Latest Estimates of Global Fossil Fuel Resources and Reserves, as of June 2013

10 Comments on "Latest Estimates of Global Fossil Fuel Resources and Reserves, as of June 2013"

BillT on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 3:26 am 



Numbers mean nothing. Much of that oil will never be recovered.

No mention of the bankrupt West or the slowing East.

No mention of climate change or pollution.

No mention of anything but some numbers on charts from unreliable sources.

Keith_McClary on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 4:26 am 



BillT wrote: “Numbers mean nothing.”

Would you prefer pie(in the sky) charts?

Stephen on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 5:55 am 



The problem is not running out. The problem is five issues:

1) Extraction Rates. A lot of what is left is harder to extract due to the fact that it is in less porous rocks, is very deep, is below the ocean, and the like. The extraction rate of the harder, unconventional oil and gas is much slower than the traditional easy to reach, super giant oil fields of yesterday.

2) The rate one can develop a new field is not enough to offset decline rates of existing fields that are already past their peak of production.

3) The energy return on investment of unconventional sources is much lower than the traditional easy to get oil. It takes tremendous amounts of energy, water, and other resources to to turn unconventional oil and tar sands into gasoline or diesel.

4) We do not have enough drilling rigs to mine lots of small fields and small findings on farms.

5) The environmental risks of Fracking are grave. Such risks include groundwater pollution, flammable tap water, earthquakes, and others This leads to public distrust of the practice.

6) Reserve to production ratio comparisons do not take into account that the output will be the same each year. Instead, it follows a bell curve.

Arthur on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 9:58 am 



“Numbers mean nothing.”

Bill, you are creating intellectual room for yourself to freely make up your (too) gloomy visions. Numbers are all we have got, however inaccurate they might be.

R/P (years) figures indicate that there is no geological defined energy catastrophy immanent. The glorious days of 1950-2008 of permanent economic growth probably are over for a long time, if not for ever, but we have some time to implement the energy infrastructure of the future. It should be possible to make pictures like these all over the planet, soon:

http://tinyurl.com/qal8nv9

BillT on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 11:01 am 



Arthur, numbers are ALL suspect in today’s world. Better to observe the world around you and what is happening there.

Japan shuts down 50 reactors so they need to replace that with oil.

China has trillions of Walmart dollars to get rid of so they are buying everything everywhere in preparation for the coming collapse of the West.

The list of negatives go on and on.

The list of positives is short:

The only one is that it will happen soon, perhaps allowing some resources for those who survive.

Petroleum demand is dropping in the Western countries yet Oil prices remain at $100+.

The countries are choosing sides for the next World War, which is only a matter of time.

The dollar will be killed by the countries moving to trade in their own currency.

The EU banks are being kept semi-solvent by the Federal Reserve printing presses.

BillT on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 11:03 am 



Excuse the mixed mess above…

Arthur, numbers are ALL suspect in today’s world. Better to observe the world around you and what is happening there.

Japan shuts down 50 reactors so they need to replace that with oil.

China has trillions of Walmart dollars to get rid of so they are buying everything everywhere in preparation for the coming collapse of the West.

Petroleum demand is dropping in the Western countries yet Oil prices remain at $100+.

The countries are choosing sides for the next World War, which is only a matter of time.

The dollar will be killed by the countries moving to trade in their own currency.

The EU banks are being kept semi-solvent by the Federal Reserve printing presses.

The list of negatives go on and on.

The list of positives is short:

The only one is that it will happen soon, perhaps allowing some resources for those who survive.

Arthur on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 11:21 am 



Bill, there is admittedly a lot of room for drama in the coming, and there will be as long as humans roam the planet. Not sure if your list is all that negative for everybody…

– Japan shutting down nukes is good news; it drives up the price of energy, which is bad news for economic growth but good news for those advocating rapid introduction of renewables.
– Let the Chinese destroy the dollar. OK, that is easy to say for a European like me, but bringing down the cluster Bretton Woods dollar-FED-Wallstreet-media-AIPAC in the long term could mean a liberation of the Euro-Americans and a chance to start all over again, as a free people.
– Dropping demand for petroleum is not necessarily bad news. Prices btw for petrol have come down substantially here, because of it.
– Nobody wants a (world) war, except for the neocons and assorted jihadists. I do not see that happening too easy, but it cannot be excluded either.
– Banks are always kept solvent by central banks, that’s how the system works.

And I would like to add the internet by and large as a very positive factor in the modern world as a means of free exchange information, circumventing media and their agendas and short-cutting propaganda.

Cheer up Bill, there is more than ever space for creativity and room to address challenges, or in short: interesting times.

Mike on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 11:53 am 



Arthur where do you get all this information about renewable being a fix for all the worlds energy problems?

It comes down to this. We are moving from a highly concentrated energy source to a diffuse energy source. This has never happened in the history of “progress”. If You move to a more diffuse energy source your civilisation does less than it did before, this is called collapse.

No pensions
No unemployment benefit
No subsidised agriculture
No globalisation

A vast number of very hungry pissed off people. You think the riots/unrest in Turkey, Brazil, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, France, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria etc. etc. etc. are just a fad? a one off? these are spreading like wildfire across the world, but you will keep your head in the sand until someone comes smashing your door down looking for food.

I’ve met your type before, your the person who comes on the news in shock and says, “we never thought something like this could happen here, nobody could have predicted it, it’s like something out of a movie, the government needs to do something about it”

The slowest camper is what you are and reality is going to smack you in the face in the next few years.

Mack on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 5:23 pm 



BILL wants the west to collapse because he is anti-white and anti-civilization, he is the kind of guy that Ted Kaczynski described as the sick leftist, a person who normally despise the white male, because the white mas is a winner, a conqueror, an a source of prosperity, he hates america because america is white and prosperous.

Arthur on Fri, 21st Jun 2013 5:47 pm 



“Arthur where do you get all this information about renewable being a fix for all the worlds energy problems?”

I never said that renewables are going to be a ‘fix’. I am saying we have nothing else so we better get started with it now.

“If You move to a more diffuse energy source your civilisation does less than it did before, this is called collapse.”

Why should returning to the fifties in a material sense constitute a collapse?

“You think the riots/unrest in Turkey, Brazil, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, France, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria etc. etc. etc. are just a fad? a one off?”

No, I do not think so at all. That unrest is going to increase and the effect could very well be a regrouping on an ethnic/religeous basis and probably large scale ethnic cleansing. And the more mixed places are, the more horrible it is going to be, like in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria. You see it happening today in Greece, the growth/rebirth of nationalism. Or the muslim brotherhood in Sunni countries. Globalism will be dead, communities are going to be reestablished on grass roots level. And it probably is not going to be all that humanitarian, unfortunately.

But it seems that the only moral position acceptable to you is despair.

Count me out.