Apparently, there is a point that the world WILL run out of oil. We have become used to the idea that gas at $3 a gallon is a “normal” price for gas (just 2 years ago, the idea of paying $3 gallon on gas would have been unimaginable to me). Is oil,(of wich gasoline is a by-product, of course)really starting to become scarce? When exactly can we expect to pay $40 a gallon for gas because oil has become such a rarity (or $400 a gallon, etc.). In what year (or time frame) is the world supposed to start running out of oil, making our cars useless?
I think there are too many unknown factors for anybody to do more than speculate on when oil would really run out. World production of oil is apparently supposed to peak some time in the next three decades, but who knows how demand will change. I mean, it’s not going to go down any time soon, but you don’t know how it’ll increase. More oil fields could be located, or not.
I can’t imagine anybody, much less a whole country of people, paying $40 per gallon for oil. If it cost anything close to that much, it would scare away consumers away and reduce demand. One is hopeful, of course, that we’d have alternate energy sources by then anyway.
No, do a seach on the boards for “peak oil”. For one thing, we know how to extract tar sands for drastically cheaper than $40 and that will last us long enough not to really have to worry about it (some estimates put it as high as 3 - 4 times the current existing reserves of middle east oil).
Basically it will probably never be $40 (in today’s dollars).
Basically at some point, if the gas prices are too expensive, everybody is going to switch to crappy electric cars (and don’t give me any of that electricity from fossil fuels, at $40 a gallon we’ll all be using nuclear)
five to one is a guest and can’t search. So here are some recent threads that come up when one searches for “peak oil.”
Raped at the pump again - when will it end? What can we do?
Salon.com: Kunstler’s peak oil poppycock
and also this one:
It will be interesting to see what kind of profits the big oil companies post this quarter.
Actaully no it won’t unless the earth is destroyed, in which case we will also run out of water and air and ground. Rememer that oil is naturally created all the time. Also oil is all througout the earth, both in easy to get to spots and very expensive places. When oil is no longer viable as a fuel it still will be used for some speciality products, and be mined out of the earth if needed.
Again there is no scarcity of oil, the earth is loaded w/ it. What we may be running out of is easially pumped out oil. I think most of the increase in price is due to 1- increases demand due to China, 2 - our capacity to convert oil > Gasoline is maxed out. (future buyers are not to blame as they are just using the above 2 to set the price)
I want to say never, but there may be situations that would cause it. I would expect cars will adapt and alternitive fuels will take the place of gas over the years, thus lowering the demand and lowerign the price.
This may be true, but do we know for certain that the rate of natural oil production meets or exceeds our current and/or future demands? If not, then at some point, we will run out.
The Earth is full of oil, but lots of those reserves are not easily extracted and lots of those reserves are not of the quality we prefer or need. However, you can bet that oil companies are continually working on cheaper and better ways to extract oil and refine it, so by the time we’re forced to tap less desirable resources, it won’t cost that much.
Oil is a depletable resource however. We do not have inexhaustible quantities of it. Most of the oil we tap today are the end products of extinction events millions if not hundreds of millions of years ago. It seems rare that organisms die in sufficient bulk quantities to be able to replenish what we use, even though I have no idea how long it takes for petros to form.