But there must come a point where the demand exceeds the supply.
But there must come a point where the demand exceeds the supply.
Uranium reactors, Thorium reactors, Nuclear fusion, He3 from the moon, Solar power collectors in space are all viable options as we increase our technological prowess.
Hard to know what we will be able to do two hundred years from now.
Two hundred years ago, we were just starting utilize coal and steam power. No internal combustion engines. No electricity. No airplanes. No large scale metal production.
That was only 200 years ago.
Years ago, I took an extension program course in Petroleum Engineering. University of Texas, I believe. The first part of the course dealt with geology and the origin of oil. I was surprised to learn that the source of petroleum in the ground was a mystery. Since nobody knew where it came from, nobody could say for certain that it wasn’t still being produced by an as yet undiscovered natural process.
Thee was once accepted “knowledge” that if you sailed over the horizon, you wold fall off the edge of the world. That was until 1492 when Columbus mistakenly found the other side of the world.
My point is why make the assumption that those who control the product of oil would do anything else but let us all assume that the supply was finite?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/18/oil-where-did-it-come-from/
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/03/what_if_oil_and_natural_gas_are_renewable_resources.html
Abiogenic petroleum origin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
That is not necessarily true. Did you read the article? The world still has vast reserves. For every barrel used in the last 35 years 2 more have been discovered. And there are huge amounts unexploited reserves thought to be in arctic and Antarctic regions.
Many of the reserves which were being exploited when oil was at higher prices are now mothballed until prices rise again. There is currently a great amount of excess capacity that is being left in the ground until some future date.
Demand has not increased at the rate that was expected. We are looking at 50 or 100 years of more of plentiful fossil fuels. In that time period nuclear reactors that use plentiful materials such as thorium will come on line. It is likely that other processes using other sources of energy will be discovered and exploited. So the demand is not very likely to exceed the supply in any of our lifetimes.
The Japanese and the US have been working on extracting dissolved uranium from sea water. We can do it, but we are trying to get the cost down to the same as land mined uranium. If that happens, and we are close already, we can run the entire world's current electrical demand off nuclear reactors for the next two million years.
Yes and no.
If no other alternative energy sources are developed and expanded, then demand for oil could someday exceed supply. But if CHEAPER sources than oil were to be found and widely implemented, because the market likes the lowest cost product, then demand for oil could plummet.
4th generation Thorium reactors will be online in 10 years. Hydrocarbons are irreplaceable as fuel and feedstock, but we don’t need to rely forever on the same mix as we have now.
“But there must come a point where the demand exceeds the supply.”
Why?
Not so long as prices are freely set. Price is the mechanism that balance supply and demand.