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Tris's avatar

What a strange way of looking at things...

Shale oil extraction was developed because the Big Oil companies were somehow convinced that peak oil was imminent? And not the other way around.

Does this mean that conventional peak oil never happened?

Wasn't it simply that it was possible to borrow at a sufficiently low rate and benefit from sufficient subsidies to make shale oil extraction looks profitable?

Because in reality, for a sector to develop, it doesn't have to be profitable in the medium or long term. It just need to be fashionable enough and to allow comfortable salaries to its managers and generous dividends to its closest investors *during a while*.

And never mind the rest.

In the end, it's just a form of Ponzi scheme.

Then... What about renewables ?...

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JustPlainBill's avatar

We seem to be in the midst of an ongoing effort to lock down and control humanity, likely to make them more controllable when resources are no longer adequate to support a 21st century lifestyle for more than a select few, and the herd starts to stampede. This is pretty good evidence that in the upper levels of The Hierarchy, there is a belief that they will soon run out of miracles.

Big Oil and a few other select players (such as the biofuels folks) may very well oppose “renewables.” But if there is any other resistance to greater investment, I would suggest that this is due to the recognition of two things.

The first is the that these renewables really don't truly produce a reliable positive financial return. If they did, there would be little resistance to investment in them. If anything is holding such investment back, it suggests that the reported production cost of power from these sources is actually non-competitive after the costs of energy storage (to compensate for their intermittent nature) and the new infrastructure needed for delivery to the point of use are included, and the benefit of massive subsidies is subtracted. The cost of renewable energy due to these additional factors is likely much higher than what is commonly reported.

The second may be the recognition of the fact that these sources are not really "renewable" anyway, given that we cannot produce these "energy harvesting" devices using renewable materials and renewable forms of energy. This means that this technology is not sustainable. To put it a bit crudely, presenting them as "renewable" is chiefly a marketing gimmick whose purpose is to create a financial opportunity for certain well-connected interests.

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