It is factually correct and mainstream that both oil-and-gas production and energy demand are increasing. But here comes climate alarmist Bill McKibben, climate writer at the New York Times, promoting a false narrative of fossil fuels declining in supply and in demand.
It is a strange development. McKibben previously ranted about the lack of climate action in the face of a crisis. He seemed ready to throw in the towel if the political world would not get better. But what is a spent climate alarmist to do? Create a message of hope.
McKibben’s is an old page from the energy-subtraction Progressive Left. Remember what Amory Lovins stated nearly a half-century ago?
“The long-term prospects of selling more electricity are dismal.” [1]
“Prominent exploration experts have recently predicted that total world production of liquid oil will peak by about the end of this decade-or a few years later if production does not rise much-and will decline thereafter.” [2]
Wrong and wrong–and time and again. But McKibben does not know or want to know this history.
Peak Demand?
McKibben buys into Peak Gas. He states:
But a report out this morning from the good folks at Oil Change International … makes clear that the industry is running out of the really cheap stuff—the fracked gas from the Permian and Appalachian shales that it’s been pumping for the last two decades. Many of those wells are playing out fast, and now it’s going to need to turn to the more “geologically complex” Haynesville shale of east Texas and Louisiana, and that will drive up costs—especially since more and more of the gas is, at least theoretically, going to be exported to Asia as the industry builds out massive shipping terminals along the Gulf of Mexico.
He quotes from the study:
If industry succeeds in locking in unprecedented demand for U.S. gas by expanding exports and domestic consumption, U.S. supply may be pushed to its limits. Gas supply can only meet such high levels of demand if prices rise to cover the higher production costs of marginal gas supplies. This connects rising dependence on gas to rising energy costs. U.S. consumers and those in LNG-importing countries must push policymakers to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to reliable, affordable renewable energy.
The “the easy stuff has been found” refrain–more than a century old–fails to comprehend how high-cost supplies become low-cost with new technology and free market incentives and capital. Resourceship under market incentives explains the paradox of increasing ‘depletable’ supply.
Peak Demand?
Mckibben states:
… it’s been clear for some time that oil is not a growth industry. The rapid rise of EVs in most of the world undercuts projections of future use—we’re at or near the top of the plateau now, and by 2030 or so the amount of oil we use should be going down.
Not in the U.S., which represents approximately one-fourth of the global economy. And never mind that China is losing money on its (centrally planned) EV program, a burden that might lead to a policy reversal.
The narrative that renewables are the future, not fossil fuels, has had a few proponents in the oil industry. “Demand will take a long time to recover if it recovers at all,” remarked Ben van Beurden, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell, six years ago. (July 30, 2020) Meanwhile, the world produces and consumes record amounts of oil and gas, with coal not far behind.
Reality bats last. The data will continue to show that consumers are winning out against government climate “mitigation” policies. What will Bill McKibben say next?
Footnotes
[1] Lovins, The Soft Paths: Toward a Durable Peace (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1977, 1979), p.96n.
[2] Lovins, World Energy Strategies: Facts, Issues, and Options (New York: Friends of the Earth International, 1975), p. 26.
McKibben, a liberal arts major at Harvard College, has never allowed physics, chemistry, mathematics, economics or reality to get in the way of his messianic personality.
He is, of course, a modern day Rasputin who has manipulated the guilt-ridden Rockefeller heirs for decades into funding his career as a prophet of imminent doom.
Rockefeller money and funding underlie McKibben’s sinecure on the faculty of Middlebury College, a bastion of hypocritical limousine liberalism.
He is the perfect example of a wasted life.