Nobody knows how much untapped oil is left, and even the data on “known” sources is sketchy. The U.S. thinks that Saudi Arabia may not have as much oil left as they’d like us to think.
The report comes from those recently released Wikileaks documents, which among other things include information on what the U.S. thinks of key allies and enemies. Saudi Arabia is a long-standing U.S. “ally” and the third largest exporter of oil to America. Saudi Arabia may even sit on one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves.
The problem is that Saudi society is not nearly as open as America’s, and the data is very susceptible to tampering and does not go through any sort of external verification. In fact, since the OPEC countries have started reporting their oil reserves, the countries have consisntely declared finding more and more oil, despite pumping it out of the ground at an astonishing rate.
Now it could be that Saudi Arabia sits on top of the Pacific Ocean of oil, but at the rate they are pumping it out of the ground (12.5 million barrels of oil per-day), it only makes sense to me that these oil reserves should, I don’t know, start to be depleted? Aprominent geologist named Sadad al-Husseini says that the Saudi’s will have difficulty hitting that target in the coming months, and they could hit peak oil production as soon as…wait for it…2012. Bum bum bummmm….
Does that mean gas will be unaffordable right away? Probably not. But with China and India both having booming economies, and the east Asian car market increasing exponentially, we could start having problems. And with the recent instability in the Middle East, it’s not a matter of if, but when the Saudi ruling family is overthrown. So getting off of oil is as much about the environment as it is about national security.
More cars + Less oil = Doomsday? It sure is a fun time to be alive.
Source: Yahoo!
Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMI’s. You can follow his slow descent into madness at Sublime Burnout.