The hard truth, as the Carter Administration sees it, is that … the world’s oil would disappear in the first decade of the 21st century.
Carter’s Oil Problem – The New York Times
Oil production now is higher than it was when Carter made that forecast.
Everything is bigger in Texas, including crude oil production
Forty-six years ago when I was in high school a former student, who was now in the oil business, came and talked to us. He made it quite clear that while oil may run out one day there are always new ways of extracting it being developed and new fields being found. He has been right every year since while the politicians, green groups, chardonnay socialists, corporate media, the elites, kindergarten teachers and their ilk constantly lie to us.
HL Mencken was right when he said: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_101109
History of ‘Peak Oil’
(http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/5oilreservehistory.html)
• 1857 — Romania produces 2,000 barrels of oil, marking the beginning of the modern oil industry.
• 1859, Aug. 25 — Edwin L. Drake strikes oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania
• 1862 — First commercial oil production in Canada, also 1863 in Russia.
• 1862 — Most widely used lamp fuel (camphene) taxed in US at aprox. $1 a gallon; kerosene taxed at 10 cent per gallon.(Kovarik, 1997)
• 1863 — John D. Rockefeller starts the Excelsior Refinery in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1879 — US Geological Survey formed in part because of fear of oil shortages.
• 1882 — Institute of Mining Engineers estimates 95 million barrels of oil remain.With 25 million barrels per year output, “Some day the cheque will come back indorsed no funds, and we are approaching that day very fast,” Samuel Wrigley says. (Pratt, p. 124).
• 1901 — Spindletop gusher in Texas floods US oil market.
• 1906 — Fears of an oil shortage are confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Representatives of the Detroit Board of Commerce attended hearings in Washington and told a Senate hearing that car manufacturers worried “not so much [about] cost as … supply.”
• 1919, Scientific American notes that the auto industry could no longer ignore the fact that only 20 years worth of U.S. oil was left. “The burden falls upon the engine. It must adapt itself to less volatile fuel, and it must be made to burn the fuel with less waste…. Automotive engineers must turn their thoughts away from questions of speed and weight… and comfort and endurance, to avert what … will turn out to be a calamity, seriously disorganizing an indispensable system of transportation.”
• 1920 — David White, chief geologist of USGS, estimates total oil remaining in the US at 6.7 billion barrels. “In making this estimate, which included both proved reserves and resources still remaining to be discovered, White conceded that it might well be in error by as much as 25 percent.” (Pratt, p. 125. Emphasis added).
• 1925 — US Commerce Dept. says that while U.S. oil production doubled between 1914 and 1921, it did not kept pace with fuel demand as the number of cars increased.
• 1928 — US analyst Ludwell Denny in his book “We Fight for Oil” noted the domestic oil shortage and says international diplomacy had failed to secure any reliable foreign sources of oil for the United States. Fear of oil shortages would become the most important factor in international relations, even so great as to force the U.S. into war with Great Britain to secure access to oil in the Persian Gulf region, Denny said.
• 1926 — Federal Oil Conservation Board estimates 4.5 billion barrels remain.
• 1930 — Some 25 million American cars are on the road, up from 3 million in 1918.
• 1932 — Federal Oil Conservation Board estimates 10 billion barrels of oil remain.
• 1944 — Petroleum Administrator for War estimates 20 billion barrels of oil remain.
• 1950 — American Petroleum Institute says world oil reserves are at 100 billion barrels. (See Jean Laherre, Forecast of oil and gas supply)
• 1956 — M.King Hubbard predicts peak in US oil production by 1970.
• 1966 – 1977 — 19 billion barrels added to US reserves, most of which was from fields discovered before 1966. (As M.A. Adelman notes: “These fields were no gift of nature. They were a growth of knowledge, paid for by heavy investment.”)
• 1973 — Oil price spike; supply restrictions due to Middle Eastern politics.
• 1978 — Petroleos de Venezuela announces estimated unconventional oil reserve figure for Orinoco heavy oil belt at between three and four trillion barrels. (More recent public estimates are in the one trillion range).
• 1979 — Oil price spike; supply restrictions due to Middle Eastern politics.
• 1980 — Remaining proven oil reserves put at 648 billion barrels
• 1993 — Remaining proven oil reserves put at 999 billion barrels
• 2000 — Remaining proven oil reserves put at 1016 billion barrels.
• 2005 — Oil price spike; supply restrictions and heavy new demand
• 2008 — Oil price spike; supply restrictions and heavy new demand, global economies collapse when oil reaches over $140 USD/bbl.
Oil reserves have declined from 95 million barrels in 1882, to well over a trillion barrels in 2011. We will probably run out in a few centuries at the rate we are consuming the oil. A simple solution for high efficient vehicles is already available – as soon as someone figures out how to install air conditioning and all wheel drive on a motorcycle…. No, it is not an error in numbers or statement – just a little sarcasm.
A decade ago, for the most part, warmers and peak oilers were one in the same.
2007: We are all warmistas now.
2008: Drill baby, drill.
2015: That peak oil thing? Nevermind.
Thanks for that summary, Gator!
There are complex living organisms literally saturating the top 5 kilometers of the Earth’s crust. There is more life in the top several kilometers of dirt than in the entire oceans. Lots of these organisms MAKE METHANE. CH4 is a building block of heavier MW organics. Wouldn’t it be interesting if oil turned out to be continuously churned out organically
I should have said, “…oil and nat’l gas turned out….”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/dec/10/tread-softly-because-you-tread-on-23bn-tonnes-of-micro-organisms Unfortunately this is from the Guardian, but Drudge has linked several like-pieces recently
If the EU-countries would permit fracking within seconds the world -oil-reserves would at least triple and France would be richer than the Gulf .No wonder Putin is investing millions to influence public opinion here and has been quite succesful in creating a 5th colonne of useful indiots — the european greens outshouting reasonable us and european scientists and stiffling freedom of expression through false hate-speech accusations based upon hurt feelings similar style than the moslems are trying to enforce . The only logical response : DRILL BABY DRILL .
The EU could triple the worlds oil reserves if fracking would be permitted here in Europe. Putin must have done a great job at weaponizing the green socialist movements as proven by their succes at UN and infiltration of useful idiots within western world institutions . Tony you and others are fighting an uphhill battle against big russian oil and chinese coal . Best advice here : Drill Baby Drill .
You are correct in your assessment of the Russians.
What every liberal/environmentalist and Trump haters missed in the CIA’s
“Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” presented to congress dated 6 January 2017 was buried in Annex A, page 8 of the report which showed that Russian oil company Gazprom involvement in green energy groups and anti fracking. These environmental programs were 1o times as big (and continue to this day) as did Russian activities in the US elections
Long story short: The world has been just about to run out of oil since shortly after it began to be pumped out of the ground, and in the intervening time we have continued to use ever more of it, while being assured the entire time that the end of it is right around the corner, and despite this we now have more known reserves and oil in place mapped out than ever before, and the trend towards having more to pump than ever shows no signs of slowing.
Conclusion: The earth is big, and anything that exists under the ground exists in huge quantity, the magnitude of which “experts” consistently underestimate.
I am 100% sure than no matter how long I am around in the future, on the day I travel to the great beyond, there will be more being used every day, and more still to pump, than is now the case.
Saudi Aramco has been promising and postponing an IPO for years, supposedly because it would require them to publish reserve estimates, which they keep a closely guarded secret. Speculation is that their reserves are so enormous that if they became public, the price of oil would crash overnight and fracking would end. Dan Pena at 36:30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rCQ1UTYkjQ&t=1469s
Warning! Mr. Pena expresses his 1st Amendment rights in an unvarnished manner.
Could be just that…. or it could be because they have never been audited before, and their books are irreconcilable. It’s a 3-5% profit business at best, and it has been family-run. I would bet the financials are nothing to brag about
People curse at Big-Oil all the time, but it’s not a high margin business
Peak oil has been used as a propaganda tool for 100 years now.
But what will be the price of a barrel of oil if hydro carbons are banned by our governments?
The time has come to wake up and address the real culprits we have to face en end the current threat that jeopardizes our entire civilization.
https://youtu.be/e8JRCoSgsUU
https://youtu.be/ACYRaNvTN2w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J84PwVSxZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxi4s0YTFJ4me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdZmj-GaK6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mxf_2UncAw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4-CMSu4yoE
Ever notice how the alarmists go on and on about how fossil fuels are a finite resource we’re sure to run out of and hype the environmental damage they claim their extraction and processing cause but have no such worries about Cobalt, lithium, and the various rare earth ores used in the manufacture of batteries?