I'm curious who the energy illiterate idiots are in your opinion?
People that don’t understand how intricate modern society is with oil and gas, and that we can shift off of it in the next 5 or 10 years or whatever completely. People like that just simply don’t understand all of the ways we use it.
Like people talk about renewables and that’s a great step, but renewables almost universally speaks to electricity or power. Well, guess what?
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People that don’t understand how intricate modern society is with oil and gas, and that we can shift off of it in the next 5 or 10 years or whatever completely. People like that just simply don’t understand all of the ways we use it.
Like people talk about renewables and that’s a great step, but renewables almost universally speaks to electricity or power. Well, guess what?
I would counter that by saying just the opposite. There are more than plenty that don't know jack about other sources of energy and then have this ridiculous world view that society will come to a crashing halt when oil stops being available. There are other sources of energy some of which are more efficient, and present greater opportunities for energy independence for all nations, but those are rarely acknowledged. Ignorance exists on both sides, and the ridiculousness of that has been displayed in this thread by many on the pro-hydrocarbon side with great regularity, so be careful how you apply that brush, because some of the comments that are documented on one side of the ledger are much more damning.
I agree that society is very intertwined with the hydrocarbon molecule. But every advantage it provides can be achieved through other means, it just means we have unwind the involvement, re-engineer, and adapt. It will take time, but with commitment it can be done quickly. The United States put a man on the moon in a decade, with only some very rudimentary components to start from. This challenge could be accomplished much easier as our starting points are much more advanced and we have a wealth of technology to help us get there. All it is going to take is commitment. The unfortunate thing is there is a massive disinformation industry out there that continues to be extremely successful in making people believe change is not only dangerous, but impossible. This makes even trying extremely difficult, and it shouldn't be. We have a lot to overcome, starting with getting past the ignorance you raised.
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Can we call people who underestimate/can’t comprehend human ingenuity “humanity illiterate idiots”?
“If we do this! It will be a disaster!”
Or, wait... if we do it, we’ll figure out a way to make it not a disaster, because that’s literally the entire history of humanity. We use our brains to find ourselves better ways to do things. It’s almost unbelievable that people are so ignorant as to not understand, so I have to assume there are weak ulterior motives there. How can one not understand humanity, technology, or innovation so much?
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Can we call people who underestimate/can’t comprehend human ingenuity “humanity illiterate idiots”?
“If we do this! It will be a disaster!”
Or, wait... if we do it, we’ll figure out a way to make it not a disaster, because that’s literally the entire history of humanity. We use our brains to find ourselves better ways to do things. It’s almost unbelievable that people are so ignorant as to not understand, so I have to assume there are weak ulterior motives there. How can one not understand humanity, technology, or innovation so much?
“See, if everybody on this comet agreed,
We could set the clock to whenever we want it to be”
Can we call people who underestimate/can’t comprehend human ingenuity “humanity illiterate idiots”?
“If we do this! It will be a disaster!”
Or, wait... if we do it, we’ll figure out a way to make it not a disaster, because that’s literally the entire history of humanity. We use our brains to find ourselves better ways to do things. It’s almost unbelievable that people are so ignorant as to not understand, so I have to assume there are weak ulterior motives there. How can one not understand humanity, technology, or innovation so much?
None of those things are really the bottleneck to solving climate change. You need people to act in their long term interest and in the interest of people who aren’t themselves
Think I will report the lawyers representing the kids in the lawsuit against the Canadian government to the provincial Law Societies for violating their oath not to promote suits based on frivolous pretenses.
Can we call people who underestimate/can’t comprehend human ingenuity “humanity illiterate idiots”?
“If we do this! It will be a disaster!”
Or, wait... if we do it, we’ll figure out a way to make it not a disaster, because that’s literally the entire history of humanity. We use our brains to find ourselves better ways to do things. It’s almost unbelievable that people are so ignorant as to not understand, so I have to assume there are weak ulterior motives there. How can one not understand humanity, technology, or innovation so much?
To your opening question, I think we could most certainly. Perhaps I may even be one. However I bet you’d be surprised at how much I genuinely believe in the changing energy supply picture in the coming decades. But it can’t be so sudden, if can’t happen in under 10 or even 20 years. Research and development takes time.
Carbon engineering’s pilot has been operating for 3 years but it still costs them $1/L for synthetic blending fuels. That’s still an outrageously high price! But I believe in them and in basic economic principles. Wood Mackenzie, IEA, all the forecasts suggest renewables are where the torque on growth will be. But they also say that coal, oil, gas and even wood for example will continue to be significant raw materials for humanity in the coming decades. Experts almost universally agree that hydrocarbons will make up a large portion (VERY large portion) of the energy mix into the future. These energy sources will be shrinking as part of the energy mix, but they’ll still be important. When we think about fertilizers, feed stocks, plastics, textiles, chemicals, petrochemicals, blending agents, gasolines and diesels, propane, ethane, butane, condensates, and all the derivative products therefrom- sorry- windmills don’t do what these literally thousands of other products do.
So when I hear people talk about how hydrocarbons will be phased out in a few short decades yes, I do think they are energy illiterate. They are. They are ignorant of our lifestyle. Of how if you look around you, almost everything we have is interconnected to hydrocarbons. That’s why we use 100MM bbls every single day worldwide. How do people heat their homes, grow crops properly, etc etc etc etc etc without oil and gas. Yes you are absolutely right that human ingenuity is a beautiful and incredible thing. And people can and will do amazing and incredible things. We already are! Look at some of the research and technologies being developed in the energy arena, it’s incredible. And it’ll escalate. But you know what?
We will still be using oil and gas in the future. Lots of it. And the whole world just is not going to die from climate change. That is histrionic hyperbolic ridiculousness and it just simply isn’t going to happen. It’ll be bad. People will die. It’ll get expensive, it’ll drive economic expansion and growth in new technologies and renewables and new forms of energy. But you know what? We aren’t convincing the modern world to just give up oil and gas on a dime. It just isn’t happening.
To your opening question, I think we could most certainly. Perhaps I may even be one. However I bet you’d be surprised at how much I genuinely believe in the changing energy supply picture in the coming decades. But it can’t be so sudden, if can’t happen in under 10 or even 20 years. Research and development takes time.
Carbon engineering’s pilot has been operating for 3 years but it still costs them $1/L for synthetic blending fuels. That’s still an outrageously high price! But I believe in them and in basic economic principles. Wood Mackenzie, IEA, all the forecasts suggest renewables are where the torque on growth will be. But they also say that coal, oil, gas and even wood for example will continue to be significant raw materials for humanity in the coming decades. Experts almost universally agree that hydrocarbons will make up a large portion (VERY large portion) of the energy mix into the future. These energy sources will be shrinking as part of the energy mix, but they’ll still be important. When we think about fertilizers, feed stocks, plastics, textiles, chemicals, petrochemicals, blending agents, gasolines and diesels, propane, ethane, butane, condensates, and all the derivative products therefrom- sorry- windmills don’t do what these literally thousands of other products do.
So when I hear people talk about how hydrocarbons will be phased out in a few short decades yes, I do think they are energy illiterate. They are. They are ignorant of our lifestyle. Of how if you look around you, almost everything we have is interconnected to hydrocarbons. That’s why we use 100MM bbls every single day worldwide. How do people heat their homes, grow crops properly, etc etc etc etc etc without oil and gas. Yes you are absolutely right that human ingenuity is a beautiful and incredible thing. And people can and will do amazing and incredible things. We already are! Look at some of the research and technologies being developed in the energy arena, it’s incredible. And it’ll escalate. But you know what?
We will still be using oil and gas in the future. Lots of it. And the whole world just is not going to die from climate change. That is histrionic hyperbolic ridiculousness and it just simply isn’t going to happen. It’ll be bad. People will die. It’ll get expensive, it’ll drive economic expansion and growth in new technologies and renewables and new forms of energy. But you know what? We aren’t convincing the modern world to just give up oil and gas on a dime. It just isn’t happening.
Synthetic fuels will be a very important part of the next 50-75 years. But we will need a very dense energy source to make it work well. Renewables can contribute, but there are limits.
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If the NHL ever needs an enema, Edmonton is where they'll insert it.
If we are ignoring the energy illiterate idiots we should also ignore the environmental/scientific illiterate idiots. In fact, we should put together a Venn diagram and ignore all of the idiots that don't fall in the shared literacy area. For instance, the 20 people that voted here that climate change is a hoax (and those that didn't vote but feel that way) should bow out of this conversation but I suspect that they are some of the loudest voices in here.
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The of and to a in is I that it for you was with on as have but be they
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If we are ignoring the energy illiterate idiots we should also ignore the environmental/scientific illiterate idiots. In fact, we should put together a Venn diagram and ignore all of the idiots that don't fall in the shared literacy area. For instance, the 20 people that voted here that climate change is a hoax (and those that didn't vote but feel that way) should bow out of this conversation but I suspect that they are some of the loudest voices in here.
You got a deal! Extreme positions should be ignored and we should focus on pragmatic outcomes.
Growing demand for SUVs was the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018, an analysis has found.
In that period, SUVs doubled their global market share from 17% to 39% and their annual emissions rose to more than 700 megatonnes of CO2, more than the yearly total emissions of the UK and the Netherlands combined.
No energy sector except power drove a larger increase in carbon emissions, putting SUVs ahead of heavy industry (including iron, steel, cement and aluminium), aviation and shipping.
“We were quite surprised by this result ourselves,” said Laura Cozzi, the chief energy modeller of the International Energy Agency, which produced the report. The recent dramatic shift towards heavier SUVs has offset both efficiency improvements in smaller cars and carbon savings from electric vehicles.
I had wondered how big an effect hat was having. That's crazy. Get people back in reasonably sized cars, the SUV craze has gone way to far. Plus, they are ugly. Perhaps we need an SUV tax.
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To your opening question, I think we could most certainly. Perhaps I may even be one. However I bet you’d be surprised at how much I genuinely believe in the changing energy supply picture in the coming decades. But it can’t be so sudden, if can’t happen in under 10 or even 20 years. Research and development takes time.
This is such a frustrating thing to read. Research and development has already been taking place for decades. There are replacement technologies available. There are replacements we could put into play right now. The problem is the absolute power that the O&G industry has over governments, and the incredible disinformation industry these same interests use to make people believe we are doomed without their products. If the O&G sector had a horse in the race to get the man to the moon, and it would have been detrimental to the use or sale of their products, we would still be arguing about how to get there, or if it was even possible. That's the power of an industry that gets seven more dollars in government subsidies for ever single dollar spent on renewables.
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Carbon engineering’s pilot has been operating for 3 years but it still costs them $1/L for synthetic blending fuels. That’s still an outrageously high price! But I believe in them and in basic economic principles.
These guys do some impressive work. But they are a small venture with a very limited budget, so that slows their research and development. Only when they can produce at scale will you see the costs of production drop, and that is going to require greater investment. When the big O&G companies can spend more on advertising than this company has for its entire budget, you can maybe see why the deck is stacked against breakthroughs and disruptive technology.
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Wood Mackenzie, IEA, all the forecasts suggest renewables are where the torque on growth will be. But they also say that coal, oil, gas and even wood for example will continue to be significant raw materials for humanity in the coming decades. Experts almost universally agree that hydrocarbons will make up a large portion (VERY large portion) of the energy mix into the future. These energy sources will be shrinking as part of the energy mix, but they’ll still be important.
Of course they are going to say this, as this is their primary portfolio and source of revenues. Or were you expecting Phillip Morris to lead the charge in proving that tobacco use was dangerous to people's health and was a leading cause of death? They are smart, know where their bread is buttered, and recognize the incredible power the O&G and auto manufacturing sectors have over governments. Disruptive technologies have a very hard path to take and gain traction in industries where they have the government in their pockets. So when they read the tea leaves and make their forecasts they are acutely aware of the current playing field and make their best guesses on what has happened in the past.
I will also point out that Wood MacKenize has also stated they feel the tipping point for electric vehicles becoming the dominant player in the marketplace will happen around 2027, that there will be more EVs than combustion engines on the road by that time. A lot of this will be a result of foreign markets rather than North American markets, and mostly because we are slow adopters and won't have the same level of government support that European and Asian countries have. Again, the power of certain lobbies and industries make it extremely difficult to gain traction in the North America.
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When we think about fertilizers, feed stocks, plastics, textiles, chemicals, petrochemicals, blending agents, gasolines and diesels, propane, ethane, butane, condensates, and all the derivative products therefrom- sorry- windmills don’t do what these literally thousands of other products do.
All of the bolded can be, and are being done, with naturally occurring substances. The italicized can be replaced with similar cleaner burning gases created from bio products. Only the petrochemical products, created and promoted by the petrochemical industry, are at risk of disappearing or requiring replacement through research. The claims that all of these things are impossible without O&G is just buying into the disinformation campaign that is being pushed.
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So when I hear people talk about how hydrocarbons will be phased out in a few short decades yes, I do think they are energy illiterate. They are. They are ignorant of our lifestyle. Of how if you look around you, almost everything we have is interconnected to hydrocarbons. That’s why we use 100MM bbls every single day worldwide.
I completely disagree. It's sheer ignorance of the real world and recognizing that sheeple will do what they are told through the media they consume. People live in the reality they create - science be damned. They insulate themselves with information that confirms what they think they know rather than searching out information that challenges or even changes their perspective. Someone sends them a glossy brochure that tells them how indispensable certain products are, and they swallow it whole cloth (polyester of course, because cotton can't be made without oil!) rather than being skeptical and doing some research to discover the truth. Intellectual laziness is actually the biggest problem affecting the industrialized nations. We solve that problem we solve a lot of the bigger problems affecting us.
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How do people heat their homes, grow crops properly, etc etc etc etc etc without oil and gas.
That's a really great question. I don't know how humanity managed to survive a couple hundred thousand years before we discovered oil and then became dependent on it for so many things we did without it for generations before? How will we ever live without O&G???
We'll do what allowed our species to become the apex creature on the planet. ADAPT.
We'll change the way we build our homes. We'll rely on more insulation and natural heating/cooling methods. We'll stop buying #### mass produced products and go back to paying for quality goods designed to meet our specific needs. We'll use energy efficient products and only heat and cool the living spaces we need to heat or cool. We'll use the smarts that our ancestors used to survive and do a lot of pretty impressive things without the need of petroleum products.
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Yes you are absolutely right that human ingenuity is a beautiful and incredible thing. And people can and will do amazing and incredible things. We already are! Look at some of the research and technologies being developed in the energy arena, it’s incredible. And it’ll escalate. But you know what?
We will still be using oil and gas in the future. Lots of it. And the whole world just is not going to die from climate change. That is histrionic hyperbolic ridiculousness and it just simply isn’t going to happen. It’ll be bad. People will die. It’ll get expensive, it’ll drive economic expansion and growth in new technologies and renewables and new forms of energy. But you know what? We aren’t convincing the modern world to just give up oil and gas on a dime. It just isn’t happening.
No, the world (planet) is not going to die. The world will continue on. With or without us. What will happen is the society and the "world" we know will change. Our actions will continue to alter the environment around us. We will continue to contribute to ecosystem collapse. We will continue to affect the environment to the point where other species can't survive and go extinct. We will contribute to a massive crash of the very natural systems that we rely upon for our survival, then we (humanity) will die. It won't be in the next 25 years. I have nothing to worry about as I'll be dead and my ashes recycled into the earth. But your kids and your grand kids? Well, they're being killed slowly, and too many are too ignorant to understand or acknowledge it.
There is way too much focus on human inconvenience in this discussion, and not enough focus on the changes we are facilitating in our environment. We are killing species we rely upon for our survival. We are creating an environment where other organisms will thrive and contribute to our demise. We are killing off the very animals (bees, birds, bats, etc.) that contribute to our food production. Pollinator populations are in decline all around the world. One the opposite end of the spectrum, disease and drug resistant viruses are on the rise. Zika and West Nile are just two diseases that have spread because of changing climate, but there are dozens of others that are more dangerous or deadly. Lyme disease is another great example and it is spreading like a California wild fire. We are literally contributing to our own demise by ignoring the very prevalent warning signs around us, all for the sake of convenience and our own intellectual laziness.
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I had wondered how big an effect hat was having. That's crazy. Get people back in reasonably sized cars, the SUV craze has gone way to far. Plus, they are ugly. Perhaps we need an SUV tax.
Yet our federal and various provincial governments have provided funding to assist auto makers retool their plants to increase SUV production. It’s done in the name of jobs as these plants were previously supporting the cars that are now being dropped from production as demand has dropped.
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I own 4 cars none are an SUV. Saving the planet one used car purchase at a time.
Not all SUVs are gas guzzlers a RAV4 hybrid for example is rated about 6.2L/100km. Looking at the top 10 best selling SUVs they are generally okay for fuel efficiency but still not great compared to small sedans.
As much of a petrol head I am it pains me to say we need to go to only small displacement 4-cylinder and hybrid platforms or go all electric. I bet it eats at Tesla that they don't have an SUV yet when the Y comes it it will sell like crazy.
I own 4 cars none are an SUV. Saving the planet one used car purchase at a time.
Not all SUVs are gas guzzlers a RAV4 hybrid for example is rated about 6.2L/100km. Looking at the top 10 best selling SUVs they are generally okay for fuel efficiency but still not great compared to small sedans.
As much of a petrol head I am it pains me to say we need to go to only small displacement 4-cylinder and hybrid platforms or go all electric. I bet it eats at Tesla that they don't have an SUV yet when the Y comes it it will sell like crazy.
I own 4 cars none are an SUV. Saving the planet one used car purchase at a time.
Not all SUVs are gas guzzlers a RAV4 hybrid for example is rated about 6.2L/100km. Looking at the top 10 best selling SUVs they are generally okay for fuel efficiency but still not great compared to small sedans.
As much of a petrol head I am it pains me to say we need to go to only small displacement 4-cylinder and hybrid platforms or go all electric. I bet it eats at Tesla that they don't have an SUV yet when the Y comes it it will sell like crazy.
Right, but the Corolla hybrid gets 4.5l/100km. I think the point is by people choosing suv's over cars is the difference between those 2 numbers. Sure, SUV's are getting more fuel efficient, but so are cars. So it's a net loss of efficiency, had suv's not existed.
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Right, but the Corolla hybrid gets 4.5l/100km. I think the point is by people choosing suv's over cars is the difference between those 2 numbers. Sure, SUV's are getting more fuel efficient, but so are cars. So it's a net loss of efficiency, had suv's not existed.
I’d be all over an efficient wagon or el Camino type vehicle.
Right, but the Corolla hybrid gets 4.5l/100km. I think the point is by people choosing suv's over cars is the difference between those 2 numbers. Sure, SUV's are getting more fuel efficient, but so are cars. So it's a net loss of efficiency, had suv's not existed.
This is why the EV wins, a 5000+ pound Model X is ~90% as efficient as a Model 3. Toyota Sequoia weighs about the same as the X and gets 16 L/100. The X is rated equivalent 2.8 Lₑ/100km almost 6x better.
Saving the planet one used car purchase at a time.
