Why do people think oil can run out in the near future when there plenty?

Question

Why do people think we are running out of oil when the gas pumps keep on pumping? The earth is over 5 billion years old and for all that time plant matter has been falling over and traped in the ground to form todays fossil fuels. There is probely as much fossil fuel as there is dirt and sand . Why do people belive that?

Answer 1

Because we are using it far faster than we're finding it.

There's lotsa coal, but very little accessible oil left.

Answer 2

Because we really are depleting it. Although oil has been forming for the past half-billion to billion years (not as long as the age of the earth), it's still a finite, non-renewable resource. There's still only so much oil in the earth, and when the day comes that oil is so scarce that to find and extract a barrel takes more energy than is contained in that barrel, it's as good as gone.

Now, that day isn't imminent yet, but without a major shift to alternative energy sources such as nuclear, solar, hydro, wind, etc. this may happen before the year 2100.

Even before we are "out" of oil, we will find that as oil becomes more scarce, even though it is still accessible, there will not be enough to satisfy demand at any price. This "peak oil" scenario isn't here yet either, but it will come sooner than the exhaustion of all supplies. When it happens, the sky's the limit for the price of oil. We would be wise to plan ahead and start building our new energy sources NOW - even though oil is still, for the time being, cheaper. Then we'll be set while those who are still oil-dependent flounder.

Answer 3

At a minimum it takes about 3 to 5 million years to create oil from organic matter deposited with sedimentary rock.  So once we produce all the oil that is in rocks today we will have to wait at least that long to get more deposits.  It is not like making ice cubes in your freezer.

Oil in the ground is delicate and rare.  Once it is formed it still needs to be located in a reservoir to be produced.  It usually migrates into the reservoir/trap from the source rocks.  If during this migration, there is no trap then the oil is lost.

Traps and reservoirs can be comprimised.  Suppuse you have a nice reservoir of oil but faulting breaches the trap then the oil excapes.  This has probably occured many times over the past 200 million years.  What oil we see in reservoirs now are the ones that have survived erosion, faulitng, heating, and other perils.

Few doubt there has been lots of fossil fuel and few doubt that there still is lots of fossil fuel.  What is rare are the preserved reservoirs of oil that can be economically producted.

Answer 4

People think we are running out because oil and gas and all that is a non-renewable resource and gas prices are going up.

Answer 5

Day by day the oil prices are increasing and spoiling the economics of our world.The price rise means the gap between demand and production is increasing. We are consuming more per capita consumption. At this stage the oil reserve can not long lost. It is necessary to find the alternative fuel before it comes to an un affordable price.

Answer 6

Oil is not to be found on the earth as huge caverns filled with liquid gold. Oil is embedded in bubbles of rock and must be drilled out and processed. The more you drill oil from a reserve, the harder it is to get that oil, since the pressure drops.

The more we take, the harder (and more costly) it is to get. We are always trying to find new ways to get more oil out of the same area, but in a different way (drilling sideways, instead of straight down, for example).

We ARE running out of oil. How quickly, and how severely, depends on three things: our consumption of oil (population growth), our ability to drill for it (new advances in drilling), and the discovery of new reserves.

If we don't have any major breakthroughs in drilling, or fail to find new reserves, and our population keeps growing as it is, and we don't move to alternative energy sources...we'll crash in 50-100 years.