When oil reserves run out will the world be better or worse off?

[jcomorley]

For years we've been subjected to worrying reports that the world's oil reserves will only last a few more decades, sometimes it's 20 years to go before chaos rules, others times it's 50 years. I wondered what will really happen when we use up all the oil? Then I considered that it might actually be a good thing, and that it is intrinsically linked to US foreign policy and the current situation in Iraq.

Firstly there will be obvious benefits to the environment, due to the reduction of green house gasses and a reduction in the indirect and direct deaths caused by pollution. It would also force us to develop green technology at an accelerated rate. I believe it will be surprising to see the rate at which efficient and environmentally friendly forms of technology would appear. Today truck fuel can be made from recycled cooking oil.

Also, immediately tangible would be the decrease in loss of life without war. Neither Arab nations, the United States or any other country can own or control renewable resources such as the sun, wind or rain. If there is no oil, there would be no need to invade and control other countries for their oil reserves, therefore avoiding social and environmental atrocities. The wars engaged by Britain and the US since World War II have not been due to a direct threat of invasion of their soil. Most have been for political reasons and/or control of resources. 9-11 was a dreadful atrocity where the actions and policies of successive governments caused the loss of civilian life and has provided a spring board for US global strategy unrelated to 9-11. We are now seeing the implementation of that strategy in Iraq by the current Neo-Conservative administration.

The US government would incur greater benefits to itself and it's citizens long term if it were to stop its [self proclaimed] empire building using intimidation and murder to control resources, an activity which mimics the actions of every empire previously from the Romans to the British. The US could pre-empt the next world order by using the best resources it already posses – its people. Countries that will be economically successful in a future without oil will be the ones that base their economies on intellectual, creative and academic achievements in business. This is a future where we are shifting, whether we like it or not, from mineral wealth to human resource wealth.

Already the United States excels and leads the world in this way so it is doubly disappointing to witness the current government's strategy. There are many examples in biotechnology and science where the US excels but two precedents where technology and creativity are combined make good examples. Burt Rutan's revolutionary and lateral approach to air and space craft design has initiated a great era in human exploration and experience, eventually allowing the masses to visit space. Consider also the success of Microsoft and its competitors (mostly from within the US too). It is based on a technological and creative fusion resulting in physically intangible products (as opposed to oil) that exist in our computers but which have significant and real benefits.

Instead the US government is alienating itself and its people from the rest of the world and inspiring some of the oppressed and disenfranchised to give their lives to destroying it. The US government has also decided that its own people are to be mistrusted and therefore controlled with new and draconian laws in the name of fighting terror. US militia organisations who arm themselves and withdraw to their own isolated communities blaming mistrust of the federal government suddenly appear to have a good point.

However, unlike previous empires, the US exists in a unprecedented period where exchange of ideas and information is instantaneous on a global scale. This allows for discussion and exchange of views, including reports of the atrocities of 'war', to take place and therefore form opinions very quickly. Combined with international travel, the ability to experience other cultures, our increased expectations for a better more comfortable life, has quite rightly reduced the general populaces desire and acceptance of war. That is unless information is withheld and/or distorted to engineer favourable opinion for war. Additionally, in the west we have more money, more leisure activities and more time to spend with our families and friends. Again these aspects of our lives make it increasingly difficult for our governments to encourage us to go to and accept war. This example points the way forward for the future – working towards increasing the standard of living for all to ensure peace. It is the only way humans can evolve as species – socially and intellectually – and an abolition of war must be part of that goal.

Significantly, the US government's foreign policy, its surreptitious control and manipulation of the UN, combined with its own removal from a global system of discussion and approval is undermining and hindering the social and intellectual evolution of the planet. Instead of attempting to control finite resources and impose its values on other countries, the US and its subdued allies (mostly Britain) should be pursuing a vigourous policy of inclusion.

Consider a lateral approach to the 'war' and the previous vindictive sanctions which effectively murdered Iraqi people, including children – instead spend $100 billion on improving health, education and general welfare of the Iraqi people. It's an absurd suggestion, but what better way to undermine Sadddam? Naturally it would never happen, but this thought process also leads us to an important question. Why would the US government spend $100 billion to topple Saddam [when even Israeli intelligence believed he was no threat] and impose its political will, meddling around in the cradle of civilisation? We all know there are several other regimes that commit crimes against its own people which miraculously evade western intervention.

There is the thinly veiled rhetoric about 'creating democracy', but there are no guarantees this will stick, especially in a tribal culture. And if it does, it will be a government subservient to the US which in turn will inspire more insurgency within Iraq and the US. There is even the suggestion that we are improving the lives of Iraqis. Or that Iraq was a threat to the US, Britain and Iraq's neighbours. This was a premeditated lie which planned to use the intelligence agencies as the fall guy.

Of course the reason is to get access to Iraq's oil. Current estimates put Iraqi reserves at around 540 times more than US based reserves. All will be extracted under the careful control of the US government and corporations, firstly to pay themselves back for the cost of the war, then to make profits with a few morsels handed out to loyal friends. Lastly to benefit, may be the Iraqi people themselves.

So, I believe when we run out of oil:
– There will be an exponential increase in energy efficient and green technology prior to this event
– Reduced deaths through pollution and war
– Less propensity for single states to control resources and impose their will on other nations
– An increase in intellectual and creative based economies.

I think most definitely the world will be a better place.

[Nono]

(...) immediately tangible would be the decrease in loss of life through war (...)

I agree that it would be ultimately positive in many ways.
But you'd better bet they would find other reasons to war when the oil was gone, much as they do already.
And conflict over the last few drops would be bitter and bloody.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: jcomorley When oil reserves run out will the world be better or worse off?

It is gonig to be much worse for all the people, not too mention many other vital aspects for Homo Sappiens.

[bishop]

hopefully people wouldn't become any stupider than they already are.

[Catch 22]

hehe this all kinda depends on the sort of planning we humans put into alternative energy. If we plan ahead and build a new energy economy, everything will be peachy keen. If we don't plan ahead and instead keep on sucking on the teat of big oil things will invariably get worsen. The economy will go into free fall, inflation will run rampant until stagflation sets in, followed by a rush to secure the dwindling oil reserve abroad (ie war with every other military power), and a fallback onto coal, heavy oil and high pollution alternatives to oil. Need less to say things could get very bad.

[RickSp]

The world will not end. The reserves will not run out. They will decline. Oil will become scarcer and more expensive to produce. Electricy production will shift to coal or hydro. Countries like Poland already produces close to 100 % of all electric power from coal. New Zealand and Canda each already produce 75% of their electricy from hydro. Over half of the power in the US is produced from coal, nukes or hydro.

Transportation is a bigger problem than electricity. That being said, Brazil is using ethanol on about half the autos on the road. Likewise the Germans during WII and more recently the South Africans converted coal to gasoline. It cost more but then higher oil proces and better technolgoy could make it feasible. The huge US grain surplus might be seen as a great resource if vehicles in the US are converted to burning ethanol.

All I am suggesting is that while energy prices will rise, things may not change too much. As energy gets more expensive, we will not waste it so carelessly. Pollution will still be a problem. New technolgies will be used to make coal burning less polluting. New energy sources will be developed. Many things will change, most will not.

[jdk]

Well, one day the oil supply will run out. We will have to adapt and I know we will. Too bad I will not be around long enough to see it. That is why they need to start now with the hybrid vehicles and quick allowing the oil companies to run everything. Of course they are for gasoline vehicles instead of hybrid! Sooner or later it will catch on.

[Mr.Vicchio]

Uhm, according to a few scientist, and yes give me a few to dig this up, oil reserves... will never run out. It will not run out because Oil, did not come from dinosaur carcassess.

It's a natural geological element, not a the result of rotting corpses form millions of years ago.

[Mr.Vicchio]

The errors involved in predictions about the future availability of petroleum, inevitably occasioned by an inappropriate application of the rococo hypothesis that petroleum somehow miraculously evolved from limited volumes of biogen ic matter, obtain generally from the very notion of such as a "limited, fossil" material. Correctly, one should better recognize that there exists no more reason to expect a future shortage of petroleum than of, say, mid-oceanic ridge basalt (M ORB). [MORB is the rock characteristic of the loci of the deep suture, spreading zones on the mid-ocean floor where new oceanic crust is constantly being erupted from the mantle of the Earth.] Those predictive errors obtain specifically from neglect of several extremely large potential sources of petroleum, of which a few are set forth here. In view of these considerations, there stands no reason to worry about, and even less to plan for, any predicted demise of the petroleum industry based upon a vanishing of petroleum reserves. On the contrary, these considerations c ompel additional investment and development in the technology and skills of deep drilling, of deep seismic measurement and interpretation, of the reservoir properties of crystalline rock, and of the associated completion and production practices which sho uld be applied in such non-traditional reservoirs. Not only are any predictions that the world is "running out of oil" invalid, so also are suggestions that the petroleum exploration and production industry is a "mature" or "declining" one. This writer ’s experience, gained from working in the former U.S.S.R. during the past five years, has provided compelling evidence that the petroleum industry is only now entering its adolescence. http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Energy.html

GREAT peice, you should read it. The term fossil fuel is a misnomer, oil does not originate from biological matter.