Energy consumption is rising but so are reserves. People continually find new pools of petroleum. The U.S. government provides an estimate of 1.3 trillion barrels in reserve and global annual consumption at 29 billion barrels. Assuming a steady state, this means that there are 44 years remaining. However, as the web site notes, demand is increasing. Can reserves keep pace?
The simple answer to this question is no, reserves cannot keep pace. For one thing, the Earth is finite hence we will eventually run out of locations with oil. The second thing is that oil is not nearly as easy to extract.
Do you remember the TV show ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’. Their theme song went;
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The effort of obtaining oil bubbling out of the ground is trivial. Compare this to the effort in extracting oil from the Canadian Tar Sands. Simply put, much more energy is needed to extract the energy. Thus, though indications are that we have 44 years of energy remaining, the practical limit to petroleum supplies may be much sooner.