According to a commenter on my previous post, the only scenario in the current IPCC projections that results in temperature increasing by more than 2°C from now to the end of the century assumes a total consumption of coal considerably greater than the total amount believed to exist. I do not know if he is correct—he links to a presentation on estimating ultimate coal production.

Thinking about that claim, it occurred to me that there are (at least) two arguments for shifting from fossil fuels to recyclables, that they tend, in my experience, to be supported by the same people, and that they cut in opposite directions—the stronger one is, the weaker the other.

One argument is that fossil fuels are a depletable resource that we will eventually run out of and that we should therefor be switching to non-depletable resources such as solar, wind and water. The peak oil version of this argument has been popular for quite a long time, and the same argument applies, in principle, to gas and coal.

The other argument is CAGW—Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Burning fossil fuels puts CO2 into the atmosphere which raises global temperatures and, it is argued, the increase in temperature and associated climate effects will have very bad consequences.

As best I can tell, the two arguments tend to be supported by the same people. This makes sense from the point of view of someone who has a conclusion and wants arguments to support it, since both arguments support the same conclusion. It also makes sense if one sees views on such issues as largely determined by ideological allegiance, with liberals and environmentalists tending to believe in problems that require government action to solve, conservatives and libertarians tending to be skeptical.

On the other hand …  . The more limited our supplies of fossil fuels are, the lower the climate effects of burning them all up. If we are going to run out of all of them by, say, 2050, then any global warming projection that depends on our continuing to burn them thereafter is impossible. To put the point differently, the closer to exhaustion we are, the higher the price of fossil fuels will be, ceteris paribus, since anyone who owns a coal mine and expects the price of coal to go up sharply as supplies are depleted has an obvious incentive to postpone production until they do. The logic of that situation was worked out in a classic article by Harold Hotelling more than seventy years ago.

The higher the prices of fossil fuels, the greater the incentive to switch to renewables. If exhaustion is a serious problem, if likely rates of consumption will make fossil fuels much more expensive by, say, mid-century, the CAGW problem will take care of itself without any government action needed.

14 Comments on "Peak Oil/coal/gas vs Global Warming"

J-Gav on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 1:30 pm 



The 1st paragra

J-Gav on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 1:34 pm 



The 1st paragraph is so full of baloney you needn’t read any further. If we continue burning fossil fuels till 2050, we’ll sweep past 2°C warming as nasty feedback loops kick in.

GregT on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 5:34 pm 



J-Gav,

We are currently at around .8 of a degree C above pre-industrial global average temperatures. One of the most threatening positive feedback mechanisms is methane releases due to warming in the Arctic. The Arctic ice is already in a state of terminal decline. If a large methane release were to occur, some scientists believe that global mean temperatures could increase as much as 16 degrees C in as little as one decade. We don’t have until 2050 to stop adding more CO2 into the environment.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 6:25 pm 



Burning any significant portion of the fossil fuel that still remains in the ground would be devastating to the climate. Even if politicians and financial whizzes are too preoccupied or too ignorant to recognize the consequences of climate change, one thing we can be absolutely positive about, and that is the US Military certainly recognizes the dangers of climate change. I like to think that somewhere, there are smart enough people in positions of power that see the self-inflicted damage that burning more fossil fuel will cause, and that they have their hands on the buttons and levers that will bring the curtain down on this act of human civilization, resulting in massive chaos and death no doubt, but long term insuring a not-too-hot and not-too-toxic environment for future humanity. But I’m an optimist.

Stilgar Wilcox on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 9:54 pm 



This article makes it sound like there is no way possible to exceed 2C no matter how much FF we burn. How convenient!

PapaSmurf on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 10:55 pm 



If we are doing a “fast crash” as most of you seem to believe, would that mean that the grid comes down everywhere? No more coal consumption, no more oil drilling?

So if all of that is happening at some point between 2015-2020, then all of the global warming models of predictions by 2100 is sort of…. wrong.

Can anyone point to an IPCC global warming models that take Peak Oil or collapse of modern civilization into their calculations?

Stilgar Wilcox on Tue, 11th Mar 2014 11:38 pm 



“So if all of that is happening at some point between 2015-2020, then all of the global warming models of predictions by 2100 is sort of…. wrong.”

Good point, and one I tried to make at Neven’s arctic blog. The response caught me quite off guard as many got quite argumentative it was not possible to have an economic collapse so soon. Other than one poster the responses were in sharp denial with one person getting quite pushed out of shape. And here I thought the possibility would be considered great news as it would eliminate the worst GW scenarios. Go figure.

PapaSmurf on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 1:35 am 



Stilgar,
I have been bringing up this contradiction for years, even on this website. Probably back in 2004-2008 was when I was active here. Both models cannot be correct.

Peak Oil versus Global Warming…. which is it? The bad case scenarios of both don’t seem to be compatible.

All Global Warming models seem to be based on the projections of using ever more amounts of coal, natural gas and oil consistently through 2050, as if there are no limits to supply.

But all Peak Oil worst case scenario predictions seem to dismiss even the concept that we have such amazing amounts of oil. So I guess Global Warming worst case projections are off the table for those guys.

Stilgar Wilcox on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 4:51 am 



It gets into timing. How long will BAU continue to burn FF at current or higher rates, with longer periods increasing severity of AGW implications. Both could dovetail into severity if given long enough time frames, but if peak oil does cause economic collapse in the near future, 2015-2020, and there is no reset, the mid-century to end of century very high C increases are off the table. I agree, can’t have it both ways.

I was amazed though in the great recession that things didn’t go down hill more than they did. So there is apparently more flexibility in the system than I previously gave it credit. It would seem the tether has tightened, but people are very crafty at kicking the can down the road, a survival reflex. We’ll see if the next five years brings what many think it will or if in 2021 fuel is still at the local station for 3.80 a gallon and not much seems to have changed.

It’s strange. Some days I’m sure civilization is going to hell in a hand basket, but then things just seem to keep going. I’ve been wondering lately if what will happen as oil descends from peak is the number of people experiencing BAU will just reduce somewhat while the others move to the sidelines without mayhem ensuing. Maybe people are more complacent to accept suffering than to combine forces for chaos.

Davy, Hermann, MO on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 1:42 pm 



Stilgar said – I was amazed though in the great recession that things didn’t go downhill more than they did. So there is apparently more flexibility in the system than I previously gave it credit.

We had a “minsky moment” when things were shutting down around the Lehman bankruptcy. If the wrong decisions would have been made we might not be talking here like we are. We came very close to a severe contraction and an end of globalism. Debt inspired confidence was the savior. Wealth transfer cannibalization has allowed growth to continue. Debt was bad before but now it is in a different class. We are so far away from normal economics that the idea of value, risk, and price discover are a thing of the past. It is now a Ponzi scheme bubble of debt driven by money creation globally. It will continue as long as confidence continues. Sooner or later confidence will take a hit and you will see an unravelling much worse than Lehman event. The PO dynamics will kick in with force once the economy stumbles. The expensive production methods and existing sources will not survive this hit. They may still produce but there will be no growth. That will be truly liquid fuel PO.

edboyle on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 2:55 pm 



like 5 more years and 400 million more people to use same amount of FFs. So US/European/Japanese labour participation rates and incomes fall and therefore FFs and other consumption to be sent then to China,etc. Until a crash comes this will remain the story.

cephalotus on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 6:02 pm 



AGW is the much bigger threat.

Even the easy and cheap available oil and natural gas will most likely cause a +4K warming, this is without burning a single drop of expensive oil (deep sea, tar sands, etc…), without any use of unconventional gas (shale, methane hydrates) and without burning a single piece of coal.

If we run out of coal CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will be so high that our oceans will be acid and temperatur most likely will be so high that many aprts of the world simply are not inhabitable for mammals that die if the core body temperature rasies to high.
(thermogeddon).

If we want to keep AGW at +2K we will most likely keep most of the oil and gas (even the cheap stuff) and most of the coal in the ground.

cephalotus on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 6:03 pm 



PS: … because this is unlikely we will end up with both problems:

first a hot climate and after that a limitation of fossil fuels.

Davey on Wed, 12th Mar 2014 6:26 pm 



Cephalotus, you do realize damned if we do damned if we don’t. You don’t really think we can make a transition off fossil fuel without maybe half the world population dying in short order. An inhabitable climate probably is worse. Please don’t respond with a “lobby of plenty and human exceptionalism” statement that we will save our current modern life with a renewable based economy. We have proven that a falicy wrong here on this site.