A Finite World

While Russia is a king of the energy world today, it still will eventually run out of oil. Some are predicting that this will happen within twenty years if current production rates continue. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is the source of the accompanying chart which shows that half of today’s top producing Russian oil fields were more than 60% depleted two years ago. Thus far this year production is down .5%. Despite this, Russia is not really very active in seeking new fields. In 1990 they drilled 17,300,000 feet of new wells; in 2007 they drilled only 3,900,000 feet.

The country seems to be on an attitude of living today and ignoring tomorrow. Hmm, does that remind you of another country?