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 Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win (their original comment)
There was 50 years worth of oil left 20 years ago too
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.
This means that the oil is going to run out in our lifetime.
Well, not in mine. So good luck with that!
Part of me wishes that the oil would run out sooner to give governments more urgency to actually do something about our fossil fuel dependency, cause apparently the increasingly apparent effects of climate change just aren’t enough motivation.
They’ve been saying this for 50 years at least.
I remember going to a presentation in Boulder Colorado in 2005 or somewhere near there about how the world will run out of oil in 10-15 years, they had tons of data they had collected with a bunch of researches and everything.
We just keep discovering more and more oil, and get better at extracting it.
I mean, yes, but there is a finite amount, we just don’t have the ability to accurately gauge how finite. We also created new techniques for extraction and technology changed to enable those new techniques.
The information was good at the time, but it won’t get better at the same rate, we’re closer to the truth now than we were before because of advancement.
Anyway, my point is the new estimate is much closer to true than the one your comparing it to.
I wish it would run out much sooner. Burning fossil fuels is responsible for 20% of all deaths in the world.
Off topic but the amount of oil we have left is the least of humanities’ concerns right now imo.
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.
At the current rate of oil consumption there are only 15 years left in the world. So it’s fine.
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.
“Peak Oil” they used to call it. Lots written about to collapse of everything after Peak Oil. Been predicted since at least 1970’s.
Now we need to run out for our own good.
Peak oil was about conventional oil. Had we not discovered other sources and methods for extraction then we likely would have run out. And running out isn’t accurate, it’s just that oil becomes harder to extract and thus too expensive for regular uses.
There are many things that were predicted as a collapse factor that we then innovated solutions to break past those barriers. We’re too smart for our own good, because each time we find new ways to keep going we make things worse and get ourselves even more into a dead end. When we do “run out” of oil of any type, which will happen at the growing rate we use it up, will we be smart again and find replacements for all the things petroleum is used for (not just fuel)? One important one being fertilizer to make food grow in our otherwise barren soils. Fun fact: people need to eat to live. Most people in the world, especially the western world, exists and survive because of food thanks to oil.
Lastly, we would have done so much better post-collapse if things had happened naturally with a smaller population and less damage to the environment. The higher you fall, the more it will hurt, and we’re damn high now compared to the mid/late 20th century.
Peak oil was about conventional oil. Had we not discovered other sources and methods for extraction then we likely would have run out. And running out isn’t accurate, it’s just that oil becomes harder to extract and thus too expensive for regular uses.
In other words, we did hit Peak Oil and that’s what caused the development of things like fracking, oil sands, and deep ocean drilling.
Peak oil was reached locally, not globally. Enough need to drive innovation, but not all of the fun aftereffects predicted.
I point this out as “peak oil” was more than just “no oil”, and I don’t want that lost on the young ones. It was about the collapse of everything dependent on oil.
Otherwise yes.
I was curious how best to cut down on our usage, if we’d be aggressive, how long we could make our oil last.
From the EPA, seems the like roughly 40% of an oil barrel ends up being used to create gasoline source. The transportation sector accounts to 2/3 of our total oil consumption. In the transportation sector, roughly 54% of energy is used just for passenger cars. source
If everyone in the world stopped driving gasoline cars and switched to a 100% renewable option, we would only cut our oil production by about 36%. That changes the timeline from 50 years to 78 years.
Pretty saddening to think about. Hopefully some technology improvements for oil recycling come around quickly
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.
Sorry you don’t like their tone but they’re right.
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
