Solar is ready to knock out the black stuff.

The potency of solar has for many years been underrated. Oil has fuelled the growth of  modern industrial capitalism for the last one hundred and fifty years, and entire petro states such as Norway, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia are built around the discovery and export of petroleum.

Yet we may soon be approaching the end of the petroleum age, when the cost efficiencies of solar will begin to put a serious dent into the dominance of the oil age.

Key to this transition is the falling cost of solar panels on a per watt basis. In the 1970s the price of solar panels were hovering around the $100 per watt mark, with the current cost standing at less than a dollar a watt.

Solar power is on course to become the leading source of energy within a generation, with the critical growth in the technology coming from China and India.

While existing infrastructures are built around transportation networks that are dependent on petroleum, there is no guarantee that future cities will follow that path. Indeed a combination of solar power, electric cars and driverless technologies will mean that the designs of the future may follow a significantly different path.

As part of this transition, expensive and time consuming methods of extracting petroleum such as fracking and oil sands are likely to be consigned to the dustbin of history. While petroleum has a number of uses outside of transportation, a widescale move to electric cars combined with the adoption of solar and other renewable technologies is likely to deliver a significant blow to the oil industry.

Goodbye oil, your time was glorious but nothing lasts forever.