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. . .
At a relatively modest depletion rate of, say, 4% per year (which is very, very conservative...the North Sea is depleting at 8% to 10% per year by comparison), today's 84 million barrels per day of world oil production from existing reserves will be all of 37 million barrels after 20 years. To obtain the same level of production as today's 84 million barrels per day - and just to keep even with that current production and not to increase production by one extra barrel - the global oil industry (or whatever succeeds it as a "hydrocarbon" industry in the tar sand, oil shale or coal gas, etc. biz) will have to "discover" and produce the fossil fuel equivalent of a good deal more than half of all of the world's present oil reserves.
Let me put it another way. Within the next 20 years we need to find the petroleum or other energy-equivalent of another Saudi Arabia, plus another Kuwait, plus another Iran, plus another Russia. And this is just to keep even with the present requirement to run the global economy at current energy prices, not allowing for future increases in demand. And this also does not even get into the increasing global demand for natural gas, the numbers for which are worse than those for the oil supply.
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