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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

#21

Post by koopuluri »

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…

It's tough to think about the negative long-term impact of pollution on health or think about the connection between burning fossil fuels and flooding, etc. when you're starving, feel like you don't have any economic stability and have no idea how to adequately educate your kids because you know the public education system sucks but have no money to put towards private education.

Provide economic stability to enough people in the short-term to reach a critical mass of people that have the privilege to care about the longer-term. Until then, I don't see most areas (e.g. many regions in India) have the bandwidth to trade-off short-term economic gain for long-term health.

To clarify: I agree with your point. I just don't see the current economic climate in many parts of the world allow for shaping local policy that promotes long-term environmental stability.

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

#22

Post by jp555 »

neuronic wrote: post #13
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…

The only solution would be to drastically reduce the value of oil and therefore make it uneconomic to dig it up. The easy-access oil is decreasing and extraction becomes more expensive.

Kinda like how whale oil was displaced by dug up hydrocarbons.

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

#23

Post by RockIslandLine »

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…

"a poor country that now has a way to print money"

Nonsense, of course.

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

#24

Post by simonh »

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 compared to many other bulk materials, that's how come supermarkets can afford to give away plastic bags, and so many goods come in plastic packaging. There's only so much further that 'even cheaper' can take us.

There are some major decisions we need to make in terms of energy policy. The drive towards renewable is underway, that's good but not enough. I'm beginning to think the environmentalists that have gone pro-nuclear have it right. I read an article a while ago where an environmentalist said Fukushima persuaded him to go pro-nuke. One of the worst designed plants took a direct hit from a once a century Tsunami, the response was bungled, but still there was hardly any leak and no direct radiation casualties. The latest tech is several orders of magnitude safer, and it may well be this or kill the planet. If we go heavy into Nuke and electrify everything, nobody will want the oil for much anyway.

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

#25

Post by mr__y »

neuronic wrote: post #13
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…

The only solution would be to drastically reduce the value of oil and therefore make it uneconomic to dig it up. The easy-access oil is decreasing and extraction becomes more expensive.

There is an "easy" solution to this problem - introduce a new (preferably renewable) energy source that is an order of magnitude cheaper than oil.

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

#26

Post by NeedMoreTea »

jp555 wrote: post #22
neuronic wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only solution would be to drastically reduce the value of oil and therefore make it uneconomic to dig it up. The easy-access oil is decreasing and extraction becomes more expensive.

Kinda like how whale oil was displaced by dug up hydrocarbons.

Whaling was still happily going until there was an international ban in the seventies or eighties. Despite hydrocarbons whale oil and other products were still used in a surprising range of things. Even now after the "ban" that catch is pushing up near 10,000 a year.

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

#27

Post by endorphone »

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…

Oil doesn't extract and process itself, and there are many reserves of oil that will never make sense to pump. Already in a lot of areas, such as the oil sands, it's tenuous because oil is barely at a price to support extraction, yet oil is expensive enough that it's being undercut by clean energy.

Enormous reserves will never be extracted through simple, basic economics. We're already at a breaking point.

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

#28

Post by refurb »

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…

Disagree. Just look at what happen the last time the cost of oil plunged - exploration slows to a crawl and some wells are just shut down as they can’t make money off the oil.

It makes no sense to spend $10 to create a barrel of crude oil you can sell for $9.

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

#29

Post by perfunctory »

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…

> it's naive to think that humans will leave any oil in the ground despite climate change

I think it's worth pointing out that you and I are also humans. Whether they, humans, leave any oil in the ground or not partially depends on us. If we are worried about climate change, we humans can actually do something about it.

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

#30

Post by SiempreViernes »

danmaz74 wrote: post #11
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…

I'm afraid this is going to be true, unless some other far cheaper source of energy is going to be developed. On the other hand, the rate at which that oil is going to be burned is very relevant for climate change, and that is a factor that is not set in stone. So, it's still worth to work in reducing emissions.

That's a good point, but its going to take gigantic social transformations to be able to sequester all the remaining oil, there is about 800 Gtonn CO_2 in the ground and about 200 or 400 Gton CO_2 of total cumulative emissions if you aim for 1.5 or 2 degrees C.
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