There has been continuing alarm about the imminent exhaustion of earth's non-renewable resources. Yet, the world has never run out of any significant, globally traded, non-renewable resource. Is the world finally facing a non-renewable resource depletion catastrophe, or is the current concern just another one of a succession of panics? In this book, key assumptions and underlying arguments in the global oil-depletion debate are first summarized and then challenged. Facts about oil supply, production, and consumption are made accessible using concise and simple graphics.

Concepts of resource depletion, end-use needs, technology leap-frogging, efficiency, and substitution are used to evaluate historical patterns of exploitation of non-renewable resources and to explore what history suggests about our future dependence on oil.

This book is aimed at a broad range of readers,from undergraduate students studying resource science and economics to anyone interested in understanding the context of the controversy over global oil depletion.