Back in the 1970's there was an oil shock when Arabs decided to show us how much power they had by restricting the oil supply. The company I worked for had us do a study to see if we should get into "renewable enegry." The result of the study was summarized as a case of Good News/ Bad News. The good news is that there is plenty of energy. The bad news is, it is expensive. I think that is still the situation. I have read that there are about 2 trillion barrels of oil available with current technology. That is enough to last the world about 100 years at current rates of consumption. But if sources such as oil sands and shale oil are considered there is much more.

Then there is coal. It is possible to convert coal into liquid fuel using existing technology. The Germans did it during World War II. A ton of coal can be converted into about four barrels of oil. The total estimated coal reserve in the US is about four trillion tons. If half of that were converted to oil, that would be about eight trillion barrels of oil. The US uses about 20 million barrels of oil per day, so would represent about a 1000-year supply at current consumption rates. Environmentists won't like hearing this news. It is said that the coal-to-oil conversion is clean, but older people probably remember when the St. Louis Cardinals' nickname was the "Gashouse Gang." This was because the Cardinals had little power, but won because they were all-out players who got their uniforms dirty by sliding into bases and diving after hit balls. The dirty suits reminded people of how the workers in the gashouse looked. Back in the early 20th century there was not much natural gas, and gas to heat homes was piped from a "gashouse" where coal was turned into methane.