Do you think the world will ever run out of oil and if it does what will happen?

1. 61

   jake13edwardposted 12 years ago

   Do you think the world will ever run out of oil and if it does what will happen?

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2. 66

   Phil Plasmaposted 12 years ago

   No, the world will not ever run out of oil.  There will come a time, however, where it takes more than a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil and then it won't make economic or energetic sense to extract the oil.
   
   When this happens civilization as we know it will cease to exist.  It will not happen overnight, however, it will be a step wise descent which doesn't affect every country equally, or even every household equally, but ultimately will lead to smaller populations relying almost exclusively on local resources.

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3. 80

   DavyJones02posted 12 years ago

   Yes, at the rate we are using oil now we will eventually run out. It took millions of year to accumulate all the oil in the world, and we have used most of it in only a couple of decades.
   When we run out of oil we have to use other sources for energy, cars have to run on hydrogen, electricity, ethanol etc.. But a lot of research is being done on alternative power sources, by the time we run out of oil there will be new sources of energy we can use. The world will hardly change.

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4. 64

   leroy64posted 12 years ago

   Of course we will run out of oil, it is a finite resource.  I can speculate about when that happens.  The human population will decrease until we reach a level our food production and transportation can support.  Petroleum is a major ingredient in fertilizer manufacturing and pesticides.  I don't know of any effective substitutes.  Transportation will be a lesser problem because we can either develop electric powered engines, or revert to steam powered engines.  People will be less mobile.  There will be a total retooling of our current manufacturing facilities, since plastics are used in everything.  Socially, the world will become separated.  On the plus side, large scale wars will become almost impossible to maintain, at least at today's level.  The world just might look like a steampunk novel. Of course, I am only guessing.

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5. 71

   ImYoungAtHeartposted 12 years ago

   I think we will run out of oil sooner than the general population wants to think about it. I think as the prices keep climbing more people will try to find other alternatives. More wind generators are going up all the time.  Will that be enough to lessen the panic when we do?  I doubt it.  The public needs to be proactive too trying to find other ways of powering all the gadgets we use.

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