I think that's BS. No way half is gone. Even the old oil derricks that were abandoned are getting touched again with new technology that can extract stuff out of it that wasn't possible before. And oil rigs are hitting stuff miles down but technology in the future will allow them to go further and further out, etc. And not only that, they only have access to certain shores/coasts now. When they get more they'll find plenty.
'limitless' is not the word I used. I have been in the 'oil and gas industry' for the last 8 years. I am pretty sure that idea (1/2 gone theroy) is not the generally accepted figure, in fact, if you argued that theroy to some of the engineers, geologists, and chemists in my firm, I'm sure they would laugh their ass off.
two problems 1) As of today, we cannot create anti-matter on a large scale 2) If anti-matter and matter collide it'll make a HUGE explosion.
I know of at least one geologist who's entire career has been based upon finding oil who would not laugh his ass off at all. He just turned 80 this year and has been doing it a hell of a long time. You are hung up on the semantics of whether oil will continue to exist. I don't think that anyone disagrees that there will be oil. The idea that we will be able to continue to hunt, gather, manufacture, and distribute oil at a cost effective rate for many years is just silly. Why do you think that so many countries, including the US, are trying to ween themselves off of oil and onto alternate fuels and technologies?
I'm not saying that there is NOBODY in the world that agrees with that idea, it's just NOT the general consensus in the exploration industry. actually, in the context of my original post...I'm hung up on the notion that, 'sooner or later, we are gonna run out' which is just not true. agreed!
I don't see the point in making such a big deal out of something when you knew what he was talking about and so did everyone else.
Actually, antiprotons would not annihilate with electrons. Antiparticles only annihilate with the corresponding particle.
You misspelled theory twice. Just thought that was fairly relevant to our anti-matter and oil discussion.
Except this is what he said. He specifically said not what was reasonable to extract based on price, etc. He said half of all the oil in the entire earth.
You drive an anti-matter powered car. You accidentally run into another. The magnets that contain the anti-matter breaks. BOOM. The city you are in evaporates.
What happens if one of your anti-matter injector sticks? Unless this guy is riding shotgun you are totally screwed.
My understanding is that the Arabian Peninsula was a very shallow sea that was a unique situation for forming oil during the Devonian or Cretaceous or whenever, and that it is a situation that hasn't been repeated at any other time or place in history. It is also my understanding that Saudi reserves are well past 50% gone and that their published reserves are way overstated. Other Arabian sources are draining down as well, and when Saudi fields dry up they will have to pick up the slack. Arabian Peninsula oil makes up a significant fraction of total oil supplies worldwide - a figure much larger than their relative size to the rest of the world - again because there were unique conditions of Arabia many millions of years ago. To compare, the main Saudi field had, at the beginning, estimated 170bn barrels in the ground. There are also fields of 75+bn barrels, and several dozen in the 10-20 bn barrel range in Arabia. The largest field in all of North America is in Mexico with a grand total of 20bn barrels. In South America, it is a 30bn barrel field in Venezuela. If you think there is a 200+bn barrel mega-field waiting to be discovered at the bottom of the Marianas trench, you are wrong. Of course there is oil elsewhere, which is why people are digging is the 'stans and Mongolia. But there is only one situation like Arabia. There will be no more 170bn barrel mega-fields like in Arabia because those conditions haven't existed elsewhere. As far as revisiting old wells, when you are injecting millions of gallons of water and getting back something that is maybe 5%-10% oil, you are really draining the bottom of the barrel. Oil can be gotten that way, but it is hardly enough to make a major dent in world demand. You can't keep up supply by scraping the bottom of all the old wells. Absolutely you can get oil. But it is expensive and has a very low yield. And below a certan point, there simply is no oil, because oil requires organics to form in any volume. There is a certan depth below which there is no more oil.
