When do you people think the world will run out of oil ?

oh ok thank you very much

We will never run out of oil. In addition to what we traditionally think of oil, liquid oil that can conveniently be pumped from the ground, there are huge reserves of “heavy” or “tight” oil, tar sands, and oil shale. What we are in danger of running out of is cheap oil. Some experts say the world reached “peak oil” in 2006. If true this basically means that from this point petroleum production will decline and since demand will continue growing oil prices will continue to climb.

thanks !

WE WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL At least not in a physical sense. There will still be oil in the ground 10 years from now, and 50 years from now and 500 years from now. This will hold true no matter if you take a pessimistic or optimistic view about the amount of oil still available to be extracted. Let’s suppose that the supply really is quite limited. What will happen as the supply starts to diminish? First we would expect to see some wells run dry and either be replaced with new wells that have higher associated costs or not be replaced at all. Either of these would cause the price at the pump to rise. When the price of gasoline rises, people naturally buy less of it; the amount of this reduction being determined by the amount of the price increase and the consumer’s elasticity of demand for gasoline. This does not necessarily mean that people will drive less (though it is likely), it may mean that consumers trade in their SUVs for smaller cars, hybrid vehicles, or cars that run on alternative fuels. Each consumer will react to the price change differently, so we would expect to see everything from more people bicycling to work to used car lots full of Lincoln Navigators. If we go back to Economics 101, this effect is clearly visible. The continual reduction of the supply of oil is represented by a series of small shifts of the supply curve to the left and an associated move along the demand curve. Since gasoline is a normal good, Economics 101 tells us that we will have a series of price increases and a series of reductions in the total amount of gasoline consumed. Eventually the price will reach a point where gasoline will become a niche good purchased by very few consumers, while other consumers will have found alternatives to gas. When this happens there will still be plenty of oil in the ground, but consumers will have found alternatives that make more economic sense to them, so there will be little, if any, demand for gasoline.