Will the world run out of fossil fuel?

One of the constant refrains of environmental groups is that the world is running out of fossil fuel and so it must switch to solar and wind energy even though those sources are much more expensive. We have all heard president Obama tell us that the US has only 2% of the world's oil reserves but it uses over 20% of the oil used every day. There has also been a recent spate of articles about how natural gas will also run out soon. The problem with all of this is that it is just untrue. The latest industry estimate of natural gas that can be produced from shale formations worldwide is 30,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To put this in context, you should know that in 2010, the USA used about 24 trillion cubic feet of gas. In other words, the USA used about one tenth of on percent of the available shale gas last year. And that is just gas from shale formations; the bulk of natural gas formations still comes from other sorts of geologic conditions. Then there is the oil reserves number. The 2% figure that Obama and the Obamacrats throw around is the US percentage of proven reserves under the restrictions placed on drilling by the government. In other words, the oil in Alsakan areas that Obama has kept off limits to drilling is not counted. The oil in the waters off the US shore that is closed by Obama to drilling is not counted. Further, reserves created by the new processes for getting oil out of shale formations are also not counted. The truth is the USA still has enormous reserves of oil, much greater than 2% of the world total. When it comes to natural gas, the USA has something in the area of 25% of all the world's reserves. In short, we will not run out of fossil fuel any time soon.

Now that is not a reason to stop the development of alternative energy sources like wind and solar, but that energy has to be economically viable if it is to succeed. It cannot be dependent on government subsidies for success.