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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 eit

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.)

mdorazio 7y ago
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.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  >And then use all of those tax revenues to fund renewables, public transit, and climate repair technologies And what happens when those revenues are threatened by people responding to the incentives and cutting out oil? Any money earned by environmental tax needs to go 100% into matching environmental restoration program with a hard limit defined that decommissions the program once the incentive is "complete" with acknowledgment that this is the preferred result. Otherwise you get ridiculous pervasive incentives in government that don't fix the problem and destabilize politics further
andersns 7y ago
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.
eloff 7y ago
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.
- corodra 7y ago
  To be fair, I think the "peak oil scare" was good. That's when we all started to focus and take renewables seriously. I find it funny that OPEC never learned from its mistake from the 70s when there was the oil shortage and fuel efficiency became a thing. To be aware, fuel efficiency before then was never worth mentioning in a car sale. Yes, it never became too big because the shortage ended, but it at least got started. Without the peak oil scare, we wouldn't be "this" far, I think. Humans need a burning fire under their ass to actually do something. Promise you this though. Don't think big oil will be down and out. They're going to collect all the cold hard cash they can this next few years. Then, they're going to strangle the commodities needed for renewables. They'll start buying rare earth mining rights, processing plants, manufacturing companies and all. Making sure they make the biggest dollar from the beginning of the energy food chain to the consumer's doorstep. If they can't make money from oil, both God and I as their witness, they'll make their money from lithium and battery manufacturing. To think they're a bunch of mustache twirling dummies is the biggest folly people have.
  - ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
    > they'll make their money from lithium and battery manufacturing This isn't much of a problem though I think? It would be a problem if they bought mining rights then refused to mine causing shortages of raw materials needed for renewable tech.
    - 7y ago
christophilus 7y ago
Exactly right. Incentive caused bias is one of the strongest forces in economics.
perfunctory 7y ago
> 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?
- corodra 7y ago
  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 keep me interested. Maybe I did give a partial answer? And I'll paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson on this one, "You can't save the world with an app." Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Enough people do it, someone is bound to figure it out.
  - fuzzfactor 7y ago
    >Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Might as well walk the walk, I thought myself.
  - Bartweiss 7y ago
    This at least points to an answer, one of maybe three answers I've seen with actual credibility. (The others are "pray that a geoengineering plan works without disaster" and "try to mitigate a whole bunch of warming while emissions gradually stabilize". Not exactly inspiring.) Visions of fixing global warming with high gasoline prices and renewable electricity subsidies are ludicrous. Focus on reducing personal emissions is almost always a distraction (perhaps excluding air travel and diet). As soon as you dive into numbers, it becomes obvious that even the most optimistic gains from those things can't come close to solving the problem. There's just too much CO2 output from production (concrete, plastics, farming, etc.), non-car engines (cargo ships, planes, heavy machinery, etc.), and hard-to-replace, high-emissions power (e.g. coal in outlying China). And power improvements are often less good than they appear; it's common to report fossil fuel reductions without accounting for any offsetting harms like sulfur hexafluoride leaks from wind turbines, or CO2 emissions from solar panel manufacture and disposal. That doesn't mean things are hopeless, or oil is blameless, or America should ignore the problem because China, or any of the other cop-outs. But I think you're exactly right: existing producers aren't going to roll over and quit, and meaningful state action will require promoting deep, pervasive changes, not just subsidizing rooftop solar. We need lobbying and outreach and communication and legislation; we also need a million practical things to be made better, or used better, or supplanted. All I can see to do is pick a problem that suits me and dive in.

mdorazio 7y ago

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.

tomatotomato37 7y ago
>And then use all of those tax revenues to fund renewables, public transit, and climate repair technologies And what happens when those revenues are threatened by people responding to the incentives and cutting out oil? Any money earned by environmental tax needs to go 100% into matching environmental restoration program with a hard limit defined that decommissions the program once the incentive is "complete" with acknowledgment that this is the preferred result. Otherwise you get ridiculous pervasive incentives in government that don't fix the problem and destabilize politics further

andersns 7y ago

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.

eloff 7y ago

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.

corodra 7y ago
To be fair, I think the "peak oil scare" was good. That's when we all started to focus and take renewables seriously. I find it funny that OPEC never learned from its mistake from the 70s when there was the oil shortage and fuel efficiency became a thing. To be aware, fuel efficiency before then was never worth mentioning in a car sale. Yes, it never became too big because the shortage ended, but it at least got started. Without the peak oil scare, we wouldn't be "this" far, I think. Humans need a burning fire under their ass to actually do something. Promise you this though. Don't think big oil will be down and out. They're going to collect all the cold hard cash they can this next few years. Then, they're going to strangle the commodities needed for renewables. They'll start buying rare earth mining rights, processing plants, manufacturing companies and all. Making sure they make the biggest dollar from the beginning of the energy food chain to the consumer's doorstep. If they can't make money from oil, both God and I as their witness, they'll make their money from lithium and battery manufacturing. To think they're a bunch of mustache twirling dummies is the biggest folly people have.
- ourlordcaffeine 7y ago
  > they'll make their money from lithium and battery manufacturing This isn't much of a problem though I think? It would be a problem if they bought mining rights then refused to mine causing shortages of raw materials needed for renewable tech.
  - 7y ago

christophilus 7y ago

Exactly right. Incentive caused bias is one of the strongest forces in economics.

perfunctory 7y ago

> 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?

corodra 7y ago
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 keep me interested. Maybe I did give a partial answer? And I'll paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson on this one, "You can't save the world with an app." Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Enough people do it, someone is bound to figure it out.
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  >Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Might as well walk the walk, I thought myself.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  This at least points to an answer, one of maybe three answers I've seen with actual credibility. (The others are "pray that a geoengineering plan works without disaster" and "try to mitigate a whole bunch of warming while emissions gradually stabilize". Not exactly inspiring.) Visions of fixing global warming with high gasoline prices and renewable electricity subsidies are ludicrous. Focus on reducing personal emissions is almost always a distraction (perhaps excluding air travel and diet). As soon as you dive into numbers, it becomes obvious that even the most optimistic gains from those things can't come close to solving the problem. There's just too much CO2 output from production (concrete, plastics, farming, etc.), non-car engines (cargo ships, planes, heavy machinery, etc.), and hard-to-replace, high-emissions power (e.g. coal in outlying China). And power improvements are often less good than they appear; it's common to report fossil fuel reductions without accounting for any offsetting harms like sulfur hexafluoride leaks from wind turbines, or CO2 emissions from solar panel manufacture and disposal. That doesn't mean things are hopeless, or oil is blameless, or America should ignore the problem because China, or any of the other cop-outs. But I think you're exactly right: existing producers aren't going to roll over and quit, and meaningful state action will require promoting deep, pervasive changes, not just subsidizing rooftop solar. We need lobbying and outreach and communication and legislation; we also need a million practical things to be made better, or used better, or supplanted. All I can see to do is pick a problem that suits me and dive in.