There is Plenty of Oil Left
From time to time, I become concerned with the amount of oil that exists, primarily because I know it is going to affect my pocket book. It seems this concern is unfounded. An opinion piece in today's The Wall Street Journal entitled, "The World Has Plenty of Oil," provides a synopsis as to why the world is not going to be running out of oil anytime soon. While I think you should read the article, I want to mention some of the things I found interesting.
- "The globe has consumed only one out of a grand total of 12 to 16 trillion barrels underground."
- "Even a 10% gain in extraction efficiency on a global scale will unlock 1.2 to 1.6 trillion barrels of extra resources -- an additional 50-year supply at current consumption rates." [Ed. Note: Part of the problem is that we currently have outdated extraction methods/technology.]
- The author of the article estimates that we will not hit the peak-point of oil supply (in other words, where we have used 50% of the world's oil) when I reach my 60's, which is a good 40 years from now.
The WSJ ran a similar op-ed piece about four years ago stating similar propositions. The article then centered around a book, Black Gold Stranglehold. If you want more information, I would suggest you read this book.
1 comment:
I'm thankful you shared this artlicle. I've often considered the condition of our global supply to the point of closeted fear. So much for our grandkids though, right? Maybe by then they will have developed a way to convert garbage into a fuel source like on Back to the Future II.
On the subject of fuel, Saturn is supposedly developing a car to be released within the next 4 years that will "supposedly" get somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 miles to the gallon. Welcome to the future, right? Well mind you, in the 60s engineers developed a carborator( maybe not a carburator, but something of the like. Forgive my ingorance in auto mechanics.) that would allow a car to get about 80 miles to the gallon, but the oil companies bought them out and destroyed the product. I certainly hope Saturn has a more successful go at it.
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