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The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: the Upcoming Seneca Coll

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: the Upcoming Seneca Coll

Unread postby AdamB » Sun 19 Nov 2017, 12:36:57

Ugo Bardi explains his idea of an impending "Seneca Collapse" of the world's oil industry at the session on climate change of the meeting of the Club of Rome in Vienna, on 10 Nov 2017. What follows are not the exact words said, but it maintains the gist of this brief comment that was focused on the concept that the oil industry has a "soft belly" in the fact that it produces mainly fuel for engines used for transportation. If this market were reduced by the introduction of electric vehicles and other transportation innovations, the whole industry could collapse. That would be a good thing for the earth's ecosystem and for humankind in general. Dear colleagues, we are having an interesting discussion on how to stop climate change and I think I could add some thoughts of mine on the basis


The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: the Upcoming Seneca Collapse
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: The Soft Belly of The Oil Industry: the Upcoming Seneca

Unread postby evilgenius » Sun 19 Nov 2017, 14:22:55

I was reading the article referenced at the landing page when I realized it also has a weakness. Internal combustion engines have room to become more efficient. They also have become more efficient in recent decades. All you have to do to realize this is look at an F-150, which I think is America's most popular vehicle, from the most recent model year and compare it to one from a couple of decades ago. The modern one is much larger. They have have the same hauling capacity. The efficiencies have gone into allowing the modern one to become that much bigger. Right away, you can see that huge gains could be made in terms of fuel efficiency by making something like that small again. Battery powered electric vehicles are facing their own efficiency challenges. They may compete well against the current fleet of bloated cars and trucks, but would they do so well against a leaner fleet? What about a leaner fleet that has had a lot more research money poured into fuel efficiency? I know, it's scary when you consider the environment. It would be nice to go all electric and really cut down on carbon emissions. The plus side, though, is that the people behind going all electric could have some concrete obstacles to overcome after which they would know better about how to really pull it off. Extending oil that bit more, with efficiency gains, might just give them the time they need.
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