Is Oil Depletion a real thing, and will it collapse nations?

[Valkalan]

Oil is a finite resource.

Finite resources can be depleted.

So yes, oil can be depleted.

True, but its also true that high prices discourage excessive use and encourage the development of alternatives. Therefore, it isn't necessary to worry about oil suddenly running out. As reserves dry up, prices will rise, and people will reduce usage and develop alternatives. They may even change their lifestyles altogether. Crushingly high oil prices at some future time may cause westerners to abandon suburban lifestyles and move closer to urban centers to minimize commute times. They likely will switch to mass transportation such as buses or trains, carpooling, or riding a bike.

It should be noted, however, that global oil reserves are still quite high, especially when considering oil in the Arctic and the increased productivity of existing wells due to fracking. With President Trump at the helm, lots of untapped reserves in Alaska will be opened for business. Russia is also poised to capitalize on receding arctic ice to exploits the trillions of dollars worth of oil under the Arctic Ocean. In short, it'll probably be decades before global oil supplies begin to run out.

Yeah, let's pollute entire regions with fracking and ravage the poles to extract the last drops of oil ! Progress ! DRILL BABY DRILL !

Technically, if you hate pollution so much, you should advocate for the abolition of central banking and the return of interest rates to market levels. This will result in home and car loans becoming more pricey. Therefore, we'd expect to see more high rise apartments in lieu of new houses, and more mass transit in the place of new cars. These factors should result in more compact, energy efficient cities with lesser emissions without the need of any government programs.

Another side benefit would be higher interest rates on savings, meaning that it will much easier to save for retirement and medical emergencies due to more interest being accrued on personal savings in banks.

[Sovaal]

Oil is not as much of a problem as people think. This is because of price fluctuations. As oil becomes scares, it's price will rise. In the short-run, this means lower consumption of oil, and will encourage the development of more energy-efficient technologies and outright alternatives to oil.

Also, it becomes more profitable to seek out new sources of oil, or to find ways to get more out of existing oil reserves. A prime example of this is the rise of fracking after high oil prices during the last decade.

The only thing that can mess this up are price ceilings and subsidies, which result in artificially low prices and high consumption in the face of low supplies.

Yeah, let's pollute entire regions with fracking and ravage the poles to extract the last drops of oil ! Progress ! DRILL BABY DRILL !

A pure green world with our minder civilization is going to be impossible, at least for the foreseeable future.

Our current choices are pretty much down to picking the option that harms the least.

[Valrifell]

Yeah, let's pollute entire regions with fracking and ravage the poles to extract the last drops of oil ! Progress ! DRILL BABY DRILL !

A pure green world with our minder civilization is going to be impossible, at least for the foreseeable future.

Not with that attitude.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

We will never run out of oil in the ground.

It'll be far too expensive to extract from the ground before to make it worth it before we drain it all. We have several decades by the strictest estimates so it'll take a special kind of lacking foresight to have depletion be a real problem.

Isn't that, by definition, what peak oil refers to? Oil becoming prohibitively expensive even if we don't run out of it?

So why do conservatives keep calling peak oil discredited?

[Valrifell]

We will never run out of oil in the ground.

It'll be far too expensive to extract from the ground before to make it worth it before we drain it all. We have several decades by the strictest estimates so it'll take a special kind of lacking foresight to have depletion be a real problem.

Isn't that, by definition, what peak oil refers to? Oil becoming prohibitively expensive even if we don't run out of it?

So why do conservatives keep calling peak oil discredited?

Heck if I know.

But it's not like that rising prices will sneak up on us. Again, it'll take some amazingly stupid people for it to blindside the planet.

[Pope Joan]

Shale oil has pushed the tipping point back a few years, but it is still out there.

On the one hand, it seems there are always new technologies being invented that breathe new life into oil

On the other hand, Exxon is investing heavily in solar; surely they must have a clue

[Ethel mermania]

Growing up I was told that peak oil was 1970, and there was No more oil or gas to be discovered. Yet now the proven reserves are greater than then, and we keep finding more.

One would have to think eventually oil will run out, the planet is not mak8ng any more of it, but yet there is more of it.

I think the problem will eventually solve itself as we move off to cheaper and more efficient sources for both energy and plastics.

[The Transhuman Union]

We will run out eventually, but it won't be sudden.

[Ostroeuropa]

We have stockpiles, massive, massive stockpiles, and those stockpiles are still growing. At the point where our oil stockpiles start being used faster than we can get oil out of the ground, the prices will start slowly rising until we are forced into alternatives. It will not be a sudden shock to the system, though we might see some pretty heavy handed diplomacy as a result of the slowdown which will sometimes mean a sudden economic shock to less powerful nations.

(For instance, when there's not enough oil being generated each year and people are relying on stockpiles, if the US up and decides "Fuck you do what we say or we'll cut off your access to our stockpile" that's going to be something a nation has to capitulate to.)

[Oil exporting People]

Most of the Middle East will probably collapse, as will Russia to an extent, but that'll probably be it. As for how long, we've got till the later end of this century.

[Diopolis]

Everything I've seen says there's a couple centuries of oil left, but it's going to be cost-prohibitive to recover by 2100. That's not exactly an emergency- the amount of oil needed per task is actually declining.

[Unstoppable Empire of Doom]

We have stockpiles, massive, massive stockpiles, and those stockpiles are still growing. At the point where our oil stockpiles start being used faster than we can get oil out of the ground, the prices will start slowly rising until we are forced into alternatives. It will not be a sudden shock to the system, though we might see some pretty heavy handed diplomacy as a result of the slowdown which will sometimes mean a sudden economic shock to less powerful nations.

(For instance, when there's not enough oil being generated each year and people are relying on stockpiles, if the US up and decides "Fuck you do what we say or we'll cut off your access to our stockpile" that's going to be something a nation has to capitulate to.)

There are not massive stockpiles. There is one stockpile with enough oil to last one month in the US. No other country on Earth has a stockpile beyond what it's military requires. This may change going forward however it would be far more efficient to switch to electric vehicles and utilize nuclear energy.

[Diopolis]

We have stockpiles, massive, massive stockpiles, and those stockpiles are still growing. At the point where our oil stockpiles start being used faster than we can get oil out of the ground, the prices will start slowly rising until we are forced into alternatives. It will not be a sudden shock to the system, though we might see some pretty heavy handed diplomacy as a result of the slowdown which will sometimes mean a sudden economic shock to less powerful nations.

(For instance, when there's not enough oil being generated each year and people are relying on stockpiles, if the US up and decides "Fuck you do what we say or we'll cut off your access to our stockpile" that's going to be something a nation has to capitulate to.)

There are not massive stockpiles. There is one stockpile with enough oil to last one month in the US. No other country on Earth has a stockpile beyond what it's military requires. This may change going forward however it would be far more efficient to switch to electric vehicles and utilize nuclear energy.

The switchover from oil is already happening. Power plants are running on LNG instead, cars are increasingly using e-85 or 15, electric vehicles are growing more common, etc.

[Oil exporting People]

Fusion is a serious prospect within the next 20 years as are various renewables given the advances made in the last few years, but electrical cars are a distant gleam at best. This is because Lithium batteries get only about 2.5 MJ per kilogram versus gasoline which gets about 45 MJ per kilogram. Electrical cars, even with their greater efficiency, simply can't compete with that.

[Isilanka]

Fusion is a serious prospect within the next 20 years as are various renewables given the advances made in the last few years, but electrical cars are a distant gleam at best. This is because Lithium batteries get only about 2.5 MJ per kilogram versus gasoline which gets about 45 MJ per kilogram. Electrical cars, even with their greater efficiency, simply can't compete with that.

I wouldn't be so enthousiastic with fusion. I'm afraid it might end up like nuclear fission : a reliable, working source of energy that demands so much in the way of research and investment that only developed countries can afford it, and it remains a niche energy source.
And yes, electric cars won't replace regular cars. There are billions of cars in the world, you can't possibly replace all of them with electric cars, especially if you need your precious lithium and other rare earths for something else like, I don't know, computers. At one point you'll have to transition to a public transport-based system instead of the current individual transport-based system and infrastructure.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Aren't we more likely to run out of some of the elements used in mobile phones and computers before we run out of oil?

[Firaxin]

Aren't we more likely to run out of some of the elements used in mobile phones and computers before we run out of oil?

We can mine other planets and even asteroids for those, where as oil can only exist on planets where ancient life once existed.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Aren't we more likely to run out of some of the elements used in mobile phones and computers before we run out of oil?

We can mine other planets and even asteroids for those, where as oil can only exist on planets where ancient life once existed.

Theoretically we could extract methane from some of the moons in our solar system, it'd just be prohibitively expensive.

Also, source on the elements used in mobile phones and computers? I don't recall hearing of that one in school.

[Sicaris]

Well, we still have efficient renewable energy sources today, there’s just limitations that will likely be solved within the next 5 decades, if that long.


- Solar’s main issue is cost, but in the next half-century I’m sure we’ll at least have semi-affordable commcercial solar technology

- Hydroelectricity needs specific facilities and disrupts local ecosystems, but is highly efficient.

- Wind Energy needs huge wind farms, which are expensive, and need to be made in windy areas to have enough wind to generate electricity

- Nuclear has devastating waste and has safety issues, but other than that can generate a crap ton of energy

- Hydrogen Fuel Cells, my ideal idea, have yet to be inexpensive or even well researched to the point they would be used on a large scale.

[Firaxin]

We can mine other planets and even asteroids for those, where as oil can only exist on planets where ancient life once existed.

Theoretically we could extract methane from some of the moons in our solar system, it'd just be prohibitively expensive.

Also, source on the elements used in mobile phones and computers? I don't recall hearing of that one in school.

Well, from what I've read and heard, every single one of the elements were either deposited on the planet by meteors, created by pressure underground, or reactions creating products. As far as I'm aware, there is no reason we couldn't find these elements on other planets where they have yet to be taken.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Well, we still have efficient renewable energy sources today, there’s just limitations that will likely be solved within the next 5 decades, if that long.


- Solar’s main issue is cost, but in the next half-century I’m sure we’ll at least have semi-affordable commcercial solar technology

- Hydroelectricity needs specific facilities and disrupts local ecosystems, but is highly efficient.

- Wind Energy needs huge wind farms, which are expensive, and need to be made in windy areas to have enough wind to generate electricity

- Nuclear has devastating waste and has safety issues, but other than that can generate a crap ton of energy

- Hydrogen Fuel Cells, my ideal idea, have yet to be inexpensive or even well researched to the point they would be used on a large scale.

Solar's main issue is cost, but its reputation on that front may have a bit to do with people showing poor judgment in where to PUT it. (Far north? Seriously? The energy storage cycle should be a daily one, not an annual one.) Try putting thermal!solar (instead of photovoltaic) in the Sahara and Mojave, and still see if it's as cost-prohibiive.

Hydroelectric can be done to ecosystems that were already disrupted anyway.

Wind energy can be done offshore, we're just too used to the traditional image of windmills as on land.

Nuclear is out of the question after Fukushima.

Fuel cells still need an input source for electricity. Directly electric cars are more efficient.

Theoretically we could extract methane from some of the moons in our solar system, it'd just be prohibitively expensive.

Also, source on the elements used in mobile phones and computers? I don't recall hearing of that one in school.

Well, from what I've read and heard, every single one of the elements were either deposited on the planet by meteors, created by pressure underground, or reactions creating products. As far as I'm aware, there is no reason we couldn't find these elements on other planets where they have yet to be taken.

I meant source on us running out of materials.

I'm guessing the issue is that they are conductive metals and we simply need to switch to other conductive metals.

[Sicaris]

Well, we still have efficient renewable energy sources today, there’s just limitations that will likely be solved within the next 5 decades, if that long.


- Solar’s main issue is cost, but in the next half-century I’m sure we’ll at least have semi-affordable commcercial solar technology

- Hydroelectricity needs specific facilities and disrupts local ecosystems, but is highly efficient.

- Wind Energy needs huge wind farms, which are expensive, and need to be made in windy areas to have enough wind to generate electricity

- Nuclear has devastating waste and has safety issues, but other than that can generate a crap ton of energy

- Hydrogen Fuel Cells, my ideal idea, have yet to be inexpensive or even well researched to the point they would be used on a large scale.

Solar's main issue is cost, but its reputation on that front may have a bit to do with people showing poor judgment in where to PUT it. (Far north? Seriously? The energy storage cycle should be a daily one, not an annual one.) Try putting thermal!solar instead of voltaic in the Sahara and Mojave, and still see if it's as cost-prohibiive.

Hydroelectric can be done to ecosystems that were already disrupted anyway.

Wind energy can be done offshore, we're just too used to the traditional image of windmills as on land.

Nuclear is out of the question after Fukushima.

Fuel cells still need an input source for electricity. Directly electric cars are more efficient.

Well, nuclear isn’t out of the question. We simply need safer locations that make the facilities less vulnerable, and with stricter security measures.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

Solar's main issue is cost, but its reputation on that front may have a bit to do with people showing poor judgment in where to PUT it. (Far north? Seriously? The energy storage cycle should be a daily one, not an annual one.) Try putting thermal!solar instead of voltaic in the Sahara and Mojave, and still see if it's as cost-prohibiive.

Hydroelectric can be done to ecosystems that were already disrupted anyway.

Wind energy can be done offshore, we're just too used to the traditional image of windmills as on land.

Nuclear is out of the question after Fukushima.

Fuel cells still need an input source for electricity. Directly electric cars are more efficient.

Well, nuclear isn’t out of the question. We simply need safer locations that make the facilities less vulnerable, and with stricter security measures.

We were told "next to the water, where we can flood the reactor if we need to" would be a safe location.

In practice, people didn't flood the reactor, even when they needed to.

There's no way around this. People. Screw. Up.

But screwing up a wind turbine kills only the guy maintaining it. Screwing up a dam kills the people downstream. (Build it downstream from THEM, then.) Screwing up a solar plant... if it's thermal? Maybe breaks the molten salt container or something, but I'm guessing that's something someone can notice in time to jump out of the way. If not, it's still not as bad as a nuclear meltdown.

[Valrifell]

Well, nuclear isn’t out of the question. We simply need safer locations that make the facilities less vulnerable, and with stricter security measures.

We were told "next to the water, where we can flood the reactor if we need to" would be a safe location.

In practice, people didn't flood the reactor, even when they needed to.

There's no way around this. People. Screw. Up.

But screwing up a wind turbine kills only the guy maintaining it. Screwing up a dam kills the people downstream. (Build it downstream from THEM, then.) Screwing up a solar plant... if it's thermal? Maybe breaks the molten salt container or something, but I'm guessing that's something someone can notice in time to jump out of the way. If not, it's still not as bad as a nuclear meltdown.

Meltdowns dont normally kill people, though, not anymore. They just happen to irreparably irradiate the land for a few hundred years or so, but that is not a problem if built in the right place.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Well, we still have efficient renewable energy sources today, there’s just limitations that will likely be solved within the next 5 decades, if that long.


- Solar’s main issue is cost, but in the next half-century I’m sure we’ll at least have semi-affordable commcercial solar technology

- Hydroelectricity needs specific facilities and disrupts local ecosystems, but is highly efficient.

- Wind Energy needs huge wind farms, which are expensive, and need to be made in windy areas to have enough wind to generate electricity

- Nuclear has devastating waste and has safety issues, but other than that can generate a crap ton of energy

- Hydrogen Fuel Cells, my ideal idea, have yet to be inexpensive or even well researched to the point they would be used on a large scale.

Solar's main issue is cost, but its reputation on that front may have a bit to do with people showing poor judgment in where to PUT it. (Far north? Seriously? The energy storage cycle should be a daily one, not an annual one.) Try putting thermal!solar (instead of photovoltaic) in the Sahara and Mojave, and still see if it's as cost-prohibiive.

Hydroelectric can be done to ecosystems that were already disrupted anyway.

Wind energy can be done offshore, we're just too used to the traditional image of windmills as on land.

Nuclear is out of the question after Fukushima.

Fuel cells still need an input source for electricity. Directly electric cars are more efficient.

Well, from what I've read and heard, every single one of the elements were either deposited on the planet by meteors, created by pressure underground, or reactions creating products. As far as I'm aware, there is no reason we couldn't find these elements on other planets where they have yet to be taken.

I meant source on us running out of materials.

I'm guessing the issue is that they are conductive metals and we simply need to switch to other conductive metals.

This BBC documentary is what gave me the notion that we may face shortages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFbOZGksf5E

Unfortunately for Trump's trade war, I believe even rare earths mined in the US go to China for processing.