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mcscrufferson t1_j0w14j8 wrote

Reply to comment by pete_68 in Fusion energy by [deleted]

Oil and gas will be used up within the next 40 years. Necessity is the mother of invention.

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pete_68 t1_j0w4w6n wrote

40 years from now will only be 80+ years too late... And that assumes we won't come up with a way to squeeze out more. Or turn something else into oil. And we've got 350 years of coal left to dig up.

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mcscrufferson t1_j0w8axo wrote

I’m not sure which model you’re looking at but the one I use for reference shows us running out of coal in the year 2117. Also, we’re more likely to leave wells half full than “squeeze out more.” The return on investment makes drilling non-profitable about half way through a well so we actually probably have less time than the model predicts.

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pete_68 t1_j0w9gry wrote

There's this, and this.

Others have completely different numbers. This one from Stanford says 90 years.

Either way, it's more than enough.

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