Oil/Gas supply exhaustion. Is there a best case scenario?

[flobadob]

It is inevitable that at some stage our current main sources of fuel like oil, coal gas etc. are going to run out. Ignoring the fact that by that stage we may have mastered other forms of fuel supply, like wind, water, nuclear etc., has anyone ever come up with a best case scenario for the complete exhaustion of the above mentioned fuels?

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think that's possible because nobody knows where all the undiscoverred fields are, or whether or not some will be viable.

Three are lots of source that are technically accessible but not cost effective. If the price goes up enough that could change.

Current estimates are an extreme worst case because all of the worst cases are added together to give a known reserves figure.

You also don't know what future demand will be - India is in the middle of a motoring revolution, China's probably not that far behind.

I think it's too much of a "how long is a piece of string" question really

[rov1100]

I often see reports of the density of a gas or oil field. Simple maths could add all the fields together, determine the extraction rate and get an overall picture of how long present stocks would last.

Of course it does not allow for future finds.

[jake-the-peg]

Well that's the thing Rov - currently they do this and they add in the **confirmed** reserves for each field adding that together gives you an extreme worst case.

Then you've got the extraction, transportation and refinement issues - you might remember a few years back there was a panic over fuel supplies - that was a concern that it couldn't get out of the gound and refined quick enough to meet demand.

And you need to know the future demand in 10, 20, 30 years and the technological and economic feasibility of known but currently uneconomic finds.

Before you even start on future finds

So you can use simple maths but I don't think the answer you'd get would be up to much