[1] http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WR... [2] http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012...

Some commentary on the paper and reactions to it, which concludes mostly that better data would be nice: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/fracki...

[1] http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/PeoplePlaces/Faculty/cathles/...

[2] http://energyindepth.org/national/cornell-response-to-cornel...

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/10/1304880110.abst...

Not saying this should end the debate, but it's another data point.

Basically: Improved vehicle MPG, flat/decreasing VMT [2], decreasing non-highway use of distillate [3], improved industrial efficiency, and a shrinking industrial sector.

[1] - http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9811

[2] - Vehicle Miles Traveled

[3] - http://www.eia.gov/oog/info/twip/twiparch/2013/130227/twippr...

A honest "are the US using less oil" evaluation should include that energy, just like ecological footprint calculations include imports of materials.

What kind of sacrifice or pain? What steps have you done that constitute sacrifice and pain as part of your contribution? Yeah, being trite here, but I rarely find those professing a need for others to give up rarely do so themselves, they have endless levels of justification, usually starting with how smart they are.

If you live on a farm or in the mountains, it's hard to go without a car. But living in a modern city in a first world country, there's rarely an excuse.

EDIT: also, consider stopping eating so much meat, because it's not sustainable either.

Maybe convincing people to cut their energy consumption in half isn't in the cards. At the same time, maybe that is what is needed. The universe doesn't have to cooperate to give us pragmatic solutions.

If the "impossible" solution is required, and the "pragmatic" solution isn't sufficient... why should climate scientists advocate for the latter over the former?

I believe we need to proactively remove atmospheric CO2. Retool our economy and industrial might for that job.

To do that, we need a strong economy.

I'm not saying more, cheaper fossil fuels is a good thing. I just think we should play the cards we're dealt (to ourselves).

But to effectively retool our economy requires a non-CO2 source of abundant power. I am not sure that nuclear as we know it now would fit the bill, because of the various construction and infrastructure costs. Using less is probably more practical then re-inventing nuclear power (iteratively improving nuclear power would still have value).

- with solar capacity doubling every 30 months (1), once our electricity needs are met, we use excess capacity to produce hydrogen.

- we displace most fossil fuel with a combination of biodiesel (algae), cellulosic ethanol, and hydrogen.

- we clean up all our radioactive waste stockpiles, and generate electricity, with traveling wave reactors.

[1]http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/IV-AA467_ECARS_G_2...

I've been wondering if that's still true.

[0] http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/us_oil.cfm

[1] http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9506

[2] http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/10/02/our-oil-problems-are-no...

Gas is a different story but currently the price is pretty low compared to oil.

This has long been the comforting conventional wisdom, but there have been contrarians. One wrote a book-length argument:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/047173876X

The argument is more-or-less that the Saudis have in fact been struggling just to keep output more-or-less flat. Their ability to open the taps to control prices is a thing of the past. They've made massive capital investments in the field operations, yet despite very high prices and an opportunity to make staggering profits, their output has only changed modestly and has never hit the peaks they've promised in the past (12 million bbl/day, I believe was what they claimed they could do; 7-8 million bbl/day is about all they've ever done lately).

Meanwhile China makes more solar panels than anyone in the world yet has the most filthy air.

Most overall or per capita? And do they use them?

If the cleaners at Grand Central Station use only twice the cleaning supplies as you do at your house, it's likely to be much dirtier than your house.

Also seems the consideration is about saline aquifers and not ocean water. I suspect the cost of transporting ocean water is the issue leading to this consideration.

[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/breakthrou...

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2157446...

[2] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/16/lomborg-climate-models...

While it is an oversimplified game, Fate of the World can help show how increasing temperatures puts more energy into global systems resulting in intense storms, droughts, flooding, wildfires, famines, etc, and how that destabilizes regions leading to less effective ability to implement anti-warming policy.

All the oil is getting extracted out of the ground and (at utilization time) getting pumped into the air. It's the exact opposite of what we need to be doing now.

Shale and gas is added to the thinking probably, enviro issues and all. Finite but it lasts 100+ years...

Even on a human scale it's not that long. There are people alive today who are one or two degrees away from significant historical events. "Human wormholes" (http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/02/07/146534518/raspu...) if you will.

There were some US civil war widows still alive in the 21st century. Think about that next time you think a 100 year supply is a lot.

What if we were in year 95 of the 100 year supply? How would you feel then?

There is a small amount of oil that can be pumped at less than $10 per barrel. There is a moderate amount of oil that can be pumped at $20 per barrel, and that will disappear in the foreseeable future. At $50 per barrel, there is a lot of fossil fuel material. At $100 per barrel, there is vastly more. At $200 per barrel, we do not know because no one will care until the 23rd century, but the problem will probably be the environmental damage, not the availability.

Fresh water's one of those resources that's going to become dangerously scarce if we don't manage it properly, and fracking, like oil sands, uses staggeringly large amounts of it. Maybe there's 100 years worth of gas down there, but can we pump water loaded with who knows what chemicals (proprietary mixture, of course) down there for a hundred years to get it out?

Plus, what's a 100 year supply at today's consumption rate could quickly become a 50 year supply if consumption doubles, or 25 years if consumption quadruples. Why would consumption jump so much? What if cars started running on liquified natural gas instead of gasoline? What if power plants switched from nuclear to gas? What if the population grows another 20-30% in the next 25 years?

It's never actually a 100 year supply. Exponential growth will shrink it faster than you think.

I'm all for subsidies to accelerate an emerging market or technology, especially if it's "the future", but for 5-10 years at most, until it becomes mature enough to handle itself. Subsidizing highly profitable companies for a century is beyond stupid, because it also means those companies can be a lot more wasteful, knowing the taxpayers will cover the difference.

I'd ask for an end to Middle East oil-wars, too, but that seems even less likely to happen, so I'll happily take the ending of subsidies for now.

Ending subsidies cannot be done -- it needs to be accomplished as a side-effect of ending political interference. The oil lobby and corn lobby are very powerful.

Remember, the great efficiency drive in automobiles started after the Middle East Oil crisis in 1979, if I'm not wrong...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_doctrine

It's the reason the US Marines have their own air force -- they don't want someone else second-guessing their decisions.

All that profit doesn't seem to be staying inside the US.

The U.S. is a net importer of both oil and natural gas:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_...

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_ist_a2dcu_nus_a.htm

For example if the keystone pipeline was approved the majority of it would be for export, not domestic use.

A big driver of exports is simply the fact that lots of places don't have refinery capacity. People in such places are willing to pay more than people in the U.S., with its relative abundance of refineries.

The rest of the 'not consuming our own content' is just a logistics thing, the cheapest oil is generally used, not the oil that crosses the least borders.

I've been harping on this for years. You can produce billions of gallons of oil, but if you can't refine it, it's a loss leader and a big reason why our gas continues to hover around $4.

If we owned the whole cycle from drilling, production, refinement and consumption, it would be huge. Cutting out the refining middle man would save us billions and dramatically reduce the price per gallon. It's just simple supply and demand.

Just in case you wanted to know. .

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=29&t=6

The last refinery was built in 2008. Before that, in 1998. The majority of refineries were built in the 1970's - go figure, when oil was suddenly abundant and post OPEC embargo, very, very cheap.