I’m sure this has been discussed before, but forgive me I’m an FNG. A programme on tv last night discussed the very real possibility that if we’re driving cars in 10 years then they’re going to be electric ones! No more Vrooom! No major oil reserve has been discovered since the North Sea, and we’re consuming double the amount that we’re producing. OPEC could produce more, but the dynamics of supply and demand dictate that it would not be in their interests to do this. Also it wouldn’t be in our long term interests if they DID increase output, as the reserves discovered would deplete all the faster causing a sharper drop from a heady high (because we could always find use for more oil).
So come on, be honest, will I be driving to work in an electric milk float in the future? Would it help if I just bought tuna in brine in future!?
There is plenty of oil for everyone who is alive now, so YOU will have oil. Buying “tuna in brine” could help you live longer and so use up more oil.
There are people who worry about running out of oil in future generations. Who knows, maybe someday the only natural oil will be in a museum. Buy a drum and keep it, just in case.
We can already make gasoline without using oil, it just costs a lot more. If these countries with $5/gallon gas [$2 gas, $3 tax] would waive the tax for synthetic gas, it would be economical to make it.
The risk is the high investment cost and the fact that oil producers could just increase their output to drive down the price, then you would go out of business and lose your investment.
Yup. Try this link:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=38077
Also, try using the search function, with keyword “petroleum” and “Search by Date” set to “any date”. You will uncover several other threads with similar information.
All-electric vehicles remain far more expensive to produce, and have shorter operating ranges, than gasoline-powered vehicles; barring an unexpected technical breakthrough, this is likely to remain so in the next decade. Hybrids (gasoline/electric) show promise, but again are expensive to manufacture. Honda supposedly loses several thousand dollars on every Insight produced, but is willing to eat the losses temporarily to get its technology before the public.
In any event, most projections show approx. 50-100 years of oil production at rates sufficient to keep gasoline or hybrid-powered vehicles affordable (for us richies in Europe and North America, at least).
Utter nonsense. If the producers of the program actually claimed this, I’d be extremely wary of any other information they presented. Historically, the total of produced oil in storage worldwide has rarely been more than a couple of weeks supply, for the rate of consumption at a given time.
I doubt that the tuna care one way or another.