For how long can we realistically expect to have oil? And which dwindling element is essential to plant growth?
Our rapid population growth has been highlighted this week as we've reached a massive 7 billion! This Guardian Blog entry summarizes how our huge population is draining natural resources and agriculture is evidently one of the main drains.
The six natural resources most drained by our 7 billion people!
Great, easy to comprehend article, that raises some interesting points! It definitely highlights the seriousness of depleting resources, in particular oil. What's your view on the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, estimate of 46.2 years if we continue 'business as usual'? There is a huge oil reserve that has been discovered in Kurdistan, with estimates being put as much as 50 billion barrels? Big oil majors such as Exxon Mobil are onboard seemingly shoring up the credibility and logistics of extracting the oil in Kurdistan. This would contribute to extending this estimate slightly?
ReplyDeleteBut more importantly with further research and development scientists are getting closer to making shale oil viable to extract. It is thought that US shale oil deposits could exceed 6 trillion barrels of oil equivalent!!!!! This would definitely reduce worries that fossil fuels will inevitably run out in the next half a decade??
I see your point here and this issues was addressed in the UCL Current Affairs Society lecture I attended (see- Are corporations ruining food post). However, as I explained in my last post, I think that finding more fossil fuels will just increase our reliance on them and we will inevitably run out sooner or later as we are using them up faster than they are created. Finding new reserves may reduce the urgency and delay the problem but it certainly won’t solve it. Not to mention the depletion of the many other natural resources that we are exploiting through intensive agriculture which I will address throughout this blog.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading for my next post on water for agriculture I found an interesting point made by Pimentel et al (1997). They explain that extraction of new forms of fuel to replace diminishing fossil fuels are often very water intensive. The extraction of shale oil creates a huge water demand. Therefore perhaps many of these new fuel types are equally as unsustainable as extraction of oil and gas. This highlights the necessity of the development of a new form of energy that is not reliant on water.
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