Flood of Oil Is Coming, Complicating Efforts to Fight Global Warming • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by wefarrell » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #70

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…

> A lot more needs to happen to end oil's stranglehold. So what's your plan? Honest question. No sarcasm. How do we get from words to action?

The global economy needs to properly account for the cost of carbon emissions and reductions.

For the oil and gas industry this would translate into a tax at the pump.

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

#212

Post by ridiculous_fish » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

corodra wrote: post #78

perfunctory wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot more needs to happen to end oil's stranglehold. So what's your plan? Honest question. No sarcasm. How do we get from words to action?

You want my honest answer? No fucking clue. I'm focused on cement. I've given up on tech, IT and programming and went into the cement industry to work towards a smaller CO2 footprint in cement production. It's the second largest CO2 producer on the planet behind fossil fuels. I found making apps and backend software to be a waste of time in my own desires. There's a shit ton of science in cement and infrastructure to…

That's awesome! Can you share more about how you got into the cement industry? Did you need to go back to school? What was the transition like? Where did you start looking? etc?

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

#213

Post by bumby » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

corodra wrote: post #107

thaumasiotes wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was a total bullshit scare! But it was a scare that led to a big push in getting away from fossil fuels. So still, it was a good thing. Ends justify the means. When this kind of thinking is common, though, you lose the ability to engage at all with people who might not believe that "getting away from fossil fuels" is valuable as an end in itself.[1] Is it valuable for other reasons? Certainly not any reasons tha…

I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying it's effective. If you say the right thing but people still do the wrong thing... who cares? If you say the wrong thing, but people do the right thing, is that bad?

The "ends justify the means" mentality has been the cause of many (most?) atrocities in history because it takes the assumption that one side just knows what's right without being able to recognize our own fallibility

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

#214

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

Cshelton wrote: post #162

mxschumacher wrote: post #100

Demand for oil&gas will continue to grow for a long time due to: - SUV/pick-up boom (America's best-selling car in 2018 is the F150 series!) and more cars + trucks in countries like Brazil, India, China, Indonesia - crazy growth in air travel (look at order numbers of Airbus, see how many airports are under construction, see miles traveled via plane) - simultaneous shift away from coal+ nuclear, giving a huge boost t…

I completely disagree. While I do not believe we have hit peak oil yet, I do not believe we are far off nor will oil and gas demand continue to grow for "a long time". - The personal transportation industry will go through the biggest change it ever has in the next decade. Bigger than horse + buggy -> automobiles. An electric car will be cheaper to operate and maintain. Production of EVs will proliferate even countri…

>The personal transportation industry will go through the biggest change it ever has in the next decade. Bigger than horse + buggy -> automobiles.

I'll take your bet on that one. The difference between having to keep an animal alive and in useful physical condition and maintaining a model T or A in roadworthy condition is far, far greater than the difference between one source of motive power and another.

I think your overall predictions are generally right but your timeline is too aggressive by at least half an order of magnitude.

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

#215

Post by cptnapalm » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #198

Cshelton wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. While I do not believe we have hit peak oil yet, I do not believe we are far off nor will oil and gas demand continue to grow for "a long time". - The personal transportation industry will go through the biggest change it ever has in the next decade. Bigger than horse + buggy -> automobiles. An electric car will be cheaper to operate and maintain. Production of EVs will proliferate even countri…

Most of your reasoning hinges on spread of electric cars and electric planes. If that doesn't come to pass, oil will still be in huge demand. EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now and they're still only 1% of US car sales: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-electric-veh... If you extrapolate their upward line forward, it'll take an extremely long time before % of EVs becomes greater than…

Electric vehicles have been around for over 100 years: https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car

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

#216

Post by lightedman » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #156

lightedman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That is, the CO2 emissions from ethanol are not a problem because they are matched by an identical amount of CO2 capture." You're missing every other machine using non-ethanol fuel to operate which is required for harvesting/producing ethanol biofuel. Ethanol's net CO2 output is positive, not negative. That is not good.

Setting aside that these are not the CO2 emissions from "burning ethanol", do any of these "machines required for harvesting/producing ethanol" require a "non-ethanol fuel", or do they use that fuel for now just because it's convenient, and could be easily replaced by other sources? I know that the power for the refining plants is produced by burning the remainder of the sugar cane plant (which produces so much power…

"Setting aside that these are not the CO2 emissions from "burning ethanol", do any of these "machines required for harvesting/producing ethanol" require a "non-ethanol fuel", or do they use that fuel for now just because it's convenient."

You can't set that aside. Consider the whole chain of production and usage or be consigned to a disingenuous selective argument upon the level of quack doctors. Plain and simple.

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

#217

Post by cartoonworld » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #84

cartoonworld wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There another angle to this--USA provides vast sums of other monetary aid to oil production. Since it has been a (or perhaps the ) strategic commodity, nationally, since WWI our foreign policy is in part directed at those supplies. We expend much military might in the effort to acquire and maintain the alliances and security of the transportation and production of the stuff. A lot of the geopolitical game in the midd…

Hm. That actually raises a good point—how long until militaries can operate without gasoline and diesel? Or even significantly reduce their use? Hard to imagine anything competing with petroleum there in the mid-term future, which mean subsidized production will continue to be necessary to any state that wants to be able to self-sufficiently field an army worth having at all. I mean I guess there's ethanol from plant…

No chance in the short term, really. There's a lot of old hardware running around on reserve bases, and thats at least! All those turbines run avgas or something like diesel, not much of an aircraft person but I can't say for certain. It would certainly be a great challenge to replace all those turbines, and its not just the fuel.

The synthetics have different properties, and it might be the case that all the rubber dissolves on your Sikorsky, fuel liners disappear out of the exhaust, and hopefully whatever whiz-bang alloys we've been producing hold up. Who's to say, it's probably classified.

Imagine telling your people they're gonna lose the battle tested and well supplied turbines and power plants all over all the forces with something conceptually new. Large naval vessels and submarines can at least run nuclear, but there isn't yet a reactor small enough for a gunboat or a helicopter afiak.

Plus, can you imagine the battlefield hazards that would create? Suddenly, it looks to my eyes like a lot fewer people getting rescued when your reactor takes some HEAT and goes supercritical.

Luckily we can try the batteries or whatever out in out cars and lawnmowers first, as a handy side effect developing the currently-nonexistent alternative infrastructure. It wouldn't really be too unreasonable to consider EV and alternative fuels a national security priority, but good luck with that, I say to myself.

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

#218

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

mxschumacher wrote: post #171

jliptzin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is coming out with an all electric pick-up and semi. Hopefully others will follow. But at least a few years before mainstream uptake.

It's important to note that even with electric cars, it will still take a long time until most electricity is produced without the use fossil fuels. Getting all of the required cobalt out of the Congo to make millions of large batteries isn't exactly ideal either. Storage and long distance transport abilities make natural gas extremely attractive.

A few news are hinting at rare earth free batteries. Also I'd bet a grand that the minute EV tech is just good enough the market will flip. It might also trigger some electric fad that will make people root for renewables, storage, even nuclear (granted the passive failure micro reactors can materialize)

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

#219

Post by greglindahl » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:12 PM UTC

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #198

Cshelton wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. While I do not believe we have hit peak oil yet, I do not believe we are far off nor will oil and gas demand continue to grow for "a long time". - The personal transportation industry will go through the biggest change it ever has in the next decade. Bigger than horse + buggy -> automobiles. An electric car will be cheaper to operate and maintain. Production of EVs will proliferate even countri…

Most of your reasoning hinges on spread of electric cars and electric planes. If that doesn't come to pass, oil will still be in huge demand. EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now and they're still only 1% of US car sales: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-electric-veh... If you extrapolate their upward line forward, it'll take an extremely long time before % of EVs becomes greater than…

> If you extrapolate their upward line forward

Extrapolations are a bad idea for "tipping point" kinds of curves. Electric vehicles are steadily improving, and as they become better in niches (like high performance cars) the curve can change to be nothing like the extrapolation.

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

#220

Post by busterarm » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

Cshelton wrote: post #162

mxschumacher wrote: post #100

Demand for oil&gas will continue to grow for a long time due to: - SUV/pick-up boom (America's best-selling car in 2018 is the F150 series!) and more cars + trucks in countries like Brazil, India, China, Indonesia - crazy growth in air travel (look at order numbers of Airbus, see how many airports are under construction, see miles traveled via plane) - simultaneous shift away from coal+ nuclear, giving a huge boost t…

I completely disagree. While I do not believe we have hit peak oil yet, I do not believe we are far off nor will oil and gas demand continue to grow for "a long time". - The personal transportation industry will go through the biggest change it ever has in the next decade. Bigger than horse + buggy -> automobiles. An electric car will be cheaper to operate and maintain. Production of EVs will proliferate even countri…

Everyone who has actually done the math wrt actually meeting our global energy demands agrees: petrochemical dependence is not going away any time soon.

Electric car demands increases demand on the grid, which will centralize demands for fuel. Electric aircraft are a long way off, except in the private jet world. Battery energy density just isn't there and would massively increase costs. Plus there's the whole issue of explosive failure modes; contrasted with avgas which is relatively safe in liquid form.

Renewable energy technologies are made with petrochemicals, so they have their own built in oil & NG demand.

The most, wealthiest (on average) people live where renewable energy is least effective.

The numbers do show that we can drastically reduce our oil dependence, but ONLY if we're willing to trade quality of life to do so. There's little chance of that happening.