The American epoch of oil is collapsing. What comes next could be ugly | Energy
Posted by Creepyfaction@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 41 comments
Posted by Creepyfaction@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 41 comments
BlueGumShoe@reddit
Good article if nothing really surprising. I like the framework of energy transitions coinciding with shifts of political power but like every historical framework you can't really apply it to everything.
Seems correct that China has positioned itself as the leader of the green transition. Its a double whammy for the US because not only is China leading research and production, they also dominate a lot of the mineral markets that these technologies require. As people like Nate Hagens point out though, renewable energy doesnt solve the problem of the material needs for the infrastructure. We need to use way less energy in the first place, not use the same amount of energy with different production methods.
The US will be left behind which is bonkers considering the US was at the forefront of renewable energy research for decades. A huge strategic blunder from republicans but what else is new there.
China is imagining the Chinese Century ahead of them but unfortunately for them I think they are getting to the party too late. Climate change by itself is going to create severe hardships for civilization in the near future, it already is in many parts of the world. Combine that with other wildcards like novel diseases, food/water insecurity, rising militarism, and the political instability of the global hegemon going down in flames, and well, I'm not optimistic for the future.
If I'm sitting on my porch 5 years from now and everything is still humming along I'll be shocked.
rematar@reddit
Great comment. Thanks.
Royal_Register_9906@reddit
I like how this was a slow burn until I don’t know a couple of months ago. Now it’s on steroids for some reason. I and many others will suffer but good riddance. Sigh I’m not ready.
Moddelba@reddit
A dumb war exposed our leader as inept.
judithishere@reddit
I think that expose happened a long time ago
roytay@reddit
Some of us already knew.
rematar@reddit
Watching a failing empire elect the predictable, but worst option of a perceived strongman has been very strange.
It will be better after the midterms.
Uhm...
whenitsTimeyoullknow@reddit
I wonder if The Powers That Be just wanted to create a new economic paradigm and know exactly how they will get rich off the petrodollar ending. So they had Trump’s handlers steer him to here, and then will take advantage of all the Baby Boomers’ retirement value shrinking as the dollar collapses and they can’t pass assets to their children.
Canadian_Poltergeist@reddit
Accelerationists who believe the world must burn so they can build something new are the reason.
If humanity is a cancer, they are cancer's cancer.
Ok_Repeat_1995@reddit
Its kind of a big set back with all this because I know apart of me is like this and of course I don't want to collapse the wrong way. Its accompanies the fact that collapse is coming anyways and out of my control so I might as let'a rip than expect humanity to have a change of heart. Because it is true that the only way for the world to change is for things to actually happen. The frustration in seeing the world go on as if the future is going to be there, or down right deny and hate negativity, not take people like us seriously due to some bs politics and agenda spreading.
I've noticed the accelerationist backlash even before most people brought attention to the tech oligarch plans in 2025. Because there is toxicity with how one sees collapse, and theres no shame, I have had my bad days of being an asshole because the amount of anger I had with all this being too much the human phsych can handle, with something as big and real as collapse, its not surprising. How I see it, its not really the world must burn for things to change, but its that its going to burn anyway and change and rebuilding might not even happen! Crazy huh, its like humanity ahould of avoided this, but it wont, so why would future humans see themselves as better? I don't see accerationists as cancer but there are healthier ways in "wanting the end of the world" if not tech oligarchs and just regular people struggling in a world that sucks. Because anger can be turned into reassurance that turns into letting the world burn, anger can turn into letting people figure it out themselves and focus on enjoying life again, with alternate ways in seeking meaning and adventure :D
Canadian_Poltergeist@reddit
Only thing worse than an accelerationist is a defeatist who has given up the will to fight for their world.
Things will get really fucking bad, but we can still correct the ship by removing that damned billionaire ballast and putting people in charge who actually have a plan beyond MONEY MONEY MONEY. The climate will continue to shift, but maybe through corrective actions we can dodge the worst of it. Not possible at all with people actively stoking the fire because they want it to burn.
I'm in no way saying to keep things as they are or calling for the complete dissolution of humanity, but simply allowing the rich to fire the forges and shape the world into their perfect little mold is the single stupidest thing we can allow in the entire course of history.
Either we shape it ourselves or the rich lock us out of the control room forever. There won't be other opportunities in the future when everyone has an ai-gathered data profile and a kill-switch implanted at birth or upon employment.
Ok_Repeat_1995@reddit
Start of 2026 for me. For the first time too, had a lot of moments where I was close in calling it, and once crossed into this realization, things just don't cool down. And look, nearly 6 months in and theres no sign of that, because thats a point of a fast burn baby. We went from a possible mild El Niño to the biggest one ever, a new war in the middle east, Ai data centers and emerging surveillance state, a sudden collapse of morals of the general publice (debatable if its a new thing), but wait theres more!
Im not ready either, and man will I suffer. But atleast this will be the most alive I will feel. I could atleast encourage that feeling. But im not gonna push that, because I know collapse sucks!
AwakePlatypus@reddit
Most people still aren't paying attention to how bad things are going to get.
bbccaadd@reddit
The madness of believing that everything can be abolished with "electricity" will never stop. What are your clothes made of?
montecarlos_are_best@reddit
What were clothes made from before oil and plastics?
petered79@reddit
cannabis!
True-Vast-3731@reddit
There will need to be a great awakening, a great transition, to the way we did things before all this technology and mass influx of energy.
epadafunk@reddit
Do they really think there can be a renewable transition that will support continued modernity without present rates of oil extraction?
Fragrant_Tailor9609@reddit
No. “They” understand simple truths like this. If needed they can pretend otherwise though to suit an agenda. It’s a skill.
03263@reddit
A lot of people seem to think so, I suppose there's a fundamental misunderstanding in that electricity is not hard to create, but high amperage is (e.g. heavy machinery), and you don't get petrochemicals from nowhere.
refusemouth@reddit
I don't see any reason why we can't have wars over both oil and battery inputs. There are plenty of finite resources to fight over.
Jovan_Knight005@reddit
There are always resources for humanity to fight, unfortunately. It's only a matter of time when water will become one of the resources that wars will be fought over for.
yummyneverstone@reddit
Shhhhh don't remind them that water is also finite. I'm young and already have lived through too many world-changing events.
888HA@reddit
Hey. Let's focus on next quarter's stock price. /s
NyriasNeo@reddit
"collapsing"?
Someone is being gullible. "Drill baby drill" won, and we are the biggest oil producer in the world. Most people cry bloody murder when gas prices go up. If that is collapsing, I am thanos.
DeltaForceFish@reddit
If you havent noticed the permian is done. I suggest you watch some intelligent people talk about this like Nate Haggins on youtube. You sound like you watch fox news so its excusable for your low IQ. In 1 year of a new well, 70% of the oil is gone. Thats how fast it depletes. You are almost out of all tier one shale and in 3 years you will see drops in the millions of barrels per day drop every year from here on out. Why do you think you are bullying venizuala and greenland and canada, you are screwed. You are running out of oil, running out of water, running out of top soil, and running out od uranium. In your lifetime you will see america collapse. And it couldnt happen to a more deserving group of people.
Spiritual_Bridge84@reddit
I wish to hear more from your perspective if possible. All makes sense re Canada/ GL/ Venezuela etc ( theres no time to verify tier one shale deposits et al) so will take you at your word on it.
Anyone else you listen to/ read of aside from Haggins?
Collapsosaur@reddit
Try Guy McPherson and his Nature Bats Last substack account. There is solid content on the website.
NyriasNeo@reddit
Lol .. perspective is for the gullible. "Drill baby drill" won and climate change is not going to stop. We already pass 1.5C and blew through 2C briefly.
But i guess some here like to downvote data and put their heads in the sand.
MonsterTruckCarpool@reddit
Those impacts are not instantaneous. They will come. When we live in a mad max world while you are fighting for survival, this drill baby drill attitude will be long gone.
Burial@reddit
Bro, have you even watched Landman?
It's a documentary about the Permian basin, and Billy Bob Thorton's son just hit 6/6 on new oil wells. You just need to drill in a faultline, bet you didn't even know that.
NyriasNeo@reddit
This is just stupid.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=67364
And I quote, "These modifications are isolated to the Permian formations, resulting in a net increase for tight oil production by 0.2 million barrels per day (b/d) and shale gas production by 0.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) for 2025, compared with previous estimates."
Just look at the two figures. But i am not surprised random strangers on the internet ignore data.
daviddjg0033@reddit
regardless these resources deplete faster at beginning until you get drops called Hubbard. we can inject co2 - probably the inly time it was economical to capture- to increase yields.
our electric usage was set to decline until AI.
us has anwar and canada has tar sands. we will need to import Chinese solar while simultaneously ensuring these devices never connect to China. humanity will still bake in 2C as a baseline and many power sources will become unreliable.
Bandits101@reddit
The US imports about 6M barrels of oil a day 10 M including petroleum. Go without that and see how the economy travels. US doesn’t (unable) produce enough diesel, it needs Canadian and Venezuelan inputs. Shale oil is mainly good for plastic production and other by products.
NyriasNeo@reddit
People are just ignorant. We produce more oil than we consume. Look it up. The only reason why we import is because our refinery is less efficient in handling the crude we produce. If push comes to shove, we can reconfigure but eat a higher cost.
888HA@reddit
Or, you could read the article.
No_Foundation16@reddit
What comes next is the hunger games irl. Good luck folks.
Konradleijon@reddit
It’s the Philippines
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Creepyfaction:
"History has proven that when the dominant form of energy changes, there is often a shift in the global pecking order. We are now in the midst of one such transition as the epoch of petrol, predominantly produced in the United States, Russia and Gulf states, starts to give way to an era of renewables, overwhelmingly manufactured in China. But the outcome remains contested, and the process could be ugly. The new energy order is winning the economic and technological battle – wind turbines and solar panels were already producing record-cheap electricity even before the Iran war pushed up the costs of gas and oil-fired power plants. But the old petro-interests still have political, military and financial might on their side, and they are using that to try to turn back the energy clock.
As a result, democracies across the planet are now threatened by what might be called fossil fuel fascism – an extremist political movement that breaks laws, spreads lies and threatens violence in an increasingly desperate attempt to maintain markets for oil, gas and coal that would otherwise be replaced by cheaper renewables.
But the wider context is that the Earth is becoming a more hostile environment for humanity. This is driving up tensions, exposing economic limits that have been ignored for centuries and redefining geopolitical realities."
With the green energy transition changing geopolitical fortunes, the old order is crumbling while the new order is yet to be born as climate change becomes a pressing issue. In this case, those privileged by the old order have reasons to undermine the shifting trends as a matter of holding onto to power and profit.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1tg2d1v/the_american_epoch_of_oil_is_collapsing_what/omdk3vv/
Creepyfaction@reddit (OP)
Karl Marx conceded the productivity of Capitalism over the feudalism it replaced, but that Capitalism in turn would hinder further productivity once it becomes profitable to obstruct it until the succeeding system replaces it. As we now see, productivity means nothing if profit can be extracted with nothing to show for. In this case, will the USA play obstructionist at a global level to defend the crumbling system for the profit of its elites?
Creepyfaction@reddit (OP)
"History has proven that when the dominant form of energy changes, there is often a shift in the global pecking order. We are now in the midst of one such transition as the epoch of petrol, predominantly produced in the United States, Russia and Gulf states, starts to give way to an era of renewables, overwhelmingly manufactured in China. But the outcome remains contested, and the process could be ugly. The new energy order is winning the economic and technological battle – wind turbines and solar panels were already producing record-cheap electricity even before the Iran war pushed up the costs of gas and oil-fired power plants. But the old petro-interests still have political, military and financial might on their side, and they are using that to try to turn back the energy clock.
As a result, democracies across the planet are now threatened by what might be called fossil fuel fascism – an extremist political movement that breaks laws, spreads lies and threatens violence in an increasingly desperate attempt to maintain markets for oil, gas and coal that would otherwise be replaced by cheaper renewables.
But the wider context is that the Earth is becoming a more hostile environment for humanity. This is driving up tensions, exposing economic limits that have been ignored for centuries and redefining geopolitical realities."
With the green energy transition changing geopolitical fortunes, the old order is crumbling while the new order is yet to be born as climate change becomes a pressing issue. In this case, those privileged by the old order have reasons to undermine the shifting trends as a matter of holding onto to power and profit.