Month: July 2020

Oil is non-renewable over the human timescale. Its extraction rate is initially zero, then it increases (the phase that we have known for the past 150 years), reaches a maximum called “peak oil”, then declines due to natural and human constraints. That is why oil will potentially be extracted for another 150 years, but less each year, and at increasing costs: first there was conventional oil, then oil sands and shale oil, and in the future, maybe oil from shale rocks. […]