Dammit, we will never run out of oil.
Now, that's not to say I'm someone who thinks we will always have plenty of cheap oil. But there is a good possibility we will run out of CHEAP oil. Unless a big breakthrough in abiotic oil or depolymerization method comes along that is utterly cheap as the stuff we dig out of the ground, oil will get drastically expensive. As we pump the easy, sweet crude oil out first, we leave behind more of the lower-grade harder to get to oil. This will require more energy to pump out by the barrel, and thus more expensive.
I think the only thing that looks very good in preventing this big energy crisis is fusion power, and that will be decades away before we can find some nice break-even formula for using it. It would be a pretty close call.
Log in to comment