Entry #5: Fossil Fuels

 While looking around on http://www.discovery.com/, I found a very interesting article entitled  “How Much Fossil Fuel is in the Earth?”  It was written on September 24^th, 2010 by a person named Cristen Conger.  I was interested in reading this article because just in my most recent University Colloquium class, the subject of using fossil fuels as our dominant source of energy and the fact that they are not going to last forever came up.  The title of the article poses a very interesting question, and one that I am sure many people are unsure about.  We hear that our supply of fossil fuels will run out by the year 2050 according to the rate humans are currently using them, and yet other forms of renewable energy aren’t implemented enough yet to take the place of fossil fuels.  It gets more confusing though. 

The article stated, “According to the 2010 International Energy Outlook, ‘as of Jan. 1, 2010, proved world oil reserves as reported by the Oil and Gas Journal, were estimated at 1,354 billion barrels-12 billion barrels (about 1 percent) higher than the estimate for 2009.’”(Conger)  This increased amount of proved world reserves would seem to conflict with the notion that our resources of fossil fuels such as natural gas and oil are being depleted.  The reason this does not happen to be the case is because proven reserves are what is being estimated. “those figures refer to reservoirs of oil, coal seams, and natural gas deposits that companies are sure they can make a profit from, if they could bring them up using current extraction techniques.” (Conger)  Because we are always advancing our technology, different methods for obtaining these natural resources that are buried below the Earth’s surface are constantly changing and developing.  If new technology is developed that can reach sources of fuel that were basically off limits prior to the new technology, the amount of fossil fuels available to us increases.  Those sources of fuel would then be put under the title of proved reserves.

  “The International Energy Outlook expects a nearly 50 percent jump in global energy demand by 2035.  During that same period, renewable energy is slated to increase to 14 percent from 10 percent of global supply.” (Conger)  When I look at these numbers, it is kind of scary.  The global demand of energy resources in rising at an astounding rate.  Also, while the amount of proven reserves may increase due to the increased technology, these fossil fuels are still disappearing and proven reserves can quickly decline, sometimes a lot more quickly then people had previously thought. 

  In summary, while the amount of proven reserves may increase due to an increase in possible methods to acquire such sources, it is still a finite resource and it will therefore one day disappear from the Earth.  Hopefully by that time, we will have put enough effort into developing mass use of alternate energy sources such as wind power, solar power, and hydro power that we will not be so reliant on fossil fuels to serve our energy needs.

The article that was summarized in this blog post can be found at

http://news.discovery.com/earth/how-much-fossil-fuel-is-in-the-earth.html

 Conger, Cristen. "How Much Fossil Fuel Is in the Earth? : Discovery News." Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History. Web. 27 Sept. 2010. http://news.discovery.com/earth/how-much-fossil-fuel-is-in-the-earth.html.