
Global oil use heads for steepest annual contraction - JSeymourATL
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/3/15/global-oil-use-heads-for-steepest-annual-contraction-in-history
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ISL
This event is going to be extremely valuable for evaluating myriad
environmental models, including climate.

~~~
davidw
And not just that. They're going to be tracking all these kids who are going
to miss months of school as a big "natural experiment". Who knows how many
other things they'll be able to get data on... Very sad times, but hopefully
people can learn a few things while we're at it.

~~~
moultano
Having one of the most stressful events of the last 50 years happening
concurrently has to confound things at least a little bit.

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nostromo
9/11? Vietnam? The Cold War? HIV?

This is a blip comparatively. But I take your point.

~~~
shanxS
I am not so sure. 9/11: concerns USA and terrorist organisations. Vietnam: USA
and Vietnam Cold War: This comes close to world wide concern.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
I was just thinking that this pandemic is freaking me out more then 9/11\. I
lived in California during 9/11, and while the event was certainly jarring, it
didn't change my day to day behavior. At the moment I'm in Spain under
quarantine, and it's not clear to me what will happen in a week or a month.

For me the most disruptive moment of my life was the 2008 financial crisis. I
ended up homeless for a bit, and I was not prepared for that.

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hamburga
The general Western game plan right now seems to be: (1) shut down the whole
nonessential part of the economy, (2) buy time to not overwhelm medical
systems, (3) gradually turn the economy back on where safe.

For part (3) the general idea of "safe" has meant, allow people who are
medically low-risk to return to the workplace and retail establishments. But
we could see that could be expanded to also factor in carbon impact. In other
words, we prioritize turning back on the low-carbon parts of the economy
first, and maybe leave some high-carbon parts (international vacations) turned
off or reduced for good.

~~~
chrisco255
No one is dying from global warming. It's still much cooler than it was in the
early Holocene (the Neolithic, or stone age era of humanity) and this was a
time of abundance and expansion for farming and agriculture. Even the Sahara
was richly farmed at the time. Plants not only thrive under warm temperatures,
they also thrive with high levels of CO2. The world is greening:

[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-
fer...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-
fertilization-greening-earth)

~~~
comicjk
There is an asymmetric risk, though. Due to feedback loops like methane
release, we don't know at what temperature the warming will stop, or how fast
it will go. The upper-range estimates are well beyond any temperature from the
last 10 million years.

~~~
chrisco255
A lot of methane is coming from deep sea hydrothermal sources. You cannot stop
that. But methane itself is unstable in the atmosphere and only accounts for
less than 2 parts per million.

If the climate were so sensitive to CO2 levels, where we've seen it go from
250 to over 400 ppm...we would see much more dramatic warming than we have. It
was not that much cooler 100 years ago. So far, we have yet to have a year
significantly warmer than 1998. It's been 22 years and the CO2 has been rising
all that time. In spite of billions of people coming out of poverty. Minimal
difference in maximum temps. Antarctica had record sea ice extent in 2014.
Antarctica has been trending positive for sea ice over the past 30 years:
[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-
change/sea_ice_so...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-
change/sea_ice_south.php)

There's never ever been a geologic extinction event associated with high
levels of CO2. In fact quite the opposite: the abundant and biodiverse periods
in Earth's history are associated with high CO2.

Plants literally suffocate at 150ppm. We are near historical lows for the
planet Earth.

~~~
dbingham
There has been a geological extinction event associated with high levels of
atmospheric carbon - it was the biggest one of all time, and it nearly wiped
out all life on Earth. Look up the Permian Extinction. (Yes there are multiple
theories of cause, but one of which - and perhaps the most likely - is run
away global warming.)

And stop reading bad science.

~~~
chrisco255
First of all, I sourced from NASA. You provided no such sources despite making
an extraordinary claim about the Permian extinction. The theories for that
event include meteors, volcanoes, microbes, underwater methane release (from
geothermal sources) and there is tons and tons of uncertainty about that
event. You are oversimplifying by even attempting to attribute blame to CO2,
which was already much lower in the Permian than in other eras like the
Cambrian and Carboniferous [1], furthermore, temps aren't correlated with CO2
in Pre-Quarternary eras.

Best indications are that a series of super-volcanic events triggered massive
drought, which probably led to drying conditions and decreased sunlight for
photosynthesis, which triggered massive fires which burnt up tons of oxygen
and caused hypoxic conditions for tens of thousands of years. This whole
episode is also associated with geomagnetic instability [2]. Now, the two are
related, because geomagnetism is caused by movement of the inner and outer
core of the Earth. If the earth sees periodic disruptions in the normal
movement of the cores, I can easily imagine that to trigger massive volcanic
activity.

Now, in that case, a release of CO2 occurred from all the plant matter dying
off as a result of drought, fire, flood, and volcanism. The CO2 itself didn't
cause the extinction. The volcanism caused the extinction.

[1]
[http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg](http://www.biocab.org/Geological_Timescale.jpg)
[2]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13429...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X08001834)

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badrabbit
Another consideration is that when things get back to normal there will be a
lot of people that won't go back to commuting as much, less long term energy
usage. If the SA vs RU fight doesn't end soon, this will not benefit
renewables, but if it does it will be a golden opportunity since oil will cost
more and be used less.

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kijin
If oil is used less, it will cost less. Supply and demand.

But at least low oil prices will help stall the development of shale gas and
oil sands in North America.

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objektif
Oil is a totally different beast. Simple supply demand economics doesnt work
due to geopolitical games that OPEC+ plays.

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tonyedgecombe
OPEC hasn't been effective at controlling prices for some time now.

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objektif
Oh yeah? Have you been watching any news in the last two weeks?

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mercutio2
Every supplier in a marketplace has the ability to lower marginal prices in a
price war.

Only effective cartels can raise prices at will. And OPEC’s power to do this
is pretty clearly diminished, if not destroyed, by expanded US and Russian
capacity.

~~~
objektif
Again you must be sleeping last two weeks. Saudis single handedly destroyed
oil prices.

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mercutio2
The Saudis most certainly did not _raise_ prices, which is the point I'm
making. I'm well aware that the lowest cost producer can lower prices at will.

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brenden2
The planet is getting a break right now. Unfortunately it probably won't last.

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makomk
The construction of green infrastructure is also going to have to be put on
hold too, and in the meantime CO2 levels are just going to keep on rising...

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alkonaut
Massive public investment is going to be needed after this and money will be
cheap. That high speed rail can hopefully be built.

Airplanes and pilots will also be a dime a dozen I suppose, but perhaps it
will even put.

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AncientTree
High-speed rail is often slower and definitely more expensive than regular
rail, if Europe is any guide.

Rail is best used for freight.

Autonomous busses and cars (electric) are the best long-term solution for
travel.

The best approach is simply to enact a Carbon Tax and let the market figure it
out.

We would be better off promoting mass-contraception to the developing world
and halting land clearance in terms of massive targeted CO2 reductions.

~~~
alkonaut
Good reliable rail is good. High speed rail is the only replacement for air
travel though. If you have two large cities 3h by car apart, you can just
barely beat that by flying (depending on how big the airport is and whether
it's reasonable secureity e.g. come to airport 30min before departure or TSA
style 2 hours before). A train is often longe than the highway.

You don't even necessarily need special high speed rail, just more rail makes
it more high speed because you can mix slow and fast traffic (e.g. no-stop
direct trains can run side by side with freight and services that makes 10
stops).

Speed doesn't have to come up so much to at least beat road traffic.

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perl4ever
The tone of the article is a little contradictory. It quotes someone as saying
we haven't seen a situation like this in history. It also says prices could be
in the single digits for the first time _since_ the '97-'99 price war. Which
doesn't seem that long ago to me. I remember filling up for less than a dollar
a gallon around then, for the first and only time in my life. It's not that
cheap yet, is it?

~~~
dade_
Yeah, it was great - but remember inflation:

In 1997 a $20 dollar barrel of oil is $32 in today's money.

Calculator:
[https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)

~~~
perl4ever
I wouldn't get inflation numbers from a third party source.

However, this site seems to have been broken for quite a while:
[https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm](https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm)

In any case, I still don't think gas is down to those prices, even with your
inflation factor.

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fatfox
Is there a chance that this will push e-mobility since low oil prices for a
sustained period of time will make extraction unprofitable for oil companies?
Or could it have the opposite effect and make us use more cheaper fuel for
individual transport?

It seems to me that public transport / ride sharing could take quite a hit (at
least in the next few months).

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nordsieck
> Is there a chance that this will push e-mobility since low oil prices for a
> sustained period of time will make extraction unprofitable for oil
> companies?

Probably not. Different areas have different costs of extraction.

Shale oil/tar sands = expensive

Saudi Arabia proven reserves = low cost

This might put some of the North American oil companies out of business, but
those assets will be bought in bankruptcy, so they'll eventually come back
online when the price of oil gets high enough again.

> Or could it have the opposite effect and make us use more cheaper fuel for
> individual transport?

This seems more likely. Oil is primarily used for transportation. Cheap oil
means less reason to go electric.

How much of an effect is the questions. I, personally, have no idea. Electric
cars are improving at a very rapid rate. However, there doesn't seem to be a
good solution for people who don't own a garage. There is some condo/apartment
charging sprinkled here and there, but it's not very common.

> It seems to me that public transport / ride sharing could take quite a hit
> (at least in the next few months).

Typically, public transport is mostly funded through taxes, so it's not really
in much danger.

Ride sharing will probably take a beating - especially since flying and night
life are getting hammered.

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dv_dt
I can’t help but think that if we had transitioned to an no carbon power grid
a market recession wouldn’t have a secondary dip due to shift in demand.

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generatorguy
Presumably companies that supply carbon free energy still get paid only when
they actually supply energy. Even though they may not have to purchase fuel
they would still make no money and have all of their operating costs. I don’t
see why the effect of reduced demand on those generation companies wouldn’t be
the same as the price or electrical energy went to zero - unless rate payers
have taken on all the risk and pay whether or not any energy is generated.

~~~
dv_dt
the unit price per mile of use is much lower and will have a lower magnitude
of impact on the economy, similarly the impacts on the producers will be
smaller and buffered by home electric use (which probably goes up in a case
like this)

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generatorguy
Ah I didn't understand that a "no carbon grid" meant using electricity for
transportation and was just thinking in terms of reduced demand for
electricity regardless of whether the source was renewable or not.

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baggy_trough
We've essentially implemented the Green New Deal.

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pbourke
Actually, we've implemented the New Great Depression. Remains to be seen how
governments process and respond to it.

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war1025
Something very interesting about this current situation is that I think we're
on the verge of a bunch of Democratic talking points getting put in place by a
Republican administration.

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wideasleep1
Such as...UBI? The Clintons were famous for 'borrowing' the ideas of their
opponents during elections, stealing that thunder. What's good for the
goose....

