Impacts of energy consumption on the environment

Fossil Fuels

Not only is the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) harmful for the environment, these are also finite resources meaning that one day they will run out. Although humans probably used fossil fuels in ancient times, as far back as the Iron Age, it was the Industrial Revolution that led to their wide-scale extraction.

In the very short period of time since then – just over 200 years – we’ve consumed an incredible amount of them.

The rate at which the world consumes fossil fuels is not standing still, it is increasing as the world's population increases and as living standards rise in parts of the world that used to consume very little energy. Fossil fuels will therefore probably run out earlier.

When will oil run out?

Globally, we currently consume the equivalent of over 11 billion tonnes of oil in fossil fuels every year. Crude oil reserves are vanishing at the rate of 4 billion tonnes a year – if we carry on at this rate without any increase for our growing population or aspirations, our known oil deposits will last until 2052. There really isn’t a lot of oil left.

When will gas run out?

We’ll still have gas and coal left by the time oil runs out in 2052. But if we increase gas production to fill the energy gap left by oil, then those reserves will only give us an additional eight years, taking us to 2060.

When will coal run out?

It’s often claimed that we have enough coal to last hundreds of years. However, if we increased production to fill the gap left through depleting our oil and gas reserves, the coal deposits we know about will run out in 2088. This would also mean an enormous amount of carbon dioxide emissions from burning all that coal.

So will we run out of fossil fuels?

Does 2088 mark the point that we run out of fossil fuels? The simple answer is ‘no’. Some new reserves will probably be found which will help fossil fuels last longer, but they won’t last forever. New reserves of fossil fuels are becoming harder to find, and those that are being discovered are significantly smaller than the ones that have been found in the past.