Use of fossil fuels in humans are in high amount and I believe that it is more than 50%. The people don't know that their usage must be controlled and it is for the future generation. The fossil fuel generation take time. And tat time is not 1o or 2o years. After many years the fossil fuels are forming in the earth and if we are over exploited the fuel it will not became available for the future.
It is not so much the quantity of fossil fuels available which determines its' broad use but its' price. We ARE running out of cheap fossil fuels, the ones which are easy to find, easy to extract and easy to refine. Proof of this is fracking becoming more and more popular. Fracking is only economically viable when the global oil price is relatively high.
A switch to alternative energy sources (ie, renewable) will most likely not be forced; it will be a natural switch the moment using conventional fossil fuels becomes more expensive than using alternative fuels.
The projection was for us to run out of fossil fuel around 2050 but there are new finds in Australia and there is suspected reserves are under both Greenland and Permafrost land ice so it might sustain us til 2100 or longer.
Hopefully we will be relying on alternative power way before then
I would say we have used well over 80% of known reserves
We have probably used less than half although the world's geological society's change their estimations regularly so it is hard to know. There are a huge amount trapped in shale, oil sands, and ultra-deep water reserves, not to mention under the ice caps. The world will actually never run out of fossil fuels, they will just become so expensive as supply decreases that they will become completely uneconomical and there will be a shift to other energy sources.
It is of course completely ridiculous to state that renewable energy will never take place of fossil fuels. Although there are large supplies left, they are finite! I think nuclear is a good bridging source in the short-term weaning countries off coal, but uranium is itself finite and supplied almost completely by a very few countries in the world.
Through technological research and development renewable sources of energy will become viable. This is not likely in our lifetime, but that should not delay the development of them. There are a huge number of options available, the natural world produces an enormous amount of energy, and there is fusion...
It is important to be aware of current issues. Unfortunately, future fossil fuel availability is difficult to forecast. One approach is to monitor what the defense agencies are proposing. The source below indicates the Navy is trying to reduce the non tactical use of petroleum by 50% by 2015. Ambitious goal in a short time frame.
Incorrect, there are still a lot more reserves, some at the moment inaccessible like those in the Arctic, some to expensive at the moment, plus that is not taking fraking into account, or coal we have thousands of years coal reserves, and coal is quite easily and cheaply turned into petroleum alternatives.
Renewable energy will never take the place of fossil fuels, we don't have enough area of land for a start, our only hope is to start researching and developing safe environmentally nuclear, it can be done but so far only the Chinese are doing it.
I do not drink gasoline or motor oil.
Often people argue that we will run out of fossil fuels soon anyway so we will be forced to switch to alternative energy sources. In fact, have we used more or less than 50% of the known fossil fuel reserves on Earth?
