The World According to Oil Reserves.



The map above (click here for the large version) shows what the world would look like if each country's size was proportional to their proven oil reserves. 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.

If the presented figures are correct, the U.S. would deplete its entire supply of oil in about 3 years without imports (and could single-handedly deplete the entire world's reserves in 50 years). Makes you wonder why the U.S. government isn't more supportive of alternative energy. Link via digg

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!
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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".
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"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.
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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.
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@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.
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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.
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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?
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"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.
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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?
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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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