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Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

nytimes.com

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Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#41

Post by rayiner »

jdjdjjsjs wrote: post #5
nabla9 wrote: post #2

This is incredibly good news for the developing world in the short- and medium term, but really bad news for the long term. Cheap energy boosts economic growth and well-being. Oil finds its comparative advantage relative to cheap solar. Globally liquid fuel production and consumption just goes up year after year https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/images/Fig6.png Reduced use of hydrocarbons in the west is nice but it's…

The idea that the developing world will benefit from cheap oil is ridiculous. The developing world is the one suffering from the impacts of global warming. Several countries in Africa are suffering from wars worsened by climate change driven migrations. Countries like India have a mix of cities running out of water, cities flooded by water and cities drowning in pollution which is almost certainly gonna erase years o…

There is no scientific basis for this statement. IPCC estimates of impact on global GDP are about 5% under a “do nothing” scenario by 2100. Countries like India will likely be better off charging full speed ahead with economic development, even in light of the problems caused by climate change.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#42

Post by corodra »

I have a hard time taking this article too seriously.

>not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years.

Canada ranks 5 in oil exports, Norway 13, Brazil 21. Sure, Guyana belongs in that sentence. But... uh, okay? Rank 5 is "not usual"?

Next part, wtf do you expect? Oil companies are going to bull rush to increase their cash supply in the coming years due to gas car bans coming in the next decades along with the push for renewable energy. Did people actually think these multi billion dollar companies are going to just say, "Oh well, we had a good run. We should take ourselves out to pasture now"?

>Years of moderate gasoline prices have already increased the popularity of bigger cars and sports utility vehicles in the United States

I'm pretty sure that "demand" is a drop in the bucket to the past decade of Chinese demand that's been increasing.

Fun point I really, really like: "The added production in Norway comes despite the country’s embrace of the 2016 Paris climate agreement, which committed nations to cut greenhouse-gas emissions."

Hmmm, so Norway taxes the shit out of oil(which they should, don't pretend I'm for oil). What does that mean? Oh, let's see, 2018 oil tax rev was NOK 155 billion (17b USD), 2019 is estimated NOK 176 billion (19b USD). I have a truly difficult time believing that the government will go, "No, we don't want that money! Away with thee!" Especially in a country of 5.3million. That splits to services among their citizens pretty well. Enough that if oil disappeared, there are public services that are going to get cut back pretty badly.

Uh huh. At a 1.2 trillion NOK operating budget (131b USD), it'll hurt to lose, what is that... oil taxes makes 12% of the gov's income? I'm trying to figure out when the memo came out where we all started to believe political rhetoric.

Don't think for a second I'm "for oil". But I'm a realist. A lot more needs to happen to end oil's stranglehold. Not drum circles, UN circle jerks climate summits with teenagers crying nor bullshit "plant trees" PR stunts(past tree planting stunts have real piss poor success rates of the trees surviving after a year. Single digit percentages. And no one tries to learn from the past ones.)

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#43

Post by selectodude »

LatteLazy wrote: post #35

Opec is a price fixing association of the most of the world's worst countries. From funding terror to obscene inequality to political and religious oppression. But if it weren't for them, we'd be in a much worse position on climate change...

OPEC hasn’t had the power to fix prices in probably a decade now. Saudi Arabia barely complies and there’s way too much oil coming out of North America for them to do a whole lot.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#44

Post by Merrill »

simonh wrote: post #24
bluedevil2k wrote: post #8

I think it's naive to think that humans will leave any oil in the ground despite climate change and any changes we enact to counteract it. We should work from an assumption that all the oil in the ground is going to be dug up and burned. It's too much money for some of these countries to ignore - the article mentions Guyana, a poor country that now has a way to print money. It also mentiones Venezuela, the country wi…

Falling oil prices were inevitable anyway. As renewable become more competitive and the shift towards electric vehicles continues demand for oil will fall back. Increased supply, or reduced demand, the effect on prices is the same. Of course the problem is that as prices fall, the range of economically viable uses increase, but I doubt this will be too much of an issue. Petrochemicals are already incredibly cheap com…

A plastic bag is about 5.5 grams. 10 bags of groceries would be 55 grams.

A gallon (US) of gas is about 3350 grams. So if you drive 5 miles round trip in a car getting 20 miles/gallon for local driving, it uses 837 grams of gas. The oil in the bags is about 6% of the oil used on such a shopping trip.

Of course that doesn't include the plastic packaging of food, soft drinks, bottled water, etc. which is probably more comparable to the amount of oil used by the car.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#45

Post by gdubs »

thedevindevops wrote: post #17
bluedevil2k wrote: post #8

I think it's naive to think that humans will leave any oil in the ground despite climate change and any changes we enact to counteract it. We should work from an assumption that all the oil in the ground is going to be dug up and burned. It's too much money for some of these countries to ignore - the article mentions Guyana, a poor country that now has a way to print money. It also mentiones Venezuela, the country wi…

Well, it need not be burned, it can be converted to a series of products that don't involve burning it, plastics of many types, rubber, I'm sure even pharmaceuticals.

The problem is you can’t make any of those products without refining oil — and that is one of the biggest sources of emissions on the planet.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#46

Post by mdorazio »

corodra wrote: post #42

I have a hard time taking this article too seriously. >not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years. Canada ranks 5 in oil exports, Norway 13, Brazil 21. Sure, Guyana belongs in that sentence. But... uh, okay? Rank 5 is "not usual"? Next part, wtf do you expect? Oil companies are go…

I’m in general agreement with you. If governments actually cared about ending ending oil dominance they would continually increase taxes on it to financially force consumers and industry to pursue alternatives. And then use all of those tax revenues to fund renewables, public transit, and climate repair technologies. Outside of a few countries this isn’t even close to what happens in reality. Everyone will continue to squeeze as many dollars as they can out of oil drilling until demand drops to the point where it’s no longer profitable, some number of decades in the future.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#47

Post by andersns »

corodra wrote: post #42

I have a hard time taking this article too seriously. >not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years. Canada ranks 5 in oil exports, Norway 13, Brazil 21. Sure, Guyana belongs in that sentence. But... uh, okay? Rank 5 is "not usual"? Next part, wtf do you expect? Oil companies are go…

Norway puts their oil revenue into a fund, and puts the surplus of this fund into their yearly budget (the rule is to use less than 3% of the current value of the fund). This amounts to about 20% of the budget I believe.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#48

Post by eloff »

corodra wrote: post #42

I have a hard time taking this article too seriously. >not coming from the usual producers, but from Brazil, Canada, Norway and Guyana — countries that are either not known for oil or whose production has been lackluster in recent years. Canada ranks 5 in oil exports, Norway 13, Brazil 21. Sure, Guyana belongs in that sentence. But... uh, okay? Rank 5 is "not usual"? Next part, wtf do you expect? Oil companies are go…

Also contributing probably is the rising risk that if you don't pump that oil as fast as possible and sell it now, you might never be able to sell it. This is weighing on the Saudi Aramco IPO. Although probably not as much as the general opaque and untrustworthy reports from the Saudis as to how much oil they have left.

We used to worry about peak oil, where a supply crunch would cause the price to skyrocket. Now it's clear it will end in a whimper with demand just trailing off until only the very cheapest producers are still in the market. Too bad Canada, Brazil.

It's a good thing to be clear, and can't happen fast enough.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#49

Post by WhompingWindows »

Merrill wrote: post #44
simonh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falling oil prices were inevitable anyway. As renewable become more competitive and the shift towards electric vehicles continues demand for oil will fall back. Increased supply, or reduced demand, the effect on prices is the same. Of course the problem is that as prices fall, the range of economically viable uses increase, but I doubt this will be too much of an issue. Petrochemicals are already incredibly cheap com…

A plastic bag is about 5.5 grams. 10 bags of groceries would be 55 grams. A gallon (US) of gas is about 3350 grams. So if you drive 5 miles round trip in a car getting 20 miles/gallon for local driving, it uses 837 grams of gas. The oil in the bags is about 6% of the oil used on such a shopping trip. Of course that doesn't include the plastic packaging of food, soft drinks, bottled water, etc. which is probably more…

You're throwing out a lot of numbers, do you have sources for those calculations? Specifically on the bags and how much oil is needed to produce plastics.

Re: Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming

#50

Post by SuoDuanDao »

eej71 wrote: post #37
jdjdjjsjs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also exactly correct. The actual reason is that fossil fuels are highly subsidized in most developing countries, so the only impact this has is in reducing the subsidies paid by the government exchequer.

Not sure I understand how they can be both highly subsidized and yet highly taxed at the same time.

extraction companies are taxed or owned outright, end products are subsidized.
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