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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I'm a bit curious as to how long our current supplies of resources will last if things will continue at their current rate.  Anyone got numbers on how long various rescources (Oil, Coal, Iron, etc.) will last?

[smjjames]

Google and perhaps wiki will have your answer.

[mainiac]

Iron will last so long that we cant predict because hundreds of years out who knows what usage and recycling will be like or whether we will be mining asteroids?  Oil it's more of a fuzzy thing because it will become uneconomical for some uses (i.e. transportation) but not for others (e.g. plastics).  This site shows 500 Gigatons of proven reserves.  Seeing as we use about 5 Gigatons a year and coal usage is expected to start declining in a couple decades, that's basically an indefinite supply.

[smjjames]

Yeah, the question isn't so much 'when will we run out?' than 'when will it become uneconomical to extract it or use it for x purpose?'

When we talk about stuff that's mineable from asteroids, theres so much out there that the amounts available would far exceed the mineral resources Earth itself has.

[milo christiansen]

I'll give you a real simple answer: A hell of a lot longer than you think they will.

After all, oil was supposed to be gone by now according to some "experts".

[smjjames]

I'll give you a real simple answer: A hell of a lot longer than you think they will.

After all, oil was supposed to be gone by now according to some "experts".

Not 'gone', just reached 'peak oil' with declining production. It's not clear that we have reached that yet due to market forces and various other factors. Mostly OPEC collapsing and Saudi Arabia glutting the supply side of the system.

[mainiac]

After all, oil was supposed to be gone by now according to some "experts".

No, oil was not supposed to be gone.  Oil was expected to be more expensive then it currently is.  This is due to two things:

1) Unexpectedly fast technological improvement.  Usually major industries dont invent completely new techniques, they simply refine existing ones.  Oil had an unexpectedly large improvement with fracking which turned out to be more useful then expected.  However dont expect another fracking to come along because usually the longshot technologies dont pan out

2) Over supply.  The oil being produced by these new fields is often being produced at a loss.  That is because Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Columbia are currently all flooding the market for various reasons.  However because they already made large fixed cost investments in the oil equipment they might as well keep drilling more wells.

[milo christiansen]

No, oil was not supposed to be gone.

Well, that depends on what you read and how long ago you read it doesn't it?

[mainiac]

Well, that depends on what you read and how long ago you read it doesn't it?

No it doesn't actually.  Even going back to the 19th century they understood that oil production declined not stopped.

[milo christiansen]

Except certain fear-mongering environmentalists...

[Grimlocke]

The milk in my fridge will last a couple more days.

Estimates on pretty much everything outside the fridge are spotty at best.

[TempAcc]

Ye, the predictions regarding oil were off in regards to price largely due to unexpected technological advancement and implementation of other forms of energy production. Hell, even the leading authories in energy production didn't predict this sudden rise and deflation of prices in solar energy we've been experienced for years now, and even the most conservative estimates point that, if the current trends continue the way they are, by 2035 solar energy will be significantly cheaper than oil in nearly all applications and uses, even in the automobile industry. Even saudis started investing in other stuff already.

[mainiac]

Except certain fear-mongering environmentalists...

So you are saying that fear-mongering environmentalists are whom you are referring to when you talk about experts?

[milo christiansen]

Notice the quotation marks around "expert"? They matter.

Also, not everyone recognizes a fear-mongering environmentalist when they see one, particularly when their own pet beliefs match what the nut-job "expert" is spouting (the earth is being ruined! We should all live healthy, natural lives like our ancestors so we can die at 40).

[Levi]

I'm always worried about our fishy resources.  Ocean Acidification could kill them all.