You can read about the facts and figures regarding global oil reserves in many articles such as this, but the truth is that no one really knows how much oil is left that can be feasibly extracted. OPEC producers keep it a big secret, as they don’t want to disclose how much oil they have found or think they will find.
Some people think that the world is rapidly reaching the point where the growth in new supplies of oil cannot keep up with the the pace of oil depletion. Officials in the oil industry agree that the days of major new finds of cheap oil in well explored countries such as the US are over. There is still plenty of oil, but it is getting ever harder to find. However, as oil extraction technology develops, many prospects that were not economically feasible to develop before are now being developed. In the future, there will be prospects that are not worth developing today that future technologies will be able to handle. For instance, horizontal drilling is a new technology that means new pockets of oil that were previously unaffordable can now be extracted.
In addition to making extraction more feasible, advancements in technology is helping in the search for oil. New fields are being found in areas that were once thought to be fully exploited. For instance, 3D visualization technology now enables geologists to view underground formations to a much higher degree of clarity and detail than before.
Whilst the limits of fossil fuel exploration keep being expanded all the time, the fact still remains that the supply is finite. Technology is enabling companies to find more oil, but the ever harder methods of extraction are ultimately going to bring the price of fossil fuels up to the point where alternative methods energy production become much more viable.
This can only be a good thing. Far from the energy crises, and the ‘return to the stone age’ scenario that some doomsayers predict, the ending of the world’s reliance on fossil fuels which be a huge step for our civilization.
Although this is not a strict rule, generally the world’s most successful economies have got to where they are because of the major fossil fuels of oil, gas and coal. In the future, the world’s most successful economies are likely to be the ones that have embraced the ‘green revolution,’ and who have developed significant sources of green energy. As has been discussed, with the development of new technologies for exploration and extraction, no one knows quite how long fossil fuels will be economically feasible, but without doubt every country in the world right now should be preparing for this eventuality.
