Quote:
Originally Posted by Duffman
Numbers look excessively conservative to me from other numbers I have heard. There is 100 or so years of extraction out of the oil sands left. I have heard there is 300 years of coal in north America left.
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Somewhat conservative, but many estimates put worldwide coal reserves at 50 years given current global consumption.
300 years maybe, if you only cover US consumption... and those numbers will change as the power generation mix changes. But 300 years globally? No.
Oil is tricky. Economically extractable traditional oil will probably last just thirty years. Oil sands, fifty, maybe? We are teetering at the point where new oil is getting prohibitively expensive to scout for and extract.