It's not that we aren't running out of the relatively clean, conventional crude oil. We are. It's that we're finding ever new and larger sources of unconventional crude oil, the dirtiest stuff.
Bob Dudley's remarks came as the company published a study predicting oil production will increase substantially, and that unconventional and high-carbon oil will make up all of the increase in global oil supply to the end of this decade, with the explosive growth of shale oil in the US behind much of the growth.
As a result, the oil and gas company forecasts that carbon dioxide emissions will rise by more than a quarter by 2030 – a disaster, according to scientists, because if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change then studies suggest emissions must peak in the next three years or so.
So-called unconventional oil – shale oil, tar sands and biofuels – are the most controversial forms of the fuel, because they are much more carbon-intensive than conventional oilfields. They require large amounts of energy and water, and have been associated with serious environmental damages.
Reading between the lines, Dudley is confident that neither industry nor governments worldwide have any intention of curbing greenhouse gas emissions except, perhaps, symbolically.
The BP report also forecasts that low-carbon and renewable energy will remain dwarfed by increasingly high-carbon fossil fuels.
8 comments:
Did you see the sky in Beijing China? It was broad daylight and the sky was totally black with pollution. That horrendous pollution, turned day into night. It was an absolute nightmare, for the people in that city. The pollution, was right off the charts.
There is no way this planet, is going to survive the dirty tar sands. There is no way our country and planet, is going to survive Harper either.
The lakes in Alberta are being poisoned, by the dirty tar pits. The eco damage at the dirty tar pits is permanent
However. Harper and Premier Redford put their disgusting greed, far over the health of our world and the citizens, that live on this planet.
The dirty Alberta tar pits, will pollute this entire planet.
Yes I saw it. I actually posted a photo of it here.
Unfortunately I think the fossil fuelers and their political minions in the governments of Canada and elsewhere are consigning us and, especially our younger generations, to a future of uncertainty and potential chaos. Their bond has become so powerful that it will take an immense public upheaval to break it. That will come.
Wait, straight from the horse's mouth? This guy is the CEO of an oil company, is he not? Isn't it more like a car salesman telling you that the model you're looking at is absolutely the most reliable and best on the market? Or a movie director telling you how amazing his movie is? This strikes me more as "straight from the mouth of a person with an extremely vested interest."
Not really, Anon. He's making what are called "admissions against interest." Admitting that the future rests with high-carbon, unconventional fossil fuels and that overall emissions will climb by another 25% by 2030 is hardly in his industry's interests. It's the very sort of thing that could and should make people sit up and take notice. Actually I think it was somewhat foolhardy for him to say these things at all.
I respectfully disagree. How is the executive of an organization that makes its profits through the production of fossil fuels making an admission against interest by stating that, as you summarize, "the future rests . . . with fossil fuels"? This does not make sense. An admission against interest would be the CEO of BP stating that the security of global civilization depends on a swift transition away from fossil fuels, whether because their increasing scarcity will soon render them too costly for current economic systems to sustain themselves, or because their continued use will wreak destruction on a global scale. That would be an admission against interest.
Sorry but I really don't know how to explain that concept any more clearly. It's pretty obvious to me.
Former Conservative MP Gary Lunn broached the idea of melting out the tar using nuclear power. Harper probably told him to STFU (nuclear refreshed its bad name at Fukishima). But you can bet some one is crunching the contingencies; it might, after all, get prohibitively expensive to continue burning fossil fuel to extract bitumen. Me, I don't like nuclear because of the waste disposal problem.
Syngas has advanced tremendously in the last few years. Seems somebody's buying and burying the patents. Wonder who that'd be?
Hey there Scotty from Denman Island. Actually it was long before Garry Lunn was out of diapers that plans were underway to nuke the Tar Sands. It was 1958, Project Cauldron, that envisioned underground nuclear explosions to liberate the oil from the Tar Sands.
Canada, at first endorsed the idea but later recanted. By that time the Americans had discovered the substantial reserves in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field and lost all interest in kinky bitumen nuke experiments.
Lunn might very well have tried to revive the earlier American proposal. That much I can easily believe.
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