December 2005 Archives

just wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and that the holiday season is a safe and fun filled holiday for you and your family :)

Love Lisa & Aruna

Ok. This is getting out of hand. Over the weekend and last night I started playing Sudoku on a site that Dad sent me. Web Sudoku is too addictive. I've got the easy puzzles down, around six minutes (rank: top 37%). I'm getting better at medium, getting around ten minutes (rank: top 50%). I haven't tried hard or evil yet, but that's just, evil. Talk about an efficient time waster.

This posting (1) begins by summarizing what is happening to our global oil supply, (2) continues by reminding the reader of the indispensable, yet perhaps unrecognized, role oil plays in our lives, and (3) closes by presenting some implications of dwindling oil supplies for our way of life over the medium term.

How much longer can oil support our way of life?

It is generally recognized that, since the first modern well was drilled in the mid-1800s, mankind has consumed roughly half of the world’s oil. An estimated 1,200 billion barrels of oil still remains in known reserves.¹ If we then assume we continue consuming oil at the current rate (30 billion barrels annually), oil would essentially run out in about 40 years. This is basic arithmetic and, although some maintain that the precise numbers may be somewhat higher or lower, the basic conclusion is not open to debate. Of course, long before oil reserves are exhausted, consumers worldwide will be facing higher prices due to expanding competition among the world's economies, increased difficulty in extracting oil, and decreased quality of the oil pumped. This impact is already starting to be felt.