The whole point of shale is that you can get it going again quickly and piecemeal based on the price of oil. It puts a large plateau/floor on oil at $~60 per barrel which is geopolitically very useful.
Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn. The places where it's cheap to get out are ruled by unpleasant people. Shale limits the price they can charge. Yea shale. However, low prices encourage putting CO2 in the air. Boo shale. I wish we would find a better way to reduce use than paying unpleasant people high prices.
> Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn.
I don't think that everyone realizes what would happen if we did so. [0]
> Our calculated global warming in this case is 16°C, with warming at the poles about 30°C. Calculated warming over land areas averages ~20°C. Such temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural regions in the world (Hatfield et al., 2011). Increased stratospheric water vapor would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer (Anderson et al., 2012).
My question is, what is going to stop this trajectory?
I don't think civilization ends if temperatures rise dramatically. A lot of existing agricultural land gets destroyed, but some currently unusable/unproductive areas that are too cold become viable. So the regions will shift. Painful but not insurmountable if it happens over a 50 year time span. But even if there wasn't such a compensatory mechanism, modern problem solving abilities will find a way - yes really. Look at the problems already solved. Nuclear reactors, solar power, vertical farming, genetically enhanced crops, alternative food sources will be engineered if the need arises. We can really stop saying that we know for sure society will end. I don't know how poor people will be affected, and yes there woll be winnners and losers as always during massive disruptive change - but hardly the end of human civilization.
There are strong signs that the small amount of increased mean tempreture seen already has been sufficient to downgrade the ability of the environment to sink what has been added.
Sure, but why even make that argument? Nobody cares about this nerd stuff. Maybe the only argument should be that "if we burn it all, then we will all die." That's the level of argument people can understand. That should be the title of every climate study going forward, shouldn't it?
Sure, you like to see evidence of global concerted action to address a global slow boiling frog problem that's unlikely to deeply affect many of the people alive today in G20 non equatorial countries but will very probably fuck up the continuity of life for grand children and great granchildren.
FWiW I read the seminal papers on this from the 1960s in the 1970s and have watched slow changes take place over decades. It's a long haul ongoing issue.
You may get some thoughts or find others to converse with in:
as you determine who Ted Nordhaus is and where he and his group fit on the sprectrum.
I'd suggest you care less about "winning arguments" and focus more on consistently conveying a message that you can back up with exposition, listen to the positions of others, and develop your stance as your knowledge grows.
But we don’t die, well we do but that’s unavoidable. Our grand kids or great grand kids are the ones that will really suffer from this, but maybe by then we will have created a successor species based on AI or something so humans would have been obsolete anyways. The 2020s will be known as the decade that made humanity’s continued existence infeasible and unnecessary?
Depends, breaking below $60 per barrel does lead to significant layoffs and it's difficult to rebuild that know-how because knowledge isn't 100% elastic.
The oil glut itself is largely because of the KSA and Russia in the midst of a mutual price war as well as the US expanding it's own production.
That said, it's still an open question of whether a glut will exist or not - at this point it's China, India, and Japan that's become the primary driver for oil prices because they are getting similar deals from both KSA and Russia, and are trying to pressure other suppliers to give similar deals.
1. A significant portion of that ONG infrastructure is in the Russian Far East - especially those that are furnishing the Asian market
2. Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean companies and SOEs all have significant stakes and investments in Russia's ONG infrastructure, such as Sakhalin-I (Japan's Mitsui Group and India's ONGC), Sakhalin-II (Korea's KOGAS and Japan's Tohoku Electric), and Power of Siberia (China's CNPC), so any attack on Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or Korean ONG infrastructure in Russia is viewed as a red line by these countries.
3. Saudi Arabia remains a competitor against Shale, and would continue it's price war against American Shale.
How would Ukraine reach ONG and industrial hubs like Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, or Omsk?
They can try and leverage deep sabotage such as the truck drone attack from a couple months ago but such operations aren't scalable, and would draw ire from Asian countries if it hit their investments - especially given that China is one of Ukraine's largest trade partners and has control over vast swathes of Ukraine's industrial capacity from pre-2022 FDI via OBOR.
> They can try and leverage deep sabotage such as the truck drone attack
Container ships. Hell, hide the system in a bail of weed. (We could almost certainly provide them with the intelligence required. Russia and North Korea both engage in extensive black market trade.)
We can reach Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk by container ship (the others are inland), but like I mentioned before you hit the second issue of potentially miffing and alienating Asian partners like Japan and South Korea, semi-aligned states like India, and opposing states like China.
And even Ukraine can't afford to alienate China given the level of control and ownership China has over Ukrainian industrial capacity and infra [0]
That's why we haven't seen incidents in the Far East to the same scale as those in Siberia.
Honestly, it's a tough nut to crack if the EU, UK, and the US don't provide boots on the ground but we obviously can't given our priorities in the Pacific.
> you hit the second issue of potentially miffing and alienating Asian partners like Japan and South Korea, semi-aligned states like India, and opposing states like China
China is already arming Russia. Japanese and Korea refiners have been phasing out Russian crude. Miffing New Delhi is well worth forcing Moscow to move air defences around.
> Japanese and Korea refiners have been phasing out Russian crude
Their refineries are phasing out Russian crude, but Japanese and Korean firms continue to extract, maintain, and invest in large capex projects like Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II. Notably - Mitsui Group (JP), Mitsubishi Group (JP), JAPEX (JP), Tohoku Electric (JP), and KOGAS (KR) have continued to operate in Russian ONG projects and comply with Russian investment laws.
> China is already arming Russia
Yep, and they have a controlling stake in Ukraine's economy itself, with significant portions of Ukraine's MIC and Ag industry owned an operated by Chinese companies - which means Ukraine cannot target Chinese owned or associated assets without facing domestic blowback from China such as sudden loan repayments or export controls on intermediate parts.
> Miffing New Delhi is well worth forcing Moscow to move air defences around
I agree, but Ukrainian missiles aren't reaching Vladivostok or Sakhalin unless we give them ICBMs. Most Asian investments in Russian ONG are all the way in the Far East which is outside the range of anything short of an ICBM for Ukraine.
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That's what makes this a pickle.
The ONG assets Ukraine is hitting in Russia are primarily for domestic consumption with some amount of export to Turkiye, Azerbaijan, or Hungary. But they don't actually prevent Asian buyers from continuing to operate - only sanctions can do that. And on top of that, Asian buyers have figured out fairly sophisticated ways to bypass secondary sanctions against Russia [0]. And the Asian assets which they could try to target would lead to severe blowback from one of Ukraine's largest trading and FDI partners. In a prolonged war of economic attrition, I'm not sure how Ukraine can win without on-the-ground support from the EU and US, because economic pressure such as sanctions don't have the same staying power that they did 10 years ago.
> Ukraine cannot target Chinese owned or associated assets without facing domestic blowback from China such as sudden loan repayments or export controls on intermediate parts
Fair enough for ownership. Don't think so for associated.
That said, China being sensitive to such attacks is itself leverage for Kyiv. China retaliating against Ukraine in the way you describe would be a massive geopolitical win for America, inasmuch as it would make clear the deal with the devil every adversary of Russia, Iran and North Korea's makes when they rely on China.
> Ukrainian missiles aren't reaching Vladivostok or Sakhalin unless we give them ICBMs
But most oil exports that are subsidizing the Russian economy and providing forex are being exported from the Russian Far East.
Hitting infra in Western Russia makes it painful for civilians and does have a psychological impact of highlighting to the Russia public how war has consequences, but by and large it doesn't do much given that Russia still has the capability to continue garnering foreign currency or operating with foreign markets.
Furthermore, those strikes aren't truly crippling [0] to Russian ONG capacity and the associated sanctions won't have much of an impact given how diversified Russian ONG companies are [1], with JVs and stakes in Western ambivalent countries like China, Congo, Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and others.
The psychological impact of such strikes cannot be understated, but it's not really painful for Russia given that they have chosen to dig in and believe that they can win an economic war of attrition [2] as it stands. If the much more isolated Maduro regime in Venezuela or the Khamenei regime in Iran are able to hold onto power, it's hard to see how these strikes can impact that Putin regime in what has become a war of attrition, especially when regional powers like Vietnam have begun pivoting back to Russia [3], and larger powers like China [4] and India [5] are doubling down on Russian investments.
Putin may not lose power, but may lose ability to keep the logistics of an invasion force. Also, none of those other countries are locked in a war of attrition.
Iran was in a de facto decade long state of war with troops, munitions, and significant capital going to theatres in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan - just like Russia has been in Ukraine.
> Putin may not lose power, but may lose ability to keep the logistics of an invasion force
That is true and highly likely, but that isn't a win either, especially if Russia changes it's tune to turning Ukraine into an economic war of attrition, which seems to be the plan given their recent pivot to targeting Ukrainian energy and industrial infrastructure.
Since Russia can't drive troops into Kyiv, they are trying to destroy Ukraine's infra to such a degree that it would require a Herculean amount of investment from European capitals, which would be difficult to fully unlock due to Ukraine not being a part of the EU and face pressure from European nations own budgets for rearmament.
A frozen conflict with much of Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, and large portions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson remaining under Russian control isn't a win for Ukraine, and longer term freezes Ukraine out of the EU and NATO because conducting an election during an active war with a nation that has previously meddled in their elections is unrealistic, but the EU can't make an exception for Ukraine due to internal votes along with the precedent it sets for other EU ascension members.
That's why China, India, and Vietnam have continued to purchase Russian oil, even if resorting to barter agreements such as Vietnam's procurement of the SU-35 [0] and India's agreement for a JV to domestically manufacture the SJ-100 [1] (which also helps their French partner Safran recoup costs, as Safran is part of India's domestic jet engine program and was a partner in the SJ-100 project before sanctions began).
And it's not like Asian countries are purchasing less from other sources either - they're just using the Russian barter to force MFN deals and discounts from other suppliers.
Uh. So we should jack up prices to reduce consumption elsewhere. That will reduce oil consumption and every other consumption at the same time, it's an environmental win-win.
See it seems exceptionally short-sighted to me to continue the race to pull as much carbon out of the atmosphere as possible and put it in the air, but what do I know?
> Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity.
> For context, it took until September last year to pass the 350 GW mark. This year, the milestone was achieved in June. That pace cements solar as the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, global solar output rose by 28% (+469 terawatt-hours) from 2023, more growth than any other energy source.
> Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy analyst at independent energy think tank Ember, said, “These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise. In a world of volatile energy markets, solar offers domestically produced power that can be rolled out at record speed to meet growing demand, independent of global fossil fuel supply chains.”
> Utility-scale solar power capacity in China reached more than 880 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, according to China’s National Energy Administration. China has more utility-scale solar than any other country. The 277 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in China in 2024 alone is more than twice as much as the 121 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States at the end of 2024.
> Planned solar capacity projects will likely lead to continued growth in China’s solar capacity. More than 720 GW of solar capacity are in development: about 250 GW under construction, nearly 300 GW in pre-construction phases, and 177 GW of announced projects, according to the Global Solar Power Tracker compiled by Global Energy Monitor.
(1GW of solar PV is installed every 15 hours globally as of this comment; 4.6TW of new renewables are expected to come online globally in the next four years)
Added to the 45% direct fossil fuel usage... for 68% or so from fossil fuels.
Not counting the fossil fuels used to mine in other nations (likely diesel) the lithium and other elements, or transportation of materials (likely deisel) or the transportation of the final goods (likely deisel).
> 80% of the world lives in fossil fuel importing countries, with over 50 countries importing more than half their primary energy as fossil fuels. In contrast, 92% of countries have renewables potential over ten times their current demand. Replacing imported fossil fuels using three key levers—EVs, heat pumps and renewables—can cut net fossil fuel imports by 70%, saving $1.3 trillion globally each year. Once electrotech is bought, it lasts for decades, providing insulation from the vagaries of global pricing. When fossil flows stop, the economy stops. When electrotech flows stop, only growth is at risk.
> China’s pivot to electrotech has been central to the global shift, sparking an explosion in manufacturing, innovation and deployment. China’s domestic roll-out of electrotech is unparalleled: it accounts for half of global solar panel installations, 60% of EV sales and two-thirds of global growth in electricity demand since 2019. In the first half of 2025, Chinese fossil demand in electricity generation was down by 2%. This is highly significant because global fossil fuel demand excluding China has been flat since 2018, and China has driven all the net growth.
> As electrotech surges into one country and sector after the next, it drives replacement, not addition. Fossil demand has been flat for industrial energy since 2014, for buildings since 2018, for road transport since 2019, and may peak for electricity this year. Two-thirds of countries have already seen peak fossil demand in end-use sectors, and half the world has seen a peak in fossil fuels for electricity. China is the pivot nation in the global system, and fossil electricity demand in China is down 2% in the first half of 2025. If current trends continue in renewables deployment and electrification, fossil fuel demand will be in decline by 2030. That implies disruption for the fossil fuel sector and the rise of new electrotech winners.
It's a planned trajectory, China went hard on using fossil fuels to develop renewable power + 20% nuclear in order to replace their fossil fuel dependancy (which is coming).
Even their recent coal usage has been 'better' in the sense of closing down large numbers of smaller older inefficient and extremely dirty coal plants while building out a lesser number of larger, moder, more efficient, less dirty coal.
On the mining side they are partnered with suppliers like Fortescue Metals that has been making massive real investments in hydrogen, regenertive trains, water management, etc. at a scale of moving a billion tonnes of material per annum.
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