more like until they are no longer profitable to exploit, which of course is a function of global state. That is what underlies the fallacy of peak oil, which I was personally susceptible to. Resources don't vanish, they become incrementally more expensive to extract until the marginal benefit of doing so becomes negative.
In any reasonable discussion about economics, I would assume that "until they're gone" means "no longer profitable to exploit" as we're all aware that short of extinct species that are beyond our technological capability to recover, nothing is truly "gone" as long as there is someone capable of expending gargantuan amounts of money and tangible resources flying to another solar system (or galaxy or galactic supercluster) where those elements are still easily available. Really, then, it's a function of universal state.
Regardless, here on Earth, eventually we will either reach a point where growth in energy production is practically infinite or we will be faced with the rather herculean task of converting all of our waste back into usable material, ad inifintum, with less energy available than was put into the system to create that usable material to begin with. At that point entropy comes knocking on the door.
Peak oil is not about cash profits, it's about EROEI [1]. At some point all of the oil still in the ground will become useless because it'll take more energy to extract than you get out of it.
That stupidly assumes all energy sources are equal. Oil has an extremely high energy density that makes it useful for travel where battery isn’t even close (heavy industry, air travel, long distance trucking/travel).
There is an article on the front page about solar companies in Australia shutting down every other day because of negative energy prices. Burning 100MW for 10MW of oil makes perfect sense under these conditions.
Here’s a thought experiment for you: why do you think we have batteries given they take more energy to create than they will produce?
When the EROEI of a source of energy is less than or equal to one, that energy source becomes a net "energy sink", and can no longer be used as a source of energy, but depending on the system might be useful for energy storage (for example a battery).
If oil is made to compete against batteries then it will lose. It may have higher energy density but it’s also non-rechargeable, requires a heavy and complicated and high maintenance (compared to a very simple electric motor) internal combustion engine, and produces large amounts of greenhouse gases.
About the only thing it would still be cost effective for with a negative EROEI is aviation fuel, but even that application is facing competition from batteries [1].
Aviation fuel is facing absolutely no competition from batteries. Neither is gas for long-haul trucking, bunker fuel for container ships, etc, etc, etc.
EROEI will come and go with nary a shit given. The entire value prop of oil at this point already is it’s portability, density, and refuel time.
Electric cars are already cheaper per mile when it comes to fuel, yet tons of people don’t bother because of charging logistics.
Energy into extraction is just part of the cost like anything else. There is nothing magic or even meaningful about it. That whole theory is based on the stupid notion that energy is fungible.
I was under the impression that this is exactly what peak oil is: the end of our current levels of oil production, not (necessarily) the disappearance of the oil itself.
