Thanks to the improvements in efficiency and price fluctuations that allowed shale oil extraction and the like, as well as new exploration, for all intents and purposes, we still have a basically unlimited amount of oil.
When oil gets expensive, it justifies infrastructure that was previously economically unfeasible and not part of our reserves. And once that infrastructure is in place, the price can still go down and it can sustain itself. Is it really unlimited? Absolutely not. But innovation and economics have stretched what’s available to a level of surprising longevity.
At this rate of price fluctuation and investment, in 300 years we will be extracting the oil from your facial pores and still have a “50 year reserve”.
It’s kinda a neat thing if it wasn’t for all the shitty side effects, tbh.
Thanks to the improvements in efficiency and price fluctuations that allowed shale oil extraction and the like, as well as new exploration, for all intents and purposes, we still have a basically unlimited amount of oil.
When oil gets expensive, it justifies infrastructure that was previously economically unfeasible and not part of our reserves. And once that infrastructure is in place, the price can still go down and it can sustain itself. Is it really unlimited? Absolutely not. But innovation and economics have stretched what’s available to a level of surprising longevity.
At this rate of price fluctuation and investment, in 300 years we will be extracting the oil from your facial pores and still have a “50 year reserve”.
It’s kinda a neat thing if it wasn’t for all the shitty side effects, tbh.
And since BASF already invented methods to revert plastic to oil, if the price is right, we wouldn’t even need oil anymore, just trash.
BASF, the ones making my video tapes?
Are they? I mean the large petrochemical company from Germany
I know, I’m just joking about many people remembering them from C- and VHS cassettes.
Yes, actually.