The assumption has always been that fossil fuels will run out. At least oil and gas will. And coal, that's nasty and dirty, maybe we'll be able to wean ourselves off it and leave it underground. For as long as I can remember oil was always going to run out in about 20 years. After that there would be no oil and also I seem to remember, no plastic or anything else derived from the petro-chemical industries.
But instead oil production has continued to increase with new finds, with new technologies making it possible to drill in less accessible areas like the deep ocean, and with rising prices making ever smaller deposits economically viable. However, it does look as though the
peak global production of oil may finally be reached within the next decade and then production will start inexorably to decline as usable stocks dwindle.
Until....
It is now becoming possible to exploit oil sands and oil shales. The reserves of these and other previously non-exploitable forms of oil and gas are phenominally huge - it looks like we may have many more decades of exploitable reserves than we thought. In fact if you take the view that we'll continue to figure out ways to exploit it faster than we consume it then there will be no end to it. Because the amount of geological carbon fuels in all its forms trapped in the crust is to all intents and purposes unlimited.
If that is the case, I wonder whether we collectively will be able to leave the stuff under the ground. As I've said before the history of our past actions does not bode well. Somebody killed the last dodo to get themselves a meal. One of the folks who built
those statues on Easter Island took an axe and cut down the last tree and their civilisation faded away. It's what we do.
Seems it is becoming more and more urgent that we figure out how to make
carbon sequestration work. Otherwise we are going to be called upon to do something we will find it very difficult to do - choose long-term environmental sustainability over our short-term appetite for energy.
