There are 1.65 trillion barrels of proven oil reserves in the world as of 2016.
The world has proven reserves equivalent to 46.6 times its annual consumption levels. This means it has about 47 years of oil left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).
This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime
Source/more reading: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
Update: It is infact not true (or just partially true), because it only considers already known oil reserves that can be pumped out with current technology.
There is more oil that can potentially be used as technology and infrastructure advances, so the estimate of 50 years is wrong.
For the correction thanks to [email protected] (their original comment)
The disconnect between the general public and the realities of the petroleum industry may be the largest gap in existence. Pretty much any article you read gets 99% of the info hilariously wrong as the journalist has no idea wtf they’re talking about.
I’ve heard this for my whole life. Oil runs out in X years, until they develop affordable ways to dig deeper and get at more
Cheapest oil runs out in x years. Mid cost in y years. Expensive in z years. Then we get into “manufactured” oils.
Oil isn’t going to run out, it’s just going to get more expensive.
I remember when they said there were 30 years left in the '90s.
By 2050, there might even be 70 years of oil left!
Yeah, not trying to poke holes, but I was hearing “less than 50 years left” when I was in school in the 2000s. I do remember seeing a post here and there about new oil reservoirs being discovered but never any follow up. So I suppose that could be stretching things out. But oil use certainly hasn’t decreased in the last 25 years.
Glad you already learned this is probably nonsense. The wrong reasoning is very similar to much thought about overpopulation. The amount of people that makes for a place to be overpopulated is a function of how societies work and the technologies they have at hand. One extra issue there is that improvements in technology usually lead to population growth, so much progress gets cancelled out.
This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime.
Well, not in mine. So good luck with that!
At the current rate of oil consumption there are only 15 years left in the world. So it’s fine.
Off topic but the amount of oil we have left is the least of humanities’ concerns right now imo.
I’ll be 91. I’m sure I’ll have bigger problems by that point.
…such as having been dead for the past 49 years!
Shiiit, 1985 to 2075? That’s a long life
Congrats on reaching 91!
Honestly we’ve known peak oil would occur in our lives for several decades. Not that you could tell by any project to prepare for such an event.
This thread is filled with people who don’t grasp what a finite resource is. Saying “I remember hearing that x years ago”. Sure there’s probably more it there somewhere, but we don’t need to have to the finish on this. There are are kids who are going to grow up, people who aren’t born yet. Hell, at current rates, we might fuck up things with climate change. Which, even more reason to use less.
Call me selfish, but I want my nieces and nephews, to be able to grow up into a prosperous world and not some weird dystopian hellscape.
I think our point is that we don’t know if this is a good prediction or not. They both keeps crying wolf.
We’re not cheering for it, we’re just skeptical.
Skeptical of what? That it’s finite? Or how much is left? Or that climate change is real?
Because I’m definitely seeing people who think we have unlimited oil, that there’s always going to be more, and that climate change is not only a hoax but isn’t caused by humans at all. Some of those folks are in this thread, some of those folks I know in real life.
Skeptical of the timeline prediction, you disingenuous git.
They’ve been saying this for 50 years at least.
The way things are going we’re all going to be dead before it gets to that point
Probably because of all the dipshits in this thread specifically, acting like we don’t need to stop extracting and using oil.
And it could be caused by nuclear fallout before climate change gets critical
What’s the implication? Invest in oil barrels?
No, I think quite the opposite. I learned this recently and I was quite surprised no one ever uses this as one of the arguments for renewable sources of energy.
Because why invest in an industry that is basically declining and wouldn’t be around after 50-60 years.
People have been using this as an argument for renewables since what? The 70s oil crisis? As new ways to access hydrocarbons got discovered the horrified realization was that there are plenty of reasons to bail on those faster than they run out, unfortunately. The issue isn’t that we’ll run out, it’s the amount of damage we’ll cause until that point.
And also, it’ll take much longer to run out, but others have mentioned that already.
This thread is interesting to me mostly as a periodic reminder that culture wars have shorter memories than one would think. People forget hotly contested issues and the public opinion battle lines around them at a horrifying pace. You’d think it has to do with old people dying and new people growing up, but it’s a lot faster than that.
Consider especially huge infrastructure like refineries, pipelines, shipping terminals, that take many years to break a profit. Why would anyone build those anymore?
At this point, new exploration and drilling too. I don’t know how long it takes for those to be profitable, but if countries follow through with EV and other targets for renewable energy, we should expect a huge surplus and price drops in less than a decade
It’s because it isn’t true. We don’t go looking unless it’s needed.
Oil barrel recycling
There was 50 years worth of oil left 20 years ago too
I believe prices will increase dramatically long before we actually run out. Any non-critical usage of plastics and petroleum products will be phased out for economic forces if nothing else.
Yeah don’t bother thinking about the future. The market will sort it out. Just go buy some shit.
It actually gives me hope that there’s a chance we’re going to do something about it.
The trick is figuring out how to make that happen. Today.
You could easily argue that practically non-existent passenger trains and slow adoption of EVs in the US is primarily caused by cheap gasoline. Maybe if we fixed prices to be higher, we’d be able to make the progress we need
I believe gasoline is indeed heavily subsidized. I always thought that was a strange choice.
I was in Norway a few days ago and I was impressed how pretty much all the vehicles I saw were EVs and that the bus system appeared to be relatively efficient.
