The World's Energy Picture
It is clear to all of us that the world's energy picture has changed. Running out of oil is no longer the main problem, but oil production and usage is STILL the main problem. Our focus is now different. Before, being able to obtain shale oil and tar sands oil, our fear was that we would simply run out of affordable oil, and thus suffer severely economically and in our leisure pleasures. With the advent of both shale and tar sands derived oil, that fear is gone, but the simple fact is that these oils are simply not affordable if we wish our economy to grow, wish to have a longer healthy life, and wish to have our children live a better life than we have had. Apart from the heavy economic burden, the other critical issues emerging now are health issues with the gasoline and diesel we are using, and the green house gases they emit assisting in warming our earth. Continuing to use gasoline and diesel means putting cancer causing benzene, brain damaging toluene, lung clogging micro particulates, and lung irritating ozone into the air we breath. It is also not sustainable.
On the other hand the world has three enormous sources of cleaner and clean energy. The cleaner energy is natural gas (largely methane). It exist in wells, shale and in sea ice. The really clean energy is biogas (made from anaerobically digesting organic wastes: you know, manure, food wastes, etc.). Biogas is a combination of methane and carbon dioxide, usually about 60/40.
The cleaner path
We don't need these problems in our lives. So what are we going to do about it? Well there are answers, and considering the enormity of the problem, these are fairly simple answers.
This page is the header page for further discussions on oil supplies and on the world's natural gas supplies.