Peak Oil and the End of Globalization

Systems engineer, James Fleay, joins me to discuss the unique relationship between liquid hydrocarbons and our six continent supply chains. Oil is the enabler of low cost transportation of people and goods. What does an inevitable decline in oil production, whenever it comes, mean for globalization and our future economies. What forms of economical and industrial complexity should be prioritized? All this and more in this thought provoking episode.
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[@mickygarcia4251]

Yes, we can evolve past oil, but there will be a heck of a lot fewer of us when we finally do.

[@autohmae]

Other processes than climate change and oil have already been changing: Predictions on population size keep going down, it used to be 11 billion maximum and then 10 billion, I've now already seen estimates that we won't get to 10 billion. It's very clear we've already had 'peak child' We've also seen a large drop in life expectancy in the US. I've also seen predictions that where now 2.5 billion people life around the equator it will be so hot maybe already in 2050 that it's unlivable. This means huge migrations and euh... let's say a reduction in population size as well. Obviously those people are not the biggest users of oil, but it's clear population size will change regardless of oil directly.

[@johnbrazelton6130]

Hopefully enough people learn more about this topic and do their best to insulate themselves from thias inevitability.

[@RyobiCEO]

“Evolve past oil” aka returning to a neolithic lifestyle

[@8BitNaptime]

@@RyobiCEONo, more like Medieval

[@RyobiCEO]

@@8BitNaptime the soil is too damaged

[@witttravis]

So what he's saying is there's gonna be a new age of innovation and experimentation coming up as we struggle with a resource crunch. This sounds rather exciting.

[@paulwhetstone0473]

Blinking Mustache Hydrocarbonman

[@formxshape]

Lol, if he could attach small wires to his eye lashes, that pull a little watch like winding mechanism, that then turns a micro generator charging a lithium battery - he could charge his iPhone via blinks.

[@MegaBoolaBoola]

Wacky Blinky Moostachioed Hydrocarbonman! Wacky Blinky Moostachioed Hydrocarbonman! Wacky Blinky Moostachioed Hydrocarbonman! 🙆🏻‍♀️🙆🏻‍♀️🙆🏻‍♀️

[@davidcanatella4279]

It's the radiation from his favorite power source

[@adrianengler3053]

I think the premise that nuclear energy is mostly for stationary applications should be questioned more. Nuclear powered submarines have been successfully used by militaries for a long time. There are probably more political than technical reasons why nuclear powered freight ships are not commonly used now. It seems plausible that nuclear power is very appropriate for large ships that transport very heavily loads. This is also an area where modularity and the factor of scale should make it more affordable. If that can be done, a lot of these hypotheses about supply chains of raw materials becoming shorter and more local out of necessity become obsolete. For airplanes, nuclear engines are probably much less appropriate. Using power to X does not seem too far-fetched. Hydrogen volume would be rather large, but other gases that can be produced are not that far from currently used fuels. Of course, many ideas about power to gas based on intermittent energy sources would be extremely expensive to implement, but with a steady nuclear energy source, it would be much more realistic. Flying would probably still be significantly - but not necessarily extremely - more expensive. But I really don't see why large ships that transport large quantities of heavy materials could not be nuclear powered. That is not some far-of future technology, but a technology that exists and has been known for a long time.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

They aren't nuclear powered for simple reasons: First, large ships basically can run on unrefined oil, making it incredibly cheap fuel run through incredibly cheap engines. Second: there's no emissions controls. International waters have no rules against running raw liquid. Third: When you're shipping oil, you can just run off the supply. No one is shipping a tanker of nuclear material. Fourth: There isn't enough nuclear material to replace current oil consumption. It's more complex, and requires a smarter customer than your average fent addict. Even with a tenth of the population, it wouldn't keep all these fools alive. You've just been taught that nuclear is a magic panic button you can hit to feel better. It won't be there. Start canning food.

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

@@skeetorkiftwon Nuclear power started in the navy don't forget. Cheap fuel is one thing. Not having to refuel for 30 years is another. Even if only a few countries allowed nuclear ships to enter port, the US, China, France, UK, Aus, Russia, etc. who all have nuclear power and navies will... And their ports will allow a humongous amount of cans to be delivered all around the world, with out any emissions. And probably for cheap after it gets going. Remember, nuclear is expensive today because of the shitty way we've tried to do it... Not because of the technology itself. And yes, you can get some nice food in cans. Handy for the bumpy road we've locked ourselves into.

[@dipladonic]

Nuclear energy to propel large naval warships and submarines is ideal as the capex and opex required is much less important than national security. Nuclear power used for the same use commercially is financially unviable. Nuclear energy to power aircraft is wishful thinking. Power to gas is foolish too as it takes a massive amount of green energy to make a tiny amount of green hydrogen which is then very difficult to store, transport and to use.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

High temperature nuclear hydrogen can be used to hydrogenate sewage sludge, garbage, crop residue, sawmill offcuts, etc. to make liquid fuels.

[@chigeh]

​@skeetorkiftwon the latter 3 are false 2) There are emissions controls. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has recently phased out Sulphur emissions. The IMO has also recently decidef to phase out fossil fuels. IMO certification is necessary for insurance and port access. 3) you would only need to refuel once every 20 years. Shipping routes will become much shorter thanks to higher speeds and less refueling. There is an attractive business case for nuclear powered giga tankers. 4) nonsense, uranium is abundant and usage is low.

[@NomenNescio99]

The soviet union tried to limit consumer goods and instead focusing on what they deemed to be more important. Production was classified as "Group A" for heavy industries and "Group B" for consumer goods. There are a few Wikipedia articles on the topic if anyone would like to know more. I wouldn't exactly call the resulting economy a success, nor has regulated economies ever been, nor will it be even if we try it another time. My friends on the left side of the political spectrum has some pretty big blind spots, and I find those blind spots really scary. And anyone who calls the Australian or Texas electricity grid free market does not know the meaning of that word. Try to build a nuclear power plan in Australia if you don't believe me. Those power grids are built on subsidies and regulations with a ugly picture of the free market markets illegitimate bastard child on the outside in attempt to make it look better. Those power grids are nothing but corporatism which is just as far away from a free market as the soviet union was.

[@fjdhaan]

Problem is, 'corporatism' and 'corruption' and 'incompetence' are inherent outcomes of configuring societies along so-called "capitalist" lines, because that's what wealth and power concentrations lead to.

[@NomenNescio99]

@@fjdhaan I highly recommend that you actually visit a socialist state and see for yourself the level of poverty, corruption and incompetence that exists there. It exceeds anything you would find in a free market economy, by a wide margin. Further, it is only a free market economy that has been able to deliver prosperity to the wider population. Everything else has failed, miserably - and ended up in starvation, civil war and nation collapse more or less every time. No less than two times have a nation been split in half and applied socialism/free market - both in the case of Korea and Germany people are risking their life to flee from socialism to the freee market economy. A free market economy may not be the best way to organize society, but is the best option we have. The empirical evidence supporting this is so overwhelming, not even a single real world example to the contrary exist.

[@fjdhaan]

@@NomenNescio99 Yeah, I'm familiar with the excuses people make for the fact that capitalism necessarily leads to oligopolization, mainly by saying "those other places suck!!!!". Only thing that follows from the latter is that both suck, for different reasons, and that we need something better.

[@NomenNescio99]

@@fjdhaan A lot of people on the left don't separate the terms corporatism and free market. These are very different. They bring forward bad outcome that almost always is the result of corporatism, government and corporations sharing the same bed, often with more or less visible corruption. Nobody is more in favor of more regulations than large corporations, as they know it will limit the competition. Corporatism is just as bad as a planned economy and should be opposed just as forcefully. This is the way the economy of fascist Italy and Germany were organized. Fascism as Mussolini expressed it: "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.", lets not forget that this is very similar to the vision of the socialist left. The only way to make money in a free market is to offer useful goods and services to your fellow man that they voluntarily wants to spend money on.

[@fjdhaan]

@@NomenNescio99 "These are very different". Yeah, in the same way arterial plaque and heart attacks are different. One always leads to the other, though, which is my point. "Free markets" have never existed anywhere at any time in history, and they never will, because people with money will always use their money to influence policy to maintain or strengthen their incumbency status.

[@felipearbustopotd]

Not sure how or why the KZbin algorithm suggested your channel, but I am glad it did... Subscribed.

[@ideafood4U]

Great interview with James. Nate Hagen's work is difficult to hear, and I appreciate that Nate explores hard facts and awkward truths. Denial is not a river in Egypt. Idea logic always bumps up against material and social reality. Keep exploring the dark places, hard facts and awkward truths! Glad I subscribed to your channel.

[@Ln-cq8zu]

One thing hasn't changed and never will as far as i can make out, and that is... Necessity is the Mother of invention. I have hope that we will get it right eventually. 😊🌅

[@TennesseeJed]

Please pass the organic marmalade and vegan butter because we are toast.

[@davidmitchell4077]

I recall that some economists 10 to 15 years ago claimed that shipping by ocean was so cheap that it was almost a minor factor in the price of goods. Shipping by truck more than a short distance was more expensive than shipping by container ships from China to the US. Perhaps even a doubling or tripling of ocean shipping costs with nuclear or higher priced hydrocarbons would not be enough to make local products more competitive. Unreliable supply chains due to conflicts and pandemics seems like the main driver in the move to onshore some goods.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

That is based on scale. Shipping containers on large ships can move massive quantities cheaply...Not so much if the demand is halved. "Last mile" distribution efficiencies (by truck) have largely been minmaxed with warehouse direct delivery via models like Amazon...but there's a cost: less redundant and therefore more vulnerable supply chains. Fuel is an ingredient in everything. You make pancakes, then you may as well list btu/second/pancake. Unless you enjoy raw batter. Economists are idiots. They use truncated equations and value energy supply which is largely quantifiable with variable monetary values. A gallon of 89 octane contains the same energy within very tight tolerances today as it did 25 years ago, yet it's four times as valuable today in dollars. If you were smart, you'd recall what your wage was when gas was $1.00. Then compare your earnings today to that volume of fuel then. Do you earn more gallons of fuel per hour? Because it's doing the exact same work output. When I was 18, gas was a dollar a gallon. I made 18gallons/HR. Now I make $60/HR and only earn 15 gallons per hour. That's an absolute declining return on investment. Minimum wage was 6.00/HR when gas was $1 or 6gal/HR, now it's $15, or less than 4gal/HR. A 33% decline in wages. You can't make roads, concrete, cut stone, make copper wire, or anything useful without fuel, but you sure can argue that you'll deliver flat screens to the ghettos by barge.

[@paul1862]

Security costs are much higher on the open seas. Hundreds of billions are spent annual ensuring shipping channels are free from rouge nations and pirates. These costs are set to explode as fossil fuels decline and the world fractures.

[@adodgygeeza]

@@skeetorkiftwon oil and gas is about 5% of the global economy by value. Plenty of the oil replacements will also ultimately be cheaper like electric ground transportation.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

@@adodgygeezaEconomists need their heads examined. Oil and gas are valued as a raw material in exchange at ~5%. Such is your claim yeah? 100% of copper mining is done with diesel or slave labor. 100% of all plastics bought and sold are derived from your 5%. How many electronics you selling without it? Cars? Making a lot of plywood without it? How much steel will be made without coke and natgas? How much hydrogen and fertilizer? Flour is not much of a seller in the grocery store. But you won't sell any bread, pasta, cakes, donuts, hot pockets, burritos, pizzas, etc without it. But tell me how flour is only 5% of supermarket sales.

[@kaya051285]

The biggest reason is simply that poor countries don't stay poor forever China GDP/Capita 2000 = $900 2010 = $4,300 2020 = $10,700 2030 = Expected $19,000 A product that was viable to ship half way across the world using $900 a year labour might not be so viable when that labour costs $19,000 Especially as next Door Mexico has a lower GDP/Capita now than China Does you can manufacture cheaper there than in China (all other things being equal, which isn't true as I suspect the castle culture of Mexico makes doing business more risky and expensive) Either another poor but stable country is found (perhaps India?) And we see another 20 years of cheap manufactured good imported. Or we start making more things locally or in Mexico

[@wizardoftas7779]

We'll lose know how, but we'll gain know how as people start to make and fix things again rather than buy cheap rubbish over and over.

[@coldspring22]

Nice interview, but one big question not addressed here is - why can't we build nuclear ships to transport goods around the world? There was even a nuclear passenger cruise ship built in 1950's, so it's clearly doable. Nuclear is not stationary, only stationary in small transportation sense. Large transportation like ocean going ships can easily be nuclear powered.

[@AgentSmith911]

Too expensive and technologically challenging. That's why only the US navy have them.

[@KoDeMondo]

The problem is not about the transport in terms of oil availability.

[@mr.makeit4037]

I have listened to Chris, Nate and Simon among others over the past two years, but this segment is sad. It reminds me of the WW2 movie the Train in which a German officer and lover of art makes every attempt to steal famous french artwork and take it back to Germany. Finding this futile during the closing days of the war. He attempts to give one last order at gunpoint to continue his failed actions. Another beaten down commander grabs him and quietly says im afraid its over. This is how many of us, knowing whats coming with fossil energy depletion, feel and quietly say amongst ourselves im afraid its over.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

Who cares? What meaningless crap we've done with limitless fuels. What ugly buildings. What disgusting drug addicts. Pewdiepie was the pinnacle of individual contribution to the masses? Brilliant works overshadowed by hour long post shows of the "Walking Dead" with obnoxious commentary? Endless porno and neutering children? Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

[@MrVaticanRag]

Simon Michaux's obvious solution - concentrate on reducing pollution first by following the examples of China and Indonesia's Thorium solution... Indonesia's undertaking for 8×500MWe ThorCon TMSRs considering the enthalpy of the energy source..

[@philtimmons722]

Net Zero (or not) is really only driven by two things -- 1. Replacing (or failing to) ICEs (Internal Combustion Engines) with Electric Motors. Most demand and use for Fossil Go Away without ICEs. 2. Building Heat. Good and Better Building Science already this one down. New buildings can be built well into Canada and need little heat. Now we just have work through the old-stock of existing buildings and STOP building old-school dumb tech buildings. Beyond that, since the only real left demand is Electricity -- we already know that can done with renewables -- in particular Silicon Solar PV, as it is now the Cheapest, Fastest, Cleanest, and Lowest-Risk New Generation source EVER.

[@hcox1111]

Wrong in so many ways. ICE's only use about 20% and solar is 20 year payback if there are no hail storms.

[@autohmae]

Not just building heat, but building cooling as well

[@waywardgeologist2520]

Notice that too. Oil demand is mostly driven by ICE vehicles. Take that way, peak oil doesn’t matter.

[@dipladonic]

Renewables are relatively unproductive (they work at about 0ne third of installed capacity), intermittent, diffuse, highly subsidised. and backed up 100% via conventional steam or water-driven turbine electricity generation. To suggest that they can come anywhere near to powering our $100tn global economy is extremely stoopid. Highly subsidised renewables are parasitical on existing conventional electricity generation and on the global economy. Thus it ever was and thus it ever will be.

[@philtimmons722]

@@dipladonic wow. That is impressive. Only thing 100% in all that is failure of the analysis. Electricity is already surplus in the Night -- there is no need to "back up" surplus. Meanwhile Solar PV continues to build out and is covering more and more of the day. And yes, of course Renewable can cover most of the World use of Electricity. We already know the math, and China is already leading the way. Next part is to replace the ICEs with Electric Motors and then Oil drops off, as well.

[@ThisIsToolman]

I’m no expert but I’m definitely no fool. Being retired I have the time to ponder the crisis that is the future. The “future” does not have a specific timeline. It could be 10 ten years. It could be 100 years. Nothing is infinite, most certainly not our mineral resources which includes oil, coal, uranium, iron, lithium, nickel, cobalt, aluminum, copper, everything we extract from the earth. It’s not possible to recycle enough spent resources to replace those exhumed from the earth. The only possible outcome can be that we will do with less or die. The hierarchy of need dictates we must have, in order of importance: air, protection, water, and food. Everything else is superfluous. I would submit that a reasonable person would look at these facts and determine we should spend what’s left of our limited resources focusing on providing clean water, and sustenance for the world into perpetuity while thoughtfully considering how we can protect ourselves from the elements without the planet’s resources all the while not making the air unbreathable. We start by giving up personal transportation. Then we cease our throwaway mentality. These and other sacrifices like them may be impossible to swallow practically speaking. I’m thankful I won’t be here to endure it all…

[@happyhome41]

Extraordinary episode, of course built on the shoulders of those previous, and in a completely complementary way, helps make real the "Great Simplification". If our lives really revolve around energy, we will need hydrocarbons forever for food and transportation. Transportation can be more efficient - but not without costs for jobs and that blow to the economy. More nuclear, with breeders added to the mix over time, can support manufacturing, carbon capture, desalinating water and moving it around to even things out - reclaim the Sahara and Outback for example. Global warming is inevitable from the expected increasing activity of the sun so much more energy will be needed for cooling spaces, moving underground or semi- so and heat rejection at night into space - the ultimate heat sink. Yes this episode hit upon the key unknowable question: how far down must we descend in the transition, and Mr. Fleay hit the nail on the head with, need strong leadership from both public and private sectors in order to succeed at any level.

[@KoDeMondo]

Guys you keep not understand that to produce energy (even nuclear) you need energy type that only oil can do..

[@autohmae]

Things are moving slowly, but they are moving., for example their exists 2 companies in the world who can make steal using hydrogen instead of coal.

[@ryccoh]

Why even bother with maritime shipping and aviation, they use such a small amount of fuel that we can leave those be. Semi trucks and personal vehicles can be BEVs at the same cost.

[@chriskshaw7601]

Nuclear to power green hydrogen is feasible. The problem is similar to massive desalination (think Saudi and UAE)

[@wimvanaerde6249]

Explain please

[@chriskshaw7601]

Both H2 and fresh water require huge amounts of power. Using local SMRs to provide the power seems feasible, especially where hydrolysis of water efficiency can be improved via higher temps courtesy of waste heat recovery. The waste heat should be part of domestic and commercial heating integrated system. Hope this helps

[@waywardgeologist2520]

21:45 it’s not hard to replicate. Ask any electric vehicle owner who has solar panels. Left out is the overall efficiency of ICE vehicles compared to electric.

[@zztops4504]

What peak oil? According to Rystad Energy there's 47 years of recoverable crude left at present consumption rate.

[@AgentSmith911]

There's decades left of crude oil untill empty, or even longer if we find more. But that's not the point of *peak* oil, but instead it's a theory that when we reach the peak in production, and don't manage to go higher, we go into unknown economic territory and possibly end of economic growth and societal collapse. But I think we'll reach a peak demand before peak production.

[@zztops4504]

@@AgentSmith911 Didn't we go thru that already between 2001 and 2014 when fracking saved the world. During Obamination, every other week there was a mass shooting!

[@autohmae]

At what price ? And if you look at consumption rate, it's still going up !

[@waywardgeologist2520]

It’s more like peak demand.

[@chapter4travels]

WOW, this interview really brought out the Doomers in the comment section.

[@donmc1950]

The problem of oil depletion and the lack of alternatives has been known for some time. Frank Kapras 1956 movie : " Our Mr Sun" showed that without cheap oil our civilization will return to the middle ages. The movie hoped that science would be able to find a way to harness solar energy to replace oil, but so far this promise has not been fulfilled. As far as the future of transportation is concerned ebikes will replace the horses used in the middle ages

[@veteransniper6955]

Funny, recently I saw analysis that says ebikes displaced oil consumption several times EVs did so far

[@dassa0069]

Alternative energy is an attempt to create a perpetual motion machine.

[@stephenDoherty-qf4yt]

not sure what you guys are talking about. in ireland electricity has substantially decaebonised in just a sort number of years. in china 40% of new cars are electric. europe is starting to develop supergrids. australia has massivrly decarbonised energy. tesla semi trucks seem to be much cheaper to operate than diesel. fundamentally oil demand will dry up way before supply. the final elements will be shipping and aviation but things are moving apace. agreecthat state strategic direction of private sector is essential.

[@autohmae]

Something to add: About your question on that large production of hydrogen in Canada. Maybe nuclear production and hydrogen going together is a good solution: red hydrogen, supposedly Japan is very far along this path. When you have solar/wind/hydro and nuclear for hydrogen production that's a pretty good mix. The other alternative is: produce far to much solar/wind/hydro and store the over production in hydrogen.

[@chrisruss9861]

A more stationary civilisation will attract the best brains to a few countries to the detriment of others.

[@TheComicChild]

Awe flip globalized brain drain

[@yexela]

Shipping might be very straightforward to switch to nuclear power. Nuclear-powered cargo ships are seriously considered now (there is one in operation already -- Sevmorput).

[@sholson2000]

In an area that has lots of data there is none presented. Look up peak prosperity they have most everything to tell the story. Need to show historical outputs and the fracking fast mortality of frack wells. Although Fracking has been able to push out the peak, the inevitable will happen faster than expected when it does. Everyone else seems to see this. We will need to return to a lower energy future, no energy system will be able to deliver like hydrocarbons, currently at 80% of energy. Others have been using TEsla as the standard, but Tesla is not even close to the most cost effective or energy efficient. A golf cart is twice as efficient and an Aptera is 4x as efficient with up to 1000 miles per charge. Aptera can also charge 40 miles per day with its built in solar, but it will not run or replace a tractor. So there is hope for some transportation, but there is not enough minerals and at current rates 100's if not thousands of years are required to mine and convert them. Learn to grow your own food ASAP.

[@kaya051285]

Natural Gas can be used to displace almost all transport needs from the smallest car to the biggest trucks (and LNG can power ships and aircraft) The energy density at 500 bar is 53% that of Petrol/Diesel which means the tank needs to be approx twice as large but that's not a big deal it means a 50 litre tank needs to be a 100 litre tank The fuel is more energy dense per kg but the tank will need to be stronger so its about a wash And it's significantly cheaper than gasoline. $3 a gallon vs less than $1 for the equivalent NG

[@antonyjh1234]

What will you do with all the petrol, propane, diesel? Remembering that we distil these things off from each barrel of oil to get our plastics, medicines, asphalt etc. How many things around you us are synthetic so are oil based, heaps around me. Those three products can't be distilled off and stored.

[@kaya051285]

@antonyjh1234 The vast majority of the oil and gas we use is used in applications where it is burnt Turning oil and gas into feedstock for chemical processes is a small fraction of the total 100 million barrels per day of Oil and Gas is on a similar scale Per capita, the oil and gas used works out to about 3.5 kg oer person per day The amount of stuff you buy may seem a lot as it is accumulated over a lifetime, but for example, what did you buy today that contained indirect oil. For me it was a coffee with a plastic cup. So maybe 15 grams of plastic. We'll the other 3.5kg of oil and gas I used today as my share was simply burnt for locomotion for heating my home and for power generation in my bame Or maybe another way to put it wouod be your share of oil and gas over a lifetime is 100 tons or thereabouts. Maybe 5 ton of that fonds otway into non burning applications Also I have no problem with Cotinting to use oil for applications where it makes sense But for country that are big oil importers it makes sense to have EVs For countries that are big gas consumers it makes sense to insulate your buildings to use less

[@antonyjh1234]

I'm not sure of your point, whether we burn it or not it has to go somewhere. For all the synthetic products we use these fuels would still exist. The threads in your shoes, your clothes, the purse, the credit card, the tarmac you walked on, the mining of the materials for the coffee machine, the roasting of the beans....Your entire day revolved around oil products, the paint on your wall, the device you are reading this on, your daily plastic usage as you say adds up but you can't discount it. If you have from your food you ate to your bed linen resulting from oil and it's associated products then we have an issue replacing more than cars with ev's@@kaya051285

[@SorinSilaghi]

Wait, you're going to talk of the idea that infinite growth of a religious idea and then dive into peak oil the end of the world is coming?

[@jclaer]

Both India and China are investing in nuclear technologies

[@dipladonic]

Renewables are relatively unproductive (they work at about 0ne third of installed capacity), intermittent, diffuse, highly subsidised. and backed up 100% via conventional steam or water-driven turbine electricity generation. To suggest that they can come anywhere near to powering our $100tn global economy is extremely stoopid. Highly subsidised renewables are parasitical on existing conventional electricity generation and on the global economy. Thus it ever was and thus it ever will be.

[@waywardgeologist2520]

22:53 why is it more expensive? Electric transport is 1/4 the cost compared to petro. Again, making broad statements without actually providing details.

[@pragmatist165]

I am curious about reports that US extracted Shale Oil is simply running out, and that it is expensive, and has low concentration of energy, something not well communicated. And after that, the US has limited oil itself, making it strategically very vulnerable. Put simply, they won’t get their fighter jets into the air for major conflicts, relying on their own supplies, aside from supplying US citizens with their domestic requirements. Leaving conflict aside, oil it’s a bit like water. Conserve it or face hikes in the cost of gas/petrol and significant lowering of standards of living. We are seeing all this emerging now globally. I think inflation will worsen a lot soon, and indefinitely.Inflation is the no 1 problem because of trillion dollar debts globally a world wide phenomenon, so we are hurtling towards severe recessions, year after year, struggling to repay old debt. The slow and expensive transition to alternative energies will hurt every citizen. When all this occurs simultaneously, we have 1930 recession problems, meaning we will all have to cop bad days, weeks, months, years and decades with the ageing demographic and thus less people in work. We are seeing that now. And listening to you maybe a world car needs to be revisited with must haves included and the same but better , and companies all getting a slice, ie the ones who can survive. We don’t want GM to crash, Toyota, Honda, Renault etc. No , we need decision making think tanks involved in progress of a better, simpler world. Someone has to start that and champion it with others

[@autohmae]

How about burning hydrogen for jets ?

[@davidcanatella4279]

Can't support poisoning kids for any amount of electricity much less inadequate amounts. Y'all should be researching your local psychologist.

[@autohmae]

19:14 he talked about how commercial innovation a moment before, but the big leaps came from government funded which he mentioned in this part. I think it was the IMF which had a report which said: the amount we subsidize the fossil fuel industry is the same we need to invest to reach our climate goals. And the sad truth is, very little is happening to shift this. So my interpretation: globalization is pretty much dead in the water... literally (oceans). It's gonna be hugely expensive. Making local production much more likely/needed. Trains and public transport is gonna be very important to transition to. A lot less use of cars. Vacations outside of your continent, that's off the table for most people. Information/knowledge/experience will still flow between continents, but their will some drifting apart, hard to say what the impact will be. Also sounds like consumerism is dead in the water as well. 38:38 I'm sorry, but judging by the predictions, their will be parts of the world you can't life. It will just be to hot. Wet-bulb temperatures. So some parts of the world will be 'empty' and thus we won't be shipping food to there. I'm certain we'll try in the beginning. What is amazing to me is how we can't get global cooperation 😞 Their will be a LOT less choice in the shops and it won't be cheap, from food to other goods. 48:09 for development, yes, but is the research commercial ? I'm not so sure. To much neoliberalism clearly wouldn't work as well long term, that's what brought us globalization and privatization, I think both will be reversed in a large extend.

[@krestinereed2227]

Decouple, why doesn't closed caption or transcript display when the guests are speaking. This is not the experience on other KZbin channels. Please respond- thanks

[@rof8200]

Seems like we need more nuclear powered ships

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

Chris. It would be really good to know what the current state of the art is with respect synthetic fuels, and specifically derived from nuclear power/heat. And with todays reactors, and with those that are coming along soon (high-temp ones). Where do we stand right now??? What could we produce if we gave a 3GWt/1GWe reactor to a synthetic fuel plant... How much fuel do we get out of it? We need some guests from the oil industry i think.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

What are you talking about when you say "synthetic fuels?" You can make biodiesel from nut oils and wood. You need a nut press, and a still, extra wood to burn for fuel, and to get the lye from, and a few days of hard work to make about 5 gallons of fuel. Ta-da! "Synthetic fuel." You've simply replaced the phase, "work a lot harder for a lot less" with "synthetic fuel." Brilliant. Don't try to learn chemistry or anything, just smear feces all over the internet and use buzz words like nuclear, innovation, science, and "state of the art."

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

@@skeetorkiftwon please reread my post. I specified synthetic fuels specifically derived from nuclear. So taking water plus the air to get the carbon and hydrogen required. And yes. I mean the methods that can scale. And No, i don't mean biofuels. We all know that we can't replace those few magical 8" holes in the ground with billions of acres of land diverted away from food growing. We know we need a "lot" of diesel, jet-a, and fuel oil to run all the trucks, plant, trains, ships, planes, gensets, etc. But we know we have incredibly dense energy sources in the form of nuclear reactors generating GW of electricity, or 3x GW of heat... So what could we do with them. And again, with today's reactors, and with those coming in the near future. I thought that asking this in a nuclear focused channel, and specifying nuclear would have been clear. I guess most people knew what i was asking.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

@@cheeseandjamsandwich nuclear fuel is a derivative of hydrocarbons. It isn't picked off a tree and thrown in an oven. It doesn't exist in sufficient volume without large quantities of diesel. What you're trying to do is: Not learn how any of this works, have a childish opinion that sounds interesting to other laymen, be argumentative rather than thoughtful. Even if I allowed your "I'll just pay myself the money I need" argument, you'd have had to start construction of your nuclear facilities in the 80s or 90s because EROEI peaked in 2018, and volume will likely turn in two years. So your theorycraft is irrelevant. More energy has never been the solution. Exploitative use, excessive overbreeding by less than inventive people, destructive practices like smashing cellphones, TVs, cars, windows, etc, and generally imagining you deserve to lay around while someone brings you food is the problem. You do bad things with the energy. You even think you deserve it and that one of your smooshed together ideas will work just fine, even though you won't learn materials science alone to know you're dead ass wrong. Look at your idea. Tell me you think you can get nuclear for free to crack water for free to compress and bottle oxygen and hydrogen (which we currently make, at a loss, from natural gas for less) then somehow for free turn that into synthetic (meaning more labor and less naturally occurring processes) liquid fuels. That's simpler to you than: drill a hole, pressurize it, put it in trucks, use that supply to refine itself?

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

@@skeetorkiftwon erm... not sure what you're going on about at all to be honest. Did you reread my initial question? Here's the first part: "Chris. It would be really good to know what the current state of the art is with respect synthetic fuels, and specifically derived from nuclear power/heat." Note how I'm just asking what the current state of the art is with the technology that does exist to make hydrocarbon fuels by combining hydrogen and carbon... We all know this is very energy intensive, so I'm asking about what could we do if we dedicated a nuclear reactor to this task. I'm asking how efficient, or inefficient it is. It's a question. One that probably a couple of people in the oil industry possibly know the answer to (the military also). Nuclear fuel is literally star dust... But yes, turned into a usable form with the wonderful help of the genuinely amazing diesel fuel. Splitting an atom has a 1,000,000 x energy density compared to burning stuff. And we've only just chipped away a tiny bit at harnessing that immense amount of energy available. There's a chance that we could massively improve this one day... Something wind and solar simply can't, as they're near there physical limits. To which you can't argue with. One thing we do know today, is that nuclear can scale. And fast. If we choose to let it. France proved it's possible. We also know that NPPs cost about the same to run at 10% load as it does at 100% load... So if we do want to go 100% nuclear, we would land up with a lot of 'spare' energy... Heat and electricity... So we absolutely will make use of that 'spare' energy, and building up hydrocarbon fuels over the spring and autumn is one of the ways. And, yes, pumping hydrogen is tough... I actually know i tiny bit about this... So it would be more sensible to make use of it straight away, next door, at a rate matched to the output of the NPP... So perhaps a collocated synthetic hydrocarbon plant. We'd probably just have a lot of dedicated NPPs for all the industries and synthetic fuel & plastic industries... But the seasonal opportunities are there... And always have been... Look at the LHC running schedule. We need diesel, a lot of it... But we don't care if it's derived from fossils or just combining hydrogen and carbon. Errr... Actually, we'd like the synthetic stuff more... as it'll be 100% pure, which would save a lot of maintenance, engineering, pollution reduction equipment... and the pollution itself. But obviously, it'd have to be cheap enough. This will give us a very good carbon neutral liquid fuels. The other big issue we need to deal with, plan capacity for, is that all the CO2 we've released from burning the fossil fuels kinda needs to be resequestered somehow. Just stopping emitting will not stop the heating totally, and most importantly, it will not restore the CO2 levels in the oceans, as they'll actually reabsorbing for quite a while until they reach equilibrium with the atmosphere again, and this increase will therefore increase the acidity of them even further. Ocean acidification is a lot more scary than you realise. So, we're gonna need a shit tonne of energy to do some actual negative emissions shit with. So, please remember, my initial post was a question. One that could be phrased (to please you) as "How inefficient is synthetic fuels, given a constant, dedicated supply of 3,200,000,000 W of heat or 1,000,000,000 W of electricity ". Isn't it an answer you'd at least be interested in knowing? Anyhoo... Chris has excellent guests, and my question about synfuels isn't the first, it's a common question... So we're all hoping that he'll find someone that does know what the current state of the art is. How good or bad it is...

[@chapter4travels]

My guess is that we won't be doing true synthetic liquid fuel for a very long time. The world has lots of oil and even more coal. I suspect coal to liquid fuel using thermal nukes will follow crude and only much later seawater. I'm talking about at scale comparable to current oil supply/demand.

[@MrVaticanRag]

Just cleanup pollution first, build TeraWatts of liquid metal Thorium ion molten sodium berilium fluoride salt burner energy converters (TMSR) like Indonesia is undertaking with 8×500MWe ThorCon TMSRs.... QED

[@chriskshaw7601]

I think your guest is unaware of LENR systems capable of replacing marine transport needs. Still in the future but looks promising by 2100

[@pragmatist165]

Why is that most of you never reply to us. I realise of course you cant reply to all, but I spend time for nought it seems

[@mikkert-zh2cf]

Absolute decoupling from all negative environmental/social impacts is impossible. Only degrowth is able to give us a more smooth landing during the great simplification. Time to start using doughnut economics amd choose how we want to give people a dignified life within the planetary boundaries! (Which is a degrowth theory by the way)

[@autohmae]

well, peak child has already happened, so growth, just in population size is already slowing down. Add to that the environment, we'll be forced to not rely on growth.

[@PaulHigginbothamSr]

When we finally move to well designed molten salt thorium reactors making humanity much more wealthy and healthy diethyl ethane will power our jeliners just as well as hydrocarbons today. Just slightly more expensive than today. We will not be more stationary. Using atmospheric co2 to produce this gas will even reduce and control this gas. I know how to do it now in a cracking tower built by liquifying natural atmosphere and pulling out whatever ingredient needing removed from earth heat flow. Just too expensive at this time without molten salt thorium reactors.

[@waywardgeologist2520]

17:36 so far his analysis lacks depth. Electric and solar will bypass much of the petroleum in transport needs.

[@mlytle0]

It's going to get back to trains and barges. Most energy efficient. 18th century plus micro-nukes and limited fossil fuels.

[@katiebee2937]

🥃

[@carllelendt5452]

More accurately worded, the question should read: Will the West be allowed to evolve past or beyond fossil sourced oil?

[@anotherperspective6247]

It's not a question of needing permission. Exxon is producing roughly the same amount of oil output that it was a quarter century ago. My guess is with natural gas no we won't any time soon: there is no good replacement for it and it is plentiful. Unfortunately for oil there is no good replacement for it and it is not as plentiful. I don't care how many EVs they foist on people at the end of the day a truck delivers produce to your grocery store and it runs on diesel. With heavy equipment they all run on diesel. Coal will be the first to go that's low hanging fruit to get rid of. Natural gas and oil will be a bit harder to do so and sadly with oil we don't really have much of a choice. Saudi Arabia is now spending tons to modernize their grid so they can burn natural gas more and export more barrels of oil because there is no good replacement.

[@AgentSmith911]

​@@anotherperspective6247The bus that goes through my neighborhood/town is a BEV. A local construction company recently bought an electric excavator. I've seen a BEV large truck/lorry delivering food to my local grocery store. My car is a BEV. My lawnmower and chainsaw is electric. The only thing I can come to think of that isn't electric near me is my boat, and I still haven't seen an electric boat but it's only a matter of time before that runs on batteries too. So will we get rid of oil completely? No, but we'll definitely soon reach a peak in demamd.

[@anotherperspective6247]

@@AgentSmith911 We'll reach a peak in oil demand driven by a peak in oil supply. Many thought that would be 2019 but turns out they were wrong, now many are saying 2024. It's my understanding many of the BEVs for those heavy applications don't work as well. I guess we'll find out in the years ahead when liquid hydrocarbons increase in price due to limited availability. My suspicion is also that those BEVs you speak of are heavy on government subsidies, which is front-running that yes things are going to get more expensive. The world is ~100MM bbl/day in oil consumption presently. I don't see us getting to ~120 but I remember 15 or so years ago when we were at 85 MM bbl/day people were saying we'd never get to 100MM/day. Right now there is a huge disconnect between what the IEA & EIA+Canada are forecasting. Both cannot be right. We shall see.

[@autohmae]

@@anotherperspective6247 "It's my understanding many of the BEVs for those heavy applications don't work as well" if you can transition 75% to BEV it would be a huge deal already.

[@erkinalp]

@@anotherperspective6247 Coal liquefaction can be used to produce oil, there are many such procedures in trial, mainly in China, and many more in discussion in the fuel production literature.

[@ArslanOtcular]

Johnson Lisa Brown Donna Perez Christopher

[@asfd74]

Don't you think if we cut out all the non necessities, there would be ample energy for necessities?

[@sam-fc9ky]

see fletcher Prouty

[@NamekGregory]

The world is slipping on this energy crisis not because the global oil resources are nor available, but the world has not technologies to recover the oil from underground. Straggling with new oil discoveries and not replacing recoverable reserves has for more than half century proved that Peak oil reached on June 2008 2008 on a time when USA oil industry started to understand unconventional oil and gas production invented two decades ago from George P. Mitchel. This delayed but effective technological understanding save USA and the world until today. As the oil industry today has not invented any technology other than drill baby drill and frack baby frack the Peak oil today is the past. But be careful, peak oil corresponds with peak knowledge to recover from trillions barrels underground. Plenty of oil underground are already discovered, and 5-7 trillions barrels of these oil are recoverable if oil industry together with different governments will partner with inventors of undisclosed technology, and use the new technology to support the economic sustainability or economic growth. This will keep the world demand and supply balanced for more then five decades. The oil industry together with government are free to further discuses new technologies.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

Summing up your claim: You would like to work multiple times harder for the same result.

[@jessieadore]

I’m feeling like at this point your efforts would be better placed in building out a model of localized nuclear ecosystems if that’s actually what you care about. Because I’m not sure how people have to say in how many polite ways it doesn’t address or replace the heavy lifting of petroleum based energy. I do love and appreciate your work but we running out of time y’all. We have to get out of our preconceptions no matter how disappointing and just do what needs to be done and is most attainable. This ain’t it.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

You got localized nuclear supplies and physicists?

[@jessieadore]

No. But I’m not a proponent so that wouldn’t be my responsibility. Which is why I very clearly stated those that are should direct their energy to planning that. You need a plan before you need a facility and physicists.

[@JordanArno-l7x]

Martin Patricia Davis Donna Young Karen

[@janklaas6885]

📍51:26

[@vincentkosik403]

Globe trotting....

[@Mikey-mike]

BS

[@waywardgeologist2520]

Notice that.

[@felipearbustopotd]

Large heavy batteries in cars is rather an odd concept, why not develop cars that 'tap' energy like trams do. That way the batteries could be sized smaller, cars lighter but the down side would be the need for a new infrastructure to facilitate this.

[@hi-gf5yl]

It’s unsafe to have them sticking up from the roof, also difficult to switch lanes when connected. Trolleys make sense for fixed routes with minimal disruptions like buses and trains. Batteries are getting lighter anyways so it’s a temporary problem. If you want more efficiency use a ebike.

[@felipearbustopotd]

@@hi-gf5yl IF switching lanes, then the battery could temporarily take over. Cheers for replying.

[@felipearbustopotd]

@@hi-gf5yl But as you have mentioned... basically not practical.

[@kirstinstrand6292]

What if EVS are fantasy solutions?

[@hi-gf5yl]

@@kirstinstrand6292 electric motors are extremely efficient so I don’t see why not. There’s better battery chemistries coming soon.

[@adodgygeeza]

Not this shit again! The problem with all these analyses is that they are superficially reasonable but they are ultimately motivated reasoning with an aim or viewpoint in mind. 1: The stuff about transportation and electrification isn't numerate. All ground transportation is relatively easy to electrify you might just need to change some operating models. Ultimately electrification is likely to be cheaper which is a strong driver. These arguments are akin to stating in 2006 that electric cars won't work because current EVs are shit. 2: The estimates for required electrical storage are potty. We just wouldn't build weeks of storage, there are plenty of other solutions to dunkelflautes that are less drastic, like a one week movable holiday for energy intensive industries.

[@DiegoGarcia-ip7pr]

Ha ha, very funny, a one week movable holiday……😂

[@Apjooz]

As you can see any suggestions, even slight ones, are met with derision around here. Static brains living in the static world.

[@adodgygeeza]

@@DiegoGarcia-ip7pr at my company we have 5 days of annual leave which the company gets to decide when they are used, normally they are just used to allow a shutdown between Christmas and New Year. Coordinated shedding of demand for limited periods of time are a much cheaper mechanism than having storage around for annual or less frequent events.

[@philtimmons722]

@@adodgygeeza You are correct on all of this. A+ The general term for what you are describing is sometimes called, "Aligning Time-of-Use and Time-of-Production."

[@stewiewilliamson1541]

All ground transportation is relatively easy to electrify? If so why aren’t you working on this? Isn’t this simply a question of power density and weight, and dependent on available battery chemistry? Thousands and thousands of engineers are working on improving battery tech and you just throw out how easy this is. 😂

[@robertmacnaughton178]

Scalability isn't a problem with Zero Point Energy. Of course there are many other issues.

[@davidcanatella4279]

Nuclear power is far from petroleum free. Construction, the mining and processing of the materials for construction are massive. And, to scale power plant to replace what we have you’re looking at 4000 new plants in the U.S. alone. Then there’s the fuel needed to mine and process the nuclear fuel , operate backup cooling systems and transport and dispose of waste. The energy and resources for the operation of this undertaking is unimaginably immense. Not to mention that radiation is deadly which is something swept under the rug partly because of the carbon panic but mostly magical thinking which refuses to acknowledge that humans have not demonstrated over the last 70 years a responsible handling of radioactive material. We have to be realistic. Id rather live without electricity than see my child suffer and die from radiation poisoning regardless of how much you love ❤️ nuclear power. My little bio-gas lamp isn’t going to give your kid cancer

[@chapter4travels]

Advanced nuclear (that DeCouple hates) requires no mining and has a negative waste stream. The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades.

[@davidcanatella4279]

@@chapter4travels I dig your enthusiasm, but i would caution against being too enthusiastic about nuclear promises. Promises like these are not new. Then there’s the issue of energy. Civilization uses energy to grind earth into money and this is true even if that energy is as clean as a summer breeze. Environmentalism has changed over the last 50 years from preserving wild beings and wild places to preserving industrial culture with another energy source in the name of helping the environment when it is the culture itself that is the root of required change. It’s to be expected that money interest would find a way to divert legitimate concern for humanity and ecology in the direction they want. Wild beings and places are not a side show. Human dependence on the ecology is absolute

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

We've gotta realise that we need to choose to have fewer kids. We have to reduce our population. Choosing to do so is the ONLY nice way... And if we don't choose to, nature, human nature will take most of the choices away from us and reduce our populations and standards of living. Choosing to have fewer kids to reduce our population really is possible. In the west, we've seen TFR drop below 2.1 everyhwere... and almost none of this was due to us realising how overpopulated we are, and how fucked we are. The most important part of reducing our population, choosing to have fewer kids, is that it addresses EVERY single issue, simultaniously. Nothing else does this. And obviously, we must do all the other things as well, go 100% nuclear, use all the tech to feed us, research geo-engineering to see what works, what the side effects are, whether they're greater than the benefits they may give... We must do everything, all at once. But addressing our massive overpopulation, by choosing to have fewer is the most important. Population x (consumption + emission + waste + land + etc.) Either we reduce our population, or we have to give up an unbelievably amount of quality of life, standard of living. Waaaaay more than just going veggie. It seem to me that givent the reality, the choice, most people would choose to have fewer healthier, happier, wealthier kids... Rather than more kids that would be less healthier, less wealthy, less happy... All the solutions to actually survive, for humanity survive, all seem to be taboos... population, nuclear, gmo, geoengineering, etc. etc. etc. We need to bust these taboo. Or we will not win.

[@Monkismo]

Agreed, but you can still find KZbin videos with hundreds of thousands of views calling any discussion of overpopulation "eugenics" or "genocide," without providing any theory of even how to feed 8, 10, or 12 billion people in a sustainable way, much less how to provide shelter, heakth care, etc. The same people always condemn Malthus, of course, even though he was writing before modern industrialism even existed.

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

@@Monkismo Exactly. We need to steal back this topic, get some decent ethical commitments behind it and start talking about this. The whole world needs to understand the situtation. Yeah, Malthus gets a kicking. Even here on Decouple. But he did say more than one thing. He identified the problem, which we can argue about the scales of, and he came up with some ways forward, which are very, very dated, and we'll be dumping. But the basic theory of the problem is solid. Us in the west, we already have almost everything we need to choose our own family sizes (mostly! USA!!!), we only need this general widespread understanding that we're very overpopulated, it's no one's fault, but we really should choose to have fewer kids, as it helps with every issue, problem we face today. The extra kid you choose not to have consumes zero, emits zero, uses zero land, needs zero energy. No lifestyle change can ever get close... unless you give up almost everything you know. We need to bust the taboo, to not only squash those eugenicists, but also those that are now screeming 'population collapse!!!'. Thre threat of demographic changes simply do not compare to climate change, fish stock collapse, water scarcity, running out of phosphorous, sand, topsoil, helium, etc.

[@svang1013]

Most of the world is doing that already. Just Africa that isn't, really. Also, an increase in energy prices would starve most people so there is that, too.

[@cheeseandjamsandwich]

@@svang1013 but..... Africa is growing, indeed. But they're not overpopulated, or not very populated at the moment. It is us that are already overpopulated, and by a lot! Our footprints of every kind are humongous. Our emissions too. This means we get the balance, the majority of our needs from either drawing down reserves faster than they replenish, or, and most importantly, we're taking it from other people's countries... And guess what, Africa has many of those countries. It's just a rapidly expanding of the "How did OUR oil get under THEIR sand?", but with an ever expanding list of things. So Africa absolutely has to address their population growths and sizes, as it massively benefits them to do so. It accelerates their development. But it is us that need to address our population growth and sizes more importantly. And it would be good to lead by example. And we should be aiding them in any, every way we can and they require. It's very common that the fingers get pointed at Africa, Asia... But we must correct those comments. This is the most important topic we face.

[@skeetorkiftwon]

​@@cheeseandjamsandwich Africa is subsidised by your self loathing. It will starve as you slowly stop feeding it. Or it will continue to invade. Makes little difference.

[@edwardriffle29]

Only problem co2 has no effect on climate. All the worry all the policy wonk fretting is totally misdirected.

[@ericdanielski4802]

CO2 warms our earth.

[@edwardriffle29]

@@ericdanielski4802 that is a hypothesis but it has not been verified by experiment. And cannot be verified by experiment because it is not true.

[@bentray1908]

Evidence please.

[@alandoane9168]

@@edwardriffle29 It's not true because you say so. That is some advanced sciencing right there, Bucky!

[@edwardriffle29]

@@alandoane9168 i do not have a monopoly over truth. However experiment is the key to scientific truth. If you know of experiments that demonstrate the correctness of co2 role is the greenhouse effect by all means bring it forward allow it to be validated by repetition. Until anyone does that hypothesis remains what Feynman called it - a guess. We shouldn’t be destroying our civilization on a bad guess. Until it is validated by experiment.