Disturbing statistics, if true.

[NNadir]

A "perspective" from a June issue of Energy and Fuels:

Perspectives on a New Age of Materials for Petroleum, Yunlong Zhang, Energy & Fuels 2022 36 (11), 5529-5530.

Today, the global oil consumption averages about 100 million barrels per day (3) or 2 L per person. At a price of $50–100 per barrel, crude oil is one of the most affordable commercial liquid products ($0.3–0.6/L). Technological advances and efficiency improvements over the last century have enabled this level of scalability and affordability. However, largely as a result of the prevalent use of petroleum for energy, global CO2 emissions have reached 100 million metric tons per day, (4) averaging 13 kg per person in the world or 43 kg per person in the U.S. (5) The transition to alternative energy sources suggests that global oil consumption will peak soon, even though proven world oil and coal reserves are sufficient for another 50 and 100 years, respectively. (6,7)

By 2050, the world population is projected to increase by more than 20% from today’s 7.9 billion to 9.7 billion, and the global gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to more than double. (1,2) Not only will energy demand grow, but the demand for infrastructure, housing, and consumer goods will also grow. (8) All of these demand growths will undoubtedly increase the consumption of raw materials and eventually lead to a materials challenge for natural resources and environmental sustainability.

The 100 million tons per day is more or less consistent with most of the figures I've seen, but do not include land use changes, which add another 10 billion tons per year, 27 million tons per day. I fully expect that the burning of the world's forests will cause this figure to rise. As I've noted elsewhere both the first derivative and the second derivative of the function by which carbon dioxide concentrations seem to rise are positive. Indeed, it seems that the third derivative is also positive, although for now this can be ignored I think.

However the text includes a (now de rigueur) reference to an "energy transition." This is nonsense. There is none, despite all the idiotic pictures of wind turbines and solar cells that marketeers use to sell "stuff." We are burning more dangerous fossil fuels than ever and dumping the waste directly into the planetary atmosphere, where it kills people and ecosystems continuously without interruption.

I never took little Jimmy Kunstler and his "peak oil" panic all that seriously, but it would have been nice if I could have done so.

The author of this perspective works at Exxon Mobile in New Jersey.

[jimfields33]

1. By 2050, everyone will be driving electric cars

Even the most vocal critic will due to unavailability of gas pumps. This doesn’t make sense that emissions will rise. They will fall hard.

[NNadir]

2. No they won't. That's a rather delusional fantasy.

The widespread belief that electricity is "green" is nonsense. The proportion of electricity derived from the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels concomitant with the unrestricted dumping of the deadly fossil fuel waste into the planetary atmosphere is rising, not falling.

All those cute pictures of wind turbines and solar cells are just lipstick on the fossil fuel pig; at a cost of trillions of dollars, the wind and solar industry have proved useless to address climate change, and the pretense that the solution to the automobile disaster is to pretend that the second law of thermodynamics will disappear at the hand of some god somewhere is making everything worse, not better.

[c-rational]

3. And where will the energy come from to recharge them. It is likely to be a fossil fuel, and

unlikely to be renewable based on a lack of scaling. Unless we come up with an answer and very soon (think nuclear in the short term), we are fighting a loosing battle.

[enough]

4. Why put the trumpian insult "little" in front of someone's name?

What do you think you are conveying?

[NNadir]

5. I'm conveying that I have little respect for him and his notion that oil was essential to human...

...survival.

It induced untoward panic in some people, many people actually. It gave the message that we had to have oil. Better than "we're all going to die without oil," would have been the message, "we don't need oil," (because we don't.) Little Jimmy is a journalist, and my oft repeated joke/put down is that one cannot get a degree in journalism if one has passed a science course with a grade of C or better.

The belief that we need oil has been tragic if one takes one's blinders off.

As for the rhetorical "advice:"

I don't think that every insult is "Trumpian." Actually, put downs were well known before little Donny made our government into a clown show. Indeed, in some circles, they were once known as "wit." I really don't think we should let little Donny dominate everything. Like Kunstler, he's a poorly informed fool.

I stand by my contempt for Kunstler. We will eventually run out of oil, or at least places to dump the oil waste, but that's because we've overvalued it. If we included the external costs, no one would be able to afford it and that would be a good thing. I won't live to see it, but from my perspective, the sooner the better.