Consider the following statements-
1. Natural resources such as coal, petroleum (crude oil) and natural gas take thousands of years to form naturally and cannot be replaced as fast as they are being consumed.
2. Eventually it is considered that fossil-based resources will become too costly to harvest and humanity will need to shift its reliance to other sources of energy. These resources are yet to be named.
3. An alternative hypothesis is that carbon based fuel is virtually inexhaustible in human terms, if one includes all sources of carbon-based energy such as methane hydrates on the sea floor, which are vastly greater than all other carbon based fossil fuel resources combined.
4. These sources of carbon are also considered non-renewable, although their rate of formation/replenishment on the sea floor is not known.
5. However their extraction at economically viable costs and rates has yet to be determined.
Select the correct answer using the codes given below.
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