We have been told over and over that oil and gas are getting more and more scarce, and that we are approaching a point where oil supplies and availability will decline no matter how hard we try to find more.

However, it looks like all the doomsday talk was complete hokum. 

From the article:

  "Start with oil. In 1971, the Limits to Growth team forecast that the world’s supply would run out 10 years from today. And yet according to renowned oil analyst Daniel Yergin, technology advances and new discoveries have allowed oil reserves worldwide to keep growing. For every barrel of oil produced in the world from 2007 to 2009, 1.6 barrels of new reserves were added. The World Energy Council reports that global proven recoverable reserves of natural gas liquids and crude oil amounted to 1.2 trillion barrels in 2010. That’s enough to last another 38 years at current usage. Add in shale oil, and that’s an additional 4.8 trillion barrels, or a century and a half’s worth of supply at present usage rates. Tar sands, including some huge Canadian deposits, add perhaps 6 trillion barrels more."

Inconvenient facts for those that lust for scarcity, and all the potential political power that goes with it.