Peak Oil is You
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Page added on July 8, 2022
How Much Fossil Fuel is Left?
Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse engulfs the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies, and in 2020 fossil fuel continued to provide over 80 percent of all energy consumed worldwide.
This basic fact, that maintaining a reliable supply of affordable fossil fuel is a nonnegotiable precondition for the survival of civilization, currently eludes far too many American politicians, including the president. Quoting from energy expert and two-time candidate for Governor of California Michael Shellenberger, “One month ago, the Biden administration killed a one million acre oil and gas lease sale in Alaska, and seven days ago killed new on-shore oil and gas leases in the continental U.S. In fact, at this very moment, the Biden administration is considering a total ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling.”
Another basic fact, easily confirmed by consulting the 2021 edition of the BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, is that if every person living on planet earth were to consume half as much energy per year as the average American currently consumes, global energy production would have to nearly double. Instead of producing 547 exajoules (the mega unit of energy currently favored by economists) per year, energy producers worldwide would have to come up with just over 1,000 exajoules. How exactly will “renewables,” currently delivering 32 exajoules per year, or 6 percent of global energy, expand by a factor of 30x to deliver 1,000 exajoules?
The short answer is it can’t. Despite the fanatical, powerful group-think that calls for abolition of not only fossil fuels, but also most hydroelectric power and all nuclear power, the reality is that most nations of the world are going to continue to develop every source of energy they can, and they’re going to do it as fast as they can. Renewables may have a growing role in that expansion, but renewables are decades away from providing more than a fraction of total global energy production.
How much fossil fuel reserves are there?
The argument against fossil fuel rests on two premises. The first is that CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel is causing a climate emergency. Without (for now) arguing against the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is going to destroy the planet, suffice to say that we’d better adapt to whatever climate change is coming, because the only nations even semi-serious about eliminating use of fossil fuel are Western nations. Once again, recent events have demonstrated that fossil fuel isn’t going anywhere, and nations that renounce its use condemn themselves to deindustrialization and eventual irrelevance.
The other premise underlying the drive to eliminate fossil fuel is more pragmatic. We are reaching “peak oil,” and there simply isn’t enough of it to last much longer. Oil, natural gas, and coal are all nonrenewable resources, with finite reserves. This argument is worth examining in depth.
The next chart shows how much fossil fuel is left in the world in the form of proven reserves (the blue bars), as well as how much, by fuel, was used up in 2020 (red bars, which are so short you can hardly see them). As shown on the chart, in 2020 174 exajoules of oil was burned, with 10,596 exajoules remaining – a 61 year supply. Also shown on the chart, as of 2020, and at current rates of consumption, there is a 208 year supply of worldwide coal reserves, and a 50 year supply of natural gas.
These proven reserves, also reported in the 2021 edition of the BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, don’t tell the whole story. There are “unproven” reserves, which would very likely double the amount of fossil fuel energy available for extraction, and possibly much more.
To understand this, first note that predictions of “peak oil” have been consistently wrong. In a well known early example, back in 1956 economist M. King Hubbert presented a paper to the American Petroleum Institute where “he noted that the rate of consumption of these fuels was greater than the rate at which new reserves were being discovered.” Hubbert predicted U.S. oil production would peak in the 1970s, and indeed there was a peak in 1971, at just over 10 million barrels per day. By 2008, total U.S. production had fallen to as little as 4 million barrels per day. But thanks to the introduction of fracking and deregulation, by 2019 domestic oil production had risen to a new peak of over 12 million barrels per day. New technologies and new exploration resulted in a major expansion of proven reserves.
Another indication of how much energy may remain out there in unproven reserves that are waiting to be tapped is in this 2022 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It estimates America’s total proven natural gas reserves at 473 trillion cubic feet, but estimates additional unproven reserves of natural gas to total another 2,867 trillion cubic feet – six times as much.
Finally, consider this map of the Sub Saharan portion of the African continent. Consider the scale of this map; this continent is over 4,600 miles across at its widest point, compared to the lower 48 of the United States at only 2,800 miles wide. As depicted on the map, promising regions for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration amount to hundreds of thousands of square miles. Africa is a massive continent, with massive reserves of oil and gas. Now consider this report on “Natural Gas Reserves By Country.” Despite its vast potential, the first Sub Saharan nation on the list is Angola, at number 40, with proven gas reserves equal to 0.14 percent of total global reserves. That’s probably a minute fraction of what Africa’s got.
Africa isn’t the only place where fossil fuel reserves have been barely tapped. Expect deposits to be found as needed pretty much everywhere, from the polar regions to countless offshore sites on the continental shelf, and elsewhere.
The current energy crisis is going to harm nations in Africa, and in other developing regions, far more than it will harm Western nations, and that’s saying a lot, considering how cold it’s going to get in places like Berlin and Copenhagen if Russian gas is turned off this winter. But in African nations, the primary source of affordable energy is “biomass.” Put less euphemistically, and to this day, hundreds of millions of Africans still desperately strip the forests in order to gather fuel to cook food, because Western nations and Western dominated banks have prevented them from developing clean natural gas.
This humanitarian folly is multi-faceted. In 1950, there were 227 million people living in Africa. Today, there are 1.4 billion Africans, and by 2050 Africa’s population is projected to be 2.5 billion. On what had been a stable population for centuries, this population explosion was facilitated by Western aid which reduced infant mortality and, overall, provided food aid and healthcare. But now, Western nations are denying Africans the prosperity and self-sufficiency that comes with affordable energy, supposedly to avert climate disaster.
This absurdity ignores the catastrophic impact of a burgeoning population denied access to fertilizer, industrial agriculture, and a reliable power grid, because these are byproducts of fossil fuel. Deliberately denying Africans the fundamental prerequisite for prosperity means their population will continue to explode at the same time as millions of them, desperate for food and fuel, will continue to strip the forests of wood and wildlife. On the flipside, as has been proven worldwide without a single exception, when prosperity is introduced to a culture, the population stabilizes and begins to decline.
There is plenty of fossil fuel
According to the most authoritative source on energy in the world, as noted, total proven reserves of fossil fuel currently total 49,023 exajoules. This means that just with proven reserves, and if only fossil fuel were used, and if global energy consumption were doubled to 1,000 exajoules per year, there would still be a 50 year supply of energy. How much more fossil fuel can be extracted from unproven reserves is anybody’s guess, but it is a safe bet that twice as much more is available, meaning there’s at least another century worth of fossil fuel even if we used nothing else to power civilization.
The benefits of abundant cheap energy are obvious: prosperity and voluntary population stabilization. In the decades to come, other forms of energy will also be further developed. If hydroelectric power doubles, while nuclear power and renewables both go up by an order of magnitude, the three together would provide 636 exajoules of power per year. Under that scenario, fossil fuel use could remain near current levels, and total global energy production would still double to 1,000 exajoules.
What is impossible, however, is for renewables alone to achieve this level of growth. To begin with, more than half of renewable energy today comes from biofuel and biomass, which – and this is yet another irony alert – is already wreaking havoc across the tropics as hundreds of thousands square miles of rainforest are incinerated to make room for cane ethanol and palm oil plantations. And then there are the minerals required for the wind turbine towers, the silicon photovoltaics, and the billions of megawatt-hours of battery farm capacity. Where are the Malthusians when you need them?
Humanity can adapt to climate change, if there is sufficient prosperity and political will. We are already on the brink of commercializing innovations to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel. Should atmospheric CO2 be the horrific pollutant that so many claim it to be, it can be removed from the atmosphere and converted into fuel to drive our trucks around.
Until that time, fossil fuel isn’t going anywhere.
26 Comments on "How Much Fossil Fuel is Left?"
suxs on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 12:36 am
The over-arching fallacy of this article is found in the last paragraph —- humanity can adapt to climate change. Let’s assume for a moment this assumption is correct (it isn’t). What the author fails to consider is humanity’s complete dependence upon a healthy ecosystem for the sustenance of life — oxygen, fresh water, food, and the treatment of our sewage and pollution. At the present time when the effects of climate change are just beginning to be felt, biodiversity is being driven extinct at a rate 10,000 times the normal expected rate. Climate change will exacerbate the rate of extinction by many more factors.
At any moment in time, the planetary ecosystem is poised to implode upon itself. As WE cope with the ravages of climate change safely ensconced in our air-conditioned artificial environment, we will have a front-row seat to the coming environmental apocalypse.
Biden's hairplug on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 6:51 am
Europhile Brit Michael Lambert in despair over speech by Labour leader Keir Starmer, painting the vision for Labour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz35UQnxbSE
Turns out that Starmer is just another Boris Johnson. He doesn’t want to return to the EU, not even to the Common Market and Customs Union.
Fine with me. New Iron Curtain in the Channel, as far as I am concerned. Let’s turn to Russia and China at the earliest opportunity and only come to the rescue of the Yanks, just in case they can motivate themselves to resurrect. The English are hopeless anyway. Here AsiaTimes gloating about how 3 “Anglo-Asians” staged a coupe against Boris Johnson and are determined to takeover Britain and no doubt will open the flood gates for “talents from Asia”:
https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/the-empire-strikes-back-and-johnson-falls/
Whatever. The English are too consumed by their hatred for white people from the continent and would love to continue their role as bulldog in order to keep the continental sheep into the corral owned by US kikes. But that post-WW2 arrangement is almost over, as China is preparing itself to deal a devastating blow against ZOG, aided by Russia, that is at least not losing in Ukraine and probably will manage to tear that part from Kiev-Ukraine that represent 75% of the meager GDP, while leaving the bare bones Kiev-Lvov to the EU.
Hopefully the situation will become so dire in Europe this winter, that impetus is building up in Europe to finally throw the Anglos out and kill braindead NATO once and for all and strike a deal with Russia and reopen Nordstream and start a massive armament program to enable us in Europe to become a superpower ourselves.
Why tf would 440m EU-Europeans need the protection by 330m Americans against 140m Russians, its absurd. It’s Mafia protection and nothing else.
Dredd on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 8:04 am
Aren’t we still making fossils (Small Brains Considered)?
Dredd on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 8:07 am
“Without energy, civilization dies” … without polluting ‘energy’ (oil) civilization lives (Small Brains Considered).
supremacist muzzies jerk on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 9:08 am
hello supertards
please change ur undies after two weeks. this is a public service announcement
i appoint elite whitey suxs supertard. his title is The Lover of supremacist muzzies
please feel at ease among friends we’re lovers of supremacist muzzies
Duncan Idaho on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 3:42 pm
Hint:
Global oil production peaked in Nov of 2018 (C+C).
It is getting further in the rear view mirror.
https://c.tenor.com/NisvWmYeqJIAAAAC/trump-tantrum.gif
makati1 on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 5:04 pm
I give humans until about 2100 to be a “civilization”, baring nuclear war. By then, we will have regressed back to a pre-industrial lifestyle, IF we are lucky. If not, maybe to a tribal or even a hunter/gatherer life style?
By then, we will have used up all practical resources. No, renewable resources, like fusion, will not save us. That is not even practical now and never will be. If you believe that fusion will be your savior, I have a slightly used bridge in Brooklyn I can sell to you cheap, but I only take gold.
Theedrich on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 5:40 pm
Mak, you are right on target! The UK is and long has been insane with its imperial fantasies. The sooner Russia and China defeat the oligarch-run totalitarian dictatorship called America and its barfy bulldog, the better.
Duncan Idaho on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 6:14 pm
A point?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86ff7467e39c1fa7ac9863ee093705dd13bc61a23f7dab8fbbca57ea92022b7a.jpg
Duncan Idaho on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 7:55 pm
Trump is old, fat, stupid and a buffoon. But someone will still have to knock him off the top of the hill because our nazi voters still worship the orange blob.
(desantis is someone who just might do it.)
But, over half of the US reads at less than a 6th Grade level.
They are illiterate,
The Fat Boy is their candidate.
suxs on Sat, 9th Jul 2022 11:51 pm
“But, over half of the US reads at less than a 6th Grade level. They are illiterate. The Fat Boy is their candidate.”
Duncan, this is a stunning statement of fact.
The Republican party has morphed over the past half-century from a socially moderate, environmentally progressive, and fiscally cautious agenda to a party that is devoid of positive aspirations, rejects science, actively works to delegitimize, and destroy government institutions, demands total control over a woman’s reproductive health, creates record-setting budget deficits, embraces the politics of hate and division, and is determined to commit ecocide?
All great empires decline and fall due to internal forces and this time is no different.
Biden's hairplug on Sun, 10th Jul 2022 8:49 am
Already China and the US are wrestling over the Philipines:
https://asiatimes.com/2022/07/us-china-in-a-diplomatic-tug-of-war-for-marcos/
Its going to be crowded there, at mak’s front door.
makati1 on Sun, 10th Jul 2022 5:11 pm
Biden’s, The Ps is trying to sit on the fence, but if it gets down to choosing the US instead of China, not going to happen. China is the P’s biggest trade partner, is only 500 miles off the Ps coast and already owns a lot of the Ps corporations thru family, not to mention that the oldest Chinatown is in the Ps.
Much as you would like to think I am in the wrong place, it is you who is in the wrong place. The West is committing suicide, while the Rest of the world is growing. if you think that an ocean can protect you this time, you are deluded.
makati1 on Sun, 10th Jul 2022 5:20 pm
Read this short article. Did you notice the Mount Everest pile of hypocrcy? If not, you need to get out of the box!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chinese-communist-party-threat-massive-fbi-and-mi5-directors
Firt Example: “…the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the greatest threat to the international order.” should read: “the US is the greatest threat to the international order.”
And the many examples of hypocrisy go on throughout the short article. Almost every line. Are these people representing the US stupid, brainwashed or…? The rest of the world is waking up to this hypocrisy and the endless lies the US spews every day. The US, and West, is being isolated. Not good for Amerikans.
Biden’s hairplug on Sun, 10th Jul 2022 11:15 pm
But, over half of the US reads at less than a 6th Grade level.
They are illiterate,
The Fat Boy is their candidate
The typical colorblindness of the left.
Lying until the cows come home.
The increase of illiteracy went hand in hand with the import of IQ70 third worlders:
https://theweek.com/articles/484910/detroits-shocking-47-percent-illiteracy-rate
“Detroit’s ‘shocking’ 47 percent illiteracy rate“
Now, come on, donkey idaho, Detroit is for 85% black.
See a pattern here? Probably not, lying lefties like yourself will always let their marxist ideology prevail over reality.
But that’s ok. If the white race is to have any future at all, it will have to be over dead anglo bodies. So, no sentimentality here, just pump as much dark gangreen into the anglo body politic, in order to blow it up as soon as possible and rebuild white civilization around EU+Russia and perhaps some balkanized anglo territories as junior partner, if they are so lucky.
#AngloEuroSenioritySwap
Cloggie on Sun, 10th Jul 2022 11:51 pm
Bicycle highways in the Netherlands, soon a global necessity?
https://youtu.be/7sGy4kS9T2w
makati1 on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 2:36 am
It seems that bicycles are the least of the dutch problems. You import a lot of non-green materials for a so called renewables country.
Crude oil: US$36.3 billion (up 65.2% from 2020)
Processed petroleum oils: $25.8 billion (up 44.3%)
Petroleum gases: $6.6 billion (up 298.9%)
Coal tar oils (high temperature distillation): $5.7 billion (up 79.8%)
Coal, solid fuels made from coal: $1.8 billion (up 144.6%)
Petroleum oil residues: $486.9 million (up 58.4%)
Petroleum jelly, mineral waxes: $271.2 million (up 81%)
Peat: $168.5 million (up 55%)
Tar pitch, coke: $135.5 million (up 77.9%)
Asphalt/petroleum bitumen mixes: $59.6 million (up 39.3%)
How do you build bikes without FFs? How do you repair/replace bikes without FFs? Just like the rest of the “renewable” crowd, you are full of bullshit!
OH! That’s right! Your deluded greenie government wants to cut your food source by banning cows and farms. LOL
Cloggie on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 3:35 am
“How do you build bikes without FFs? How do you repair/replace bikes without FFs? Just like the rest of the “renewable” crowd, you are full of bullshit!”
In the Netherlands there are 17 million people and 23 million bikes, that last for decades and hardly need any maintenance.
“OH! That’s right! Your deluded greenie government wants to cut your food source by banning cows and farms. LOL”
I am in favor of overthrowing the WEF government (by finally kicking the Americans out), but here they have a point.
It’s about nitrogenous compounds in animal excrement (ammonia and urea, not N2). A few key data about the Netherlands: 17 million people, 4 million cows, 6 million pigs, 100 million chickens. Area: 33k km2. These animals produce incredible amounts of excrement, worth the equivalent of 120 million people. It is as if the entire Russia is shitting and peeing on an area the size of Maryland. The problem from the governments’ perspective is threefold: nitrogen, housing and economics. There is an overload of manure, that is difficult to get rid of. Far more important is the housing problem. Up to 1 million desperate people are looking for a home, but cannot find one, because these stupid cows take all the land. In the Netherlands, a cow occupies 3700 m2, a human merely 800 m2. This is absurd! Humans come before cows. The Netherlands is the 2nd agricultural exporter in the world, behind only the US. That is an incredible achievement, but it is a little too much. 3/4 of Dutch agricultural output is for exports. The gov only wants to halve the cattle stock, nothing else, which means that Dutch cattle farmers will still export and the shelves in the Netherlands will not empty. Then there is economics. The Netherlands has a GDP of about 1 trillion euro, that means an output of 30 euro/m2. These cows contribute very little to the GDP, but take up a lot of very valuable land, ca. 40% is meadow, resulting in a few dimes/m2 yield. This is a gold mine for cattle farmers, who are all millionaire (1.8 million euro per farm on average) and who will be compensated for 100% by the government. But for the Dutch economy, that farmland can be used much more profitable. 3700 m2 occupied by a single shitting cow, can be used for a small machine factory, a solar panel factory, an engineering bureau, or a microprocessor fab, the EU is dreaming about, etc., etc. I’m sorry, but the Dutch government has a point for a change.
“How do you build bikes without FFs?”
The Netherlands has about 1000 billion euro worth of natural gas left. That’s sufficient to push through the renewable energy transition.
The good thing about the cost of living crisis is that it stops people from flying and driving around. They will need all the money they have for food and energy. It could kill very well private car ownership. Just use your bike, fatty! Like this:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/san-francisco-1906-amsterdam-2018/
Our part of the North Sea has the potential for 85 GW wind (EU consumes 300 GW electricity). Additionally, there is potential at sea for enormous amounts of solar:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2022/07/03/oceans-of-energy-north-sea-offshore-solar/
The demand for solar panels in the Netherlands is exploding, we buy more than the rest of the EU combined:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2022/07/02/most-of-chinese-export-of-solar-panels-goes-to-europe/
And Europe is setting up local production lines for solar modules:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2022/07/03/comeback-european-solar-module-manufacturing/
Dredd on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 8:32 am
“How Much Fossil Fuel is Left?” Enough to Frankenstein us (Junk DNA R Us – 2).
peakyeast on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 9:41 am
Cows held under digusting cicumstances acting as food machines – and then claim they are before humans?
And there are 17 mio humans and 4 mio cows…
That is truly humanity at its stupidest to then claim cows are before humans
All those pesky animals and fish living where there could be only humans…
Lets eradicate it all and grow algae and bacteria as food in tanks…. Because no living animal should be “before” humans..
…
Actually I would rather eliminate 7 billion humans than eradicating one more species.
Duncan Idaho on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 10:48 am
“The one good thing about the Trump phenomenon is that it’s effectively ended any necessity to believe that the Republican party cares about morality or values.”
The Fat Boy did do some good.
Hello on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 11:27 am
>> The Fat Boy did do some good.
Still hung up on trumpy, 2 years after? Man you must have experienced big trauma. Go to some save space and cuddle up with other woke morons.
makati1 on Mon, 11th Jul 2022 6:35 pm
I like how Cloggie believes that bikes last for decades. Not in my experience. The tires wear out or get punctured. the gears wear out and/or require FF oil/grease to keep them operating. Etc. NOTHING made today lasts for decades. Nothing! Nor do they exist without FFs. They will not be replaced with wind or solar power.
The Netherlands cannot exist without a lot of FFs forever. But then, with 80+% GMO JABBED (vaccinated) and over 60% with booster kill shots, population may not be a problem for the Netherlands soon. Survival at any cost, even FFs, will.
BTW: How many bikes existed before the machine age and the use of coal(FF)? Certainly not 23 million. They were invented in 1817 to replace horses, were made of wood and had no chains or peddles. They were propelled by foot power. Like an office chair you push around with your feet.
Delusions of a “renewable world” will fast fade in the real world coming. Plant a garden.
Cloggie on Tue, 12th Jul 2022 12:17 am
Why cycling in a city is superior:
https://youtu.be/utH2GFpy5K0
suxs on Tue, 12th Jul 2022 4:12 am
The fact that Trumptards hate how the extent of Trump’s criminal behavior continues to be uncovered is a good thing.
makati1 on Wed, 13th Jul 2022 6:43 pm
Trump, or maybe Musk in 24? Or Santos? Doesn’t matter by then. The US will be in Great Depression 2, or in a world war, or both. Not to mention experiencing a 3rd world lifestyle.
The Deep State Elite control will be obvious to even the dumbest Amerikan sheep. I personally don’t vote for anyone, but I hope Trump runs and wins and raises hell like he did for the previous 4 years.
Pass the popcorn. The show is getting more and more interesting.