The World According to Oil Reserves.

• Josh
  September 13th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

  Those figures cannot be more wrong. Alberta Canada alone has enough oil to supply the entire world for over 400 years.

• The Slapster
  September 13th, 2007 at 8:23 pm

  Um, Neatorama resorting to blatant flame bait posting now?

  “Makes you wonder why the U.S. government isn’t more supportive of alternative .”

  Wow, I can’t imagine what Commenters will say to that! How insightful & original!

• Anita
  September 13th, 2007 at 8:56 pm

  Josh - almost all of Alberta’s “oil” is tar sands. Based on today’s technology, it’s not terribly feasible to extract and is not considered “proven reserves”.

• Another Jake
  September 13th, 2007 at 9:11 pm

  I’ve heard that Canada has the equivalent of 1 trillion barrels of oil in oil sand that is only beginning to be harvested. …where do I invest?

• Andrew32
  September 13th, 2007 at 9:40 pm

  Oh Saudi Arabia, please let the US suckle from the oil tit of the world. ( . )( . )

  lol….

• Edward
  September 13th, 2007 at 9:49 pm

  “proven” That is the operative word.

  The newly industrialized world is sucking dry the arab world’s easily exploited oil. The US is helping a bit, but is also investing in the exploitation of the next wave: oil sand and coal.

  In 50 years all of the easy oil will be gone. In 300, the difficult will be too difficult. Nuclear power will come into its own and polluiton will be gone forever.

• Lady Cooper
  September 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm

  Unfortunately, it just represents crude oil, not non-crude reserves like tarsands. If they were included, Canada would be the second largest on the map.

  The issue with the Albertan tarsands is that they weren’t feasible while oil was under $40 a barrel, that’s why they’ve been known about since 1947 but only in the last few years has a huge boom really started to roll. As long as oil remains over $40, the oil will continue to flow from Fort McMurray, until (most likely) alternative fuels eventually cause the price of oil to drop. Then all of us in Alberta will have another bust. Que sera, sera.

• Pop
  September 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm

  Actually it is entirely feasible to extract the oil from the Alberta sands it’s just that until now it hasn’t been financially prudent.

• L
  September 13th, 2007 at 11:01 pm

  “Nuclear power will come into its own and polluiton will be gone forever.”

  That’s funny. What do you call nuclear waste?

• farty
  September 13th, 2007 at 11:49 pm

  bush should go after saudi instead

• Dan
  September 13th, 2007 at 11:58 pm

  As previous commenters have noted, the issue isn’t that we’ll run out of oil, but that we’ll run out of cheap oil.

• aj
  September 14th, 2007 at 12:26 am

  @L
  There are a new breed of reactors which use Thorium being designed. They can apparently process spent fuel (waste) from older plants, don’t produce plutonium and aren’t prone to meltdowns as they require a neutron beam to cause the reaction.
  That said they are only theoretical to the best of my knowledge, though the reactions are surely well known.

• aj
  September 14th, 2007 at 12:27 am

  sorry, I should point out that there is waste from these plants as well, but it is considered low level, and is apparently easier to process/ store.

• Seth
  September 14th, 2007 at 8:07 am

  How did the poster come up with those figures? If you add up all the oil on the map its 1040.91 billion barrels. Divided by the U.S.’s 6 million barrels a day that’ s 173485 days worth of oil. Divided by 365 days in a year that’s 475.3 years. Where did 50 years come from?

• Anita
  September 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am

  Seth - good catch! Serves me right trying to do math after having a baby. Somehow I multiplied 6X365 and came up with 20B. Oops.

• Mark
  September 14th, 2007 at 9:50 am

  “I find it a little surprising that the world’s largest oil consumers (North America, Europe and China) have such a small portion of the world’s oil.”

  Funny how most of those countries are also the largest producers of products and services. That part of the equation is always left out.

• skh.pcola
  September 15th, 2007 at 1:50 am

  The US uses ~20M bbls a day, but not all of it for gasoline. It is also used for electricity production, plastics, lubrication, etc. IIRC, gasoline accounts for 9-11M bbls of consumption.

  I dare say that the US puts more money into exploring alternative energy sources than any other. I realize that Neatorama posters and commenters are generally leftard loons, but the allusion of this post is ridiculous. You anti-American idiots wallow in your faux superiority a bit much, don’t you think?

• ThornQ
  September 15th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

  Is skh.pcola reading a different Neatorama? Most commenters here are basically Republicans.

• Chris
  September 16th, 2007 at 12:36 am

  1 good comment :
  - US #1 economy of the world is #1 polluter. Lots of critics are indeed forgetting the #1 production part. They are also forgetting all the advande the US is taking in biofuel for example : how many countries, besides Brazil maybe, can boast 2mil+ cars driving with E85?
  On the other side, after Kyoto, some countries, such as France, had their bureaucracy implement several limitation on energy consumption or recycling that are increasing the paid price for the end user. Guess what? They’re jalous!

  1 bad comment :
  - let’s suck the oil of those middle east unevolved tribesmen, because, after all, that’s all they are, and moreover that’s all they’re going to be : unevolved tribesmen.

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