Here, as usual, I agree with most of what you say. When you worry, however, about being “plunged into darkness,” you join the ranks of those who fear the way the world really works. After all, we slip into and out of darkness unfailingly every day. We will not find an alternative source of energy to fossil fuels that doesn’t continue the process of devastating the biosphere. Night falls but it’s good for sleeping. And dawn follows.
Of course the build out of renewables fails with no diesel to run heavy equipment, and agriculture fails, too. Medical supply chains, everything. Yet, we just go on pretending.
People need to understand these things, and I think it's important we communicate them because our leadership and mainstream media certainly won't, but the writing was on the wall 50 years ago. We did nothing, and the tragedy and horror around the corner is going to be unimaginable and unpredictable.
Biden has failed to galvanize the nation, let alone the world, over the realities of climate change and the end of oil. I wonder if he even grasps the situation, or if his corporatocracy advisers have him snowed? Sunak appears to simply be a self-serving weasel.
The lack of public awareness in the US is stunning, and these conditions are perfect for authoritarian rule. The corruption of the legal system is apparent as climate protestors get locked up and Trump walks free to spew vile. Keep warning and enjoy every good day. They are numbered.
Renewables are 1/4 the cost of nuclear (LCOE - Lazard). They are doubling every 4 years - TWICE the exponential growth of oil in the 20th century which doubled every decade. They are starting to race ahead of the IPCC Paris goals. EG: They wanted 615 GW solar annually by 2030 - but that could happen in the next year or so and it's still doubling. This article wonders if we're going to see 3 TERAWATTS annually by 2030! That’s 2 to 3 times the Paris goals. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-terawatt-of-solar-deployed-annually/
IEA: World FOSSIL FUEL demand will peak by 2030 and then begin to decline! That's as a whole!
China is about to open 455 GW of renewables - and their emissions could peak in the next few years! The world’s biggest industrial factory - peaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_PeNzz-Lw
As we “Electrify Everything” in transport and mining and smelting and industrial heat, everything will be so much more efficient they get the SAME WORK DONE with 60% LESS energy. Burning stuff like cave-men is just that inefficient. A modern all-electric civilisation will run on 40% of today’s energy! https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency
People are going to be shocked as global demand for oil peaks in a few years - then all fossil fuels peak in 2030 and start their gradual and accelerating decline. That's not far away. I'm quite surprised to be uttering the next sentence - but the market has tasted super-cheap renewables - and IT LIKES IT!
As much as people want to believe that those "so-called" renewables will save the planet, you are seriously missing any credible evidence. All renewables require massive amounts of ff to extract and process. The depletion of that main resource means renewable production will slam into a brick wall
I have to again caution that from a climate perspective I find this misleading and dangerous; even if oil is net energy negative, that will not stop it from being sold and burned, because the oil companies are not buying the energy for cash. Even if they have to spend 3/4 a barrel extracting and refining 1/4 barrel, they'll still make money on that 1/4 barrel that they bring to market. More so if there's a cultural narrative of scarcity that supports high prices. They won't all just stop selling oil.
The limiting factor on our oil use should be a "carbon budget" whereby we take drastic measures to stop burning it even if it is still available, rather than waiting for an ever-elusive point when it becomes too expensive and rare. Remember that scarcity raises prices, high prices give more money to oil companies, and they use that to further consolidate their power.
Choosing low-density energy is energy insanity. Choosing to rely on wind is like deciding to rely on sailing ships instead of non-weather dependent powered ships. Nuclear is the future, and we should be focusing on its build out and stick with reliable base load energy and transition to nuclear over time. We can’t live without oil… to believe so disregards the fact that almost everything we use on a daily basis comes from petroleum. Literally tens of thousands of things every day. We are watching the de-industrialization of Germany at an alarming rate… if you desire to have world economies follow suit and collapse also, then unreliable “renewables” are a good choice. Green energy is a bigger fraud than Covid by a large factor.
There can be little doubt that if our era is objectively chronicled, it will be marked by escalating, corrupt opportunism – destructive, exploitative practices being rewarded rather than punished. As the injustices of abusing the common good repeatedly go uncorrected, victims grow cynically disengaged while grifters are emboldened and empowered. When justice is flagrantly denied through politically sanctioned exploitation, oppression undermines democracy and our future is in dire jeopardy
Thanks Rachel for this piece. What I like most of all is your call for using remaining reserves for building a new generation of infrastructure. I wanna add to this by saying that (because of my background in chemistry) my thoughts have changed about plastics. My new hypothesis (untested) is that they are energy intensive, but not by mass of material produced because they're so light. So, it may be worth extracting oil BUT NOT BURNING IT. We desperately need long-lived plastics in so many basic products (both low and high tech). Chemists are working on creating plant-based plastics but that's likely a ways off. I think the approach of reserving oil for materials production will be a carrot for oil companies here. Bottom line... use oil as the feedstock that it is for things we will need during the transition. That's what I like about Rachel's apporach. This is not about preserving greenwashed industrial life or a technologized fantasy solution. Rather, this is about charting a path for transition over 175 years, or 7 generations.
What does Alister Hamilton have to say about North Sea CO2 storage for CCS and BECCS? What does he have to say about the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative plans? 'Securing a green recovery on a path to net zero: climate change plan 2018–2032 - update' - "3.8.4 As this list shows, CCS is an essential part of any NETs project. Our strategy for delivering NETs will be built around our support for a flexible and adaptable CCS system in Scotland, capable of transporting carbon from industrial or electricity generation sites in Scotland to storage in the North Sea." https://www.gov.scot/publications/securing-green-recovery-path-net-zero-update-climate-change-plan-20182032/pages/14/
Hello Rachel: thanks for your great work! I’ve been working in the utility/regulatory world for almost 20 years, I started out fighting “clean” coal and CCS (carbon sequestration). Nate Hagens doesn’t understand renewables, he’s a great guy, but he doesn’t get it AT ALL. If you want to understand what’s going on, I recommend folks like David Pomerantz at Energy and Policy, Matt Kasper at the same place; Sarah Baldwin at Energy Innovation; Tyson Slocum at Public Citizen; I’m working with Third Act, happy to chat; folks at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Dave Rosenthal at Solar Rights Alliance. WE HAVE THE TOOLS, the TECHNOLOGY. What we DON”T have are honest utilities or honest regulators. What we need is the usual: transparency, due process, actual competition, money out of regulatory policies/elections/appointments.
Here, as usual, I agree with most of what you say. When you worry, however, about being “plunged into darkness,” you join the ranks of those who fear the way the world really works. After all, we slip into and out of darkness unfailingly every day. We will not find an alternative source of energy to fossil fuels that doesn’t continue the process of devastating the biosphere. Night falls but it’s good for sleeping. And dawn follows.
Art Berman shows that so-called "renewables" are *not* displacing fossil fuel.
Rather, our energy use is increasing at the rate of growth of renewables, even as fossil fuel production flattens.
This is not the way it is supposed to work. Living in a fool's paradise…
The fracking boom in the US Permian is just about gassed, too. I touched on that here.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-vanishing-and-reappearance-of
Of course the build out of renewables fails with no diesel to run heavy equipment, and agriculture fails, too. Medical supply chains, everything. Yet, we just go on pretending.
People need to understand these things, and I think it's important we communicate them because our leadership and mainstream media certainly won't, but the writing was on the wall 50 years ago. We did nothing, and the tragedy and horror around the corner is going to be unimaginable and unpredictable.
Biden has failed to galvanize the nation, let alone the world, over the realities of climate change and the end of oil. I wonder if he even grasps the situation, or if his corporatocracy advisers have him snowed? Sunak appears to simply be a self-serving weasel.
The lack of public awareness in the US is stunning, and these conditions are perfect for authoritarian rule. The corruption of the legal system is apparent as climate protestors get locked up and Trump walks free to spew vile. Keep warning and enjoy every good day. They are numbered.
OIL DEMAND TO PEAK: The IEA tracks EV sales over the last few years: 2020: 5% 2021: 9% 2022: 14%
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/executive-summary
OIL GLUT BY 2028! https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028
Renewables are 1/4 the cost of nuclear (LCOE - Lazard). They are doubling every 4 years - TWICE the exponential growth of oil in the 20th century which doubled every decade. They are starting to race ahead of the IPCC Paris goals. EG: They wanted 615 GW solar annually by 2030 - but that could happen in the next year or so and it's still doubling. This article wonders if we're going to see 3 TERAWATTS annually by 2030! That’s 2 to 3 times the Paris goals. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/12/25/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-one-terawatt-of-solar-deployed-annually/
IEA: World FOSSIL FUEL demand will peak by 2030 and then begin to decline! That's as a whole!
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/iea-energy-peak-fossil-fuel-demand-by-2030
China is about to open 455 GW of renewables - and their emissions could peak in the next few years! The world’s biggest industrial factory - peaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_PeNzz-Lw
Professor Andrew Blakers (who won the Queen Elizabeth Prize - like a Nobel prize for engineers) says net zero will be reached well BEFORE 2050! https://theconversation.com/theres-a-huge-surge-in-solar-production-under-way-and-australia-could-show-the-world-how-to-use-it-190241
As we “Electrify Everything” in transport and mining and smelting and industrial heat, everything will be so much more efficient they get the SAME WORK DONE with 60% LESS energy. Burning stuff like cave-men is just that inefficient. A modern all-electric civilisation will run on 40% of today’s energy! https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency
Australia’s electricity grid will probably be 82% clean by 2030.https://theconversation.com/how-could-australia-actually-get-to-net-zero-heres-how-217778
Australian industrial giants worth a THIRD of our stock-market figured out it’s cheaper to Electrify Everything and run it on renewables. They’re going to build 3 TIMES our 2020 electricity grid capacity in renewables to Electrify their industrial heating with Rondo heat-bricks and electric mining trucks etc. Page 45 here. https://energytransitionsinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Pathways-to-Industrial-Decarbonisation-report-Updated-August-2023-Australian-Industry-ETI.pdf
People are going to be shocked as global demand for oil peaks in a few years - then all fossil fuels peak in 2030 and start their gradual and accelerating decline. That's not far away. I'm quite surprised to be uttering the next sentence - but the market has tasted super-cheap renewables - and IT LIKES IT!
Thanks for post. Have you ever come accross Tim Morton's Energy Cost of Energy and the Surplus Energy Economics? That seems to be very relevant in this context, even more so than EROEI. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/139-the-surplus-energy-economy/
Rachael great interview, i can't find Alister's thermodynamic model or publications anywhere, do you have any links you could share?
As much as people want to believe that those "so-called" renewables will save the planet, you are seriously missing any credible evidence. All renewables require massive amounts of ff to extract and process. The depletion of that main resource means renewable production will slam into a brick wall
I have to again caution that from a climate perspective I find this misleading and dangerous; even if oil is net energy negative, that will not stop it from being sold and burned, because the oil companies are not buying the energy for cash. Even if they have to spend 3/4 a barrel extracting and refining 1/4 barrel, they'll still make money on that 1/4 barrel that they bring to market. More so if there's a cultural narrative of scarcity that supports high prices. They won't all just stop selling oil.
The limiting factor on our oil use should be a "carbon budget" whereby we take drastic measures to stop burning it even if it is still available, rather than waiting for an ever-elusive point when it becomes too expensive and rare. Remember that scarcity raises prices, high prices give more money to oil companies, and they use that to further consolidate their power.
Choosing low-density energy is energy insanity. Choosing to rely on wind is like deciding to rely on sailing ships instead of non-weather dependent powered ships. Nuclear is the future, and we should be focusing on its build out and stick with reliable base load energy and transition to nuclear over time. We can’t live without oil… to believe so disregards the fact that almost everything we use on a daily basis comes from petroleum. Literally tens of thousands of things every day. We are watching the de-industrialization of Germany at an alarming rate… if you desire to have world economies follow suit and collapse also, then unreliable “renewables” are a good choice. Green energy is a bigger fraud than Covid by a large factor.
There can be little doubt that if our era is objectively chronicled, it will be marked by escalating, corrupt opportunism – destructive, exploitative practices being rewarded rather than punished. As the injustices of abusing the common good repeatedly go uncorrected, victims grow cynically disengaged while grifters are emboldened and empowered. When justice is flagrantly denied through politically sanctioned exploitation, oppression undermines democracy and our future is in dire jeopardy
David Kyler
Center for a Sustainable Coast
Saint Simons Island, Georgia
912.689.4471
this EROI review is excellent! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361258862_Energy_Return_on_Investment_of_Major_Energy_Carriers_Review_and_Harmonization
true
Thanks Rachel for this piece. What I like most of all is your call for using remaining reserves for building a new generation of infrastructure. I wanna add to this by saying that (because of my background in chemistry) my thoughts have changed about plastics. My new hypothesis (untested) is that they are energy intensive, but not by mass of material produced because they're so light. So, it may be worth extracting oil BUT NOT BURNING IT. We desperately need long-lived plastics in so many basic products (both low and high tech). Chemists are working on creating plant-based plastics but that's likely a ways off. I think the approach of reserving oil for materials production will be a carrot for oil companies here. Bottom line... use oil as the feedstock that it is for things we will need during the transition. That's what I like about Rachel's apporach. This is not about preserving greenwashed industrial life or a technologized fantasy solution. Rather, this is about charting a path for transition over 175 years, or 7 generations.
What does Alister Hamilton have to say about North Sea CO2 storage for CCS and BECCS? What does he have to say about the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative plans? 'Securing a green recovery on a path to net zero: climate change plan 2018–2032 - update' - "3.8.4 As this list shows, CCS is an essential part of any NETs project. Our strategy for delivering NETs will be built around our support for a flexible and adaptable CCS system in Scotland, capable of transporting carbon from industrial or electricity generation sites in Scotland to storage in the North Sea." https://www.gov.scot/publications/securing-green-recovery-path-net-zero-update-climate-change-plan-20182032/pages/14/
Hello Rachel: thanks for your great work! I’ve been working in the utility/regulatory world for almost 20 years, I started out fighting “clean” coal and CCS (carbon sequestration). Nate Hagens doesn’t understand renewables, he’s a great guy, but he doesn’t get it AT ALL. If you want to understand what’s going on, I recommend folks like David Pomerantz at Energy and Policy, Matt Kasper at the same place; Sarah Baldwin at Energy Innovation; Tyson Slocum at Public Citizen; I’m working with Third Act, happy to chat; folks at the Union of Concerned Scientists; Dave Rosenthal at Solar Rights Alliance. WE HAVE THE TOOLS, the TECHNOLOGY. What we DON”T have are honest utilities or honest regulators. What we need is the usual: transparency, due process, actual competition, money out of regulatory policies/elections/appointments.
I wasn’t trying to say Covid as a disease is a fraud, but the government narrative was a fraud and the economic destruction was unnecessary.