oils
so in the 70s there was enough oil for 20 years. here in the oughts there's enough for 50 years. so in 40 years there's gonna be enough for 100 years, right? everyone panic. heh. so what's different? well for one, technology has improved. for two, we've explored more. but those are minor things. the big thing is opec. the producing companies got tired of getting screwed by the american corporations backed by the us government. so they formed a union, effectively. really an oligopoly. but that's far too fancy of a word for this blog. anywho, before opec the member states were motivated to hide their reserves. keep them from being exploited. after opec, production quotas were set based on proven reserves. poof! suddenly "proven" oil reserves came gushing out of the woodwork. like sweet sweet crude from an oil well. and now we've got gobs of oil when just 40 years ago we were on the brink.