Just how crazy are these people?

Sigh – “its going to happen in our lifetime”??? Oil Reserves by Country:
#CountryOil Reserves (barrels) in 20161
Venezuela 299,953,000,0002
Saudi Arabia 266,578,000,0003
Canada 170,863,000,0004
Iran 157,530,000,000

“The oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 where supply shocks caused by war in middle East.”

I think cpratt might have been referring to the “peak oil” theory first proposed by the geologist M.K. Hubbert in 1956, that predicted we would be running on dwindling reserves of oil from as early as the 1970’s.

This was clearly a miscalculation and an underestimation of the evolution of technology.

Whether cpratt meant that or not, I think it is worth pointing out that todays estimates as you stated, are just the next in line of many previous estimates that have been proven wrong or at least wide of the mark.

Maybe this time they’re right, but predicting the future has been a notoriously tricky affair.

Your ignorance of history is as profound as your ignorance of economics. Despite your claims otherwise, the oil problems of the 70’s was resolved by finding more oil.

BTW, we had 40 years worth of proven reserves back in the 70’s. Using your illogic, we should have run out of oil 10 years ago. Yet lo and behold, we still have 40 years of proven reserves.

This is the point that SimpleSimonsays is missing. There are other sources of oil available at a modest increase in cost. I’ve seen estimates of 150 years worth in oil shale. That’s uncertain, it could even be longer, but no matter what it turns out to be, running out of oil is far into the future. We have the time needed to manage a transition to nuclear and its ability to power the manufacture of synthetic fuels.

We don’t need to kill people by over reliance on unreliables.

Simon,
I don’t wish to get into the middle of an ongoing exchange but would make a couple of observations.

1. You are concerned about running out of oil before the end of the century and ask: What will we do for energy? Well if such a situation ever came around we would introduce nuclear power as fast as was needed to maintain civil society.
2. You ask what do we do when we run out of cheap oil? The answer to that question is being developed right now because energy prices are no longer cheap in the West so you won’t have long to wait for an answer.

Here’s Wikipedia on South Africa’s SASOL

That makes absolutely no sense. Its a demand/supply equation. You can’t make it more economically viable to produce something as there is less of it.

Say oil is totally Uneconomic at $200 a barrel, it doesn’t matter if you have trillions of barrels of potential supply, unless you can produce it less than $200 it is still Uneconomic. And that’s the problem, we have used all the low hanging fruit and soon will.only have oil that is Uneconomic to drill.

Dipping into the reserve is not the only (or desirable) solution to an oil supply shortage. Increased production is. We were, quite recently, a net exporter. That can happen again — easily.

Rod Evans, “You ask what do we do when we run out of cheap oil? The answer to that question is being developed right now because energy prices are no longer cheap in the West so you won’t have long to wait for an answer.”

Much of these price increases are due to the addition of renewables to the world’s grids. Fossil fueled electricity sources do not need renewable sources, but renewable sources REQUIRE fossil fueled backups.

Adding renewables to a grid ALWAYS raise the cost/prices for electricity.

Geoff, are you saying there is a massive reserve of oil undiscovered in Australia? Seriously, have you got some geoglists who would back that up or is it just wishfull thinking. I deal in facts, not hypotheticals.

OK, Do you think this great undiscovered oil field will be on the scale of millions or billions of barrels. Lets say its one of the largest fields ever discovered with 35billion barrels … that’s 12 months world oil supply.

Keep buying lotto tickets you got more chance of winning.

MarkW,
Please try to avoid guesswork.
An increase in reserves comes from exploration, not from guessing.
Years ago we were approached by spoon bender Audi Geller who offered to use our bizjet to fly over Australia, looking out the window to mark a map with locations of new resources. For a consulting fee that was bigger than mine.
Meanwhile, we with our science and feet on the ground found several new green fields mines under wheat fields, grazing land and largely unoccupied bush. Big ones. But we did not know their value until a lot more study was done, in satisfaction of rules for reporting to stock exchanges. Wishful thinking not allowed, ditto data adjustment or homogenisation. Geoff S

Simonsays – you might have missed the point that oil and gas exploration requires financing, and the current Green ethos is to deny them that finance. In fact anything to do with fossil fuels is being denied finance because it is being regarded as potentially stranded assets.

Thus the reason we’re not finding enough future reserves is because we’re not looking for them, and the reason we’re not looking is because it can’t get the finances.

There are always alternatives. They tend to cost more, which is why they aren’t yet being done. Coal can be used to produce both gaseous fuels and liquid fuels. Currently, USA nuclear aircraft carriers can produce aviation fuel for their jets from water and CO2 from the air, using nuclear power. There’s even the possibility that politicians will at some point realise that the predictions of Thermageddon have been wrong for years and that they can’t significantly alter the rate of climate change, and thus allow both the finance and permits for new exploration for fossil-fuel resources. There’s a massive amount of Methane Hydrates in the ocean, that would be better used than allowed to dissipate unused.

There may even be better ways of producing energy based on recent theory.

As Kip said at the start, though, the main reasons for fuel shortages and famines are political. That’s also the reason for the high prices, since the shortage in supplies is political and the price responds to that because our energy-use is largely inflexible. Technically, we can fix the problems, but we need to stop holding the engineers back.

Simonsays – figure what all that oil is used for now, and what can be (either now or in that far future) substituted by something else.

For transport, liquid fuels are the most convenient, but we can use compressed gas instead and there really is a whole lot of Methane Hydrate around under the sea. Not the best solution, but usable with current technology and with little modifications.

Though I really don’t expect fusion to become useful for generating power in my lifetime, it is good at producing neutrons that could then trigger fission, making a very compact nuclear power solution possible with very low nuclear waste production – like molten-salt reactors it would extract the available nuclear energy so well that the nuclear waste would be safer than the ores in less than a century, thus no real nuclear waste disposal problem. Figure on units to power a car or truck around equivalent to the current ICE size, and fuelled for a year with a few grams of fuel. The possibility of this method is pretty obvious, and it just needs to be developed.

Thus the use of oil for energy production can be substituted. It’s use a a chemical feedstock can be substituted by various vegetable oils in some cases, or by direct synthesis if your energy input is cheap enough. If you have that compact nuclear engine, energy will be cheap, so synthesis will be economic – it’s already done on those warships because the nuclear power is effectively free (fuel cost in nuclear power is less than 5% of the total cost). If you want more Uranium or Thorium than is easily mined, there are bacteria (and some types of plastic) that will absorb it from the sea and concentrate it, so you can effectively mine it from the sea.

There are also ways of producing energy that are currently considered impossible by most right-thinking scientists, but with good experimental results. Cheaper by far than nuclear and with no pollution. By the end of this year we’ll see if the predictions are right, and whether it really is possible.

Basically, we’ll find alternatives. Faced with a wall, if we’re clever we’ll jump over it rather than run into it.

Simon,
I stated facts. You inserted hypotheticals.
I have done some oil exploration, not much, but enough to confirm that there are many, many expert petroleum geologists who have much better understanding of the hypotheticals that worry you.
I am confident that they can discover, develop, market, innovate, invent at a cost and a rate that satisfies the demands of society while managing whatever resources Nature gifted to us.
A major impediment is the never ending barrages of ignorance from largely uneducated politicians, bureaucrats and now, greedy elites with visions of global dominance.
Simon, you should be asking for answers from them, not from technically advanced industry operators who already spend too much time on diversions like fake existential crises. Geoff S

Just because you aren’t the only one spewing this nonsense, is not evidence that it isn’t nonsense.

With proven reserves being at and near record highs, it isn’t in the least bit surprising that oil companies have cut way back on both searching and developing new sources.

That has been explained over and over again. Unfortunately some people are only happy when they are panicking about something.

Clyde? Is that YOU? I have a feeling our normally calm, data-driven, logical, well-informed, Clyde Spencer has been hijacked on this thread. 😲

“A reasonable person goes to the grocery story when they start getting low on food used daily. They don’t wait until they run out, and then find out that hoarders have emptied the shelves at the store.“

But they probably wouldn’t go the the store if they had 47 years supply in their pantry, eh?

Do you have an example of fact that is not correct?

The World consumes 35billion barrels per year.

Simonsays – the rate of advance of technology is exponential, and whereas I grew up with a single coal fire in the house and woolly jumpers (as Michel speculates above) the difference over those 68 years or so will probably happen in 30 years or less. It took less than 70 years from the Wright brothers to landing on the Moon.

There will be several alternatives invented for energy supply in future. Maybe compact fission engines, possibly even fusion, maybe something else more exotic. However, we’ve always found an answer before, and I’d expect that in 40 years the whole energy outlook will be completely different. People are working on these things, so solutions will be found.

This isn’t blind faith that a solution will be found, but based on knowledge that various things are in fact possible, that such things have been tested, and that it’s largely a matter of time before they get sold. No need to worry about energy in future, in fact, but more about the energy supply between now and maybe a decade in the future.

LOOOXURY!!!

You are CLEARLY not our Clyde Spencer. Ugh. You are using his good name to promote NONSENSE, now. The cost of petroleum would go up….. then, substitutes become economically viable….. many, many, years from now. This is NO reason to “panic” and short-sell petroleum, etc.. The current tech makes oil what will now give you the most discretionary income — and for the foreseeable future.

Heh. Of course. 🙄😏