Saudi-Led Fight Against COP28 Deal 'Outrageous', Shows 'Panic' Officials Say - S...

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  Cut off the oil without an adequate replacement and all you have is a recipe for getting voted out in a democracy or getting suspended from the nearest lamp post in a not-democracy.

  • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Sunday December 10, 2023 @05:56PM (#64071561)

    Cut off the oil without an adequate replacement and all you have is a recipe for getting voted out in a democracy or getting suspended from the nearest lamp post in a not-democracy.

    You think anyone is planning to cut off the oil without an adequate replacement?

    Why do you think people are pushing all these resources towards EVs, renewable energy, storage tech, even Nuclear if they can get the economics to work?

    Because they're developing adequate replacements for oil.

    • Re: Whatever

      Right, that would be why the Deutsch shut down all those nuke plants prematurely.

      Fucking idiot.

      • Re: Whatever

        You forgot the part where Russia suddenly had "issues" with the pipeline the natural gas was flowing over just before winter, and they decided to turn a bunch of coal plants on to make up the energy shortfall.

        • Re:

          Do you think Gazprom is trying to weaken Finland and Germany for the next invasion? That's what my gut and history's telling me.

          • Re:

            Weakening Germany for an invasion by cutting a single pipeline? The usual way is heavy artillery fire for a couple of days and unlike the last time the Russians invaded, Berlin seems very much intact. I'd rather assume a somewfat aggressive marketing campaign by someone trying to sell their highly unpopular NLG.

      • Re: Whatever

        Not sure why you chose to be insulting but it makes your message less audible. Less noise and more information please.

    • Re:

      > You think anyone is planning to cut off the oil without an adequate replacement?

      Yes. To achieve their 2030 goals they need lots of electric motors.

      Thoae all require copper windings - lots of copper windings.

      So much that it will take until 2160 at current rates to mine enough copper for the 2030 goals.

      And they just shut down the biggest copper mine in the Americas this month... due to environmental concerns.

      These politicians can't do arithmetic but they'll throw you in prison for going against them. Or

      • It seems to me that plenty of people love to go around jumping from material to material and using some imagined scarcity to prove that it's impossible to reach our climate goals. Which that implication, of course, that since it's impossible we shouldn't even bother.

        Thus maintaining the current fossil fuel status quo. (I would who THAT could benefit?)

        Last year all we heard about was just how much lithium was going to be needed and that we didn't have enough. Only this last year we seemed to find new deposits as demand increased.

        I suspect that the same will probably occur here, or, failing that we'll switch to other materials like aluminum or continue research into technologies like braided carbon nanotube windings that promise to outperform copper.

        • Re:

          We have lots of lithium deposits available around where I live, but they will probably never be developed because NIMBY. Ultimately we have to rely on Li sourced from places where there are only poor third world people whose objections don't matter. That decreases availability substantially.

          • Re:

            Hello from Australia, one of the largest providers of lithium in the world as of a couple of years ago when we finally bothered to build some mines for it.

            • Re:

              Good for you. You are lucky your aboriginal people allow it.

      • Re: Whatever

        I've seen such claims before, can you show the math, please?

      • by jalvarez13 ( 1321457 ) on Monday December 11, 2023 @06:38AM (#64072649)

        And they just shut down the biggest copper mine in the Americas this month... due to environmental concerns.

        Which one are you referring to, a new project? Because the three biggest copper mines (in the whole world, not just the Americas) are located in Chile, and they continue operating without interruptions. https://www.mining-technology.... [mining-technology.com]

      • Re:

        Too bad the Communists won the cold war and every country on the planet has a centrally planned economy with no ability to respond effectively to these material shocks.

        If only the west had won and we generally had free markets then this apparent shortage would cause an increase in the price of copper, and that would cause companies to respond by increasing production (increased mining, exploration, and recycling) and innovating (using less copper or other materials entirely).

        Alas, we're all part of the grea

      • • • • Re:

              Is 'free' cheap enough? What I've saved in fuel costs switching from petrol to electric pretty much pays for the monthly payment on the loan I took out to buy the car.

              • Re:

                Is 'free' cheap enough? What I've saved in fuel costs switching from petrol to electric pretty much pays for the monthly payment on the loan I took out to buy the car.

                Geez, how much is gas where you live? And how much did you burn a month???

                • Re:

                  Petrol is expensive, as I'm in the UK. And those numbers were crunched just before Russia went into Ukraine, so electricity was cheaper than now. It's also an overnight EV tariff. Old car was a 2007 Ford Focus automatic. So, an extreme case, but it's worth checking on the numbers if you are currently driving something old and expensive to run.

    • Re: Whatever

      No, they aren't. There simply isn't enough, copper, lithium, or a dozen other rare earth minerals you'll need. Plus, the current grid couldn't handle just replacing the cars w electric. Windmills and solar have too big a footprint, and the only tech that could power all that - nuclear - you guys keep off the table. Your cult has completely lost touch with reality, and you're taking all of civilization down with you

      • Re: Whatever

        Please show, with figures, how there is not enough copper.

      • • • Re: Whatever

            Not 10x, about 2.5x.

          • • Re:

              As you tacitly admit, the rise in demand is weakening which means less EVs will be produced, not more.

              The forecast is just that, we'll see if they can actually realize this as China is under pressure to abandon its destructive mining and as countries get richer they too will start abandoning that. Australia is seeing strong opposition to its lithium expansion plans as it was simply responding to the rapid rise of last 2 years and with demand and pricing lowering, lithium mining and refining may no longer be

    • Re:

      You think anyone is planning to cut off the oil without an adequate replacement?

      Why do you think people are pushing all these resources towards EVs, renewable energy, storage tech, even Nuclear if they can get the economics to work?

      The Biden administration is FULL of folks pushing exactly this.

      The push and mandates for EVs before the infrastructure and technology is there that US citizens currently need and expect (to at least == ICE vehicles).

      They've also since day 1 been clamping down on new oil expl

    • Re:

      If the alternatives were equivalent or superior (in all aspects including affordability) then no one would be forced to switch. They would do so naturally once the alternatives were genuinely superior.

      For SOME people, in SOME climates, and for SOME use cases, they already are.

      But for the vast majority, they are not. Not yet, and not anytime soon given the current rate of progress. Otherwise, no one would still be burning dead dinosaurs.

      Calls to improve renewable energy tech are great, and I support any a

    • Re:

      Yes, let's just all jump off of a cliff while they are developing a safe landing pad.

  • Cut off the oil without an adequate replacement and all you have is a recipe for getting voted out in a democracy or getting suspended from the nearest lamp post in a not-democracy.

    Since this is talking about Saudi Arabia you probably should have just dropped the part about getting voted out of a democracy. They're a hereditary monarchy.
    Saudi Arabia has seen reduced GDP from oil ever since it peaked at 87.1% in 1979. It's somewhere around 24% today and will continue to drop.
    Saudi Arabia has been trying to reduce their dependence on oil revenue for two decades or more but they are a desert nation with few other national resources.
    They're wealthy but desperate as their economics are guided by the knowledge that the future currently looks grim for them.

    • All true points, but I'd also add the oil revenue is absolutely crucial for them to sustain their monarchy. I've met a number of Saudis, and they lament so many people they know work cushy "jobs" at government companies and do little real work. Essentially the Saudi government uses oil revenue to enrich it's people just enough they will tolerate authoritarianism, and fear having to work hard should the regime fall. Without oil money, the house of cards falls.

      • Re:

        Not even just "government." My company had a branch in Saudi Arabia, and they way it worked was that every position had two people--one Saudi with a necessary job title, and one Indian/Filipino/etc that was their "assistant." The Saudi was well paid and played solitaire (or whatever) all day. The assistant was horribly underpaid and did all the work their boss' job title required.

  • • • We don't need a 100% phaseout and that is indeed going to be impossible for the foreseeable future, although this is getting into nitpicking. Fossil fuels will still be needed for some industrial processes, pharmaceuticals, and in the near future for powering large aircraft, at least as a majority fuel component. What we can do is get close enough to 100% that we can more than offset whatever fossil fuel usage remains with artificial carbon sequestration. We need to make fossil fuels a thing of the past in grid power and industrial heat, and a niche fuel for vehicles.

  • • Re:

      They'll own something and they don't care who is happy.

    • Re:

      > "you'll own nothing and you'll be happy".

      I wonder how many people realize this is textbook communism.

      _You'll own nothing -> No private property
      _You'll be happy -> "Les lendemains qui chantent" (i.e. future paradise), by Paul Vaillant-Couturier, french communist, 1937

      • Re:

        It's actually worse than communism. Communism, for all its faults, at least offers the promise "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" (that "humans" make that unworkable at anything larger than the family/tribal scale notwithstanding). "You'll own nothing and be happy" only offers, "fuck you, pay me."

      • Re:

        There is a difference between private property and personal property.

      • Re:

        I wonder how you manage to log in and post, being that ignorant and stupid.

• The whole deal became a farce when they decided to let one of the biggest oil exporting countries host a climate summit.

  That's like Amnesty International holding its annual ball in North Korea.

  • Re:

    Allowing any country to participate, if they get most of their revenue from oil exports, makes it a farce.

  • Re:

    It's worse than that, it's like having Amnesty International host its annual ball in North Korea, MC'd by Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping.

    • Re:

      And Putin is the keynote speaker.

    • Re:

      Remind me: Which country has the biggest prison population by proportion and in absolute numbers?

      • Re:

        OK then, and like with Biden hosting an off-site symposium on the 1994 crime bill and how it can be a model for the world.

      • Re:

        The US, and sure that's bad, but it's not nearly as bad as enslaving people for being Uighurs or disappearing people for being interested in democracy or Marxism and then harvesting their organs. Or basically anything that happens in North Korea. The US' prison system issues are total first-world problems in comparison to the hardcore dictator shit China and NK are doing.

  • Re:

    It was supposed to be their opportunity to show the world that they were willing to tackle climate change. At least now we have hard proof that our best option is to destroy their business ASAP, no further benefit of the doubt.

  • • Re:

      Now that's an interesting hypothesis that deserves some elaboration. Got something?

• What did you think was going to happen? Do you really think that countries who depend on oil production, and oil companies whose business and existence depends on MORE MORE MORE oil production are just going to go away?
  
  Do you really think they're just going to say "Oh, you're right. We're bad for the environment so we're going to shut everything down and just go away". Are you really that retarded?

  • Re:

    Indeed, do you think the massive number of people who depend on fossil fuels for daily life are going to go away? Put 6 figures in my bank account to pay for my switch or fuck right off.

    • Re:

      It shouldn't cost you six figures to give up oil.

      Insulate your house and switch to a heat pump. But an electric vehicle, possibly a used one. Doesn't need to be a 90k Tesla - something like a Kia Niro or MG will do just fine.

      Add some PV and battery storage if you like, but it's not required.

      • Re:

        Air source is sketchy at this latitude, ground source is expensive, and the current 9 hours of sunlight per day are not cost effective for that either.. Also not going to replace my nice car with a cheap electric appliance. Everyone is not you, so don't pretend to know anything about it.

        • Re:

          ASHPs work fine in places like Norway, inside the Arctic circle.

          Sorry but "I don't like Kias" isn't really a good excuse to pollute and cause climate change. That said, I see some nice year or two EQCs on the market at very reasonable prices.

          • Re:

            Sorry but "I don't like Kias" isn't really a good excuse to pollute and cause climate change. That said, I see some nice year or two EQCs on the market at very reasonable prices.

            Sure it is...it means that the EV market isn't fully there enough to satisfy what people want.

            I've never owned anything but 2-seater sports cars.

            Gimme an EV 2-seater, in the same vein of the old Teslas Roadster, or something like the modern hard top Miata, or looks like a Vette....whatever, but in the same ballpark price as t

            • Re:

              Not having gears to shift through (whether manually or with paddles) is a fun to drive deal killer for me.

              • Re:

                Not having gears to shift through (whether manually or with paddles) is a fun to drive deal killer for me.Not having gears to shift through (whether manually or with paddles) is a fun to drive deal killer for me.

                I agree...I'll VERY much miss shifting gears with a good manual transmission.....

                But if ICE does disappear...well, I'm hoping for at least the next best thing.

            • Re:

              Fair enough that you like a certain type of car, but do you really feel entitled to destroy the planet just because you have that preference?

              Otherwise a lot of people will use this as an excuse to never clean it. "It doesn't sound the same, doesn't drive the same, doesn't do 900 miles and change in 30 seconds." Okay, but does that give you the right to screw up the planet? Other people live here, you know.

              • Re:

                Fair enough that you like a certain type of car, but do you really feel entitled to destroy the planet just because you have that preference?

                Yes I do.

                But that's not really a thing...my choices are not going to destroy the planet.

                There's plenty enough people that go for the mundane to suit your use case of "not destroying the planet".

                But while I don't generally actively on purpose do things to harm the planet or other people, the bottom line is YES, I have one short lifespan on this planet and my absolut

          • Re:

            Norway has a maritime climate and is much warmer than their latitude would imply.
            
            When e-fuels become available for my car I will switch. Does not seem to be a priority so I'm in no rush.

            • Re:

              -30C and below is pretty normal in Norway. No issue for heat pumps or EVs.

        • • Re:

            I have no interest in keeping poor people down, but you do you.

• Car exhaust and horse poop are equally bad odor producers but I can grow carrots and weed with poop. Car exhaust is really only good for growing cancer cells in gen pops.

  • Re:

    https://www.orientjchem.org/vo... [orientjchem.org]

    The Main Components of Vehicle Exhaust Gases and Their Effective Catalytic Neutralization

    74-77% Nitrogen
    5-12% CO2
    3.55% Dihydrogen monoxide
    1-10% CO
    0.3-8% Oxygen
    The rest is sub percentage amounts.

    So car exhaust from modern engines is mostly stuff that plants use and/or are exposed to from the atmosphere already, just in different proportions.

    • Re:

      > The rest is sub percentage amounts.

      The fact that the rest is sub percentage amounts doesn't mean it doesn't cause cancer. There's a lot of that stuff emitted.

      • Re:

        My guess is these small amounts of stuff in the exhaust is typical stuff found in burning anything. Burnt food. Forest fires. Candles, incense, potpourri. Campfires, fireplaces, and corn/soybean/wood/whatever stoves. Any of a number of things that we don't much think of as harmful because such burning things are common and/or perhaps even smell good to us. I guess I should mention tobacco, and other recreational drugs that are smoked, even though we generally recognize them as harmful. Do people thin

        • Re:

          > My guess is these small amounts of stuff in the exhaust is typical stuff found in burning anything.

          Yes, that's (one of) the argument why gas stoves are getting banned.
          Concentration is a thing too: indoors, a fireplace with a well working chimney could be less harmful than a gas stove with the hood off. Same as waiting on a crosswalk on a busy street is probably more harmful than being a spectator at a car race.
          This is the old "the solution to pollution is dilution"

          My point being: it simplified the situ

          • Re:

            Yes, that's (one of) the argument why gas stoves are getting banned.

            They'll have to pry my gas stove out of my cold dead hands.

            And until then, ANY politician that even hints they want to do this....I'll actually actively campaign against.

            Fuck that nonsense......anyone in general that likes to cook...picks gas.

            Hell, point me to a professional kitchen that uses electric coils or induction in their kitchens.

            Go ahead...I'll wait.

            [crickets]

            • Re:

              Cooking wise, I'm not inclined either way. My very limited experience tells me that electric coils are all terrible, but good gas and good induction are comparable.

              Maintenance-wise, having one less infrastructure network to maintain makes a lot of sense. Newly built (and renovated) apartments and houses around here don't have gas connections anymore, no ban in place here, no campaign to do it; it's just happening.
              So, unless you want to cook using gas from propane bottles, don't move, I guess...

              • Re:

                Newly built (and renovated) apartments and houses around here don't have gas connections anymore

                Interesting.

                Might I ask what part of the US you're living in where they're doing this?

                • Re:

                  Not US, Central Europe, Czech Republic.

              • Re:

                Burning Natural gas effectively converts 100% of the energy to heat.

                Burning Natural Gas to make Electricity converts 60% of the energy to electricity. Then there is an additional energy loss in transmitting the electricity.

                Most of the electricity comes from coal plants converted to natural gas.

    • The idea that car exhaust is good for the environment is pretty silly. If it were tru you could run a hose from your car's tailpipe to your house to help your houseplants.

      Most plants are not CO2 limited, so high CO2 will not fertilize plants the way gullible climate change denialists believe it will. What it will do is change both the mix of plant species, and in some cases change the growth habits of plants. For example for wheat the volume and weight of yield will go up, but the protein yielded by an acre of wheat will go down because protein synthesis is limited by organic nitrogen.

      • Re:

        That's why they don't use it in greenhouses.

        • • Re:

            Yeah I guess that is why they don't use fertilizer outside of greenhouses.

            • • Re:

                That is why modern agriculture tries to supply all of them. Some are easier than others.

      • Re:

        How do you think greenhouses get their CO2? It took just a minute to find an example.
        https://extension.okstate.edu/... [okstate.edu]

        The example using propane or natural gas is likely more about being cheap than anything, burning gasoline or diesel fuel would give the same effect. There's plenty of examples of higher CO2 levels creating improved plant growth. We see this in greenhouses and out in the wild, such as with the treeline gaining in altitude with increased CO2 levels. It appears that there's a level in whic

        • Re:

          The example using propane or natural gas is likely more about being cheap than anything, burning gasoline or diesel fuel would give the same effect.

          I suspect it's about incomplete combustion products. Burning propane or natural gas in air gets you mostly CO2 + H2O + NOx. Not a lot of CO, and very little other combustion products, even without any post-treatment. Gasoline or diesel burns much dirtier. Which probably wouldn't bother the plants all that much, but wouldn't be so good for the people tending

          • Re:

            Not really much of a concern with modern "three-way" catalytic converters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            A problem with diesel exhaust and catalytic converters in the past was the sulfur in the fuel would foul up the system, that was resolved with mandates on lower sulfur content. More efficient diesel engines meant more NOx, which was resolved with new catalytic converters and DEF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            My brother had a wood stove in his house that had a catalytic converter to burn wood cl

        • Re:

          Again we're talking about naturally limited systems and greenhouses are artificial, enclosed systems where the plants are fed with copious amounts of nitrogen and other fertilizers like potassium.

          If you take a system which is not limited by carbon, and add enough of the stuff that it *is* limited by, eventually it will become carbon limited and will be able to use more carbon.

          Are you proposing to do this for the entire Earth?

      • Re:

        LAST WEEK. We literally went over this on slashdot LAST WEEK.

        Plants May Be Absorbing 20% More CO2 Than We Thought, New Models Find
        https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

        However, even a basic search would yield the same result. Obviously you don't know what you're talking about:

        Atmospheric CO2 Concentration and Other Limiting Factors in the Growth of C3 and C4 Plants
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

      • Re:

        I should add more on the nitrogen comment to go with my other post on CO2.

        I remember while growing up on the family farm that "high lysine" corn was something of a big deal. I remember that in one part because that was noted on the seed corn bags I had to manhandle, and because a lysine deficiency was a plot point in the Jurassic Park books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Lysine isn't a protein but an amino acid found in plants that will aid in getting more protein out of livestock that eat the plants.

  • Re:

    I am looking forward to your designs for horse-drawn ocean freighters.

    For shipments, rail is unbeatable, but there are reasons why electric motors have replaced horse-drawn carriages on tramways.

    • Re:

      They are called sailboats. Google it.

• Mostly in jest, but.... The Middle Eastern countries tend to have substantial sovereign wealth holdings. Russia, on the other hand, is burning through cash and is investing mostly in its (demonstrably crappy) military-industrial complex. Without energy revenues, Russia would start to look like a 3rd world country. Whatever he is, Putin is not stupid, and is willing to invest in information campaigns for the benefit of his world-view. So even if Russia didn't instigate this letter, it would clearly benefit from this OPEC position.

  • Re:

    Saudi Arabia was already worrying when oil hit a low a few years back. They subsidize a ton of stuff with oil revenues, have low taxes, and pay their citizens a considerable stipend from it. At $40 a barrel, they would burn through their considerable sovereign wealth fund in a decade or so. Imagine what will happen in that country if the rest of the world would no longer require the very thing that enables their lavish lifestyle? We'll see a "Saudi spring" but not in a good way.
    
    Small wonder the midd

• It sounds nuts that oil is subsidized, but it is. For the same reason as farm subsidies: those enable everybody to eat cheaply, and the farmers to compete with other subsidized farmers. Cheap oil means cheap industry and domestic energy.

  Subsidies could be dropped if targeted supports would help those who need it, or are needed to keep an industry going. (We've always had "purple gas" for farmers).

  But subsidies could be lowered if everybody agreed to the same cuts. That's what frightens them.

  Of course, they are also blind, apparently, to just being overrun by a genuine alternative. They can't really believe it, or they'd be investing tens of billions in geothermal and wind.

  • Re:

    The problem with wind is: It is difficutl to monopolise. There is an organisation of petroleum exporting countries. Could you imagine an organisation of wind-producing countries?

    That's why investing in wind and geothermal makes sense for governments and the general public, but not for oil barons.

• Why? Because nearly all non-western nations are being told by China, and now OPEC, along with far left idiots, that they have the right to increase their emissions. Problem is, the GHG in the atmosphere continue to increase even though the west has done major cutting.
  
  Europe almost has it right applying a tax to imported steel and a few items, but it does not go far enough. We need to apply a slowly increasing tax rate to locally consumed goods based on where worst part/sub-service comes from in terms of

  • Re:

    Of course they have the right. They are sovereign nations.

    • Re:

      The problem, unfortunately, does not respect borders; if your neighbour is playing with fire, you have an interest in doing something about that so your own home doesn't end up burning.

      Of course, in this case everyone's got handfuls of matches and they're telling each other someone else is more responsible and they should put their matches down first. And a few people need a damn fire to stay warm and are being told they should just be colder while watching others burn bonfires just for fun.

      Anyway, if ther

      • Re:

        Agreed with most of what you said, except that the west continues to drop our emissions. THAT is the right thing.
        I get it that undeveloped nations need to either continue their emissions, but, we need all nations to stop increasing theirs. And we need all developed nations to DROP theirs. Which is pretty much the west and China. Sadly, China continues to grow theirs in MASSIVE amounts ahd shows nothing to indicate that they will finally honor their word to drop their emissions. [carbonbrief.org]

      • Re:

        They are still sovereign nations. "The problem" ceases to be their problem when they tell you at gunpoint to go pound sand.

  • Re:

    Taxing fossil fuels isn't going to help, it will only drive manufacturing out of the country. I heard somewhere that in Europe entire factories are getting boxed up and shipped to North America to find cheap natural gas. Loss of cheap Russian natural gas is going to reduce CO2 emissions in Europe but at the cost of their economy. Europe does not have it right, they are closing themselves off from safe, affordable, and low CO2 energy by closing nuclear power plants and not building new ones.

    I remember som

    • Re:

      Please re-read what I said. I have never suggested taxing O*G or even Coal. Why? Because a good chunk of it goes into chemical production and it makes ZERO sense to stop the pumping of O&G. Instead, I have suggested putting a SLOWLY INCREASING TAX on locally consumed goods/services BASED ON WHERE THE WORST part/sub-service comes from. However, at this time, it needs to be only about direction, not about levels (other than a floor at which point the tax is not considered against that nation/state). With

  • Re:

    So the areas that are most affected by and most vulnerable to climate change are told that they have to right to make their own problems worse? The countries that are not bogged down by heavily subsidised legacy infrastructure while they invest in cheap renewables?

    The "West" has not done major cutting yet. As it is, North America, Europe, India, and Australia are still increasing their emissions. The biggest cuts have happend in China, surprisingly.

• In other news: NAACP meeting held in Coeur D'Alene, ID - Participants wonder why the organizers aren't so hot on debating racial equality issues.

  The COP is a joke: hundreds of people who like hearing themselves talk jet around the world to some feel-good party at the cost of millions of tons of CO2 to pinky-swear they'll do something about climate change and nothing ever changes. And now it's officially an insult to common sense and intelligence, being hosted in Saudi Arabia.

• Saudi Arabia makes money on fossil fuels because that is often the lowest cost option for energy. There's been numerous studies on what can replace coal and natural gas for electricity production, a few can be found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  To do our best to compare apples to apples it would likely be best to compare LCOE numbers within each study, be that from IPCC, Lazard, NEA, or wherever. The absolute numbers might not agree but how the different sources compare generally do. For something cheaper than fossil fuels, and lower in CO2 emissions than fossil fuels, we can look to geothermal, hydro, nuclear fission, and onshore wind. It is vital to have nuclear fission in the mix because that is an energy source that is at least as reliable as fossil fuels, leave nuclear fission out and expect to fail in getting a reliable supply of electricity. If there is any doubt on that then ask Germany how that's been working out for them.

  When it comes to transportation fuels we should invest in getting synthesized fuels lower in cost and produced on industrial scales. Betting on batteries to save us isn't wise, that's not likely to replace fossil fuels in every case but synthesized hydrocarbons could. Plug-in hybrids would be great for getting lower emissions with or without synthesized fuels, and has other advantages. People aren't yet convinced that BEVs are suited to their needs but with more PHEV options then perhaps people will get used to the idea of plugging in their vehicle, and get some experience on what it means to drive on battery power. If we can get synthesized fuels cheaper than what Saudi Arabia can sell petroleum then it doesn't matter what they say about fossil fuels, we will have closed the carbon loop on fuels and got to net zero carbon emissions and people aren't going to have to change their habits to get there.

  But then it appears that there is an opposition to not interrupting people's lives over global warming. If people don't have to sacrifice something then it seems that those making the most noise about global warming are not interested in the solution. It's as if to them it is more important that people know they are doing bad things to the environment than fixing the problem without their participation. Make carbon neutral fuels lower cost than petroleum and nobody is going to complain. But it seems that if there is no complaints then it's not something the alarmists are interested in doing. It makes me wonder if they have some motives other than concern over global warming.

  • Re: Bankrupt them, make alternatives cheaper.

    Why only onshore wind when offshore wind is also now relatively cheap?

    • Re:

      "Relatively cheap"? Relative to what?

      Relative to coal. geothermal, nuclear fission, and onshore wind the IPCC says offshore wind costs about double. None of the studies on the Wikipedia page show offshore wind is lower cost than fossil fuels, and the point is to replace fossil fuels with something that is lower cost and lower in CO2 emissions. Did you click on the link? Do you have any evidence that offshore wind is cheap relative to anything but even more costly solar? Relative to solar power I guess

      • Re:

        On the Wikipedia page on LCOE, coal is in the range 65-152, offshore wind 83. Based on Lazard 2021, but the median from the latest IPCC report is similar at 93 for the median ( I didn't just rely on Wikipedia but I'll look there if you are using it). If you look at the latest NEA, coal and wind are tied at 88. Coal with capture is 110. Offshore wind is, by the metrics on your own web page, not any more expensive than coal and cheaper than coal with capture. The LCOE of offshore wind has continually trende

• "OPEC's letter is outrageous. OPEC wants to talk about emissions, but not the source of the emissions," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)

  Like the U.S. would have done anything differently had it been in the same shoes. We just hate it when the rest of the world starts acting in their self-interest while our own self-interest has plagued the world for nearly 100 years.

• ...meets scorpion.
  
  What did they expect?
• Many (most?) OPEC countries can offer precious little other than oil and natural gas. Without that business they are doomed.
• Fossil fuels are not going away, but obviously we need to use them wisely.
  
  The largest oil producer in the world by far knows this and is working toward an "all of the above" approach. The US produces as much as #2 and #3, i.e. Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. While historically responsible for a lion's share of greenhouse gas, the US is significantly reducing its impact and sharing that technology with the world.
  
  Saudi Arabia needs to understand that the oil business must transition to a petrochemical b

• > U.S. lawmakers and ministers from around the world

  What are lawmakers and ministers doing around the world? Aren't lawmakers supposed to be in Congress, and ministers in churches?