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Interesting. That sounds a little ominous. Are there projections that predict time frames with any precision until we finish the remaining supplies? Are we ta

Interesting. That sounds a little ominous. Are there projections that predict time frames with any precision until we finish the remaining supplies? Are we talking a century or a few decades?

dredmorbius 5y ago
That's a hard question in large part because the specific timeframe depends on responses, reactions, and potential disruptive events. There's been a lot of ink and pixels spilled. Much of it comes from those wanting to deny the problem, those looking to sell you something, and those who poorly understand the problem. I hope I'm in the last camp and not the first two.... Economically, the most significant issue is that the marginal cost of oil under supply constraints varies greatly, and that's what has been seen in price history since 1973. You'll find a price history of oil dating to 1861 in BP's Annual Review of Energy, I'm looking at the 2021 report's graph on page 28. Those swings have increased in amplitude since, resulting from and leading to political, financial, and economic disruptions --- causality seemst to go in both directions. Remaining fossil fuel reserves will be increasingly expensive and difficult to extract. There will be "some" oil in the ground, in the same sense that after you've poured a beverage or eaten a tub of yoghurt, there is "some" food still left in the container, but 1) it's a finite amount and 2) you've got to work harder to get it. At some point it's simply not worth the effort. Total geological deposits, recoverable deposits, and the rate of effective extraction, all differ, though the latter two depend on the first. Those factors are insignificant, if we're lucky, next to the likelihood that further consumption of fossil fuels will be curtailed due to their output effects --- carbon emissions --- rather than supply limitations. Coal, oil, and gas that remain will have to be locked in the ground because we cannot afford the consequences of further use. Unfortunately, trends toward net zero carbon have greatly lagged what's necessary to avoid catastrophic consequences. Which in the absence of either resource exhaustion or effective regulation could possibly end large-scale global technological civilization reliance on fossil fuels.

Interesting. That sounds a little ominous. Are there projections that predict time frames with any precision until we finish the remaining supplies? Are we talking a century or a few decades?

dredmorbius 5y ago

That's a hard question in large part because the specific timeframe depends on responses, reactions, and potential disruptive events. There's been a lot of ink and pixels spilled. Much of it comes from those wanting to deny the problem, those looking to sell you something, and those who poorly understand the problem. I hope I'm in the last camp and not the first two.... Economically, the most significant issue is that the marginal cost of oil under supply constraints varies greatly, and that's what has been seen in price history since 1973. You'll find a price history of oil dating to 1861 in BP's Annual Review of Energy, I'm looking at the 2021 report's graph on page 28. Those swings have increased in amplitude since, resulting from and leading to political, financial, and economic disruptions --- causality seemst to go in both directions. Remaining fossil fuel reserves will be increasingly expensive and difficult to extract. There will be "some" oil in the ground, in the same sense that after you've poured a beverage or eaten a tub of yoghurt, there is "some" food still left in the container, but 1) it's a finite amount and 2) you've got to work harder to get it. At some point it's simply not worth the effort. Total geological deposits, recoverable deposits, and the rate of effective extraction, all differ, though the latter two depend on the first. Those factors are insignificant, if we're lucky, next to the likelihood that further consumption of fossil fuels will be curtailed due to their output effects --- carbon emissions --- rather than supply limitations. Coal, oil, and gas that remain will have to be locked in the ground because we cannot afford the consequences of further use. Unfortunately, trends toward net zero carbon have greatly lagged what's necessary to avoid catastrophic consequences. Which in the absence of either resource exhaustion or effective regulation could possibly end large-scale global technological civilization reliance on fossil fuels.