Why peak oil is bullshit

Food System, U. Department of Agriculture, According to Ahmed, the depletion-led waning of the fossil fuel era is being accompanied by the compounding impacts of fossil fuel combustion, mostly in the form of climate change. The result is increasing disruptions in the availability of economic and ecological support services, even as more and more people require those services due to more frequent environmental disasters and continued population growth.

This is a recipe for unstable governments, the rise of demagogues, the breakdown of alliances, and the emergence of new social movements. All of this underscores the realization that peak oil is potentially a very big deal as many of us have been saying for a long time now.

Also, the peak will in all likelihood not be marked as a sudden event, but instead will manifest itself via complex, protracted processes that include interactions among the oil industry, the economic system, the food system, and so on.

To this volatile mixture now add one Donald Trump. Serious and numerous questions immediately arise. What will the Trump transition mean for energy? The president-elect appears to have some understanding of the importance of energy for the health of the economy, and he has promised to expand energy production. But how successful is he likely to be in this? Suffice it to say, the coal industry is dying regardless what the new president does.

But what about oil and gas? Matthieu Auzanneau, writing for Le Monde , notes that Tillerson is departing Exxon as the company drifts toward insolvency as a result of declining reserves, rising costs, and falling profits. Could Tillerson, whose business liaisons with Russia are legendary, make oil exploration alliances a cornerstone of diplomacy?

Meanwhile, Rick Perry, former Texas governor, who witnessed a huge drilling boom in his home state and a simultaneous expansion of wind power, has been picked to head the Department of Energy. And Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate denier and unfailingly loyal fossil fuel advocate, is slated to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Clearly, Trump is interested in facilitating more drilling, and in shifting the economic and regulatory frameworks that constrain it.

Removing or changing regulations could help to increase oil and gas production, but probably not by much. Similarly, while the opening of more federal lands to drilling would constitute a gesture welcome to the oil and gas industry, it would not necessarily result in an imminent boost to production, since those lands hold few prospects that would entice the now heavily indebted industry to invest in risky exploration.

A significant factor in the fracking boom was low interest rates; but interest rates are set by Federal Reserve policy, which the Trump administration cannot directly control. How about renewable energy? Trump has made some unfriendly comments about solar and wind power, and may seek to reduce federal subsidies for renewables. And the way he proposes to fund the expansion permits skepticism that much will actually get built in any case.

The advent of President Donald J. Trump clearly has implications for global geopolitics, but of what sort? Since the fall of the Soviet Union, U.

Together, these developments seriously imperil the U. Indeed, the erosion of American power has reached a crucial tipping point where the goals and tactics of the incumbent geostrategists must be questioned, even by insiders. Again, Trump arrives at a key moment, arguing against the demonization of Russia, promising to implement protectionist trade rules to bring manufacturing back to the U.

S, and pledging no new wars in the Middle East. It is too early to speak of this tweet-list as constituting a coherent alternative geopolitical strategy. But Trump is already at odds with currently dominant elements within the CIA and the State Department which, along with the Pentagon and military contractors, comprise the so-called Deep State , and is allying himself with previously sidelined voices.

Formidable and secretive, the Deep State has a momentum of its own, which any national leader resists at his or her own peril. The past few U. Now the backstops to economic contraction are failing. If this is indeed the timeframe when the global energy economy flips from fossil fuel-powered growth to depletion-led contraction, then the recent election presents us with a bewildering new landscape of circumstances in which that flip will occur, and an astonishing new set of actors.

In a chilling paragraph , journalist Chris Hedges frames the moment in familiar terms:. Capitalists would begin to consume the government along with the physical and social structures that sustained them. Democracy, social welfare, electoral participation, the common good and investment in public transportation, roads, bridges, utilities, industry, education, ecosystem protection and health care would be sacrificed to feed the mania for short-term profit.

These assaults would destroy the host. This is the stage of late capitalism that Donald Trump represents. The signs of imminent kleptocracy are certainly abundant: proposed heads of governmental departments have promised to destroy regulations and privatize assets—all under the justification that doing so will lead to more growth and more jobs.

Given these radical shifts in priorities, expect a purge of government agencies. For those who pledge allegiance to Trump, there may be a secure salary in store. Expect no work on climate change to go forward. The compilation of accurate statistics on the environment, energy production, and the economy may be largely abandoned.

Companies eager to help with the program may be awarded generous government contracts; those that make a fuss may be penalized. In the worst conceivable case, terrorist attacks could justify a massive national clampdown, in which uncompromising journalists and teachers might be targeted in the name of national unity.

The new administration will remain deeply resented by enormous swathes of the populace. A gutting of regulations might temporarily grease the skids of commerce, but at the cost of exposing vastly more people to fraud, pollution, preventable accidents, and poverty. This could eventually make a lot of folks very, very angry.

If the new leadership uses ever more desperate means to consolidate and wield power, expect ever more extreme acts of resistance. Anyone who claims to know in advance how all this will shake out is blowing smoke. See director's response. Watch this robot take over a fry station. Matt Damon: Clean water access frees up time for school.

Barbara Corcoran: The housing boom is not a bubble. That's according to the International Energy Agency, which said in its global energy outlook published Wednesday that more aggressive climate action is needed as world leaders prepare for the crucial COP26 summit in Glasgow in November. More than 50 countries and the European Union have pledged to meet net zero emissions targets. In that scenario, the world would still be consuming 75 million barrels of oil per day by — only 25 million barrels per day less than today.

Read More. The energy sector has been bolstered in recent weeks by a sharp increase in prices. Natural gas prices in Europe and Asia have skyrocketed , while the cost of coal in China is at a record. That's helped push oil prices to their highest level since , as some energy suppliers turn to oil for power generation. But the IEA report includes a warning to the fossil fuel industry.

No one knows whether that will happen later this year, next year, or five years from now. But burst it will. Many others have simply ceased to discuss the subject. Some sites, like peakoil. The question of why remains paramount.

So, whereas the Ptolemaic model of the solar system outperformed the initial Copernican model, that was not evidence of its scientific validity. How much higher? Embarrassed cough. So, the peak oil theorists got lucky in that the industry experienced a large number of supply disruptions that raised prices, which seemed to confirm their arguments—just as the Iranian Oil Crisis of incorrectly convinced many that ever-higher crude prices were unavoidable and resource optimists naive.

But by understanding that supply disruptions in Iraq, Libya, Venezuela and so on were responsible for higher prices, it is possible to recognize that political trends in oil exporting countries will determine prices, not resource scarcity. Recognizing the former means coping with cyclical prices, believing in the latter means getting blindsided by every major price decline. This is a BETA experience.

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