Thanks for the logical lay out of the issues. As I read the graphs it appears to be that if GDP has grown at 3% while decarbonization has grown at 2%, we are not merely missing our goal posts, but are moving in the wrong direction. Am I reading this correctly?
What if our CO2 emissions do not have a significant effect on our climate? What if our use of "fossil fuels" is completely irrelevant? Then climate policy is a exercise in harakiri.
Consider these scientific findings:
1. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
2. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
3. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
"The decadal rotational variations likely arise from gravitationally driven electromagnetic coupling between inner and outer cores and the mantle. Global temperature changes some eight years after the Earth’s rotation rate changes. The Earth’s rotation rate changes some eight years after the inner core’s rotation rate changes. Recently, scientists found that the inner core’s rotation rate began to slow around 2009. Global cooling is likely to set in around 2025. "
Focusing on carbon dioxide diverts attention from the root causes, which are the use of fossil fuels, cement, steel and N-fertilizer production, and deforestation/land use changes. All these fossil resources are essential to human life on Earth.
They are the factors that increase or not the amount of carbon dioxyde in the atmosphere. Accounting for this molecule does not suggest anything that can directly provide any change, but it is very useful for accusing, blaming and shaming everyone involved in their daily activities. It is demotivating and does not encourage any performance other than that of announcing a catastrophe. To change anything, the average citizen has no means at his or her disposal, apart from trifles.
Accounting for the consumption of fossil fuels is simpler, more understandable, and doesn't cause headaches when trying to figure out which borders they cross.
Consumption can be reduced by improving efficiency (GDP/Tech) and by substitution, above all by widespread electrification (Tech/Tech, a ratio which is not explicit in the Kaya identity).
Fossil fuels currently account for 88.7% of the world's energy mix. This proportion has fallen by 0.27% each year over the last five years. Everyone will know how to use a rule of three to estimate how many years are needed to get to zero at this rate (329 years), or to estimate the size of the changes needed to get there in 25 years (accelerating immediately to a rate 13 times higher than the current one). None of these figures but the current situation are realistic; the mitigation policies will fail. Adaptation will be more helpful.
pleasure reading you also here on Roger’s Substack.
You hit the nail on the head in so many different ways in your message:
1. looking at CO2 alone and treating it as the villain hides on purpose the amazing growth and increase in human flourishing that has been going on over the past 40 years, especially among the poorest of the poor. It’s as if celebrating such great news is anathema because of the prevailing neo-Malthusians in power, who don’t want to have ANY good news emerge, as it would diminish their credibility as climate doomers and human success haters.
2. human flourishing happens NOT because of just electricity, but ALSO because of electricity. In most cases simply having access to bottled gas to heat the home and cook in a stove adds years of life to the billions who still use dung and sticks to create heat in their home. That’s why it’s foolish to push for electrification as the main goal in the poor countries. It’s impossible to completely jump the step of using gas to cook and to create heat, exactly like we did in Europe over the past 60 years. It took nuclear power to see electric stoves in France and Switzerland, and in countries such as Italy where nuclear is verboten, they still use A LOT of gas in kitchens.
3. basically CO2 is a proxy for human flourishing in my view, and contrary to what Roger thinks I have many doubts on whether we can really have growth in both economic and wellbeing terms without a growth in emissions. And the recent data showing an increase in emissions should make people happy and not sad, as it means that MORE people are getting out of energy poverty.
I am interested in your reference to the Tech/Tech ratio: is this only related to electricity in your view? To me it’s obvious that nuclear plays a huge role in it, but the size, time and financial burden of anything nuclear, big or small, coupled with the resistance from many for purely non reason-based motives, means automatically MORE fossil fuels and more CO2.
How great is the cosmopolitism of Roger Pielke's audience!
Massive electrification is a need also for developing countries. The lack of general infrastructure may be compensated by local supply with a combination of robust technologies: for example: photovoltaic coupled with batteries at a relatively small scale. But these countries need more than subsistence farming in small settlements; they are urbanizing at high rate. Also, being at the source of many essential raw materials, they would create more value for themselves if the first processing steps of these resources would take place where they are extracted rather than being exported at low commodity price. To achieve such vertical integration, energy supply as large scale will be required. Solutions to this challenge are similar to those needed by developed countries to wean themselves from fossil fuels.
The Tech/Tech ratio can only change if true breakthroughs are achieved in key technologies: cement, steel, most of chemical industry (including polymers).. Also, synfuels could be a high energy density and ease of handling substitute for petrol, diesel, and jet fuels. Nuclear is one key element but not the sole. Other existing technologies (Sabatier reaction and the likes) are not yet affordable in practice because of low efficiencies: too much primary energy required and too much wastes of all kinds, thus too high costs and risks.
Policies cannot be based on hypothetical breakthroughs because things that do not exist remain in the realm of wishful thinking. Believing that they can be ordered by decree or by force of law, and achieved within a contractual time frame, is more a matter of faith than reason. That's why these policies are doomed to failure.
In the meantime, yes, more fossil fuels will be used, also to be able to implement new technologies. This can last for decades or more.
Generally agree, but isn't there a counterargument suggesting that in the absence of policies aimed at reducing emissions, emissions growth would have been higher? This caught my eye in the IEA's 2023 CO2 report, published a few days ago:
"Between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased around 900 Mt. Without the growing deployment of five key clean energy technologies since 2019 - solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, and electric cars - the emissions growth would have been three times larger."
"Three times" is probably an overstatement. Still, isn't it difficult to imagine these technologies scaling as rapidly as they have, particularly wind and solar, without significant government support?
I would dispute that statement. That claim is largely based on the common falsehood that intermittent, unreliable, seasonal, non-dispatchable wind & solar electricity production is a 1:1 replacement for fossil electricity. In fact it is a scam that is widely used in calculating carbon credits, net zero and corporation low carbon claims or greenwashing.
The actual fossil replaced by wind & solar is highly dependent on the location and grid architecture. It can be anywhere from negative (i.e. actually INCREASES fossil emissions) as the Bentek study showed for Texas & Colorado, to maybe close to ~90% in areas that have a lot of reservoir hydro. Also wind/solar can be reasonably effective at emissions reductions on a diesel grid, especially when combined with expensive battery storage. The fact is that a wind/solar grid is a maximal inefficient grid, and that inefficiency seriously impacts the actual emissions reductions of wind & solar.
Agreed, 100%. What this means is that "climate policies" are carrying forward historical rates of decarbonization. Much of this would definitely not occur without policy, but we can say that same thing about historical (pre-climate policy era) policies as well. The point here is not that policy does not matter, quite the contrary, they do! But if we wish to meet these aggressive targets we will have to do something very different than we have been.
Ehrlich, P. R., & Holdren, J. P. (1971). Impact of Population Growth: Complacency concerning this component of man's predicament is unjustified and counterproductive. Science, 171(3977), 1212-1217.
If people can be compelled to wear masks and stand 6 feet apart based purely on fear-based diktats, they can be compelled to forgo a lot travel, meat, and HVAC based on climate-based fear.
What is the decision-making process that determines the targets of climate policies? i.e. where do those numbers come from, are they based on trend analysis and feasibility reviews, etc. What does it look like in the 'room where it happens'?
Good analysis. Now what you need to do is calculate the decarbonization rates of various countries during their main efforts to replace or switch fossil fuels. That would be largely France, Sweden, Ontario, USA with nuclear during the 1970s and Germany with wind & solar, USA with coal --> gas.
I suspect the best Nuclear build rates did result in more than your 9% Decarbonization rate objective, but no other effort by any nation has succeeded with any other method.
Said another way, without a legion of technological breakthroughs or whole scale adoption of nuclear, the acceleration of the decarbonization curve won’t be happening soon, if at all. Thus the current trajectory of emission reduction policies are just Environmental Marxism.
What we need is to replace fossil fuels with Nuclear. CO2 is irrelevant. The harsh reality is that fossil fuels can only be a brief blip on the timeline of human civilization. We must switch to nuclear energy or our civilization will collapse. Just the accessible resource of uranium & thorium on the Earth land mass will power our civilization for a 100 Myrs. Deuterium, lithium & boron until the Sun dies. Fossil, maybe 100yrs more.
Take a look at Koonins recent book "Unsettled". We have used only 11 % of available fossil fuels. That means we we have enough for 400 more years even if we double todays consumption rate, while not looking for more coal, oil and gas.
So there is no hurry whatsoever transitioning away from fossil fuels. More so, since the technology we are supposed to transition into, largely has not yet been invented or made profitable.
But what about "the collapse of our (western only) civilization"? Most likely, this will be caused by a continuation of western climate policy. Even so, since some 70 % of humanity disregard western climate policy, those of us not wanting to be part of that coming collapse, can just relocate to East Asia.
Really? You are confusing "potential fossil fuel resource" with economical fossil resources. And the vast bulk of those resources are coal, lignite, peat the lowest density, most expensive to utilize resources. What about petrochemicals? You want to waste our oil & gas supply on energy when we can get that easily from Nuclear power? When we really need oil & gas for fertilizer, plastics, lubricants & the chemical industry.
Listen to two of the best Energy Analysts Goehring & Rozencwajg (they aren't Doomers, Greenies or Malthusian scam artists ):
"Today we deep dive fracking and shale, the energy source that put Peak Oil concerns on the back burner for a decade and a half. According to recent analysis by Goehring and Rozencwajg Shale field production is showing signs of sliding down the backside of Hubbert’s curve. What are the geopolitical and economic ramifications? Are there more shale booms on the horizon overseas? What are the implications for nuclear which has been sidelined in deregulated markets by cheap abundant gas? Leigh Goehring joins me for a detailed discussion"
The End of Abundant Energy: Shale Production and Hubbert's Peak:
These analysts are not talking 400yr from now, they are talking within the next decade, max. And then you add the fact that the vast bulk of oil & gas resource will shift to the geopolitically unstable, unreliable areas of the Middle East, Russia & Venezuela. What will happen in the next Middle East war? You are aware of the extreme inelasticity of oil & gas supply? Small constraints in supply = giant increases in price.
Lot's of areas of plenty of coal reserves but that has not saved them from the economic strangulation of high oil & gas prices. And most of the prime oil & gas fields worldwide outside of the Middle East have already been in severe decline.
Add to that you must realize that energy is not just another commodity like bananas. And economy can do without a good domestic banana supply, but they cannot rely on foreign energy supplies. As Europe foolishly did with Russian oil & gas, and now it has come back to bite them on the butt. With the consolidation of fossil resources to a small number of nations, economic blackmail will be catastrophic to the have-not nations.
The technology to transition into has been readily available for 50yrs now, in spite of all the liars on the banking/fossil fuel payroll. France replaced 88% of their domestic electricity supply and 40% of their primary energy supply in 20yrs with nuclear energy over 40yrs ago. And achieved some of the lowest energy costs in Europe. That's with ancient one-at-a-time light water reactor designs. We can do far better than that now. But energy unfortunately is probably the most corrupt, zero-sum industry on Earth. What can be done and should be done has nothing to do with what is being done.
I've been told by besserwissers that peak oil is just around the corner, since the mid-1970s. Today peak oil is so far away that the peak oilers have mostly stopped nagging us about the approaching peak oil doom.
And the numbers I gave you (Koonins Unsettled) is quite clear about what is economical with the current oil price level around USD 80/barrel. Since most of the planet (outside US borders) have not even started exploiting their hydraulic fracturing potential, cheap abundant gas is here to stay for at least this century. Unless it is taxed to death by the greenies and the climatist cult.
Meanwhile the greenies have managed to saddle the nuclear industry with so many rules and restrictions that it takes about 15 years in the US to get a reactor built. These rules, obviously intended to kill the nuclear industry, have made nuclear so immensely costly that most investors stay away.
The same cultists are now promoting hydrogen, wind and solar in place of hydrocarbons. More insanity, since about half of the energy contained in gas is destroyed in order to produce expensive hydrogen, and the emissions "saved" are simply moved from gas use to hydrogen production.
Yes, of course we really need oil & gas for fertilizer, plastics, lubricants & the chemical industry. In order to insure that for the future, we need to get rid of the greenies and the climate cultists.
The first step should be disciplining the IPCC to stop behaving dishonestly, or as Roger once wrote, perhaps it is easier or better to simply abolish the IPCC since it may be unable to reform itself.
Well, peak oil did happen, Hubbert's analysis was amazingly prescient, it just doesn't and cannot take into account technological innovation. So Peak conventional oil did happen in the USA and many other areas. New tech will only shift Hubbert's curve to a later period, as Tight Oil did for US oil supply. Note conventional oil never recovered after its peak ~1973. G&R analysis shows the same will occur for Tight Oil and soon.
And remember we don't need peak physical oil reserve we need only reach peak economical oil and later gas. That will happen and within 10yrs max for oil and maybe 30-40yrs for gas. Coal might make 80-100yrs.
And you are also forgetting that the burgeoning demand of Developing Nations will require 5X the primary energy that the World now consumes. There is no way that can come from fossil. Delusion kills. We need to move as rapidly as possible to nuclear energy before it is too late. Even if heads must be busted (I'm speaking to you, NRC). And Oil & Gas should be conserved for the much more important lubricants, fertilizer and chemical industry feedstock.
Correct, but there has been a long history of moving from more carbon intensive fuels to less. That stalled a bit in recent decades when nuclear expansion stopped and has ticked up again over the past decade. Improvements in energy intensity of the economy have been pretty consistent.
Then why not let the market work as it should? If decarbonization was occurring "naturally" in the past, why is a formal policy necessary? To accept the need for accelerating policies, one must first accept the premise that more CO2 in the atmosphere is bad. To date, physical evidence of that conclusion is lacking. There is, to my limited knowledge, no conclusive research in the literature that provides supportable analysis of the impacts and benefits of increasing atmospheric CO2.
The Kaya Identity suggests that decarbonization, as it is now being practiced, will not be effective. Your equation 3 (emissions/GDP = technology) has to recognize power and energy densities as contributing factors to the technology variable. Renewables, as a policy, fail miserably in that respect.
Some time ago, you posted a simple explanation of the implausibility of reaching "net-zero" in which you calculated, very simply, the amount of fossil energy that must be replaced every day to reach net-zero (what ever that means) by 2050 (29 June 2023). It would be an interesting exercise to calculate energy "decarbonized" to meet the goals shown in your figure "decarbonization rates 2015 to 2023".
This is a great post, sir, and I thank you again for providing us the needed data to make informed decisions! You are an outstanding educator.
All of the deployments of carbon free energy have helped to maintain the historical decarbonization trend, but they have not resulted in it acceleration
A deeper dive would split the world into Developed World (e.g., OECD including US, Europe, etc.) and Developing World (non-OECD). Economic and energy consumption growth rates and population growth are dominated and will be dominated by the non-OECD world while the GDP growth rates of the OECD are lower and population will have slow growth at best and energy may have peaked. Most of the decarbonization is occurring in the OECD with a mixed message in China (growing renewables, EVs but growing coal, natural gas, oil and energy use) and growing emissions in the rest of the world. The challenge is not the ongoing decarbonization in the OECD but the growing emissions in the world that still hungers for GDP growth and increasing energy use for a growing population.
Thanks for the logical lay out of the issues. As I read the graphs it appears to be that if GDP has grown at 3% while decarbonization has grown at 2%, we are not merely missing our goal posts, but are moving in the wrong direction. Am I reading this correctly?
What if our CO2 emissions do not have a significant effect on our climate? What if our use of "fossil fuels" is completely irrelevant? Then climate policy is a exercise in harakiri.
Consider these scientific findings:
1. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
2. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
3. Every ten years or so the Earth’s rotation rate increases or decreases significantly by between three and five milliseconds.
"The decadal rotational variations likely arise from gravitationally driven electromagnetic coupling between inner and outer cores and the mantle. Global temperature changes some eight years after the Earth’s rotation rate changes. The Earth’s rotation rate changes some eight years after the inner core’s rotation rate changes. Recently, scientists found that the inner core’s rotation rate began to slow around 2009. Global cooling is likely to set in around 2025. "
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/Mackey-2023-Decadal-Rotation-Climate.pdf
Focusing on carbon dioxide diverts attention from the root causes, which are the use of fossil fuels, cement, steel and N-fertilizer production, and deforestation/land use changes. All these fossil resources are essential to human life on Earth.
They are the factors that increase or not the amount of carbon dioxyde in the atmosphere. Accounting for this molecule does not suggest anything that can directly provide any change, but it is very useful for accusing, blaming and shaming everyone involved in their daily activities. It is demotivating and does not encourage any performance other than that of announcing a catastrophe. To change anything, the average citizen has no means at his or her disposal, apart from trifles.
Accounting for the consumption of fossil fuels is simpler, more understandable, and doesn't cause headaches when trying to figure out which borders they cross.
Consumption can be reduced by improving efficiency (GDP/Tech) and by substitution, above all by widespread electrification (Tech/Tech, a ratio which is not explicit in the Kaya identity).
Fossil fuels currently account for 88.7% of the world's energy mix. This proportion has fallen by 0.27% each year over the last five years. Everyone will know how to use a rule of three to estimate how many years are needed to get to zero at this rate (329 years), or to estimate the size of the changes needed to get there in 25 years (accelerating immediately to a rate 13 times higher than the current one). None of these figures but the current situation are realistic; the mitigation policies will fail. Adaptation will be more helpful.
My data source: Energy Institute (ex BP report). See my analysis here, it's free but quite valuable: https://blog.mr-int.ch/?attachment_id=10873 (diagram on page 11).
Bonjour M. de Rougemont,
pleasure reading you also here on Roger’s Substack.
You hit the nail on the head in so many different ways in your message:
1. looking at CO2 alone and treating it as the villain hides on purpose the amazing growth and increase in human flourishing that has been going on over the past 40 years, especially among the poorest of the poor. It’s as if celebrating such great news is anathema because of the prevailing neo-Malthusians in power, who don’t want to have ANY good news emerge, as it would diminish their credibility as climate doomers and human success haters.
2. human flourishing happens NOT because of just electricity, but ALSO because of electricity. In most cases simply having access to bottled gas to heat the home and cook in a stove adds years of life to the billions who still use dung and sticks to create heat in their home. That’s why it’s foolish to push for electrification as the main goal in the poor countries. It’s impossible to completely jump the step of using gas to cook and to create heat, exactly like we did in Europe over the past 60 years. It took nuclear power to see electric stoves in France and Switzerland, and in countries such as Italy where nuclear is verboten, they still use A LOT of gas in kitchens.
3. basically CO2 is a proxy for human flourishing in my view, and contrary to what Roger thinks I have many doubts on whether we can really have growth in both economic and wellbeing terms without a growth in emissions. And the recent data showing an increase in emissions should make people happy and not sad, as it means that MORE people are getting out of energy poverty.
I am interested in your reference to the Tech/Tech ratio: is this only related to electricity in your view? To me it’s obvious that nuclear plays a huge role in it, but the size, time and financial burden of anything nuclear, big or small, coupled with the resistance from many for purely non reason-based motives, means automatically MORE fossil fuels and more CO2.
Au plaisir de vous lire.
Salutations de La Côte. LB
How great is the cosmopolitism of Roger Pielke's audience!
Massive electrification is a need also for developing countries. The lack of general infrastructure may be compensated by local supply with a combination of robust technologies: for example: photovoltaic coupled with batteries at a relatively small scale. But these countries need more than subsistence farming in small settlements; they are urbanizing at high rate. Also, being at the source of many essential raw materials, they would create more value for themselves if the first processing steps of these resources would take place where they are extracted rather than being exported at low commodity price. To achieve such vertical integration, energy supply as large scale will be required. Solutions to this challenge are similar to those needed by developed countries to wean themselves from fossil fuels.
The Tech/Tech ratio can only change if true breakthroughs are achieved in key technologies: cement, steel, most of chemical industry (including polymers).. Also, synfuels could be a high energy density and ease of handling substitute for petrol, diesel, and jet fuels. Nuclear is one key element but not the sole. Other existing technologies (Sabatier reaction and the likes) are not yet affordable in practice because of low efficiencies: too much primary energy required and too much wastes of all kinds, thus too high costs and risks.
Policies cannot be based on hypothetical breakthroughs because things that do not exist remain in the realm of wishful thinking. Believing that they can be ordered by decree or by force of law, and achieved within a contractual time frame, is more a matter of faith than reason. That's why these policies are doomed to failure.
In the meantime, yes, more fossil fuels will be used, also to be able to implement new technologies. This can last for decades or more.
Generally agree, but isn't there a counterargument suggesting that in the absence of policies aimed at reducing emissions, emissions growth would have been higher? This caught my eye in the IEA's 2023 CO2 report, published a few days ago:
"Between 2019 and 2023, total energy-related emissions increased around 900 Mt. Without the growing deployment of five key clean energy technologies since 2019 - solar PV, wind, nuclear, heat pumps, and electric cars - the emissions growth would have been three times larger."
"Three times" is probably an overstatement. Still, isn't it difficult to imagine these technologies scaling as rapidly as they have, particularly wind and solar, without significant government support?
I would dispute that statement. That claim is largely based on the common falsehood that intermittent, unreliable, seasonal, non-dispatchable wind & solar electricity production is a 1:1 replacement for fossil electricity. In fact it is a scam that is widely used in calculating carbon credits, net zero and corporation low carbon claims or greenwashing.
The actual fossil replaced by wind & solar is highly dependent on the location and grid architecture. It can be anywhere from negative (i.e. actually INCREASES fossil emissions) as the Bentek study showed for Texas & Colorado, to maybe close to ~90% in areas that have a lot of reservoir hydro. Also wind/solar can be reasonably effective at emissions reductions on a diesel grid, especially when combined with expensive battery storage. The fact is that a wind/solar grid is a maximal inefficient grid, and that inefficiency seriously impacts the actual emissions reductions of wind & solar.
Jim,
Agreed, 100%. What this means is that "climate policies" are carrying forward historical rates of decarbonization. Much of this would definitely not occur without policy, but we can say that same thing about historical (pre-climate policy era) policies as well. The point here is not that policy does not matter, quite the contrary, they do! But if we wish to meet these aggressive targets we will have to do something very different than we have been.
I believe your PAT equation was first used by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 publication, "The Population Bomb".
Ehrlich, P. R., & Holdren, J. P. (1971). Impact of Population Growth: Complacency concerning this component of man's predicament is unjustified and counterproductive. Science, 171(3977), 1212-1217.
If people can be compelled to wear masks and stand 6 feet apart based purely on fear-based diktats, they can be compelled to forgo a lot travel, meat, and HVAC based on climate-based fear.
What is the decision-making process that determines the targets of climate policies? i.e. where do those numbers come from, are they based on trend analysis and feasibility reviews, etc. What does it look like in the 'room where it happens'?
Here are two posts that work in that direction:
2C: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-two-degree-temperature-target
1.5C: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-15-degree-temperature-target
I agree.
Good analysis. Now what you need to do is calculate the decarbonization rates of various countries during their main efforts to replace or switch fossil fuels. That would be largely France, Sweden, Ontario, USA with nuclear during the 1970s and Germany with wind & solar, USA with coal --> gas.
I suspect the best Nuclear build rates did result in more than your 9% Decarbonization rate objective, but no other effort by any nation has succeeded with any other method.
Said another way, without a legion of technological breakthroughs or whole scale adoption of nuclear, the acceleration of the decarbonization curve won’t be happening soon, if at all. Thus the current trajectory of emission reduction policies are just Environmental Marxism.
I am with you on everything but this. We do not need decarbonization. At 800 ppm CO2 the Earth will be fine. "Will Happer".
What we need is to replace fossil fuels with Nuclear. CO2 is irrelevant. The harsh reality is that fossil fuels can only be a brief blip on the timeline of human civilization. We must switch to nuclear energy or our civilization will collapse. Just the accessible resource of uranium & thorium on the Earth land mass will power our civilization for a 100 Myrs. Deuterium, lithium & boron until the Sun dies. Fossil, maybe 100yrs more.
Take a look at Koonins recent book "Unsettled". We have used only 11 % of available fossil fuels. That means we we have enough for 400 more years even if we double todays consumption rate, while not looking for more coal, oil and gas.
So there is no hurry whatsoever transitioning away from fossil fuels. More so, since the technology we are supposed to transition into, largely has not yet been invented or made profitable.
But what about "the collapse of our (western only) civilization"? Most likely, this will be caused by a continuation of western climate policy. Even so, since some 70 % of humanity disregard western climate policy, those of us not wanting to be part of that coming collapse, can just relocate to East Asia.
Really? You are confusing "potential fossil fuel resource" with economical fossil resources. And the vast bulk of those resources are coal, lignite, peat the lowest density, most expensive to utilize resources. What about petrochemicals? You want to waste our oil & gas supply on energy when we can get that easily from Nuclear power? When we really need oil & gas for fertilizer, plastics, lubricants & the chemical industry.
Listen to two of the best Energy Analysts Goehring & Rozencwajg (they aren't Doomers, Greenies or Malthusian scam artists ):
Have We Reached Peak Shale?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzWGnbI9nw
"Today we deep dive fracking and shale, the energy source that put Peak Oil concerns on the back burner for a decade and a half. According to recent analysis by Goehring and Rozencwajg Shale field production is showing signs of sliding down the backside of Hubbert’s curve. What are the geopolitical and economic ramifications? Are there more shale booms on the horizon overseas? What are the implications for nuclear which has been sidelined in deregulated markets by cheap abundant gas? Leigh Goehring joins me for a detailed discussion"
The End of Abundant Energy: Shale Production and Hubbert's Peak:
https://info.gorozen.com/2022-q4-commentary-peak-oil
Debate On "Peak Cheap Oil": Fact Or Overblown Fear? | Doomberg vs Adam Rozencwajg:
youtube.com/watch?v=EDLeAC8OeJY
---
DOOMBERG, CHRIS MARTENSON PEAK PROSPERITY PEAK OIL DEBATE:
Peak Cheap Oil is a Myth - Doomberg / Peak Prosperity Podcast show Review:
youtube.com/watch?v=8euBZzHQcy0 preface
youtube.com/watch?v=__DEDPhs5O4 part 1 of 3
youtube.com/watch?v=aw8LOS2y8qs part 2 of 3
These analysts are not talking 400yr from now, they are talking within the next decade, max. And then you add the fact that the vast bulk of oil & gas resource will shift to the geopolitically unstable, unreliable areas of the Middle East, Russia & Venezuela. What will happen in the next Middle East war? You are aware of the extreme inelasticity of oil & gas supply? Small constraints in supply = giant increases in price.
Lot's of areas of plenty of coal reserves but that has not saved them from the economic strangulation of high oil & gas prices. And most of the prime oil & gas fields worldwide outside of the Middle East have already been in severe decline.
Add to that you must realize that energy is not just another commodity like bananas. And economy can do without a good domestic banana supply, but they cannot rely on foreign energy supplies. As Europe foolishly did with Russian oil & gas, and now it has come back to bite them on the butt. With the consolidation of fossil resources to a small number of nations, economic blackmail will be catastrophic to the have-not nations.
The technology to transition into has been readily available for 50yrs now, in spite of all the liars on the banking/fossil fuel payroll. France replaced 88% of their domestic electricity supply and 40% of their primary energy supply in 20yrs with nuclear energy over 40yrs ago. And achieved some of the lowest energy costs in Europe. That's with ancient one-at-a-time light water reactor designs. We can do far better than that now. But energy unfortunately is probably the most corrupt, zero-sum industry on Earth. What can be done and should be done has nothing to do with what is being done.
I've been told by besserwissers that peak oil is just around the corner, since the mid-1970s. Today peak oil is so far away that the peak oilers have mostly stopped nagging us about the approaching peak oil doom.
And the numbers I gave you (Koonins Unsettled) is quite clear about what is economical with the current oil price level around USD 80/barrel. Since most of the planet (outside US borders) have not even started exploiting their hydraulic fracturing potential, cheap abundant gas is here to stay for at least this century. Unless it is taxed to death by the greenies and the climatist cult.
Meanwhile the greenies have managed to saddle the nuclear industry with so many rules and restrictions that it takes about 15 years in the US to get a reactor built. These rules, obviously intended to kill the nuclear industry, have made nuclear so immensely costly that most investors stay away.
The same cultists are now promoting hydrogen, wind and solar in place of hydrocarbons. More insanity, since about half of the energy contained in gas is destroyed in order to produce expensive hydrogen, and the emissions "saved" are simply moved from gas use to hydrogen production.
Yes, of course we really need oil & gas for fertilizer, plastics, lubricants & the chemical industry. In order to insure that for the future, we need to get rid of the greenies and the climate cultists.
The first step should be disciplining the IPCC to stop behaving dishonestly, or as Roger once wrote, perhaps it is easier or better to simply abolish the IPCC since it may be unable to reform itself.
Well, peak oil did happen, Hubbert's analysis was amazingly prescient, it just doesn't and cannot take into account technological innovation. So Peak conventional oil did happen in the USA and many other areas. New tech will only shift Hubbert's curve to a later period, as Tight Oil did for US oil supply. Note conventional oil never recovered after its peak ~1973. G&R analysis shows the same will occur for Tight Oil and soon.
And remember we don't need peak physical oil reserve we need only reach peak economical oil and later gas. That will happen and within 10yrs max for oil and maybe 30-40yrs for gas. Coal might make 80-100yrs.
And you are also forgetting that the burgeoning demand of Developing Nations will require 5X the primary energy that the World now consumes. There is no way that can come from fossil. Delusion kills. We need to move as rapidly as possible to nuclear energy before it is too late. Even if heads must be busted (I'm speaking to you, NRC). And Oil & Gas should be conserved for the much more important lubricants, fertilizer and chemical industry feedstock.
OK - thank you.
But the trend was there before all these deployments - no?
Correct, but there has been a long history of moving from more carbon intensive fuels to less. That stalled a bit in recent decades when nuclear expansion stopped and has ticked up again over the past decade. Improvements in energy intensity of the economy have been pretty consistent.
Then why not let the market work as it should? If decarbonization was occurring "naturally" in the past, why is a formal policy necessary? To accept the need for accelerating policies, one must first accept the premise that more CO2 in the atmosphere is bad. To date, physical evidence of that conclusion is lacking. There is, to my limited knowledge, no conclusive research in the literature that provides supportable analysis of the impacts and benefits of increasing atmospheric CO2.
The Kaya Identity suggests that decarbonization, as it is now being practiced, will not be effective. Your equation 3 (emissions/GDP = technology) has to recognize power and energy densities as contributing factors to the technology variable. Renewables, as a policy, fail miserably in that respect.
Some time ago, you posted a simple explanation of the implausibility of reaching "net-zero" in which you calculated, very simply, the amount of fossil energy that must be replaced every day to reach net-zero (what ever that means) by 2050 (29 June 2023). It would be an interesting exercise to calculate energy "decarbonized" to meet the goals shown in your figure "decarbonization rates 2015 to 2023".
This is a great post, sir, and I thank you again for providing us the needed data to make informed decisions! You are an outstanding educator.
Thank you.
Does this mean that climate policy (solar, wind, EVs etc) have not made a dent?
Correct
All of the deployments of carbon free energy have helped to maintain the historical decarbonization trend, but they have not resulted in it acceleration
A deeper dive would split the world into Developed World (e.g., OECD including US, Europe, etc.) and Developing World (non-OECD). Economic and energy consumption growth rates and population growth are dominated and will be dominated by the non-OECD world while the GDP growth rates of the OECD are lower and population will have slow growth at best and energy may have peaked. Most of the decarbonization is occurring in the OECD with a mixed message in China (growing renewables, EVs but growing coal, natural gas, oil and energy use) and growing emissions in the rest of the world. The challenge is not the ongoing decarbonization in the OECD but the growing emissions in the world that still hungers for GDP growth and increasing energy use for a growing population.
Figure 3.4 of TCF Chapter 4 shows data goinf back futher to 1950s and beyond
Here is data to 1960 via GCP:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/end-the-week-with-thb-964