In response to global warming alarmism and other environmentalist paranoid beliefs, new coal fired power plants are not being built in the USA. Some are even torned down. Most new power plants are powered by natural gas. Natural gas is also used to heat over 50% of people's homes in North America. According to these links we're about to run out of natural gas in North America. Importing it using LNG tankers is expensive and there aren't even enough LNG terminals to handle it all, mainly because of opposition to building these terminals by people in the areas where they want to build them. Imagine one cold winter when you want to turn up the thermostat and there's no gas left for your furnace. Power plants also won't have any gas so you might even have rolling black outs. Will you freeze to death or have you prepared to deal with the extreme cold all night and all day for months?

Look at the shocking truth here.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/8/6636/36918

http://www.geocities.com/davidmdelaney/oil-depletion/oil-depletion.html

The USA has over 200 years of coal reserves at present rates of consumption.

Don't worry, Americans fart plenty anyway.

Natural gas depletion is a big concern, if not a equal in concern to oil depletion. The depletion rate of gas fields is usually alot higher in comparison to oil fields. This gives very little time to 1)find other sources and/or 2)reduce consumption.

If your new to peak oil/gas i would recommend visiting theoildrum.com regularly, it's a great site (one i frequent) with some good analysis by -generally- clever people.

Although I would suggest you think about your last comment about 200 years of current consumption