Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

[MrSoul]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes it does. And how many of these forms are usable to us, now, or in 30 years? On the scale that we use fossil fuels today. None.

[/ QUOTE ]

The majority of our energy comes from oil because it's the cheapest resource.

[ QUOTE ]
Capitalism has proven is adaptability when there is an abundance of resources, not when there isn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just flat out wrong. Capitalism relies on prices to dictate where resources are allocated. Whether or not a resource is abundant is irrelevant.

[ QUOTE ]
We are not using less energy today. But we will have to adapt to using less energy unless we find a new abundant source of energy to take up the slack when oil depletion kicks in and the total amount of oil produced in the world starts to shrink. Something that will happen, some argue in 30 years (USGS, but they make up numbes, by their own acount) some say withing 10 years (geologists).

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually the opposite is true. Depleting known oil reserves will raise the price of oil. Rising oil prices will make it profitable for investors to drill for more oil. The truth is we won't run out of oil any time soon. I also predict that the real price of oil will not grow to obscene levels over the next few decades like experts are predicting. When geologists and environmentalists claim that we only have enough oil to last another 10-30 years, they're talking about known reserves of oil. That is much different than the notion that there will physically be no oil left in the ground.

So, why don't we discover all the oil in the world so we know how much is left? Because it doesn't pay to discover all the oil left on the planet.