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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

#151

Post by cr0sh »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #128

Carbon tax Carbon tax Carbon tax It sucks that as BEVs chase ICEs and become more prevalent that will drop demand of oil and therefore oil will get cheaper. I only hope that the higher extraction costs of current reserves make a floor for gasoline that supply/demand curves can't go under fundamentally, and that BEVs can beat that. But a goddamn rational, common sense carbon tax would fix a whole lot of things that ar…

> It sucks that as BEVs chase ICEs and become more prevalent that will drop demand of oil and therefore oil will get cheaper.

Well - that's kinda good news (if it works that way) for me and my Jeep...

I'd love for there to be a real practical BEV Jeep (or similar off-road vehicle) - but the truth is, the battery tech just isn't there yet.

There is no way to fit a battery pack into a vehicle the size of my 2004 TJ (which is a classic 2-door style Jeep - smaller than the 4-door JK and JL models most people have bought since), while still allowing for a 100+ mile off-road trip.

One relatively recent attempt (which was a 3rd party conversion of a JK - and far, far outside my budget) only got 70 miles or so on a charge - and had to be trailered out to the trail at that.

I certainly hope that the technology gets there, though - the upsides of electric motors for off-roading would be phenomenal. But until it can take me to the trail, do the trail, then get back to pavement on a single "fill-up" - it will continue to be a non-starter for me and others. Ideally, current top-of-line BEV vehicles would need to double (or maybe triple) their range to be able to apply that to off-roading and gain something close to ICE.

Either that, or some way to carry a small and fast way to recharge the battery while on the trail. With currently off-road vehicles, you can carry cans of gasoline with you easily for such needs. That's just not possible (currently) with a BEV type of system.

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

#152

Post by mxschumacher »

sgc wrote: post #146
mxschumacher wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not buying the shares, you make it more attractive for somebody else to buy them. For you to not buy the shares doesn't make any difference for Exxon. You should need one detractor who's interested in money. That's why the equilibrium is not stable. If you want to kill a business, stop buying from them. I'm not opposed to car ownership, but office workers don't need 450hp, 2.5t street tanks to cruise around in cit…

That is true to some extent, but if a stock tanks the company's value goes down, and lenders will not give them the same access to capital they had previously [1]. So they can't grow at the same rate, and in extreme cases will fail. For oil and gas, this effectively means locking some of it in the ground for the time being, while society (hopefully) works to reduce the demand via development and deployment of alterna…

The scenario you paint is purely hypothetical and far removed from reality. Markets are believed to be mostly efficient. If a business is highly profitable and conservatively leveraged, it will be able to attract capital (either equity or debt)

Finding a business where the fundamentals and the price converge is extremely profitable, it's what all investors, especially hedge funds, do. A large convergence is unlikely to exist in a market system.

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

#154

Post by marcosdumay »

eloff wrote: post #48
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'…

> where a supply crunch would cause the price to skyrocket

Hum... How do current prices compare the the 90's? What is the definition of "skyrocket" you were expecting?

Or are you talking about the people that kept saying we'd be back to a medieval economy? Apocalipse fantasizing is a hobby since that book exists; and I'm pretty sure it just had a different name before it, it's not sane to take those people seriously (it's not healthy to fight them either), and it's not sane to pretend everybody is like them.

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

#155

Post by fuzzfactor »

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…

>Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it.

Might as well walk the walk, I thought myself.

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

#156

Post by cesarb »

lightedman wrote: post #142
cesarb wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With ethanol, the carbon which burns to create the CO2 came from atmospheric CO2 in the first place, during the growth of the sugar cane which was used to produce that ethanol. That is, the CO2 emissions from ethanol are not a problem because they are matched by an identical amount of CO2 capture.

"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 that the refining plants sell the remainder electricity), but I don't know which fuel the trucks and tractors currently use.

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

#157

Post by danans »

corodra wrote: post #72
crispyambulance wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the peak in "peak oil" is a very wide peak with a lot of noise in it. That makes it easy for certain people to make-believe it's not going to happen. But it is... we just might not be able to predict which decade with certainty. Perhaps this is a kind of an intelligence test for human civilization. Can we stop the global guzzling of petroleum resources before there's a profound ecological and economic shock?…

Look, I'm just about a complete package when it comes to being an asshole. My history on HN is more than enough to prove that. But, I don't' think humans are that useless to where they're going to fail in fixing this. This can be reversed and we're in the beginning stages. The hole in the ozone layer was deemed doomed and without repair. NASA has it in track on being fully recovered in around 2060 since we stopped us…

> The moment Dodge/Ford/GM come out with an EV that has the same feel and balls as a muscle car, that's my personal breaking point. Right now it's all focused on the luxury, feather, Italian aesthetics feel.

There's nothing stopping them from doing so from a technology perspective (and heck, the Dodge Charger has an ideal name for a EV remake). It's just that they don't believe there is a market today for EVs among people with your tastes. Add to that the fact that margins on muscle cars are probably huge vs an equivalently specced EV, because muscle cars are decades old technology (big V6-V8 engine) repackaged.

I've had people with similar tastes tell me that the sound and vibration of a gasoline/petrol engine in a ICE car is something they don't want to give up. They like the uneven jerky feel of switching gears, even if they are accelerating more slowly overall. When I point out that both of these things could be simulated relatively easily in an EV, they often pivot to cultural nostalgia and "authenticity" of a petroleum burning engine.

Depending on their political beliefs, some at that point invoke political arguments against renewable energy and denying climate change.

For the most straightforward evidence of how hard it is to change the cultural addiction to gasoline, just look at Harley's struggles to market its electric motorcycle.

But the segment that matters more than muscle cars or motorcycles is the family hauling/commuting crossover/SUV. This is both the fastest growing segment, accounts for far more miles driven, and is also the segment historically plagued by poor fuel economy. This is also where many manufacturers are introducing EVs and PHEVs.

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

#158

Post by cr0sh »

bilbo0s wrote: post #125
torpfactory wrote: post #111

"I hope that humanity will be able to free itself from its addiction of fossil fuels (arguably it is the primary reason for violent conflict in the last 30 years and the driving force behind climate change), but my bet is that things will get worse for a lot longer before we even reach the inflection point of “peak oil”. Change must happen. Change will happen. I don’t think the oil and gas industry is anywhere near t…

What was eye opening to me is that, if the GP is to be believed, is that people keep buying F150s? Clearly, not everyone believes in the idea of climate change. (In fact, if that factoid is correct, a plurality of automobile consumers don't? That's a "wow" moment for me.)

Something to keep in mind also is that today's F150 is not the same as "yesterday's" F150.

Today's F150 is made out of mostly aluminum - not steel.

Today's F150 only comes in 4 and 6 cylinder models. 8 cylinder was dropped, and I think the smaller engines are turbocharged to make up for the difference (what if anything this does for emissions or fuel usage, I am not certain).

There are probably more than a few other differences as well that might make the vehicles objectively better than their forebears.

That isn't to say they are better than other options, just that they are possibly and likely better than what they used to be - but are still frequently used as "scare fodder" for a public who doesn't generally follow or understand how the vehicle has changed.

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

#159

Post by netsharc »

mxschumacher wrote: post #129
bilbo0s wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was eye opening to me is that, if the GP is to be believed, is that people keep buying F150s? Clearly, not everyone believes in the idea of climate change. (In fact, if that factoid is correct, a plurality of automobile consumers don't? That's a "wow" moment for me.)

I believe cognitive dissonance is extremely widespread. 100% of smokers know that what they are doing is extremely bad for their health. Everybody knows about the suffering the animal industry inflicts on billions of cows, chicken and pigs. The awareness of these problems does not seem to lead to widespread and lasting changes in behavior. The taste of a burger and the sensation of driving a powerful car seems to tru…

As someone who believes in climate change and still hasn't changed his lifestyle (I still like beef, I've flown a bit this year), I fully agree.

And nowadays I and many people in this group are probably adopting the mindset of "well, we're all going to die and it's too late to change anything anyway!".

Although actions like "paper straws please!" don't really have that huge of an effect anyway, it just fools social media activists to think they're helping...

It seems the change will come when it comes through societal shaming, like smoking in the USA. But it'll be a long time before people look down at someone saying "oh your car is still internal combustion?"

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

#160

Post by tasty_freeze »

rossdavidh wrote: post #97

So, interesting and all, but not even mentioning what is happening to coal the last few years seems like an odd omission. Coal is essentially disappearing from the world's energy mix. As big as coal was, it takes a while to go away completely, but the trend does not seem to be slowing down. By some estimates, there are a lot of cases now where it is more expensive to keep running an existing coal-fired power plant, t…

Globally, coal has not dropped much in relative or absolute terms.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-by-source?stackMode=a...

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