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Earth’s reserves of fossil fuel resources may start to dry up in the next 50 to 100 years
Ronald Stein P.E.
May 13, 2024
Earth’s reserves of fossil fuel resources are not being replenished, and the” well” will run dry. At the current alarming extraction rates of oil, coal, and natural gas resources from Planet Earth, the 1800s may only be 100 years
away!
The world leaders’ designated culprit that is causing climate change is fossil fuels, but the same world leaders are oblivious to the reality that those same fossil fuels are being extracted to extinction, at alarming rates, from this 4billion-year-old Planet Earth.
There has been an abundance of press coverage about climate change and global warming, which have been blamed on the use of fossil fuels over the few short centuries from 1800 to today, when the world’s population increased from 1 to 8 billion. However, is the blame on fossil fuels or humanity’s product demands?
If present-day humanity weren’t such a materialistic society that continuously demanded more and more oil derivatives manufactured from that black, cruddy crude oil to make more fuels for larger jets, ships, and space launches and those 6,000 products made from oil that did not exist 200 years ago, there would be no need for so-called “big oil.”
Once those fossil fuels are gone from Mother Earth, we’ll be back to the zero-emissions planet that existed before the 1800s, when there were no products to support hospitals, airports, electrical generation methods, electronics, merchant ships, planes, trains, trucks, or cars.
The big picture of the fossil fuel resources that are being extracted from Planet Earth but NOT being replenished and are “non-recyclable” are:
● Oil: 35 billion barrels of crude oil extracted annually.
● Coal: 8.5 billion tons of coal extracted annually – China uses more than half.
● Natural Gas: 132 trillion cubic feet of Natural Gas extracted annually.
At the above extraction rates, these are the years estimated to still be in the earth’s tanks before Planet Earth is void of those fossil fuel resources:
● Oil: It is estimated that the world’s proven crude oil reserves are
about 1.5 trillion barrels, and unproven reserves are thought to be in the range of 3 trillion barrels. The world economies consumed 35 billion barrels of oil in the year 2023, and at this rate of consumption, Penn State University’s research shows that we’ve got less than 50 years’ worth of oil in the Proven reserves and about 97 years’ worth in the Unproven reserves.
● Coal: China, the biggest user has 35 years of coal left. The BAD news is that China is building more coal power plants in addition to the more than 1,000 existing. The WORSE news is that China will run short of coal before the new plants reach maturity.
● Natural Gas: It is estimated that there are 52 years left of Natural Gas.
Climate changes may impact some, but all 8 billion could be at serious risk of diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths in a world devoid of the products and transportation fuels that support the inhabitants of this planet.
Since the 1800s, we have become a materialistic society, so before we extract all the fossil fuel reserves from planet Earth, we need to identify the clone replacements to maintain that supply chain of PRODUCTS and FUELS to support our lifestyles and economy.
All the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels have supported the design of aircraft, railways, highways, bridges, buildings, cars, trucks, batteries, modern medicine, fertilizers, and pesticides for enhanced advances in agriculture, development of airports and hospitals, development of generated electricity from wind, solar, coal, natural gas, hydro, and nuclear, the space program, processing, and refrigeration for storage of food, computers, iPhones, datacenters, television, satellites, kitchen appliances, viz, everything that can be touched today and into the future is made by the fossil fuels of coal, natural gas, and crude oil.
Ridding the world of crude oil without a “replacement” that can continue to support the supply chain of the more than 6,000 products now demanded by the 8 billion on this planet could result in the loss of billions from
starvation, diseases, and weather-related fatalities.
Eradicating the world of crude oil usage would ground the 20,000 commercial aircraft, ground more than 50,000 military aircraft in the world, leave the 50,000 merchant ships tied up at docks, and discontinue the military and space programs!
In the transition to clean electricity, critical minerals bring new challenges to electricity security. Solar plants, wind farms, and electric vehicles (EVs) generally require more minerals to build than their fossil fuel-based counterparts. A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant. Since 2010, the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50% as the share of wind and solar renewables in new investments has risen.
Our electricity is increasingly dependent on rare earth minerals and metals mined for wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries under atrocious slave labor and environmental conditions in other countries that the DOE and bureaucrats ignore.
● China controls a stranglehold of 80% of the global supply monopoly on rare earth minerals and metals, with the Congo in Africa a 90% source of vital cobalt.
● Graphite: On a total component basis for an EV battery, graphite is about 25% to 28% of the whole EV battery. Turkey has the largest reserves of graphite, followed by Brazil and China. Together, these three countries accounted for 66% of the estimated world graphite reserves.
None of the six methods for generating electricity can manufacture anything to support a materialistic society! Electricity can charge an iPhone but cannot make the iPhone. Electricity can make the defibrillator work in the hospital, but it cannot make the defibrillator.
Most importantly, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil is NOT for the generation of electricity but to manufacture derivatives and fuels, which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper, i.e., all products that did not exist pre-1800s.
Products that need electricity, such as iPhones, defibrillators, computers, data centers, and X-ray machines, are also dependent on the petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil to make all the parts and components of every method to generate electricity.
Today’s grade school kids will grow up to see the beginning of the end of fossil fuels and their impact on society. The children from today’s grade school kids may experience the impact of living in the 1800s without fossil fuels.
World leaders have little comprehension that ridding the world of crude oil without a replacement in mind would be immoral and evil, as extreme shortages of the products now manufactured from fossil fuels will result in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths, and could be the greatest threat to the world’s population of 8 billion.
So before we extract all the proven and unproven fossil fuel reserves from Planet Earth and revert to the pre-1800s without the products and fuels from oil, let’s identify the backup “source” that can continue to support the supply chain for making the various fuels for all the transportation infrastructures and space programs and the more than 6,000 products for the materialistic society of the 8 billion on this planet.
Please share this information with your friends to encourage energy literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
Click this link to Sign up for Energy Literacy from Ronald Stein.
Ronald Stein P.E.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”, policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.
Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy, and human rights, and Founder of PTS Advance, a California based company. Ron advocates that energy literacy starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine, as wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture anything for the 8 billion on this planet.