How Much Oil is Actually Left On This Planet? Should We Care?
Editor’s Note: I’m in Houston, TX, this week, celebrating the International Year of the Planet by posting on topics covered at the first ever joint meeting between the American societies of Soil Science, Geology, Crop Science and Agronomy. With a significant focus on biofuels, this conference should be rife with interesting materials.
According to Dr. Peter McCabe, a world-renowned scientist currently working at CSIRO in Australia, any realistic analysis of future energy sources can only conclude that, barring some complete and miraculous harmony between all the world’s economic superpowers, fossil fuels will dominate our energy mix for at least the next few decades — and we should just accept it.
To get a perspective on where Dr. McCabe is coming from, it struck me that he is a man who thinks in terms of quadrillions of BTUs and exajoules of energy. His views come from an analysis of global markets and global energy use. To him it probably seems that a grassroots coordinated global effort is beyond the reach of humanity.
Being a bit of a realistic skeptic myself, it seemed like it would be worth my while to temporarily suspend my deep held belief that not only is it possible for the U.S. and most of the rest of the world to kick its oil habit within a decade, but also a simple requirement for survival, and take Dr. McCabe at face value.
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You see, to me all issues are local and don’t work on a global scale. Indeed, local efforts often end up with global results. But the top-down mentality, the self-same mentality that often results in humans thinking that a particular task is beyond reach, is what precludes a person who deals in exajoules from thinking that global change is possible in a short period of time.
With that said, Dr. McCabe does have some significant food for thought. Since 1980, world energy use has gone from 250 quadrillion BTUs to about 500 quadrillion BTUs presently (see chart at right, click for larger copy). The vast majority of that growth has been in Asia, with smaller amounts coming from North America and the Middle East. Europe’s energy demand has remained rather static and Eurasia has actually seen a decline in use since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Of the 500 quadrillion BTUs the world currently uses, roughly 40% comes from oil, 24% from natural gas, 22% from coal, 8% from nuclear, and 6% from renewables (see chart below, click for larger copy). In a way, I can see Dr. McCabe’s point: with 86% of 500 quadrillion BTUs coming from fossil fuels, it’s hard to envision a way to replace that much energy with renewable sources in a short period of time. 430 quadrillion BTUs is, to me, an unimaginably large amount.
So, if Dr. McCabe is right, will the world have enough fossil fuels to keep up with demand? If we can’t completely switch to renewable energy sources for at least another 30 years (and assuming climate change doesn’t kill us off first) will the problem of peak oil rear it’s ugly head and kill us off anyways?
According to McCabe, in a nutshell the peak oil concept is fundamentally flawed because it doesn’t account for external factors.
The way he sees it, the world has plenty of remaining and untapped fossil fuel resources to keep up with demand for at least the next 30 years. From squeezing oil out of unconventional sources such as oil shales, to using new technologies to re-exploit old oil fields that had since been left as dead, to undiscovered conventional oil sources, Dr. McCabe’s opinion is that there is no impending peak oil crisis - and the same thing goes for natural gas and coal.
So, hooray. Score one for fossil fuels. But is this really good news? In some sadistic and drastic way, part of me hopes that Dr. McCabe is wrong — because if he’s right, I’m afraid it will provide no incentive to the world to make the changes that are necessary to ensure the survival of humanity.
Other Posts From the Joint Meeting in Houston:
- Biofuels are Here To Stay: What To Do About Food Supply?
- Pro-Poor Biofuel Crops: Sweet Sorghum and Cassava
- Biofuels And Security: Shedding My Western-Centric Worldview (Opinion)
Opening Image Credit: W.M. Norton, publisher of the Book “Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil” by David Goodstein
All things being equal, we might be hooked on fossil fuel as longs as you say - but the United States might not tolerate such a notion and work faster to extracate ourselves from oil.
We’ll see.
Tom Desrosier
http://www.dare2believe.com
Not to worry. While McCabe is correct — there really is a good deal of oil and gas remaining and we’re finding more all the time — it’s also true that easily extracted oil and gas is becoming harder to find. It’s becoming more and more costly to drill and extract.
We’ve known about a lot of these alternative fuels for a long while, they simply weren’t economically competitive. As the cost of oil & gas production increases alternative fuels will become economically competitive, and when they’re economically competitive there will be a demand for them. When there is a demand someone will supply it.
Let the market take its course. When gasoline was $1 a gallon there was no demand for hybrid and electric vehicles, now there is and the automakers are scrambling to meet that demand.
At some point oil and gas will become the most expensive fuels and the demand for them will tail off. We’ll continue to produce them though because they are so valuable as the raw materials for manufacturing plastics & such.
I find the host of this site laughable and borderline needing to be committed for his views and complete lack of knowledge about what global warming is, what it could cause if real, and how many times its be repeatably debunked sometimes on a yearly happening. Even the most far fetched “realistic” model of the problems globals cause(the al gore effect) your talking at least 200-500 years before its a major threat to humans..
Next after failing for nearly 50+ years to find the “glass ceiling” and having a Sat launched in 2006 solely to study global warming saying that all temp data that global warming is based on it completely useless… how much more do you need.(O and hows that .6 degree temp drop going… we inbound for another ice age yet?)
Now that doesn’t mean that someday in 500 years that it may happen if we keep releasing more and more CO2… terraforming is a believable science…. it also takes a very very long time to happen.
As ChuckL has pointed out what of the biggest problems in developing new energy/fuel supplies are eco-facists and global warming idiots who really know nothing about science or more importantly science history. These fool waste billions of dollars lining their pockets with dead end research and prototypes. They take huge sums of money from realistic and effective research… they also tend to favor the most earth damaging fuels/processes they can find… Making bio-fuel from corn or “bio-mass” is almost always unrenewable… you can’t keep taking and taking from the ground and expect it to keep giving… most of the farming plans will strip the soil to nothing in a few decades… or cost more energy to maintain then they produce. Plus farming is just bad period.
The “peak oil” theory has been around for what 50 years now… and every year were going to hit peak oil… BS. The only reason we will hit peak oil in the next 50 years is because we stop drilling for it period thats not debatable its a fact. This whiny cry about were running out of food, oil, resources, etc, etc, etc has been disproved time and time again through the history of science.
The US for almost 30 years has stopped looking for oil in many of the riches oil areas because of the oil bans… tech for finding oil is way way better now then then. The US alone could have as much as 10x the amount of oil as is currently known… but it is way way more oil then officially reported. Plus we pretty much have the largest coal supply in the world… which can be made into oil. Once again though the eco-fascists refuse to let us build nukes/dams, etc… thus we still get most of our power from coal.
Then add in this whole BS argument that somehow gas is to blame… how retarded are ppl. Even if you changed every single car, truck, etc in the US we’d still be importing alot of oil… because oil doesn’t just make gas/diesel… So what happens if the US stops using gas/diesel well 1 of 2 thing. Either A. we sell it to other countries… which for you global warming nut bags should make you real happy… Or B. we “dispose” of it… Now I know of only one way to dispose of large amounts of a flammable liquid… YOU BURN IT.
Now I do suppose that given enough time they could come up with some sort of gas/diesel eating bug like they have for oil now… but who knows how long that will take. Their is no current way to dispose of large amounts of gas/diesel other then burning it…. or dumping it into the rivers/oceans…
You’ll forgive me but trying to have a rational debate with ppl that are so irrational tests my nerves…
The bottom line is ppl need to focus on a real energy plan instead of eco-fascists BS. This should first be nukes and hydro. Then spending the research money into realistic options for fuels such as the algae to diesel and solar. In the end solar should be the goal.. but in the mean time we need realistic fuels and bio-fuels from corn and other farm lands is completely unrealistic. Given enough time batteries and the electric cars/trucks will be able to fill the job plus many synthetic replacements for the current things we need oil for.
Um, robotech master seems to have mastered the art of global warming denying. I believe I’ve read his rants (virtually the exact same rants) on other websites. If you want to talk about rational debates, then be prepared to have one yourself. See my reply to oreo magnificant for a rebuttal, rather than me rehashing it for mr. nutbucket here.
I believe the guy above me.
If anything, we should start now and hard because look at what our economy is going through. Our system, when it ruptures or has problems, can have immense effects on humanity.
How many people thought the stock market would just “fix” itself or just work out? Anyone who says that there is a lot of time to get things done is a great optimistic, but things must get done now. Not in 5 years, not in 10.
Its like retirement. What sense would it make to start making retiring arrangements 10 years before instead of 30? Just do the 30, so we can be safe.
Screw whether to believe if peak oil is here or not. Just the likelyhood that it MAY happen is enough justification to stop arguing and get it done.Who has the balls to play Chicken with society’s energy? I’m not.
Hey nick you ever heard of something called the “science process” look it up… global warming fails it… as for your nutcase views no rational and most worse case fantasies submitted don’t endanger the human race for 200+ years…
Your massive ignorance combined with your undieing need to believe in this even though its been proven time and time again that science doesn’t agree is fun… the fact you have zero counters for any of my argues is also fun… I’ll give you this you’d have made a great SS officer in the 40s…
How much oil? Probably about a much as there was 10, 100 or 1000 years ago. The “oil” I believe is constantly being replenished deep from within the earth with more being created constantly. DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT ALL THE OIL EVER FOUND OR WILL BE FOUND WAS CREATED FROM DEAD DINOSAURS AND BIOMASS “fossil fuels” AND THAT IT ALL HAPPENED TO COLLECT IN THESE FEW PLACES IN SUCH QUANTITIES???? Also how did so much of it collect miles beneath the ground even in the ocean??? It has never been remotely proved that this is the only way for all that oil to be made. At best simply just one way that oil could be produced from a small amount of these “fossils”. If you controlled that kind of wealth would you tell anyone? Keeping people in the dark about that little bit of information insures that you can get record profits for many years to come. If it were found out that oil is not dwindling in supply the bottom would have fell out of the market and gas would have been 10 cents a gallon everywhere BUT your not going to get filthy rich that way. Remember it’s all about PROFIT and KNOWLEDGE is POWER.
Sure we can get off of oil in less than a decade. How fast depends on how many and how quickly you want to let billions of living people die.
The problem with McCabe’s analysis is it doesn’t really factor in future growth in Asia or a renewed demand in eastern Europe and Russia, nor what will be a big demand from Africa.
South America is a bit unique in that Brazil has made tremendous progress in converting away from oil.
There’s also the economic cost of oil as the world reaches its max output. At some a certain point the price of gasoline and energy will reach a point that it becomes prohibitively expensive for most people and most countries.
South America, especially Brazil is a perfect example, in roughly 25 years, Brazil has dramatically decreased its dependence on fossil fuels, especially oil. Cars run almost exclusively on sugar cane ethonal.
So the idea that the world can’t get rid of fossil fuels in 30 years is simply not teh case. Furthermore, there’s a difference between Fossil fuels in general and Oil. Eliminating all Fossil fuel is unlikely but getting to a point where the consumption of oil is a mere fraction of where it is today is certainly reasonable.
The one thing all doomsdayers and Malthusians leave out of the equation is human ingenuity.
The only thing I fear is idiotic governments preventing the full use of that ingenuity.
What we need is freedom not fix-its.