POLL: How Many Years of Oil Do You Believe We Have Left, At Current Usage Levels?

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To Vote, simply *favorite* one of the *Eight* posts below:

POLL: How Many Years of Oil Do You Believe We Have Left, At Current Usage Levels?

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< 50 years

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50 - 75 years

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76 - 100 years

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101 - 125 years

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126 - 150 years

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151 - 200 years

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200 - 500 years

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500 - 1000 years

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> 1000 years

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=========== END OF CHOICES ============

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[Grand Magus]

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> Evaluating World Oil Reserves: How Much Is Left?, featuring Sadad al-Husseini <

~ 1.2 Trillion probable barrels of oil left. The big variable is usage level -- if usage level increases it goes quicker, if usage level decrease it will last longer.

However, it will be gone one day; my guess is 150 years.

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Huh?

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[Zmar]

I think it will be some 50 years at best before it gets too expensive to become impractical (usage will rise and so will the price) or cause some conflict that will change the usage radically.

EDIT: Which will change the total amount of time the oil is going to last.
EDIT2: That Huh link is exactly pointing on such thing :)

[Low-fat Ranch Dretching]

wtf are these polls I don't even

[Elbe-el]

If you were to find, in your own backyard, a brand new (as in-previously undiscovered and completely untapped) petroleum deposit (and just to shut up the nay-sayers, we'll posit that the the deposit is both "light, sweet" crude and very easy to get to) that contained a 1 billion barrel capacity, that deposit would not only make you very rich, it would sustain global petroleum consumption for exactly....12 days.

For a bit of perspective, ALL of the oil that was dumped into the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon rupture equals less than three percent of the daily consumption...of the State of Texas. That's it.

"How long do we have?", is a completely useless question in the face of, "What the hell are we going to do?"

[Brutal Ben]

We technically have an unlimited source of oil since all petroleum products can be created from renewable sources.

The catch is how do we extract that energy in a cost effective manner.

[meatrace]

If we threw as much money at solar research as we do in oil company subsidies, I'd bet my left [redacted] that we'd have a sustainable energy solution within a decade.

If we threw half as much money at NASA as we spend on defense we'd be living on freaking mars by now.

[estergum]

Brutal Ben wrote:

We technically have an unlimited source of oil since all petroleum products can be created from renewable sources.

The catch is how do we extract that energy in a cost effective manner.

Since the renewable sources are food or grown where food would be the technicality could be trumped by then need to feed the extra 2-3 billion people that are likely to be born in the next 50years

That and a lot of modern agriculture relies on fertilizers created from the by-products of fossil fuels.
This is mostly from natural gas though and there are larger reserves of fossil fuels in that form.

Converting sunlight to biomass, processing the biomass and then burning the processed biomass is not terribly efficient energy flow.

The catch is how do we store and transport the energy in a efficient manner.

And, yeah, what meatrace siad.

[meatrace]

Lithium is the new gold, my friend.

[Brutal Ben]

According to Doc, wasn't Mr. Fusion supposed to be out right now?

[meatrace]

^^^^
wut

[The Fox]

Grand Magus wrote:

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~ 1.2 Trillion probable barrels of oil left. The big variable is usage level -- if usage level increases it goes quicker, if usage level decrease it will last longer.

However, it will be gone one day; my guess is 150 years.

I just crunched the numbers.

To get 150 years out of 1.2 trillion bbl would require the world to reduce consumption by 2.4% per year--every year--for 150 years.

If we only cut consumption by 2% per year, then we can get 80 years out of that 1.2 trillion bbl.

If we continue at present consumption, we are dry in 40 years.

If we continue increasing consumption at 1% per year, we have about 34 years.

If we increase consumption at 2.5% per year, we are down to 28 years.

[meatrace]

Yeah. Alternative energy isn't a choice.

[Mark Sweetman]

As one who works in the upstream part of the industry I find this debate interesting... Inherently unable to be answered with any degree of certainty beyond madly wild guessing but interesting nonetheless.

My answer is that we won't run out of oil, as much as it gradually becoming more and more expensive and alternative technologies improving to take up the slack. But I personally wouldn't expect that to happen in my lifetime.

[Zmar]

The problem with fosil fuels is that the energy contained within was stored eons ago and the storing process wasn't done in a day either. Now we take the stored energy out and spend it in less than 300 years in a rough equivalent of nitro boost for civilisation. Renewable sources relying on plants can't sate that. Thy can't even keep us running on current speed, because at the moment we're going through an energygasm that will deplete itself pretty soon uless we find some replacement.

[doctor_wu]

Too many people is part of the problem if we want to use that much energy.

[Masika]

Depends on what how much left oil left means? Easily accessed oil will disappear in the next 15 years I think... But the use of oil can last a long time. There is enough oil shale in Australia to last our usage for many centuries but at a high extraction price.

Oil will not run out in a hurry... but cheap oil will.

[meatrace]

The point, to me, is if extracting shale oil only has about a 3:1 return on your investment, why not invest in something that has better returns?

[Robert Hawkshaw]

meatrace wrote:

The point, to me, is if extracting shale oil only has about a 3:1 return on your investment, why not invest in something that has better returns?

Sorry, I am bad at the maths, is that a 133% return on investment? Eg, a dollar today gets your 1.33 dollars in a year?

[meatrace]

I mean energy investment. Sorry. And I'm just running to get some food so I don't have a citation, it's likely slanted. Something about when we first discovered the wonders of petrolium the actual energy from the petrolium was like several thousand times that required to extract it. And with shale oil it's like only 3 times as much.

I presume that change in proportionality would carry over in a financial sense, but I don't know a whole lot about the oil industry. Perhaps I'm wrong.

[Hudax]

Cheap oil is already gone, or hoarded by OPEC. Same difference.

No way we will continue using the "same" amount of oil in the future. We can either blithely continue using more and more to our inevitable doom, or wake up and drastically reduce our usage.

Defining the problem and the solution.

Technology exists off the shelf today to build low/zero energy net usage homes and buildings. All we need to do is start building them. Israel passed legislation that every new home had to be built with solar hot water. In 1980. A mere 25 years later, Spain became the second nation to adopt similar legislation, and the first to require PV in new construction. The U.S. must be the next, ASAP. That would be a start.

Kill three birds with one stone. Solve the energy crisis AND the housing crisis AND the economy crisis with one plan.

[see]

"Oil" depends on your definition, since it all needs refining from the source into a useful form. Facilities such as Sasol's Secunda show that we could count, for example, all coal deposits as "non-conventional oil", if we liked. We could do the same with natural gas; Fischer-Tropsch isn't picky. And if we invent a safe, economically-feasible way to extract methane hydrates . . . well.

[meatrace]

Yeah, I was watching a documentary where there was an initiative to do this...sorta. It was an initiative to retrofit houses with solar panels using home equity loans guaranteed by the city. The labor was free because it was people doing community service (often for drug offenses, IIRC, though I could be mistaken), and those people were learning a trade while doing that community service.

Reduce energy consumption, boost the economy, help homeowners keep their homes by saving money on energy, provide a community service and vocational training for people trying to put their life back together. It's not often you see a project that just got everything right like that.

[Andrew R]

Maybe some of the wealthy folks that want to push this stuff so hard could put their money where their mouth is and help the average american afford what they want

[Matrixryu]

Just so you guys know, there is a theory going around that oil isn't actually a 'Fossil Fuel'. It may actually be produced deep within the Earth. If this is true, our oil reserves may simply never run out. You just have to wait a bit every once in a while for the right wells the refill themselves.

[Gark the Goblin]

meatrace wrote:

If we threw as much money at solar research as we do in oil company subsidies, I'd bet my left [redacted] that we'd have a sustainable energy solution within a decade.

Damn, I only have one [redacted].

And yeah we can keep finding (generally less efficient) things to extract, but even then we are going to run out eventually. Population growth and industrialisation and overconsumption don't look to be stopping any time soon.

Now, if we stop one of those (not industrialisation, hopefully) we could probably keep going for a while longer. Or we could invest in some water-sucking algae biodiesel, some rare earth-sucking solar panels, or some bird-sucking wind turbines. And get some better batteries going. We're putting our faith in that s+*$ (in fact some of the federal stimulus is going into some promising places), but it's definitely not a priority.

I'm not sure if we're switching too slow, but we're not really going all-out. People are clamoring for cheaper gas - and it would be nice if oil companies would stop hoarding - but sustainable energy is rarely on the agenda and often triggers derision.

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[Kryzbyn]

Need a 'long enough' option.

[Andrew R]

So what happens if they prove too much solar is bad for the planet? The materials lead to problems, too much space needed to produce enough electricity, Climate change from too much of the sun's heat redirected, etc? Not to mention problems with batteries.....

[thejeff]

It's been suggested that one of the reasons we've had trouble recovering from the Great Recession is that every time we start to, demand for oil rises, prices shoot up and things crash again. There's more oil out there, but it's harder and harder to get to. Oil shale, deep ocean wells, etc. And thus more expensive.

Of course, there's plenty of coal and it's cheap, if you ignore the direct environmental costs: mountaintops blown to help, streams ruined, giant piles of fly ash waiting to cascade.
And we've gotten better at getting natural gas, but there's all sorts of questions about the consequences of fracking.

And all that ignores the serious long-term consequences of pumping all that carbon back into the atmosphere: global climate weirding.

How much oil isn't really the question. How much can we extract cheaply and what are the long-term consequences of doing so?

[doctor_wu]

Also how good the oil will we get. Can you make gasoline really from oil shale.

[Hudax]

Andrew R wrote:

So what happens if they prove too much solar is bad for the planet? The materials lead to problems, too much space needed to produce enough electricity, Climate change from too much of the sun's heat redirected, etc? Not to mention problems with batteries.....

Solar by itself isn't the answer, but if you honestly think the impact of procesing silicon and lithium outweighs the processing of oil (nevermind burning it), you're dreaming.

Also, you don't need a battery for solar hot water.

[thejeff]

There's an enormous amount we can do, especially in America just through efficiency of various kinds. Both in terms of improving machines and in things like passive solar and insulation. Our houses and other buildings are basically leaky boxes designed to be kept comfortable by cheap power.
Redesigning city layouts and living patterns to cut down on driving and use mass transit can save a ton. Yes, it isn't practical in all the wide open spaces, but the majority of the population still clusters around urban areas. And a good chunk of those extreme rural areas may simply not be viable, but that's more a water issue than a power one.
We should be able to get our energy profile down close to Europe's without serious hardship, just some changes in our way of life.

Solar, wind will have their problems: some of the needed material are rare, they'll need a lot of area. Those problems may limit the total amount we can use, but they're no excuse for not ramping up far faster than we are.

[Gark the Goblin]

Matrixryu wrote:

Just so you guys know, there is a theory going around that oil isn't actually a 'Fossil Fuel'. It may actually be produced deep within the Earth. If this is true, our oil reserves may simply never run out. You just have to wait a bit every once in a while for the right wells the refill themselves.

It's certainly not disproven, but I am having a very hard time finding sources on it. Everything is blogs or news outfits I've never heard of (both liberal and conservative). I guess this one is pretty good, though the "84 barrels" figure is likely to be from the drilling fluid itself.

dude's article wrote:

Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?

Yes: Archaeans. And bacteria. And algae. If this is the sort of question you are asking in an ostensibly informative article, you may be doing it wrong.

Any chance you could find some peer-reviewed s#+* or something?

[NIghtrider]

coming from an oil producing place (alberta canada, we have enough for our lifetime for sure. The trick will be producing eco friendly energy in our grandchildrens lifetime.

[Andrew R]

thejeff wrote:

There's an enormous amount we can do, especially in America just through efficiency of various kinds. Both in terms of improving machines and in things like passive solar and insulation. Our houses and other buildings are basically leaky boxes designed to be kept comfortable by cheap power.

Redesigning city layouts and living patterns to cut down on driving and use mass transit can save a ton. Yes, it isn't practical in all the wide open spaces, but the majority of the population still clusters around urban areas. And a good chunk of those extreme rural areas may simply not be viable, but that's more a water issue than a power one.
We should be able to get our energy profile down close to Europe's without serious hardship, just some changes in our way of life.

Solar, wind will have their problems: some of the needed material are rare, they'll need a lot of area. Those problems may limit the total amount we can use, but they're no excuse for not ramping up far faster than we are.

Well if the "off the grid" concept keeps growing and the needed materials become cheaper they might just be more capable of taking care of most of their own needs for home heating and electricity and only need fossil fuels for the car. I just hope the gov goes more carrot than stick in getting people to use renewables more often.

[Sharoth]

Matrixryu wrote:

Just so you guys know, there is a theory going around that oil isn't actually a 'Fossil Fuel'. It may actually be produced deep within the Earth. If this is true, our oil reserves may simply never run out. You just have to wait a bit every once in a while for the right wells the refill themselves.

Interesting. Very interesting.

[Asphere]

Don't forget wind energy!

People need to stop being lazy bums. I live 1.7 miles from the University I work at. Everyday, as I am walking to work, I see students driving to campus from my apartment complex to school alone and mostly in SUVs when we have a perfectly good transit system on campus and the weather is beautiful. Drives me up the gorram wall.

[Grand Magus]

Kryzbyn wrote:

Need a 'long enough' option.

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Long enough for what:

1. Aliens arrive, and share their technology with us?

2. Your life-time, so you feel no pain?

3. An energy replacement is found? What will that be?

4. To be determined, based upon other poster's responses, and what they make you think of then.

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[Kryzbyn]

To last long enough to be replaced as a fuel/energy source.
Dunno.

[Doodlebug Anklebiter]

Pretty cool movie.