What would the world do when oil runs dry?

Question

I can tell you for a fact that the U.S would not give a damn what happens inthe middle east.

People would start walking and biking to places and women would become much more slim and attractive.

Answer 1

Necessity is the mother of invention. We'll be forced to come up with another source.

Answer 2

First, this whole notion about the world running out of oil is pure malarky. Ain't gonna happen. At least not in the next couple of hundred years or so.

What will happen is that world demand will soon outpace supply of the easily found, easily extracted and easily refined oil. This will result in high market prices for oil, which will naturally adjust both the world appetite for oil and supply.

We are already seeing that at current world oil prices. In the last few years, the tar sands in Canada are now worth mining and refining the oil from. There is more oil to be had from tar sands than proven reserves of conventional oil.

There are other sources like oil from oil shale, that also will be added to the supply when prices go high enough. It just so happens that the USA has something like 30% of the world's oil shale. We are the Saudi Arabia of oil shale.

Gas can be made from coal. The USA is the Saudia Arabia of coal too.

Now let's address demand. When the price gets high enough, people will stop buying SUVs and start demanding more fuel efficiency or alternate fuels. And companies will start delivering because that's where the money is to be made. We are already seeing this with the current generation of hybrids. Today, Priuses can be converted to be Plug-in Hybrids, where they drive on battery power alone for the first X miles. 40 miles on batteries is the holy grail, but 20 would be excellent.

Toyota is rumored to be preparing this for release in the next 2 - 4 years, and Chevy is also developing theirs for release in 2010. Essentially, you'll see vehicles that may never need gas for normal commutes, but only for extended driving.

You say that they'll need to plug in and that energy comes from somewhere, right? Correct, but very little of the USA electrical supply comes from oil. Coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, and to a lesser extent geothermal, solar and wind make up the US electrical supply fuels.

There are also other fuel alternatives. Ethanol, which I'm not a big fan of because it takes nearly as much energy to make it as you get out of it. But techniques may improve. Biodiesel looks promising. Heck with some modifications, many diesels on the road today can run on Vegetable or Peanut oil. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet that the USA is the Saudi Arabia of peanuts too. Straight electrics also look promising in the near future. The 2nd generations of GM's EV1 car used Ni-MH batteries that had a range of 120 miles on a charge. Why GM stopped the program and destroyed the cars is beyond me? What a bunch of fools they were!

How about the best of all worlds? A plug-in hybrid with an engine running on Biodiesel or E85.

You'll see all of these things naturally evolve as the price of oil and gas go up. There may be some rough patches, where the price of oil goes up quickly, or even is in short supply for a while, but in 20 - 30 years, there is no doubt in my mind that the traditional gasoline powered car will only make up a small share of the overall vehicle market place.

The Big 3 in Detroit better wake up and smell the Ethanol. They really need to start putting these technologies on the road now. We don't need perfect, or batteries warrantied for the life of the car. Just give us good enough, and 5 reliable years, and we'll factor in the replacement and repair costs of batteries and alternate fuel technologies after that. Perfect can come later as they learn and do more R & D.

Answer 3

sure and no. it is going to assist...lots....however the mid-east is likewise substantial geographically. this is the merging component of three continents....and clearly the commerce routes are substantial. there'll continually be some commerce from that source. The Saudis are so nicely invested, it is going to take them a rapid time to squader the money they do have stored. At that component they bypass from former nomads on camals to admired nomads in Mercedes, and bypass back to nomads in something in between. Like chevettes. lots of the international places certainly do have an business base. Iraq used to....Iran nevertheless does. i think of...and that i could be being idealistic here...the state that finally turns into the 2d Palestine (people continually ignore there's a Palestine...Jordan) would be in a position. The Palestinian arabs are lots extra western and knowledgeable then maximum of their cousins in different countries. this is part of the clarification not one of the different countries took them in......they are all frightened of them.

Answer 4

Recycle it like they already know they can and should have been doing. Or they can always be like that guy on guiness world records and use french fry grease to drive his car. He had to build a special engine of course.

Answer 5

I think economies will get smaller, more eficcient. I can see a future with economic city-states all over instead of massive urban centers.

Cars and planes will run on ethanol.

Answer 6

What if there are vast oceans of oil beneath the surface?

Answer 7

They will go here
http://www.truckblog.com/story-1162-zeroemission_electric_truck_coming_in_2007