We will never run out of oil

There will always be oil. As oil depletes, alternative sources of fuel will become more economically viable. A switch from one fuel to another will occur before all the oil is depleted.

I define "Oil" as "Petroleum".

My opponent's R1 proves that we will never run out of energy, as alternative sources will always be either found or created, but this does not in any way prove the resolution true. He has not shown how we will never run out of oil.

Burden of proof dictates that you default CON at this point.

As quantity of oil decreases, prices increase. As prices increase, the profitablity of alternative sources of fuel increase. This means biofuels at some price point will match the price of oil.

It must be noted also that even with today's technology only 40-60% of any oil in current fields are recoverable.

He assumes that rising prices will mean that, at some point, people will just stop buying petroleum altogether. However, just because there's a cheaper alternative doesn't mean that everybody will switch over. If "cheapness" was the main principle driving everybody, then all we'd see on the road would be bicycles, and all restaurants other than McDonalds would be closed due to bankruptcy, the only clothes you'd see would be rags, and the only toys children would be playing with would be wooden horses and some pieces of chalk.

Or maybe even less than the above scenario.

But obviously that's not the case.

On top of that, there are probably some qualities of oil that are required for certain machinery to run on that biofuel cannot replace, and even if those are replaceable, there are always going to be people that want petroleum just because they feel that their car/machine/whatever can only run on petroleum, instead of some "replacement fuel". People will do that for oil for the same reason why people buy products only of a certain brand, or of a certain look - vanity.

Until he proves that for some reason rising gas prices will lead to zero demand for petroleum, or until he proves that we have an endless supply of petroleum, you default CON due to Burden of Proof.

Hrm well i'm not sure my burden is all that and such. I was sorta hoping for a peak oil guy or someone who was going to throw out a lot of links, data theory etc. like the guy that's clobbering me on the global warming bit. Buy you're being tricksome.

Ok, so I have this burden. I can catagorically say that there will always be oil because the process that made the oil that's around still occurs. Sure it's gonna take some time, but there will always be oil. So there :D

Additionally, you need to prove that somehow technology will allow us to tap the other 60% of the oil that we can't seem to get out of existing wells. That oil is just sitting there because we can't get it out of the ground. So even if technology stays the same there will again always be oil. You're burden is to prove we can.

On top of that we can make our own oil:

http://en.wikipedia.org...

"Thermal depolymerization (TDP) is a process using hydrous pyrolysis for the reduction of complex organic materials (usually waste products of various sorts, often known as biomass and plastic) into light crude oil. It mimics the natural geological processes thought to be involved in the production of fossil fuels. Under pressure and heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons with a maximum length of around 18 carbons."

But I think instead that we'll see oil increase in price, tar sands become profitable, then shale, then bio-fuels. It's a question of price. At some point (and we're there now at 140/barrel), these substitute products become profitable. You're examples above have product diferrentiation. In a competitive market place with commdodities, price 'wins'.

RE: Every debater has his/her own set of tricks.
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"You're examples above have product diferrentiation."

---"Product differentiation" is just a convenient term that my opponent uses in order to say that my example is specifying the wrong things. However, I was simply basing off of his idea that consumers look to things that are cheapest. From my point of view, "car" is synonymous to "vehicles that travel on roads", which includes everything from the Thrust SSC to my old bicycle. Your point of view may be different, and my opponent's point of view is definitely different. "Product differentiation" does not disprove my example though, as everything is inevitably different at some level. However, he gives no reason as to why his point of view is true, so you can't buy that point.

"Additionally, you need to prove that somehow technology will allow us to tap the other 60% of the oil that we can't seem to get out of existing wells. That oil is just sitting there because we can't get it out of the ground. So even if technology stays the same there will again always be oil. You're burden is to prove we can."

---I just ran out of my favorite tea. I don't really care if there's a couple million more bags of my favorite tea at the Wal-Mart three miles down-somewhere-that-a-way; I've ran out of tea!

It doesn't matter if 60% of the oil in the ground is unrecoverable. We can't get to it.

We are using petroleum at a rate much faster than it is being produced. Although he is correct in saying that the process that naturally produces petroleum takes place and that we can now make some oil for ourselves, our usage rate still heavily outweighs our and nature's production rates. It took much of Earth's history to create the amount of oil that we have been using in the last two hundred years.

There's no conceivable way that our synthetic petroleum creation can even close in on the amount of oil that we use around the world per day.

Because our consumption of oil far exceeds our production of it, we will inevitably run out of oil. The "60%" or so of oil that my opponent claims to be unrecoverable is irrelevant to us because it's unrecoverable - we can't use it, so it doesn't matter in this equation. That, and since PRO has not shown how our usage of oil will lessen,

You vote CON.