Talk:Reserves-to-production ratio

Usage
This article should include the fact that this number is, in fact, essentially worthless. When dealing with a non-renewable resource, this number is wildly inaccurate and misleading. In reality, consumption/production grows exponentially, then begins to level out, peaking at some point when half (or more) of the resource is depleted, then falling back down in the same manner it rose. This curve is due to the fact that while demand tends to be exponential, at some point supply can't keep up due to limited resources (either it'd require too much development too quickly, there isn't enough resource, or it isn't economical to extract some resource).

In any event, demand certainly increases each year, so dividing the current demand by the total resource gives a completely meaningless number, as demand is definitely not a constant, so such division will consistently overestimate the amount of resource left - indeed, with exponential growth in demand, this number can be off by an enormous amount. Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)