Hydrogen: Oil is Running Out

"Mess" by Anthony Easton, Creative Commons license

Many scientists believe that world oil production has already peaked. If so, there is an even worse peak coming:

It takes more and more energy to get oil!

In the 1930's, it took 1 barrel of oil to get 100 barrels pumped.
Today it takes 1 barrel's worth of energy to get only 10 barrels pumped... and rapidly worsening.
When it takes 1 barrel to locate, extract and distribute 1 barrel there's no point.

You can't buy your way out of this problem, because we're talking about energy cost, not price. This concept is known as Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI). The above figures are in Barrel of Oil Equivalent (BOE) units.

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