As the world grapples with the existential crisis of climate change, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the United States is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history.
The United States is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day of crude and condensate during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a report published Tuesday by S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Last month, weekly US oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s just above the Donald Trump-era record of 13.1 million set in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis sent output and prices crashing.
That’s been helping to keep a lid on crude and gasoline prices.
only ~9% of passenger cars in the US are EVs. so, as much as people may wish that oil production would suddenly just stop, it’ll be around as long as demand is, and unless you want to pay $5+/gallon again while hearing people screech “ThAnkS BidEN!11!!!”, well, this is what you get.
don’t blame him, blame people buying ICEs and EV manufacturers charging so much for them.
people may wish that oil production would suddenly just stop
Given the massive size of related industries and dependencies, “sudden” was never on the table. However we should be ramping down. The industry should already know that long term investments such as new pipelines will never pay off.
Gasoline/oil should be getting more expensive, or we’re doing it wrong. The best incentive to figuring out how to switch to options kinder to our environment, is higher prices with the promise of more increases. That doesn’t only apply to gasoline/oil, but heating oil, jet fuel, deisel for farming, construction and heavy trucks, marine deisel, plastics of all types, etc. Holding these prices low may help the economy in the short term but means we’re not going to switch to better choices and the impact will be more serious when it finally hits
There’s better and worse ways to go out.
Surrounded by loved ones in a comfy bed and high on drugs? Or in twisted shrieking agony because a natural disaster collapsed your house on top of you? Or being vaporized during the nuclear war caused by the tropics becoming uninhabitable?
Ten percent is still a nice chunk. Especially for just getting started. Add in hybrids to that, and it’s even better.
Personal passenger EVs won’t do much to dent global climate change. Gotta build mass transit and rail shipping, and clean up the electricity grid.
Carnival Cruises (63 ships) emits as much as 300,000,000 cars, and electricity generation and shipping are even more insane. All transportation combined is only 27% of our emissions. And EVs still need a lot of oil for tires and asphalt.
EVs are definitely better than ICE, especially for local air quality, but for global climate they’re like deleting a text file to clear up hard drive space, instead of looking at the 400GB rip of LOTR.
No one single thing is gonna make the difference. It’s really the combination of everything together sustained overtime. I mean, you’re not wrong, but it’s really everything working together that’s gonna be the trick.
This is my argument for restricting supply enough to increase prices. Higher prices are incentive for every usage to find alternatives. Most of the alternatives do already exist but will never be adopted when fossil fuel solutions are cheaper
I agree. My bad I took your comment as that being the only thing we need to do. Apologies
mandate WFH wherever possible, institute generous EV tax rebates, etc etc
Calculate the difference in what it costs to maintain the highway system and what is brought in by the gas tax, and then charge that amount of money to every employer but offer them a tax credit that offsets this new tax if they can prove their Worker Works from home at least 90% of the time, and there will be Financial incentives for employees to report their employers for violating this rule
That takes care of a small fraction of oil.
Plastics production makes up ~45% of all petroleum production.
Then you have shipping. Aircraft. Trucking. Then you have passenger vehicles.
Where are you getting the 45% number? I am seeing petrochemicals (plastics, resins, and petroleum based feedstocks) @12.12% of total oil demand in 2022. I see that road (all forms of shipping and transport on roads/care with petroleum products like tar/asphalt) is 49.24% of demand.
Diving deeper into the transportation sector, light trucks + other trucks make up 57% of the transportation sector’s petroleum usage. Following with cars/motorcycles @21%.
I agree with the sentiment you raise, that industry accounts for a very large portion of crude oil consumption, and that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I just am unsure where you saw your data or if its perhaps looking at a different region specifically?
Sources for my figures: -total demand%: https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming-sectors-worldwide/
-Transport sector breakdown: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/transportation.php
Aircraft are the exact reason we need to figure out how to restrict production enough to raise prices. New non-fossil fuels have been “almost here” for decades, but somehow never actually get adopted. It’s time to push airlines with the prospect of more expensive jet fuel.
And lead too. I used to fly so I understand a little about the difficulties the general aviation industry has in switching to an unleaded fuel for prop planes, and have even defended the industry for it. And it’s small and shrinking. But lead has really got to go and if it takes more serious price increases to encourage it, so be it
The air in my area was so clean during that first month of covid. Traffic would also be a lot better for blue collar people if all the office workers weren’t fighting them for road space.
yes, there are things congress could do to greatly improve the situation, but that takes time. and, ya know, congress not wasting all their time trying to expel and elect another speaker or trying to distract the country from the Trump show with their own Biden revenge impeachment and actually doing their jobs.
as a side note, tax rebates are not very helpful when people need to wait until the end of the year (or the middle of the next) for their savings. why not instant tax rebates/saving at the time of purchase?
Oil production will not stop until we have alternatives to other items oils helps produce. I.e. plastics, latex, etc.
Edit: all of you saying it comes from trees might want to check again. Synthetic rubber is used as it can prevent allergic reactions from the natural protein of the plant. Also synthetic rubber is used a little more than natural rubber.
A huge chunk of plastics come from natural gas, not oil. Latex comes from a tree. As does natural rubber, which some tire manufacturers are returning to.
You might want to check again. Synthetic rubber is used a little more than natural rubber.
