There are many good reasons to cut back on oil consumption, and moving to self sufficiency, especially in terms of food, is wise, prudent and good. Global warming is one good reason, and preventing oil spills another.
But knowing when a commodity such as oil is going to run out, is not hard, its impossible Here is an article on the current oil glut, which it predicted. More interestingly, it also explains why all models are weak predictors of this resource.
http://archive.fortune.com/2010/09/07/news/economy/coming_oil_glut.fortune/index.htm
Future increases in gas efficiency and or battery storage may make oil virtually limitless for anyone still wanting to use it.
It is of course better to attempt to make good estimates of what the future could hold for us, and for resources such as oil. But it is important to not confuse these estimates with infalible prophecies.
Impossible?
“But knowing when a commodity such as oil is going to run out, is not hard, it’s impossible”
Not necessarily. Here’s an article that demonstrates how to do it. In this example, an expert oil analyst shows how it’s done for one segment of the industry. Tedious,? yes! Complicated? Yes! – but not impossible.
And, BTW, he shows how the pundits are all wrong on this one. What else are they wrong on?
The Shocking Data Proving Shale Oil Is Massively Over-hyped It’s time for America to focus on the facts by Adam Taggart
http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/89793/shocking-data-proving-shale-oil-massively-over-hyped?utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter_158&utm_source=newsletter_2014-12-19&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_content=node_title_89793
On today’s podcast, Chris Martenson talks with oil analyst David Hughes, who has analyzed the major shale plays utilizing a massive database of well production results from America’s shale basins. The data show that declines tend to be hyperbolic in all shale fields. The average first-year decline is 70%; down to 85% by year three. And we’re drilling the best parts of these plays first: meaning that future wells will yield less even under the best results.
We’re pinning our hopes of “oil independence” on faulty assumptions. Worse, we’re using it to dismiss the Peak Oil theme at exactly the time we should be using this extra oil to construct the infrastructure for our next energy age (whatever that may look like), while we still have the net energy available to us:
Impossible, I sincerely say
If they succeed in making the graphene battery
http://vimeo.com/51873011
and succeed in the creation of the graphene solar cell,
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-stronger-solar-cells-graphene-cusp.html
a lot of oil might end up sitting in the earth forever.
"sitting in the earth"
I tend to think there might be a reason the each needs oil in it, and to remove all of it would be a dumb move.
Seems like removing all the oil from anything is always a bad idea.