The left chart shows the population of cars - not the total motor vehicle population,
just cars. By 2020 there will be well over 1.1 billion motor vehicles in the world! If
they all lined up and drove past you at the rate of one vehicle per second, it would take
35 years for 1.1 billion motor vehicles to drive by. And if they lined up bumper-to-bumper
for the drive-by, the line would extend 130 times around the world.
The chart on the right shows the world’s proven oil reserves. With business as
usual, demand could exceed production capacity by 2020. And beyond 2020, it’ll take
only 21 years to consume an amount of oil equal to all the oil consumed in the entire 20th
century (about 900 billion barrels).
Economic vulnerability and the transfer of wealth to the holders of the largest
supplies are very real problems. According to the latest estimates, OPEC will be supplying
at least half the world’s oil by 2020. This raises important questions about energy
security, price stability, balance of payments, and the vulnerability of our economic
system to political instability in the Middle East. So it’s not really about
running out of oil. It’s about economic stability.
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