Oil and gas

[High]

If we're digging these resources from the earth for the last 100 years or so how do they replenish themselves?
Can We Run Out of Oil and Other Natural Resources?

[HowardKennitby]

they don't
yes

[High]

How do they keep replenishing?

[squarebear]

They don't. Once they are gone that's it, which is why it is important to conserve them or find alternatives such as solar or wind power.

[Jemisa]

Wont have to think about that soon High, no one will be able to afford the stuff soon, they're putting the prices up again next month 6% Gas and 9% oil. Just in time for winter.

jem

[High]

Oil& gas, it comes from the earth, there must come a time when the earth is sucked dry?

[squarebear]

Yes it will. This is what we are saying. You are correct.

[Mick-Talbot]

Hence the replies of .... they don't

[Clanad]

Maybe... maybe not. A growing number of geologists and petroleum engineeers believe oil may be constantly being created at boundary ares of the continental tectonic plates. Still in its infancy, evidence in many areas seem to support such radical new ideas... Here's one: http://astuteblogger....te-tectonics-and.html

It is also a matter of contention as to what constitutes or what the origins of petroleum actually is. I've a son who is a petroleum engineer for a large company here in the U.S. and they have been responsible for discovery of a massive new field here in the the western states. Strange thing is that it was discovered under an existing field. It's thought the field will eventually equal some middle eastern fields... although it is much deeper. It's only the inception of directional drilling that has made such recovery profitable... Stay tuned...

[High]

When will the earth be sucked dry?

[David H]

Until a couple of years ago the industry believed they had reached the peak. Then they found huge reserves of oil in and off the coast of Africa, and shale gas worldwide which has hundreds of years just from the current fields. There are centuries of coal, which for the same price as a barrel of oil can also be converted to fuel as it was during the war in Germany. So as we don't know what lies beneath most of the earth then by the time the current supply runs out we'll probably get most of our energy from hydrogen and fusion so won't matter anyway.

[beso]

Oil will never entirely run out. The cost of renewable energy continues to fall while oil becomes increasingly difficult to extract pushing up its cost making it uncompetitive as a fuel. It will then revert to its role as the feed stock for plastics and other industrial chemicals.

However, as David pointed out, oil exploration and extraction technology continues to become more efficient so formerly uneconomic reserves can be tapped such as those at great depth and in the deep ocean.With the rapid melting of the Arctic more reserves become accessible.

I also agree the future is probably fusion. It is the Holy Grail of energy sources as is attested by a gazillion examples. Many many lifetimes of research have been spent getting to where we are but here are still huge barriers to be overcome to bring such a technology to fruition. There are no guarantees it can ever be done despite our phenomenal knowledge and inventiveness in Physics.

Fusion is the energy source of the future. Unfortunately it might always be the energy source of the future.

Solar is a technology with no surprises. Engineering improvements and mass production have brought many solar technologies to remarkable efficacy.

Solar is rapidly becoming a central part of electricity generation in all sunny developed countries and many that are not especially gifted with solar resources. Solar power ran over fifty percent of Germany's electricity consumption for several minutes last summer. OK it was midday on a Saturday but still a landmark.

However the solar industry in China has overtaken Europe. The price of solar panels has fallen by about 75% in the past four years and it is now competitive with the retail price of electricity. Solar no longer needs a subsidy to reach a substantial market because the consumer is already winning if they have daytime load even if the electricity retailer refuses to pay anything for the excess fed back to the grid.

Solar will become the network's distributed peak load support. Air-conditioning is a huge daytime load the grid controllers hate and comes on when the solar output is high.

Meanwhile base load solar thermal plants are now beginning to come on line. These systems store heat in thermal salts so they can maintain a steady predictable output with minimal running cost.

Most energy companies are investing into these technologies already. Solar isn't the technology of the future. It has already arrived.

[beso]

Actually oil and gas are replenished. Many a layer of history has been buried only to come to the surface again millions of years later as a tar pit where it eventually oxidises. This is the grandest biggest loop of the carbon cycle.

Carbon moves from the atmosphere into plants then to fossil formations eventually coming to the surface again and back to the atmosphere to start the cycle again.

When there is a lot of carbon in the atmosphere it gets warmer and plants thrive. They take over, it rains in Biblical proportions, the oceans become hot slimy vegetated places devoid of oxygen and eventually everything rots like a swamp. It drops to the bottom of the ocean eventually becoming oil in some places taking carbon to the depths and slowly reducing the heat trap caused by the carbon in the atmosphere.

Millions of species have come and gone in that cycle and it has been going since plants fundamentally changed the planet by emitting vast quantities of oxygen that was toxic to almost every life form that existed. Humans are now influencing Earth's ancient cycles more than anything since the Chixilub Meteor Impact sixty-five million years ago.

We are now performing the Fossil-to-Atmosphere step of the loop at a rate that is utterly unprecedented in the history of this cycle.

The most important load that fusion will run will be carbon sequestration as humanity works frantically to absorb the consequences of two hundred years of fossil fuel frivolity.