... the Earth had no oil?
Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation?
Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now? (in terms of power generation, transports, etc)

Thirdly, without oil, there prolly would have been no dinosaurs, and thus no premise for the movie Jurassic Park which I paid to see in the theatre and didn't like.

Here's another interesting thought experiment: what if the Industrial Revolution began nearly two-thousand years earlier? Consider the aeolipile of Hero of Alexandria, a first-century Greek thinker and inventor. Cool, huh?

Steampunk would be fact?

It was coal that drove the first hundred years or so of the industrial revolution,oil played very little part, oil needed for lubrication lighting and such came from Whales.

...which however wasn't sustainable (the whales became nearly extinct for it), so other forms of lubrication would have to be found. Anyway, the biggest factors where oil plays a vital role and is hard if not impossible to replace:

• Individual transportation.
  Only an internal combustion engine is light and small and powerful enough to make cars practical. Without oil, ICEs are much, much harder to run and would probably never be efficient enough to compete economically with horses or steam engines
• Flight.
  Only oil delivers the energy density to make "heavier than air" transportation practical. Balloons are difficult to steer, so a world without oil would probably rely on train and ocean liners for long-distance travel. Tourism would remain a fad for the rich.
• Air pollution.
  Londoners almost literally suffocated by the thousands in some years from the micro particles emitted by coal heating. "London fog" was nothing but extreme smog, just like what can be seen in Beijing (where you sometimes can't even see the skyscraper across the street). When oil heating was made mandatory for new heating systems, the situation got much better and today Londoners enjoy the cleanest air in the region since the 14th century.
• Agriculture.
  Modern agriculture is based on two things - artificial fertilizer, which is made from oil, and mechanization (harvesters, tractors, ...), which run on oil too. Without oil, we would never have grown to seven billion people on the earth but probably stagnate around two or three, half of them starving.

Consequently, these are the things that are in dire need of replacement should we really run out of oil one day.

Much less wars, and environment-friendly hydrogen fuel. Synthetic oils.

Hybrid and electric cars were already made 100 years ago. Without oil we would be using those, i guess.

How would a steampunk civilization have proceeded? Converting
coal to a convenient form (light, portable, concentrated, like
gasoline) for transportation would have been difficult and
expensive, but some modification of the form of the fuel would
be done for reasons of pollution if no other; the cost involved
would mean more expensive transportation, and thus the trend
toward economies of scale, and a strong emphasis on efficiencies.

So, lots more mass public transportation, more dense cities,
local industry, all the things which follow logically from
expensive transportation. Probably coal => gasoline conversion
would be developed for military and other high budget, high
priority uses; perhaps eventually innovations in process would
lead to more production and lowered costs, but I doubt it would
ever look like a petroleum based society. The development of flight
would be greatly delayed, and I strongly suspect that as a result,
due to the altered cultural trajectory, space flight would also be
delayed, even though it could be done without much reliance on
petroleum products.

Don't forget that natural gas would presumably be available, and
lots of technology could be developed to make use of that, which
we haven't bothered with because we went the oil-based route instead.

[Re running out of oil:
Having the developing nations develop to the point their demand
for oil and ability to pay for it comes even within shouting
distance of our own is pretty much the equivalent of running out
of oil, if it is already being extracted at the maximum feasible
rate, ie. where the cost of extraction doesn't exceed the value
(= energy) yield. This is happening as we speak. The increase in
the number of chinese drivers licenses is staggering - they have
about as many licensed drivers as the whole US population, and
they're adding to that by about the equivalent of the population
of Canada per year. And that's not to mention India.]

Civilization would've proceeded with methane gas collectors over parliament buildings and white houses the world over. We'd be energy self-sufficient for eons. In fact, we'd have such a glut, we'd be selling it to the Klingons for peanuts (or a good Bat'leth).

Another form of energy would have been invented. Just look how far the human race has come through invention. We started flying around 1900 and in less than 70 years, we were landing on the moon. That never ceases to amaze me. Add to that, the computer chip in your watch is probably more powerful than the computer chip that NASA used on the Apollo for the moon landing.

Much of modern society depends on plastics. Transportation, food packaging, clothing, and many other goods are made partly or entirely of plastic. Where does plastic come from? Petroleum....

Where would we be without dirt?

Dirt is amazing stuff.
Dirt is tiny.
Dirt is dirty.
Dirt feeds plants.
Dirt filters water.
Dirt softens the blow from a 30 foot fall.
Dirt can be used as sandpaper when sandpaper isn't available.
Dirt can be made into sandpaper when glue is available.
Dirt can clean you.
Dirt can protect you from the sun when mixed with water.
Dirt makes concrete blocks to build homes.
Dirt supports a home's foundation.
Dirt can make mud pies which taste bad but are fun.
Dirt is fun in a 4-wheeler.
Dirt can get in your eye.
Dirt can be tough.
Dirt can be soft.
Dirt can get under your nails.
Dirt can be found between your toes and in your belly button.
Dirt and be whisked away and create rivers.
Dirt can be shoveled.
Dirt can be dug.
Dirt can protect you from artillery shells.
And there would be no Joe without Dirt.

Most wars wouldn't have happened...

CNG, at least for internal combustion engines. And maybe Rudolf Diesel would have perfected his coal dust-burning engine that was set aside when it was discovered that a fuel oil injected through one of Robert Bosch's new fuel injectors performed better. Which, by the way, can be any of a number of vegetable oils, to get around the lack of petroleum. I think lubrication would have been the problem area, not fuel.

As far as the predominance of plastics and synthetic fibers in everyday life, well, we'd still be using glass bottles for milk & soda, and natural fibers for clothing. Assuming someone didn't eventually work out a formula for synthetic petroleum compounds to make nylon, rayon, fertilizers, etc.

I do know that we wouldn't have just given up and been happy with steam power.

Most wars would have happened....they would just have been over other resources and or issues.

As far as I know, the first time the availability of oil was a factor in starting a war or part of a war was WW2, when the normal source for Japan to get petroleum (the US) dried up.

Without long chain hydrocarbons, none of us would be here. Its a chicken and the egg question, oil is a by product of the earth's physical properties its fundamental organic chemistry. How much usable crude there is and if it is attainable is another issue.

What if man had not figured out what to do with it -- even that question is pretty hard to ask because man has used oil for light and heat for millennia. Eventually we would have found large scale uses for it. Frankly it should not have taken as long as it did.

It would have, except for 2 things. First was slavery. Why build machines when you have a massive slave system, it is one reason the Antebellum South barely industrialized anything (That said, I like the South). The second was the debasing of the currency. By AD 150, it was a race for the bottom, Rome just gave out money (bread and circuses) and created massive amounts of dross coinage. It is one reason that the Byzantine Empire protected the currency for nearly 1000 years. They learned from the past mistakes, but much of the learning was shut behind monastery walls.

I "like" this thread!