> > > > http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource
> > > you could realise what nonsense that source it.
> The author takes the position that any statements about
> when oil will run out would have to be based on a
> through survey of existing supplies, and takes comfort
> behind the knowledge that as of the time of writing,
> this hadn't happened yet. Now it has.

No, it has not. Besides the fact that little of the earth's crust has
yet been explored, there exists a variety of definitions of petroleum
resources. All of these resources have been continuously growing --
with the exception of the unqualified supply, of which no one yet
knows the true size. My guess is that it is around 1 quadrillion
barrels (on the order of 1,000 times the estimate for current
economically recoverable), but it could in fact be far larger than
that.

More on petroleum-resource definitions is here:
http://www.spe.org/spe-
site/spe/spe/industry/reserves/Petroleum_Resources_Management_System_2
007.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/5bomz8

UNRECOVERABLE is that portion of Discovered or
Undiscovered Petroleum Initially-in-Place quantities
which is estimated, as of a given date, not to be
recoverable by future development projects. A
portion of these quantities may become recoverable
in the future as commercial circumstances change or
technological developments occur

The reasons the oil resources continuously grow are that:

1. undiscovereds continuously become discovered, and
2. unrecoverables continuously become recoverable.

Oil is mainly valued for its packaging, anyway, rather than for its
energy. Therefore, it is inherently renewable and recyclable via
input from other energy sources such as nuclear. "Unrecoverable" oil
that takes energy worth 10 barrels of oil to recover 1 barrel, might
still be economic to recover via nuclear energy.

> there exists a variety of definitions of petroleum
> resources. All of these resources have been continuously
> growing -- with the exception of the unqualified supply,
> of which no one yet knows the true size. My guess is
> that it is around 1 quadrillion barrels

Here are a few links with interesting data regarding this:
http://www.akadeemia.ee/_repository/File/VALISSUHTED/Oil%20Shale%20-%
20final.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/6car9o

The total SO [shale oil] resource shown in Figure 1
amounts to 3.2 trillion US barrels. This figure
should be seen as a minimum because numerous
potential oil shale deposits have not yet been
explored and were not included in the inventory.
Moreover, many oil shale deposits may still be
discovered. Starting from the organic-rich shales
in the Earth's crust, Duncan and Swandon (1966)
estimated the discovered and undiscovered SO
resources in high grade deposits as 17 trillion
barrels (at yields of 25 to 100 gallons/tonne) and
in low to moderate grade oil shales as 325
trillion barrels (at yields of 10 to 25
gallons/tonne).

That would be 342 trillion barrels of shale oil, alone. Perhaps
future estimates of unqualified oil-shale resources will be higher,
and perhaps even-more oil will be producible from those shale
deposits with the help of nuclear-powered hydrogenation.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/4.22.04/CSE_cover.html

As for oil, she said, the question most often asked
these days is "how much oil is there and when will
it run out?" While admitting that the question is
difficult to answer, she illustrated her answer by
putting world oil supplies in three "buckets." The
first -- conventional resources that can be
exploited using available technology -- contains 3
trillion barrels (compared with the 1 trillion
barrels of petroleum that have been pumped since
production began in the 1800s).

The second bucket contains oil sources that can't
be recovered using conventional technology, such
as oil sands and extra-heavy oil. These amount to
an estimated 4.3 trillion barrels. And in the third
bucket are unrecoverable resources that "we are
pretty sure are there, but we are not sure how to
get them economically," she said. These amount to
an estimated 4 trillion barrels.

"There are a lot of resources here," [Exxon Mobil
analyst Elissa P. Sterry] said, "and will allow for
oil and gas to be the primary sources of energy
through at least the middle of the century." She
noted that new technologies likely will continue to
extend the recoverable resource base, making
additional, but currently uneconomical, resources
commercially attractive. In fact, she said,
recoverable oil resources are today more than 70
percent higher than they were in 1980 thanks to
such improvements as three-dimensional seismic
imaging, drilling in deep water and horizontal
drilling.

How much oil can be recovered depends upon myriad
continuously-evolving factors:
http://www.world-gen.com/features/jumah.html

"The amount of conventional oil in place is
somewhere between six and eight trillion barrels,
depending on whether you go with the conservative
or target scenario," [Saudi Aramco President and
CEO Abdullah S. Jum'ah] said. "The volume of
non-conventional oil in place is rather murkier,
with a conservative figure of seven trillion
barrels and a target scenario number of roughly
eight trillion barrels or higher."
[...]
Jum'ah noted that there are between 13 trillion
barrels and 16 trillion barrels of total in-place
liquids available worldwide if both conventional
and non-conventional resources are considered. To
put these figures in perspective, we have consumed
only 1.1 trillion barrels of oil, or seven to nine
percent of resources in place, nearly all of that
was conventional oil.

Jum'ah emphasized that recovery of liquid energy
resources, particularly non-conventional resources,
will be impacted by a complex interaction of
factors including advances in technology, recovery
efficiency, demand and its growth, levels of
financial investment, economics, policies pursued
by both consuming and producing governments, and
environmental considerations.

Too much to deal with.

OK, I will step in here with a few rude comments.

Who is hitssquad? Seriously. It's easy to tell who I am and who other
participants are.

Space colonization efforts have a pretty small impact on the human race
currently. Why is hitssquad making so many hostile comments among a
small group of people who happen to be interested in the subject? Just
how is ssi_list hurting anyone?

Here are some more interesting targets, at least if you want to address
things that are having significant impacts upon Americans. Health care
spending was, the last time I checked, about 100 times the entire NASA
budget and about 16% of the GNP. Quite a few people claim -- with some
support -- that we are wasting huge amounts of money there. The finance
sector now comprises 20% of GNP. Again, quite a few reasonable people
claim that is unhealthy for the country and world. Then there is the
destructive epidemic of "law enforcement." Since 1982 we have increased
funding for these liars about 400%. Law enforcement schemes are, in the
view of too many, actively harming the country and the world without
providing any benefit -- except, of course, to law enforcers and their
hostile to liberty supporters.

Perhaps humans never will move off world in any significant way. I
think we will, but I've been wrong before. Still, though, what harm
does talking about it do? What harm do even modest expenditures along
those lines do?

Currently I am rereading Mills "On Liberty." The more things change,
the more they remain the same.

Please ignore the troll. I will. Over the next week there is not only
the ISDC, there are also things like a Maryland Federation of Art
opening, a couple of Hash House Harriers runs, Artomatic, and more.
That's for me. I hope others on this list also have plans.

Best,

Chuck Divine