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comment by jaggs
jaggs  ·  2971 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: $100 trillion up in smoke

Mmm... a Texan financier writes about oil, but there are some severe omissions. One absolutely no mention of the climate crisis as a driver of change. Which it is. Paris wasn't a random, soon to be forgotten wake up call. It was a seismic shift in the energy equation long (or maybe medium?) term.

This sentence - "Western oil companies and OPEC member states aren’t so worried about oil reserves in the ground..." shows that lack of understanding of this point. Google 'stranded assets' and you will see what I mean. There is a LOT of attention being paid to renewables and their effect on oil, and you could argue (and many do) that this is the main reason the Saudis are refusing to cut production to increase prices (that and the fact that historically no-one else in OPEC usually plays fair and does the same).

To meet our global carbon budget we need to keep a lot of fossil fuel in the ground. Coal is the first corpse we're going to see, and fossil fuel seems destined to follow, especially if we see the expected uptake in the production and use of hybrid transportation.

Interesting times.





kleinbl00  ·  2971 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    One absolutely no mention of the climate crisis as a driver of change. Which it is.

I think there's a political explanation to this - I mean, we're talking about Texas republicans and oil, and if there's one thing the Bush years taught us it's that "fuck the environment, let's make money" is one change in administration away. But then, the US isn't seeing smog riots like China.