The world will run out of oil around 100 years before replacement energy sources are available, if oil use and development of new fuels continue at the current pace, a US study warns.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC-Davis) used the current share prices of oil companies and alternative energy companies to predict when replacement fuels will be ready to fill the gap left when oil runs dry.

And the study’s findings weren’t very good for the oil-hungry world.

If the world’s oil reserves were the 1.332 trillion barrels estimated in 2008 and oil consumption stood at 85.22 million barrels a day and growing yearly at 1.3 per cent, oil would be depleted by 2041, says the study published online last week by Environmental Science and Technology.

The researchers analysed the share prices of 25 oil companies quoted on US, European and Australian stock exchanges, and of 44 alternative energy companies that produce fuels such as ethanol or bio-diesel, or are developing fuel cells, batteries and propulsion systems aimed at replacing gasoline and diesel in vehicles of the future.

What they found is that the market capitalisation, or total value of all stock shares, of traditional oil companies far outstripped that of the alternative energy companies.

That indicated to them that investors believe oil is going to do well in the near future and occupy a larger share of the energy market than alternative energy, said Prof. Malyshkina.

However, on the oil supply side, consumption could well decrease in future as more energy-saving measures are introduced and used by consumers, and new oil reserves could become available as extraction techniques improve.