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founding

I personally think that it will implode before that. - BP with Beyond Petrolium is back to just BP - Shell and Total are increasing oil and gas E&P efforts - Nuclear and Nat gas are in fashion (more so than in the past) more coal being used than before, and the number one issue: Energy Security.

GREAT question Irina.

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founding

Great question. These things tend to happen faster than we can imagine. The foundation for the transition is already showing cracks, and it lurched way off the tracks last year as demand for all fossil fuels expanded dramatically. So much depends on the U.S. election in 2024 and those in Europe in the coming few years. A Ron DeSantis in the presidency could turn things around very quickly.

I'll give it 3 years.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

We had Germany announcing a fleet of new CCGTs yesterday. Jennifer Granholm saying US will need fossil fuels for years to come. Five years sounds about right to me.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

I remember discussing this in about 2010 and my guess was the whole thing would collapse by 2020...

There's now an enormous industry behind this nonsense and there is no political opposition to speak of.

Change willy only come after a ruinous economic depression.

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Early in my career I caught the tail-end of a research project that was celebrating its successful conclusion. Two years later when clearing out an archive I found the slide deck (plastic overheads... this was 30+ yrs ago :-) ) which had the 10 objectives of the project listed. Nine of them had been totally missed - and airbrushed out of history to achieve a successful conclusion. My guess is we will see the narrative changing such that the transition is a success no matter what the end game looks like. Too much money and political status invested in not admitting a failure. I'm just looking forward to the creative nonsense that we will see to justify this.

My try for starters: Coal gets labeled as "Green" because the particulate matter it emits is shown to help "global dimming" and has a net cooling effect... Happy days.

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But 2050 is such a cool, evenly-rounded year to achieve utopia!

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

It all depends on the economy. If a recession hits it is always be the economy that takes preference over the environment. Also, I don’t think the narrative will collapse suddenly across the world. Some countries and governments will hang on a little longer.

So my guess is that it will start to loose credibility in 2024 and be done by 2026.

Renewables will and must continue to be installed but reason will take over the narrative of what must be done, what can be done and what will be done.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

The "elites" (however one wishes to define them -- political, academic, NGOs, foundations, think tanks, international organizations, and media) across the western world are committed to the net-zero transition come h*ll or high water for reasons that have little to do with the environment. Logic would dictate that this movement should have collapsed (at least) two years ago. But this isn't based on logic. It might collapse under its own weight and internal contradictions, but not before there is much suffering amongst the western population. That suffering might very well cause civil unrest and a system crash.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

My heart wishes for 2025, but my gut tells me more like '26-27 via osmosis, or possibly whenever China goes on the offensive and starts tumbling turbines into the sea via jets and missiles.

Whichever comes first, of course....

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If Republicans win the presidency in 2024, look for the government to ignore ESG and seek to end the subsidies. That will spell the final outcome

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

I'm with you Irina. I would say 5 years but just to be conservative but let's go with 2030, the new decade. Assuming the global economy kicks into full gear again after the upcoming slow down, fossil fuel demand will rise accordingly, and emissions likely with it, so the decision will have to made either to stymy the recovery with more renewable mandates, raising the cost of energy for everyone, or let the benefits of higher economic growth run free. Needless to say, the latter will always win out with voters...

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

I think 2030 will be, as Winston Churchill said, "the end of the beginning." At that point, with energy costs shutting down industry in the U.S. as it is in Europe, and more people experiencing blackouts regularly, opposing net-zero will no longer be taboo. There will be, however, powerful people who will go to their graves never admitting they're wrong. They will continue to have some clout past 2030 to maintain energy transition policies, if not pass new ones. It's east to make a bad law. Very hard to repeal one.

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founding

I think we are well on the way towards implosion (hopefully not just wishful thinking!) There are very big cracks at the seams. I'm NOT waiting for politicians to save us (never happen) - I think it will be the banking and insurance industries that will bring them down - those are the money makers and they are starting to unravel. When the money laundering or "greenwashing" slows up or begins to be regulated and credits are only worth the paper they are printed on, then it will take a dive. Then it will be back to the real things like - oh yes - product that works - oil and gas, hopefully nuclear! As for the milking of tax credits - when we are all taxed out of existence where will they go for their funding? Supply chains - China, unraveling will slow it somewhat, but if they have it to sell it will eventually get here one road or another! (Road & Bridge). I'm going for 3-5 years, giving it a bit of a spread, it's happening faster than we can see on the surface. Great question - thanks for keeping us all on our toes Irina!

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

Lots of good comments here. I think the "transition" will morph into other, more sensible forms over the years as world energy developments continue to inflict pain on people. At some point, even the Gretas will get less press as people tire of the endless yowling. That all said - a transition of sorts will continue - we don't have infinite oil and gas.

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My take is that the collapse will accelerate shortly after the war in Ukraine ends. The current Russian regime will be overturned and the replacement government left with an economy in shambles and a dire need to generate revenue. Ukraine will be in a similar position regarding revenue generation albeit with better access to foreign investment. While Russia will initially be burdened with the international sanctions for its aggression against Ukraine, those will eventually end. Both Russia and Ukraine will be eagerly tapping their natural resources and flooding international markets with new O&G production thereby driving down prices. Although European energy buyers have greatly throttled back purchases from Russia, Russia can focus on the insatiable demand for low priced oil and gas from developing countries. The resulting realigned international energy market operating in a low O&G commodity price environment will undercut investment in intermittent renewables globally for years to come.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

Something I have been asking for years: Is a transition necessary? I say, no. The whole global warming, climate change narrative is a lie, built upon lies. As you know, unless you want to own up to the truth, you need to keep lying and I do believe at this point, like any pathological liar, they believe their lies are true. My belief and I will stand by this forevermore, is that God created everything, including fossil fuels. And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good - Genesis 1:31

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There's danger in declaring "victory" over the oil and gas naysayers as though things would go back to where they were pre COVID if only E&P could drill like crazy again. Drilling up our best locations and basically giving away the energy is a short term high but would leave the US in a world of hurt in terms of energy security sooner rather than later. Shale isn't infinite and prices will have to go up to support the extra costs of monitoring, methane scavenging and remediating old wells. Are renewables the only answer? Of course not, but we can't assume that we don't need an answer to replacing hydrocarbons in some markets sooner rather than later either.

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I think y'all are right.

Leave it to the next generation to figure out how to make the most important transition in human history happen. It is, after all, going to be be their problem. Really.

What a crock!

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

100 years. or we go back to horses and shovels

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It's happening now and they aren't pest of it James. Everyone here knows that low cost, available energy is a sine qua non for an industrialised society and that renewables aren't that. I think the elephant in the room is, ironically what we're advocating. The problem is it's decliningv

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I see the nonsense everywhere - but with the complete takeover of public education by the "environmental mind set/religion and therefore our children"s belief system - we have lost the war - even when faced with massive energy shortages their indoctrination and religious like embrace of "wokeism" does not allow for any actions to force changes - and lets be honest here - with oil and gas selling at prices adjusted for inflation lower than in 2000 who can blame them? and a few trillion free dollars and euro's to give the "green" competitors free capital as well - hope I am wrong but math-science- logic- and critical thinking to solve problems is going extinct - it is all about " how does that make you feel?"

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

When I debate people on this topic, I bring up the idea that when the United States has gone from 20 Mbpd of oil consumption down to 5 Mbpd, the transition has succeeded. I know there is more to it than that but these are the round numbers I like to use. My math shows that all of the EVs we are going to be build in the next ten years will reduce our oil consumption by about 10%. A start, but much slower than most people think. This is how I try to convince people that whatever the energy transition is or isn't, it is going to be a long slow process. Just because your neighbor drives a Tesla doesn't mean we are done with oil.

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

It won’t collapse. It will just morph into the new thing and all of the activists will chase the next shiny marble. Unfortunately not before doing a lot of damage to the world first...

I must say, when I talk to normal people who aren’t energy obsessed like I am, they just seem so relaxed about all of this anyway. A lot of them have picked up wrong ideas about wind and solar, but they don’t seem wedded to them. They all still drive automobiles and feed their children, so I think the screeching crazy will subside a bit over time and we will go about slowly reducing switching out technologies once they are shown to be feasible and superior, just like humans always have. And I guess that is the definition of a “transition” anyway...

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Mar 10, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

I don't think of it as "number of years" as much as milestones. I think things'll start fraying seriously when California hits 25–30% of (actual) electricity generation via wind and solar—that state with third-world power supply (or European price level energy) is a _powder keg_.

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There was a time before everyone became aware of the climate crisis, but I can claim that I’ve known how difficult the problem would become since 1980. That was when my friend (and superb energy analyst Dave Peters) forced EIA to insert a warning to congress in the Energy Information Administration’s annual report that global warming was coming, and it could only get worse unless something major was done. As you all know, Congress did nothing then or since.

The context is important. Three-mile island had just happened and the nuclear industry was on its way toward full stasis. The very elaborate and intense Republican policy of Project Independence, released in 1974, which did the right thing for the wrong reasons (turned America into a nuclear power-building nation where electric vehicles would prevail to escape Arab oil control) was abandoned after the auto companies demanded that America assume there would be no future oil-related energy problem and continue with the oil imports. And with the failure to go nuclear for climate reasons, the nation rolled on for 43 years without any policy. The costs of the change were going to be enormous, and no one wanted to pay them. Very understandable but incorrect.

But now lip service is paid to a new solution: we can be saved by wind, solar, renewables, and batteries. I know that isn’t the case and I know why. I am truly shocked by the failure of those making transition policies to understand that adding gigantic increases of new electricity production demand occasioned by ev’s will only raise the fossil fuel content required to produce current electricity. And raise it far beyond where current systems can perform correctly. There is even the danger that in a really bad winter natural gas distribution companies will have to command the share of natural gas that electric utilities think belongs to them. So I am aware that there are lots of real issues that require correct resolution.

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I read this as I was listening to the BBC coverage of the Windsor framework and a rehash of all things brexit. With that as context I can see the EU insisting on this energy transition 20 years from now while trying to make that tight clown suit fit objective reality with legalistic contortions.

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Mar 11, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

Three years ago (Mar 2020) I realised Covid was not the threat it was made out to be and challenged my friends with facts and logic... they didn’t agree then and to this day they still refuse to admit they were scammed.

If that’s anything to go by, terms like “Net Zero”, “Climate Change”, “Renewable Energy”, “ESG”, (along with other woke agendas) have been marketed effectively, they are deeply engrained and have so much momentum, the economic pain will need to be immense before this thinking will be reversed, by which time we will have had a total collapse, at least in the West. This could take decades to resolve. 🥲

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founding
Mar 11, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

The irony (amongst many ironies we see these days) is the aggressive push for the energy transition causes downstream economic ripples (read waves) i.e. this is all inflationary, ESG is inflationary. With less E&P in net terms (ESG pressure, governments not giving licences/permits), Saudis / OPEC+ holding their bpd, the price of oil is clearly going to rise this year and into next - to levels that will clearly make renewables, particularly solar, even more uneconomically viable than they may be now.

The macro view is also skewed too by the vast amount of debt in the West - we've clearly been insolvent since 2008 but are fudging our way along the can-kicking path, but nearing that hard wall. With a longer-term higher interest rate environment, the economic and financial reality around renewables needs to be reappraised. We need fossil fuels to be able to make the energy transition, but on a realistic timeline - and to reassess what we need to do to the energy infrastructure and existing electricity grids. Nuclear seems the most practical energy transition alternative - seemingly the only one that can buy us the baseload time and scale we need to execute an energy transition.

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Mar 11, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

High energy prices will crush much of the economy way before that. As the economy is destroyed more and more people will get angry enough to do what is necessary to the climate change fraudsters.

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Noticed how wars continue way past the point of obvious defeat?

Noticed that the same institutions that created this mess is supposed to fix it?

Noticed windfall taxes on energy companies?

Minimum requirement is going through the 5 stages of grief. Not sure "they" have even started on "denial" yet.

Thus. Depends on the level of pain towards 2030. Zeitgeist in population will turn sooner than that of the priestly class. .

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Mar 13, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

Praying for shorter but I think it will take a complete overhaul of the current political class, so I'd say 8 - 10yrs (can't bring myself to say 10yrs only for fear of sounding like a Net Zero Catastrophiser😄 - they always use 10yrs). I like some of the comments on here about 'changing the narrative' and am sure that will happen (haven't the EU recently classed gas as green?) but I do really worry about how divorced and insulated from reality our 'elites' (damn I hate describing them like that), really are.

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Mar 17, 2023Liked by Irina Slav

Very good question. I personally don't think it will collapse, more like crumble and then morph into another narrative. Very similar to the narrative around 1.5C: https://www.ft.com/content/450a59bb-7c83-4d04-851f-0bbc120c09f7

"Our goal was always to limit warming to 2.0C"

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Am I to understand "the transition narrative" to mean this?:

Rapid full replacement of fossil energy with 'renewable' energy sources (mostly wind and solar) with a concomitant near term reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, allowing the growth dependent (GDP/GWP) world economy to continue growing and modern industrial civilization and its consumer economy to continue unhampered at a similar energy intensity as we see today.

I don't believe that's possible. And I partly explain why here: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-10-31/energy-transition-the-luxury-economy/

Rather than making a prediction about how soon that narrative will fall apart, I'd prefer, instead, to actively engage in undermining that narrative, as it is preventing the world from properly preparing for the dramatic shifts in our economies which are coming very soon, and which we will handle better if we aren't allowing fictions to fill in for facts.

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A request: Can we have a post in which this Substack's commonly used acronyms are defined for reference purposes? I'm an eco-cultural philosopher with some reasonable grounding in the relation of energy, economy and ecology, but without expertise in "energy discourse" per se, broadly. Many of the acronyms used here go over my head.

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