8 ms·

Oil System Collapsing So Fast It May Derail Renewables

46 points by reallydontask 5y ago

fmajid 5y ago
It’s strange, the study was authored by researchers at INRIA, France’s computer science R&D institute, not the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP), their hydrocarbon research institute which is part funded by a tax on petrol products.
iab 5y ago
The oil industry collapses and there isn’t sufficient alternative capacity, while at the same time the climate firewalls are broken. What an incredibly perfect storm.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Whelp, if we get fusion energy maybe we can dig ourselves out of this by turning carbon dioxide back into fuel. Not counting my chickens though.
cosmic_shame 5y ago
AKA an energy trap, see: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  That was a bit of a scary read... but I wonder to what extent market forces can help mitigate and correct by lowering demand via higher prices.
Factorium 5y ago
We need to rapidly: Adopt modular nuclear reactors, and produce hundreds/thousands of them yearly. Electrify transport. Figure out how to get to a global population of 4 billion: ie massive family planning drive in Africa/West Asia encouraging 1/0 children. (Keep in mind this is just the population level from 1974).
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Add “reprocess nuclear fuel rods”. Even once expended and removed from reactors there’s a lot of life left in fuel rods and reprocessing reduces the amount of waste that has to be stored long term.
- aunty_helen 5y ago
  >Adopt modular nuclear reactors, and produce hundreds/thousands of them yearly. We have this, they just go in ships and submarines.
  - acchow 5y ago
    Hundreds of nuclear ships/submarines annually?
    - hcurtiss 5y ago
      Well, at least their reactors.
  - beamatronic 5y ago
    Bring the ships to port and hook them up to the grid. Talk about swords to plowshares.
    - kfprt 5y ago
      They already can do this.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > We have this, they just go in ships and submarines. US shipboard reactors use highly enriched (93%, literally weapons-grade because it was originally produced for warheads) uranium, that's not really desirable to distribute throughout the territory. Even "low-enriched uranium" in a naval context just below 20% (which is the official boundary between LEU and HEU). By comparison regular "civil" nukes use 3-5% uranium.
- iammisc 5y ago
mactavish88 5y ago
How long does it take to build a small-to-moderate sized nuclear power station? (Assuming reasonably well-operating supply chains) Asking because I have no idea and would love to know from someone who has some insight/experience on that front.
- fred_is_fred 5y ago
  I'd venture that the time to build is inconsequential compared to the environmental and design reviews - which is why bothering to build a small one doesn't make a lot of sense in the US anyway.
- Factorium 5y ago
  About 2 years at the factory, 2 years onsite: https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-leading-the-consortium/deliverable https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor... We need to be ramping up these immediately... and targeting production of at least dozens per year. Its the perfect industry for a country like the UK to pump money into right now.
- hollander 5y ago
  The UK is about to build 16 of these. They hope to have them operational by 2035.
  - Diederich 5y ago
    Truly? That's great news, I had no idea.
    - kinjba11 5y ago
      Indeed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889108
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Are the Chinese building them for the UK?
maherbeg 5y ago
What was really interesting in this article was the mentioning of "the decline in EROI is an underlying driver of the decline in economic growth". If we can remove our dependency on fossil fuel energy, then we can turn around economic growth models which is really exciting.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  It drives a decline in economic growth through increasing energy costs. And no one is under the impression that removing our dependency on fossil fuel is going to make our energy cheaper. So if this model is correct removing our dependency on fossil fuel energy will drive down economic growth further.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  We can't because we are consuming 6-7 earths worth of other resources already. We are already in ecological overshoot. If it was only oil, you'd be right, but all planetary resources and pollution sinks are being consumed. https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/193149858X https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/19...
throwaway832939 5y ago
According to the article, we we got 44 * energy input in 1950, and 8 * input in 2020. Bad maths warning - I think this means that for a given activity that uses oil, say driving a mile, ignoring all the energy that went into the car etc. you're burning 12.5% on top of what you put into the tank. Whereas in 1950 this was only 2.3%. Seems like a noticeable chunk of efficiency improvements are cancelled out just to keep polluting at the same rate as before.
- acchow 5y ago
  Your math looks correct to me.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  FWIW that's just CO2 - can't ignore other nasty stuff (like benzene - the stuff that people lost their shit when tiny bit was found in sunscreen) that reduced significantly.
wilburTheDog 5y ago
People have been talking about 'peak oil' for years. It was predicted to peak about 15 years ago, at least in the US, but then the government started throwing money at the fracking industry (which as far as I know has never made a profit). This is not news for anyone who has been paying attention. If you haven't started planning how to live your life while our fossil-fuel based economy is collapsing around us, you should start now. Does you think that sounds alarmist? The EIA estimates about 80% of US energy consumption comes from fossil fuels [1]. And there are a large number of things we just can't do with renewables [2], at least not until we figure out how to store energy much more effectively than we can today. There are big changes coming. And I expect a lot of people are going to be caught unprepared. Edit: If you disagree, please let me know why. I would love to hear why I'm wrong about this. 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45096 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45096 2. https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1114 https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1114
- jrussino 5y ago
  Like many Americans, we have a mix of electric and natural gas appliances. Historically, natural gas prices have been significantly cheaper than electricity prices, and that's an important factor to take into consideration when trying to estimate the lifetime costs of new appliances (mainly things that need to generate heat: stoves, laundry machines, water heaters, pool heaters...). Is there any reason to suspect that natural gas prices might rise significantly in comparison to electricity prices in the next, say, ~30 years? What resources might one look for in order to try to answer a question like that?
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    Is there any reason to suspect that natural gas prices might rise significantly in comparison to electricity prices in the next, say, ~30 years Isn't that what's happening now? I don't know what the cost difference is between heating from an efficient natural gas furnace and heating from an efficient heat pump, so I'm not sure if natural gas has exceeded the price of electric heating. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/natural-gas-prices-are-rising-and-could-be-the-most-expensive-in-13-years-this-winter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/natural-gas-prices-are-risin...
jl6 5y ago
> But this is not because the earth is running out of oil and gas. Well, it kind of is? > Rather, it’s because they are increasingly eating themselves to stay alive. The oil and gas industries are consuming exponentially more and more energy just to keep extracting oil and gas. i.e. we’ve drilled all the easy-to-extract (cheap) oil, and now all that is left is the hard-to-extract (expensive) oil. The thrust of the article is still correct though: the answer is to redouble efforts to move to non-fossil energy sources. Expensive oil might be the sense of urgency we need.
- sremani 5y ago
  ONG is not just straight energy play, it certainly is the most important. Petrochemicals are pervasive and feeding 7 billion involves production of fertilizers etc. Organic keyboards and Zero plastic displays may be a thing in 2040 but petroleum has touched every aspect of modern life.
- ciconia 5y ago
  > the answer is to redouble efforts to move to non-fossil energy sources. No, the answer is to consume less energy. Reducing energy consumption (and consumption in general) is the only answer that's compatible with a sustainable future.
  - MadcapJake 5y ago
    Only problem is reducing usage isn't compatible with capitalism
JamesBarney 5y ago
This article makes a terrible argument. > As economists Professor Tim Jackson and Dr Andrew Jackson of the University of Surrey have shown, there is now abundant scientific evidence that the decline in EROI is an underlying driver of the decline in economic growth. > This suggests that the last two decades of global economic turbulence are closely related to the global economy’s continued structural dependence on fossil fuels: a dependence that, if it goes on, will guarantee a grim future of energy and economic decline amidst mounting environmental crisis. It argues that increasing EROI has led to decreased economic growth, and therefore we should switch to renewables before EROI increases for oil in order to make sure we fuel economic growth. But it ignores how EROI decreases growth (mentioned in the article they link to), it does it through increased energy prices. But a switch to renewables is not going to decrease energy prices, if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables.
- kjksf 5y ago
  > if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables According to IMF report, in 2020 fossil fuel industries received $5.9 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies. Not a typo. $5.9 TRILLION You're partially right: we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables if they were playing on even field. But they are not. Fossil fuels receive orders of magnitude more subsidies. And things would be even more in favor of renewables if we addressed externalized costs (BP oil spill and such) by doing e.g. carbon tax. https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/oil-coal-gas-got-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-imf-report/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/oil-coal-gas-got-5-9-tr...
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Almost all of that figure is "breathing pollutants, and environmental damage". Not the government giving Exxon money. Which first off, I wouldn't really call a subsidy, and second, is unquantifiable. You can't tally up the cost of breathing polluted air as if it's a line item in a balance sheet. For me, that casts some serious doubts on the accuracy of the $5.8T figure.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  > But it ignores how EROI decreases growth (mentioned in the article they link to), it does it through increased energy prices. But a switch to renewables is not going to decrease energy prices, if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables. Renewables are still rapidly developing, and prices are falling precipitously. The subsidies are achieving their goal of funding and encouraging investments renewables and their rapid improvement. Every year the MwH price of renewables falls, the opposite is true of fossils. Even now Solar and wind outcompete a number of fossil technologies on price. So your point is completely wrong and totally misunderstands the purpose and achievements of renewable energy subsidies.
treespace88 5y ago
Winters in Calgary regularly go to -20c at night with periods of -30 to -40c. How will we able to heat our homes? I can’t imagine how much more electricity it would take to replace national gas, it could be many times our current electrical production.
- tzs 5y ago
  How long are those periods where it gets colder than -25℃? Mitsubishi's heat pumps with their "Hyper-Heat" feature are able to work at 76% of their capacity down to -25℃. If those colder periods aren't too long, a heat pump combined with good insulation might be enough to get through that.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Modern air to air heat pumps works up to -20. New homes built to A++ standard need so little heating people are just opting to use electricity and use saved cash to build solar plant (provided your grid lets to store power long term).
- nwiswell 5y ago
  > Approximately 49% of Alberta’s natural gas production is consumed here in Alberta. Alberta's residential and commercial sectors account for 17%. The remaining 83% of natural gas consumed in Alberta is used by the industrial, electrical generation, transportation and other sectors. Natural gas is also an important raw material for the province’s oil sands and electric power-generation industries. https://www.alberta.ca/natural-gas-overview.aspx https://www.alberta.ca/natural-gas-overview.aspx You're gonna be fine.
- lazide 5y ago
  It might force a switch back to bio based fuel sources (aka trees in some form) and actual work to increase insulation in the multitude of places that currently go ‘meh’. Also a return of the proper coat as casual indoor wear?
  - MandieD 5y ago
    Heating a whole free-standing house to comfort in long sleeve t-shirts and jeans (68F/20C) in a cold climate is a luxury that’s only a few decades old, especially taking into account how much average houses in the US and Canada have grown over the past century. Open floor plans are also a modern extravagance in cold climates. Before that: smaller houses, closed off rooms, wearing sweaters inside all winter, sitting around a fireplace/stove most of the evening, and using thick down comforters half the year (if you could afford one).
fallingknife 5y ago
> Over the next decades, then, oil and gas investments will become ‘stranded’ due to three converging pressures: climate policies demanding that fossil fuels stay in the ground; plummeting demand as fossil fuels and combustion engines are increasingly disrupted by solar, wind, batteries and EVs; and accelerating “energy cannibalism” as the oil and gas industries, ironically, consume themselves into oblivion in the process of trying to keep going. I don't buy it, because as demand for oil drops, the supplies that will be taken off line are the low EROI ones. So a drop in demand should actually reverse the trend of declining EROI.
xojoc 5y ago
Other threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/futurology/comments/qd76xt https://www.reddit.com/r/futurology/comments/qd76xt [2021-10-22] (376 comments) https://www.reddit.com/r/economics/comments/qd6p6n https://www.reddit.com/r/economics/comments/qd6p6n [2021-10-22] (74 comments) All discussions: https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/https%3A//bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20/oil-system-collapsing-so-fast-it-may-derail-renewables-warn-french-government-scientists/ https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/https%3A//bylinetimes.com/202... Discussions with similar title: https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/Oil%20System%20Collapsing%20So%20Fast%20It%20May%20Derail%20Renewables https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/Oil%20System%20Collapsing%20S... Archive: https://archive.md/newest/https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20/oil-system-collapsing-so-fast-it-may-derail-renewables-warn-french-government-scientists/ https://archive.md/newest/https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20...

46 points by reallydontask 5y ago

It’s strange, the study was authored by researchers at INRIA, France’s computer science R&D institute, not the Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP), their hydrocarbon research institute which is part funded by a tax on petrol products.

iab 5y ago

The oil industry collapses and there isn’t sufficient alternative capacity, while at the same time the climate firewalls are broken. What an incredibly perfect storm.

tehjoker 5y ago
Whelp, if we get fusion energy maybe we can dig ourselves out of this by turning carbon dioxide back into fuel. Not counting my chickens though.

cosmic_shame 5y ago

AKA an energy trap, see: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/

Enginerrrd 5y ago
That was a bit of a scary read... but I wonder to what extent market forces can help mitigate and correct by lowering demand via higher prices.

Factorium 5y ago

We need to rapidly: Adopt modular nuclear reactors, and produce hundreds/thousands of them yearly. Electrify transport. Figure out how to get to a global population of 4 billion: ie massive family planning drive in Africa/West Asia encouraging 1/0 children. (Keep in mind this is just the population level from 1974).

rtkwe 5y ago
Add “reprocess nuclear fuel rods”. Even once expended and removed from reactors there’s a lot of life left in fuel rods and reprocessing reduces the amount of waste that has to be stored long term.
aunty_helen 5y ago
>Adopt modular nuclear reactors, and produce hundreds/thousands of them yearly. We have this, they just go in ships and submarines.
- acchow 5y ago
  Hundreds of nuclear ships/submarines annually?
  - hcurtiss 5y ago
    Well, at least their reactors.
- beamatronic 5y ago
  Bring the ships to port and hook them up to the grid. Talk about swords to plowshares.
  - kfprt 5y ago
    They already can do this.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > We have this, they just go in ships and submarines. US shipboard reactors use highly enriched (93%, literally weapons-grade because it was originally produced for warheads) uranium, that's not really desirable to distribute throughout the territory. Even "low-enriched uranium" in a naval context just below 20% (which is the official boundary between LEU and HEU). By comparison regular "civil" nukes use 3-5% uranium.
iammisc 5y ago

mactavish88 5y ago

How long does it take to build a small-to-moderate sized nuclear power station? (Assuming reasonably well-operating supply chains) Asking because I have no idea and would love to know from someone who has some insight/experience on that front.

fred_is_fred 5y ago
I'd venture that the time to build is inconsequential compared to the environmental and design reviews - which is why bothering to build a small one doesn't make a lot of sense in the US anyway.
Factorium 5y ago
About 2 years at the factory, 2 years onsite: https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#section-leading-the-consortium/deliverable https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactor... We need to be ramping up these immediately... and targeting production of at least dozens per year. Its the perfect industry for a country like the UK to pump money into right now.
hollander 5y ago
The UK is about to build 16 of these. They hope to have them operational by 2035.
- Diederich 5y ago
  Truly? That's great news, I had no idea.
  - kinjba11 5y ago
    Indeed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889108
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Are the Chinese building them for the UK?

maherbeg 5y ago

What was really interesting in this article was the mentioning of "the decline in EROI is an underlying driver of the decline in economic growth". If we can remove our dependency on fossil fuel energy, then we can turn around economic growth models which is really exciting.

JamesBarney 5y ago
It drives a decline in economic growth through increasing energy costs. And no one is under the impression that removing our dependency on fossil fuel is going to make our energy cheaper. So if this model is correct removing our dependency on fossil fuel energy will drive down economic growth further.
tehjoker 5y ago
We can't because we are consuming 6-7 earths worth of other resources already. We are already in ecological overshoot. If it was only oil, you'd be right, but all planetary resources and pollution sinks are being consumed. https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/193149858X https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Growth-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/19...

throwaway832939 5y ago

According to the article, we we got 44 * energy input in 1950, and 8 * input in 2020. Bad maths warning - I think this means that for a given activity that uses oil, say driving a mile, ignoring all the energy that went into the car etc. you're burning 12.5% on top of what you put into the tank. Whereas in 1950 this was only 2.3%. Seems like a noticeable chunk of efficiency improvements are cancelled out just to keep polluting at the same rate as before.

acchow 5y ago
Your math looks correct to me.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
FWIW that's just CO2 - can't ignore other nasty stuff (like benzene - the stuff that people lost their shit when tiny bit was found in sunscreen) that reduced significantly.

wilburTheDog 5y ago

People have been talking about 'peak oil' for years. It was predicted to peak about 15 years ago, at least in the US, but then the government started throwing money at the fracking industry (which as far as I know has never made a profit). This is not news for anyone who has been paying attention. If you haven't started planning how to live your life while our fossil-fuel based economy is collapsing around us, you should start now. Does you think that sounds alarmist? The EIA estimates about 80% of US energy consumption comes from fossil fuels [1]. And there are a large number of things we just can't do with renewables [2], at least not until we figure out how to store energy much more effectively than we can today. There are big changes coming. And I expect a lot of people are going to be caught unprepared. Edit: If you disagree, please let me know why. I would love to hear why I'm wrong about this. 1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45096 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45096 2. https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1114 https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1114

jrussino 5y ago
Like many Americans, we have a mix of electric and natural gas appliances. Historically, natural gas prices have been significantly cheaper than electricity prices, and that's an important factor to take into consideration when trying to estimate the lifetime costs of new appliances (mainly things that need to generate heat: stoves, laundry machines, water heaters, pool heaters...). Is there any reason to suspect that natural gas prices might rise significantly in comparison to electricity prices in the next, say, ~30 years? What resources might one look for in order to try to answer a question like that?
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Is there any reason to suspect that natural gas prices might rise significantly in comparison to electricity prices in the next, say, ~30 years Isn't that what's happening now? I don't know what the cost difference is between heating from an efficient natural gas furnace and heating from an efficient heat pump, so I'm not sure if natural gas has exceeded the price of electric heating. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/natural-gas-prices-are-rising-and-could-be-the-most-expensive-in-13-years-this-winter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/natural-gas-prices-are-risin...

jl6 5y ago

> But this is not because the earth is running out of oil and gas. Well, it kind of is? > Rather, it’s because they are increasingly eating themselves to stay alive. The oil and gas industries are consuming exponentially more and more energy just to keep extracting oil and gas. i.e. we’ve drilled all the easy-to-extract (cheap) oil, and now all that is left is the hard-to-extract (expensive) oil. The thrust of the article is still correct though: the answer is to redouble efforts to move to non-fossil energy sources. Expensive oil might be the sense of urgency we need.

sremani 5y ago
ONG is not just straight energy play, it certainly is the most important. Petrochemicals are pervasive and feeding 7 billion involves production of fertilizers etc. Organic keyboards and Zero plastic displays may be a thing in 2040 but petroleum has touched every aspect of modern life.
ciconia 5y ago
> the answer is to redouble efforts to move to non-fossil energy sources. No, the answer is to consume less energy. Reducing energy consumption (and consumption in general) is the only answer that's compatible with a sustainable future.
- MadcapJake 5y ago
  Only problem is reducing usage isn't compatible with capitalism

JamesBarney 5y ago

This article makes a terrible argument. > As economists Professor Tim Jackson and Dr Andrew Jackson of the University of Surrey have shown, there is now abundant scientific evidence that the decline in EROI is an underlying driver of the decline in economic growth. > This suggests that the last two decades of global economic turbulence are closely related to the global economy’s continued structural dependence on fossil fuels: a dependence that, if it goes on, will guarantee a grim future of energy and economic decline amidst mounting environmental crisis. It argues that increasing EROI has led to decreased economic growth, and therefore we should switch to renewables before EROI increases for oil in order to make sure we fuel economic growth. But it ignores how EROI decreases growth (mentioned in the article they link to), it does it through increased energy prices. But a switch to renewables is not going to decrease energy prices, if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables.

kjksf 5y ago
> if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables According to IMF report, in 2020 fossil fuel industries received $5.9 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies. Not a typo. $5.9 TRILLION You're partially right: we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables if they were playing on even field. But they are not. Fossil fuels receive orders of magnitude more subsidies. And things would be even more in favor of renewables if we addressed externalized costs (BP oil spill and such) by doing e.g. carbon tax. https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/oil-coal-gas-got-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-imf-report/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/19/oil-coal-gas-got-5-9-tr...
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Almost all of that figure is "breathing pollutants, and environmental damage". Not the government giving Exxon money. Which first off, I wouldn't really call a subsidy, and second, is unquantifiable. You can't tally up the cost of breathing polluted air as if it's a line item in a balance sheet. For me, that casts some serious doubts on the accuracy of the $5.8T figure.
avianlyric 5y ago
> But it ignores how EROI decreases growth (mentioned in the article they link to), it does it through increased energy prices. But a switch to renewables is not going to decrease energy prices, if it did we wouldn't need to subsidize renewables. Renewables are still rapidly developing, and prices are falling precipitously. The subsidies are achieving their goal of funding and encouraging investments renewables and their rapid improvement. Every year the MwH price of renewables falls, the opposite is true of fossils. Even now Solar and wind outcompete a number of fossil technologies on price. So your point is completely wrong and totally misunderstands the purpose and achievements of renewable energy subsidies.

treespace88 5y ago

Winters in Calgary regularly go to -20c at night with periods of -30 to -40c. How will we able to heat our homes? I can’t imagine how much more electricity it would take to replace national gas, it could be many times our current electrical production.

tzs 5y ago
How long are those periods where it gets colder than -25℃? Mitsubishi's heat pumps with their "Hyper-Heat" feature are able to work at 76% of their capacity down to -25℃. If those colder periods aren't too long, a heat pump combined with good insulation might be enough to get through that.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Modern air to air heat pumps works up to -20. New homes built to A++ standard need so little heating people are just opting to use electricity and use saved cash to build solar plant (provided your grid lets to store power long term).
nwiswell 5y ago
> Approximately 49% of Alberta’s natural gas production is consumed here in Alberta. Alberta's residential and commercial sectors account for 17%. The remaining 83% of natural gas consumed in Alberta is used by the industrial, electrical generation, transportation and other sectors. Natural gas is also an important raw material for the province’s oil sands and electric power-generation industries. https://www.alberta.ca/natural-gas-overview.aspx https://www.alberta.ca/natural-gas-overview.aspx You're gonna be fine.
lazide 5y ago
It might force a switch back to bio based fuel sources (aka trees in some form) and actual work to increase insulation in the multitude of places that currently go ‘meh’. Also a return of the proper coat as casual indoor wear?
- MandieD 5y ago
  Heating a whole free-standing house to comfort in long sleeve t-shirts and jeans (68F/20C) in a cold climate is a luxury that’s only a few decades old, especially taking into account how much average houses in the US and Canada have grown over the past century. Open floor plans are also a modern extravagance in cold climates. Before that: smaller houses, closed off rooms, wearing sweaters inside all winter, sitting around a fireplace/stove most of the evening, and using thick down comforters half the year (if you could afford one).

fallingknife 5y ago

> Over the next decades, then, oil and gas investments will become ‘stranded’ due to three converging pressures: climate policies demanding that fossil fuels stay in the ground; plummeting demand as fossil fuels and combustion engines are increasingly disrupted by solar, wind, batteries and EVs; and accelerating “energy cannibalism” as the oil and gas industries, ironically, consume themselves into oblivion in the process of trying to keep going. I don't buy it, because as demand for oil drops, the supplies that will be taken off line are the low EROI ones. So a drop in demand should actually reverse the trend of declining EROI.

xojoc 5y ago

Other threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/futurology/comments/qd76xt https://www.reddit.com/r/futurology/comments/qd76xt [2021-10-22] (376 comments) https://www.reddit.com/r/economics/comments/qd6p6n https://www.reddit.com/r/economics/comments/qd6p6n [2021-10-22] (74 comments) All discussions: https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/https%3A//bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20/oil-system-collapsing-so-fast-it-may-derail-renewables-warn-french-government-scientists/ https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/https%3A//bylinetimes.com/202... Discussions with similar title: https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/Oil%20System%20Collapsing%20So%20Fast%20It%20May%20Derail%20Renewables https://discussions.xojoc.pw/q/Oil%20System%20Collapsing%20S... Archive: https://archive.md/newest/https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20/oil-system-collapsing-so-fast-it-may-derail-renewables-warn-french-government-scientists/ https://archive.md/newest/https://bylinetimes.com/2021/10/20...