When Will We Stop Using Oil?

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We've heard news of "peak oil" and "the end of the oil age" for years now, but we keep coming up with ways to find and pump more of it to the surface. Rising CO2 levels and the changing climate that results from burning fossil fuels mean that we should probably stop using oil sooner rather than later, though
Let's take a look at history and see how we've used different fuels, so that we might figure out when and how to make oil a thing of the past
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It's Okay To Be Smart is written and hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.DFollow me on Twitter: @jtotheizzoe
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[kevinvines]

Did anyone else notice that they did not answer their title question?

[Yo-n]

Stone age didn't end because of lack of stone. Oil age will end long before the scarcity of oil

[Rakadis]

Greetings from Norway! Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is covered by hydropower plants :D

[becurieus]

As it often said "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones"

[Krustenkaese]

I can't wait for fusion power to be a thing. They already have promising prototypes though it'll take a few years/decades until it's ripe for the market

[nolanthiessen]

Beavers may harness energy through dams, but they don't really use it to do work. They just like non-moving water.

[tedbishop]

We will never stop using oil. When we convert to all electric vehicles, we will still need the oil for lubrication.

[Rationalific]

One trillion barrels seems like a lot, but when you do the math (dividing by the 93 million barrels used per day) means that at the current rate...not even increasing consumption...we would use up the entire earth's supply in 30 years.  Now, it is "one trillion +", and we don't know how big that "+" is, but at any rate, the last barrel will cost a lot more to get out of the ground (if we can ever get it out) than current barrels, so expect price increases over the next 30 years, and then if we don't have our act together by then, expect some major problems.

[genericusername]

I'd like to point something out on the subject of eliminating the need for oil. We will not stop needing oil for likely centuries after we stop using it for energy. The reason being that oil is incredibly useful for chemistry. Not crude oil, but all the stuff that can be harvested from it, like toluene and petroleum ether. I'd wager that almost every single over the counter or prescription drug available in America is synthesized in part from a petroleum derivative or has a petroleum derivative used in its production as a solvent. Hell, we even build roads in part from petroleum derivatives, and let's not even start on polymers. Our world is built on oil for more than just energy, like how our world is still built with wood even though we don't use it for energy.

[unvergebeneid]

I really don't want to promote whaling here but yes, whales are a renewable resource. The tricky thing with renewable resources is, however, that they have a certain rate at which they are renewed and this rate even depends on how much we use them. So the trick is to use renewable resources sustainably. Whales were overused which was what almost drove them to extinction.

[microburst]

Answer: when extracting a barrel of oil takes as much energy as the energy that barrel gives.

[RobbieBackpacking]

Renewables are not only cleaner for the environment, they're getting more efficient every year.

[EmmaSpAce]

At a certain point, the oil used in out production will also outweigh the oil produced especially with increasingly difficult means of production.

[chickennuggetsnetwork]

Energy that blows my mind that amazing

[willshavehan]

This is only science channel I came across has really cool ideas I really appreciate my man

[TheGreatMoonFrog]

I'm trying to get funding for an engine powered by genetically altered hamsters that fart oxygen. So far...no takers.

[sety]

Oil and petroleum are also used to an extent to make most of everything that we use daily

[burt]

I'm afraid that in 2 decades it will be too late

[FoxyDrew]

7 years later the answer still seems to be not any time soon

[ananya.a]

Great video and insight into the problem. I hope we can quickly shift to more renewable and feasible sources of energy, so as to reduce the damage we are doing to the environment and ultimately to ourselves 😕