"Our global energy predicament"

[Ghostwriter]

I don't remember which poster mentioned The Great Simplification channel on Youtube, which i didn't know about, but has similarities with Thinkerview, the French channel i follow.

Turns out both meet by inviting Mr Jancovici at this US channel, and exchange views about the global energy state of things, and the situations to come.
I like this guy, he's articulate and straightforward.
Big audience here, quite a voice of reason.

[Alex]

Can you summarize it in a sentence? Are we fucked?

[Kammekor]

Can you summarize it in a sentence? Are we fucked?

It's not that kind of discussion. It's actually an interesting discussion, climate science meets economics.

[Ghostwriter]

Can you summarize it in a sentence? Are we fucked?

We, i don't know, but something will be.
It won't be easy downsizing our energy needs, and our energy needs are begging for the nuclear way, because other options won' t be enough anyway.

From an European point of view, our top 16 oil suppliers are also the world top 16, and they will keep their oil soon enough because it's going scarce, but the remaining time to make a u-turn on energy needs is basically the time needed to switch the opinion of people : a generation.

Problem is, meanwhile, all those tankers carrying containers need shitloads of fuel, and when the top 16 won' t sell their oil for that ( and at what hefty price ?), how these boats will be fueled ? Wind won' t cut it, silk road by train too, so how to get all these imported products, or which product let go ?

Bottleneck to come, interesting times, but painful for sure.

So, no to both question, but keep on training stretching the object of the second one, just in case....

[stevenjb]

One event can knock the whole off balance. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gas prices skyrocketed. IMO, it is best to diversify energy sources, solar electric, hydrogen, WEC devices

[Random Dude]

Can you summarize it in a sentence? Are we fucked?

It's not that kind of discussion. It's actually an interesting discussion, climate science meets economics.

If it's climate science vs economics, I feel like we probably are fucked, one way or the other.

On one side you have the people saying the economy is paramount to everything - we live in a system where everyone needs to work to survive. If the economy crashes, we're pretty much fucked. And they're right.

On the other side you have the people saying that protecting the environment should be our most pressing concern - without a functioning ecosystem, we're fucked. If we keep having frequent extreme weather events we're fucked. If the ice caps melt and flood all our coastal cities, we're fucked. They're right too.

The way it's going at the moment, the needs of the economy almost always trump the needs of the environment. That's the way it's been for the last few hundred years - climate scientists have been warning us of what will happen, but when people are living comfortable lives, driving to the mall to buy imported goods, eating conveniently mass-produced food with no need to catch or grow it themselves, having leisure time to play golf or X-box ... who wants to mess with that lifestyle for something you don't see happening if you're not studying it. Consequences are probably generations in the future, so who cares?

I haven't watched the video yet, but if it's saying there's a way to balance climate science with economics that's great, but I doubt it'll ever happen, or if we finally do start to try it'll be too little too late, and only because the consequences of ignoring the climate science are starting to really bite us.
As long as oil companies generate huge profits for their shareholders by disregarding climate science, that's what they'll do, and as long as we still think we can live the idyllic lifestyle most of us will support the status quo.
And when the climate scientist's warnings start to come true, as seems to be happening now, we'll be fucked because we left it too late.

[Ghostwriter]

Here's a 45 mn intervention with perfect english subs.
Pragmatic big questions, practical short answers, no bullshit or lenghty verbiage.
That's the way i like it.

[canucklhead]

One can anticipate all you want. Nothing will ever change until ALL the oil is gone!

[Jerry Atrick]

One can anticipate all you want. Nothing will ever change until ALL the oil is gone!

And oil will NEVER be gone

[canucklhead]

One can anticipate all you want. Nothing will ever change until ALL the oil is gone!

And oil will NEVER be gone

Correct