The real problem is that even if you are highly optimistic on fossil fuel reserves - say there's 300 years left - all of the most easily accessible reserves have already been consumed. You need high technology for off shore drilling, deep mines, and tar sand processing. With 1800s technology, the amount of oil you could extract today would be zero. If there's a collapse now, there will be no way to recover. This is it. This is our shot. It's the stars or bust.
I really hope the answer to the drake equation isn't "every advanced civilization is brought down from the inside by a cult of incompetency"
Ok so if there's infinite oil then why do they build expensive off shore rigs instead of just drilling on land where it's easy? Why process difficult tar sands when you could just drill a hole? Regardless of source, the rate of extraction clearly outpaces the rate of replenishment. If you think it's subduction of sea floor carbon into the mantle that's hundreds of millions of years. If you think it's bubbling up from deep within the crust, that's still hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
And when we're talking about the hundreds of years of known energy reserves, a lot of that is considering coal - which is clearly and evidently a fossil fuel.
Abiotic would mean a geological process taking place over geological time scales. A little bit of leaching in is not enough to counteract the speed at which you can pump down a fresh well.
If merely living in Texas imparted some spiritual knowledge of oil to you, you'd know that entire industry now relies on unconventional extraction from shale, which would not be possible with primitive technology. Again, if oil regenerated on a timescale relevant to humans, they would not need to do this. They go after the shale oil because the normal oil is depleted.
Even if the entire core of the earth is filled with oil put there by god, the easily accessible oil is still being depleted at a rate faster than it is replenished (if it is replenished at all). If you think off shore drilling and shale oil and tar sands processing are all a magic show to keep up artificial scarcity, there's no hope for you.
The real problem is that even if you are highly optimistic on fossil fuel reserves - say there's 300 years left - all of the most easily accessible reserves have already been consumed. You need high technology for off shore drilling, deep mines, and tar sand processing. With 1800s technology, the amount of oil you could extract today would be zero. If there's a collapse now, there will be no way to recover. This is it. This is our shot. It's the stars or bust.
I really hope the answer to the drake equation isn't "every advanced civilization is brought down from the inside by a cult of incompetency"
We will never run out of oil.
Never.
John D. Rockefeller coined the term "fossil fuel" in 1892 at the Geneva Convention, to introduce the idea of scarcity, and thus name the price.
It's not dead dinosaurs.
Old wells are finding new oil every day.
It is the second-most-prevalent liquid on Earth after water.
Because it replenishes.
We will never run out of oil.
Never.
Ok so if there's infinite oil then why do they build expensive off shore rigs instead of just drilling on land where it's easy? Why process difficult tar sands when you could just drill a hole? Regardless of source, the rate of extraction clearly outpaces the rate of replenishment. If you think it's subduction of sea floor carbon into the mantle that's hundreds of millions of years. If you think it's bubbling up from deep within the crust, that's still hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
And when we're talking about the hundreds of years of known energy reserves, a lot of that is considering coal - which is clearly and evidently a fossil fuel.
Abiotic theory.
I'm from Texas, born & raised, and I can tell you that the drillers cap a well, wait a few years, come back and uncap it...
Oil.
Oil is a renewable resource.
Wells refill.
Abiotic would mean a geological process taking place over geological time scales. A little bit of leaching in is not enough to counteract the speed at which you can pump down a fresh well.
If merely living in Texas imparted some spiritual knowledge of oil to you, you'd know that entire industry now relies on unconventional extraction from shale, which would not be possible with primitive technology. Again, if oil regenerated on a timescale relevant to humans, they would not need to do this. They go after the shale oil because the normal oil is depleted.
For your consideration.
We live in a world filled with smoke and mirrors.
Even if the entire core of the earth is filled with oil put there by god, the easily accessible oil is still being depleted at a rate faster than it is replenished (if it is replenished at all). If you think off shore drilling and shale oil and tar sands processing are all a magic show to keep up artificial scarcity, there's no hope for you.
All we can do is wait and see. Cheers to the apocalypse. Where're fucked one way or another.