Hubbert's peak
February 4, 2025 3:37 AM Subscribe
How much oil remains for the world to produce? Comparing assessment methods, and separating fact from fiction, by Jean Laherrère, Charles A.S. Hall, Roger Bentley
"We show that official estimates of the remaining reserves of oil as used by many analysts are very misleading, in part due to poor reporting and methodology, and that these reserves data should not be used. We also show that the basic Hubbert logic of oil production, that of increase, then peak (or peaks) and then decline, is playing out relentlessly (if not exactly) for nearly all oil producing countries. While dismissal of Hubbert logic by economists, with faith in technology to increase oil production, has been seemingly supported by the fracking revolution of the last decade and a half, this had little impact on the longer-range inevitability of oil depletion driven by global resource limits. Analyses by others and ourselves of the patterns in the global discovery and production of oil show that the world's rate of use of oil has long been much greater than its rate of finding oil, and hence the future global production of oil at prices that are sustainable to society is inevitably downward."
"We show that official estimates of the remaining reserves of oil as used by many analysts are very misleading, in part due to poor reporting and methodology, and that these reserves data should not be used. We also show that the basic Hubbert logic of oil production, that of increase, then peak (or peaks) and then decline, is playing out relentlessly (if not exactly) for nearly all oil producing countries. While dismissal of Hubbert logic by economists, with faith in technology to increase oil production, has been seemingly supported by the fracking revolution of the last decade and a half, this had little impact on the longer-range inevitability of oil depletion driven by global resource limits. Analyses by others and ourselves of the patterns in the global discovery and production of oil show that the world's rate of use of oil has long been much greater than its rate of finding oil, and hence the future global production of oil at prices that are sustainable to society is inevitably downward."
Even the fact that the word "production" is so routinely used to refer to fossil fuel extraction is barking insanity.
posted by flabdablet at 4:03 AM on February 4 [26 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 4:03 AM on February 4 [26 favorites]
I know Nate Hagens argues that faster extraction leaves less oil recoverable long-term. I'm curious if anyone quantified this, because if a significant effect then ironically the "drill baby drill" push maybe our only real move towards leaving more oil in the ground. lol
It's not that simple obviously, given nightmare fuel like China spending $24 billion on coal-to-oil project, which I dearly hope brings an abysmal ERoEI.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:14 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
It's not that simple obviously, given nightmare fuel like China spending $24 billion on coal-to-oil project, which I dearly hope brings an abysmal ERoEI.
posted by jeffburdges at 4:14 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
Even the fact that the word "production" is so routinely used to refer to fossil fuel extraction is barking insanity.
The word development in this context is what drives me apoplectic.
I'm just done "developing" last night's dinner.
posted by ocschwar at 4:32 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]
The word development in this context is what drives me apoplectic.
I'm just done "developing" last night's dinner.
posted by ocschwar at 4:32 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]
Having a kid really changes your perspective on these numbers... My toddler will graduate from high school in 2040.
But very important to pause all development on wind production in the US and block all funding into renewables now. You know, for national security.
posted by subdee at 5:02 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
But very important to pause all development on wind production in the US and block all funding into renewables now. You know, for national security.
posted by subdee at 5:02 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Interesting. The 2024 IEA World Energy Outlook was released last October and predicts peak oil demand somewhere between 2026 and 2030.
It's important to remember that the US is the largest producer of fossil fuels in the world while China is the largest importer of fossil fuels in the world.
Meanwhile, the energy transition is in full swing: In a first, EU grid got more power from solar than coal in 2024 and in the US wind power alone is about to overtake coal for electricity generation (although admittedly, Gas is now King here)
posted by gwint at 5:33 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
It's important to remember that the US is the largest producer of fossil fuels in the world while China is the largest importer of fossil fuels in the world.
Meanwhile, the energy transition is in full swing: In a first, EU grid got more power from solar than coal in 2024 and in the US wind power alone is about to overtake coal for electricity generation (although admittedly, Gas is now King here)
posted by gwint at 5:33 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10661 (data from 2019) shows light vehicles are the dominant demand for oil so as we continue to electrify that fleet this decade and next we should be in OK shape on the supply/demand side. I expect gasoline will only be available at airports, and diesel mainly available at truck stops in 2040.
China passed 50% share of BEV/PHEV sales last year. Biden's $7500 tax credit (plus the more significant per-kWh battery subsidies also in the IRA bill) probably isn't going to survive the year thanks to the 100,000 swing voters in MI, WI, and PA, but being a happy BEV driver for 10+ years now I think we'll still be OK here regardless...
I was happy trading in my Miata for a LEAF in 2015 and had hoped I could continue renting Teslas from Hertz for longer trips (as I was doing 2022-23) but their customer service here got worse and worse so I pulled the trigger on a Model Y a year ago. I charge up (@ 4kW) direct from my rooftop solar panels most days so I no longer have a local energy footprint (other than my retail purchases and PG&E natural gas bill, which together is probably 1/10 what my ICE driving was).
posted by torokunai2 at 5:34 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
China passed 50% share of BEV/PHEV sales last year. Biden's $7500 tax credit (plus the more significant per-kWh battery subsidies also in the IRA bill) probably isn't going to survive the year thanks to the 100,000 swing voters in MI, WI, and PA, but being a happy BEV driver for 10+ years now I think we'll still be OK here regardless...
I was happy trading in my Miata for a LEAF in 2015 and had hoped I could continue renting Teslas from Hertz for longer trips (as I was doing 2022-23) but their customer service here got worse and worse so I pulled the trigger on a Model Y a year ago. I charge up (@ 4kW) direct from my rooftop solar panels most days so I no longer have a local energy footprint (other than my retail purchases and PG&E natural gas bill, which together is probably 1/10 what my ICE driving was).
posted by torokunai2 at 5:34 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
The thing about research like this that I find hard to navigate is that if you ignore the production dip due to the '79 oil crisis (which was due to political issues not a shortage of reserves) and the brief COVID dip oil production has increased for more than the last 100 years. Prices have been more volatile but much of that volatility has been due to broader political/economic factors not supply factors (it's not an accident that the peak is in the middle of the financial crisis in '08). I understand the paper's argument for why this isn't sustainable and I'm not challenging that but how are we supposed to get a population to accept those findings when we've all been reading headline after headline on "peak oil" "end of cheap oil" yet for our lived experience and the lived experience of every human now alive oil has been plentiful and cheap? Capitalism has always always found a way to find more of a resource or substitute for it.
Again I'm not arguing against the paper's conclusions but how do you convince people to believe it when every historical example is, at least superficially, a counterexample?
posted by Wretch729 at 5:43 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
Again I'm not arguing against the paper's conclusions but how do you convince people to believe it when every historical example is, at least superficially, a counterexample?
posted by Wretch729 at 5:43 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
An "energy transition" shoud be measured by removed fossil fuel capacity, not added renewables, gwint, but obviously embedded energy from fossil fuels matters too. Anyways yes Trump's coming trade war with China would hopefully push them even further away from fossil fuels.
If we burn kerosene for air travel, torokunai2, then roughly 93% of the oil turns into other products, of which 8-10% goes into plastics I guess, but what happens to the remaining 85%? It's no longer in the ground, so we'd invariably burn it somewhere, maybe not in rich nations, but somewhere.
"the global kerosene market can be segmented into type1-K and type 2-K. Type1-K is majorly used for the aviation industry as jet fuel, and this will drive the segment growth over the given forecast period."
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
If we burn kerosene for air travel, torokunai2, then roughly 93% of the oil turns into other products, of which 8-10% goes into plastics I guess, but what happens to the remaining 85%? It's no longer in the ground, so we'd invariably burn it somewhere, maybe not in rich nations, but somewhere.
"the global kerosene market can be segmented into type1-K and type 2-K. Type1-K is majorly used for the aviation industry as jet fuel, and this will drive the segment growth over the given forecast period."
posted by jeffburdges at 5:45 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
@cstross:
"China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the U.S" — APposted by gwint at 6:16 AM on February 4 [10 favorites]
This is a smart move from China's POV: govt. policy is to pivot to renewables, these tariffs *reinforce* that policy by making fossil-burning cars and electricity more expensive, encouraging domestic shift to EVs/renewables (while blaming Trump).
Economic judo throw!
We need a massive infrastructure refresh if we're going to swap to mostly EVs in the next 15 years. Not everyone owns a house with a driveway where they can install a charging port. And manufacturers need to shift away from almost exclusively treating EVs as a luxury option.
posted by thecjm at 6:29 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
posted by thecjm at 6:29 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Replacing personal ICE vehicles one-to-one with EVs, often the same size and weight, is a step sideways, not forward. We've put a 100% tariff on the smaller Chinese EVs that would have made the biggest difference. And EVs alone aren't the answer, anyway.
The refresh with the most potential is to retool our cities for a car-free life.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:54 AM on February 4 [10 favorites]
The refresh with the most potential is to retool our cities for a car-free life.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:54 AM on February 4 [10 favorites]
"China's new tariffs on U.S. crude oil, LNG, and coal effectively halt energy trade between the two nations"
It's impressive they cut off any energy supplier, but the article says China imports only 2% of its oil from the US, and almost no coal, but 4-12% of its LNG. At the end the article says:
"China is also flexing its muscle in commodities by announcing new export controls on [the metals tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium and molybdenum and their related products, which all have uses] in defence and energy transition industries."
posted by jeffburdges at 6:55 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
It's impressive they cut off any energy supplier, but the article says China imports only 2% of its oil from the US, and almost no coal, but 4-12% of its LNG. At the end the article says:
"China is also flexing its muscle in commodities by announcing new export controls on [the metals tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, indium and molybdenum and their related products, which all have uses] in defence and energy transition industries."
posted by jeffburdges at 6:55 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
I'm glad China is pivoting to newables and wind but I need these fuckers who just paused all wind development in the US, including projects already underway and fully funded, out of office yesterday.
Call it a national security issue, if it helps.
Even among Republicans, the crazy anti-environmental stuff does not have broad public support. Even the oil and gas companies are trying to diversify into renewables. It just doesn't make any sense what we're doing over here.
posted by subdee at 7:10 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
Call it a national security issue, if it helps.
Even among Republicans, the crazy anti-environmental stuff does not have broad public support. Even the oil and gas companies are trying to diversify into renewables. It just doesn't make any sense what we're doing over here.
posted by subdee at 7:10 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
In Norway, 5% of cars on the road were fully electric already by 2016, and in 2024 EVs now outnumber ICEs, and 90% of new cars sold were fully electric, but oil consumption has not significantly declined, remaining around 218,000 barrels per day.
An average car lasts 11 years in Norway, and Europe broadly, so you'd expect many ICEs were really replaced by now. I suppose car numbers and mileage were increasing in Norway explains some consumption, but it really looks like Norway burns more oil products elsewhere, which cancels out their EV gains. It's maybe some consumption within their own oil industry, like during refining?
posted by jeffburdges at 7:27 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
An average car lasts 11 years in Norway, and Europe broadly, so you'd expect many ICEs were really replaced by now. I suppose car numbers and mileage were increasing in Norway explains some consumption, but it really looks like Norway burns more oil products elsewhere, which cancels out their EV gains. It's maybe some consumption within their own oil industry, like during refining?
posted by jeffburdges at 7:27 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
If we burn kerosene for air travel, torokunai2, then roughly 93% of the oil turns into other products, of which 8-10% goes into plastics I guess, but what happens to the remaining 85%? It's no longer in the ground, so we'd invariably burn it somewhere, maybe not in rich nations, but somewhere.
We don't just extract stuff out of fossil oil; we do chemistry on it. That other 85% gets cracked and turned into more useful fuels.
Eventually you can end up with a leftover sludge with piles of sulfur and other "contaminants"; we currently use those for maritime ships, but increasing less so even today. (Even this stuff can be cracked, it just gets more expensive and more work.)
> The refresh with the most potential is to retool our cities for a car-free life.
The USA makes and imports 14 M cars/year. There are 250M cars on the road; that is 18 odd-years to roughly rotate the car stock of the USA. Now you still need to build a charging infrastructure, but it isn't that big of a deal.
There are more than 300M people in the USA. In a year, the USA starts about 1.5M housing units; say they average 3 people per housing unit. To rotate the housing stock in the USA at current build rates, that is 200-odd years.
Rotating the housing stock is required to "retool cities for car-free life" - most housing in the USA is dense enough for car-free life - but you also have to rebuild the transportation networks (build light rail, foot paths, change where commercial stuff goes, etc) on top of it.
Replacing fossil cars with EVs is a ~2 decade project, give or take. Rebuilding how every American lives is a ~2 century project.
You shouldn't stop retooling cities for a car-free life: there is plenty of evidence it works and produces a good QoL. But rehousing 100s of millions of people in such car-free cities is a harder problem than building a better mousetrap.
posted by NotAYakk at 7:38 AM on February 4 [18 favorites]
We don't just extract stuff out of fossil oil; we do chemistry on it. That other 85% gets cracked and turned into more useful fuels.
Eventually you can end up with a leftover sludge with piles of sulfur and other "contaminants"; we currently use those for maritime ships, but increasing less so even today. (Even this stuff can be cracked, it just gets more expensive and more work.)
> The refresh with the most potential is to retool our cities for a car-free life.
The USA makes and imports 14 M cars/year. There are 250M cars on the road; that is 18 odd-years to roughly rotate the car stock of the USA. Now you still need to build a charging infrastructure, but it isn't that big of a deal.
There are more than 300M people in the USA. In a year, the USA starts about 1.5M housing units; say they average 3 people per housing unit. To rotate the housing stock in the USA at current build rates, that is 200-odd years.
Rotating the housing stock is required to "retool cities for car-free life" - most housing in the USA is dense enough for car-free life - but you also have to rebuild the transportation networks (build light rail, foot paths, change where commercial stuff goes, etc) on top of it.
Replacing fossil cars with EVs is a ~2 decade project, give or take. Rebuilding how every American lives is a ~2 century project.
You shouldn't stop retooling cities for a car-free life: there is plenty of evidence it works and produces a good QoL. But rehousing 100s of millions of people in such car-free cities is a harder problem than building a better mousetrap.
posted by NotAYakk at 7:38 AM on February 4 [18 favorites]
I think Norway may be a difficult case to generalize on for oil consumption given how huge the country is geographically. Also I'm not sure that a 10% reduction should be described as "not significantly declined"-- that seems pretty significant to me (although I'll note that that the data ends in 2023, so what happened last year and this will likely give a stronger long term signal)
The further irony for Norway of course is that they are a huge oil exporter while their electricity is generated almost entirely from hydro.
posted by gwint at 7:44 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
The further irony for Norway of course is that they are a huge oil exporter while their electricity is generated almost entirely from hydro.
posted by gwint at 7:44 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
It's not a 10% decline yet. It's only just finished recovery from covid, but if the decline is 217 in 2012 to 213 in 2013 that's under 2%. If the decline is from 221 in 2013 then that's 3.6%. We'll need a few another year or two before we know what happened there probably.
It should fall obviously, unless they've started doing more lower EROI refining, but regardless the oil all gets burnned somewhere in the world.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:02 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
It should fall obviously, unless they've started doing more lower EROI refining, but regardless the oil all gets burnned somewhere in the world.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:02 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
Oh, I was measuring from peak consumption in 2018 to the latest data (2023), which is a 10% decline, but yeah, I think we're in agreement that we need to see data from last year (at the very least) to know what the real trend is.
posted by gwint at 8:06 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 8:06 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]
Wired: Abiotic Oil
I've seen talk of this, but if there was validity to this hypothesis it seems odd that there hasn't been any good evidence for it in more than a century and a half of oil production and research. The usual explanation I see is that the oil companies are covering it up, but then why would competitors of the West like China go along with that? It would be the propaganda coup of the century if Chinese scientists could conclusively demonstrate the validity of the abiotic oil theory and thus that Western oil companies have been lying about it.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:29 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
I've seen talk of this, but if there was validity to this hypothesis it seems odd that there hasn't been any good evidence for it in more than a century and a half of oil production and research. The usual explanation I see is that the oil companies are covering it up, but then why would competitors of the West like China go along with that? It would be the propaganda coup of the century if Chinese scientists could conclusively demonstrate the validity of the abiotic oil theory and thus that Western oil companies have been lying about it.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:29 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
There are 192 nations. If abiotic oil existed, there would be 192 opportunities to prove it with a test well.
posted by ocschwar at 8:49 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 8:49 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Abiotic Oil
My lab measures the chemical fossils in petroleum that have their origins in the original plant cell structures. We've done thousands of samples from every region of the world.
I have never measured a natural "crude oil" that doesn't have plant biological markers. The only samples that ever are depleted in terpenoids, hopanes and steranes are refined products that have been processed anthropogenically. The biological precursors of these markers are only found in plants, not in animals or bacteria. The fossil markers for those kingdoms are generally *not* found in petroleum.
I'm leaving a lot out here and trying to be courteous, but this theory is not well supported by evidence in the public record.
posted by bonehead at 9:06 AM on February 4 [27 favorites]
My lab measures the chemical fossils in petroleum that have their origins in the original plant cell structures. We've done thousands of samples from every region of the world.
I have never measured a natural "crude oil" that doesn't have plant biological markers. The only samples that ever are depleted in terpenoids, hopanes and steranes are refined products that have been processed anthropogenically. The biological precursors of these markers are only found in plants, not in animals or bacteria. The fossil markers for those kingdoms are generally *not* found in petroleum.
I'm leaving a lot out here and trying to be courteous, but this theory is not well supported by evidence in the public record.
posted by bonehead at 9:06 AM on February 4 [27 favorites]
That’s the polite version. The less polite version would be to call it wishful thinking pseudoscience along the lines of ”Rain follows the plow”.
posted by notoriety public at 10:03 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 10:03 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
I still feel bad for pooping on an off-the-cuff comment. But abiotic oil is as ridiculous in its own way as flat-earth stuff is (or perhaps more apropos to say the hollow earth). Down to even the evidence most of its proponents give ends up disproving it anyway.
posted by bonehead at 10:07 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 10:07 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
I know Nate Hagens argues that faster extraction leaves less oil recoverable long-term. I'm curious if anyone quantified this, because if a significant effect then ironically the "drill baby drill" push maybe our only real move towards leaving more oil in the ground. lol
He had a good episode recently with Scott Tinker (former chief geologist of Texas) which I haven't finished listening to where they get into this, Scott's view is that there is a lot more production curve in as-yet unexplored formations and the implication of that is we are not going to be saved (in terms of climate) by running out of oil.
An "energy transition" shoud be measured by removed fossil fuel capacity, not added renewables, gwint, but obviously embedded energy from fossil fuels matters too. Anyways yes Trump's coming trade war with China would hopefully push them even further away from fossil fuels.
I'm currently reading More and More and More which I can heartily endorse and the point that Fressoz makes in that book is that most previous energy transitions have been energy additions followed by only very slow (if any) reductions in use of the supposedly superseded energy sources.
For example:
We actually burn more biomass now as a species than we did in 1700, we just added a bunch of other stuff on top (this one really blew my mind)
All that coal mining in England drove a massive increase in the need for sleepers.
The biggest buyer of wooden barrels for an extended period was... an oil company, since they needed those to move the oil.
Then they move to using steel pipes, the increase in steel consumption drove an increase in the need for coal.
Whale oil displaced by kerosine? Yeah but the consumption of whale products to lubricate gearboxes actually went up.
So adding, on a global scale, wind and solar is great and important but really just an enabler for what is really needed which is the replacement rather than the supplementation of fossil energy.
Interesting. The 2024 IEA World Energy Outlook was released last October and predicts peak oil demand somewhere between 2026 and 2030.
Unfortunately the IEA has degenerated into wishful thinking rather than independent forecasting. I don't need Fatih Birol to tell me we shouldn't produce any oil, thanks, I already knew that. I would like him and his organisation to provide genuinely accurate forecasts so we can know if there is a mismatch between where we are going and where we need to go but regrettably they now just tell people what they would like to hear.
posted by atrazine at 10:59 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
He had a good episode recently with Scott Tinker (former chief geologist of Texas) which I haven't finished listening to where they get into this, Scott's view is that there is a lot more production curve in as-yet unexplored formations and the implication of that is we are not going to be saved (in terms of climate) by running out of oil.
An "energy transition" shoud be measured by removed fossil fuel capacity, not added renewables, gwint, but obviously embedded energy from fossil fuels matters too. Anyways yes Trump's coming trade war with China would hopefully push them even further away from fossil fuels.
I'm currently reading More and More and More which I can heartily endorse and the point that Fressoz makes in that book is that most previous energy transitions have been energy additions followed by only very slow (if any) reductions in use of the supposedly superseded energy sources.
For example:
We actually burn more biomass now as a species than we did in 1700, we just added a bunch of other stuff on top (this one really blew my mind)
All that coal mining in England drove a massive increase in the need for sleepers.
The biggest buyer of wooden barrels for an extended period was... an oil company, since they needed those to move the oil.
Then they move to using steel pipes, the increase in steel consumption drove an increase in the need for coal.
Whale oil displaced by kerosine? Yeah but the consumption of whale products to lubricate gearboxes actually went up.
So adding, on a global scale, wind and solar is great and important but really just an enabler for what is really needed which is the replacement rather than the supplementation of fossil energy.
Interesting. The 2024 IEA World Energy Outlook was released last October and predicts peak oil demand somewhere between 2026 and 2030.
Unfortunately the IEA has degenerated into wishful thinking rather than independent forecasting. I don't need Fatih Birol to tell me we shouldn't produce any oil, thanks, I already knew that. I would like him and his organisation to provide genuinely accurate forecasts so we can know if there is a mismatch between where we are going and where we need to go but regrettably they now just tell people what they would like to hear.
posted by atrazine at 10:59 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
The Stone Age didn’t end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.
These words have been credited to Ahmed Zaki Yamani who was the Minister of Oil for Saudi Arabia for more than twenty years.
posted by philip-random at 11:26 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
There will always be oil, there will just be less and less of it that is of sufficient quality and so it just costs more and more to extract it into something usable. There will be an inflection point where there will not be enough profit to be extracted, assuming we haven't burned the planet to the ground along the way.
The external costs are becoming harder to push onto the commons, so you have populist authoritarian governments working with kleptocrats to squeeze as much profit out of the fossil fuel economy as possible, before those costs can no longer be externalized and before all the quality crude is gone.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:05 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]
The external costs are becoming harder to push onto the commons, so you have populist authoritarian governments working with kleptocrats to squeeze as much profit out of the fossil fuel economy as possible, before those costs can no longer be externalized and before all the quality crude is gone.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:05 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]
Half a degree rise in global warming will triple area of Earth too hot for humans
posted by jeffburdges at 2:01 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 2:01 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Oil: As Coal is looked out now, 20 years from now...
The extractors aren't going to be able keep it economically feasible.
posted by Windopaene at 4:20 PM on February 4
The extractors aren't going to be able keep it economically feasible.
posted by Windopaene at 4:20 PM on February 4
Missed the window
As coal is looked at now.
Any new coal-fired power plants being built? No.
Any new coal mines opened up in your area? No.
Sure TFG can do what he can to get rid of the disincentives for these, but... Takes time to build a mine or a new power plant.
posted by Windopaene at 4:30 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
As coal is looked at now.
Any new coal-fired power plants being built? No.
Any new coal mines opened up in your area? No.
Sure TFG can do what he can to get rid of the disincentives for these, but... Takes time to build a mine or a new power plant.
posted by Windopaene at 4:30 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products [...] Economic judo throw!
It's a smart move by the Chinese government, but it's not necessarily bad for the US as a nation, or anyone else.
It might reduce some of the political opposition that basically just functionally killed the Paris Accords, in large part because it seemed to be giving China more runway to decarbonize than the US, and thus put China in even more of a competitive advantage w/r/t manufacturing and heavy industry. That was never going to fly, and it didn't.
The US lost its opportunity to lead, but it was an opportunity we never particularly seemed to want anyway. Maybe the Chinese will do better and we can follow. Either way, it's movement in the right direction—just not seemingly fast enough.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:12 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
It's a smart move by the Chinese government, but it's not necessarily bad for the US as a nation, or anyone else.
It might reduce some of the political opposition that basically just functionally killed the Paris Accords, in large part because it seemed to be giving China more runway to decarbonize than the US, and thus put China in even more of a competitive advantage w/r/t manufacturing and heavy industry. That was never going to fly, and it didn't.
The US lost its opportunity to lead, but it was an opportunity we never particularly seemed to want anyway. Maybe the Chinese will do better and we can follow. Either way, it's movement in the right direction—just not seemingly fast enough.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:12 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Actually 2023-2024 saw a major boom in coal capacity in China and India, but fewer under construction this year. At a high level, natural gas and oil power mesh better with renewables than coal or nuclear do, so maybe they overbuilt coal based upon the AI bullshit, or maybe they were not expecting a resession from Trump?
At DeepSeek, Chinese researchers demonstrated much more efficent AI training, which imho likely causes much more coal consumption eventually, ala Jevons paradox. Butlerian jihad time?
posted by jeffburdges at 11:13 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]
At DeepSeek, Chinese researchers demonstrated much more efficent AI training, which imho likely causes much more coal consumption eventually, ala Jevons paradox. Butlerian jihad time?
posted by jeffburdges at 11:13 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]
Court papers link Exxon to climate hacking ring for first time
Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point
Trump Has Paralyzed Renewables Permitting, Leaked Memo Reveals
posted by jeffburdges at 11:45 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]
Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point
Trump Has Paralyzed Renewables Permitting, Leaked Memo Reveals
posted by jeffburdges at 11:45 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]
Two maps of projected climate impacts upon the US
posted by jeffburdges at 12:32 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]
posted by jeffburdges at 12:32 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]
Fun thought: if civilization collapses, it's unlikely that we'd be able to rebuild because all of the easily extractable oil is gone, and we might be unable to sustain the industry needed to get past the oil age a second time.
(I think there's a compelling argument that we're quite close to being able to live without oil if we had to, but that we're even closer to never making it past this filter.)
posted by constraint at 2:47 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
(I think there's a compelling argument that we're quite close to being able to live without oil if we had to, but that we're even closer to never making it past this filter.)
posted by constraint at 2:47 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
We've no idea what'd occur over longer time frames, even if technologies remains accessible. It's likely the global trade prevents technological balkanization and stagation, much like it erodes workers' economic & political power, so technologies would develop much slower, sometimes stagnating upon the rise & fall of empires.
I heard Gettin' Down on the Mountain by Corb Lund on r/CollapseMusic recently:
"when the oil stops everything stops
nothing left in the fountain
nobody wants paper money son
so you just well stop counting"
posted by jeffburdges at 4:54 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
I heard Gettin' Down on the Mountain by Corb Lund on r/CollapseMusic recently:
"when the oil stops everything stops
nothing left in the fountain
nobody wants paper money son
so you just well stop counting"
posted by jeffburdges at 4:54 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
In Norway, 5% of cars on the road were fully electric already by 2016, and in 2024 EVs now outnumber ICEs, and 90% of new cars sold were fully electric
Quick update: Almost 96% of new cars registered in Norway in January were electric, an unparalled number in the world and close to the country's goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles as of this year
posted by gwint at 10:10 AM on February 6
Quick update: Almost 96% of new cars registered in Norway in January were electric, an unparalled number in the world and close to the country's goal of selling only zero-emission vehicles as of this year
posted by gwint at 10:10 AM on February 6
AI training, which imho likely causes much more coal consumption eventually, ala Jevons paradox.
In a less-shitty timeline, the crypto bubble would pop just as AI really takes off, finally putting all those water-cooled, high-density space heaters to an arguably useful purpose.
But since we live in the dumbest timeline, somehow the crypto-bros and the AI-snakeoil-salesmen will unite and create something even more stupid.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:42 PM on February 6
In a less-shitty timeline, the crypto bubble would pop just as AI really takes off, finally putting all those water-cooled, high-density space heaters to an arguably useful purpose.
But since we live in the dumbest timeline, somehow the crypto-bros and the AI-snakeoil-salesmen will unite and create something even more stupid.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:42 PM on February 6
It's probably still worth watching Al Bartlett's videos on the history of oil production. I can't remember if it's this one, but he mixes up the physics with some asides about how poorly politicians & journalists understand the big picture when they've got oil-fuelled dollar signs in their eyes.
Arithmetic, Population and Energy
posted by sneebler at 4:07 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Arithmetic, Population and Energy
posted by sneebler at 4:07 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Mod note: The URL is this comment was broken, another user suggested a link via a flag, which I swapped into the comment. If original writer of the comment wants a different URL, just mod know via the Contact Us form or flag.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:43 PM on February 7
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:43 PM on February 7
President Trump ordered EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to decide by next week whether the agency could abandon its authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act
posted by jeffburdges at 7:41 AM on February 13
posted by jeffburdges at 7:41 AM on February 13
I just listened to the Scott Tinker episode too, atrazine. It mostly winds up being the usual pro-growth and petroleum geologist positions, but..
I've long expected someone would convince me that shale could be developed all over the world, which yes Tinker argues clearly & succinctly, so now I'm curious how that overlaps this paper.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:14 PM on February 14
I've long expected someone would convince me that shale could be developed all over the world, which yes Tinker argues clearly & succinctly, so now I'm curious how that overlaps this paper.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:14 PM on February 14
Fed says 10 years from now Mortgages will not be available in some regions due to climate related disasters.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:11 AM on February 15
posted by jeffburdges at 11:11 AM on February 15
Fed says 10 years from now Mortgages will not be available in some regions due to climate related disasters.
I know we're going through kind of a lot right now in our American Political Moment, but if Trump doesn't destroy the economy, the lack of mortgages and insurance certainly will. I don't think it has sunk in with enough people, with the right decision-makers, what happens when you cannot move away because you cannot sell your house. It is such a fundamental change in the way we think about population mobility, about savings, about retirement.
posted by mittens at 1:45 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]
I know we're going through kind of a lot right now in our American Political Moment, but if Trump doesn't destroy the economy, the lack of mortgages and insurance certainly will. I don't think it has sunk in with enough people, with the right decision-makers, what happens when you cannot move away because you cannot sell your house. It is such a fundamental change in the way we think about population mobility, about savings, about retirement.
posted by mittens at 1:45 PM on February 15 [1 favorite]
Jerome Powell say this really drives home the point, including the bank part. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 5:16 PM on February 15
posted by jeffburdges at 5:16 PM on February 15
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posted by jeffburdges at 3:50 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]