United States Oil Consumption and Reserves: A matter of exponential growth and finite resources

It is a well known fact that the United States has been importing Oil since the 1970's because the home oil production cannot meet the rising demand. According to 2009 yearly average, the U.S. Crude Oil consumption is around 21 million barrels a day and home production is only around 5 million. Why are things escalating so fast? Why are resources running out at such speed? We will try to answer these questions on this article. There is no simple answer but it is all pretty much related to one single concept: exponential growth.

Within the last two centuries, advances in human technology has made the civilization completely Oil, Gas & Coal dependant, which are mainly used as fuel for diverse purposes. What makes Oil different is the immense variety of products that can be derived from it. A "brief" list of some of these products: Gasoline, Diesel, Fuel oil, Propane, Ethane, Kerosene, Liquid petroleum gas, Lubricants , other alkanes, Heating oil, asphalt, bitumen, Plastic, bags, toys, candles (paraffin), clothing (polyester, nylon), cosmetics, petroleum jelly, perfume, dish-washing liquids, ink, bubble gums, car tires, etc, etc etc.
So it is obvious that the modern industry is completely dependant on Oil.

However, the amount and size of Oil Reserves on the U.S. is - or was- enormous. It is in fact the third producing country after Saudi Arabia and Russia. So once again, why it is running out so fast? Answer is exponential growth in both population and oil-dependant technologies. » READ ALL »