Two useful oil business terms are: Reserves --engineers' conservative opinions of how much oil is known to be producible, within a known time, with known techniques, at known costs, and in known fields. Muhlenburg College. Who We Are. Student Life. Powerful Outcomes.
Short version: If we work hard at recovering fossil fuels, huge amounts remain. We are probably at least decades and perhaps longer from real scarcity of fossil fuels, although with notable uncertainty.
But, we may be close to the point at which fossil fuels are scarce enough to start causing problems. These numbers were higher for gas years and coal years. With oil slightly more important than the others in the world economy, these would give most of a century of fossil fuels before we run out. However, use has been rising rapidly.
If everyone in the world used fossil fuels at the same rate as in the US, total use would be more than 4 times faster, reducing the life of the proved reserves to perhaps years. The resource is likely much bigger. If you spend a little while looking at the figure "Where is the Carbon? The mineral will also be present in sufficient quantity to make it of intrinsic economic interest.
Aggregate resources have, therefore, not only physical but also economic aspects. The status of aggregate resources in economic terms may change with time as product specifications change, as markets decline or expand, as transport links improve, and as extraction and processing technology improve. Resources that might previously have remained unworked, because of their poor quality or they were beneath excessive overburden thickness, are increasingly being considered as potential sources of supply.
The presence of an otherwise economically viable aggregate resource is not in itself sufficient to ensure that mineral extraction will take place. This is because, in common with most other forms of developments in the UK, minerals extraction and related activities such as processing facilities, require planning permission before any development can take place.
Without a planning consent no mineral working can legally take place and consequently the inherent economic value of a mineral resource cannot be released and resulting wealth created.
The continuity of the supply of aggregates crucially depends, therefore, on adequate planning permissions being granted. Resources: Resources are the geologically proven stocks of an energy carrier which are not yet regarded as recoverable economically because recovery requires new and expensive technology. The distinction between reserves and resources is sometimes fluid. The oil sand industry in Canada is the latest example of a transition from resources to reserves.
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