Oil
Oil is used in many ways in modern society. It fuels cars, heats buildings, provides electricity and it makes the plastics that we use in everything from milk containers to computers.
Oil is a finite resource (see the box above for a definition). There is only so much oil under the ground and once it is all used up, it will be gone forever. The question is, how much oil is left?
Oil consumption has risen from less than a million barrels a day in 1900 to over 85 millions barrels a day at the present time. It has been predicted that demand will rise to 116 million barrels a day by 2030!
Unfortunately the oil industry believes that it is impossible to produce more than 100 million barrels a day. That is the problem the world faces - oil is currently needed for transport and energy but there isn't going to be enough of it to go round!
It is difficult to tell how much oil is left under the ground, or how much demand there may be in the future. However, what is certain is that once peak oil is reached, it will become much more difficult and expensive to extract what is left.
Oil pessimists (those with a negative view) believe that we have already reached, or is close to reaching, peak oil. They say the evidence is in the high prices for oil.
Oil optimists (those with a positive view) believe that this point is still decades away, because there is so much oil yet to be discovered. The evidence, they say, includes the huge reserves or tar recently discovered in Canada that can be refinied into oil.
