Well . . . that's a long message on which to reply.  But I don't believe that there's any grand conspiracy to drive up prices.  What we see is primarily a result of increasing domination of energy interests by nationalized state-owned companies who don't follow market rules (along with the rise of Asian powers).  The private energy firms are beneficiaries of the changes in the market, but they aren't driving it because they don't have a large enough slice of of the global market to set prices.  (Sure, they can have some influence, but the real pricing power lies in the hands of the OPEC nations and the Russians.)

Obviously, our runaway consumption does not help.

I don't really share your view of us being slaves to our technology, but I'll admit I might be wrong.