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by palata 1082 days ago
YES! Peak of conventional oil was in 2008, Europe feels it economically. Global peak oil is around now. We are facing a big energy problem, and we don't have any viable alternatives (renewables are just not up to the task, even nuclear is not).

> We need to transition away from fossil fuels to avoid this fate.

Yes, IMHO that involves degrowth: do less with less. Doesn't mean living like in the Middle Age, but make technology that helps degrowth. That's a big technical challenge that is not in fashion (because we love to jump on ChatGPT APIs and feel like we are productive making prototypes using it).

1 comments

> Global peak oil is around now.

Source?

Production peaked a few years ago[1].

Additionally, the energy required to recover a barrel of oil from shale, etc. is far more than from traditional sources.[2]

[1] https://data.oecd.org/energy/crude-oil-production.htm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

We’re projected to hit a new global production record this year.

I used to work in the shale industry so I know how it works. Yes it’s more intensive but breakevens for fracked wells are down to what breakevens for conventional wells were 20-30 years ago. They have superior technology and processes now that are only getting better, more efficient, and cheaper. There is a lot of money at stake and a ton of very smart people working on this stuff.

That looks like a pretty constant upward trend that just juked due to COVID and a lack of more recent data.