Oil Geologists: How much longer will oil last?

Question

Could a get an educated answer by an Oil Geologist of how much longer we have of afforable oil?

Answer 1

I am a chemical engineer.

We will likely never run out of oil completely, but that is not really the important issue. What we need to worry about is when we will reach the point where we can no longer increase oil production - called Peak Oil.

At that point, we will start to have very significant economic impacts. The price of oil will start to rise rapidly. Every time there is a small disturbance somewhere in the world the price of oil will jump. If we have a bad storm in an important oil producing area the price will jump.

The problem is that when we hit Peak Oil, we will simply not be able to increase production, in fact production will slowly start to fall. However, population is not falling and economic development is moving forward in places like India and China and so demand for oil will continue to rise. If production cannot rise much of this increased demand will not be met and so prices will start to rise very sharply.

As you can see many of these things are starting to happen now, which is why many people are beginning to think that Peak Oil has arrived.

Furthermore, economic growth will start to be impacted for two reasons. First people will have to spend more and more of their money on fuel and will therefore have less to spend on other things. Secondly areas of the economy that need oil to fuel growth will start to be starved for oil and will therefore not be able to grow.

As time goes on this could lead to a world wide economic depression that will last until alternatives are found to supplement the oil that is left.

Over time people will start to shift away from using oil because it will be very expensive. As a result demand for oil will start to fall. Eventually the price of oil will also start to fall because of decreased demand. However at that future point the cost of pumping oil will have become quite high. Within a fairly short time after the price of oil starts to fall it will suddenly become uneconomic to pump oil and oil production will plummet. It will continue to be pumped but only in very small quantities for certain specialty uses.

Because the rate of oil production will fall so much the oil remaining in the ground will be sufficient to supply those specialty uses for many centuries. But it will probably never again be used as fuel.

Answer 2

Sorry, I'm not an actual oil geologist, but I'm going to take a stab at this anyways.

Right now, we actually have quite a bit of oil. The problems are these:
-China's growing population
-Everybody's growing population
-Over 90% of the world's oil is in the middle east, right where the most conflict is
-Osama Bin Laden promised to make the price of oil unbearable ( I think it was like over $70 per barrel, but don't quote me on that) and he seems to be making good on his promise

Most of the Middle East is not very fond of the United States, so I'm surprised that our oil is as cheap as it is. So with all of the bombings going on over there, and the setting of oil fields on fire, it is very hard to calculate how much longer we can use oil for everyday things for... These factors are uncontrollable, pretty much, but even with all of these variables, the estimated time until oil is depleted surprises most people. The answer is......there isn't one. Some say 15 years, others claim closer to 200.

Lucky for us, GM has developed a hrydrogen powered car that produces water vapor instead of pollutants. The only problem is the price and putting it into mass production. The car is called the Sequel. You should google it sometime. By the way, recently google was added to the dictionary as a verb meaning, to go on the internet and search for something.

Answer 3

Good answers so far.

We will NEVER completely run out of oil, its just a function of economics. Assuming a constant rate of consumption and no greenhouse gases or some factor that affects the demand, the price of oil will have to increase as the supply diminishes. That's basic economics - supply and demand determine the price. As the price goes up, oil companies will be able to recover oil from deeper reserves, smaller reserves, remote locations, and low quality oil shales etc. Not only that, oil companies will be motivated to look for new oil fields and reserves as the price goes up.

At some point the price of oil could get so high that there will no longer be any economically recoverable oil. But its more likely that the price of oil gets so high that nobody will buy it anymore, so we go back to the supply and demand fundamentals, and the price goes down.

Now the second part of your question mentions affordability. That's a relative term. People in many third world countries can't afford oil today, but in North America and Europe we are complaining but can still afford it.

There's no question we need to start making better use of our existing oil reserves and looking to alternative energy sources like nuclear, but we will not run out of oil.

One small correction for Master Mike - the world's largest oil deposit is in Alberta, Canada.

Answer 4

It all depends on what you mean by "affordable" ? The higher the price of Oil becomes, the more it becomes possible to produce from different, more expensive to produce sources. For one example, look at the oil shales in Colorado and Utah. More oil sits there than in the entire middle east, but it won't flow to a well, and there is no way (that anyone has yet discovered) that it can be produced for the current price of oil. However, if the price were to go higher, (I don't know how much higher), there is some price where it COULD be produced. There is lots of oil in the ground, but getting it out of the ground and delivered to a refinery can't be done for less than the current price of importing oil.

Answer 5

At the current rate of oil usage, 275 years. With more countries going to nuclear energy 586 years and add our current bio-diesel vehicles and hybrids (if they don't improve on the ones we currently have) 612, if all vehicles turn to bio-diesel rather than hybrid well over 900 years.