Resource reserves anot total in-place (Abundance of fuels, especi

> estimated reserves include oil that is very thick and requires active injection of water, sometimes including super heated steam to liquify the below ground oil so it can flow thru the interstices of oil bearing sand stone. That is a very expensive recovery mode,,,

Nope. Nuclear power plants make steam for 1 penny per barrel of oil energy equivalent. They also cheaply make hydrogen, which can be added to the oil in place to help it flow, and added at the refining stage to help make more fuel and to give given fuels more energy.

> Sure, world unconventional reserves may far exceed current proven reserves, but if they're really energy intensive to retrieve, that will inevitably lead to a much higher price/barrel.

Nope. Since nuclear fuel only costs 1 penny per barrel of oil energy equivalent, oil that requires 100 barrels of energy to produce only costs one dollar in nuclear fuel.

> Chemical energy as our only energy source is ludicrous for a high tech society.

It mainly isn't the energy that is valued. It is the packaging. We know this because nuclear fuel is sold for only one penny per barrel of equivalent oil energy:
http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_Prices.aspx

Weekly Spot Ux U3O8 Price
as of March 23, 2009

$42.50

> The ONLY open ended, constant cost energy source is the sun

It's only "constant" because it happens to be gradually meted out. If and when civilization can control the sun...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

...its power flux will no longer be constant -- without civilization pretending it is constant. The same pretending can be done in regard to any other fuel. What makes solar-pretending special?

> and as retrieval tech improves [...] the production costs will go down.

Ditto for gas, oil, coal, and uranium/thorium.

> Power sats allow us to directly access that big old fusion plant in the sky for the next few billion years.

...Not if someone directly mines the fuel, effectively turning out the light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting

> Why does that not take priority over any chemical storage system in your world view???

Chemicals might be economically convenient, for the time being. See:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource