David Archibald
In a paper authored by Chinese academics in 2017, there was this graph of their best estimate of the trajectory of Chinese coal production:
Figure 1: Projection of Chinese coal production to 2100.
Their best guess of the year of the production peak was 2024, which is now. There is no plateau; production tips over into a decline rate that settles down at 75 million tonnes per year and starts bottoming out late in the century. There is some support for this prediction in that Chinese coal imports have started rising strongly in the last few years. To fill their production contracts in 2024, Chinese coal mines are tending to wash their coal less, producing the contract tonnage but with a lower calorific value.
Most of China’s coal production is from underground mines with mining cost increasing with depth. It is said that the average depth of Chinese underground coal mines is increasing by 10 to 25 metres per annum. The average dip of coal seams mined is 13˚. There is indirect support for the view that at least half of China’s coal endowment has been mined from this graphic from a 2023 paper:
Figure 2: Chinese coal reserves distribution by depth
The figure is representational in that shows about 800 billion tonnes have been mined so far above 600 metres mine depth while total Chinese coal production to date is more likely to be 130 billion tonnes. What can be interpreted from it is that some 80% of coal reserves above 600 metres mine depth have already been mined and 60% of the coal between 600 metres and 1,000 metres depth. The remainder of China’s original coal endowment is much deeper and therefore will be more expensive to mine.
China’s industrial expansion was powered initially by its cheap labour followed by cheap energy. That phase is over with China’s power price for industry now rising. One consequence of that is that the cost of renewable energy, solar panels and wind turbines, will go up as their production costs rise with the Chinese coal price. China’s coal consumption is the energy equivalent of 50 million barrels of oil per day.
While China’s annual coal production increases were galloping along, there was another energy boom 15,000 km to the east which also had geopolitical consequences – the US tight oil boom. This is peaking at the same time as China’s coal production:
Figure 3: US Oil and Gas Production and Chinese Coal Production on an oil equivalent basis, 1900 – 2060.
Most projections of US tight oil production having it plateauing for a number of years before it goes into decline. It seems that the idea that will be an abrupt change in direction is too uncomfortable for people to process. But when there is unconstrained production of a profitable commodity in a large market the profile is usually symmetrical around a pronounced peak. The prime example of that is the UK which has now exhausted its fossil fuel endowment with production peaks 90 years apart:
Figure 4: UK Coal and Oil Production 1853 – 2021
It is not commonly appreciated that US gas production, tight and conventional, is the energy equivalent of 18 million barrels per day of oil, some 50% more than US oil production. The decline forecast for the US is 1.7 million barrels per day equivalent and China’s decline will be at about half that rate but go on four times longer. The US has its coal endowment to fall back on while the only alternative available to China is nuclear. China could import more coal but there isn’t that much that is readily available to be developed.
So then the question is how much nuclear is needed for China to keep the lights on? The coal to uranium equivalence is:
1 million tonnes per annum coal = 78.6 MW = 15.7 tonnes of natural uranium
So, if the projected annual Chinese coal production decline of 75 million tonnes was wholly replaced by nuclear, that would increase demand of uranium metal by 1,179 tonnes each year. This would increase world demand for uranium from its current level by about 20% every ten years.
How fast can the nuclear rollout proceed? That is shown by what happened two generations ago in France:
Figure 5: Electricity production by source, France 1960 to 2015
Nuclear’s share of power generation in France went from 10% to 70% over ten years.
We are going to Net Zero whether we like it or not – because the biggest sources of supply growth over the last 20 years have tipped over into steep decline. Fossil fuels are leaving us before we leave them. Much pain and suffering follows.
David Archibald is the author of The Anticancer Garden in Australia
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Yeah, Right, Sure. They have been predicting Peak Oil and Decline since Standard Oil was broken up in 1911. Unfortunately they just keep finding the stuff. What will we do? Run to the hills?
The problem with ALL current and prior Peak Oil predictions is that the purported “PEAK” date is always the current year and predictions ALWAYS drop from there into the future. Never any guesstimate about future technologies, potential extended recoveries or potential future discoveries.
Every peak prediction graphic is the same or similar graphic to the lead in for this article
It sounds like you are advocating for what climate alarmists do routinely — forecast the future in the absence of any hard data or even viable theories.
Not necessarily BUT it’s better than proclaiming gloom and doom and…”It’s All Downhill from Here”
Well, I read you as saying that there is no way to predict the “peak.” Except that, going by the history of the last dozen or so predictions of the “peak,” this year is NOT it.
Of course, this assumes that none of the Three Dictators – Xi, Putin, or Biden – pushes the big red “nuke ’em” button.
The third time the little boy cried wolf, there really was one.
Peak oil is about now globally, there simply isn’t an unlimited amount of it underground and the technology to get to what there is is getting more and more complex and energy intensive.
That’s why Putin wants Ukraine..
1) Nobody knows how much oil there is underground – because it is not economically viable to survey and measure it until needed.
2) Peak Oil refers to the rate of extraction not being fast enough to meet supply. All resources are scarce, but free market capitalism turns scarcity into abundance. As supply fails to meet demand, prices go up. This signals users to make more efficient use to save money, and signals suppliers to supply more to make more money. Thus more investment to improve technology and innovate is worthwhile.
By this process previous Peak Oils were averted by, among other things, horizontal drilling, undersea exploitation, fracking, new extraction methods to get remaining oil from previously closed wells. On the demand side among other things, lean-burn, computer regulated motor engines, light-weight materials for car bodies, switch to gas instead of oil.
Good point (“because it is not economically viable to survey and measure it until needed.”) The business horizon is usually 30-40 years out. Once you know you have enough to stay in business into the 2060s, additional surveying is as stupid as looking for another sock when you’re already holding the ones you want to wear in your hand.
We are probably close to Peak oil demand, same with gas.
Why? There are literally billions of people in Asia and Africa who do not consume as much energy as Americans or Europeans. All the net zero efforts will do is free up supplies and reduce costs for them. And, don’t be silly weather dependent energy sources are and always will be much more expensive than fossil fuels.
The only technology that could possibly bail out your prediction would be really in expensive and small nuclear fusion reactors. And that has been a technology that will be perfected in 30 years for the last 60 years.
The willingness of various populations to accept more lifestyle destruction is rapidly coming to an end.
Again, just pure mindless speculation. !
And like everything else you post…
.. sure to be absolutely WRONG !
According to energy projections, energy demand is expected to increase substantially over the next couple of decades. Not at peak demand today.
Every time production slows down, no matter what the reason, the peak oilers always start yelling that this time it’s peak oil.
Yes, we will eventually run out, but that time is many decades in the future.
idiot
Not an idiot! He’s a believer! Doesn’t need evidence; Faith alone will do.
Pitiful. But I’m sure Greta and Gore like him. As long as he’s useful. A Useful Believer.
Nah, you’re probably right. A Useful Idiot.
Allowing fracking globally would do for the world what it has done for the US and make more energy supplies affordably available. Then there’s the fact that increasing prices will make currently unaffordable supplies more tangible
Except this isn’t the third time Peak Oil has been predicted. Peak predictions started in the 1880s. Hubbert made big news in the mid ’50s. Of course, in the ’70s it was all over, and we had to wait in lines for hours because there was no more oil. Since then, it seems every two years or less peak oil is predicted to be upon us. At the turn of the 21st century geologists were telling us we had to go to the ocean depths to get oil.
Third time? More like thirtieth. If you’re stupid enough to believe it, invest in oil companies. As they disappear from scarce supply, the survivor’s supplies will skyrocket in value. You’ll be rich!
Actually, I am heavily invested. If Biden is moved out of the way, the US will be drilling for that much more oil, and I’ll make a pretty penny.
Too right David, there are a lot of interesting facts presented in this essay, and the main issue appears that there is an assumption that the upward trend in fossil fuel production and consumption has to end soon. On what basis is that assumption made? The fracking revolution took the world by surprise, giving unconventional or tight oil/gas a major upgrade in output and potential resources worldwide, much of that resource potential awaits development in future.
The world chose to limit hydrocarbon and fossil fuel mining due to the climate scam several decades ago, we are still not getting back to normal with energy production, because of the
science alarmist narrative, this has to stop soon as it is totally worthless.
Don’t forget Peak Coal by 1900 as predicted/projected in the 1860s.
What you are really saying is that anyone who tries to predict the future will probably be wrong. Who in the late-1970s saw that personal computers would largely become entertainment devices that incidentally run spreadsheets, instead of tools for extrapolating a recipe for 42 party guests? Who saw that VHS recorders would triumph over Beta, or that VHS would be replaced by DVDs and Blu-ray? That is why complacency is dangerous, and assumptions based on the past are also fraught with risk.
The notion “past is a guide to future” is slow to die, due to cultural inertia.
A lack of open-mindedness/mental flexibility is fatal in a changing world
Any leading country not keeping up with the latest, full spectrum STEM, is doomed to die.
The US is grossly lacking in STEM, plus deeply in debt to foreigners, plus poorly led by self-serving elites.
Further, I would say that except in areas like Materials Science — because something either does what it is supposed to or it doesn’t — the quality of published science is poorer than it was when I started my career. That is especially true in ‘climate science’ where rigor is often sorely lacking.
Russia has enough oil, gas, coal, etc., to supply itself, China, India, etc. for at least 100 years.
Russia has not even began to frack for oil and gas
That is the main reason the US wants to use screwed-up Ukraine as a proxy to “weaken” Russia to impotence/breakup, which would maintain the US/EU in the world driver seat
However, all leaders, on both sides, are aware of the stakes.
Russia will deal with Ukraine as it sees fit, and will streamline its economy for GDP growth, not the fluffy/foamy type, but the iron/steel/concrete type, to insulate itself from malign Western influence, and from sanctions, and from military build-ups near its borders.
The US forced Russia to attack the Ukraine. Right.
UKRAINE A GEO-POLITICAL PAWN OF US/UK/NATO TO WEAKEN RUSSIA
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-plot-is-thickening-with-germany-and-france-no-longer-in
By advancing NATO to Russia’s borders (after promising not to do so beyond East Germany, and using Ukraine as a proxy to “weaken” Russia, turned out to be a disaster for Ukraine and the US and the EU.
.
Russia Now Says It Expects ‘Unconditional Capitulation Of Zelensky Regime’ Before Peace
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/russia-now-says-it-expects-unconditional-capitulation-of-zelensky
.
BY TYLER DURDEN
Ukrainian cities and especially the country’s energy infrastructure have been getting pounded by intensified Russian missile and airstrikes over the past several days and weeks, leading to widespread power outages across the country.
.
Russia’s defense ministry said Friday, “Russian troops delivered 48 precision strikes at Ukrainian energy and military-industrial sites, army and mercenaries’ deployment areas over the past week in the special military operation in Ukraine.”
.
This included a Thursday morning attack which destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants in the Kyiv region. “The goal of the strike were achieved. All the targets were destroyed,” Moscow said.
.
Ukrainian authorities are urging those with power to preserve and save their energy usage as much as possible..
That Russia will do whatever it takes to restore the former Soviet Union was never in doubt. However none of this supports your claim that the US is controlling Russia.
Who pays the piper, calls the tune
Ukraine, with US/EU goading/approval, perpetrated genocide on its own citizens in East Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, until Russia put an end to it, starting in February 2022.
The US would like to weaken/dismantle Russia to keep its resources away from China, India, etc.; in 1990, it almost succeeded under naive Yeltsin.
The US thought it could do it again with pre-planned sanctions and using Ukraine as a proxy, with NATO barking at the gates of Russia.
Fortunately for Russia, the grandiose US notion backfired onto the US/EU.
At present, the US has GDP growth fueled by huge federal, pump-priming deficits for overly expensive, unfeasible uneconomical wind/solar/battery/EV/heat pump and open border fiascos.
The EU is stuck with the same fiascos, at near-zero GDP growth
The Russian propaganda is strong with this one.
Oil is harder and harder to find. We found it in deserts. We looked for it in the high Arctic and now seek it at the bottom of oceans. We find it at a sufficient rate that it appears on first view that the demand is determined by the commodity’s cost.
But finding costs are increasing quickly. New discoveries are declining quickly. The technology required to extract the next 10% will cost 50% more. The exploration will cost 500% more. The awakening will be harsh. It will be cheaper to buy corn ethanol than petrol to run your car within 3 decades.
That chart seems to portend a situation that is unrealistically harsh.
In any case, there is debate whether corn ethanol even produces a net energy benefit when all of its fossil fuel inputs are fully taken into account, e.g., Youngquist, Pimentel, and others. DOE, USDA and NREL take the opposite stance.
I would prefer that we allow scientists and engineers from private companies to put their minds to solving real world problems.
It really is amazing how so many people, who have never been within 100 miles of a drilling rig, know more about the oil industry, than do the people who have worked in it for years.
I had a math professor who used to say, “it’s intuitive don’t you see.”
Something like… “and when the dust settles.. we get….” 😉
I have had 50 years, on and off, in the oil industry. I have the house decorated with 8.5″ PDC bits. A day in the oil industry is like a day on the farm – every meal a banquet, every paycheck a fortune.
Kind of a negative claim of authority. Ok. I started pulling slips over the Sooner Trend, way under age, almost 60 years ago. Did it up thru the Arab Spring. DMacKenzie is right about everything oil. As for ethanol, naha…
Not at all.
It’s more the case of someone proclaiming that something is impossible, meanwhile another group of people are busy actually doing that something.
YOu and the author remind me of the experts of yesteryear who proclaimed that rocket flight in a vacuum, heavier than air flight, or trains travelling more than 30mph, were impossible. They all had reasonable sounding theories to back up their proclamations and they were all wrong.
Think I’ll go with the data. Art is just one. I can find many others.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/beginning-of-the-end-for-the-permian/
“Permian basin and Eagle Ford oil recoveries have both fallen by 30% and Bakken has declined by almost 20%. Those plays accounted for two-thirds of U.S. output in 2023. That means that U.S. production will decline at some time in the relatively near-future.”
As usual, you completely ignore all data that doesn’t conform to what you want to believe.
It is interesting how many people want to shoot the messenger.
Nobody is shooting the messenger. Ridiculing people who are saying stupid things is a different matter.
There is plenty of oil found, but green ideology is preventing it from being tapped.
I agree that green subsidies are pushing green power. But forcing fossil fuelers to pass on the external costs directly that they are now communizing onto the rest of us would serve the same purpose. 12-13 $ figures worth of asset retirement obligations, now on track to be shirked by oil and gas producers worldwide, for example….
THere are no net costs to fossil fuel power, more CO2 is a net benefit for life.
Uh, ok? Not much to gain by exchanging views about that, here. But please find where, in any of my comments here, I mentioned CO2, AGW…
All the other pollutants were taken care of decades ago.
#1 Case – Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
USGS estimates there’s somewhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of oil in the coastal plain. Those are huge numbers. For comparison, Alaska’s second biggest oil field, Kuparuk, holds about 2.5 billion barrels.
Cross country track to the Alaska Pipeline around 200 miles across the coastal plain.
Worked with numerous guys who built the original pipeline in the 1970’s and have the engineering problems resolved.
Obama and Bidden keeping it from being accessed.
P.S. – the original pipeline is running near minimal flow rates and will have to be shut down if flow drops another 10 to 15%.
However, we are having to drill deeper to find the new stuff, which increases exploration and production costs and pushes the technology to extract it safely. We aren’t finding deposits as large as previously and it takes more skill with the more obvious traps apparently already discovered. Seismic surveys are expensive, which determines who can afford to even explore, let alone drill in hostile environments. Being a low-budget wildcatter means a lot of dry holes. If you look at the lede graph, it is obvious that US onshore production actually did peak about 1970. What King Hubbert warned about was conventional oil production, which was all that we really knew about prior to 1970. New technology is fundamentally like discovering a new energy source. Until it is discovered, and applied, it is of no value.
It has been said that a good general plans for the worst, but hopes for the best. You sound as if you believe that there is no risk or downside to the availability of affordable fossil fuels, that technology will always save us. I’m reminded of the joke about the guy who falls off a very tall building, and as he passes the fifth floor, thinks to himself, “So far, so good!” I’ve always been concerned that one day the magician will reach into his hat and there won’t be any more rabbits to pull out. Remember, as investment managers are required legally to remind potential investors, “Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results.”
The a to z oil/gas/coal efforts are three times less costly than wind/solar/battery/EV/heat pump follies, plus they produce tens of thousands of everyday products.
Everyone knows that, but the Europeans want to push the US, etc., into that uneconomic, infeasible straight jacket, because Europe does not HAVE oil/gas/coal, which makes Europe less competitive on world markets; curtain closed!!
Always look at A to Z processes, from mine to hazardous landfill
Levelized Cost of Energy Deceptions, by US-EIA, et al.
Most people have no idea wind and solar systems need grid expansion/reinforcement and expensive support systems to even exist on the grid.
With increased annual W/S electricity percent on the grid, increased grid investments are needed, plus greater counteracting plant capacity, MW, especially when it is windy and sunny around noon-time.
Increased counteracting of the variable W/S output, places an increased burden on the grid’s other generators, causing them to operate in an inefficient manner (more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh), which adds more cost/kWh to the offshore wind electricity cost of about 16 c/kWh, after 50% subsidies
The various cost/kWh adders start with annual W/S electricity at about 8% on the grid.
The adders become exponentially greater, with increased annual W/S electricity percent on the grid
The US-EIA, Lazard, Bloomberg, etc., and their phony LCOE “analyses”, are deliberately understating the cost of wind, solar and battery systems
Their LCOE “analyses” of W/S/B systems purposely exclude major LCOE items.
Their deceptions reinforced the popular delusion, W/S are competitive with fossil fuels, which is far from reality.
The excluded LCOE items are shifted to taxpayers, ratepayers, and added to government debts.
W/S would not exist without at least 50% subsidies
W/S output could not be physically fed into the grid, without items 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. See list.
1) Subsidies equivalent to about 50% of project lifetime owning and operations cost,
2) Grid extension/reinforcement to connect remote W/S systems to load centers
3) A fleet of quick-reacting power plants to counteract the variable W/S output, on a less-than-minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365
4) A fleet of power plants to provide electricity during low-W/S periods, and 100% during high-W/S periods, when rotors are feathered and locked,
5) Output curtailments to prevent overloading the grid, i.e., paying owners for not producing what they could have produced
6) Hazardous waste disposal of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. See image.
We’re effectively out of the hothouse of amazing tech tricks and worldwide economic/political conditions that caused the shale “revolution”. The Hubbert curve always needs to be backed up by objective data, and the shale events pushed it out. But that’s now apogee’ing. All you need to do to see that is to look for any outfits who are actually increasing their drill/complete CapEx. You won’t find any. It’s all M&A, all the time. Good for a temporary boost from better facility utilization and run off, but then bad for proved, on, oil and oil associated gas reserves maintenance. That’s where Hubbert comes in..
Apogee-ing?
Russia has not even started to frack
And they won’t. Shale takes a best in class entrepreneurial business climate, coupled with a Ben Dover environmental, safety, health culture They have the second, not the first. Keep in mind that the best oil and gas businessmen in the world, with the most access to cubic capital, and complaint state regulators, could only keep shale going for ~15 years.
Want a shale bone throw? Saudi has very good gas shale potential, a dirt cheap labor source, laissez faire regs, lots of CapEx, and a desire to supplant oil use for domestic AC with natural gas. If they can work the water angle, they might be able to put together a campaign for a few years.
“We are going to Net Zero whether we like it or not: Archibald
Not in this century
Only a complete fool would make such a prediction.
Only rational way to go to reduced electricity produced emissions and still maintain a workable society, is NUCLEAR.
It doesn’t matter what the Klimate Kooks say or do…
… Coal, Oil and Gas will still be around for a long, long time, because society NEEDS them.
And there is no viable replacement available for many things they are used form.
Is it rational to chose a vastly more expensive – nuclear option – requiring long construction times, large amounts of land when the much less expensive option coal exists?
Nuclear is the preferred ‘solution’ to those who accept the premise of Manmade climate change. Reject the premise, and we don’t need solutions.
Mostly wrong. Nuclear power was built because coal was either unavailable or too costly to ship. France went nuclear because the Franco-Belgian coalfield was nearly depleted. Ontario went nuclear because it had no coal whatsoever. Britain went nuclear because the remaining coal was far too deep and NUM was making it too unreliable and costly.
Your speculations about nuclear requirling large amounts of land are belied by ALL the facts about nuclear power.
No, France went nuclear because of OPEC and the oil embargos imposed by them in the 1970’s. They realised how vulnerable they were to foreign extortion and blackmail.
Unfortunately, Europe later had a bout of left-wing media-induced amnesia and made themselves dependent on Russian gas. However, it did not happen by accident. The ex-communist Angela Merkel and others made sure of it by closing down all alternatives.
In the US, we need viable/commercial SMT tech. We also need for the DOE to sweeten the pot for a real waste solution. After all, the waste we’ve already produced, can not be acceptably, “temporarily” stored in the back 40 of virtually every old and new power plant. When we get that, the extra risk of storing more is inconsequential. Wishing this problem away isn’t going to work.
Oil and gas are on the way out. Whether it maxes out this year, next year, or next decade matters not at all. It is valid to diss renewables for being environmentally damaging from the materials required, for their intermittency, and for the extra grid and storage requirements required to reduce it. But “long term” for us, and an eye blink in world history, it’s either those, or viable nuc solutions that are not now available.
Fantasies and delusions.. the greasy blob way !
He may be wrong, but he is not a “complete fool”, he has put together a rational argument and supported it with data. We will find out if he is right by 2030. Look at his charts. If he is right we will see declines in Chinese and UK coal and oil production by then.
The thing missing from his story is the other countries, and undiscovered reserves. But if he is right about China and the US, that will be quite a long way to validating his general argument.
If you think Chinese coal use will be dropping any time soon.. you are living in la-la-land
They are currently building copious numbers of coal fired power stations that will each last 50 years +
But guess what? Average utilisation of the coal-fired plants is dropping.
Only because they are being forced to curtail production when wind and solar actually produce something.
Periods of calm winds in the evening will still always need near 100% coal, gas and hydro.
Now for fair and balanced reporting, rather than your misdirection
2023 China
Coal production
China’s coal output reached a record high in 2023, at 4.66 billion metric tons, up +2.9% from 2022, despite a population decline of 2.08 million, or -0.15%, to 1.409 billion in 2023.
4 million metric tons coal exports (a tiny percentage)
These are data
Predictions are not data
Average utilization of coal power plants is a deceptive statistic
Chinese coal production and use was up about 2.9% in 2023 despite a 2,080,000 population decline.
According to
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_6AkrRZOn3ZXhSV9O6tZnX-m7aJsfG9HiQ_iEqBkbW8/edit#gid=1228809590
China has the vast majority of coal generation plants Planned, In Process and In Operation with India running second
Archibald’s argument is, coal production will fall because of exhausted reserves. I somewhat agree with you, if cost is no object they will keep on with it. They are not going to start writing off the new plants in 10 years if there is any alternative, no matter how expensive it is. And they are not going to run out of physical reserves, its just a question of cost and difficulty of mining.
It’s alright Australia can come to China’s rescue.
Australia has the world’s third largest coal reserves behind the US and Russia and ahead of China. When the Aussies have shut down all their coal plants they can begin serious exporting to China – perhaps a necessity since China might entertain the notion of coming for it themselves if they don’t.
Costs can be improved with improving technology.
Assuming that what we have now is the best that can be done, is never a wise assumption.
I tried to make it easy. I included a graph of the UK’s coal production which declined to nothing. Why would China keep producing coal for all eternity when the UK has run out? Actually Belgium and France ran out of coal much faster than the UK.
“Why would China keep producing coal for all eternity when the UK has run out?”
Why would the UK being moronic idiots and not mining coal, make one single bit of difference to China.
In fact, would probably INCREASE China’s need for coal as they supply products to the UK.
Figure 4 show that UK coal production has finished. No room left to decline.
Replaced by GAS and imports when there is no wind.
If costs keep rising and technology keeps improving, then it can resume.
Projections – ex machina – are NOT data, they are derived numbers and meaningless.
Qualification for being a fool
— Make a long term prediction to get attention. They are almost always wrong
Definition of a complete fool
— Predict that Nut Zero will happen (I assume he meant by 2050, not in a century or two) when 175 nations, with almost seven billion combined population, could not care less about CO2.
I would like to remind the author that Nut Zero means no rise of atmospheric CO2 after 2050..
That can not happen with almost 7 of 8 billion people living in nations who are NOT participating in Nut Zero. Including all the faster population growth nations. Including all the nations where lots of people have no electricity and would love to have coal to burn.
Earlier this year, US natural gas prices, adjusted for inflation, hit the lowest level since US records were kept in 1922.
That does not apply to all nations.
Natura gas competes with coal and right now natural gas is very cheap. And burns cleaner than coal. With no coal ash potential pollution. And gas can be used for peaker power plants. And gas must be used for solar and wind backup.
Nut Zero would not be accomplished by 2050 even if every nation participated and all their people wanted it to succeed.
Nut Zero in about 20 nations out of 195 nations, with most people in those 20 nations not willing to open their wallets very wide to fund Nut Zero, means that Nut Zero is NEVER happening in this century.
A competent engineer could look at Nut Zero inputs so far:
Lots of money and labor hours even though Nut Zero is just getting started.
And then look at Nut Zero outputs so far:
Hydrocarbon fuels used for 92% of global primary energy now, about the same as ten years ago.
How is the Nut Zero project going?
It’s going almost nowhere
That’s why I wrote that a person claiming Nut Zero is going to happen, whether people like it or not, is a complete fool.
I now have a revised opinion
The author is a green dreamer with Nut Zero delusions, making a long term prediction that will be wrong, as almost all long term predictions are. He needs to be sedated, followed by a long rest.
“Fossil Fuels Are Leaving Us Before We Leave Them”
Then we had better get a wriggle on with renewables.
Wind and solar will not help even the slightest in meeting energy supplies.
They are a parasite on any electricity supply system.
Hydro. gotta build dams where there is rainfall. always very limited option.
Here is the main east coast states of Australia over the last 48 hours.
Notice anything 😉
By all means FOOL yourself, but don’t think you are fooling anyone else.
Where is the graph from?
Direct screen captures from AEMO web site.
Here is the early evening NSW data.. in about 40 minutes, that small amount of solar will disappear, and NSW will be running close to 90-95% COAL. !
They may start using some hydro, I’m not sure of the dam levels though…
… but you can see the huge contribution wind isn’t making !!
8:45 pm…. As suspected, NSW has turned off the gas electricity, and are now running on 90% COAL, 7% hydro.
Thanks
5:30am Sunday.
NSW running on 97% COAL.
Victoria 90% COAL 9% hydro
Qld 85% COAL + a mix of some gas, hydro and wind.
SA is 78% GAS
Even South Australia with its small demand is on [edit] make that 56% gas..
That will climb much higher in a couple of hours once the sun goes down..
If the wind doesn’t start doing something, they may have to turn on their DIESEL generators.
Diesel generators is so third world.
That is South Australia for you !
A tiny demand compared to the other states, they have plenty of GAS, and a strong import line from Victoria, …
… but they still need to use those d-gens occasionally.
Told ya.. SA is now using the diesel generators… (orange)
Gas 71%, diesel 5%….
… also importing 168MW from Brown Coal powered Victoria.
Oddly enough, big diesel generators can ramp up more quickly and are more fuel efficient than OCGT.
deleted for editing
ps.. Vic and Qld are now running some GAS to supplement the COAL
NSW has just started some GAS powered and getting a bit more hydro.
Will update again after dinner. ! 🙂
7:30 pm
SA… 64% gas .. luckily, wind picked up a bit
Vic.. 72% coal and gas… 23% hydro
NSW..88% coal and gas.. 9% hydro.
Qld… 93% coal and gas.. 3% hydro.
Wind…. S.F.A. !!
There is absolutely zero chance of wind and solar ever providing enough reliable electricity to power the Australian east coast.
Interesting. And that’s just for electricity, which is, what, about 30% total energy requirement?
And how much of that night time power is charging ZEHV (Zero Emission HERE Vehicles) on all that coal and gas power? Seems the transmission and charging losses might make an ICE machine the more efficient “total emissions” vehicle, let alone just an overall better solution.
Snowy scheme dam levels.
Eucumbene 55%
Jindabyne 66%
Tantagora 25%
Plenty of water for hydro power at the moment.
It is glaringly obvious that Stokes has never had any formal training in any sort of engineering.
How true that is. !! His forte seems to be bending data to meet propaganda needs.
If we move massively ahead with Ruinables as you propose, O & G will run out even earlier.
When you have a practical answer I might take note of what you say
As things stand, dream on
Renewables will not help. A society and economy which really does rely on renewables for electricity generation will be almost unrecognisable to people today.
We have real empirical evidence going back years on UK wind performance. We can use that to estimate how much wind faceplate would be needed to generate the UK’s current 45GW peak demand. Its huge, and you would also need huge storage.
Its not going to happen. So the alternatives are, we keep current levels of reliable supply but generate it from conventional. Or we replace the conventional with nuclear. Or, and this is where we are headed, we tailor demand to what a practical amount of wind and solar plus plausible storage can support.
I don’t know what this is – advocates of renewables are the ones who should be telling us. But looking at the historical performance of UK wind, and the cost of storage, it would be surprising if wind + storage can supply more than a quarter of current peak demand. It will be a different world. And remember that the current UK plan is to double demand by moving to EVs and heat pumps. Try meeting that with wind when you are getting less than 5% of faceplate for a week or more in January or February, and solar has vanished. It means blackouts and rationing.
Exactly the same choices face all countries trying to get to net zero, the merit of the UK is that the numbers are readily available.
See also the Royal Society report on storage. This is the one where they estimate that the only practical method of remedying intermittency is to excavate and seal 900 caverns and use them to store hydrogen to cover calms. Storing the hydrogen for decades to cover seasonal wind calms.
https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/large-scale-electricity-storage/Large-scale-electricity-storage-report.pdf
The idea is mad, of course, but it gives you an idea of the scale of the problem. Not only do you have to excavate and seal the caverns, but you also have to build gas generating plant to use the hydrogen during the calms. And you have to get the hydrogen from somewhere.
We are going to find out in the next ten years, because Ed Miliband is going to be UK Energy Secretary in November, and is not going to blink. The seriousness of this seems not to be grasped by anyone. Having no, or a minimal, electricity supply means crashing the economy and imposing huge social hardship on the poorest sections of society. It will be as big a depression as the 1930s, maybe worse.
The UK will make itself poor, cold and dark in the futile effort to single handedly reduce global emissions. When it only does 1% of them to start with. Futile.
“Ed Miliband is going to be UK Energy Secretary in November“?
Then reality is going to give him endless heartburn.
So long as there is money coming into his pocket…
… he won’t care one hoot about anything else.
Then we had better get a wriggle on with renewables.
No, Nick.
They are not, I repeat not renewable. They’re not even environmentally friendly or cheap.
We know oil and gas will run out eventually and we know we need reliable energy, so why not focus on reliable nuclear for electricity and use the remaining oil and gas for producing the goods we all use each and every day?
You need to get real, Nick. Unreliable electricity will be the death of civilisation as we know it.
Very well put, its the key point.
Renewables are expensive, inefficient, ineffective, unreliable and incapable of powering a modern society without assistance.
The only transition away from Fossil Fuels should be
nuclearNuclean Energy.Whether that’s…
Small modular
Large PWR or MSR
Or, if it ever comes to be, Thorium
Wind and Solar aren’t it. Both have times, separate and concurrent, when neither can produce any useful electricity…which is around 80% of the day for Solar and over 60% of the year for Wind.
“get a wriggle on” means It means to hurry up; get a move on. I had to look it up.
Stroker, you are stealing my downvotes.
We need solar panels that work at night and dont care about clouds or hailstorms.
We need windmills that work with no wind, and don’t kill birds, bats and whales
We need batteries aout 90% cheaper that don’t catch on fire
We need EVs 25% cheaper than ICE vehicles, rather than 25% more. And they should recharge in 10 minutes even at home
We need citizens to tolerate higher energy prices and more and more money to fund Nut Zero coming out of their wallets.
We need 175 of 195 nations to change their minds about Nut Zero
Renewables are unreliables, and unreliables are a LEFTIST FANTASY FOR ELECTRIC GRIDS
China is somewhat responsible for distortions in the EV market. Several months ago it became known that thousands of unsold EVs were piling up in fields in China basically being left to rot.
A similar situation is developing at EU ports, where unsold EVs are gumming up the works. This overproduction can’t be good for the environment. Seems they are EViscerating us.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/04/11/unsold-chinese-evs-are-piling-up-at-european-ports/#:~:text=Chinese%20EV%20Overproduction&text=The%20number%20of%20cars%20exported,%2C%20Germany%2C%20and%20the%20Netherlands.
It’s amusing that the fake ID imagines that solar or wind can substitute for any use of fossil fuels or nuclear. Real world experience shows this replacement using wind/solar has failed every time it’s been attempted.
Who are “we”, Nitpick?
As always, a solution that doesn’t work for a problem that doesn’t exist.
We will eventually go to net zero. Fossil fuel is a finite resourse, that is a fact.
However, it is a better strategy for humankind to leave fossil fuels before we run out.
/Jan
“Fossil fuel is a finite resourse, that is a fact.”
Incorrect.
How much will be extracted?
It’s as always a function of the price of the fuels (demand side) vs. costs of production (supply side).
Fossil fuels are effectively a finite resource, since the rate we are using them is about a millions times faster than they are produced.
And, it’s a huge planet. I bet much hasn’t even been fully explored for ff.
Cyprus, Guyana, Namibia and Zimbabwe had oil and gas discoveries in 2022/2023 and no real oil or gas production before.
In total 22 countries had new oil and gas discoveries over those two years.
20.3bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of new oil and gas discoveries have been announced since 2021. 20 new fields were approved for development in 2023 and a further 64 are likely by 2030.
South America and Africa are ‘global hotspots’ for new conventional oil and gas projects.
Global Energy Monitor (GEM) ‘Drilling Deeper 2024’ (March 2024)
Apparently, there is a good possibility of a very large tight oil deposit in northern Australia..
Investigations are apparently underway.
Globally we use about 100M barrels per day so that’s about 200 days worth that we’ve discovered in the last 1000 days. See the problem?
All either conflict areas, or ruled by kleptocracies. Very, very, littel fossil fuel $ will trickle down to the populace here, but they will be stuck with Trumpian YUGE asset retirement obligations later. Don’t whine about conflict rare metal production for renewables if you tout these “new” discoveries.
Not “incorrect”. We are now wizards at incremental, commercial “extraction”, but advancement has effectively stopped. The new tech came from a hot house flowering of events this century, that is now ending.
Wasting money switching off of fossil fuels before we need to makes us all poorer.
The best strategy is to continue to use fossil fuels for the next couple hundred years, while we use the money saved to advance technology.
You’re assuming that Earth is the only source of hydrocarbons. If we can’t expand by colonizing other planets then fossil fuels may survive longer than humanity anyway. Titan (for one) has oceans of liquid methane and ethane. The cost of it is currently prohibitive, and we’d need to develop the technology, but that may not always be the case.
Question.. If China thinks they are going to stop using COAL…
.. why are they still building COAL-fired power stations hand over foot. ! 😉
Why is global coal power capacity still growing.
Global coal power in 2023 grew the most in seven years | The Standard | Warrnambool, VIC
Exactly, coal and the other fossil fuels will keep going until we don’t really need them anymore.
That will be after we invent new technology, so we don’t need them as energy sources but for other byproducts. Here in Australia we have plenty of coal, gas and uranium, but not enough oil for our transport services, that is our achilles heel. We must either find more and get our refinery system back on track, or forget about diesel, petrol and avgas motors in the future.
If we don’t regain cheap reliable energy soon by going back to coal and gas, we won’t have to worry about defense of this fine country, we will already be owned by China and the US, then they can fight over us.
Very usable liquid fuel can be made from coal.
Germany fought the whole of WWII using it.
Technology has advanced quite a bit since then.
Furthermore… if fracking was allowed, Australia could use its own oil.
The UK also had a Bergius plant operating in WW2, at Billingham.
And of course, the UK used to use coal gas for multiple purposes.
Sure, it had its issues, but modern technology would make coal gas much cleaner and much safer to use.
Why is China still building apartments when they have 65 million unocuppied ones? Not everything China does is rational.
It still needs more electricity,… Still playing catch-up.
Anyway, how else is China going to build all the EVs, windmills, solar panels, heat pumps etc etc etc for stupid western countries…
… if it doesn’t have enough coal fired electricity ! 😉
Why is China . . .?
This is an interesting and more immediate question than those about the use of Carbon- based fuels. There are bits and pieces scattered in recent reports. You D.A., could do the digging and enlighten us.
And an even more immediate question is what the USA and its large cities are going to do about the deterioration of the urban cores. St. Louis is the latest example to make the morning/evening news. Search: deteriorating urban St. Louis
It was very kind of you to suggest a new line of inquiry for me. But I am flat out figuring out how to defeat the Chicoms in their coming war: https://wentworthreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Building-Australias-Defence-SAMVOA-Perth-12th-March-2024-2.pdf
efficiency is also a big driver new plants produce 40% more electricity per ton of coal.
And is now on its way back to 10% again.
False. According to EDF, French nuclear electricity production was 96.6TWh for 2024 to the end of March, up 11.4TWh over 2023 YOY.
In 2023, France electricity mix saw greater than 67% Nuclear Generation
What an idiotic and totally FAKE comment.
There is no way France can or will replace its nuclear with any other sort of reliable power supply.
They never get new ones fast enough. EDF wants to build 1.5 GW / year starting 2030. If I remember correctly replacing the current fleet would take almost 40 years.
A large build-out took 20 years beginning in 1980.
Why 40 years to do what a previous generation did in 20?
France exports now and can continue to do so. England
appears to be a long term guaranteed customer.
France can build now, and the Brits can pay and pay.
The only reason why it takes that long to build nuclear is because people who are terrified of the word radiation have been doing everything they can slow things down.
Only for people who think it is 2015, and that Francois Hollande is still president.
Link to a “Le Monde” article from January last year (in English) …
Sub-header : “At first, France planned to cut the share of nuclear power in its electricity production to 50% by 2025. Then, 2035. Now, the target looks set to be scrapped altogether.”
The “law” setting the 50% … not 10% ! … by 2025 “target” passed in 2015.
Emmanual Macron was (first) elected in 2017. Just two years later the “target” was reset to 2035, i.e. delayed by 10 years.
Here in France it is “now” considered impolite to bring up the “We’re going to reduce nuclear to 50% ! ! !” promises in front of EELV (“Les Verts”) voters / friends …
From that article :
France still “talks the talk” of reducing the share of nuclear, but they are very aware that reducing it to 50%, let alone 10%, is in the “très, très difficile” category.
Thanks to idiots who think that any increase in radiation means we are all going to die.
You’ve heard about bringing coal to Newcastle?
Australia’s first LNG import terminal nears completion amid deadlock with energy companies (msn.com)
If the idiotic and anti-development, anti-society, anti-human greenie agenda would get out the way…
… NSW has plenty of GAS for its own purposes and for export.
You mean, bringing GAS to Newcastle… that is what the article says.
Coal trains already constantly bring coal to Newcastle from up in the Hunter Valley…
… then ship it off to various destinations.
The article explains why China may have to move towards net zero. It briefly mentions why the U.S. does not need to move to net zero anytime soon: coal. The known recoverable coal in the U.S. is equivalent to 800 billion barrels of oil. The current U.S. oil production is about 30 million bpd. With total energy use stable over the last twenty years, the U.S. could use 40 Mbpd equivalent of coal for 50 years before exhausting the proven easily recoverable reserves. Any increase in energy prices, such as seen every single time wind or solar is added to a grid, would increase the amount of coal deemed recoverable.
30 years ago we had oil for another 30 years, at a lower production rate than today. Today however, we have oil for another 50-60 years. Same with natural gas.
Coal? Based on reserves another 100+ years. Reserves basically mean currently producing coal deposits. With ressources, that means coal actually existing, it would be more like another 2000 years. Coal btw. can be transformed into liquid fuels on a large scale.
No, it is not going to happen any time soon. Most of the time declining (or inexistent) production is more due to regulation than due to ending ressources.
If we are patient and give new technologies time to “mature” so that they can deliver reliable and affordable products, we may be able to reduce fossil fuel use but we will also see technology helping us to use these more efficiently with less pollution (like particulates). I have seen a huge improvement since the fifties in both petrol and diesel engines and expect them to continue – if allowed. The altenative is that we all go back to the stone age and living in caves once we have culled 99% of the world’s population.
I’m just a layman here, but with coal, is there some “new technology” that can extend the life of a coal mine the same way that you can with oil/gas? Is there some coal-equivalent of fraccing or pumping high-pressure salt water into an oil field?
I’m sure that those in the coal industry are working on just that. Of course they aren’t going to be talking about what they are working on. Industrial secrets and all that stuff.
Just using my imagination I can imagine things like more automation so that fewer people are needed.
Maybe better sensing technologies to find new deposits.
More efficient diggers that need less maintenance.
And so on.
Just saw something on the TV news tonight about a robot to do all the cooking at a fast food take out. Apparently, it can replace most of the former help that is being forced out of jobs in California by the new minimum wage set by Newsom.
At least you won’t have to tip the droids.
Is droid tipping like cow tipping? 🙂
At current consumption Canada has 200 years worth of natural gas and way more coal than that. We also have an army that could defend /1000th of our border and a Federal Government that thinks that energy is bad. Not sure how it is all going to play out.
The way things are going, the truckers protest over COVID restrictions will be just a picnic in the park compared to what the Canuks will do to their governments if they impose heating and travel restrictions for 7 months of the year Oct – Apr.
I think some of our Western politicians should swop places with people in our psychiatric hospitals and institutions because many of those there are far saner.
Watch out China might become very interested in that coal!
In the U.S., we have more military aged Chinese illegal immigrants than the size of Canada’s military.
Projection/prediction/computer modelling. This is what is called “The Science”. Never knowingly getting a prediction/projection right for over 50 years.
Sing us another one just like the other one sing us another one, do.
Some newer nuclear plants are much more efficient. Thorcon reactors have effectively infinite resources.
Oh look, another powerpoint reactor!
Ah but what if the theory of abiologic origin of petroleum is true and correct? If true then petroleum is being constantly generated deep in the mantle, and thus there is no basis for “peak oil” etc.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008RG000270
Paper title:Deep-seated abiogenic origin of petroleum: From geological assessment to physical theory
” Ah but what if “
What if energy could be produced by Unicorn farts?
No one has ever complained about the comfort of travel by magic carpet.
So you didn’t read the paper then? It presents evidence and a plausible theory of how this works. Your snark sounds like the knee jerk reaction of Climate Cult adherents dismissing evidence that CO2 is not the thermostat
The person who sounds like the climate alarmists, is you. Relying on computer models and laboratory experiments instead of data from the real world.
The whole notion of abiotic oil runs counter to everything that is known about geology and how planets form.
Basically, when the Earth first formed, it was molten from the surface to the core. While it was molten, everything heavy sank to the core, while all the light stuff rose to the surface. There is no methane in the mantle and core to rise to the surface as the theory of abiotic oil requires.
Gibberish! What about the many bodies in the solar system which are mostly comprised of hydrocarbons? No when the earth formed it was a pile of rubble. The molten state was the result of extremely energetic collisions. That is not the essence of the paper cited anyway. How the earth formed is irrelevant to the plausible chemical reactions and catalysis of the theory, backed up with evidence.
Of course there are more light elements in the outer solar system. The solar wind blew them out there while the planets were still forming.
As for the existence of lots of hydro-carbons on planets in the outer solar system, they all came after the planets cooled.
As to the theoretical chemical reactions, you can do almost anything in a laboratory. You need to demonstrate that your lab tests actually reflect the conditions in the mantle and core.
Finally, if abiotic oil had any basis in reality, we would have found some by now.
I am always amazed when someone shows me a graph where the slope is increasingly positive for the past but suddenly negative for the future. What amazes me is how they don’t learn from history.
There are estimates of thousands of years of energy available in methane hydrates. Maybe spending some work figuring out how to extract hydrates from the sea floor would be useful rather waste it on renewables that cannot work. You cannot make medical plastic products from wind or sun.
meh. irrelevant article because:
conservation efforts make sense regardless of fossil fuel stockpiles
nuclear makes sense regardless of fossil fuel stockpiles
rooftop solar makes sense regardless of fossil fuel stockpiles.
wind makes no sense regardless of fossil fuel stockpiles.
there obviously has to be some limit to fossil fuel reserves. let’s put off finding exactly how much as long as we can
Rooftop solar makes no sense, period.
On a per kilowatt basis, it’s way more expensive and less reliable than the massive solar farms.
nope. with a grid tied microinverter I can harvest 80% of my solar panel’s rated voltage.
So what, you will never harvest enough energy to actually make money, if it weren’t for the huge subsidies you are receiving.
Conservation only makes sense if the value of the energy being saved exceeds the cost of the conservation.
Cleaner, cheaper coal from Wyoming “According to Reuters, if approved, Wyoming could export more than five million tons of coal from the Powder River Basin each year to China.” I wonder how much more could be exported if exports were approved.
Back in ’07 when the last energy shortage hit there were several different types of
energy being explored. Fracking was the obvious winner but one type that got my
attention was Green Crude, which was a genetically modified algae that mimics
crude oil. It can be grown in ponds with a nutrient base such as sewage effluent.
They flew a large commercial jet around the country on fuel made from this algae..
At this point we just flush this waste down our rivers which is an enviro waste.
We can produce an oil type energy from this algae for many years in substantial amounts if we want to. Make ponds in the desert, fill with water and nutrient waste and add the algae. Skim
the algae and refine like crude oil.
The last time I looked some farmer got the patent and is not doing anything.
Turds can be turned into diamonds but it’s expensive shit.
Corn ethanol production cost 2-3 times that of gasoline the last I
checked ..I see our energy being an “all of the above” at some
point in time.
Pyrolysis has been around for some time. However, it isn’t economic because the cost of ‘cooking’ organic material can’t compete with that which Mother Nature has already cooked at no cost to us.
Not this nonsense again. These same people have been predicting the end of oil for decades,and they are still wrong.
The government makes it difficult to explore and drill for oil, and then they proclaim that the resulting drop in production proves we have hit peak oil
The end is near.
A barrel of water, using Hydrino® power, becomes the energy equivalent of 200 barrels of oil
– JE Ommang, Eng. Ex-Project Manager Topside Oil Well Engineering
Moderators, we have another salesman trying to pitch his snake oil. This guy’s pushing this sales pitch on just about every thread lately.
Absolutely NOTHING exists that uses mythical Hydrino® power.
And never will.
Two of the chief concerns in the latter half of the 19th century were the horse manure problem in cities and the dwindling supply of whale oil. Both problems solved by newer and better technology. Leave the oil and coal people alone and they will figure it out. Problem solved.
Humans will go net zero when either an asteroid or a nuclear war wipes us out.
The explanation of what the lines mean has been removed
This is because the In the original graph the blue area is a recommendation not a projection.
This is a deliberate misrepresentation .
I could call it fraud.
You nailed it!
The filled-in blue curve is not a projection of anything. It’s what “some scholars from climate institutes claim” China must do to save the world from the weather.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12182-017-0187-9
Why am I not surprised that the primary chart was misrepresented?
These peak oil guys range from scientifically ignorant to agenda driven agitators.
Hydrocarbon fuel supply trajectory is exercise in measuring reality colored and shaped by anticipated future colluded market and finance behavior…. good luck with that. Not enough parameters here to make hide nor hair of this.
Lets go to base estimates of US natural gas as a case in point.
https://energy.mit.edu/news/the-key-results-of-the-recently-published-mit-multi-disciplinary-study-the-future-of-natural- as/#:~:text=Between%202006%20and%202008%20the,shale%20resource%20at%20616%20Tcf.
“Between 2006 and 2008 the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) increased their estimate of the U.S. resource base by 551 Tcf, and explicitly estimated the size of the shale resource at 616 Tcf. Last year the EIA further upped its estimate of the U.S shale resource to 827 Tcf – this means shale gas now makes up 36% of all U.S. gas resources.”
In 2023 the world consumed approximate 13 Tcf per year of NG. If you set aside market factors, and you take the average of the 3 early resource base estimates. of US NG 551 Tcf, 616 Tct and 827 Tcf and divide by 2023 total global consumption, the US alone based on 2006 and 2008 estimates could provide the entire world in 2024 with NG for 53 years.
Try to find a current base reserve estimate for US NG…. good luck. If you found one post it.Brazil in 2009 was reported to have nearly the same Tcf base reserves of NG offshore in shallow water. Putin and climate change killed Brazil’s NG industry. Is it possible the US and Brazil could have supplied the world with NG for 106 years? Add Russia’s base reserve, Europe’s base reserve. Canada’s base reserve, Iran’s…. Africa’s, Mexico’s, Nigeria’s … etc. Texas alone is so full of gas it could power the globe forever LOL!