oil shortage (Page 7)

Usually souped-up street rods are created by teenagers. But if you’re an engineer, you can convert your Prius into a 250mpg super-miser by adding a few more batteries and plugging it in overnight. This extra energy costs less than twenty-five cents a day. And Ron Gremban lives in California, where hybrids can now use the car pool lane, even if only one person is in the car.

Gremban customized his Prius by adding 18 batteries to the trunk. It cost only about $3,000 to do the job. The Prius increases its fuel efficiency by using the small amounts of electricity created by braking and coasting. The extra batteries let Gremban store even more power by plugging the car into a wall outlet in his garage.
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Will oil prices hit $380 a barrel? A new report warns thatcrude prices, now about $50 a barrel, could rise that muchby 2015. Energy Economists Patrick Artus and Moncef Kaabi,of the French investment bank Ixis-CIB, warn that in thenext 10 years, demand for oil?especially in China?willoutstrip supply by around 8 million barrels per day. Theydon’t think the shortfall can be made up alternative energysources?and least not yet. We’ll still be relying mainly onfossil fuels in the near future. Theanalysts say that they have taken into account “every newoil discovery and potential source,” as well as possible newoil discoveries.
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The Chinese want to claim the moon for its valuableHelium-3, although the U.S. has vowed to return and plantanother American flag there first. Now Denmark wants tostake a claim to the North Pole, so they can hunt for theoil that has become more accessible due to thinning icecaused by global warming.
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As China modernizes, it uses more oil, while an unstableMiddle East means there’s less oil available. Oil wells arecurrently drilled 3 to 5 miles into the Earth’s crust. If wedig deeper, will we discover more oil?

Geophysicist Russel Hemley says, “?Experiments point to thepossibility of an inorganic source of hydrocarbons at greatdepth in the Earth?that is, hydrocarbons that come fromsimple reactions between water and rock and not just fromthe decomposition of living organisms.” Hembey holds thecontroversial theory that oil is formed naturally fromchemicals already beneath the Earth, and does notnecessarily come from decaying fossils.
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