121–130 of 175 posts
If oil is no longer in demand it will trigger the biggest mass migration from the middle east to the west the world has ever seen. These countries import 90% of their food, food which they pay for with oil income.
Total World Consumption (2017 projection) : 96.92 million barrels per day (up from 92.58 million barrels in 2014) EIA outlook: http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.cfm Oil will be in demand for a long time. The demand might peak but headlines like this seem to indicate oil isn't needed anymore. Most people do not realize that 6-7 million barrels of oil per day must be found year over year to replenish the depletion…
Yeah, it's crazy that people think oil is going away. We're 7 billion people on our way to 9 billion, with another billion in the next 15 years. That fossil free future that we dream about isn't getting any closer. Those big solar plants, etc that we read about are a rounding error.
Have a look at Gansu Wind Farm in China. [1] They build so many wind turbines there that they had to restrict production until they've finished the corresponding amount of high-voltage cables connecting it to major cities on the coast . Many of these connections have a higher capacity than any other existing in Europe/America. [2]
The potential for wind farms in this regions are huge. It's basically a large, windy desert. With enough cables, you can easily power major cities with it. You can even use it for baseload by combining them with batteries or pump storage.
The reason that China still adds coal is largely one of politics, similar to Trump's promises in the US. Coal adds jobs close to the cities. They've already built too many plants for demand, many will probably only run for a few years (hard to find sources on that, there are no numbers so everyone is just speculating how many there are).
But there are enough resources and potential to power the world's largest energy consumer mostly by renewables. And the picture is not that different for the US, where wind power in some regions is competitive without subsidies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu_Wind_Farm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects#Asia
The recent market conditions are more a consequence of changes in supply than in demand. I heard someone refer to something called the "Economist effect", where an article in the Economist about a particular trend signals its end. Sure enough: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-said... e: word order
the "Economist effect" It's real. Someone on HN mentioned them as a contra-indicator during a previous discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12516078 My supporting argument to him was that The Economist argued in 1999 that $10 oil was too expensive and that it could be headed to $5. So of course oil rose to $140 over the next decade! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12517258
The interesting question is if it's gonna be different this time. Many argue that with shale production supply will be much more elastic, but it could also just be a false lead.
Pork cycle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle
I live in Utah and I can tell you exactly what happens when oil is no longer in demand. They offer numerous tax breaks per well to encourage exploration and increase production. I believe the term is "corporate welfare". One of the tax breaks has a stated goal of providing tax relief when oil prices are low. https://oilgas.ogm.utah.gov/pub/Publications/Lists/tax_incen... This is the same government attempting to roll…
Solar tax credits are also corporate welfare.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And plastics.
Notice how food storage boxes changed considerably in the last few years? It's because they're derived from shale byproducts that are essentially free, if not cost-negative. There's an irony in that we have an overabundance of natural gas due to shale, but oil itself is becoming far less important to the plastics industry than ever before. Related viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyfVTBI4dgA
If oil is no longer in demand it will trigger the biggest mass migration from the middle east to the west the world has ever seen. These countries import 90% of their food, food which they pay for with oil income.
Yeah, because we need more "refugees". As if the ones we already got haven't caused enough damage.
What we're debating is not the "if", it's what to do with them. The most endorsed answer thus far seems to be letting them drown in the Mediterranean Sea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil companies don't emit a whole lot of CO2. You emit the CO2 when you use your car (almost 50% of CO2 emissions are from autos). And a bunch of other industries are responsible for most of the rest of CO2 emissions.
>> Oil companies don't emit a whole lot of CO2. The Saudis certainly don't. That oil is easy to tap and, under some circumstances, be used with little refinement (shipping). But Canadian oil, shale oil, requires massive energy to extract.
If oil is no longer in demand it will trigger the biggest mass migration from the middle east to the west the world has ever seen. These countries import 90% of their food, food which they pay for with oil income.
Total World Consumption (2017 projection) : 96.92 million barrels per day (up from 92.58 million barrels in 2014) EIA outlook: http://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.cfm Oil will be in demand for a long time. The demand might peak but headlines like this seem to indicate oil isn't needed anymore. Most people do not realize that 6-7 million barrels of oil per day must be found year over year to replenish the depletion…
For a major shift we don't need to see 0 consumption. If consumption for electricity production and transportation is lowered significantly, this would lower demand enough to allow production on low-cost, traditional wells. We could have oil at A shift in production like this would have major effects. For the order in many emerging countries and the state of the economy and labour markets in developed markets. That t…
>I don't think that they forecasted the decline of coal as drastically as it happened
Coal is starting to come back in the US right now because natural gas prices are starting to rise. For the first time, as of this month, the US is a net exporter of natural gas. Natural gas production increased 70% '05-'14, which caused it to become cheaper than coal. As the US increases exports, the price will make coal more competitive. US power generation facilities often have both NG and coal based turbines allowing them to switch between the two depending on cost. Be careful forecasting the future of energy from short periods of data; the entire energy industry is cyclical going back to when my grandfather was drilling for oil in the 1920s (he went broke).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if they didn't, we might have built a sustainable society faster and invested in sustainable energy sooner. It could have been done in the 80s. I know it's scary to imagine Americans driving on smaller cars and bicycles and public transport like Europeans... but we would survive it :)
Average commute time in the us is lower than almost all of europe ( https://goo.gl/r8DJqz ) and public transport not only needs billions in investment to be built but there are very few places where it doesn't run on subsidies. So yeah you're asking americans to a) take longer to get to work b) constantly subsidise a system that will keep on losing money. Based on the political makeup of the country i'd say you can k…