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by alquemist 2108 days ago
There is a lot of water out there.

* Total ocean volume: 1.3e18 cubic meters, 1.8e21 oil barrels equivalent [1]

* Current oil consumption: 35,442,913,090 barrels per year [2]

* Oil share of total energy consumption: 34% [3]

* Number of years of reserves at current consumption levels: 17,577,561,935 years.

Assumptions:

* Consumption levels are flat, definitely false.

* Energy cost of retrieval: 0, definitely false.

* Retrieval rate: 100%, definitely false, as the concentration dilutes over time.

[1] https://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html

[2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption