Reserve size

New entrants reserve (size or % if present) Yes, 345,163 allowances annually, to be used for new entrants (forgotten installations to be allocated extra)... 

For oil, the R P ratios indicate that remaining oil reserves are sufficient to last 35-78 years at current production levels. Reserve-to-production ratios are highly misleading for several reasons. First, production levels will increase to meet the projected 45% increase in oil demand projected for 2025 (EIA 2005). Reserve sizes are not fixed. Reserves are resources... 

Almost as important as reserve size is its distribution. Only 5% of proven crude oil reserves are located within the borders of member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development... 

Understanding our long-term energy needs necessitates a review of reserves and estimates of reserves by fuel type. How long these reserves may last may be considered using a simple measure of reserve size, the reserve-to-production (R P) ratio, or a more complex method, the Hubbert Peak analysis. This analysis assumes production from oil fields basically follows a bell curve, where production increases until the maximum production rate is reached when half the resource has been... 

Reserve-to-production ratios are highly misleading as they assume steady production, but no one expects production to remain at current levels. The DOE estimate suggests oil production will increase by over 50% from current levels by 2025. At the same time, reserve sizes are, by definition, not fixed. They will increase as prices increase, technology... 

Several experts have applied the Hubbert methodology to global oil production. Deffeyes (2001) estimated that global oil production would peak in approximately 2003 and total eventual recovery would number 2.12 trillion barrels of oil. Likewise, Campbell and Laherr re (1998), using Hubbert s first method and their low estimate of 1.8 trillion barrels of EUR, estimated a production peak in 2003. Their analysis showed that the total reserve size had little effect on the production peak year and that a higher estimate of 2.1 trillion barrels (P05) results in a peak in 2020. 

The debate over "peak oil" comes down to four main issues the ability of technology to increase the amount of oil extracted from existing fields, the effect of economics on reserve size, the possibility of using unconventional oil, and the likelihood of discovering large new oil fields. 

Almost as important as reserve size is reserve distribution. While current reserve estimates and production levels indicate global supplies of oil, natural gas, and coal, of 40,60, and 200 years, respectively, these supplies are not universally distributed across the world. 

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