FIGURE 4 - Time to Depletion of Proven Oil Reserves Basically the bottom line is that from 1990, the time to depletion of currently known, major oil reserves is approximately 40 years plus or minus some small number. That would give us until 2030 before we had to do have an alternate source of comparable capacity, versatility, and transportability available. Figure 5 shows the usual time required for one energy source to replace another. It can clearly be seen from the three figures that there is little time left given the long lead times associated with capital intensive projects, to start developing alternative sources of energy on the scale that will be required if we want to avoid more oil crises or shocks and the associated disruptions that will occur as people and nations compete for limited and declining resources. Sources of Energy An often raised counter to the argument that we are running out of energy is that we have so many options. This is true but let us look very briefly at each of these options while remembering the implications of the trend in energy demand which was shown in Figure 2. This subsection is a quick overview of baseload sources of electrical energy. Renewables and their limitations are discussed later in the paper. Oil is very valuable because of its use in transportation. As supplies decline transportation uses will be given higher priority than using it to produce electricity. There will be the choice of whether to use it for transportation or as feed stock for industries such as chemicals, fertilizers, and even housing. Given the inevitable increasing competition for liquid hydrocarbon resources the price will again be bid up. For many developing countries this will mean that the cost of importing petroleum based fuels will consume even more valuable foreign exchange.
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