Two thoughts about America's oil consumption:

1) Suggesting that America should try to stop using oil is lunacy.
2) Suggesting that America should try to reduce its oil consumption is very sensible indeed.

3) When the oil is gone?:shrug:

Oil for many applications can be man made from bio materials. It can be extracted from plants such as peanuts and from several animals including whales. Plastics will always be with us, derived heavily from oil.

Using it for energy creation is another matter.

If you believe in some science

Abiotic Oil

Addressing the theory in circulation that oil is not solely of organic origin, but that there may be another mode of origin as well from deeper in the crust, involving magma.

See also Peak Oil

Sterling's Preface:
There is a substantial body of evidence to support this theory. That does not negate, however, the quest for getting away from dependence on fossil fuels. The greenhouse gasses produced by the burning of such will continue to be a pressing matter that must be addressed. Now that the world has achieved a consciousness about how we treat our planet, this news that we are not so far from depleting our oil reserves is a welcome breath of fresh air, removing some of the panic effect that can foster unrest.


Supporting Evidence, Briefly

* Oil being discovered at 30,000 feet, far below the 18,000 feet where organic matter is no longer found.
* Wells pumped dry later replenished.
* Volume of oil pumped thus far not accountable from organic material alone according to present models.
* In Situ production of methane under the conditions that exist in the Earth's upper mantle. (PhysicsWeb; Sept. 14, 2004)


Just sayin' I never believed the "decayed plant" idea in the first place.

QUICK! ALERT THE GEOLOGISTS! ALERT THE PROFITEERS!

Woo(p)!

It's likely enough that there has been some oil discovered of non-organic origin, although just how widely the evidence has been accepted is worth a conversation of its own.

Even so, there is no way that such origin accounts for the oil -- the 85 million barrels we use every day that very definitely comes from decayed plants. The geology of oil is as fully understood as it is well-financed.

Even if deep magma formations have yielded up a few thousand barrels, it's a huge leap to suppose that abiotic processes would somehow replenish the sheer quantity of oil we use up, and do so quickly enough to be of any interest to our species.

Let's put this one to rest, because all it does is feed the wishful thinking of those who want to keep burning the stuff. Mr. Sterling's point is the main one, and I take it you agree with him -- we have to stop burning oil.

Of course, if we don't do it voluntarily, dwindling supplies will do it for us.

My crazy theory for the lake of oil under the gulf in the massive asteroid that struck the earth in the GOM and eliminated the dinosaurs. This impact naturally created massive and deep fissures in the mantle that allow the abiotic oil to percolate to near the surface.

Laugh if you want to, oil is created by chemical processes in the mantle.

As oil becomes rarer and rarer, it will become more and more expensive to extract it, and there will be more and more pressure to develope and use alternatives. Also, as time passes and technology improves, those alternatives will become better and cheaper.

So I don't expect America's oil consumption ever to hit zero, but I expect it to slow to a trickle within a century, and to slow massively within my lifetime.

3) Suggesting that America will have no choice but to stop using oil because the stuff will be too scarce is rude.

True, but rude.

:evilgrin: