from Hacker News

Is This Peak Gas?

by mosiuerbarso on 10/12/21, 1:06 PM with 56 comments

  • by ls65536 on 10/12/21, 1:52 PM

    Site seems to be unresponsive right now (overloaded due to HN?).

    Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211012131321/https://conscious...

  • by wazoox on 10/12/21, 2:29 PM

    No, certainly not. However there's an interesting paper that shows that we're nearing peak fossil fuels probably much faster (in particular for coal) than most seem to anticipate, due to limits in EROEI. See

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03062...

    And also https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/5112

    A naive calculation brings 2037 as the global turning point for peak available energy from fossils (see the articles).

  • by Spooky23 on 10/12/21, 1:56 PM

    The answer to all of these doomsayer questions that appear when fuel costs spike is always:

    No.

    Energy is a cyclical market. That’s a healthy thing. Upswings in price trigger market forces to substitute or economize.

  • by drdeadringer on 10/12/21, 3:19 PM

    Off and on I have been reading about Peak Oil articles dated from at least 1970 since 2006. Isaac Asimov even wrote a [perhaps speculative] piece about it.

    Is this one of the "X will the the coming Y and always will be" topics?

  • by karlkloss on 10/12/21, 1:56 PM

    It may be peak articles about peak something.

  • by duxup on 10/12/21, 2:25 PM

    I remember peek gas articles 40 years ago.

    Anything that happens now is viewed through a pseudo "it's the system" and IMO sort of implied apocalyptic-ism about it. It really wears on me.

  • by JohnHaugeland on 10/12/21, 2:50 PM

    Site got hugged too hard, so here's archive.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20211011180352/https://conscious...

  • by 99_00 on 10/12/21, 3:04 PM

    If fossil fuels are being phased out investors won't be willing to take risks and invest in capital intensive projects that only pay off after decades.

    This can lead to a painful short term energy crisis. Many will celebrate this pain and suffering pointing out that it creates an insensitive to move to alternatives.

  • by jmnicolas on 10/12/21, 2:34 PM

    I don't know for gas but it seams it's peak consciousnessofsheep.co.uk, site is unreachable for me ;)

  • by i_am_proteus on 10/12/21, 2:59 PM

  • by echelon on 10/12/21, 2:01 PM

    I doubt we've hit peak, but there are important things to consider.

    If we run out of energy before we exit our gravity well, that's one instance of the great filter. Resource conflicts might also trigger war that could destabilize society and prevent us from advancing.

    The world needs energy, yet many of us pay far less attention than we should.

  • by vmception on 10/12/21, 2:08 PM

    Comprehensive but barely worth commenting on since the same article, with convincing arguments for the time, have existed for the last 60 years at least. Here’s why (and I realize this is me commenting on it anyway):

    Yes, there is a finite resource involved.

    Yes, using it, whether we find more or not, makes the planet uninhabitable for the size of the human population due to it being uninhabitable for many existing species.

    But is it peak gas/oil/whatever? No. It never is because currently uneconomical sources become economical. The article slightly addresses that by saying the last decade of fracking was an accounting gimmick that allowed unprofitable operations to work out okay. Uh yeh thats exactly whats going to happen with even more harder to extract and create gas.

  • by fennecfoxen on 10/12/21, 2:07 PM

    [doom and gloom energy noises]

    Meh. We're not staring down the abyss of the "net energy cliff" where near-100% of energy goes to procuring more energy. The reason for our shortages is because of things like (for instance) various politicians deciding to not-build Keystone XL (US) or to delay Nord Stream 2 (Europe). Because of these decisions — surprise surprise — we aren't being delivered the products they'd carry.

    Some of those noises are even legitimate. But the Net Energy Cliff™ is a long long long way off. In hard-hit Europe, for instance, Germany is sitting on fantastical reserves of shale gas and oil which they could access by fracking, but won't. Good decision? Some say so. Energy-cliff apocalypse? Hahahaha no.

    Heck, if it really came to that, we'd bring back nuclear.