A Brief History of the Oil Shortage

Some interesting historical tidbits about oil supply in a recent ITP Business article:

- In today’s terms, adjusted for inflation, oil in America in 1860 cost $400 a barrel. Now it costs $70 or so.
- In 1910 US gasoline cost $10 a gallon. Today, it costs about $3 a gallon.
- In 1914, the US Government warned that the US had only a ten-year supply of oil remaining.
- In 1939, they again warned that the US had only thirteen-years of oil left.
- In 1951, they warned that oil would run out in the mid-sixties.
- In the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter warned that all the oil in the world would be gone by 1990.

I guess the oil crisis is something we are just going to have to learn to live with.