David Taylor wrote:
On 2008-06-14, Bill Wright wrote:
Surprisingly, an item in yesterday's Times (could have been Thursday's)
showed (if taken as the truth) that oil reserves are greater now than they
have ever been. An impressive graphic had been produced to illustrate this.
And there was the oil 'expert' from the US on the telly last week who said
that the oil would never run out because of all the low grade reserves as
yet untouched.

"Never"? That's a very long time, especially considering oil usage is
constantly growing. However many "low grade reserves" you have, there
is not an infinite supply of oil. It _will_ run out, if we keep using
it at this ever increasing rate. The question is merely when.

It will get very expensive, yes, but ultimately replacements
will come in a various price points. This leads me to this morning's item in
the Times (page 56 I think) which describes two apparently very promising
means of producing crude via genetic engineering.

Yes, eventually replacements (wind/tidal/solar/nuclear/geothermal) will
become cheaper than oil. The question is how fast they will be able to
be introduced, and how fast the price of oil will rise.

Nuclear is already cheaper than oil.
So is hydro.

In places where it works so is geothermal and the odd tidal.

Windmills aren't when the total costs are taken into account.

Solar can be in certain locations but Britain ain't one of them.