Predictions that oil reserves will soon be depleted are being made almost from the moment when commercial development of this resource began. The first hopeless forecast was made in 1875. John Newberry, the chief geologist of the state of Ohio, stated that the world oil business is on the verge of collapse, oil reserves are almost exhausted. And it was not a single panic speech. His opinion about the shortage of oil was supported by many. It is known that in the 80s of the XIX century, the top manager of Standard Oil, then the world's largest oil company, sold his shares because he considered this business unpromising.
Nevertheless, oil production continued, new fields were discovered, and the automotive industry was developing, generating more and more demand for oil and petroleum products. And by the forties of the twentieth century, the articles about the lack of oil in the world began to appear again. This was due to the fact that during the Second World War the consumption of fuel for the needs of the army increased dramatically, and, in addition, during the struggle for global influence, many wells and oil refineries were destroyed and destroyed. Even in countries where oil production was one of the leading industries, there was a fuel shortage. In 1943, U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Knox made a statement that the insatiable army and navy will lead to the fact that in 44 years the country will have a total deficit of oil, and by 1963 America will exhaust its natural reserves of this fuel. As we know, this did not happen, but in 1947, the New York Times came out with the lead in saying that the U.S. is experiencing a fuel crisis due to a shortage of oil, caused by high demand for fuel.
For some time, the panic has faded, but with the release in 1973 of the book by U.S. State Department analyst James Ackins, the press again began to talk about oil shortages. Akins named his book "Oil Crisis: Time Works Against Us". In it he reflected popular at that time gloomy forecasts about the volume of world oil reserves and the speed of their development. Just at that time, the U.S. and European countries supported Israel and were subject to an embargo imposed by Arab oil-exporting countries. This political and economic situation contributed to the spread of very pessimistic sentiments in the society. Even National Geographic magazine did not stand aside and posted on its pages an article by the famous geologist King Hubert that humanity will soon have to look for alternative sources of energy because, after the peak of oil production in about 1995, its reserves will almost run out.
The article was published in 1974, since then, almost every year there are such analytical publications and forecasts, then approaching, then postponing the terms of the oil crisis. This is not due to the incompetence of the authors of the articles. Michael Adelman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains this by the fact that exploration, discovery, and development of new fields is constantly underway. In addition, science is not standing still. The development of oil production technologies now makes it possible to produce oil from previously inaccessible depths. This is exactly why there were errors in forecasts. This can be seen if we compare the data of 1970, according to which the explored reserves of OPEC countries (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) were estimated at 421 billion barrels. In 33 years, they had produced about 307 billion barrels by 2003, and their reserves are now estimated at 819 billion barrels. Similar figures are given by the U.S. Department of Energy - in 1971 they estimated world oil reserves of about 530 billion gallons, and in 2006 - 1290 billion. The Center for Strategic and International Studies concludes that oil and gas reserves are not coming to an end and are simply becoming less accessible. In addition, many new large oil fields have been discovered in recent years in China, Russia, Mexico, Ghana, and advanced technologies have been developed to allow production to continue at seemingly depleted fields.
And yet, analysts continue to sound the alarm. At the end of 2014-15, the pace of exploration fell to a minimum over 20 years. The time frame for field development, from exploration to production, is usually several years, so a reduction in the number of exploration and appraisal wells is fraught with the potential, if not a deficit, for a significant reduction in oil production after 2020.
Is it possible that oil on the global market will replace other energy sources? Is there an alternative? According to an authoritative statistical study published annually by British Petroleum, oil still holds a leading position in global energy consumption of more than 33 percent. Whereas hydropower is only 6.7 percent and renewable resources are less than two percent. And, according to the company's forecasts, this trend will continue at least for the next 20 years. There are objective reasons for this. If you count the amount of energy consumed by oil, you need about 4,000 nuclear power plants, each of them with one and a half gigawatts of power to produce the same amount of nuclear energy. Currently, there are about 440 nuclear reactors in operation in the world with a total capacity of about 360 GW (4 and a half percent in the global energy balance). If the goal of nuclear power is to be equal to oil in energy production, the 4,000 reactors required for this will use up all known global uranium reserves within 10 years.
Sadly for ecologists, internal combustion engines powered by fuels derived from oil products - diesel, kerosene, gasoline - are still the most efficient and economical. All over the world, scientists are working on the development and improvement of engines using other energy sources - propane, hydrogen, ethanol, methanol, etc. But these energy sources cannot really compete with oil yet. And the reasons are not only in the high energy intensity and convenience of using the fuel obtained from oil, but also in the powerful infrastructure tied to its consumption, and the entire global economy, depending on the level of production and sales of oil.
There is no doubt that energy consumption from alternative, renewable sources will increase in the future. But we must admit that the production of the so- сalled "alternative" types of oil - shale oil, from oil sands, heavy oil - will also increase. Scientists are already afraid to make any predictions about oil reserves, the global oil crisis and the possible abandonment of oil production. We will live and see.