Myth: The World is Running Out of Oil

Posted by admin on October 16th, 2009 and filed under world oil production | 25 Comments »

175-315 Billion barrels of oil are recoverable at $15 a barrel in the Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada. With a remaining potential of 1.7-2.5 Trillion barrels using advanced recovery techniques. Who knows what they’ll discover tomorrow, but we know today, that in Canada’s oil sands alone, the supplies will last over 100 years.

MYTH: The World Is Running Out of Oil (ABC News)
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1954572

Alberta’s Oil Sands: Facts and stats (Government of Alberta)
http://oilsands.alberta.ca/519.cfm

Analysis: Nuclear-powered oil sands (The Earth Times)
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/46143.html

Oil sands cleanup (Financial Post, Canada)
http://tinyurl.com/6z83dh

Despite Popular Belief, The World is Not Running Out of Oil, Scientist Says (University of Washington)
http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleid=27554

Its a myth that the worlds oil is running out (The Times, UK)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3823656.ece

Oil, Oil Everywhere… (The Wall Street Journal)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006228

Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells (The New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/05oil1.html

Oil: Never Cry Wolf—Why the Petroleum Age Is Far from over (Science)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;304/5674/1114

The World Has Plenty of Oil (The Wall Street Journal)
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120459389654809159.html

Thermodynamics and Money (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/1031/122.html

The economic value of energy just doesn’t depend very strongly on raw energy content as conventionally measured in British thermal units. Instead it’s determined mainly by the distance between the BTUs and where you need them, and how densely the BTUs are packed into pounds of stuff you’ve got to move, and by the quality of the technology at hand to move, concentrate, refine and burn those BTUs, and by how your neighbors feel about carbon, uranium and windmills. In this entropic universe we occupy, the production of one unit of high-grade energy always requires more than one unit of low-grade energy at the outset. There are no exceptions. Put another way, Eroei–a sophomoric form of thermodynamic accounting–is always negative and always irrelevant. “Matter-energy” constraints count for nothing. The “monetary culture” still rules.

Additional U.S. Oil Reserves:
- 1.8 to 6 Trillion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Oil-Shale Reserves (DOE)
- 986 Billion barrels of oil are estimated using Coal-to-liquids (CTL) conversion of U.S. Coal Reserves (DOE)
- 100 Billion barrels of heavy oil are estimated in the U.S. (DOE)
- 90 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the Arctic (USGS)
- 89 Billion barrels of immobile oil are estimated recoverable using CO2 injection in the U.S. (DOE)
- 86 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (MMS)
- 60 to 80 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in U.S. Tar Sands (DOE)
- 32 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in ANWR, NPRA and the Central North Slope in Alaska (USGS)
- 4.3 Billion (167 Billion potential) barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana (USGS)
- 3.65 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Devonian-Mississippian Bakken Formation (USGS)
- 1.6 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Eastern Great Basin Province (USGS)
- 1.3 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Permian Basin Province (USGS)
- 1.1 Billion barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Powder River Basin Province (USGS)
- 990 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Portion of the Michigan Basin (USGS)
- 393 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. San Joaquin Basin Province of California (USGS)
- 214 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Illinois Basin (USGS)
- 172 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Yukon Flats of East-Central Alaska (USGS)
- 131 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Southwestern Wyoming Province (USGS)
- 109 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Montana Thrust Belt Province (USGS)
- 104 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Denver Basin Province (USGS)
- 98.5 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin Province (USGS)
- 94 Million barrels of oil are estimated in the U.S. Hanna, Laramie, Shirley Basins Province (USGS)

Duration : 0:5:23


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25 Responses

  1. populartechnology Says:

    Recent studies have …
    Recent studies have shown that hydrocarbons are not made from just decaying organic matter but formed deep with in the earth.

    Hydrocarbons in Deep Earth? (Carnegie Institution)

    This makes any speculation about reserves running out even in one hundred years unlikely.

  2. populartechnology Says:

    The Sun is a finite …
    The Sun is a finite resource and the planet Earth has extensive hydrocarbon reserves for well over one hundred years locked up in oil sands and oil shale. Not to mention new discoveries of conventional reserves happen all the time. Just last month BP discovered a huge find in the Gulf .

    BP Finds Giant Oil Field Deep in Gulf of Mexico (The New York Times)

  3. sean3223a Says:

    How can a finite …
    How can a finite resource “never run out”?

  4. stoneofrefuge Says:

    why not do this? I …
    why not do this? I truly agree with you there. I haven;t thought of this. We need to band together and have a opec of grains and food prices to be sent overseas to let them oil barons feel the pinch in food prices.

  5. Jaycephus01 Says:

    These segments …
    These segments actually aired at some point on the actual 20/20 broadcast.

  6. whoo689 Says:

    Wow… All that oil …
    Wow… All that oil, and we can’t get it because some environmentalists keep pressuring government, and statist politicians are more than happy to placate them with more regulations.

  7. populartechnology Says:

    No it is profitable …
    No it is profitable at $15 a barrel. Read the links (more info) I posted on the right, especially “Oil, Oil Everywhere . . .” (The Wall Street Journal)

  8. tomrdee Says:

    Of course, ABC put …
    Of course, ABC put this on a webcast not on 20/20 TV show.

  9. whoo689 Says:

    Isn’t it expensive …
    Isn’t it expensive as to convert the tar sands oil to gas, though?

  10. deltapunk21 Says:

    We are not running …
    We are not running out of “sheap” liquid oil we have plenty in reserve underground and have been finding more and more each day all over the place….and it replaces itself…see oil is th eproduct of the abitioc nature of the earth its produced by its natural physiology. It will remain with us forever essentially. Until God says its over.

  11. 1000101er Says:

    We are desperate to …
    We are desperate to get rid of our surplus grain (due to our agricultural subsidies) and very eager to get oil from the middle east. That is, we need their oil more than they need our grain.

    Prices are determined by supply and demand, not by what is fair or by the average cost of the lowest cost producer.

  12. quuaa1 Says:

    Nope, Alberta has …
    Nope, Alberta has 1.7 – 2.5 Trillion, sasketchewan has a very small store of it near their border with alberta, but that’s just alberta tar sands stretching into their province.

  13. STARZ4077 Says:

    it feels colder …
    it feels colder this summer in north america

  14. zoetropez Says:

    If this is true, …
    If this is true, then everyone in government should be thrown out of office, left and right and we should start over, drill everywhere, pay off our debt, etc… We should start an OPEC mirror for grain and wheat producers and manipulate the price so that the Saudis have to pay $144 a bushel for food. And we should threaten to cut them off at any time like they do. Unreal. Un-damn-real.

  15. drmodestoesq Says:

    This guy is so …
    This guy is so right on. When oil reaches 200 dollars a barrel we’ll find the capital to extract it from all sorts of previously unprofitable places. The vast amounts of hot water to extract oil from the tar sands could be provided by coal from the Powder River basin in Montana when the natural gas runs out. Also, all this extra carbon dioxide will lower heating bills when it warms up Canada. Just think about wearing a T-Shirt and playing golf in January.

  16. Staymewithflagons Says:

    Hope you young …
    Hope you young people are mad at being lied to about “Global Warming”…mad enough to hold those who lied to you accountable at the next election. The planet I S N ‘ T melting!

  17. 87blazers4life Says:

    hahaha
    hahaha

  18. florgat91 Says:

    this makes me feel …
    this makes me feel better ! .. I’m going out for a drive !

  19. buxtang Says:

    There’s also a heck …
    There’s also a heck of a lot of oil in North Dakota.

  20. magicjohnson1423 Says:

    well thats just …
    well thats just alberta…saskatchewan has significantly more…but that is true…as large as the planet is, our technologies do not add; they multiply. Wee need to start safe habits before these fake problems become realities

  21. Cyrus992 Says:

    Even if oil will …
    Even if oil will not run out in 100+ years, we still should be aware on how much we consume

  22. pokeinsider Says:

    peak oil is not …
    peak oil is not true oil is production is going up

  23. herbs814 Says:

    Thank you for …
    Thank you for giving us an eyewitness account, speaking out about the peak oil fraud, and exposing the anti-growth agenda. Keep up the pressure on these frauds.

  24. call3328 Says:

    oil prices and …
    oil prices and economic recession’s are such a marketing tool. People hear negativity all the time and it makes them scared. I’m not saying that either don’t really happen but I do believe they are very over publicised.

  25. morsaw10000 Says:

    I love this guy! …
    I love this guy! Every time i hear him talking he just makes me so tranquil

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