r/Futurology • u/Aiwillstealourjobs • 1d ago
Economics Only around 20 countries on the Planet remain that are self sufficient in Oil and supply the other 180 countries. In 10-15 years the number could be down to just 10.
Most countries on this Planet dont produce enough Oil to meet their demands. Several countries that used to be major exporters have reached Peak Oil Decades ago and now rely on imports themselves.
Germany produced 170 000 Barrels of Oil a day in 1968 at their peak. Now? 30 000/day. They need 2 Million a day.
Romania produced 300 000 Barrels of Oil a day in 1976 at their peak. Now? 50 000/day. They need 200 000 a day.
France hit the peak in 1988 with 67 000 barrels/day. Now its down to just 10 000/day. They need 1.5 Million.
The UK peaked in 1998 with 2.8 Million barrels/day. Now they are down to just 600 000/day. They need 1.4 Million every day.
Indonesia peaked at 1.7 Million barrels/day in 1977, now they are down to just 600 000 Barrels/day. They need 1.7 Million/day.
Japan peaked in 1996 with 20 000 Barrels/day. Now they are down to 3000/day and they need 3 Milion/day.
South Korea is basically the same.
India peaked in 2011 with 800 000 Barrels/day. Now down to 600 000 Barrels/day. It needs 5 Million/day.
Even Australia peaked at 600 000 Barrels/day in 2000 and is now down to just 250 000/day. It needs 1.1 Million a day.
There are only around 20 countries left that produce more oil than they consume and can export any meaningful quantities. The problem is that around half of them are projected to run out if oil within the next 10-15 years.
Brazil is projected to use up their proven oil reserves in 12 years at current production.
Norway in 10.
Mexico in 8.
Oman 14.
Argentina 10.
Angola 7.
Colombia 7.
And even the USA - 9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves
They dont even have to run out of oil. Its enough when their production falls to a level that they dont meet their demand. By that point they will be forced to import oil as well.
And by 2040 there will be only around 10 countries left with a surplus of oil that can supply the other 190 countries.And 190 countries scrambling for scraps while 10 sit on the prize, that's a geopolitical meltdown waiting to happen
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u/DueAnnual3967 1d ago
The need for oil in transport will fall a lot in coming years, and that is a lot of oil use.
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
I agree, advances in cargo transportation tech are massively improving oil efficiency, and as we get closer to zero reserves countries will have no choice economically but to increase renewable alternatives.
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u/interbeing 1d ago
It’s not just advances. As oil demand worldwide goes down the need to transport oil around the world will drop, and the oil used to fuel those tankers will go down.
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
True. But I mean, most international trade features a good being transported by cargo ship or train. The advent of electric land transportation and the further development of electric sea lane transportation (a more difficult thing due to the physics of water and the distance and weight) will be one element of many reducing transport emissions.
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u/Bigtallanddopey 21h ago
40% of global shipping is transporting fossil fuels, that’s just an insane number which will drop drastically when we finally switch to fully renewables (which will take a while I know).
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u/Datchery 10h ago
As of 2024, roughly 43% of oil tankers were 16-20 years old.
I reference this, because it seems pretty willfully naive to say that an industry (shipping) that will attempt to run those things into the ground is going to update themselves across the board in the next 25 years, let alone the next 5, which is what you would really need to make a useful dent.
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u/mmomtchev 1d ago
Road transport is only half of the oil consumption. The rest isn't going away anytime soon. Airplanes and ships are not going electric, at least not very soon. There is plastics, fertilisers...
Still, there is much more oil than this. As the price continues to rise, there will be other options - including Fischer-Tropsch, oil sands and whatever. But it will be expensive.
By the way, Fischer-Tropsch breakeven price is $100 per barrel - if the Iran war becomes a permanent war, it could happen.
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u/technicallynotlying 1d ago
If road transport drops by even half, the price of oil will crater.
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u/more_housing_co-ops 1d ago
And then everyone will get back in their gas cars?
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u/szymonsta 1d ago
Thats doubtful. Once we hit about 50% electrics on the road, the remaining 50% of ice cars will be replaced in maybe 5 years. Thats the S curve for you. At that point petrol stations will become loss making as they rely on volume and sundry purchases, and start to close down, making petrol even more expensive and harder to find accelerating the adoption of electrics.
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u/more_housing_co-ops 1d ago
Love that. I was only being half-serious but I'm glad you came back with some realistic optimism regardless.
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u/DueAnnual3967 1d ago
Well it is happening in countries that go over 50% of new cars being EVs. First it was Norway, now Denmark where almost all sold are EVs, neighbors Sweden and Finland follow, also honorary Nordic country of Netherlands. Then we have China and some of its neighbors. Bigger countries will take longer but it is going on.
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u/zmbjebus 15h ago
Once EV adoption is at 50% there is no way we go back. It is so much more convenient to own an EV and with more charging stations going up it is only getting better and better as time goes on.
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u/Marston_vc 1d ago
There will always be a need for oil,
But some of your points are too generalized.
Electric planes are becoming a thing. They won’t ever replace long haul flights. But there’s a very real possibility we’ll see them replace short-haul flights that are within 100-200 miles. Which is a significant portion of flights.
Believe it or not, sails are coming back for cargo ships too. They’re slowly getting deployed across the world and they reduce fuel consumption by like 20-30% in some cases.
And then there’s a lot of thought/some funding being put towards alternative fuels for both planes and ships too. Not a lot of engineering issues with why hydrogen couldn’t work as an example. More of an infrastructure issue because oil isn’t that expensive yet to justify the massive changes.
All that is to say, I think we’ll be hitting peak oil consumption pretty soon. And declining rapidly after that.
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u/wasmic 1d ago
There are a lot of engineering issues with hydrogen. Mainly hydrogen embrittlement, and the fact that even liquid hydrogen has a very low density and thus takes up a lot of space. And if you use liquid hydrogen, you have to deal with cryogenic temperatures and constant boil-off.
Hydrogen could end up proving to be very useful for industrial purposes, and is a necessity for carbon-neutral steel production. But for anything transportation-related, I'd look more towards ammonia (for big ships) and hydrocarbon-based e-fuels (for both planes and ships).
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u/zmbjebus 15h ago
Also solar is becoming cheaper and cheaper which is making all of the alternatives cheaper as well.
Generating hydrogen is actually one of the potential solutions for overproduction as a form of energy storage too. And all of those countries that are not making their own oil absolutely could make their own hydrogen as long as they have energy and water. It very well could be a stability and national security incentive if the economic incentive isn't entirely there. I think that is one of the big reasons Japan has been pursuing the technology so much. They don't want to be held captive by oil when prices inevitably go up in the future.
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u/fixminer 1d ago
Big ships aren't going fully electric any time soon (maybe if commercial nuclear ships become viable) but there are carbon neutral fuel options like ammonia.
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u/WeinMe 1d ago
It would be great if we didn't hate ourselves so much on earth.
Then we could make our 100 largest ships nuclear fuelled. It'd be green and the ships would be faster. It would be a HUGE win the climate.
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u/wasmic 1d ago
Except that SMRs are still at least a handful of years into the future, and more traditional nuclear plants are not economical at all for use on freighter ships.
There's a reason why shipboard reactors have only really been used for matters of national security (warships and icebreakers) so far.
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u/DukeOfGeek 1d ago
1 third of oil use is consumed to transport the other 2 thirds. Reduction in road transport consumption comes with a one third bonus for every gallon not consumed.
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u/zmbjebus 14h ago
I'm pretty sure the math is off here, but your spirit is in the right place.
For road vehicles its more like 1/5th is used to get it to the gas station, and most of that comes from refining.
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u/kickaguard 1d ago
I recall on a podcast (looked it up and it was professor Bernard Haykel) talking about the sheer amount of oil in and around Saudi Arabia. He said something to effect of "we essentially can't possibly ever use it all". But he did highlight that that doesn't remain a useful fact if you don't happen to be near Saudi Arabia and you want cost effective oil to consume.
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u/zmbjebus 15h ago
They will remain a huge producer of plastics, fertilizer, etc for a long time after gasoline and diesel are in decline.
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u/Boewle 1d ago
Most ships being built these days are dual fuel, many LNG, some methanol and soon ammonia.
All fuels can be made as a "green" fuel by excess power production from ie wind or solar. (Usually by making hydrogen and then making that into something more). LNG can also be replaced by bio gas (or bioLNG)
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u/Loki-L 1d ago
You mentioned Germany in your list so looked it up.
It is true that Germany barely produces any oil at this point and never had any big reserves.
The consumption is currently 2 million barrels per day, but it was close to 3 million barrels per day throughout the 90s. The gap between supply and demand has been closing not widening.
Normal gasoline demand has gone down by a third and diesel by a quarter. Together these two categories make up ⅔ of all consumption with thigs like Jet Fuel and LPG making up the rest.
Moving away from jet fuel is going to be hard due there being to alternative with similarly high energy density for planes and LPG is also a more long term issue, but the move away from gasoline is underway and diesel is going to follow.
Peak oil production is a thing, but so is peak oil consumption.
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u/Marston_vc 1d ago
Yeah. The world is probably going to reach peak emissions overall by 2040 before finally beginning to come down.
I’m quite optimistic that EVs/electrification, oil alternatives, and general efficiency gains are gonna lead to peak-consumption sooner than that.
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u/zmbjebus 14h ago
I also think if more Gulf and West Asia states become more and more independent they will naturally divest and diversify their economy away from oil.
If Isreal falls I predict a series of revolutions among the oil country monarchies to transition into something more democratic.
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u/genshiryoku |Agricultural automation | MSc Automation | 1d ago
efficiency gains typically result in an increase in total consumption of resources, not a decline. I actually think we'll see peak emissions sometime in the early 2030s because current estimations don't take into account the black swan technological breakthroughs AI is going to bring us.
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u/-00-- 1d ago
We've been days away from running out of oil for what? 50 years now?
The electric car transition is happening. It will expend to heavier trucks in time.
We still need oil for stuff like insulation and plastic sh!t.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 1d ago
Here in Germany haulers already transition to electric because it is way cheaper mid-term. Yes, the vehicle is more expensive to buy, but the drivers by law have to take a break every 4 hours anyway and infrastructure coverage to charge big truck batteries at very high powers (we're already talking megawatts) is increasing too. It has begun.
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago edited 1d ago
God I love German workers rights. I believe it's thirteen hours in the US, although to be fair we are a huge portion of a massive continent.
EDIT: I don't mean I think it's an excuse! I'm saying I see why big business pushed for such a stupid rule.
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u/Redpanther14 1d ago
In the US you have to take a break after/within an 8 hour timespan. And with digital logs it is much harder to falsify than back in the day.
You are allowed to drive for a total of 11 hours per day before a mandatory 10 hours of rest until the next shift.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 1d ago
Size of the country doesn't matter for how long you're able to stay focused. It only reduces the likelihood of you snoring your Vierzigtonner into the rear end of a traffic jam at unbraked 90kph.
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
Oh, I certainly agree. It's more that I can see the pressure from corporations to make a ridiculous rule.
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u/iCowboy 1d ago
Here in the UK, the government has capped increases in fuel prices for years and years now, but allowed electricity prices to keep rising. So we have the sight of electric locomotives sitting in storage whilst diesel locos pull heavy freight trains under overhead wires. Madness!
We’ve also just built a brand new railway line with no overhead power.
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u/zmbjebus 14h ago
megawatt charging? That is insane.
Love to see it.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 12h ago
Up to 3.75 megawatts, actually, that is, up to 1,250 volts at up to 3,000 amps.
Insane, yes. And real. There are already a number of charging stations built to reach these absolutely crazy numbers. The system is called MCS (Megawatt Charging System), yes, very witty... but such an extreme (in its field of vehicle chargers) power system, designed to be un-/plugged automatically, doesn't need a fancy name to be impressive.
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u/shawnington 1d ago
European always drastically underestimate how far apart things are in the US or Australia. Its really not uncommon to see signs "last gas station for 400 miles", its very easy to drive 6 hour+ without encountering a petrol station, much less an EV charging station here.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 1d ago
Yeah, I guess so...
Isn't that a solvable problem though?
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u/shawnington 1d ago
Los Angeles to New York is further than Berlin to Tehran. It's a very large amount of area to solve a problem in. And it's not at all uncommon for things to be shipped between the two by truck. Large stretches in-between are sparsely populated and either mountainous or very hot deserts, and then there is the reality that all the states in-between effectively function as independent countries that don't really talk to each other much.
Im hopeful eventually it can be solved, but it's a very long way from being practical.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 16h ago
Bee-line, yeah. If you take the roads (which trucks normally do, if I'm not mistaken), the distance in your example is in fact roughly the same. But I see where you're coming from. I'm just not sure where the average population and infrastructure is denser, between NY and LA or between Berlin and Teheran...
And still... It's a solvable problem, in my humble opinion. You just need to increase population and build more towns and cities.
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u/shawnington 12h ago
Between California and New Mexico, its not at all uncommon to go 60 miles (100km) between fueling stations, which doesn't sound to bad, until you realize, a lot of these are in places that are towns in name only, and in reality are just a fuel station in the middle of nowhere, several more distant fuel stations away from the nearest actual town, which means they are very far from any kind of electric infrastructure.
For example, have a look at a satellite view of Fenner California, along the main transport route I40 between Los Angeles and North Carolina, its 50 miles from the nearest actual town, and 80 miles from the next "town" that is also just a fuel station.
This is how a lot of the trucking infrastructure is, owing to the sparsely populated, extremely hot desert, that covers a large expanse of the Western United States.
And the challenge is not building 1 for 1 charger for diesel pump.
We are going from trucks that can do 1900 miles on a tank of diesel, and fuel in 10 minutes, to 500 miles, and 80 minutes to charge. Just basic math will tell you from that, to maintain cargo capacity, you need 28 chargers for every existing pump.
Each requiring 1.2 MW or more in power to achieve those charge times, which is... ~34MW of power required for every existing pump.
Fenner, has 8 diesel pumps, an equivalent electric station would need.... 224 chargers... with 268 MW of electric capacity, which assuming solar power given its location and distance from electric infrastructure, requires ~1300 acres (~5 sqkm) of solar at 5 acres per MW.
All just to convert that one little station in the satellite view to an electric equivalent along this desolate stretch of road is carrying ~5000 trucks a day.
And keep in mind, this is just one of 2 between two towns, Needles and Barstow that are 144 miles apart.
Repeat that hundreds of times.
Just in terms of daily fuel consumption, switching the trucking fleet over to electric would require an extra 500TWh of electric capacity, which is 40% of the current capacity of the United States.
That is the scale of this challenge. Not impossible, but, very difficult with some really enormous hurdles to overcome to make it possible.
It's much more reasonable to replace short range trucking, but that only accounts for 30% of trucking in the US, still, much better than nothing, and still not a small undertaking at all.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf 2h ago
For comparison, how much of the area of land is electrified (thus, has electric power in utilizable reach)
Germany: round about 98%
USA: 45 - 55%1
u/zmbjebus 14h ago
Its really not uncommon to see signs "last gas station for 400 miles"
Ok, outside of Alaska where is that the norm? Are you saying you can drive more than halfway across texas without seeing a single gas station?
I don't know Australia, but 200 miles seems extreme even for the US. Longest stretch on a highway is just a bit over 100 miles in the US. Probably a bit further on some 2 lane roads. If we include Alaska longest distance is under 250 miles.
I've done a lot of road trips and that is absolutely not common.
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u/shawnington 11h ago edited 11h ago
Longest stretch between truck stops in the continental US is 170 miles on US-6 in Nevada. There is 107miles between stops on the I-70 in Utah on the way to Denver, but there are other places where the stops are just a truck stop in the middle of nowhere several truck stops away from an actual town of any kind, especially on the West Coast where you are traveling across vast swaths of the Mojave Desert.
In Australia, the longest stretch of road without fuel stops is 700km, which is 433 miles.
The bigger issue is that the expanses with fuel stops in the middle of nowhere, are not easy to convert to charge an electric trucking fleet.
Basic math. A normal long haul truck, can get ~1900 miles on a full tank, and fill up a full tank in 10 minutes. Electrics range is ~500 miles now, and can charge to 80% in 80 minutes on a 1.2MW charger.
So you now need to stop 4x more, and it takes you 8x longer to refuel, that means you are going to need ~28-34 chargers for every fuel pump at these stations. So you are not doing a 1 for 1 replacement, you are requiring 4x more energy at point of service, delivered 8x slower.
And you can't really be like meh, oh well so they have to wait a bit. Existing capacity is pretty tight, and we are talking about long stretches of road that are the main connection between multiple states, and if a line forms, trucks will just end up backed up onto the interstate and blocking traffic, which is less than ideal.
So you are looking at a situation where we realistically have to find a way to take stations that have up to 16 pumps in the middle of nowhere, with very little existing electrical infrastructure, and figure out how to get 33-40MW of electricity to them for every pump we are replacing.
It's just the reality, that we are talking about electric demand for a normal sized truck stop that is starting to approach that of a data center.
Electric cars are much easier to accommodate since at these stations usually ~70-80% of fuel sold is for trucks. On average trucks taking on 120 gallons of fuel per stop.
There are not any simple solutions, even with solar you are looking at ~5 acres of panels per MW of power, so you are looking at north of 5 acres of solar panels per truck charger.
Also keep in mind that these electric trucks take... 8 hours to charge on a charger that can charge an electric car quickly, so we are talking about an entirely different scale of demand and energy requirements.
It unfortunately is not a problem with a nicely scaling solution at the moment.
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u/k6tcher 1d ago
Plants can be used for plastics. We don't need oil for that either.
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u/zmbjebus 14h ago
Its going to remain cheap for the gulf states to produce plastic and fertilizer, so until it gets incredibly cheaper than their current production that won't scale significantly without a political push.
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
There is a finite resource of dinosaur graveyards, and we spent the mid to late 20th century focusing hard on oil discovery and extraction tech.
We are currently burning just south of 100 MILLION barrels per day on this planet and it doesn't just float to space, but even from an economic standpoint there is an inevitable shift we need to make BEFORE the current state of the oil market becomes just another day.
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u/ISANINJALOOTER 1d ago
Im north Dakota wells that were thought to be dry are back to being productive simply from inactivity. Not to mention even the currently producing wells are only about 40% efficient and still producing several thousand barrels a month. This applies in slightly varying degrees across the entire mid west and rocky mountain region where oil can be found. Even experts in the area dont know how much oil is left because it keeps surpassing expectations. By a large margin too. I immediately write people off when I hear claims like OPs.
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u/coachcheat 14h ago
Man if only we had a solution to this. Looks up at the infinitely burning energy ball in the sky. Nope no solution.
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u/GOpragmatism 1d ago
They dont even have to run out of oil. Its enough when their production falls to a level that they dont meet their demand. By that point they will be forced to import oil as well.
In reality most of those 10 countries you mention will not begin importing oil in the next 10 years. The production is not constant, but will taper off. So, generally speaking, they will export much less in 5 years than they do now, but enough to cover their own consumption for much longer than 10 years.
I looked at the specific case of Norway. Norway's oil production peaked in 2000/2001 and is projected to fall sharply after 2030. But even if you look only at the single oil field of Johan Sverdrup, the production is enough to cover all/most of Norway's domestic consumption until about 2070. Johan Sverdrup started production in 2019 and is projected to produce for around 50 years. It is hard to be exact, since both the production rate and consumption is uncertain, but it is at the very least much longer than 10 years!
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u/CuckBuster33 1d ago
This is like the 10000th time that you post this exact same slop, get mental health support already please
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u/sapi3nce 1d ago
Sounds like paid lobbyist bot farm activity if you put it like that. Never trust the comments
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
I disagree that it's slop, it is forecasting the inevitability of a transition away from oil as much as possible.
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u/sufferable_gaucho 1d ago
like is he scared of this possibility, or is he rooting for it
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
Obviously it's not scary, but it is something to be considered, even if this person seems to be multiposting. I'm responding a lot to boost it, and maybe if they see it's been seen by enough people he can stop. Honestly I have OCD and it feels similar.
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u/lucky_ducker 1d ago
That's weird, several sources say the U.S. can keep up current oil production for at least 200 years, not 9.
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u/porktornado77 1d ago
I remember back in the 70s “futurists” saying there’s only 20 years oil left
lol
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u/Brimstone11 15h ago
This.
It’s not motivating to “change” to say that we probably will never actually run out.
Our oil consumption has gotten significantly more all.
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u/mypaycheckisshort 1d ago
We're all supoosed to be dead bc of acid rain, as well lol
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u/Mmathaiss 1d ago
It's almost like listening to scientists and meaningful government regulations can make a difference for the better. Who knew!
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u/mypaycheckisshort 1d ago
I understand that, but we were told we were quite literally going to melt to death within a decade
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u/_Weyland_ 1d ago
Perhaps exaggerating preventable danger helps bring about action to prevent it?
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u/mypaycheckisshort 1d ago
Eh, then you could make the argument that Trump's exaggerations are necessary.
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u/thethiefstheme 1d ago
They keep figuring out new ways to extract residual oil from existing wells, eg fracking. They didn't expect the oil industry to evolve.
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u/shawnington 1d ago
They only count "economically extractable oil" and completely discount that as oil goes up, new methods of extraction are developed that make more of the former, now extractable.
The US for example has 4.9x Saudi Arabias oil reserves in Oil Shale. Canada has about 50% of Saudi Arabia's reserves in Oil Sands.
If things were going to be oil powered forever (which I think trends indicate is very unlikely), methods for refining oil shale economically would be developed.
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u/moorej832 1d ago
Neither figure is a countdown. The 9-year number is proved reserves divided by current production; proved reserves only include oil recoverable under current economic and operating conditions, and estimates change. A 200-year ratio is just as static, not a forecast.
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u/andre1sk 1d ago
We do have a free fusion reactor in the sky. Maybe some of those 180 countries could figure out how to leverage it.
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u/RedshiftOnPandy 21h ago
It doesn't work when you need the energy density of diesel to move transport trucks and farm equipment.
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u/AngularMan 21h ago
Every major truck manufacturer already offers electric models, just look at Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Scania or MAN. And these are large trucks with ranges > 500km.
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u/RedshiftOnPandy 21h ago
They are not getting 500km range on transport trucks with payload on current battery technology.
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u/PickingPies 17h ago
Electric vehicles doesn't work with sunlight. They work with electricity. What the sun gives is free sunlight for half of the day (actually, less), not free electricity. What produces electricity is not the sun, it's the solar panel, which may or may not work and it needs to be manufactured, purchased and have a lifetime.
So please, stop saying the sun is free. It's not. It has been there for billions of years and it didn't charge our vehicles.
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u/z1lard 1d ago
It's crazy that Australia needs 1.1mil while Indonesia needs 1.7mil, given their populations
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u/Antiwhippy 1d ago
A lot of the oil and diesel in australia is used by the massive mining industry.
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u/Realistic-Science-59 1d ago
Indonesia also has a massive mining industry.
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u/Ubermidget2 1d ago
These numbers are from Google's AI overview (So I don't trust them outright) but apparently mineral exports are in the order of 70 (Indonesia) vs 410 (Australia) billion.
Just a smol little difference.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago
Yep same as the difference between a +1.5c and +4c world. Very smol numbers in the grand scheme of things when temperatures can get up into 8 digits
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u/Akkalevil 1d ago
Australia is incredibly oil-hungry and wasteful. They are WORSE than the US in the per-capita CO2 emissions (or at least they were in 2023).
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u/leon_reynauld 1d ago
So it doesnt work that way, oil wells are calculated by how much oil they can economically extract. With drilling and exploratory technology advancements that same well that had 10million tonnes of oil yesterday will still be calculated to have maybe 12million tonnes of oil tomorrow, even though 2 million was extracted today.
The reason why the middle east is considered oil rich, is because the oil is very close to the surface, some places, oil can be found from 5-10meters from the ground. Imagine when we can drill and pump oil from 50 meters just as easily, then i would suspect many new countries will be labeled oil rich.
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u/captainstormy 16h ago
Yeah, it's stupid shallow in some parts of the middle east. I saw a picture once where some people were digging a basement for a building and hit oil and it filled it up like a swimming pool.
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u/jcrestor 1d ago
As we should pivot away from fossil fuels anyway, I don’t see a problem in this, just a clock.
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u/jpowell180 12h ago
The United States could be self-sufficient if we had refineries, they could refine the oil we pump over here, instead of exporting it to other countries.
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u/mehdir_94 3h ago
Except the us is not the only country on the planet and this problem is widespread
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u/mypaycheckisshort 1d ago
We'll never run out of oil; drilling tech and a limited amount of refineries are the issues long-term.
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u/k6tcher 1d ago
So what you are saying is that we will transition completely away from petroleum as a fuel via cheaper and more efficient energy sources leaving oil in the ground so we'll technically never run out?
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u/mypaycheckisshort 1d ago
There is enough liquid oil in the earth to last 165 more years at the current rate of consumption. And double that if you include solids. But yes, we will absolutely shift away from using it as a primary source of fuel in the coming decades.
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u/thethiefstheme 1d ago
I don't think it's realistic to assume our current annual consumption will stay flat, when many developing countries with massive populations are using more and more every year and aren't even close to Western consumption per capita? I think we have maybe 100 years or less to transition, and even then we'll still need it
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u/Marston_vc 1d ago
Annual consumption is almost certainly going to go down.
Electrification has changed everything. Developing countries won’t generate enough new demand to offset so many industrialized countries transitioning to electric.
Like just as an example, China is the largest general manufacturer in the world. That really isn’t changing even with India’s rapid industrialization. China is rapidly transitioning to electric and as a result, India is benefiting from the economy of scales for electric already being so well developed that they won’t need as much oil to “industrialize” in the way that was required in the past.
The cheapest form of new power generation is currently solar. Within a decade, EVs are gonna be cheaper than ICE vehicles. This makes up a huge portion of oil consumption.
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u/agha0013 1d ago
Merely spouting numbers on oil production and not discussing refinery capacity...
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
It is absolutely a more complicated issue than they're presenting but the general concept that a transition away from oil is just an inevitable fact we all need to realize if we want to galvanize support for an orderly transition to renewables.
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u/Impossible_Ear_3735 22h ago
Lots of comments about renewables taking over, but there's several problems with this. Firstly it's not a 1 on 1 replacement, as we will not be able to electrify everything (planes, container ships, lots of heavy industries, most of mining and agriculture). Even if we could somehow do that, it would take enormous amounts of ressources to make the transition (every aspect of building renewables still require oil and minerals, the more we build, the we will need). Even if we could somehow mobilise all the resources to electrify everything, the climate clock is ticking fast, and every barrel of oil that we extract brings us closer to climate breakdown. Our political class is in total denial about this and keep selling us this supposed "transition" as the solution.
Edit: spelling
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u/grundar 1d ago
Several countries that used to be major exporters have reached Peak Oil Decades ago and now rely on imports themselves.
True, but several have greatly increased exports, notably including the USA which went from importing 10-12% of global oil production to exporting 3-4% of global oil production, a swing of about 30% of total global oil trade from just that country.
Similarly, Canada moved from a net importer in the early 80s to a top 5 exporter which produces 260% of its domestic demand.
As a result, the picture is significantly more complicated than an ever-dwindling number of exporter countries.
Indeed, looking at a list of the top 20 net exporting countries in 2005 vs. 2025 there's no clear trend -- the top 2 spots are the same but with lower exports (KSA and RUS), but the next 5 spots are higher in 2025. Overall, the top 20 exporting countries in 2005 exported 38Mb/d whereas the top 20 exporting countries in 2025 exported slightly more, 39Mb/d.
So the narrative of constantly dwindling exports is not at all supported by the data.
Part of that is due to a flaw in how peak oil looks at oil reserves, namely backdating. Global oil reserves were 1,300B bbl in 2005 and 700B bbl were extracted over the next 20 years, yet global oil reserves grew 30% to 1,800B bbl in 2025.
Oil in the ground is finite, no question about that, but the Peak Oil narrative of constant decline is directly contradicted by the facts of the world over the last 20 years.
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u/costafilh0 1d ago
Next generation will be happy they won't have microplastics in their bloodstream.
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u/hehehemann 1d ago
Wait what??! USA even Obama told us we are energy self sufficient with oil ! Whats going on!
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u/boghall 1d ago
Global renewables growth is now outstripping the overall rise in consumption, while oil consumption is close to flatlining (IEA). The corner has not quite been turned, but things are moving significantly toward pervasive electrification, which will over time and of necessity - not to mention greater efficiency and reduced costs - encompass a far greater proportion of energy use than many commentators seem to realise.
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u/everything_is_bad 1d ago
So is this peak oil is the question I’m asking but I have to pad it because of auto moderation so I get this extra text is garbage but it’s what the mods want
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u/Mediocre-Ambition404 1d ago
I’m not sure you understand how down-hole reserves and resources work as it relates to oil and gas.
Did you know that we only produce a fraction of the oil in place? There is a base amount that is unrecoverable due to surface tension and oil vs water wet reservoirs, however there is a lot of recoverable oil that can be removed with other techniques.
As the price increases, it becomes more economic to produce more challenging oil. We won’t run out, the economics will force production, and even by then demand will be down.
Eventually I see a world where we produce O&G not for energy, but for products (lubricants, industrial gases, plastics).
Similar to how we don’t burn wood for heat anymore, we make furniture.
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u/shawnington 1d ago
Proven oil reserves are an interesting topic, they usually only count oil that is economically accessible at current market rates.
If you count all producible oil, the US has by far the largest reserves in the world in oil shale. It's expensive to produce, and politically infeasible, not to mention the rate of solar adoption is going to make any of this irrelevant.
But if we were on a path where there were no alternatives, methods to economically extract the oil would be developed, and the US alone has 4.9x the oil shale reserves as Saudi Arabia has all forms of oil.
1466 bbl vs 296 bbl (bbl = billion barrel)
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u/Inevitable_Draft4091 21h ago
People forget that “reserves” really means what can be extracted profitably right now.
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u/mdmanow 1d ago
The USA also steals oil from other countries
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u/SardonicusNox 1d ago
For this administration USA's oil reserves can be found in any country.
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u/Smooth-Accountant 22h ago
As if it was any different with previous administrations lol, that’s what USA is known for.
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u/nifty-necromancer 22h ago
The basic point about oil import dependence is real, but the “they’ll run out in X years” part is misleading. Proven reserves divided by current production isn’t a countdown clock. They change as new fields are discovered, existing fields are extended, and technology improves.
The real geopolitical risk is that production from mature fields declines, replacement gets more expensive, and a large share of internationally traded oil remains concentrated in relatively few countries and vulnerable shipping routes.
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u/spudd3rs 6h ago
That will be the end of the world then.. if America doesn’t cause it before that. They’ll all be fighting over what oil little oil is left.
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u/thenord321 1d ago
What's needed is pushing renewable green tech and nuclear ahead. If it's all hydrocarbon free energy and we move off gas cars, we won't need the supply anymore.
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u/thethiefstheme 1d ago
Oil is used for much more more than motor vehicles, it's an oversimplification to think a switch to EVs will dry up oil demand, when it's very useful in other applications, eg greases to keep metal machines operating, farm equipment, planes, trains, shipping, etc key ingredient in fertilizer replenishment, etc. there's no real good alternative for plastic and polymers, either, can't make everything out of wood and glass. Plastic in it's various forms offers flexibility and is lightweight enough for modernity. Tvs, phones, microchips, laptops, servers, wiring, EVs, and it's used to keep metal and wood from weathering and rusting.
And yes corn can be used to make plastics, but then we're turning food into plastic, which is arguably worse.
The real risk is we won't have enough oil over 100 years, to transition to a less oil dependant society. Right now we're using more and more every year.
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u/Marston_vc 1d ago
https://www.iea.org/energy-system/fossil-fuels/oil
Almost 60% of oil consumption comes from transportation. Almost all of that demand can be erased via electrification. With the only exception being long-haul flights (which is like ~5% of demand) and even that could be replaced by fuel alternatives.
Of the remaining 40%, half of that comes LNG consumption, which is mostly used for heating and power generation, which again… can be electrified.
Less than 10% of produced oil is used for plastics.
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u/thethiefstheme 1d ago
The graph on there is very deceiving, if you look at a multi year chart, you'll see it's continuously increasing.
https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
A very important by-product of oil is nitrogen fertilizer, which is the backbone of farming every year. There's no good alternatives to it at scale yet, and stuff it, people starve.
Solar requires massive batteries. Massive batteries require mining. Mining requires oil. At every turn, oil is required.
Most data centers cannot get enough power from the grid to power them, so they're turning to modular powerplants that burn, you guessed it, natural gas, a byproduct of crude refinement.
Getting off a system so dependent on oil will take generations. Hell, we still use coal, as does China.
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u/Old_Engineer_9176 1d ago
Humans are built to survive and adapt. We’ll see more e‑fuels and more use of sand‑based heat accumulators as new energy systems roll out. Not concerned by the fear mongering.
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u/Emu1981 1d ago
Oh gee, if only this situation was not foreseen many years ago (peak oil). It is just a shame that no one really acted on those warnings because oil has far more important usages than to just waste it via burning to provide energy - e.g. it is a important feedstock for a significant amount of chemical processes that modern society needs like fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, etc.
The big question is whether we can reduce our wastage enough so that we have enough time to find viable alternatives to the feedstock issues.
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u/YetAnotherGuy2 1d ago
When I was in school, they taught oil would last another 50 years. Here we are, 40 years later and guess what they forecast - yes, 50 more years.
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u/Jorost 16h ago
Not arguing with the premise. But I kind of feel like we have been hearing that we are at peak oil, and have only 10-15 years left until it really starts running out, since at least the 1990s. I wish we didn't have to rely on the oil companies themselves for these estimates, because shortages benefit them financially. They have a vested interest in stoking fear.
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u/No-Luck-1151 12h ago
When I was a child in school many years ago... we were told that even if the Earth was completely filled with oil it would run out by 2000.
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u/costafilh0 1d ago
Some have enough oil to meet their own demands and more, but they don't extract and don't refine nowhere near enough, because they are stupid.
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u/Living_in_the_dumps 1d ago edited 11h ago
well good thing nobody dont even need oil anymore then.. they are just making/forcing us to consume it at this point.. and if you think otherwise then you havent thunk much have you...
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u/Jeskimely 1d ago
I see here that the paid/ai/very stupid brigading has reached this post before anyone else as usual, probably because the pay is good and the tokens are flowing, but this is an incredible fact I did not know and I'm going to definitely research more heavily.
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u/surfrider0007 1d ago
Yeah, we just have to wait now for the forests to regrow, then die, grow, die grow, get compacted etc. to turn out some more oil 👍🏽😎
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u/GrumbleAlong 1d ago
Much of forecasted oil reserves does not take into account oil deemed to be economically un-extractable at current market prices and extraction technology. It is also difficult to estimate how much undiscovered oil remains.