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by Kerry Jackson
November
04, 2015
from
InvestorsBusinessDaily Website
Source
Ever since
M. King Hubbert in the 1950s
convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production
would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the
clock has been running... And running...
And it will continue to
run for some time, as technology and new discoveries,
show that there's
still an ocean of oil under our feet...
Engineering and
Technology Magazine reported this week that BP - the company
that once wanted to be known as "Beyond Petroleum" rather than
"British Petroleum" - is saying,
"the world is no
longer at risk of running out of resources."
"Thanks to investment into supercomputers, robotics and the use
of chemicals to extract the maximum from available reservoirs,
the accessible oil and gas reserves will almost double by 2050,"
Engineering and Technology
said.
A BP official told the
magazine that,
"energy resources are
plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have
disappeared."
Things are so good, in
fact, that Engineering and Technology says,
"with the use of the
innovative technologies, available fossil fuel resources could
increase from the current 2.9 trillion barrels of oil equivalent
to 4.8 trillion by 2050, which is almost twice as much as the
projected global demand."
That number could even
reach 7.5 trillion barrels if technology and exploration techniques
advance even faster.
This information backs up the idea that Earth is actually an
oil-producing machine.
We call energy
sources such as crude oil and natural gas fossil fuels based on
the assumption that they are the products of decaying organisms,
maybe even dinosaurs themselves.
But the label is a
misnomer...
Research from the last
decade found that hydrocarbons are synthesized
abiotically...
In other words, as Science magazine
has reported, the,
"data imply that
hydrocarbons are produced chemically" from carbon found in
Earth's mantle.
Nature magazine
calls the product of this process an,
"unexpected
bounty" of "natural gas and the building blocks of
oil products."
So don't feel guilty
about exploiting this "bounty."
There seems to be plenty
to go around - and there will probably still be a lot left when
technology, not hurried by government mandates and subsidies but
guided by market forces, produces practical and affordable renewable
energy.
But for now, enjoy our cheap, abundant and efficient "fossil" fuels.
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