Will a future without oil be a terrible one?

Authors Avatar by jbjbjosh (student)

Oil is a fossil fuel. It is usually found deep beneath the sea and is formed from the bodies of dead plants and animals. Oil has lots of different uses. For example, it is used to make plastic and as a fuel for powering cars and generating electricity. This means that oil is very valuable. It is sold for large sums of money on the international market.

Saudi Arabia produces more oil than any other country, but is not the biggest consumer of oil by any means. The USA is completely oil dependant, and is by far the world’s largest consumer, every year it consumes over 6.87 billion barrels of the so called black gold for use in transport, generating electricity, and cooking their disgusting foods. However, the USA isn’t the only country which consumes more electricity than it produces however, China consumes over 3.56 billion barrels a year which it uses primarily for manufacturing, which you could argue is actually the consumption of the countries which buy China’s goods.

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Peak oil is when the demand for oil outstrips supply. It is not known when we will reach peak oil, and it is not a fixed point in time, we can reach peak oil multiple times, for example if our demand fluctuates or we find more available oil. However many experts believe we are at peak oil at the moment. Reaching peak oil can mean disaster for some countries. It means that much of it’s infrastructure which relies so heavily on oil will have to change, and this can be a very uncomfortable transition.

However peak oil will not necessarily ...

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