Oil Scarcity... Is it a real Scam??? By all logic oil should be very plentiful, should it not?

Question

I've been programs that mention where oil comes from, evidently plankton and the like from hundreds of millions of years ago when as far as I can tell the entire planet was twice as warm as it is now and everything was like a swamp and plant, and moss covered.

When companies are asked how it formed the answers are:

1. Oil and gas were formed by the anaerobic decay of organic material in conditions of increased temperature and pressure;

2. Oil and Natural gases have formed from the remains of plants and sea creatures;

3. Oil forms first, then as the temperature and pressure increase at greater depth gas begins to form;

4. Oil and gas form as the result of a precise sequence of environmental conditions:

A. The presence of organic material;

B. Organic remains being trapped and preserved in sediment;

C. The material is buried deeply and then slowly "cooked" by increased temperature and pressure.

We all know that as time passes everywhere on the planet has the same layers.

Answer 1

Oil is quite plentiful, and it's found all over the world - land and sea.

However, not all oil that is discovered is recoverable.  Of the oil in a reservoir, some percentage will be uncoverable due to technology limitations or other factors.  A portion of the field of petroleum engineering is entirely devoted to figuring out ways to improve the percentage of oil that can be recovered.

Some of the areas that have oil are extremely remote or harsh environments.  Such conditions add to the difficulties of recovering oil (and doing so profitably).

There are also huge political issues surrounding oil.  Just because oil is there doesn't mean that the government is going to let you drill for it.

EDIT:

Who hires those people?  Oil companies..

Answer 2

<<Oil Scarcity... Is it a real Scam??? By all logic oil should be very plentiful, should it not?>>

If so, then go and find these plentiful supplies.  The geological maps would be worth consulting.  Good luck with the search.

Answer 3

it is plentiful although if we didn't use it there would be more...

heres the problem... a pool of oil taking 5 billion+ yrs to make would take 20- days to be used up completely since there are billions of cars on the road... think!! oil can't be made as fast as we use it... if income is $2 and outcome is $19999, then u r on the losing side just like we r right now in what will turn into a huge oil crisis...

Answer 4

First off, the composition of the earths crust isn't homogeneous, tectonic plate movements over the millions of years have bent and twisted the crust not to mention the remelting of crust that is subducted.

Secondly, there never was a time in the history of the planet when climate and growing conditions were consistent from pole to pole.

Because the planet is a dynamic system, conditions vary from place to place and time to time.

Oil and coal, the two most visible fossil fuels occur in surface deposits and in deposits thousands of feet below the surface.

Your reasoning is too simplistic and fails to take into account the dynamic nature of the planet.

Answer 5

You were doing well until the last sentence. Everywhere on the planet does NOT have the same layers, by a long shot. If that were true, the earth would be uniformly covered in gold, iron, copper (name a metal), coal, and every other commodity mined today. Obviously that's not true. Our political reality is shaped by the location of things that are valuable to our economies, primarily sources of energy.

The earth is a living thing, constantly changing, moving, and evolving. This has been the case for 4.6 billion years.

Oil scarcity or 'peak oil' is not a scam. For it to be a scam someone would need to be profiting. Yes, the oil companies are wildly profitable now but predictions are that peak oil is already here and we're on the downside. They all stand to lose a lot if they don't rapidly diversify (which I don't think they're doing).

Besides, oil is sold on an open market. The price is set by supply and demand. It is fairly immune to artificial attempts to alter the price in any significant way.

The finer points and timing of peak oil is open for debate. But, the science behind it is not. We are nearing the end of the hydrocarbon economy. As has been said before, the stone age didn't end when we ran out of stones. We won't run out of oil but we will be forced to find alternatives.