Substituting Renewable Energy for Fossil Fuels is a Doomsday Stratagem
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2023
- Abstract:
There is no energy transition, no paradigm shift or green revolution.
The popular idea that fossil fuels can be and are being replaced by renewable energy is false. New energy sources have always been additive with no empirical evidence for replacement of one energy source by another.
Renewable energy requires materials that use fossil energy for their extraction, transport, manufacture, and distribution. The four essential pillars of modern civilization are steel, cement, plastic and ammonia. None of these are possible without fossil energy.
Energy substitution is a doomsday stratagem that condemns civilization to its status quo path of growth & biophysical destruction. No amount of non-fossil energy will make a difference unless we lower total energy consumption & accept its consequence of no growth.
Climate change is a big problem but it is a subset of the larger problem of biophysical overshoot. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. Continued economic and material growth based on renewable energy does not begin to resolve that fundamental reality.
It's time to get honest. Growth is the core of the human predicament.
Biography:
Arthur E. Berman is a petroleum geologist with 45 years of energy industry experience including both fossil and non-fossil energy sources. He routinely gives keynote addresses for energy conferences, boards of directors and professional societies. Berman has published more than 100 articles energy and their effect on earth systems including climate. He has more than 38,000 followers on Twitter (@aeberman12).
Website: artberman.com - Zábava
"We've never replaced a previous form of energy with a new one..." And humanity has never made a transition from a high net energy return resource base to an energy base with a lower net energy return, or even to a resource based with a lower energy density! It's uncharted territory, and most everyone appears to be expecting a seamless transition with no changes in regard to basic social and economic paradigms or living standards.
The world will transition to uranium, a million times more energy-dense than fossil fuels, just as you described.
The question going forward will be how will this all play out.
Talk about an inconvenient truth
Nuclear Energy. 1 Million times better than coal.
@@shawnnoyes4620 We need more nuclear energy, we need more nuclear energy, we need more nuclear energy, we need more nuclear energy, we’ve heard that mantra from decades, and it might for some have a calming effect, but little physical has happened. And now of course as Art Berman’s pointed out it needs a lot of energy (producing CO2) to build NPP’s there’s: Cement (concrete), Steel, Plastic and Fertiliser… I could go on but it’s all there in Art Berman’s talk, maybe check out “The Great Simplification” which Art’s appeared on numerous times🤔
Art Berman is a masterclass. I've learned more from him about how the world works than I've ever heard in our Western education system.
Art goes on Nate Hagens CZcams channel and talks about the fast decline of Permian crude oil wells than seems to pretend we can just ignore that fact. We need all forms of energy ASAP. Given fossil fuels have had trillions upon trillions invested over the last 100 years it’s absurd not to realize new tech needs for investment right now if we’re to continue living our energy rich lifestyles. Wherever practical, implement renewables with battery backup. Where that’s not practical rely on fossil fuels, but know that the US has only 2% of the world’s crude oil reserves. Don’t be shortsighted as our politicians owned by corporations have always been.
@@jtjones4081 Renewables won't save us.
@@aristocraticrebel Then we are doomed. Even if Global Warming was not a thing.
Many years ago I attended an Energy Institute symposium in which the CEO of a Texas oil company declared shale oil as being a "substainable" resource ! 😀
...for a few years....anyway
Art is Fantastic, I listen to him every time I see him.
Peak Conventional Oil: 2005
Peak Oil with Fracking and Tar Sand: 2018:
Peak Gasoline from Natural Gas: 2027
At least, so I have heard. (Simon Micheax) If true, energy consumption will be going down quite soon. Before my daughter graduates high school.
Right. The invisible elephant in the room.😂
There is lots and lots of coal and natural gas around, China is already replacing gasoline fuelled cars with EVs powered with electricity generated by coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, and the new renewables in that order of magnitude.
Picking an exact date only confuses the point. The overall long term trend is the point. By picking a date that is off by a couple of years or a couple of decades, detractors are able to point out the incorrect prediction as proof that the overall concept is wrong.
But we'll still have plenty of plastic bags, right?
Amazing talk. Once our predicament is illuminated and clarified from an energy and systems perspective, the conclusion that modern society is screwed becomes painfully obvious.
At last, a neo Malthusian perspective articulated extremely well.
Totally agree. Realism about human nature is essential for being honest about these things and few people have it.
Machiavelli is the best
The status quo remains such as long as tons of money can be made in the endeavor, doesn't matter if it's moral, good, bad, or ugly. By the way fossil fuels(oil) replaced whale oil(probably a good thing at the time) and I don't see a lot of corn cob or cow or bison chip burning for cooking or heating per capita but possibly remains as a small use in remote places while other sustainable uses of these proliferate today without producing as much pollution or endangerment. This narrow and short term view of fossil fuel energy just helps prolong the money train, the global insecurity caused by unsavory players who control the supply, and the financial drain on all who use or think they have no alternative to this energy source.
I am here for the doom.
Me too. Small world.
Ditto baby!
....get your popcorn .
Berman for Energy Secretary!
I second that
I've attempted to warn people about our energy predicament for a while now, but no one who hasn't studied this material can believe the magnitude of the changes that we'll experience, and very few people can accept this information without trying to assess the impact on their portfolios, which tells me the most important fact: no one is ready. Not mentally, not physically, not spiritually and not financially. The fact is that population is the pressure-release valve, and every time it drops, we'll yell "Boom!" and the cycle will start again.
Population drops ? In your dreams as the world pop will keep going up and so will fossil fuel use because Africa is modernising and therefore demanding more energy !
Absolutely, it's like watching Titanic heading for the Iceberg, at full speed. Sleepwalking into disaster with, Captain Smith at the helm. People can't conceive that the whole Financial system is based on the Ponzi scheme of Fossil fuel....
No trained, practical science could accept this as anything more than half-truth.
A barrel of conventional crude oil contains 42 gals.
"Without fossil fuel energy, we are kinda screwed." Yes, we are. Our task is to figure out how to survive collapse and dieoff. It distresses me that the most adaptive behaviors are coming from old fart baby boomers like me.
The best way to control population growth in Africa and other developing areas is cheap, in relative terms clean, fossil energy to replace biomass and educating girls. Religions and other traditions the biggest obstacles we face on this path.
Very informative
56:00 The issue with simple reductions by gains in efficiency of use. The supply of the labor monster is liquid and will flow to new markets.
finally a realist
Great video
Indeed fossil fuels are magic.
Arts intro = grounded in reality.
Maybe if ( as mentioned ) population was apx 2 billion and maintained at that level, then going fully green would be viable?
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
Comment at 9:15 “CO2 is an air pollutant”. Sorry I don’t think so - we’d all be dead without it. Apart from that it’s a good presentation of some of the dilemmas we face. Thorium could be an answer but no interest at the moment.
Artur Berman has all his assumptions on the table based on traditional school, simple correlations and existing technologies on oil gas and coal or renewable inefficient and intermittent energies which need investment on distribution and storing energies.
His assumptions and conclusions go well when correlated with population increase. Real world we live today has huge amount of resources which are considered depleted from exploitation, and on oil and gas industry Art accept that the industry live underground 50-60%. These resources only can supply energy for the world for 6-7 decades to come using effective technologies. On addition to these nuclear resources and reserves can keep world energy demand on increase for other 6-7 decades. These combined can supply the world on renewable energy transition fast and effectively.
However the world has a big problem and is controlled by businesses and government who do not support real inventions and innovation when they are individuals with new technologies but without capital. The world can easy saved on all aspects and develop only if effective collaboration will solve energy demand for a better life for all, not planing forced de-growth and using less. The world need renewable energies on demand and not renewable intermittent energies, and the direction must be on a) levitation-gravity energy b) geothermal and c) safe nuclear energy.
For more information investors and government representatives let contact privately.
Incredible talk and awakening for all regarding this highly worrying predicament 😇
The eco-modernist myth in all its glory.
Nuclear power can go on longer than the sun. Renewables so-called, demand truly ridiculous amounts of metals mining that would hit the wall relatively quickly.
Why not build lots of MSRs in factories? IF we make prices honest (charge fees to industries proportional to pollution, resource extraction or encroachment on habitat) we will raise the price of energy and we'd make factory production of reactors a very profitable future.
Sharing proceeds from environmental impact fees will ensure that people will still be able to meet their basic needs. The policy will benefit those who are least well-off. (This should be a global policy.)
Spoken like a man who has never gone without anything. Ask your Grandpa what it was like before he got indoor plumbing or electric light. Glad you're not making policy.
@@derrickwells333 The proposal will not lead to deprivation. The money paid in fees (and the resulting price increases) will be returned to the people, to each an equal amount.
People *will* have an incentive to shift to a less-impactful way of living, in terms of pollution and depletion. Without aiming to, necessarily. Just by seeking the lower prices and best deal. That's what people do anyway.
Mulva??
I hear fasting is good for the overall diet of any super organism
Dr Kellogg would disagree!;)
Ammonia, Steel, Concrete, Plastic - All can come about via nuclear energy electricity and process heat.
No...not economically. Anything may be possible, but how much of your human energy are you willing to trade for it?
....would you trade 4 1/2 years of YOUR human labor...for a barrel of oil?
"Substituting Renewable Energy for Fossil Fuels is a Doomsday Stratagem"- True enough, guess the population should start focusing on Zero Point Energy.
I am here for population. We sooner mine the shit out of coal and be 2 centigrades warmer. Thank you.
...if humans attempted to really teach (teens) children that sex is as much , or more, a spiritual transition experience (rather than social/physical happening)....and the deep importance of personal responsibility and the pain/suffering we can personally cause by being irresponsible. ...maybe fewer suffering children would be unwantingly be created?
...but that's a religious subject that impedes upon the percieved freedom of shallow thinking humans
Starting to sound dangerously Malthusian. Population reduction is a problem we are already starting to face with fertility rates already significantly below replacement across most countries. There is plenty of far more sustainable energy than solar etc with gen 4 nuclear.
Yes. Dangerously Malthusian. Rob Zubrin’s book ‘the merchants of dispair’ covers most of this…. Disproves most of it as well… engineering. Nuclear energy is an absolute must for humanity’s future survival and prosperity. But there are no easy solutions… survival is always a struggle. But humanity can not just sit back and ‘exist’ that is accepting biological defeat…. We are driven to explore, expand, grow and develop for the survival of our species. Maybe we just need more planets….
A likely scenario seems to be global population cut in half by war and climate change by 2100 but life goes on based on nuclear energy with zoos and reservations for traditional plants and animals.
Sounds like a reasonable conclusion. Population will have to decrease for sure
Peter Zeihan has an interesting insight on population growth.
We are seeing the trend in last couple of dacades of per capita GDP increase together with per capita carbon emission decrease in many countries that embrace energy transition.
Firstly, which countries? Secondly, they're still using more, finite, resources. At some point these resources become harder to acquire.
"A barrel of conventional crude oil contains the equivalent of roughly 4.5 years of continuous human labour"?
I think this is a nonsenical comparison in many ways. A barrel of oil doesn't do anything without being used in a machine.
Also, what if the labor is doing a math problem? A barrel of oil can never do a math problem. My phone can do decades of human labor in a couple minutes if I give it some hard math problems. So what?
Physical labour! C'mon man, maybe you've heard of it?
That is one thing that I do not understand: "Abundance of Animal Species". How is it defined? How is it measured? There is this statement at 23:35 for example "95% of marine fisheries are exhausted". If that were the case, everybody would have to notice this by simply going to the supermarket. The price of fish should have been rising like tenfold but in fact fish is dirt cheap as ever. And that is just one example. It is highly implausible that such large reductions in wildlife as these numbers suggest, could happen without affecting our everyday life here or at least in large parts of the earth.
Many fisheries have been exhuasted, Nova Scotia/New Brusnwick for example was shut down for five years and is only ten percent what it used to be. Fish are not dirt cheap. Buy a can of tuna fish and calculate the price per pound. About the same as prime beef. Sardines are sold by the ounce. Fresh fish starts at ten bucks a pound now. The price of fish is not determined by how many fish there are, but how much it costs to catch, process, and deliver to market. Smaller fisheries mean smaller hauls per trip and going to different places to find replacement species when preferred species get fished out. That does raise the price, but it also leaves fewer fish behind to reproduce. Thats the problem and partly why there is 69 percent less biomass of wild species. Its also the reason why Somali fishermen turned to piracy. The big foreign fishing fleets fished out their traditional fisheries they had lived on for a thousand years. They had no more fish to catch. Most of this doesn't directly affect you so thats why you don't know about it. You don't eat fish every day and you don't depend on fish for a living. But it's still happening, along with a bunch of other things that don't directly affect you. Wild biomass is declining, and in most of the US, outside the deep south, you can tell there are fewer insects than twenty years ago when you wash your car after a road trip. You used to scrub to get all the bug gunk off, now there's hardly any bug splatter on the front of your car.
Does the World NEED a Benevolent Dictator
to Recognize / Make / InAct the Global Hard Decisions necessary
for the Blue Marble Floating in Space to Survive ?
In a Country / Norway where EVs are 90% of all New Car Sales
the lack of a Noticeable Dent in Oil Demand
is a Cautionary Tale for those Predicting a Drop in Oil Demand due to EV Sales.
Based on your analysis, Nuclear Energy should be the answer. However, we will need Fission Suppressed Fusion Hybrid to produce the fuel. Also, United States has enough unused fuel via recycling for 100 years of energy. Uranium could be mined from seawater but it would require Gen IV reactors to make that work.
NIMBY
@@lindam.1502 Why, it is the safest form of generating electricity. I lived near one. No biggy.
Nuclear can replace fossil-fuelled electricity, but electricity is only 20% of our energy use. As Berman says, electricity is a "C" problem. Overall energy consumption is the "A" problem and corelates directly with population.
@@AndrewClarke-wb5hh Process heat from nuclear has the opportunity to be a very good story, too.
No fossil fueled future means more electricity.
Grid electricity is extremely expensive energy.
Fossil fuels are cheap high density energy.
5times more electricity is needed with no fossil fuels.
The system has 3 parts.
Supply, the generation
Grid
Demand, the users, the customers
The grid part makes electrical energy extremely expensive compared to fossil fuel energy.
The national electrical transmission grid has taken 100years to build and costs as much money as the national GDP.
We do not have time or the national wealth to build more.
No CO2 proliferation with nuclear electricity is an oxymoron because of the new grid construction it needs aswell as the EV batteries in the electric future.
The entire system includes the grid, the elephant in the room.
The old economic saying
"It's the grid costs stupid. "
Talk is about everything but the grid part of the system. Renewables and nuclear electricity.
First Point: Very few people are going to be willing to accept a lower standard of living and I certainly don’t accept it on behalf of my children and grandchildren.
Second point: To force the second world and third third to accept no improvement in their standard of living while we maintain ours is immoral.
Third Point: As the standard of living increases the birth rate the world over drops as shown by the demographics of the Western Countries and the prosperous Eastern Countries.
Fourth Point: Berman’s thesis while more pragmatic than most of the “Climate Cult” is equally flawed in his pessimistic view of the natural future of the planet.
First Point: you seem to think we have a choice
Second Point: you can be happy without a luxury lifestyle. It's not immoral to be poor.
Third Point: We are still adding 200.000 people netto per day and the planet isn't big enough for everyone to live in luxury. If I had 7 children in my EU country, I wouldn't be able to feed them either.
Fourth Point: Between 1970 and 2018 humans eradicated 69% of wildlife. That is before climate change takes hold. According to James Hansen et al, if we stop emitting now, we are in for 8 to 10 degrees warming, depending on aerosols. At 3°C warming, agriculture becomes impossible.
He is not very good at statistics. Sure there is a correlation between population and energy on a global scale, but one also needs to look at it in granular levels. What one should also look at is energy consumption per person. As a country like China industrialises its energy use per capita goes up, but Europe's per capita energy use has already peaked and is going down.
The #1 thing we can do to curb human population (and thus help non-human diversity) is supporting a woman's right to autonomy worldwide.
Autonomy and more prosperity.
Humanity is a super-oncology more so than a super organism.
Population growth has been powered by medicine and vaccinations.
He quotes 200 years and gives energy all the credit.
The first vaccinations were Smallpox in 1796.
Ties in pretty well with the 200 year run up in population.
Just an observation.
(I'm not including recent compulsory global ones as beneficial in my example.)
Edit: 45 years old was a good age back in the day.
Child mortality was vast.
Yes, definitely a factor, but all those folks could not have been fed without oil's supplying 98% of the nitrogen fertilizer, not to mention the diesel machines to mine and crush the rock fertilizers, till the soil, plant the seeds, harvest the grain, transport it all to your supermarket, and keep it cold.
@@lectricbill3329 It is natural gas not oil ...
@@lectricbill3329 I'll give you that for the last hundred years. Half the stated 200.
I forgot to mention soap and a realisation that cleanliness was good.
Fission Suppressed Fusion Hybrid - A fission-suppressed hybrid reactor is a conceptual design that uses a fission-suppressed blanket to produce fuel. The design also considers fuel management, handling, and reprocessing. United States, Europe as well as Russia have enough Uranium already mined to support hundreds of years of growth. Reference - Fusion breeding for mid-century, sustainable, carbon free - W Manheimer · 2020.
A lot of fallacies in this talk. Luddite doomerism is never right. Renewables are growing at an exponential rate everywhere, and carbon capture will allow conventional fossil fuel consumption to keep growing whilst reducing its carbon footprint.
after all we have seen, you still think that "exponential rate" is something _good_ ?
carbon capture? We can not offset carbon emissions with carbon capture.
fossil fuel consumption keep growing? have you understood _anything_ that is going on?
@@GeorgeTsiros yea buddy, we will consume ever more energy and everything will be fine. There is currently massive investment in renewables/nuclear and new technologies that will allow us to reduce our carbon footprint and increase energy consumption from all sources at the same time. Now go preach your juvenile doomerism elsewhere.
Check the copper requirements for your "Renewables". Look at the supply chain ... They are not renewables - they are "re-buildables". Every two decades - "Rinse and Repeat". Not enough of a supply chain to extract that much copper. The more copper that we extract - the more expensive it becomes. Sorry but reality needs to kick in at some point ...
The eco-modernist fallacy at its best.
Fanciful bullshit.
#DrillAntartica...#DrillGreenland
Thank you Dr Berman are you John The Baptist or The Messiah?
This was a weird talk. It seems to be full of straw men. For example, the diatribe against technology/innovation: not _a_ solution, but certainly _part_ of a solution. The incredible efficiency of electric motors and LEDs means we will need far less electricity for the same transportation / lighting needs. Whether the transportation is private automobiles, or buses doesn't affect this. Also, the gains from not wasting all the energy we currently do to get fuels out of the ground and into the vehicle (see, for example, the video EV or Gas, What Pollutes More?).
So: yes, the answer is to use less energy. But technology is part of the way we do that another example: Zoom meetings vs physical ones, saves on transportation costs).
The eco-modernist fallacy at its best.
9:12 CO2 is not a pollutant.
Did you check a dictionary? It's easy to do. Oxford, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, whatever you like. You'll find CO2 very much meets the definition -- both at planetary scales and at in-garage scales.
@@xchopp Good idea. OED says:
a gas breathed out by people and animals from the lungs or produced by burning carbon
• Coke burns with oxygen to give carbon dioxide.
• Trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.
Doesn't sound like a pollutant.
"CO2 is not a pollutant." Excess pollution (rapidly raising CO2 levels above the levels the web of life is well adapted to) clearly does function as a pollutant, causing hundreds of harmful effects for people, societies, other species, and ecosystems.
Anything can becomes a pollutant if there’s to much of it, but if you’re thinking in terms of plants, those studying higher CO2 effects on plants are seeing some plants reducing the number of breathing pores on their leaves as they don’t need as many, now why would they do that if they like higher levels of CO2. But like Art Birman said “things get complicated”. We humans are just playing whack-a-mole with Gaia🤔
@@barrycarter8276 "...now why would they do that..."
ETH: Expensive Tissue Hypothesis.
There is one glaring omission in this talk: the concept of Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI). How much energy can you get from a system when you put one unit of energy into it. Human and animal energy and firewood has an EROEI of about 5. Fossil fuel has an EROEI of about 30. That massive increase in energy has enabled our modern civilization. Wind and solar have an EROEI of only about 5 when evaluated as a system. The intermittent power is a huge drawback and requires essentially 100% backup by a stable base power source. Wind and solar are truly lousy if used for more than 20% of the total power supply. What truly works is nuclear power. Modem nuclear plants have an EROEI of about 100, and a thorium plant may have an EROEI of 200. They are also inherently safe. The despair in this presentation is misplaced. The future is bright.
Use Wind and Solar energy to produce Hydrogen to gradually replace the dwindling supply of fossil fuel. Hydrogen can be added to waste biomass to make biomethane to replace natural gas, and methanol to replace gasoline to advantage of existing natural gas infrastructure and liquid fuel refilling infrastructure.
Use nuclear energy wherever wind and solar are not available, because nuclear energy is still a lot more expensive than Solar and Wind energy.
This talk emphasizes a bigger problem: Over-consumption of natural resources while polluting the planet severely. The rates of autism has gone up 40 folds since the 1960's. The rate of other diseases like dementia, cancer, asthma, diabetes, etc have gone up significantly as well. Sperm count has gone down several folds and the infertility rates in women has gone up significantly. We are poisoning ourselves and not enough people realize it or doing anything about it.
Not a forest fire, Art...its an aurgument with G-D...no, you and the other god-pretenders, will not affect any outcome, but your own...
Art Berman believes that CO2 is a pollutant? How unscientific, CO2 is essentially a fertilizer and it has a little warming effect, which is overall beneficial. CO2 concentrations follow temperature rise caused by solar cycles, there's a lag of about 1000 years as the oceans warm, that is a fact.
Art is a doomer. Duck! The sky is falling! Don't look up! (BS)
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant! 10:57
Evil people. Pure evil. Art must be over 60…top yourself first and help save us. 😂
And how, that was one of the most horrifying things I've ever heard. But to be fair I don't think it was his idea, it was that lady's, some liberal professor, surprise, surprise... and he sort of played along. And she was so chirpy about it. Let's get it on the agenda and fast-track this thing! Either way, that's not where you want the conversation to go when you're trying to motivate people. Alright everyone, now that we see how grim and unalterable the situation really is, who's up for a voluntary Soylent green program?? And if you're over 60 and you have nothing to live for, you can sign up on your way out....
@14.00 Yes, there has never been a transition before. But that’s the whole point (and the hard part!). We need to scale down consumption in a big way. This also means changing capitalism, simple as that. There is no alternative, except doing nothing, which leads to armageddon and extinction. It will also mean: less people, and here technology will be needed to help us through a phase with less young people.
@18.00 Phasing out fossil fuels will not be a comprehensive solution, but it will start a reconsideration and adaptation process towards a different way of living.
We can go back to a consumption level of the ‘90s, to start with. That means: stop producing these idiot SUV’s, start using public transport instead of everyone in his own car, stop flying around just to enjoy a short vacation, stop producing smart phones that must be replaced every 3 years because the battery is toast and stop eating meat. This has nothing to do with ‘quality of life’, but just a matter of making more sustainable choices.
BS