I'm deeply embarrassed that it took until now for me to find (via this excellent post) Rob West. Boy he nails the tough energy realities that most public figures in the climate arena skirt. His video chats and report summaries (I can't come close to affording the fees for the full reports~!) are great: https://thundersaidenergy.com/
For decades the world worried that it was "running out of oil".....supply-side driven "peak oil". More recently "peak oil" is associated with governmental policies to reduce demand for oil via mandates and subsidies for alternatives to petroleum.....demand-side driven peak oil..... because supply-side peak oil has not yet happened.
IMO peak oil is too complex an issue to deal with within the framework of this article.
Thanks @Brian for jumping on that and apologies for being slow myself.
Joel - I'd agree with Brian. "Peak oil" was traditionally framed as running out of supply. Fossil fuel use will peak from a demand perspective long before we run out supply. I was almost going to say we didn't move off whale oil because we ran out supply, but we damn near did...
How is this actually calculated? Are the capital costs for building a plant shown when they are expended, or are they depreciated over the life of the plant?
"The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . .
And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders – at least within the western empire – have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union."
There is no surprise here. If energy demand, population and consumer demand continue to increase exponentially while you restrict use of your cheapest cleanest fuel (natural gas), cost will rise. The easiest and fastest solution is to slow population growth and conserve energy. Conserving energy is simple. Ending long commutes in single passenger oversized vehicles is so obvious, I hesitate to mention it. Replacing short distance overland flights with high speed rail is another no brainer. Increasing heating/cooling efficiency, while reducing climate controlled space will also greatly reduce demand. All steps should be carefully evaluated for total monetary and environmental cost. Replacing high polluting fuels high sulphuric coal, animal dung, wood should be prioritized. Full cycle monetary/environmental costs and time to availability of options for replacement energy sources should be carefully and fully evaluated. Remember “First do no harm”.
I'm deeply embarrassed that it took until now for me to find (via this excellent post) Rob West. Boy he nails the tough energy realities that most public figures in the climate arena skirt. His video chats and report summaries (I can't come close to affording the fees for the full reports~!) are great: https://thundersaidenergy.com/
Rob is a gem.
Not a word about peak oil?
For decades the world worried that it was "running out of oil".....supply-side driven "peak oil". More recently "peak oil" is associated with governmental policies to reduce demand for oil via mandates and subsidies for alternatives to petroleum.....demand-side driven peak oil..... because supply-side peak oil has not yet happened.
IMO peak oil is too complex an issue to deal with within the framework of this article.
Thanks @Brian for jumping on that and apologies for being slow myself.
Joel - I'd agree with Brian. "Peak oil" was traditionally framed as running out of supply. Fossil fuel use will peak from a demand perspective long before we run out supply. I was almost going to say we didn't move off whale oil because we ran out supply, but we damn near did...
How is this actually calculated? Are the capital costs for building a plant shown when they are expended, or are they depreciated over the life of the plant?
Similar question for the financing costs.
Understanding peak oil today with Art Berman:
https://youtu.be/CDBJdQnjE2o
Why does this seem like a lost voice when full of common sense?
"The crisis now unfolding, however, is entirely different to the 1970s in one crucial respect… The 1970s crisis was largely artificial. When all is said and done, the oil shock was nothing more than the emerging OPEC cartel asserting its newfound leverage following the peak of continental US oil production. There was no shortage of oil any more than the three-day-week had been caused by coal shortages. What they did, perhaps, give us a glimpse of was what might happen in the event that our economies depleted our fossil fuel reserves before we had found a more versatile and energy-dense alternative. . . . That system has been on the life-support of quantitative easing and near zero interest rates ever since. Indeed, so perilous a state has the system been in since 2008, it was essential that the people who claim to be our leaders avoid doing anything so foolish as to lockdown the economy or launch an undeclared economic war on one of the world’s biggest commodity exporters . . .
And this is why the crisis we are beginning to experience will make the 1970s look like a golden age of peace and tranquility. . . . The sad reality though, is that our leaders – at least within the western empire – have bought into a vision of the future which cannot work without some new and yet-to-be-discovered high-density energy source (which rules out all of the so-called green technologies whose main purpose is to concentrate relatively weak and diffuse energy sources). . . . Even as we struggle to reimagine the 1970s in an attempt to understand the current situation, the only people on Earth today who can even begin to imagine the economic and social horrors that await western populations are the survivors of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, the hyperinflation in 1990s Zimbabwe, or, ironically, the Russians who survived the collapse of the Soviet Union."
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/07/01/bigger-than-you-can-imagine/
There is no surprise here. If energy demand, population and consumer demand continue to increase exponentially while you restrict use of your cheapest cleanest fuel (natural gas), cost will rise. The easiest and fastest solution is to slow population growth and conserve energy. Conserving energy is simple. Ending long commutes in single passenger oversized vehicles is so obvious, I hesitate to mention it. Replacing short distance overland flights with high speed rail is another no brainer. Increasing heating/cooling efficiency, while reducing climate controlled space will also greatly reduce demand. All steps should be carefully evaluated for total monetary and environmental cost. Replacing high polluting fuels high sulphuric coal, animal dung, wood should be prioritized. Full cycle monetary/environmental costs and time to availability of options for replacement energy sources should be carefully and fully evaluated. Remember “First do no harm”.