Weekly Oil.com Article
United States Oil Consumption and Reserves: A matter of exponential growth and finite resources
It is a well known fact that the United States has been importing Oil since the 1970's because the home oil production cannot meet the rising demand.
According to 2009 yearly average, the U.S. Crude Oil consumption is around 21 million barrels a day and home production is only around 5 million. Why are things escalating so fast? Why are resources running out at such speed? We will try to answer these questions on this article. There is no simple answer but it is all pretty much related to one single concept: exponential growth.
Within the last two centuries, advances in human technology has made the civilization completely Oil, Gas & Coal dependant, which are mainly used as fuel for diverse purposes. What makes Oil different is the immense variety of products that can be derived from it. A "brief" list of some of these products: Gasoline, Diesel, Fuel oil, Propane, Ethane, Kerosene, Liquid petroleum gas, Lubricants , other alkanes, Heating oil, asphalt, bitumen, Plastic, bags, toys, candles (paraffin), clothing (polyester, nylon), cosmetics, petroleum jelly, perfume, dish-washing liquids, ink, bubble gums, car tires, etc, etc etc.
So it is obvious that the modern industry is completely dependant on Oil.
However, the amount and size of Oil Reserves on the U.S. is - or was- enormous. It is in fact the third producing country after Saudi Arabia and Russia. So once again, why it is running out so fast?
Answer is exponential growth in both population and oil-dependant technologies.
http://www.countercurrents.org/wild280810.htm
Plotting The Coming Oil Shock
By Matthew Wild
28 August, 2010
Peak Generation
A study based on the Hubbert model of peak oil suggests a coming global oil shock may begin as early as 2014 – which ties in with the timeline suggested in a variety of other reports and statements.
.........I recently considered three major energy reports published so far in 2010 which take a number of different views on the issue:
......Three independent reports, one consistent prediction – the world will be entering into a period of oil supply turmoil sometime between the beginning of 2011 or 2013.
......The Forecasting World Crude Oil Production prediction model" for global peak oil in 2014 is presented here (left). As stated above, the model suggests world conventional crude production will peak in 2014 at 79 million barrels per day, and promptly enter decline.
......
But what interests me is the culmulative picture that's emerging. Many different groups and agencies are talking about a coming oil supply crisis – whether they use the term peak oil or not. These disparate groups, spread across the globe, have considered various possibilities and probabilities – but are still talking about very similar possible outcomes. According to the various reports, we likely face an oil crisis as early as 2011, or as late as 2014.