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Bandar Seri Begawan - This man was talking. You couldn't help overhearing. He was one of a group of seven including a couple of women at the next table.

"Remember, the Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of stones," the man who seemed a professional of some sort was saying, quoting the legendary Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmad Zaki Yamani as petroleum prices hit the sky in the 1970s oil shock era.

"The Stone Age ended because people invented alternatives. Similarly the oil age is also not going to end because we ran out of oil. It will end because people invent alternatives and therefore the oil price would tumble beyond repair," he added.

Then what would happen to oil dependent countries like Brunei?" a young lady beside him asked in alarm.

"Well, it is obvious," declared the man. "No money, no honey," he quipped.

"But I do not think that could be true in our lifetime. It is going to be almost impossible to replace oil," the man next to her protested. He was short and stubby. He had a drooping moustache.

Everyone glanced at the first speaker for a response. The man gazed slowly around and said, "Look around you. It will happen sooner than you think.

"Believe me, our oil wealth is a passing thing. We could be in for hard times soon. Some mad scientist working feverishly in some corner of the globe could come up with a pill that could turn water into oil."

At that point a lean, well dressed man with a mischievous smile joked, "Don't worry he most likely would not be an American. Being a foreigner President Bush will promptly declare him a terrorist and send him off to Guantanabay in Cuba."

They laughed. But soon came back to the serious question. Brunei's oil that keeps the country going could, one day, be worth nothing. That was a horrifying thought.

Yet another lady sitting at the far end was not convinced. "An alternate fuel source to challenge oil this day and age? What nonsense!" She cast a disdainful glance at the speaker.

The man looked around. He seemed to have all the facts at his fingertips. He had an air of confidence about him. "Look at Brazil. That country has successfully broken the seemingly impossible fossil fuel barrier. It has burst into the biofuel era as no other country has," he told his friends.

"It is a writing on the wall for many oil dependent countries," added he.

"How did Brazil do it?

"Since the 1970s oil shocks Brazil through trial and error has replaced about 40 per cent of its gasoline consumption with sugar cane ethanol," the man said quoting Thomas L. Friedman, the noted New York Times columnist in a recent article.

"Brazilians offer both petrol and ethanol at its 34,000 gas stations and the result has been dramatic. No country has done more to pioneer ethanol than Brazil."

Yet there are further reasons why Brunei should not rest on its oil gotten laurels. The march of progress is against that.

"Throughout history, shortages of vital resources have driven innovation, and energy has often starred in these technological dramas," writes Professor Stephen L Saas at Cornell University.

Wood shortages as a heating and energy resource drove the use of coal. And as the deep coal shafts became flooded the steam engine was created to pump the water out. The steam engine in turn became the new primary new source of power for the Industrial Revolution in the West.

Now not to say corn and sugar cane are targeted as the new energy source, even the humble grass could become a big player. In California, a plant genetics company is at work in turning grass, into an energy crop.

"You could turn Oklahoma into an OPEC member by converting all its farmland to switch grass," Richard Hamilton a company official was quoted as saying.

Therein is the sense of urgency in the search of alternate energy source.

If we in Brunei think that the sun is going to shine forever, how mistaken we are. We should match that sense of urgency.

With these facts we must redouble our efforts to find alternate wealth source. That effort should equal the intensity with which the world around us has embarked on its search to replace oil.

If we fail to do that we are doomed. There is no room for foot dragging or complacency.

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