JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
[Image source:http://www.railsandtrails.com/AutoFacts/1921p12-100-8.jpg]
There wasn't that much of a comparative draw on what was supposed to be the world's total supply of oil, assumed to fill a barrel about 3x1 miles, or 65 billion barrels. (Also I assume that they are talking about oil oil, total oil, not some derivative of crude/natural/refined petroleum products and so on.) That was supposed to be enough for 140 years at the level of consumption, about 65 billion barrels, which sounds like a lot when you drinking up 500 million/year. And it should be noted that this was for U.S. consumption only--I don't know what happened to the rest of the world on this one; probably it was a failure of gathering statistics rather than a myopic America-only viewpoint.
But that was 1921, and there is no mention of the Middle East (which wouldn't become a player for a few decades) and other oil-rich regions, and other factors too numerous to mention in this quick post, so it was very much a prediction of the moment more so than of the future. The other very problematic issue with the graph is assuming the "current rate of consumption", which would absolutely and totally miss the explosion of oil-consuming vehicles and the production of pretroleum-inclusive products. The bottom line is that in 2013 the total world production of all aspects of oil was about 32 billion barrels1, or half of what was thought to be the total world reserves of oil in 1921.
Footnotes
1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=53&aid=1
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