{"id":342314,"date":"2024-09-08T10:45:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T08:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=342314"},"modified":"2024-09-08T10:45:56","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T08:45:56","slug":"the-engines-cant-take-it-captain-a-global-captain-kirk-like-plea-for-more-power-gets-scottys-standard-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=342314","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe engines can\u2019t take it, captain\u201d \u2013 A global Captain Kirk-like plea for more power gets Scotty\u2019s standard line"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The BOE Report<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0By Terry Etam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are a few ways to \u201cknow things\u201d. You know how to read, you know how to add, probably, and you know many things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some things you can \u201cknow\u201d without having to formally learn or experience them. You probably know it would hurt to get shot, though unless the demographic around here has changed significantly you\u2019re not likely to experience that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some things you know best by experiencing them; hearing about them, being warned about them, is a start, but sometimes you don\u2019t really know something until you \u2018feel it in your bones\u2019. The old adage about not touching a hot stove is one. Children hear that and obey it to the extent they ever obey their parents, but the real education comes at the moment they do indeed touch the stove. Things become quite clear then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it goes on the energy front. So much has gone on in the past decade that is enthusiastic speculation about what people think they know, particularly about energy transitions, and not only that but energy itself \u2013 where it comes from, how it gets there, who is responsible, how tough it really is to provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Zealand recently gave us a wicked lesson in the process of understanding the gap between being told not to touch the stove and touching the stove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years back, their youthful, idealistic, and globally exuberant leader, Jacinda Ardern, enacted a ban on petroleum exploration in New Zealand. The legislation was cutting-edge energy policy thinking, in alignment with many global leaders whose ears had been stuffed with talk about how oil and gas properties were quickly going to become stranded assets. These policy advocates \u201cknew\u201d this, and passed their knowledge on to leaders who would be visionaries. Want to be in effect a department store manager, running a country like one, or\u2026do you want to go down in history as one of the brave that saved the world from rising temperatures? Appealing to political egos is shooting fish in a barrel, and so off they went, legislating anti-hydrocarbon agendas hither and yon with joyous abandon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward a few years, and New Zealand has touched the stove. You can see the minute that it happened. In a June 9 article entitled \u201cGovernment to reverse oil and gas exploration ban\u201d (thanks to Dan Tsobouchi for flagging; his research and output is invaluable), the NZ government spoke of a startling discovery: that oil and gas fields deplete over time. As they put it: \u201cWhen the exploration ban was introduced by the previous government in 2018, it not only halted the exploration needed to identify new sources, but it also shrank investment in further development of our known gas fields which sustain our current levels of use\u2026Without this investment, we are now in a situation where our annual natural gas production is expected to peak this year and undergo a sustained decline, meaning we have a security of supply issue barrelling towards us.\u201d In another document<\/a>, the government put it this way: \u201cThe latest petroleum reserves data show gas reserves are declining. There is less natural gas available to produce than previously thought. This drop in natural gas reserves (called Proven plus Probable reserves) is the result of producers lacking certainty that they can economically extract the natural gas in their fields\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better late than never, I guess. But this newly-lit lightbulb is only a part of the equation. NZ\u2019s path illustrates just how wrong many energy assumptions are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The west has been somewhat successful in reducing emissions, which is taken by some as evidence that the \u2018energy transition\u2019 is working. It is true that there is a significant amount of renewable energy produced, which is helpful in reducing consumption of other fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is more complex than that. The US reduced emissions significantly by replacing coal-fired power with natural gas-fired. That\u2019s not part of the energy transition. Well, it is part of a logical energy transition, but that is not what the Ardern\u2019s of the world intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another confounding factor is that while the west\u2019s emissions may have been reduced, and energy usage has not increased materially (more on that in a minute), the fact is that our consumption patterns remain as formidable as ever; that Walmart remains chock full of everything, that Amazon can get a mind-boggling array of pretty much anything to your doorstep in 24 hours\u2026all this points to the not-much-discussed fact that we simply farmed everything out to developing countries to produce, and then we get annoyed when they construct the power supplies to do so in a way that works for them. A lot of globalists don\u2019t seem all that good at global thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, as we saw with NZ, the west\u2019s leaders simply don\u2019t understand energy production at all, at least not hydrocarbon production. There is an assumption that oil companies can be hounded\/sued\/regulated\/protested and that they will continue to invest enough to maintain production (even as the IEA states that no new investments can be permitted to meet climate goals). Wrong. Hydrocarbon companies will not invest in jurisdictions that make their life too miserable. Hence NZ\u2019s about face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More significantly than depletion though is blind eye given to the trajectory of global energy consumption. Not just oil and gas consumption, but energy consumption, from all sources. It is important to keep these trajectories in mind when considering energy policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some fascinating statistics<\/a> from Our World in Data. From 1965 to 2023, some random reference points for annual energy consumption change over the period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n