世界石油短缺来临了吗?

Is there an impending world oil shortage?

我们预测至少在未来的三百年里,石油不会枯竭。在可预见的未来,中国将重构世界能源格局。

Michael J. Economides, Professor of University of Houston discusses the problem about oil supply and demand in the future. In his view, predictions of the future supply of petroleum have typically been far less veracious than those of demand. Flawed predictions have caused public bewilderment, distrust and, more importantly, government inaction or poorly conceived reactions. A constant theme, from the infancy of the industry until today, has been that the world is running out of oil. This worried governments in the 1930s and 1940s and became the focus of a giant public discourse following the energy crisis of 1973. In our book The Color Of Oil, we predicted that the world will not run out of oil for at least the next three centuries. For natural gas, which will become the fuel of choice for the world economy within as little as 15 years, the scenario is even more optimistic. Natural gas, even without taking into account the enormous volume of gas hydrates, will last for several centuries.