Does anybody know (excluding raving environmentalists) when the world will run out of oil approximately? what will logically happen when it does?
Well, I’m guessing that the world will never completely run out of oil. Because the oil we’re using now (or, have used up to this point) has been the oil that’s the easiest/cheapest to get to. As we use it up, it’s going to get more and more difficult/expensive to extract the remaining oil, and therefore more and more economically attractive to develop an alternative source of energy. Eventually, there won’t be much of a need for oil, except for special cases, and there will be enough to satisfy those cases for a long time.
I second what Robbbb says.
Technically speaking, i think oil is found just about all over the world. The question is: is it worth it to bring it up? The oil in the mid-east is easy to get at, so it’s cheap.
There’s actually oil in lots of Canada, under the ice. But it’s much too expensive at this point to try to get at it. When it becomes necessary we will fully develop technology that will make it work.
Also, car engines are becoming more gas-efficient.
So I would say it would be a long time…not soon enough for the doomsayers.
I second what Robbbb says.
Technically speaking, i think oil is found just about all over the world. The question is: is it worth it to bring it up? The oil in the mid-east is easy to get at, so it’s cheap.
There’s actually oil in lots of Canada, under the ice. But it’s much too expensive at this point to try to get at it. When it becomes necessary we will fully develop technology that will make it work.
Also, car engines are becoming more gas-efficient.
So I would say it would be a long time…not soon enough for the doomsayers.
Btw, this question might be better served in Great Debates…
The question that most interested companies are asking is when is the world going to run out of oil that is economical to obtain. The economics of extraction vary and new supplies that were previously considered inaccessible are now becoing available. Not many brand new oil fields are being discovered any more though.
Estimates of when oil extraction will become uneconomical have ranged from about 10 years ago (obviously dodgy early estimates) to thousands of years in the future. Plausible current estimates range from around 15 to 200 years left. 40-50 years is the current best bet.
The above is all from memory (too late and too tired to look stuff up) but should be decently accurate.
I don’t have a specific cite, but apparently there is a very efficient method of turning organic material into high quality fuel oil. It involves cooking the slush with moderate heat, moderate pressure, and a bunch of water. You end up with good fuel oil, some of which is sent back to heat the next batch of stuff to be processed, and the rest is sent out to buyers. Apparently you can use almost anything, including turkey goop, corn husks, or even plastic.
This seems like a process we would be doing in the future; with how fast kudzu grows we should never run out of energy.
I believe the process you are refering to is known as Thermal Depolymerization .
There are two problems that make the question unanswerable.
The first has been touched on. We will never run out of oil. However at some point it just becomes too expensive to extract it at current prices. Of course as oil becomes more scarce the price will rise and we will continue to extract it until alternative fuel sources become cheaper than any recoverable oil. On that score it is generally accepted that we have at least 300 years of oil. The oil resources held in tar sands and oil shales is huge, and while most aren’t economically viable at this time, with a modest increase in prices they will come online. Those resources represent something like 300 years supply based on current trends. If we haven’t developed viable alternatives within 300 years then there has been some major catastrophe and we will all be using stone axes. Either way we will never run out of oil.
The second problem is that technological change is advancing mathematically. That includes the technology driving demands as well as the technology for utilisation. This is one of the reasons why most analyses don’t bother looking beyond 50 years and the WEC doesn’t bother looking beyond 30. (BTW the WEC and the USGS both say that there is no danger of an oil shortage within the next 30 years) To Understand this problem imagine a person 1900 consider energy reserves and transportation needs for the next 50 years. He obviously will need lots of boats, and they will need lots of coal. Railways will be important for continental travel, and also need lots of coal. He will also need lots of farmland to grow feed for horses for personal transport. Oil, and particularly petroleum aren’t major concerns at all. By 1950 oil was a major concern, coal was mainly used for electricity while aircraft and cars had replaced boats, trains and horses for personal transport. Many ships and trains had moved over to diesel. The projection of only 50 years earlier was useless. The same was true of projection made 50 years ago. The 1950 projections of oil supply suggested that there would be a crisis by 1985. However the technology available for extraction more than covered the increase in consumption while alternatives like natural gas and nuclear have taken up some of the slack.
So unfortunately there is no way of knowing when or if oil supplies will dwindle to the stage where private car ownership is impossible. We can say that with current usage patterns and current extraction technology we have at least 30 years supply at or near today’s prices. Extraction technology is advancing as fast as any other technology so it’s reasonable to assume a good few centuries supply yet. Since it’s reasonable to assume that the world of 2300 will be as different from today as the world of 1700 there is no possible way of predicting how much if any oil they will be extracting.
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Just remember - “The Stone-Age didn’t end because people ran out of stones. It ended because they found something better.”
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