The principal reason Norway doesn’t have an energy crisis is because it has very large petroleum reserves divided by its population. Its population and energy demand is sufficiently low that it can export oil and has done so since the early 1980’s.
There has been plenty of drilling offshore in the USA. Most of the good oil was in the Gulf of Mexico, and is now gone. There’s a little bit more left off of Florida, but not that much.
When the USA had large oil production relative to its population, say in 1945, it didn’t have an energy crisis either. The USA opened its very large oil reserves to drilling and exploitation decades to a century ago. It had once as much oil as Saudi Arabia. It is almost all gone now.
Geology and population. it is right wing delusions that a certain deregulation regime gets around this.
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but I call baloney on the change being needed for some overall good whether it’s the poser’s concept of egalatarianism, global warming or other junk.[/quote]
WTF? Why is being a selfish asshole so much in vogue?
[quote]Global warming is irrelevant at this point.
Geology will regulate carbon emissions just fine. [/quote]
Unfortunately this isn’t true. Scientists have done actual work to analyze this. Depletion of oil and gas will NOT keep greenhouse levels to an “very uncomfortable but not disasterous” level, unless we stop coal.
The most potent and dangerous drivers to increased global warming & greenhouse emissions are coal and land use changes, primarily agriculture & ranching.
There is plenty of coal to screw us massively.
As oil and gas gets more depleted and expensive, then without some radical change in thinking and strong regulations, people will start converting coal to liquid fuels. This is climate catastrophe. First, since coal has very little hydrogen, just burning for the same energy content releases more CO2. Then the coal-to-liquids processes require enormous energy inputs, using up even more energy and carbon emissions. So, per useful amount of work delivered, the CO2 is significantly higher than oil or gas. So using coal the GW will get way worse faster.
150 years from now, burning coal will be seen as a crime against humanity. People will look back and be repulsed by the glib general acceptance of today. The feeling will be like the way we look back upon slavery in 1800.
