Above Photo: Teaser photo credit: Just Stop Oil activists walking up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square on Saturday 20 May 2023. (lisdare Hickson.
In this must watch Frankly, Nate illustrates how a reduction in the demand for gasoline will not – as commonly believed – result in a 1:1 reduction in the demand for oil. This is contrary to a widespread perception, which much growth in the Electric Vehicle industry has been based on, about the correlation between a decline in gasoline usage resulting in an overall decline in oil production and CO2 emissions. While a significant portion of oil refining results in gasoline, we need to be aware of modern civilization’s deep dependencies on the remaining products that all come from the same barrel of oil. Only then can we understand and plan for feasible pathways to reducing oil production and consumption within the confines of a growth-dependent complex adaptive system. How can movements such as Just Stop Oil better reflect the reality of the current oil production system and our economy?
Stay tuned next week when Nate shares 7 potential paths to a less oil-dependent future.
A special thank you to Joris van der Schot, John Rowan, Robert Rapier, and Art Berman for helpful input on this video.
Show Notes
01:13 – What is oil, we use over 30 billion barrels per year
01:40 – Products from a barrel of oil
02:30 – Gasoline is 40% of a barrel of oil, what makes up a barrel of oil
03:07 – Oil refining is a sequential process
04:33 – Catcrackers, Hydrocrackers, lack of refinery investment
06:08 – China scaling EV’s for air pollution mitigation
06:44 – Just Stop Oil
07:50 – Klaus Schwab