The world has an addiction to oil.
From the cars we drive, to the detergents we wash our clothes with, to the fertilizer
that helps grow our food supply, products produced with refined crude oil make our modern
lives convenient and comfortable.
We’ve previously discussed what will happen long term if the world ran out of oil, but
let’s take it a step further and see what would happen if the world suddenly ran out
of oil...tomorrow.
Would society immediately grind to a halt?
How would your life change?
Could you adapt to a world without oil?
Of course, citizens in different countries would be affected differently.
Even within the same country, the effects on residents would vary greatly based on current
lifestyle and if they live in an urban or rural environment.
So your personal experience will definitely vary.
For the purpose of this exercise, let’s discuss the changes that would occur in the
US, a first world country, if all the crude oil on earth simply vanished.
We’ll include the US Department of Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the disappearance
too.
However, any oil that is at refineries or refined petroleum products already on the
market still exist.
On average from a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, US refineries are able to produce about
45 gallons of petroleum products due to processing gains.
This includes roughly 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline, 11 to 12 gallons of distillate fuel
- most of which is sold as diesel fuel - and 4 gallons of jet fuel.
Around 6 gallons of heating oil and liquid petroleum products used by the petrochemical
industry to produce a variety of items are also produced.
In January of 2018 there were 135 operable petroleum refineries in the US.
Generally, US refineries run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, though at any given time
a facility may temporarily shutdown or run at limited capacity due to weather events,
delayed oil supply, inventory or production issues.
Production capacity ranges widely mainly based on the age and size of the facility.
The US refines around 7 billion barrels of oil every year, ending up with 280 billion
gallons of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other products.
In 2017, the United States consumed a total of 7.28 billion barrels of petroleum products,
an average of about 19.96 million barrels per day.
Most refineries would process their existing oil supply and shut down within a few days.
As refineries shut down and gas station inventories dwindle, the over 1 million people who are
employed at these places would suddenly be out of work.
In 2015 the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries in the U.S. employed some 1.39 million people.
That doesn’t take into consideration all the surrounding industries that cater to people
in the oil industry, and service jobs in oil industry regions of the US would also immediately
be affected.
Once refineries went offline, the pain would instantly be felt at the pump.
In August of 2017, when Tropical Storm Harvey damaged refineries on the gulf coast, taking
about 40% or about 3.9 million barrels of refining capacity offline, gasoline futures
prices surged to a two-year high.
That translated to a jump in prices at the pump of 15 cents per gallon, with increases
up to 30 cents in some Gulf Coast areas.
You can’t assume that the petroleum companies would play fair either.
They already do shady things such as fund wars overseas in places like South Sudan to
rid oil rich fields of pesky villagers.
So who’s to say that gas companies wouldn’t participate in widespread price fixing?
While the US government would likely do what it could during this emergency to quash gouging,
many scared citizens would readily pay the high prices.
Most likely the extremely wealthy and powerful people at the top of the petroleum industries
would begin making secret moves to consolidate power and funds, because they’d know about
the disappearance of the oil before you would.
Many billionaires have bought mansions overseas in places like New Zealand, making sure to
fortify their estates as a part of their emergency plans.They would now tap into personal aviation
fuel reserves and flee the country.
The next level of wealthy people would have to stay though, because although they're rich
enough to have created strongholds in America, they can’t just vanish overseas.
However their estates are well prepared for disastrous events and would have security
staff on site to deal with issues.
The vast, vast majority of people in America though, the common folk, are on their own.
International shipping would grind to a halt almost immediately.
No more international commerce, with manufactured goods or food from overseas.
On a national and local level, limited gas would mean that stock has trouble getting
to shelves.
Once you personally hear the news, you immediately go to your local gas station.
The lines are long, people are worried, tempers flare.
Even though you have to wait a long time and get gouged on the price, you're luckily able
to fill your car's tank before the pumps runs out.
Your next stop is the grocery store.
Even though you'd love to hit up a camping equipment or military supply store, they are
across town and you can’t risk the fuel.
You settle for the local supermarket.
Even though it frustrates other drivers, you drive to there slowly and carefully.
Speeding uses more gas after all.
There are a lot of people on the road, many of them seem to be heading out of the city.
You think about leaving too, but you don’t want to waste gas by getting caught in a traffic
jam.
You decide that you’ll consider going out of town after seeing how the next few days
go.
You snatch up shelf stable food supplies like jerky, canned food, powdered milk and bottled
water.
You look around for vegetable seeds, but can't find any in your urban market.
So you get dried beans and potatoes instead since you can grow plants from them.
You also stock up on soap and hand sanitizer, aside from preventing infection, both contain
petrochemicals, and sooner or later supplies will run short.
You also get bandages, medicines, disposable gloves and other medical items, many are made
of plastic or latex, vinyl, and nitrile – all petrochemicals.You’re not sure where these
items will come from in the future.
Store staff is trying to prevent people from blatantly stealing, tensions are rising.
At home, you carefully put away your supplies and secure your apartment, checking your windows
and doors.
It might get ugly out there and you don’t want to make it easy for looters.
You make sure your kitchen knives are handy.
Tomorrow, you’ll try to figure out where to get a gun.
Your boss calls and tells you not to come in tomorrow, not that you were planning on
going to work anyway.
He’s clearly trying to keep calm and promises the office will reopen in a few days after
everything returns to normal.
Since the power grid is mainly powered by coal and natural gas you have energy.
Only 1 percent of power plants in the US burn oil.
However, in a week or two the grid will start to power down as the energy companies run
out of gas for the trucks that transport the coal and natural gas to the power plants,
and soon cities will begin experiencing blackouts.
On the internet, people are freaking out, conspiracy theories and rhetoric fly.
Many are blaming foregin powers and calling for war.
Others think the disappearance of the world’s oil is a punishment from God, and what the
pundits on TV are saying isn’t much better.
International travel comes to a stand still.
There is massive economic, political, and social upheaval happening worldwide.
Riots are beginning to happen in America too.
Capitalism is breaking down, even if the oil suddenly reappeared, the US would still dip
into recession.
The government declares martial law, limiting citizen movement, especially at night, imposing
strict curfews.
In the wee hours of the morning, you hear a ruckus.
Your neighbor caught thieves siphoning gas from cars parked on the street.
A mob forms, but the thieves are able to get away when they pull guns on the crowd.
You check your car and your gas is gone.
Looks like you’re staying put for now.
Over the next few days you work with some of your neighbors to pool resources and make
plans.
You hunker down and protect each other.
You’re extremely careful when you go outside, looters and people intend upon mischief are
roaming the streets.
While there is a military and police presence, the authorities only show up when the emergency
is really urgent, the government is conserving gas whenever possible too.
Rioters set fires, further using up local resources.
Some areas of the US are simply left burning and the citizens there are on their own, since
there’s now such limited gas for fire trucks.
Even when firetrucks are available, cars with empty gas tanks have been abandoned and are
blocking the roads.
You’re beginning to see more and more groups of pedestrians simply walking.
Most aren’t sure where they are going, but as they’ve run low on supplies, they’ve
become migrants searching for resources and shelter.
Some groups in the US who don’t rely on modern conveniences such as the Amish are
doing better than most, as long as they can protect their communities from outsiders.
Doomsday preppers and people who live off the grid are also faring well for the moment.
Many of the sick and or elderly who rely on modern medicine to be kept alive are starting
to die.
Doctors watch helplessly as patients perish because they’ve run out of the proper equipment
or medicine to treat them.
In many cases, the injured and sick can't get to the hospital in the first place since
the ambulances too are out of gas.
A black market has sprung up for required medications like insulin, but with no new
supplies coming in most areas quickly run out.
To prevent diseases, corpses are quickly picked up by the government and buried in mass graves.
Worldwide in the first few weeks after the oil disappears, millions die, mainly from
violence and famine.
In the US, eventually the government is able to tamp down on anarchy.
However, there are several fringe groups, religious or otherwise that are growing in
popularity and will have to be monitored for years to come.
The government has dipped into its emergency food supplies to help hungry citizens.
Using gas reserves and electric vehicles, the government slowly begins to clear streets
of the abandoned gas powered cars.
As quickly as possible, the government converts vehicles to be natural gas, ethanol or methanol
powered.
Radio would be the main news and entertainment source, as it uses less energy than TV or
the internet People also rely on books for information.
Many libraries were looted and maybe even burned, but people barter and lend books and
other items.
Over the next few months, your little community plants a garden and figures out work arounds
for various previously gas powered tasks.
You know that food shortages will be a problem for a long time to come.
Farm yields will drop due to the lack of petroleum based commercial fertilizer and pesticides.
Besides, there’s no fuel to run equipment, making modern agriculture very difficult.
The government puts people to work mainly harvesting by hand and horsepower.
Many citizens who have survived past the month of the catastrophe in good health have slimmed
down from the scarce food supply and have excellent stamina.
Wasting of energy is now prohibited and martial law restrictions continue to help maintain
order.
Recycling is utterly mandatory and citizens must give up plastics and other items requisitioned
by the state.
Neighbors tattle on people perceived as hoarding government requested items.
The first winter after the disappearance of oil would be brutal for much of the US, there
would be another round of starvation and death, especially in colder regions.
Sun rich areas of the world such as the southwest US and Mexico would become vital for energy
production.
The government would spend resources to rapidly build solar farms for power.
Over time the world would rebuild, maybe in about 30 or so years, it may be possible for
society to return to where it was when the world’s oil vanished, albeit with a smaller
population.
Humanity lives behind a thin veneer of civility.
If a catastrophic event happens, it wouldn’t take much for society to break down.
Does your household have a safety plan incase of any kind of emergency?
It’s best to periodically go over your safety plan and check your supplies.
If you don’t have a safety plan, it’s a good idea to talk with the members of your
household and create one.
Let us know your best emergency preparedness tips in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video This Is What Will Happen When The World Runs
Out Of Oil!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!”