What good news, now I can go ahead and buy me a HUMVEE!!!!
Posted by James Kilbourne on 12/01/2004, 4:01pm

The end of the age of oil?
November 26, 2004
By Chris Bennett
WorldNetDaily.com

According the Washington Post (June 6, 2004), the world is on the verge of oil famine.

BBC News declares "as certain as death and taxes, we shall one day be forced to learn to live without oil."

CBS, NBC and ABC have all presented grim reports of rapacious oil executives, gas-guzzling SUVs and declining oil stocks. The unmistakable conclusion: An energy disaster of epic proportions is just around the corner.

Dozens of books and hundreds of websites paint an alarming picture of the end of the Age of Oil.

Could this be true? Are we really sliding downhill into a future defined by scarce resources, alternative fuels and mandatory conservation – a nightmare of strong governmental controls and diminished expectations?

The answer: No. The world has plenty of oil.

According to the United States Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Energy and many other reputable sources, we have sufficient oil resources for at least the next several hundred years. The costs of extraction will be higher, but scarcity? No.

Without the emotional "the end of the world as we know it," paranoia from the traditional media, let's look at world oil reserves.

The world's recognized reserves of oil are higher than at any time in history. Contrary to conventional media hysteria, the world's clearly identified reserves are growing every year. The USGS reports in the "World Petroleum Assessment 2000" that world reserves of conventional crude oil total 3,000 billion barrels. This is an increase from a 1994 estimate of 2,400 billion barrels, up from 1,500 billion barrels in 1990. And this report considers only "liquid" oil accessible from underground reservoirs. It does not include oil-tar sand deposits or oil shale.

The major media focus with myopic intensity on conventional crude reserves, ignoring stunning reserves of oil located in tar sands and oil shale. For example, little media attention was accorded the dramatic increases in Canadian oil reserves. A December 2003 report in Oil and Gas Journal notes that Canada's oil reserves now total more than 180 billion barrels of oil, with most found in economically recoverable oil sand deposits.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers sees the oil sand reservoir at a stunning 2,000 billion barrels of crude, of which 315 billion barrels is currently recoverable. This is oil economically viable at prices between $18 and $20 per barrel. Worldwide, recoverable reserves of oil found in oil sands are currently reported in excess of 1,000 billion barrels.

But by far the largest potential reservoir of future oil is held in oil shale. The U.S. Department of Energy, in a March 2004 study, reports oil shale reserves in the United States alone of over 2,000 billion barrels. Worldwide, oil-shale reserves are estimated as high as 14,000 billion barrels. To put this in perspective, U.S. oil-shale reserves alone would be sufficient to provide 100 percent of U.S. crude oil consumtion at current usage for over 200 years. Worldwide reserves of 14,000 billion barrels are sufficient to provide the world's crude oil requirements for at least several hundred years.

The history of oil prognostication is littered with scaremongers declarations of approaching oil famine. Doom merchants have used oil as a vehicle for "end of the world" scenarios since before World War I. Consider:

* In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines declared that the United States would run out of oil in 10 years.

* In 1939, the Department of the Interior predicted that oil reserves would last only 13 more years.

* In 1950, when the world's estimated reserves were thought to be 600 billion barrels, the Department of Interior again projected the end of the age of oil by 1963.

* Move forward to the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which prompted the highly respected journal Foreign Affairs to publish an article on "The Oil Crisis: This Time the Wolf is Here."

* In 1995, a prominent geologist predicted that petroleum production would peak in 1996 and that after 1999 many of the developed world's societies would look like Third World countries.

* In 1998, a Scientific American article titled "End of the Age of Oil" predicted that world oil production would peak in 2002 and that we would soon face the "end of the abundant and cheap oil on which all nations depend."

All of these predictions were wrong. In fact, from 1950 to the present, the world's recognized oil reserves have increased virtually every year.

The current USGS world estimate of 3,000 billion barrels of conventional crude is probably conservative. Of the more than 80 major Iraqi oil fields in Iraq, only 22 have been fully explored. Iraq is reported to have 112 billion barrels of oil reserves. But based on unexplored reserves, many geologists believe that actual number is more than twice current estimates.

North American reserves of conventional oil are probably understated. Recent deep oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico has identified a huge vat of oil. Deep oil wells are drilled to 25,000 feet below ground surface and represent a new frontier in oil exploration.

A classic example of oil reserve understatement is the Kern River field in California, where production wells were first drilled in 1899. By 1942, after 43 years of continuous pumping, remaining Kern River oil was estimated at 54 million barrels. Over the next 50 years, the field produced 736 million barrels. In 1986, using 3D mapping technology, the reservoir was reported to contain an additional reserve of over 970 million barrels.

Eventually the world will move from an oil-based economy to something better. But given the huge reserves of world oil, it's likely that technology will drive this change, not scarcity.

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