet with which all contact was lost three centuries ago, and see it is low tech. One of them (a WrongGenreSavvy guy) states the planet must have wasted its fuel, but the others point out the planet was advanced enough for alternatives. In the end, it turns out the matter was much more serious ([[spoiler:a planet wide LaserGuidedAmnesia field]]).

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'', fossil fuels where running out and thus an alternative was needed. This lead to the construction of a massive solar gathering array that circles the entire planet around the equator. However, this was disastrous for the middle east that relied on its oil for financial stability. With the solar power system up and running, it caused the once precious oil to loose much of its value. This lead to a collapse of the regions economy and resulted in the brutal Solar Power Wars that would rage on and off for 20 years. And even after the wars have subsided, the region remains extremely unstable with things such as terrorism and the like running rampant.

* ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'': Before the Great War, peak oil was the cause of the Resource Wars that devastated both Europe and the Middle East. Gas prices reached up to $1450.99 per gallon for regular (possibly also reflecting [[RidiculousFutureInflation inflation of the dollar]]). The United States (and possibly China) were only saved by going to a nuclear power based society, while the rest of the world ended up collapsing. The issue was all made moot however, when [[WorldWarIII everyone started to sling nukes at each other]].

* ''Franchise/MadMax'' (or at least ''Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior'') is a definite TropeCodifier for this, and a lot of dystopias where oil is valuable as gold are explicit references to the series. It is the oil shortages that began the nuclear war that resulted in the AfterTheEnd setting.

* Whether oil reserves have actually dried up is not mentioned for sure, but the world of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps2'' has rare earth elements replacing it as the most in-demand natural resource in the year [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 2025]], and the tension caused by China's monopoly on their sale and production is a major element of the New Cold War between them and the US.