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Life after Oil?

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OGJ

The estimates of world reserves can be found in the Oil and Gas Journal, a primary source for world reserves. A 50 year "well dry" theory has been around since the 1970's.

Since estimates continue to change due to new discoveries and advanced retrieval technologies the real question should be: When will it no longer be economically feasible to retrieve the world's known oil and gas reserves? Most experts say that we will run out of ways to economically get the go juice before we run out of it. Here are a few paragraphs from the journal:

"The countries with the largest amounts of remaining oil reserves are: Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Libya, and Nigeria.[1] The largest reserves of natural gas are found in: Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Algeria, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iraq."

"Discovered (or known) resources can be divided into proved reserves and prospective or unproved (probable and possible) resources. “Proved reserves” are the quantities of oil or gas from known reservoirs and expected to be recoverable with current technology and at current economic conditions. Prospective resources are those that may be recoverable in the future with advanced technologies or under different economic conditions."

"No one can know for certain how much oil and gas remains to be discovered. But geologists sometimes make educated guesses. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts periodic assessments of U.S. mineral resources. In its most recent assessment (1995), the USGS estimated that the onshore U.S., including Alaska, has undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 112.3 billion barrels of oil and 1,074 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In a separate assessment of offshore resources completed in 2000, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated that 75 billion barrels of oil and 362 trillion cubic feet of natural gas underlie the areas off the coasts of the U.S. The USGS and MMS resource assessments make clear that, despite being a very mature producing area, substantial resources still exist in the U.S. No comparable worldwide assessment exists, but this estimate gives an indication that substantial volumes of oil and gas remain to be found."

To answer your question: 'What will happen when fossil fuels are no longer available?' "Planet of the apes baby..."
 
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I have never understood why we don't pursue other sources such as ethanol and bio-diesel. Simply legislating that a higher percentage of fuel was from these sources would greatly lessen our dependence on opec, etc. Doing this would be good for american farmers, lessoning the need for billions in subsidies, and would also benefit the environment. Switching to these other renewable sources of gasoline and diesel, while pursuing fuel cells and other alternatives would be the best route to take.
 
The reason we don't focus on bio-diesel or ethanol is a matter of supply. There's 3 gallons of oil in the fryer at McDonald's, but there is 3000 gallons of gasoline across the street at the gas station. Even if we converted all the grain in the country into ethanol is would only be enough to feed a small fraction of the cars on the road.

What the government needs to do right now is develop a long term plan to reduce our energy consumption. We need to do things like banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs that use a fraction of the energy and we need to get the average new vehicle fuel economy up. The fuel economy of the average new vehicle sold right now is at a 20 year low. The average vehicle sold in 1983 got better fuel mileage than the average vehicle sold in 2003.

We need to stretch our oil supply for as long as possible in order to give ourselves the maximum amount of time to come up with the next energy source.

Scott
 
sstearns2 said:
We need to do things like banning incandescent light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs that use a fraction of the energy

If you want those pasty white lights in your house, go for it! But It'll be a cold day before I use them.
 
It'll be a cold day before I use them.

Be careful what you wish for. When all the fossel fuels run out.....
you'll get that cold day.
 
pipejockey said:
If you want those pasty white lights in your house, go for it! But It'll be a cold day before I use them.


Compact florescent bulbs come in a number of shades now and they don't click anymore. They also last 5 times longer than filament bulbs. Next time your at Home Depot check them out.

Scott
 
Oil Shortage
A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here
in America.

Well, there's a very simple answer.....Nobody bothered to check the oil.
We just didn't know we were getting low.

The reason for that is purely geographical. Our oil is in Alaska,
Texas,California, and Oklahoma. A little in Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, and
Pennsylvania.
>>
>>Our dipsticks are all in Washington DC
 
Yeah, but caribou love the Alaska Pipeline. The warm pipeline actually arouses caribou, and populations have been on the increase since it was built.
 

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