Posted on 01/08/2010 3:28:38 PM PST by Faketan
One nagging question that the industrial world has been asking itself since the discovery of the first oil well is what happens when the wells begin to run dry. The answer is relatively simple to imagine. We had a dry run, so to speak, when Dubai’s economy tanked a few years ago. And although the causes of Dubai’s ills and ails were financial and not oil related, the drama which unfolded gave us a watered-down version of what might transpire if and when the oil wells stop producing.
But before we run the Armageddon tape that the world will stop functioning because of lack of oil, let’s all take a deep breath and think again. The oil companies, the people who manufacture cars and airplanes and legions of scientists and inventors have all been planning for that day. And as far-fetched as it might seem to some of us, that day will undoubtedly come, very probably within our lifetime.
So what is likely to happen? First, the car manufacturers and people who build commercial aircrafts, the two largest consumers of fossil fuels have no doubt plans on what their next generation models will look like and what they will run on. Already some car manufacturers are producing hybrid cars that run partially on electricity. What will transpire will be a massive turn to nuclear energy. It may not be the safest of energies, however nuclear energy remains the cleanest. Or perhaps solar and wind.
So your average American will still be able to drive to the drive-thru bank and restaurant. The above average Chinese will still be able to afford his car and the average European will still be able to enjoy Sunday outings with Grandma sitting in the back seat between the bambinos.
What will change – and drastically so – will be the social-economic face of much of the oil producing countries as well as other nations, where overnight tens of thousands of workers will find themselves suddenly unemployed, broke, and with practically no prospects for any future whatsoever. And herewith lies the danger of a social eruption of near Biblical proportions. Think if you will of the ripple effect that would occur if one of the major oil producers stopped producing.
Take the United Arab Emirates (UAE) one of the major oil-producing states in the Gulf where the local population is outnumbered five-to one. Out of a population of some 4.8 million less than 20 % are nationals of the country; and even among the nationals, a good percentage very probably hail from other neighboring countries, such as Palestine, Lebanon or other countries in the region. The bulk of the population -- a whopping 50 percent -- are from the Indian sub-continent; from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Balouchistan or from Iran and Afghanistan.
The same holds true in the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council states; Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman.
Rest of article at: Full article at: Oil Wells Run Dry
Something similar to what happened when whale oil ran out, I suppose.
There is a growing “evidence” that oil is actually produced by the planet. IOW, It is renewed. The pace may or may not be enough to keep up with demand but we may never “run out”.
From what I can tell,
The Earth will run out of people
Long before it runs out of oil.
Same ol' wide-eyed BS, 40 years later. And no closer to "peak oil" than ever.
You can make the important oil end product (gasoline) with coal, nat gas, corn, sugar beet, saw grass, etc.
The REAL question is what is going to be the next affordable energy product in the future...
But whale oil never did run out, and neither will our current petroleum supply.
I heard some comments on the History channel the other night about the future of oil. They sounded suspiciously like the global warming crowd.
“There is no debate”....”Even the optimists agree....”
Weren’t we supposed to run out of oil in 1990?
First, it's gonna get real squeaky.
The democrats have made it illegal to drill for oil in Colorado so the oil will stay in the ground if they have their way. The rats want us ruled by OPEC.
The democrats have made it illegal to drill for oil in Colorado so the oil will stay in the ground if they have their way. The rats want us ruled by OPEC.
When/if we run out of oil, it would absolutely occur over a prolonged period of declining output. This would lesson almost all of the shocks he's sounding the alarms about as people and economies would have time to adjust to other fuel options.
1) None of us will likely live to see the day.
2) I most certainly won’t run out overnight. There will be decades of dwindling production accompanied by ever higher prices as the stuff becomes more rare. Substitutes like ethanol or biodiesel would then finally become cost effective.
3) And what happens in the Middle East? They can go pound sand as they watch their unearned wealth be swallowed up by the desert, couldn’t happen to a lovelier bunch of people.
Maybe Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, etc will be gigantic sink holes where the oil used to be ....
“The REAL question is what is going to be the next affordable energy product in the future”
Th real question is when will the Environmental Protection Agency realize that mankind needs to be at the top of their preservation list and not a backwater snail darter or desert tumbleweed.
That sounds more reassuring than it really is. The key is the ratio of declining output to increasing demand, especially in the absence of equivalent quantities of alternative fuels suitable for all our various needs: transportation, heating/cooling, etc.
If the increase in the production and adaptation of equivalent alternative fuels offsets the decrease in oil output, fine. Then it really doesn't matter how long it takes oil producers to suck out the last drop.
New crude sources are continuously being discovered in the world. Also, it has become evident that oil wells that have remained capped for years, because of their unproductivity, are showing higher pressures and crude levels in their formations.
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