Resource Availability
The world's oil supply is fixed because petroleum is naturally formed far too slowly to be replaced at the rate at which it is being extracted. Over many millions of years, plankton, bacteria, and other plant and animal matter become buried in sediments on the ocean floor. When conditions are right – a lack of oxygen for decomposition, and sufficient depth and temperature of burial – these organic remains are converted into petroleum compounds, while the sediment accompanying them is converted into sandstone, siltstone, and other porous sedimentary rock. When capped by impermeable rocks such as shale, salt, or igneous intrusions, they form the petroleum reservoirs which are exploited today.
Read more about this topic: Oil Crash
Famous quotes containing the words resource and/or availability:
“Your kind doesn’t just kill men. You murder their spirits, you strangle their last breath of hope and freedom, so that you, the chosen few, can rule your slaves in ease and luxury. You’re a sadist just like the others, Heiser, with no resource but violence and no feeling but fear, the kind you’re feeling now. You’re drowning, Heiser, drowning in the ocean of blood around this barren little island you call the New Order.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“Since ... six weeks ago, there has been no day in which I have not had letters and visits on the subject of my nomination for the Presidency.... I say very little. I have in no instance encouraged any one to work to that end.... I have said the whole talk about me is on the score of availability. Let availability do the work then.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)