Reply #96: Not bad science, good arithmetic...

[Solon]

Hell, you can do the calculations yourself if you feel up to it. Let's see, according to the USGS, there are 3.02 trillion barrels of oil left in the ground, only conventional mind you. Don't believe me, look at this website(PDF DOCUMENT): http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/sumtbls/wout.pdf

World Oil demand right now, per day is 82.2 million barrels, source here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3554462.stm

Also, cannot forget this, World oil demand has been increasing by about 1.5 to almost 2 percent a year: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/12/10/worldoil.ap/

Also is the fact that peak oil discovery peaked in the 1960s, this is a fact: http://wwwistp.murdoch.edu.au/teaching/N212/n212content/topics/topic5/04discoverandprodn.html

OK, first, lets do a flat calculation, as in "we have oil that'll last a thousand years, at current demand!"<--tongue firmly in cheek :)

OK, so divde 3 trillion barrels total by demand per day and you get, lets see, 36739 days, or about 100 years!!!! Holy cow, that's more than enough time for us to move to any other alternative energy source out there, don't you think? Of course, we would have to stop all economic growth NOW to do it, but that shouldn't be a problem, should it? NOTE: This is with the assumption that ALL that oil is usable, 100%, which is physically impossible.

OK, now that we know that we have 100 years, based on oh, let's see, normal growth of 1.5% a year, about an addition million barrels a day growth. Hm, lets see, doubling time is about 46 years, that means that by the end of the century, lets see, base use is 82.2mbpd, 46 years later...164.4mbpd, 46 years after that...328.8mbpd by the end of the century, or in 92 years to be exact, around the year 2096-7. If your wondering about how I came up with these numbers, take 100, mulitply it by the natural logrithim of 2, that equals 70, then divide that number by 1.5, or any other percentage growth figure. I'm being conservative to the extreme, by the way.

OK, so I gave you the doubling time, so lets see how much oil will need to be in the ground to last 100 years, using these calculations. USGS gave the number 3 trillion in conventional reserves, so lets see.
Over 13 trillion barrels of oil will be needed in the ground to cover our demand by the end of the century, even the overly optimistic reserves of the oil industry do not go even half that high. Oh, BTW: that is just to cover the year 2096 or so, not all the preceding years before it, so think about that.