How we went from peak oil to too much oil thumbnail It’s not the worry we’ll run out of fossil fuels that’s the problem any more. Quite the opposite. Al Gore at Davos: “Companies are insisting on their right to use our atmosphere as an open sewer.” A third of oil reserves, half gas reserves and over 80% of coal must remain in the ground. If you remember the 20th Century, you probably remember people worrying we’d run out of fossil fuel. It’s a worry with a long and often over-hyped history. As Matt Novak neatly demonstrates , people have been wrong about running out of oil for well over a hundred years. In 1909, it was thought the oil age had 25 or 30 years longer. In 1919, it was two to five years. In 1937, the director of US naval petroleum reserves, told the Senate Naval Affairs […]