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November 20, 2024

Oil and Gas Reserves EARTH 104: Earth and the Environment Development

how much oil is left in the world

A UN report in December found fossil fuel production must fall rapidly to keep under 1.5C and avoid “severe climate disruption” but that countries were planning increased outputs. What a Fool believesI’m not here to thumb my nose at peak oil theories, because there is an actual physical limit to the amount of oil in the ground. It is much more likely, however, that we will reach the economic limits of extracting oil from the ground before we reach the physical limits. Somewhere between 53 and 250 years, take your pickThere are a multitude of ways to describe the amount of oil remaining, but the most common is known as proved reserves.

But, as finite resources, this paradigm can’t obviously last forever. If successful, this sort of initiative would kill two birds with one stone, dealing with waste and reducing society’s dependence on crude oil. And this couldn’t come at a better time, with something like 88 percent of all plastic used worldwide being either dumped, burned, or leaked into the environment.

Global crude oil reserves 1960-2023

This indicates that just 12 of the 359 million tonnes of plastic generated each year in the globe get recycled. So long as plants can grow on this planet, we can always have a supply of liquid fuels for our machines. For all the will in the world, humans cannot predict the future and have a history of making things worse by tinkering with highly complex systems like global trade. For this reason, some feel that the best way is to allow the billions of people on the planet to make incremental changes over time to wean us all off the need to consume oil. Others argue that unless changes are imposed, they will never happen.

how much oil is left in the world

Things appear to be going well for the company, with them already attracting research funding to develop their technology. It could prove to be a game changer if they can scale this operation. Around the world (and sadly how much oil is left in the world in the sea), there are millions of tonnes of “waste” plastic that could, in theory, be used as a feedstock for petrochemicals and other new plastics, etc.

Since 1960, there has been a marked increase in oil reserves, especially in the decade between 1960 and 1970. More optimistic views of this inevitable post-peak world involve a lot more preparation. Basically, the impact of oil shortages can be lessened by decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Other statistics that may interest you Oil industry worldwide

  1. Reserves were defined as the coal, oil and gas that was economic to extract in 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic.
  2. Now, some 20% of Russia’s GDP and 30% of its exports come from these chilly lands.
  3. So depending on who you ask, you may get widely different estimates for fossil fuel reserves.
  4. This is a very viscous (sticky) low-grade form of crude oil that can be distilled to make petroleum.
  5. At the same time, we now have a much better understanding of the impact burning fossil fuels has on climate change.

It can also be used “as is” as a binder for many other things like asphalt, roofing products, damp-proofing, etc. So, for all intents and purposes, gold is effectively in infinite supply, albeit rare. The more optimistic at heart, however, realize that there is a big universe out there full of all the potential sources of stuff we could ever need. If we ever did run out of something like copper on Earth, we could, with enough effort, “pop-out” to space and get some from another planet or asteroid. As the world moves away from oil as an energy source, thanks to the shift to electric vehicles, according to BP’s 2023 Energy Outlook Report, demand will likely plateau. In October 2023, for instance, the International Energy Agency said it expects oil use to have peaked by 2030, declining after that.

As the price of gasoline goes up, this will become even more pronounced. All proven oil reserves have been used up, and now solutions have been found to tap the technically recoverable ones (or perhaps they have also been tapped). Pedantic perhaps, but always bear in mind that raw resources are only ever changed in form, not destroyed when we use them — from the perspective of the conservation of mass. The technicalities of reversing chemical reactions aside (think compounds as opposed to mixtures and elements), we can never really run out of anything, ever. All we would need to do is devise a way to recover or “reconvert” something to get a raw resource back in the future.

  1. Even processes like nuclear fission, or indeed fusion, could, theoretically, be reversed, although it would take a lot of energy to do so.
  2. What a Fool believesI’m not here to thumb my nose at peak oil theories, because there is an actual physical limit to the amount of oil in the ground.
  3. While gold and silver are consumed in equipment like electronics (despite being considered “precious”) this is because they are excellent electrical conductors when compared to cheaper alternatives.
  4. So long as plants can grow on this planet, we can always have a supply of liquid fuels for our machines.
  5. For this reason, some feel that the best way is to allow the billions of people on the planet to make incremental changes over time to wean us all off the need to consume oil.

Regional distribution of oil reserves

On the subject of chucking stuff into space, some new innovations, like kinetic launchers, are currently being developed. If successful, this could “ease” the pressure on raw materials needed to make rockets. Knowing oil and gas won’t ever run out in your lifetime shouldn’t be an excuse to keep using them. Rather, knowing this, we should all take action to ensure that our children and grandchildren actually have a future.

They have opened a new biotechnology campus in the U.S., which will be the first one in the U.S. to make commercial-scale renewable BDO using Genomatica’s GENO BDO process. The facility will be able to produce more than 65,000 tonnes of BDO annually after it is finished in 2024. The capacity for producing bioBDO will be increased threefold as a result.

Countries

As investors, it is important to understand this dynamic because it prevents us from making hasty decisions about long-term investments. That’s not likely, but if it happens it will be because we have developed alternatives that are more economical, rather than running up against the physical limitations of what’s underground. If reserve-to-production ratios were accurate, we would have run out of oil years ago. Forms EIA uses to collect energy data including descriptions, links to survey instructions, and additional information. Tools to customize searches, view specific data sets, study detailed documentation, and access time-series data. State energy information, including overviews, rankings, data, and analyses.

With regards to oil (and its derivatives), there are viable alternative fuels around that work just as well, if not better. As oil becomes harder and harder to extract, and while demand remains high for oil, improved and innovative methods to extract oil are bound to be investigated and mastered. For example, directional drilling, or the ability to direct a boring head subsurface, was once thought too challenging to make economically viable but is now pretty much standard practice. The main thing to understand is that resources are only really as limited as our imagination. After all, mass (and energy) can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted. Even processes like nuclear fission, or indeed fusion, could, theoretically, be reversed, although it would take a lot of energy to do so.

Previously, it wasn’t economically feasible to extract these resources. There is substantial uncertainty about the levels of future liquid fuels supply and demand. The IEO2023 projections reflect some of this uncertainty in a Reference case, High and Low Economic Growth cases, High and Low Oil Price cases, and High and Low-Zero Carbon Technology Growth cases in its projections. The oil resources currently in the earth’s crust, in combination with expected production of other liquid fuels, are estimated to be sufficient to meet total world demand for liquid fuels in all cases of the IEO2023.

Stay up-to-date on engineering, tech, space, and science news with The Blueprint. The RT7000 offers a scalable method to recycle waste plastic anywhere in the world. It is modular and small-scale, made to slot easily onto existing waste treatment and recycling operations. This is a basic foodstuff, and millions worldwide depend on it for basic sustenance.