We have all heard this business about “peak oil” before. The under layers of the earth’s lithosphere CONTINUES to form oil by abiotic means, and the technology for finding even more petroleum is “dry” wells continues to improve.
But more importantly, we can MAKE a very good grade of kerogen (the vital portion of petroleum that can be refined into the lighter fractions of the mixture that comes up out of the well), right now, on what could become an industrial scale. Any mass of organic material, be it sawdust, discarded plastics, waste paper, turkey offal from slaughterhouses or old condoms, when put in a retort with suitable amounts of water (to form the superheated steam that does the transformation) and kept under several atmosphere’s worth of pressure, at about 700 degrees Centigrade (conditions vary with the sort of feedstock used) after a period ranging from minutes to several hours, undergoes a process known as “thermal depolymerization”, and the resulting kerogen may then be further refined into useful products. The world need never be without petroleum products, and in fact, the various applications will probably multiply vastly over coming years.
Sustained $100 a barrel oil price puts the western US in the cat bird seat. There’s a trillion or more barrels in close to surface rock full of kerogen and more mature hydrocarbons, proven to be mineable and yields from retort process. We just not at the point we need to go there yet. Your waste stream ideas are less expensive, logistics the obstacle. Demand and price mandates for its future.