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by seibelj 1454 days ago
Author also believes in the “peak oil” thesis.

There is so much oil, so insanely much, and we constantly find new sources. The biggest risk to oil is governments outlawing / taxing it to be uncompetitive.

3 comments

The reserves are high, but the energy required to extract them are increasingly costly. Shale oil extraction requires about 25% of the energy extracted. Same goes for Venezuela's gargantuan reserves: higher volume than Saudi Arabia, but the lowest quality; almost entirely asphalt-like. You have to expend large amounts of energy to heat it so that it becomes liquid and can go into a pipe.

And peak oil is very real. Earth is desperately still 13k km in diameter, in the face of economic growth that has been exponential for the last 200 years. At some point some limits are going to be reached; and the author thinks we're not that far from them.

Peak oil generally refers to extraction peak. It is possible to have more sources than ever but no longer the need to extract as much as in the past.

Also the energy return on investment (EROI) to extract oil is steadily declining I believe.

That and people realising that, in fact, solar and wind can fully replace oil with a concerted logistical and infrastructure buildout.
Not yet, no. Not at all in fact. Not for at least 50 years.

When i get the proof that cooper mines and refineries can work without oil and coal, i will get my hopes up.

[edit] And anyway, we're nowhere clse to that yet. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-browser?country...