How Much Oil is Left? (We Will Never Run out of Oil)
Thursday August 16, 2007
Reader (and peak oil fan) Mark Dubuque asks the simple question:
To answer his question: "How many barrels do you think are left???" Short answer - I don't know.
Long answer - I've read various estimates from different sources estimating how much oil may be left. But I do not have the necessary training or background to intelligently pick one of the estimates or reason why they all might be too high or too low.
The argument that we will never run out of oil is an economic one, which considers market forces, prices and consumer behaviour. That is something I have a rather extensive background in.
I often wonder what training peak oil enthuiasts have in the social sciences. Given what I've seen, my guess is not a lot.
I find it instructive that no peak oil fan has even attempted to answer my three basic peak oil questions:
- How many barrels do you think are left???
To answer his question: "How many barrels do you think are left???" Short answer - I don't know.
Long answer - I've read various estimates from different sources estimating how much oil may be left. But I do not have the necessary training or background to intelligently pick one of the estimates or reason why they all might be too high or too low.
The argument that we will never run out of oil is an economic one, which considers market forces, prices and consumer behaviour. That is something I have a rather extensive background in.
I often wonder what training peak oil enthuiasts have in the social sciences. Given what I've seen, my guess is not a lot.
I find it instructive that no peak oil fan has even attempted to answer my three basic peak oil questions:
- If the peak is just around the corner and exceedingly high prices ($200 dollars a barrel? $300? $400?) are coming our way, then why are the prices for oil futures and oil call options so low?
- Are you buying oil futures or oil call options? If not, why not?
- Why did peak oil supporters in the 1970s tell us that the oil supply would run out in the 1980s and 1990s? Why were they wrong then? Why are you right now? What's changed?
Comments
They’ve been saying since the ’70s that we’d be outta oil in X years. Every year they say the same thing. Sure, sweet crude is running out, but the fact is:
a) we keep finding new reserves (i.e. north pole, etc.)
b) technology keeps improving meaning we can lift more
c) existing reserves are bigger than expected
So are we running out of oil, doubt it. The free market would also dictate that if there ever was a cheaper alternative we would have adopted that rather than lift expensive oil….. so we’ll see when that time comes.
“I don’t know” is probably the only correct answer. However, not knowing just indicates that we are going forward blindly.
Some may have thought that we were running out of oil in the 1970s because the US was the major oil producer at one time. Obviously this was not a global perspective.
Why did you perceive the question (How many barrels existed 1000 years ago?) as an attack? I am just trying to understand the oil market risks and recent price hikes.
Intellect is not judged.
I personally believe, that asking the question “How many barrels are left?” has two very seperate components to it. The first is obvious, from a physical perspective it is given that we are running out, extraction rate exceeds regeneration rate by far (even if new reserves are found).
One cannot say with certainty how many barrels are physically remaining, however from an economic/political perspective, the answer is simple, there are as many barrels as the amount of profit/power which is left to be gained from this particular natural resource. Hyperthetically, anyone with an incentive this strong would place huge efforts into quantifying how much profit is left from exploiting oil. Then, as we all do, try to maximize profits, in this case likely in the form of price hiking and spikes in the oil price, this can be done easily through certain well timed announcements.
Futhermore, substitutes are already available, such as electrical powered vehicles, this is fact! So why arent they being implemented? since they are almost 100% environmentally friendly relative to todays current vehicles. Answer: there are still profits to be made from oil exploitation. Even if it had to be a more expensive substitute initially, electricity prices are far lower than oil prices and clean as well.
It feels like some people are willing to play a huge gamble with the earth’s climate system, moving forward this blindly is rather alarming… but oh well, if we get thrown into another ice age we can use all those selfishly earned profits to buy the old climate system back.. lets try and estimate how much that will cost shall we?
Alex, Well put! The time to find alternatives and conserve is upon us. The solution requires questioning the ability to maintain a trend. Most people are only too quick to say yes to the ‘free lunch’. The housing collapse is another typical example of simple animal behavior rather than rational thought. Mark
Are we running out? Physically, yes we are. As with any finite ressource, oil is no different. As we consume it, reserves become depleted, simple as that. Recent estimates show very accurately that we have indeed peaked in 2005.
There is approximately 1 trillion barrels of oil left in the earth. Since oil has been first discovered, we have consumed 1 trillion. All in all, there were about 2 trillion. The problem here is that there have been no new discoveries in recent times. 90% of discoveries have already been made 30 years ago. What we are doing now is frantically searching for new reserves in remote and untable regions of the world.
As our population grows, so does our anual demand for energy. There is also a growth percentage. Currently about 0.5% growth rate in oil consumption. This means we are accelerating the depletion instead of slowly sucking it dry. The hubberts peak shows this very clearly.
As it stands the barrel is at 97$ and awareness of the problem is just starting. Unfortunately the awareness is too late for any good solution to take place. So economists say that we wont run out when in reality it is running out. The oil supply leads the economic supply. When and if we run out completely, there will still be a market for that rare ressource and eventually that market will completely die off.
Yes. We are losing oil. There are no alternatives to oil unlike what Alex said. He only mentioned electricity as a portioned substitute. Yes, electricity (and hydrogen) can replace the crude oil usage in automobiles. However crude oil is used in hundreds of thousands of every day utilities. Factories run off of oil as well as textiles and plastics are made from it. You might not realize it but plastics are used everywhere. Plastics have an endless use and aren’t made without oil. Hospitals can run without plastics. Running out of crude oil would also render our productivity helpless. If we ran completely out of oil, we couldnt make many goods, or wed be rather limited on what we could make. Solar power would be out of the question because oil is used in the plastic panels, which have a 20-40 year life time. The list could go on forever on how many things would be lost if oil depleted and no actual substitute was found. I dont believe there is a substitute either. Turning coal into oil is a long process and would also eventually run out. We need to figure out a real answer to this problem before its too late. The time is now and certainly not later. We’ll be out of oil within 35 years. Then what can we do? People will starve do to lack of sealed goods and the means of transportation. Not to mention pesticides and fertilizers will run out along with pills and medications. I suggest getting a gun and moving to a desolate area surrounded by fresh water and many trees. Hope for the best!
Yours truly, Sean.
Oil is embedded into every part of todays world. It will run out and when it does the world just might end up a better place. Living a stress free humble life in the modern world is so easy 4/5ths of the worlds population do so! It is capitalism that has driven the western world to consume like there is no tomorrow. In the 1920’s people did live a humble life. The machines of the industrial revolution made life so easy that there was talk of a 20 hour working week.
What happened is this…
We became capitalist consumers.
Back in the 1920’s a woman was happy to have 3 pairs of shoes, but today she is only happy with 3 dozen pairs, most of which are hardly used!
The simple solution to life after oil whenever it happens is to stop capitalism, reduce consuming by heaps. Happy is humble. The oil we have left will last for centuries and allow us to develop alternative energy.
Lets give ourselves more time and slow down ~ way down!
wow, U have really been shown up.
People would surely come together if we ran out.
The great news is no matter what happens, no one can take the sunshine away.
Someone says, “Plastics must come from oil.”
How simply not true that is. ‘Plastics’ are best made without oil, both extruded and injection molded from natural farm grown materials such as Cellulose Acetate. This was done before and after the oil boom but when oil barrons own the corporations which in turn own the government, it’s tough to do anything without subsidizing plutocratic oligarchies….
The total oil left in the earth and the oil that has been consumed consitute (if the numbers left by what another says above are true) 2 trillion barrels. This is a liquid volume of 8.4 E13 gallons which is an actual displaced volume of 1.12 E13 cubic feet of the earth’s spherical interior volume.
The real question should be, based on the volatility of the cracking of a barrel of oil, just how much of our troposphere is displaced by this and what effect does this have on our ability to breath following consumption of the assumed next trillion barrels?