A simple question, does anyone have a simple answer?
Assuming that usage of oil remains constant (although in reality it is of course increasing year on year) - how long are the earth's natural oil reserves expected to last?
Vegetable oil diesels anyone?.....
Alex.
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alex, about 300 years, if it is all exploited.
The middle eastern fields are still big producers, while the siberian on has hardly been touched
Then there is a load of coal, which can be converted.
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Ian (cape town)
When I lived in SA in the late 70's there was petrol available produced from coal called SASOL. Is it still available out of interest??
Charles
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Yes and No!
Yes, if you live inland - johannesburg etc
No, if you live in Cape Town.
Who pays for it? Joe taxpayer, wherever he is... A Huge white elephant from the old regime ...
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Then if you bring gas into it.
Conventional "sandstone" type reservoirs of natural gas are expected to last about 40+ years, though new fields are being discovered at the same rate as consumption.
Then consider the frozen methane hydrates, essentially a mixture of frozen water and methane, up in the Arctic. Question is how to extract commercially.
To give some idea of the potential, the known reserves of "conventional" natural gas is said to be about 1000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). The estimated methane hydrate reserves is hundreds of millions of Tcf !!!
This info is from USA DofE Vision 2100 Info, and maybe needs an update as its a couple of years old now.
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At present I'm sitting in the middle of the north sea looking for the stuff, there's plenty left. However as the saying goes 'the stoneage didn't stop because we ran out of stone's. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Jim
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Have a look at:
Sheikh Yamani predicts price crash as age of oil ends.
......"Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil.".................
From:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F...l
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I remember reading that there is always thirty years left.Someone (can't remember who) very respected in the motor industry, being interviewed in his later years and asked what he thought of the present prediction that the oil would run out in thirty years pointed out that when he started in the industry 40+ years ago, the oil was going to run out in 30 years.
Don't forget that 20 years ago it was cheaper to go prospecting for oil on Wall Street.
John
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Alex
It's not so much a question of what level of reserves exist, but what oil reserves are technically and economically available for extraction. Oil is free - it's extraction that costs money.
The first oil reserves exploited were those which naturally seeped from the ground, then shallow drilling in Pennsylvania found reserves which flowed naturally due to gas pressure from a hundred or so feet down. As these easily extractable reserves were depleted then deeper drilling became necessary, and more inhospitable areas were explored. The classic example is the North Sea which only became viable as oil prices rose. Any of these oil fields were only depleted to the limits of the available technology, and none have been emptied. Recently, it was announced that a small oil company, using very sophisticated directional drilling techniques, is to start work on the 'depleted' Argyll field in the North Sea.
So, it is perhaps no surprise that oil reserves have remained at 30 or 40 years. If any company had a 30 or 40 year horizon of resources, I suspect it would see no economic benefit in seeking to extend that horizon, and, as has been shown, it may be possible to return to the partially depleted field already abandoned.
The chances are, therefore, that increasing oil costs will enable the technology to extract oil from less accessible deposits, and to enable a greater proportion of the deposits to be extracted. Yes, it will eventually run out, but it would be a brave man who would put a date on that.
Regards
John
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