3 ms·

To be fair, "peak oil" was a big scare at one point.

nostrademons 3y ago
Arguably we reached peak oil in 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265203/global-oil-production-in-barrels-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265203/global-oil-produc... It's hard to extrapolate a trend though - there was a dip caused by COVID, and global oil use has been growing since then, but it's still not back to where it was 4 years ago. Also a lot of people think peak oil means that we suddenly won't have any gas available. No. Peak oil means all the easily extractable oil is gone, and so all future projects need to use more capital-intensive, technologically-advanced extraction techniques that cost more, and so the price of oil goes up, and then we use less of it while it's replaced by other technologies. Which is exactly what's been happening for the past ~5-15 years. U.S. is back to being the world's top oil producer, but all of it is in shale oil fields that aren't economically viable below ~$50/barrel, and so gas will never go back down to the $1/gallon it was in the 90s.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are many different definition of 'Peak oil' but anybody that thinks this is all because of technology is just wrong. The OPEC countries could produce far more oil far cheaper, but they don't want to. There are plenty of oil fields left. Not to mention fighting economic war against Iran and Russia, two huge producers.
ddingus 3y ago
That should continue to be a scare. It is likely we are or have peaked. The way I see it, we bootstrapped our existing tech off high energy density oil. If it were gone, we would find it extremely difficult to repeat it all. Now that we have built all this up, it is also our opportunity to bootstrap something far more sustainable, or we do risk a serious regression and a lot of people die. Longer term, we use oil for far too much. Getting off of it preserves a resource we may well find need of again.
- walleeee 3y ago
  It is especially maddening that our fossil inheritance, dipped into with wisdom and in moderation, could have been a profound and lasting gift for all future life on earth, instead of threatening its very existence. The dose makes the poison
- anonylizard 3y ago
  Technology generally speaking only moves forward. Some technologies will be lost in a civilizational collapse, but the most important ones generally survive. If another collapse happens, and without oil, people could believably bootstrap straight from electricity + batteries. There'll be endless amounts of quality scrap material and manuals. A lot of critical small scale appliances can be powered by hand-cranked motors.
  - ddingus 3y ago
    It does not work that way. What you don't understand is the energy density multiplied by massive availability is what made the difference. There is chemistry in all of that too. We make so damn many things with fossil fuels it's hard to comprehend. If we were to collapse, we would be left with some remnants that we would be unable to reproduce! The tech needed for that runs on fuels we would find ourselves unable to procure. That's coping, not building or bootstrapping.

Arguably we reached peak oil in 2019: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265203/global-oil-production-in-barrels-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265203/global-oil-produc... It's hard to extrapolate a trend though - there was a dip caused by COVID, and global oil use has been growing since then, but it's still not back to where it was 4 years ago. Also a lot of people think peak oil means that we suddenly won't have any gas available. No. Peak oil means all the easily extractable oil is gone, and so all future projects need to use more capital-intensive, technologically-advanced extraction techniques that cost more, and so the price of oil goes up, and then we use less of it while it's replaced by other technologies. Which is exactly what's been happening for the past ~5-15 years. U.S. is back to being the world's top oil producer, but all of it is in shale oil fields that aren't economically viable below ~$50/barrel, and so gas will never go back down to the $1/gallon it was in the 90s.

panick21_ 3y ago
There are many different definition of 'Peak oil' but anybody that thinks this is all because of technology is just wrong. The OPEC countries could produce far more oil far cheaper, but they don't want to. There are plenty of oil fields left. Not to mention fighting economic war against Iran and Russia, two huge producers.

ddingus 3y ago

That should continue to be a scare. It is likely we are or have peaked. The way I see it, we bootstrapped our existing tech off high energy density oil. If it were gone, we would find it extremely difficult to repeat it all. Now that we have built all this up, it is also our opportunity to bootstrap something far more sustainable, or we do risk a serious regression and a lot of people die. Longer term, we use oil for far too much. Getting off of it preserves a resource we may well find need of again.

walleeee 3y ago
It is especially maddening that our fossil inheritance, dipped into with wisdom and in moderation, could have been a profound and lasting gift for all future life on earth, instead of threatening its very existence. The dose makes the poison
anonylizard 3y ago
Technology generally speaking only moves forward. Some technologies will be lost in a civilizational collapse, but the most important ones generally survive. If another collapse happens, and without oil, people could believably bootstrap straight from electricity + batteries. There'll be endless amounts of quality scrap material and manuals. A lot of critical small scale appliances can be powered by hand-cranked motors.
- ddingus 3y ago
  It does not work that way. What you don't understand is the energy density multiplied by massive availability is what made the difference. There is chemistry in all of that too. We make so damn many things with fossil fuels it's hard to comprehend. If we were to collapse, we would be left with some remnants that we would be unable to reproduce! The tech needed for that runs on fuels we would find ourselves unable to procure. That's coping, not building or bootstrapping.