I have said it before but I feel compelled to say it again : very often the ensuing commentary after a TGS podcast is as enlightening as the podcast itself. I am grateful that we all have this intellectual "crucible". Many thanks, Nate!
Thanks Nate. I think you know you are going to get a lot of stick for this. I was laughing most of the time, semi admiring the ability of Mr. Tinker to transmute the pending crises into an energy bonanza. Having listened to Mr. Tinkers expertise on energy opened a real glimpse into how far this industry is still away to acknowledge the need for real change. Stay sane all
Yeah, well put. I really appreciate the insight that specialists like this provide into the processes our current system depends on, but he doesn't appear to be remotely concerned about the things that motivate Nate (and his audience).
I think this speaker is so steeped in the privilege of his white, male, developed world perspective that "lack" is just not something his generation ever needed to consider. Sort of like the cod fishery in Eastern Canada - scientists over estimated the population and destroyed the supply and the lives of the people relying on that supply. This speaker is the equivalent of those failed cod fish scientists.
The reserve curve, he said, is uphill and to the right. Candide living in the best of all possible (whilst capitalist) worlds. Nice try, Nate, framing your questions with the assertion that we know oil and gas resources are “finite”.
Nate I applaud you for listening so well while clearly having differences in understanding from your guest. You’re a rare bear for having a speaker on your show who brings such opposing views in some respects to your own and you did great offering up your own voice and questions with giving him respect. Again, nice work and thank you for another great episode.
I'm only about 20 minutes in so far but I just want to say I love it when you have guests on who challenge your perspectives. It helps me get out of my bubble.
I'm back after finishing. Great episode, really interesting conversation. I'd love to hear him and Art Berman go at it specifically about the future availability of oil and gas, that would be fascinating. He's overly sanguine about climate change in my opinion, it's quite clear at this point the IPCC reports have been too conservative, but his point about inequity leading to instability is well taken.
Blind optimism is akin to arrogance but maybe a little softer around the edges. The data is bleak to say the least. If we want to feel hope we should be doing things to save ourselves, some are, but the majority are not going to do anything. Real Greek Tragedy hours
I dont really see his optimism as "blind". perhaps a little myopic and tunnel vision. but its focused. in the end most people have a job to do, its both a luxury and a duty. tinker seems like he has a job to do, and his optimism is part of his toolbox.
I love Scott Tinker as a human being, teacher and wise person. His optimism is based on the idea that human ingenuity and technology is the answer if we can just get together with open minds and a creative spirit and manufacture machinery that will solve our problems. What I find notably missing from this discussion is the fact that life is not a machine and that life is a non-linear interconnected web of life that the human global population is unraveling. The fundamental problem is not necessarily our consumption of energy but our relationship to all life on planet Earth. You can build any clever machine that you want and generate energy in any form you want and maybe kick the ball down the alley a while longer, but if this activity in the end does not honor the living planet and the beautiful web of life that is our origin and sustains us, the Earth will have the final say on human survival.
I agree - well said. There seems to be a disconnection to the reality of the likely/ potential long-term impacts of business as usual/ fossil fuel burning as usual. Tinker didn't seem to think living beyond planetary boundaries is problematic. Education is not that helpful when lobbyists and think tanks are influencing decision makers who rely on funds to maintain their power base. Which think tank does Tinker belong to I wonder?
"The fundamental problem is not necessarily our consumption of energy but our relationship to all life on planet Earth." If you can provide a clever machine that will provide the same energy without the problems then I can most definitely assure you the problem of climate change will disappear and will restore the living planet, I get what you mean but fundamentally it is how and the fact we do consume this energy.
A nice post. I'd love for Nate to sit down with Scott and discuss the meaning crisis, as he did a few weeks back. I think that there is something fundamentally missing from Scott's analysis.
1:04:00 Rich countries have the cleanest air, soils, etc. because they've outsourced their pollution-generating production to poor countries, so accelerating "these poorer economies into that kind of wealth, to a point where they can afford to clean up their environments" means that they will find yet poorer places to which they'll outsource the same.
Yes, greenwashing is happening but that is not the major reason… think man, don’t stay tribal. When a society is richer they can afford to spend money on cleaner processes. I suggest you travel the third world more with open eyes.
There is a subtle suggestion by the host that the so called 'poorer countries' should not be allowed to be energy abundant so that the 'rich world' would continue to enjoy abundance to save the climate. That is an abominable thing to even think.
Considering our historical human "track record" to date, particularly over just the last 200 years, I feel fairly confident in saying that humans have been neither respectful of the Earth nor kind to each other during those two centuries. To expect that that dynamic will change for the better in the future is Pollyanna-ish in the extreme. The huge disparities in opportunity and viability that already exist within and between counties all over the world is a glaring reflection of our innate human tendencies. They do not bode well for the future of most of us.
This interview reminded me that humanity is in the mother of all technology traps. Mr. Tinker is right that more energy would be needed to lift the poor out of poverty and give them a chance at a life even a fraction as materially rich as many of us in the west take for granted. And I suspect he is also correct that we can use our tech to make it happen, if we muster the will and work together. But as we on this channel know well, humanity cannot simply mow the earth and extract her energy without exponentially magnifying the already-grave ecological consequences of doing so. I have a lot of time for discussions about how we can gracefully decline from 8.4 billion people to some lower number that is manageable without courting catastrophe. But frankly (hi Frank), I have not seen a compelling argument that this is possible, let alone likely. On the contrary, it seems that people are getting more fractious and tribal, not less, as resource constraints and climate change start to nibble. I'm sad to say my base case for the next 100 years (quite possibly much shorter) is further overshoot followed by collapse: the basic dynamic Malthus catalogued in so many other areas of life on earth. To quote another TGS guest in her advice for young humans: gird your loins.
Thank you Nate : it was a great conversation. The big question is not when the peak oil will occur. We know it will occur. The big question is WHY. Why we do not prepare ourselves to live in a world with less oil and gas and coal ? Above all, we know that, due to the emissions of CO2 caused by those fossil fuels, we have to reduce this consumption. Surely, the big organism is resisting ! We have to keep on the fight. Your podcast is bringing a great contribution to this fight. Thank you again.
If you want to "prepare ourselves to live in a world with less oil and gas and coal," you are going to have to adopt a much reduced lifestyle. In fact, it will likely revert to a quasi-medieval lifestyle. And yes, there will be robber barons.
20 mins in, I feel a chill, no mention of cultural destruction, war, removal of humans and genocide, life is a blank slate and a graph by any means necessary.
The last paragraph from Scott, is a truth, but if in a circumstance the war on nature and the citizen wasn’t a thought, another countries poverty is from the removal of resources and the introduction of an economy. Take away food, water, shelter and each others safety in groups, get them to fight over each other, then begin harping on about a democracy because the family of values was removed. It takes time and history to do both. Apparently humility is all the rage, getting ahead just means theft of somebody else’s future. The western failure of anxiety, depression and sickness, is a sick culture that removed the land to flatten it, poison the well and remove its vitality, proteins, soil, trees and burn down its culture. Children don’t have an opinion on race, they are taught it by our fear of differences, fear of language and politics with a childhood fear of bullies with needles. Common theme, ‘this is for your own good’. Childhood trauma is real.
Born in Pittsburgh 1952. Education included history of oil coal steel aluminum and glass. Assumed this was standard education across most of America. Today finding the majority of our friends, all very well off, have no idea how hydrocarbons came into existence. No idea of the very short history of flammable fossils relationship with civilization. One in particular is a chemical engineer!
Yup, raised in 1950's in the Marcellus Shale area, we were well grounded in the extractive industries and experienced the degradations daily out on the farm. When you live close to the earth, you see/feel/hear/smell/taste the changes.
@allonesame6467 agreed! In addition we pittsburghers in particular learned that the coal and oil so not last forever. Gulf Oil was setup by the Mellon banking family. Gulf is no longer a player. US Steel created first billionaire. US Steel is for sale. The plentiful coal in the region is long gone leaving ground subsidence and perpetual flows of polluted water into the streams and rivers. The year I was born a weather inversion killed many folks living in the valley where the mills were. Drake's well, 1st commercial oil well in the world is a minor attraction little visited today. Interesting fact is almost all of PA was forest . Pennsylvania means Penn's woods. The state was brutally clear cutted in the past. Today almost all of the forest has grown back unlike the remnants of ancient sunlight we burn today
Nate, having Scot on with his views which contrast yours just shows what a brave person, balanced thinker, open minded, and open hearted person you are. We need all the voices to be able to see what the possibilities are regardless of how likely or realistic those opinions are. We have no agenda, we seek solutions, but we have to have contingency plans. We can't just bury our heads in the sands of optimistic thinking.
Climate and nature doesn’t respond to hope. It does what it does regardless. Hope can only be found in what humans actually do or actions that actually have the potential to bring about change or find ways to adapt. Playing down the difficulty of our predicament, because it’s more hopeful to do so, helps no-one in the long-term.
Today's guest seams rather glib about carbon in the atmosphere. Maybe he is just resigned to our fate. I suspect Dr. Tinker believes running out of cheap oil is a bigger threat for political unrest than climate change. I can feel you biting your tongue Nate. Take care of yourself Nate. We need your humanity.
@@GuyIncognito764 I do appreciate the fact that Nate so calmly challenged Mr Tinker. Mr Tinker (perfect name) early on stated he saw no end to energy availability. Only three minutes later he explains that he mostly discovered salty water and that where deposits were cooked into hydrocarbons is rare! Cognitive dissonance defined. When you have no idea how much of a life sustaining substance is available you do not use it as if it flowed eternally.
I listen to the entire podcast and his optimism is entirely misguided. A world in which we don't hit peak oil soon is in fact even more dystopian than in a world in which we do. You either start gardening and leveraging the energy resources that you have right now or you and your progeny will not make it. I regret to inform you that roughly half of us will not. That's a huge bummer. You probably ought to start getting to work. You can't podcast your way out of this. You can garden your way out of this but you can't podcast your way out of this.
I listened to the whole thing and I'm still at %90 cringe because this happy dreamy attitude just promotes business as usual which is already dystopian this is someone who is enjoying dystopia and cannot recognize the reality of the situation some forms of denial or repression or avoidance coping avoiding things that are fearful does not lead you to the truth it leads you into delusion
Whilst this conversation seemed narrow bound when holistically considering worldly problems, it was good to see a respectful conversation between people who have points of disagreement. A rare find in the world of echo chambers!
What a great conversation, showing how important it is for us to listen to each other even when we don't always agree. I'm not as hopeful as Scott is, but he has given me new food for thought. Thanks Nate, as always, for your work.
33min in ... I suspect that Scott's view on climate / planetary boundaries is going to be dismissive. I don't see how his apparent world view is going to allow for limits.
Haha. Dude’s gotta be able to ship his horses internationally for racing, dressage, or polo. ✈️ Not sure why I pick on shipping horses. I love horses. 🐎
@@ReesCatOphulsIf wanting to preserve the conditions in which live has thrived, as much as possible, in as many places as possible, is ideological - I own up to that ideology.
One interview upends a lifetime of work. How come none of us discovered that technology will overcome limits to growth, and that climate change is no big deal. Shame on us.
Great guest, I love his can do attitude & a very informative discussion. I would say at the same time it definitely highlights the need for interdisciplinary discussion & understanding: Scott though an excellent energy analyst doesn't seem to be aware quite just how severe the ecological crisis is & that feedback loops in the earth system may completely steamroll the human economy over coming decades. Multi-metre sea level rise, heat domes, category 6 hurricanes, mega droughts etc. These are likely to render agriculture impossible across most of the planet & in many places is likely to render vast areas uninhabitable for our species and generally wipe out most of the planet's biodiversity. I should add I very much do not want this to happen of course, just that if we blithely continue to burn hydrocarbons for the next 20 years we all but guarantee it & 'AI' will mean nothing if we've all starved or died of heat stroke. Its vital to be aware of the role of energy & what it does for us but we also need to acknowledge the existentially challenging ecological context.
feels like we are basically relying on the miracle of creating an actual AI that can solve the climate crisis & exacerbating the crisis to get there. 🤞
The data from the US Dept of Energy, energy analysts, and the oil industry itself: Global production of crude oil has declined since 2018, US crude oil production is declining at 42% a year, global crude oil production is declining at 15% a year. That has to be replaced with increasing discovery and drilling of crude oil. Unfortunately the volume of new crude oil discoveries is around 10% of current oil cunsumption. Crude oil supplies about 1/3 of global energy, natural gas and crude oil, petroleum, supplies about 60% of global energy. Electricity supplies about 20% of global energy. It is a matter of when the decline impacts not if. The cost of energy has tight limits, so it is a matter of economic depletion not absolute depletion. When the cost of supply and delivery is more than the value of the energy or the ability to pay. Supply will meet the demand that has the ability to pay. Who will have the abiliy to pay?.
He says that many young people fear we only have 15 years left. He says that’s ridiculous. But he could very well be wrong - if we consider the increasing likelihood of nuclear war.
1:16:00 The table is blank where confidence could not be proven, which is different to saying that there is a low likelihood of it happening. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, Professor Tinker
Nate, I appreciate you let Scott express his views freely without challenging the weak points in his arguments. I caught myself biting my own tongue many times. It definitely sounds like his work with students is bringing light into the world. Moving towards the messy, radical middle is where the potential for positive change lies. Unfortunately, the power-drunk alphas rarely have interest in sharing power with the majority. In fact, they seem to enjoy dominating and inflicting pain on the weakest among us. Victor Frankyl rightly identified the real positive placebo effect of doing something personally meaningful in the face of power-mad-induced social collapse.
This is probably one of the best conversations I’ve viewed/listened to for a while, it was collapse survivable communities apocaloptomist Nate Hagens versus utopian optomistical hopiumist Scott Tinker. I note this conversation was recorded on October 30th, 2024, why wasn’t it released much earlier, as I’ve a feeling Nate you’ve probably had a conversation, maybe even given a preview to Art Berman, which would explain why Art Berman has done a U-turn on his previous views, I’m referring : Jan 18, 2025 - “Climate Fatigue: Why the Story of Saving the Planet Isn’t Selling”, and, Jan 21, 2025 - “Lazy Thinking: How Memes Get Oil All Wrong”. But moving on, Nuclear to paraphrase Tinker, we could have pop-up Nuclear Power Plants (NPP’s), and Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR’s) all over the place, yea at the bottom of the street, hey maybe your own personal SMR in the garage. Yes we’ve nuclear propelled marine craft, but they use military grade uranium, but that’s not a problem because they’re owned by governments with a military presence, so security’s not a problem, also I believe Uranium is in limited supply and the processing in the case of USA has been done in Russia. Then there’s the question of disposal of the toxic radioactive waste, USA hasn’t even got a deep geological repository. To think NPP’s could be allowed to be proliferated and waste handled by private companies is asinine. Petrochemical and Plastic waste, recently read Liam Foxes “The Coming Storm” I’m afraid, unlike the impression Tinker gave US has far from cleaned up it’s act, it also has a serious and looming water problem, drought and pollution. Also if US re-shores its mining and key industries that are at presently polluting other countries, mostly in the Global South, the US will have a lot of environmental problems back home that it had previously exported. Humanity is by no means heading into a glorious future, I’m afraid this conversation raised more questions than answers Nate🤔
He sounds like a really good guy, but the optimism around the climate sounds insane to me. I dont care what the IPCC says, I have eyes and I can feel the heat worsening. I dont know how many more consecutive years of warming we can take.
Hi Nate and listener;s,I think this was an excellent program it requierd all my stamina to listen till the end ....but even that I do not agree with a good bit of his argument but the most importatnt bit is to listen, to think, and then be able to give credit to the contributer for the chalanges he brought to your "normal views" we need this discussions to find the right path Thank's to Scott and Nate for a very thought provoking Podcast
So many layers to the issues we face. Fundamentally agree that massive opportunites exist and this channel is proof that no matter which side of the energy solutions divide you live on, we care pretty much about the same things. How to achieve a desirable outcome and what realistic/equitable solutions even look like are the questions. The wealth inequalities are both potential flashpoints and opportuinities for cooperation. Whether that's living conditions, developed world vs developing. Or resource wealth developing vs developed. Another good episode! Much food for thought.
Another beautiful morning here in snowy Canada. In part thanks to your thought provoking podcast. After listening to the entire podcast I implore those who disagree with Scott to listen to the end. There is deeper truth in the things we agree upon, than the "facts" that are in dispute.
I really enjoyed this conversation, equally for the point-counter point and the wary decorum evinced by both participants. Thank you Nate! The substance of Mr. Tinker's arguments seem to echo those of Vaclav Smil - see The Way the World Works. Smil's conclusions however are not contaminated by either the techno-determinism or the optimism that apparently keep Mr. Tinker energized and hopeful. I do agree with Tinker that any energy future has to be an all options future - it is simply unrealistic and foolish to put all eggs in one basket. I objected most to his cherry picking of a single chart from the AR6 IPCC report to argue that in fact climate chaos is farther off than the alarmist voices would have it. Tinker derides climate scientists for playing fast and loose on the terrain of energy experts - and then wants us to entertain his unique petro-geologist's interpretation of AR6? Unbelievable! Nate, you let him off the hook there. Notably, he had little to say about natural systems and the limits imposed by carrying capacity. Instead he returned repeatedly to Accelerationism - an argument that suggests that cornucopia awaits humanity if only we can lift everyone everywhere up to the lifestyles of the developed world. I agree with Nate, that way lies disaster. Largely absent was any notice of how capitalism and its energy-tied-to growth addiction requires a periphery from which surplus can be scraped and exploited. Near the end, in a final plea for acceleration, Tinker does remark with some alarm how the widening gulf between rich and poor might lead to revolution. Perhaps Tinker really does think that petro-capitalists and their shareholders are concerned about improving lives in NIgeria, in Vietnam, in Ecuador. My money is on revolution.
What an amazing discussion. I love listening and learning through knowledgeable, civil and constructive debate. I have to paraphrase something I heard on another pod cast that describes what Nate and Scott brought to us today. No one changes anyone’s mind about something that matters to them by telling them why they’re right or wrong. The only thing that works is for both to listen, ask questions and entertain one another’s reality. If all are being honest, in one way or another, there will be a shift in how each feel about the others issue. With that in mind we will begin to solve real problems
The guest does have a blind spot on ecology. He is hyper focused on climate. He also seems to have a blind spot on the nonlinearity of climate change. Surprising from a scientist.
@@gmh953 Fair perhaps but while you point out your dislikes perhaps consider what he brings to the conversation being not like minded as you may prefer. We aren't educating ourselves by listening only to speakers whose message we endorse wholeheartedly. While challenging, it's how we grow. This is more baker kneading dough, less information silo. Thank you for answering.
Nate, the one important area in your discussion with your energy guest that wasn't touched on in my opinion, is not just the issue of affordable energy available to those in less developed countries, but what the total impact from all the additional products and services that will undoubtedly be produced from the additional energy used...post-end products that aren't recycled or sadly not recyclable. We have a serious issue of plastic waste from our oil derived materials that is affecting ever aspect of our lives...the air, the oceans, the surface water, everywhere, including nano plastics residing in our bodies, and that doesn't even begin to touch on the massive landfills needed to handle oil related manufactured waste...many sites located near our most important water resources as in the case of the privately managed landfill in Superior, WI located less than a mile away from Lake Superior. Your energy guest centers on the production side, but the consumption side was almost completely ignored.
When you falsely believe both energy and investment have no real limits, EROEI is irrelevant. The laws of thermodynamics beg to differ. I hope he lives long enough to find that out firsthand.
Well, I give him props for coming on to what he knows will be a venue where his views will be challenged. Too bad his narrow, short term focus and lack of systems thinking prevent him from seeing all the implications of BAU energy and material consumption. Even if some techno deus ex machina did pop up to keep pumping, the resulting continued impact on the biosphere would end things all the quicker. Nate, it was worth having him on, just to get a current confirmation of mainstream energy industry mindset. WASF.
I think Nate knows that Scott is talking out his ass about alternative energy technologies for transport and traction. I think Nate can also instruct Scott on the resource obstacels to electrification
Thank you for this - great discussion. I've followed peak oil for years and have been aware of nuclear (and the costs!) I don't know. Human beings are curious, innovative, in many cases brilliant, and can kicking. I personally appreciate some optimism and I do think he's also grounded in facts. Good point about how energy scientists and climate scientists have a different set of knowledge. I'm in the US and believe our Empire is declining, case in point that we're so mired in red tape that we can't keep up with the Chinese and Russians on nuclear innovations. We'll see...
I liked the discussion, and the guest. He seems to understand the reality of things...even if many of us wish they were not reality. His argument that we will only switch to things that are better, for instance, is reality. I would love humanity to decide we will live just fine only using 25% of the energy we currently use, but I do not think that is realistic as long as we could live better with 100% or 150% of energy consumption. I feel we will have to be forced down by something we cannot control. Not sure what that is.
I think Mr Tinker is a born optimist. As a pessimist/realist I envy him in a way because optimists do seem to be happier people. But you are what you are.
I love the opening snippet. If I were to write a book it would be titled "Containers and Conveyance". The human propensity to have stuff and move it around (including ourselves) seems to be the story of civilization. Everything is containerized. Our bodies are containers as are homes, ships, cars etc. You have bags, jars, baskets. Conveyances can be containers like pipes and the aforementioned vehicles as well as bank accounts. Ah, the wheel and the horse. If humans were to stop containerizing and conveying things (other than what we might personally haul) we might return to the roots of existence on the plane of other creatures with whom me might then be at a relative peace.
This was a great interview. Thank you Nate for keeping it together. You were masterful. It's refreshing to hear a level-headed and kind perspective from what I would call "big" energy. This was helpful for me in my efforts to design and educate alternative energy and ecological perspectives.
Very interesting to hear this point-of-view. Mr. Tinker said that we've only tapped about 5% of the possible shale rock in the US, so he does not concede a decline in US fossil fuel output over the coming few decades. That, to me, seems to put him at direct odds with Art Berman. Both are geologists who worked in the oil industry. Who is a layman to believe?
There are tiny molecules contains oil in the rock in the ground. W current technology we can access about 5-10% of the molecules at a profit. Since they’re so small and isolated it’s unlikely we’ll ever get more than that. But even tech that extracts 7% instead of 5% is a huge amount of resource
What an informative conversation and mature... the energy density and metal requirements of EV's, solar and batteries are paving the way to the insight that we need to shift to a low consumption lifestyle and economic growth can no longer be the policy of all governments.... because of the reality of the physics around energy density. This is the key missing part in the transition narrative from governments... it's acutely liberating because if we raise the populations energy IQ and people understand this is not political but basic physics it's possible there might be a way of bending not breaking as society navigates the transition off carbon based energy sources.
You’re more optimistic than I am about raising the energy IQ of the masses. Far too many people refuse to accept the science of climate change as it is, regardless of the arguments and data presented to them. And too many are willing to accept conspiracy theories.
Nate, very interesting conversation, especially the beginning where he describes human civilization and human beings is moving stuff around as fundamental to who we are. Perhaps that’s where lies the problem. Perhaps the next stage of energy is using the opportunity created by the reservoir of carbon dioxide in the air to stop moving people around and reconnect with the planet and think about that reservoir of carbon dioxide is being transferred not carbon sequestration technology, but through human beings, staying put and creating life in the form of communities, which work with animals and plants to create more topsoil to overtime begin to restart the system back from the beginning maybe that’s our destiny right now and the technology that we’re going to use is not a technology which will enable us extract more oil, but which will enable us to evolve consciously through coming together and overcoming our superficial differences and our separation from place in life to reconnect with one another to find purpose in one another and healing and reconnection to place and time keep up the good work
Tell Scott that 2024 set a new world record for the amount of coal ever burned. It broke the record set in 2023, which broke the record set in 2022. Scott is simply wrong about the burning of gas outpacing the burning of coal. Coal is still the largest single source of fossilfuel energy Also, Scott is telling untruth when he says rising oil prices will call some new technology into being, for accessing some other energy resource - That is the groundless assertion
greatly reassured by the comments from Nate's audience that at least in this tiny fringe milieu no one is susceptible to this flimsy rhetoric of techno-religiosity (with its (unnerving) nervous chuckles)
Surprisingly interesting and somewhat unsettling. I like his optimism and his acknowledgement that nuclear is probably where we'll end up if things don't get too effed up. He did seem pretty ignorant of biophysical limits, biodiversity loss, etc. but he had some good points to consider.
Very good discussion. One thing that was not mentioned is that the materials in the solar panels and batteries can be recycled. Yes, the first time around requires us to get the materials out of the ground, but then over 90% can be recovered on each cycle. This still requires a lot of mining but less than what Dr. Tinker suggested.
I'm older (so it's not just the younger people who might not recall Three Mile Island or Chernobyl or even Fukushima.) The only chance we have is to build out nuclear power and hopefully selecting some of the newer concepts that are intrinsically safe.
Prof. Tinker is an Enneagram type 7, an unabashed optimist. There aren't many Enneagram type 7s engaged with addressing climate collapse, cuz it's just too heavy for them. When they do engage it's on the periphery where they can do something hopeful and fun. What's more fun than abundant energy!
Well, I guess it's good to know what these people are thinking even if they're totally disconnected from the consequences of their actions and a wider lense. Thank you Nate
I believe too much effort is spent on the premise that people do not understand what continuing to burn energy like we do will result in. I think most people know, but do not care. People are people.
Brilliant Nate and Scott. One thing I will focus on - Scott said remove the constraints, and that doesn't work for me. There are constraints that are absolutely required, and most constraints are very context dependent. Rather than "remove the constraints", I would say what is needed is a willingness to deeply examine the constraints and assumptions present, and be prepared to test and re-evaluate their relevance in historical contexts, and in present and probable future contexts. And the more we can do that probabilistically, and the better the tool-sets we have to map, display and share those things, the greater the likelihood of us having a future that is both secure and interesting and that develops reasonable balances between security and freedom and acknowledges the deep need for both cooperation and responsibility. The systems definition of life I now find most useful: life is systems capable of searching the space of possible systems for the survivable; has those two key elements "search" and "survival", and there are necessary tensions at boundaries in those, that demand the highest levels of individual responsibility. As evolved entities we have deeply evolved tendencies (necessarily) to simplify, to allow us to deal with the profound complexities actually present both within and around us. Seeing those tendencies for what they are, and not falling prey to any of the multiple levels of confirmation bias that those simplifications produce, to have us confuse our often "contextually useful approximations" as any sort of "globally applicable truth" is really hard. The tendency, at every level, is to drop back into certainty. And at higher levels of systems (our conscious levels) the "search" aspect of life is about the freedom to search, not simply the known, but also the known unknown and the unknown unknown; and the risk profiles and constraints and strategies appropriate are very different in each of those domains. Our educational and social systems tend to focus on the domain of the known (for goof reasons), but the solutions to known issues often lie in the other domains, and they will always involve actions beyond exist structures (legal, economic, ethical, political, social) by definition, and that will be hard - that is, by definition, beyond the set of known constraints. So yes, we need to search beyond known constraints, and that demands awareness of known constraints, and awareness of known strategic and systemic responses to risk, and the highest levels of responsibility. I am clear that our current economic legal and political systems are no longer fit for purpose in the context we have created, and they are far more complex, with far more sets of necessary constraints, than most people are aware of; so there is nothing even remotely simple about generating the necessary sets of reforms, and it is what survival demands of us (and always has done, throughout history, if one put an appropriate set of systems lens to the study of history). The simple notion that evolution is all about competition and power, is a gross and terminal oversimplification of something necessarily deeply more complex, fundamentally cooperative, and fundamentally respectful of diversity. Like Scott I am cautiously optimistic that the future can still be better than most imagine possible, and all the risks that Nate is speaking of are real, and many more besides. Survivable futures, survivable systems, have to incorporate all of this complexity, have to be based in cooperation and freedom and responsibility and uncertainty. Any level of over simplification will fail. Like Scott, I think we have to step up and part of the leadership that takes us to the survivable, those currently trapped in any level of over simplification cannot do so, by definition. And none of this is easy, and it cannot be just the young. As Scott noted, most of human knowledge is not captured in words, it is embodied in our being. Words help us communicate that which can be communicated, and we all, each and every one of us, embody orders of magnitude more knowledge than we can convey in any set of words - the evidence in the literature for that assertion is overwhelming. So yes, keep up the good work, and be the change, at every level of system and structure you are willing and able, family, community, politically, intellectually, technologically - whatever it is that works for you. I love many of Scott's comments and perhaps most particularly about 1:33:10 - "not just completely factual but factually complete", each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities, and each time targeted to what seems most probably to be the context most available to our listeners, and most relevant to our survival long-term.
I haven't finished yet, but around 26min he's trying to equate technology with energy. They're not the same thing. Technology REQUIRES energy. There is no better "thing" than hydrocarbons that we know of (or are allowed to know of). Anyway, just had to itch that scratch. I look forward to the rest of the conversation. Thanks for uploading the chat.
It's intriguing to hear an oil spokesman cite the national security concerns of Chinese predominance in materials and manufacturing of renewables technologies. As if the oil grades that the USA actually USES aren't almost entirely from foreign sources. Fracking has made the US NET oil trade nearly balanced, but we've not escaped national security concerns with supply.
47:00 The hindenburg was actually filled with hydrogen, and the disaster led to some stigma that certainly slowed development in hydrogen fuels. It's worth noting that liquid hydrogen has an energy density of aroung 120 MJ/kg, almost three times more than diesel or gasoline, though obviously handling and storage is more tricky.
Personally, I found this interview painful straight out of the gate. Mr. Tinker’s spin and bias seemed obvious very early on and at the risk of potentially learning something new and
Personally, I found this interview painful straight out of the gate. Mr. Tinker’s spin and bias seemed obvious very early on and at the risk of missing out on potentially learning something new, I’m going to skip finishing this one. Thanks Nate.
I didn't know this guy before I found this video. Thank you Nate for giving him a spot in your channel. This is a great discussion as Mr. Tinker explains, in clear layman terms, so many important aspects and details of how and what is drilled and why we use hydrocarbons compared to any alternative. I have been involved a little in the shale stuff... Tinker's metaphor of "farming" shale plays is fantastic. Second comment: Peak oil is all about our (perhaps arrogant) assumptions of human population size and growth. If we manage a downward population curve in a humane manner, peak oil becomes far less meaningful. If we go full steam business as usual, the notion of what is humane will become absurd.
The fastest way to reduce our consumption of oil would be to replace personally owned vehicles with community owned fleets of EVs for ride sharing. The batteries should be bidirectional so they can provide backup power when the grid is down. The prices of solar panels and batteries should include the cost of recycling the materials. A global carbon tax would help, too.
🤣😂🤣😂 Humanity is well and truly F&%ed, it just hasn’t realised it yet, but you know what I’m really sad for it’s all the other earthlings we share this planet with that we are sacrificing on our way to a 17th century lifestyle and eventual extinction 👉 ua-cam.com/video/KtQG9EiDr9k/v-deo.htmlsi=oZH3Wg2fn7z9pWGD 🤔
"private sector pays for"... well, they do get billions in subsidies from the US government. btw i always like the interviews w/people who have worked in the fossil fuel industry since they have a different perspective and bring different details forward.
Dr Tinker, we don't have opinions about burning fossil fuels and using them throughout society, "We follow the science", how about you? Invite this fellow back Nate, I fully support you inviting him. Thanks
There is another thing that Dr. Tinker didn't mention. The improvements in technology (at least up to now) allow us to pump more oil but at a higher cost. There is nothing cheaper than just punching a hole and letting the pressure push the oil up. The next step is to pump the oil up. Next is fracking the tight oil. Each is more expensive than the last. There is no guarantee that the next technology will not be even more expensive. We really do need to get off of oil and on to the next thing before the costs kill us (not to mention the climate).
This is key. He said here in the US, we’ve only gotten about 5 to 10 percent of the total amount. Did I understand that correctly? How will that impact the cost of extraction?
The only way it will stay there is when it is too expensive to extract. My guess is deep geothermal energy might be the one technology that could achieve that globally. If you can actually drill one well and get a century of electricity for pumping fluid in a loop that will make ff too expensive.
@DanA-nl5uo My guess is the problem with most forms of energy like that is the lack of portability. Nate has past guests that have addressed that issue. We will likely have to generate power locally and avoid long transmission lines. Do people want to build cities next to geothermal stations...or next to hydropower plants....or next to wind or solar? That is a harder sell. It is how things used to be. We would settle where there was water and the ability to run mills.
@@SteveBoyington-i1e deep geothermal wells can in theory be drilled next to all the power plants with steam turbines today and simply change the plumbing for the steam source. Nuclear power plants coal power plants or natural gas can all in theory be modified to accept steam from deep geothermal wells. The drilling technology is in the R&D phase combination of laser technology and ultra sonic is what I have read about. There new a couple of prototype sites but it is my understanding they need to do more work on drilling deeper it was a while ago I read about it I forgot how close they got already.
We do not get educated about food. Not about how it's produced, processed, transported, traded, not unless you're in Future farmers of America in high school. What he's talking about in terms of education about food would be the equivalent of knowing what octane gas to put in your car.
I'm sorry Scott, 6:50 But that expense for all of our energy doesn't account for the energy requirements of the physical process to bring the energy to market and the energy consumed is uncorrelated to the cost. You make no account through your entire model of the Economy, your views lack a foundation/basis in reality.
10:41 The sediments entered the metabolism of the biosphere a few billion years ago. There haven't been sediments since. We have consumed 1/2+ the absolute capital base of fossil Oil, it's still all there in the atmosphere. We could capture it, turn it into Oil, that would be a sunlight battery. Sunlight, the low entropy, the power unvalued in the global economy.
I have said it before but I feel compelled to say it again : very often the ensuing commentary after a TGS podcast is as enlightening as the podcast itself. I am grateful that we all have this intellectual "crucible". Many thanks, Nate!
Thanks Nate. I think you know you are going to get a lot of stick for this. I was laughing most of the time, semi admiring the ability of Mr. Tinker to transmute the pending crises into an energy bonanza.
Having listened to Mr. Tinkers expertise on energy opened a real glimpse into how far this industry is still away to acknowledge the need for real change.
Stay sane all
Yeah, well put. I really appreciate the insight that specialists like this provide into the processes our current system depends on, but he doesn't appear to be remotely concerned about the things that motivate Nate (and his audience).
I think this speaker is so steeped in the privilege of his white, male, developed world perspective that "lack" is just not something his generation ever needed to consider. Sort of like the cod fishery in Eastern Canada - scientists over estimated the population and destroyed the supply and the lives of the people relying on that supply. This speaker is the equivalent of those failed cod fish scientists.
Listening to your guest’s optimism (and nervous laughter) I realize we’re doomed.
😂
Made me laugh. Thanks
The reserve curve, he said, is uphill and to the right. Candide living in the best of all possible (whilst capitalist) worlds. Nice try, Nate, framing your questions with the assertion that we know oil and gas resources are “finite”.
WASF
Get flip-flops! Ditch cars and limitless motion of a doomed lifestyle, yup.
Nate I applaud you for listening so well while clearly having differences in understanding from your guest. You’re a rare bear for having a speaker on your show who brings such opposing views in some respects to your own and you did great offering up your own voice and questions with giving him respect. Again, nice work and thank you for another great episode.
My sentiments exactly.
I'm only about 20 minutes in so far but I just want to say I love it when you have guests on who challenge your perspectives. It helps me get out of my bubble.
I'm back after finishing. Great episode, really interesting conversation. I'd love to hear him and Art Berman go at it specifically about the future availability of oil and gas, that would be fascinating. He's overly sanguine about climate change in my opinion, it's quite clear at this point the IPCC reports have been too conservative, but his point about inequity leading to instability is well taken.
I know that feeling hopeless does not help matters, but neither does blind optimism
But he’s so cheerful! 🎉
Blind optimism is akin to arrogance but maybe a little softer around the edges.
The data is bleak to say the least. If we want to feel hope we should be doing things to save ourselves, some are, but the majority are not going to do anything.
Real Greek Tragedy hours
he says "fear is corrosive" I say optimism is magnitudes more corrosive than fear
I dont really see his optimism as "blind". perhaps a little myopic and tunnel vision. but its focused. in the end most people have a job to do, its both a luxury and a duty. tinker seems like he has a job to do, and his optimism is part of his toolbox.
I love Scott Tinker as a human being, teacher and wise person. His optimism is based on the idea that human ingenuity and technology is the answer if we can just get together with open minds and a creative spirit and manufacture machinery that will solve our problems. What I find notably missing from this discussion is the fact that life is not a machine and that life is a non-linear interconnected web of life that the human global population is unraveling. The fundamental problem is not necessarily our consumption of energy but our relationship to all life on planet Earth. You can build any clever machine that you want and generate energy in any form you want and maybe kick the ball down the alley a while longer, but if this activity in the end does not honor the living planet and the beautiful web of life that is our origin and sustains us, the Earth will have the final say on human survival.
I agree - well said. There seems to be a disconnection to the reality of the likely/ potential long-term impacts of business as usual/ fossil fuel burning as usual. Tinker didn't seem to think living beyond planetary boundaries is problematic. Education is not that helpful when lobbyists and think tanks are influencing decision makers who rely on funds to maintain their power base. Which think tank does Tinker belong to I wonder?
Very well said, my friend. Exactly so.
"The fundamental problem is not necessarily our consumption of energy but our relationship to all life on planet Earth."
If you can provide a clever machine that will provide the same energy without the problems then I can most definitely assure you the problem of climate change will disappear and will restore the living planet, I get what you mean but fundamentally it is how and the fact we do consume this energy.
A nice post. I'd love for Nate to sit down with Scott and discuss the meaning crisis, as he did a few weeks back. I think that there is something fundamentally missing from Scott's analysis.
1:04:00 Rich countries have the cleanest air, soils, etc. because they've outsourced their pollution-generating production to poor countries, so accelerating "these poorer economies into that kind of wealth, to a point where they can afford to clean up their environments" means that they will find yet poorer places to which they'll outsource the same.
Yep. His inability to acknowledge this in any way was damning.
Capitalism is the worst drug in history.
Yes, greenwashing is happening but that is not the major reason… think man, don’t stay tribal. When a society is richer they can afford to spend money on cleaner processes. I suggest you travel the third world more with open eyes.
This episode was particularly challenging to listen to! A healthy challenge to my confirmation bias. Thank you!
I was thinking the same thing. It's unpleasant, but I'm getting through it. I'll be digging deeper into Scott's arguments/points.
The most challenging point: We have to make the whole world rich or we're doomed.
@@anthonytroia1 and here, we don't specify what 'rich' actually means
There is a subtle suggestion by the host that the so called 'poorer countries' should not be allowed to be energy abundant so that the 'rich world' would continue to enjoy abundance to save the climate.
That is an abominable thing to even think.
Considering our historical human "track record" to date, particularly over just the last 200 years, I feel fairly confident in saying that humans have been neither respectful of the Earth nor kind to each other during those two centuries. To expect that that dynamic will change for the better in the future is Pollyanna-ish in the extreme. The huge disparities in opportunity and viability that already exist within and between counties all over the world is a glaring reflection of our innate human tendencies. They do not bode well for the future of most of us.
This interview reminded me that humanity is in the mother of all technology traps. Mr. Tinker is right that more energy would be needed to lift the poor out of poverty and give them a chance at a life even a fraction as materially rich as many of us in the west take for granted. And I suspect he is also correct that we can use our tech to make it happen, if we muster the will and work together. But as we on this channel know well, humanity cannot simply mow the earth and extract her energy without exponentially magnifying the already-grave ecological consequences of doing so.
I have a lot of time for discussions about how we can gracefully decline from 8.4 billion people to some lower number that is manageable without courting catastrophe. But frankly (hi Frank), I have not seen a compelling argument that this is possible, let alone likely. On the contrary, it seems that people are getting more fractious and tribal, not less, as resource constraints and climate change start to nibble. I'm sad to say my base case for the next 100 years (quite possibly much shorter) is further overshoot followed by collapse: the basic dynamic Malthus catalogued in so many other areas of life on earth. To quote another TGS guest in her advice for young humans: gird your loins.
Thank you Nate : it was a great conversation.
The big question is not when the peak oil will occur. We know it will occur.
The big question is WHY.
Why we do not prepare ourselves to live in a world with less oil and gas and coal ? Above all, we know that, due to the emissions of CO2 caused by those fossil fuels, we have to reduce this consumption.
Surely, the big organism is resisting ! We have to keep on the fight. Your podcast is bringing a great contribution to this fight. Thank you again.
If you want to "prepare ourselves to live in a world with less oil and gas and coal," you are going to have to adopt a much reduced lifestyle. In fact, it will likely revert to a quasi-medieval lifestyle. And yes, there will be robber barons.
20 mins in, I feel a chill, no mention of cultural destruction, war, removal of humans and genocide, life is a blank slate and a graph by any means necessary.
Drill baby drill and damn the consequences.
The secret to mind over matter is. . . . if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
@@brucebender5917 being mindful suggests the opposite of being careful.
Open minded is with room to spare.
The last paragraph from Scott, is a truth, but if in a circumstance the war on nature and the citizen wasn’t a thought, another countries poverty is from the removal of resources and the introduction of an economy.
Take away food, water, shelter and each others safety in groups, get them to fight over each other, then begin harping on about a democracy because the family of values was removed.
It takes time and history to do both.
Apparently humility is all the rage, getting ahead just means theft of somebody else’s future.
The western failure of anxiety, depression and sickness, is a sick culture that removed the land to flatten it, poison the well and remove its vitality, proteins, soil, trees and burn down its culture.
Children don’t have an opinion on race, they are taught it by our fear of differences, fear of language and politics with a childhood fear of bullies with needles.
Common theme, ‘this is for your own good’.
Childhood trauma is real.
Born in Pittsburgh 1952. Education included history of oil coal steel aluminum and glass. Assumed this was standard education across most of America. Today finding the majority of our friends, all very well off, have no idea how hydrocarbons came into existence. No idea of the very short history of flammable fossils relationship with civilization. One in particular is a chemical engineer!
Yup, raised in 1950's in the Marcellus Shale area, we were well grounded in the extractive industries and experienced the degradations daily out on the farm. When you live close to the earth, you see/feel/hear/smell/taste the changes.
@allonesame6467 agreed! In addition we pittsburghers in particular learned that the coal and oil so not last forever. Gulf Oil was setup by the Mellon banking family. Gulf is no longer a player. US Steel created first billionaire. US Steel is for sale. The plentiful coal in the region is long gone leaving ground subsidence and perpetual flows of polluted water into the streams and rivers. The year I was born a weather inversion killed many folks living in the valley where the mills were. Drake's well, 1st commercial oil well in the world is a minor attraction little visited today. Interesting fact is almost all of PA was forest . Pennsylvania means Penn's woods. The state was brutally clear cutted in the past. Today almost all of the forest has grown back unlike the remnants of ancient sunlight we burn today
Nate, having Scot on with his views which contrast yours just shows what a brave person, balanced thinker, open minded, and open hearted person you are. We need all the voices to be able to see what the possibilities are regardless of how likely or realistic those opinions are. We have no agenda, we seek solutions, but we have to have contingency plans. We can't just bury our heads in the sands of optimistic thinking.
Climate and nature doesn’t respond to hope. It does what it does regardless. Hope can only be found in what humans actually do or actions that actually have the potential to bring about change or find ways to adapt. Playing down the difficulty of our predicament, because it’s more hopeful to do so, helps no-one in the long-term.
Exactly.
this is what I keep telling people as well.
Today's guest seams rather glib about carbon in the atmosphere. Maybe he is just resigned to our fate. I suspect Dr. Tinker believes running out of cheap oil is a bigger threat for political unrest than climate change. I can feel you biting your tongue Nate. Take care of yourself Nate. We need your humanity.
I think your guest isn't working in deep time. Just short term competitive profit seeking.
Imo your best interview
Use less of everything, stop traveling, grow and eat local, buy local. Just stop...stay in one place, stop consumption. Love simple ways of life.
Yes. And become healthier and happier living this way.
Jeez people, listen to the entire podcast before casting your stones at the guy. I learned a lot and appreciate his interview.
@@GuyIncognito764 I do appreciate the fact that Nate so calmly challenged Mr Tinker. Mr Tinker (perfect name) early on stated he saw no end to energy availability. Only three minutes later he explains that he mostly discovered salty water and that where deposits were cooked into hydrocarbons is rare! Cognitive dissonance defined. When you have no idea how much of a life sustaining substance is available you do not use it as if it flowed eternally.
I feel like meeting technocrats in the middle means no hope for an agrarian, sustainable future for the gentler life on earth . But what do I know?
I listen to the entire podcast and his optimism is entirely misguided. A world in which we don't hit peak oil soon is in fact even more dystopian than in a world in which we do. You either start gardening and leveraging the energy resources that you have right now or you and your progeny will not make it. I regret to inform you that roughly half of us will not. That's a huge bummer. You probably ought to start getting to work. You can't podcast your way out of this. You can garden your way out of this but you can't podcast your way out of this.
Nah, fk this oil shill.
I listened to the whole thing and I'm still at %90 cringe because this happy dreamy attitude just promotes business as usual which is already dystopian this is someone who is enjoying dystopia and cannot recognize the reality of the situation some forms of denial or repression or avoidance coping avoiding things that are fearful does not lead you to the truth it leads you into delusion
It's hard to trust a guy who says he has "3 or 4 kids".
😂😂😂 i have an average of 3.5 kids
Whoopsie!
Priceless. That belongs on a bumper sticker
Whilst this conversation seemed narrow bound when holistically considering worldly problems, it was good to see a respectful conversation between people who have points of disagreement. A rare find in the world of echo chambers!
What a great conversation, showing how important it is for us to listen to each other even when we don't always agree. I'm not as hopeful as Scott is, but he has given me new food for thought. Thanks Nate, as always, for your work.
I felt better after this podcast than most of them. You were a good host and offered insights into the plight of homo sapiens.
33min in ... I suspect that Scott's view on climate / planetary boundaries is going to be dismissive. I don't see how his apparent world view is going to allow for limits.
57:08 "shut them down for philosophical or emotional reasons"
Lol. We're cooked.
1:19:45 "why is it ... Petroleum geologists ... Most sanguine about climate change". Hahahaha. Indeed, he does sound like a fossil fuel lobbyist.
Haha. Dude’s gotta be able to ship his horses internationally for racing, dressage, or polo. ✈️
Not sure why I pick on shipping horses. I love horses. 🐎
Interesting deflection skills. Folksy.
@@ReesCatOphulsIf wanting to preserve the conditions in which live has thrived, as much as possible, in as many places as possible, is ideological - I own up to that ideology.
One interview upends a lifetime of work. How come none of us discovered that technology will overcome limits to growth, and that climate change is no big deal. Shame on us.
Great guest, I love his can do attitude & a very informative discussion. I would say at the same time it definitely highlights the need for interdisciplinary discussion & understanding:
Scott though an excellent energy analyst doesn't seem to be aware quite just how severe the ecological crisis is & that feedback loops in the earth system may completely steamroll the human economy over coming decades. Multi-metre sea level rise, heat domes, category 6 hurricanes, mega droughts etc. These are likely to render agriculture impossible across most of the planet & in many places is likely to render vast areas uninhabitable for our species and generally wipe out most of the planet's biodiversity.
I should add I very much do not want this to happen of course, just that if we blithely continue to burn hydrocarbons for the next 20 years we all but guarantee it & 'AI' will mean nothing if we've all starved or died of heat stroke.
Its vital to be aware of the role of energy & what it does for us but we also need to acknowledge the existentially challenging ecological context.
feels like we are basically relying on the miracle of creating an actual AI that can solve the climate crisis & exacerbating the crisis to get there. 🤞
Pls watch this Fridays Frankly! 🙏❤️🌎
@@thegreatsimplification👀👀👀
The data from the US Dept of Energy, energy analysts, and the oil industry itself: Global production of crude oil has declined since 2018, US crude oil production is declining at 42% a year, global crude oil production is declining at 15% a year. That has to be replaced with increasing discovery and drilling of crude oil. Unfortunately the volume of new crude oil discoveries is around 10% of current oil cunsumption. Crude oil supplies about 1/3 of global energy, natural gas and crude oil, petroleum, supplies about 60% of global energy. Electricity supplies about 20% of global energy.
It is a matter of when the decline impacts not if. The cost of energy has tight limits, so it is a matter of economic depletion not absolute depletion. When the cost of supply and delivery is more than the value of the energy or the ability to pay. Supply will meet the demand that has the ability to pay. Who will have the abiliy to pay?.
He says that many young people fear we only have 15 years left. He says that’s ridiculous.
But he could very well be wrong - if we consider the increasing likelihood of nuclear war.
I hope he’s right! Can I get a set of special glasses that Scott wears? Anything that filters out the climate disaster that’s unfolding before us?
1:16:00 The table is blank where confidence could not be proven, which is different to saying that there is a low likelihood of it happening. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, Professor Tinker
Nate, I appreciate you let Scott express his views freely without challenging the weak points in his arguments. I caught myself biting my own tongue many times. It definitely sounds like his work with students is bringing light into the world. Moving towards the messy, radical middle is where the potential for positive change lies. Unfortunately, the power-drunk alphas rarely have interest in sharing power with the majority. In fact, they seem to enjoy dominating and inflicting pain on the weakest among us. Victor Frankyl rightly identified the real positive placebo effect of doing something personally meaningful in the face of power-mad-induced social collapse.
This is probably one of the best conversations I’ve viewed/listened to for a while, it was collapse survivable communities apocaloptomist Nate Hagens versus utopian optomistical hopiumist Scott Tinker. I note this conversation was recorded on October 30th, 2024, why wasn’t it released much earlier, as I’ve a feeling Nate you’ve probably had a conversation, maybe even given a preview to Art Berman, which would explain why Art Berman has done a U-turn on his previous views, I’m referring : Jan 18, 2025 - “Climate Fatigue: Why the Story of Saving the Planet Isn’t Selling”, and, Jan 21, 2025 - “Lazy Thinking: How Memes Get Oil All Wrong”. But moving on, Nuclear to paraphrase Tinker, we could have pop-up Nuclear Power Plants (NPP’s), and Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR’s) all over the place, yea at the bottom of the street, hey maybe your own personal SMR in the garage. Yes we’ve nuclear propelled marine craft, but they use military grade uranium, but that’s not a problem because they’re owned by governments with a military presence, so security’s not a problem, also I believe Uranium is in limited supply and the processing in the case of USA has been done in Russia. Then there’s the question of disposal of the toxic radioactive waste, USA hasn’t even got a deep geological repository. To think NPP’s could be allowed to be proliferated and waste handled by private companies is asinine. Petrochemical and Plastic waste, recently read Liam Foxes “The Coming Storm” I’m afraid, unlike the impression Tinker gave US has far from cleaned up it’s act, it also has a serious and looming water problem, drought and pollution. Also if US re-shores its mining and key industries that are at presently polluting other countries, mostly in the Global South, the US will have a lot of environmental problems back home that it had previously exported. Humanity is by no means heading into a glorious future, I’m afraid this conversation raised more questions than answers Nate🤔
He sounds like a really good guy, but the optimism around the climate sounds insane to me. I dont care what the IPCC says, I have eyes and I can feel the heat worsening.
I dont know how many more consecutive years of warming we can take.
Yeah the ipcc is definitely conservative. That being said they have said climate change is both abrupt and irreversible.
Curious he mentioned 1 million wells in Texas alone, like it was normal
I like this interview.
I disagree with the guest.
But I like how polite he is.
It's easy to be polite when you're as delusional and privileged as he clearly is.
Hi Nate and listener;s,I think this was an excellent program it requierd all my stamina to listen till the end ....but even that I do not agree with a good bit of his argument but the most importatnt bit is to listen, to think, and then be able to give credit to the contributer for the chalanges he brought to your "normal views" we need this discussions to find the right path Thank's to Scott and Nate for a very thought provoking Podcast
It’s really great to hear a new point of view. It’s very important to understand other people’s viewpoints
True - that’s the problem with far too many people- they prefer confirmation bias.
Some good questions Nate, very much appreciated.
So many layers to the issues we face. Fundamentally agree that massive opportunites exist and this channel is proof that no matter which side of the energy solutions divide you live on, we care pretty much about the same things. How to achieve a desirable outcome and what realistic/equitable solutions even look like are the questions. The wealth inequalities are both potential flashpoints and opportuinities for cooperation. Whether that's living conditions, developed world vs developing. Or resource wealth developing vs developed. Another good episode! Much food for thought.
I regard Scott as deep in denial for the sake of his profession, sharing his false positivity and being paid for that
Another beautiful morning here in snowy Canada. In part thanks to your thought provoking podcast.
After listening to the entire podcast I implore those who disagree with Scott to listen to the end. There is deeper truth in the things we agree upon, than the "facts" that are in dispute.
We need an oil roundtable with Scott and Art!
We need much more on peak cheap oil !!! Folks are absolutely delusional about oil
I really enjoyed this conversation, equally for the point-counter point and the wary decorum evinced by both participants. Thank you Nate! The substance of Mr. Tinker's arguments seem to echo those of Vaclav Smil - see The Way the World Works. Smil's conclusions however are not contaminated by either the techno-determinism or the optimism that apparently keep Mr. Tinker energized and hopeful. I do agree with Tinker that any energy future has to be an all options future - it is simply unrealistic and foolish to put all eggs in one basket. I objected most to his cherry picking of a single chart from the AR6 IPCC report to argue that in fact climate chaos is farther off than the alarmist voices would have it. Tinker derides climate scientists for playing fast and loose on the terrain of energy experts - and then wants us to entertain his unique petro-geologist's interpretation of AR6? Unbelievable! Nate, you let him off the hook there. Notably, he had little to say about natural systems and the limits imposed by carrying capacity. Instead he returned repeatedly to Accelerationism - an argument that suggests that cornucopia awaits humanity if only we can lift everyone everywhere up to the lifestyles of the developed world. I agree with Nate, that way lies disaster. Largely absent was any notice of how capitalism and its energy-tied-to growth addiction requires a periphery from which surplus can be scraped and exploited. Near the end, in a final plea for acceleration, Tinker does remark with some alarm how the widening gulf between rich and poor might lead to revolution. Perhaps Tinker really does think that petro-capitalists and their shareholders are concerned about improving lives in NIgeria, in Vietnam, in Ecuador. My money is on revolution.
So well put! -- "wary decorum"
Thank you for a mindful approach to the complex nature of energy foundations.
Would like to have addressed the nuclear waste. Where and how to dispose?
What an amazing discussion. I love listening and learning through knowledgeable, civil and constructive debate.
I have to paraphrase something I heard on another pod cast that describes what Nate and Scott brought to us today.
No one changes anyone’s mind about something that matters to them by telling them why they’re right or wrong.
The only thing that works is for both to listen, ask questions and entertain one another’s reality.
If all are being honest, in one way or another, there will be a shift in how each feel about the others issue.
With that in mind we will begin to solve real problems
Nate, you don’t need to have him on your podcast again. No offense to you. Enough said. By the way Nate. Your face doesn’t hide frustration well.😁
I for one would respectfully disagree but an curious why you feel that way
The guest does have a blind spot on ecology. He is hyper focused on climate. He also seems to have a blind spot on the nonlinearity of climate change. Surprising from a scientist.
@@gmh953 Fair perhaps but while you point out your dislikes perhaps consider what he brings to the conversation being not like minded as you may prefer. We aren't educating ourselves by listening only to speakers whose message we endorse wholeheartedly. While challenging, it's how we grow. This is more baker kneading dough, less information silo. Thank you for answering.
I'd pay money to have him back on to debate Art Berman and Bill Rees.
@@AlanDavidDoane exactly my thoughts!!!
I would love to hear a round table with Art Berman , Steven Keen, Kevin Anderson and this guy.
And Bill Rees!
Nate, the one important area in your discussion with your energy guest that wasn't touched on in my opinion, is not just the issue of affordable energy available to those in less developed countries, but what the total impact from all the additional products and services that will undoubtedly be produced from the additional energy used...post-end products that aren't recycled or sadly not recyclable.
We have a serious issue of plastic waste from our oil derived materials that is affecting ever aspect of our lives...the air, the oceans, the surface water, everywhere, including nano plastics residing in our bodies, and that doesn't even begin to touch on the massive landfills needed to handle oil related manufactured waste...many sites located near our most important water resources as in the case of the privately managed landfill in Superior, WI located less than a mile away from Lake Superior.
Your energy guest centers on the production side, but the consumption side was almost completely ignored.
scott needs the concept Energy Return On Energy Investment
When you falsely believe both energy and investment have no real limits, EROEI is irrelevant. The laws of thermodynamics beg to differ. I hope he lives long enough to find that out firsthand.
I think Nate dropped the April 1st show early....
Well, I give him props for coming on to what he knows will be a venue where his views will be challenged. Too bad his narrow, short term focus and lack of systems thinking prevent him from seeing all the implications of BAU energy and material consumption. Even if some techno deus ex machina did pop up to keep pumping, the resulting continued impact on the biosphere would end things all the quicker. Nate, it was worth having him on, just to get a current confirmation of mainstream energy industry mindset. WASF.
I think Nate knows that Scott is talking out his ass about alternative energy technologies for transport and traction. I think Nate can also instruct Scott on the resource obstacels to electrification
Using the atmosphere as a sewer,might have been acceptable 100 yrs ago,but not with 7 plus billion people etc
According to the UN it’s over 8 billion now. And will eventually get to 10 - despite the current falling birthrates in most of the world.
One of your most important episodes.
We were misinformed in nutrition also, by the food pyramid.
Thank you for this - great discussion. I've followed peak oil for years and have been aware of nuclear (and the costs!) I don't know. Human beings are curious, innovative, in many cases brilliant, and can kicking. I personally appreciate some optimism and I do think he's also grounded in facts. Good point about how energy scientists and climate scientists have a different set of knowledge. I'm in the US and believe our Empire is declining, case in point that we're so mired in red tape that we can't keep up with the Chinese and Russians on nuclear innovations. We'll see...
I liked the discussion, and the guest. He seems to understand the reality of things...even if many of us wish they were not reality. His argument that we will only switch to things that are better, for instance, is reality. I would love humanity to decide we will live just fine only using 25% of the energy we currently use, but I do not think that is realistic as long as we could live better with 100% or 150% of energy consumption. I feel we will have to be forced down by something we cannot control. Not sure what that is.
Biodiversity, soils and water didn't get a guernsey, pity.
Opps .. I'm guessing that DeepSeek just put a pin in the western AI strategy and the massive amount of energy requirements
Nuclear is now the most expensive in this country. Guest argues that these costs will come down. It has long been a subsidized industry.
I think Mr Tinker is a born optimist. As a pessimist/realist I envy him in a way because optimists do seem to be happier people. But you are what you are.
I love the opening snippet. If I were to write a book it would be titled "Containers and Conveyance". The human propensity to have stuff and move it around (including ourselves) seems to be the story of civilization. Everything is containerized. Our bodies are containers as are homes, ships, cars etc. You have bags, jars, baskets. Conveyances can be containers like pipes and the aforementioned vehicles as well as bank accounts. Ah, the wheel and the horse. If humans were to stop containerizing and conveying things (other than what we might personally haul) we might return to the roots of existence on the plane of other creatures with whom me might then be at a relative peace.
This was a great interview. Thank you Nate for keeping it together. You were masterful. It's refreshing to hear a level-headed and kind perspective from what I would call "big" energy. This was helpful for me in my efforts to design and educate alternative energy and ecological perspectives.
Very interesting to hear this point-of-view. Mr. Tinker said that we've only tapped about 5% of the possible shale rock in the US, so he does not concede a decline in US fossil fuel output over the coming few decades. That, to me, seems to put him at direct odds with Art Berman. Both are geologists who worked in the oil industry. Who is a layman to believe?
There are tiny molecules contains oil in the rock in the ground. W current technology we can access about 5-10% of the molecules at a profit. Since they’re so small and isolated it’s unlikely we’ll ever get more than that. But even tech that extracts 7% instead of 5% is a huge amount of resource
What an informative conversation and mature... the energy density and metal requirements of EV's, solar and batteries are paving the way to the insight that we need to shift to a low consumption lifestyle and economic growth can no longer be the policy of all governments.... because of the reality of the physics around energy density.
This is the key missing part in the transition narrative from governments... it's acutely liberating because if we raise the populations energy IQ and people understand this is not political but basic physics it's possible there might be a way of bending not breaking as society navigates the transition off carbon based energy sources.
You’re more optimistic than I am about raising the energy IQ of the masses. Far too many people refuse to accept the science of climate change as it is, regardless of the arguments and data presented to them. And too many are willing to accept conspiracy theories.
Wonderful individual! Thanks for the interview, Nate.
Nate, very interesting conversation, especially the beginning where he describes human civilization and human beings is moving stuff around as fundamental to who we are. Perhaps that’s where lies the problem. Perhaps the next stage of energy is using the opportunity created by the reservoir of carbon dioxide in the air to stop moving people around and reconnect with the planet and think about that reservoir of carbon dioxide is being transferred not carbon sequestration technology, but through human beings, staying put and creating life in the form of communities, which work with animals and plants to create more topsoil to overtime begin to restart the system back from the beginning maybe that’s our destiny right now and the technology that we’re going to use is not a technology which will enable us extract more oil, but which will enable us to evolve consciously through coming together and overcoming our superficial differences and our separation from place in life to reconnect with one another to find purpose in one another and healing and reconnection to place and time keep up the good work
Absolutely brilliant, right on!
@ 🙏🏽
Yes, but we won’t voluntarily do this en masse. Nature will force this on us and it won’t be pleasant 😢
Tell Scott that 2024 set a new world record for the amount of coal ever burned. It broke the record set in 2023, which broke the record set in 2022.
Scott is simply wrong about the burning of gas outpacing the burning of coal. Coal is still the largest single source of fossilfuel energy
Also, Scott is telling untruth when he says rising oil prices will call some new technology into being, for accessing some other energy resource - That is the groundless assertion
greatly reassured by the comments from Nate's audience that at least in this tiny fringe milieu no one is susceptible to this flimsy rhetoric of techno-religiosity (with its (unnerving) nervous chuckles)
Surprisingly interesting and somewhat unsettling. I like his optimism and his acknowledgement that nuclear is probably where we'll end up if things don't get too effed up. He did seem pretty ignorant of biophysical limits, biodiversity loss, etc. but he had some good points to consider.
Very good discussion. One thing that was not mentioned is that the materials in the solar panels and batteries can be recycled. Yes, the first time around requires us to get the materials out of the ground, but then over 90% can be recovered on each cycle. This still requires a lot of mining but less than what Dr. Tinker suggested.
I'm older (so it's not just the younger people who might not recall Three Mile Island or Chernobyl or even Fukushima.) The only chance we have is to build out nuclear power and hopefully selecting some of the newer concepts that are intrinsically safe.
Prof. Tinker is an Enneagram type 7, an unabashed optimist. There aren't many Enneagram type 7s engaged with addressing climate collapse, cuz it's just too heavy for them. When they do engage it's on the periphery where they can do something hopeful and fun. What's more fun than abundant energy!
I'll share this with my genz kids.
Very productive discussion thank you
Well, I guess it's good to know what these people are thinking even if they're totally disconnected from the consequences of their actions and a wider lense. Thank you Nate
I believe too much effort is spent on the premise that people do not understand what continuing to burn energy like we do will result in. I think most people know, but do not care. People are people.
Brilliant Nate and Scott.
One thing I will focus on - Scott said remove the constraints, and that doesn't work for me.
There are constraints that are absolutely required, and most constraints are very context dependent.
Rather than "remove the constraints", I would say what is needed is a willingness to deeply examine the constraints and assumptions present, and be prepared to test and re-evaluate their relevance in historical contexts, and in present and probable future contexts. And the more we can do that probabilistically, and the better the tool-sets we have to map, display and share those things, the greater the likelihood of us having a future that is both secure and interesting and that develops reasonable balances between security and freedom and acknowledges the deep need for both cooperation and responsibility.
The systems definition of life I now find most useful: life is systems capable of searching the space of possible systems for the survivable; has those two key elements "search" and "survival", and there are necessary tensions at boundaries in those, that demand the highest levels of individual responsibility.
As evolved entities we have deeply evolved tendencies (necessarily) to simplify, to allow us to deal with the profound complexities actually present both within and around us. Seeing those tendencies for what they are, and not falling prey to any of the multiple levels of confirmation bias that those simplifications produce, to have us confuse our often "contextually useful approximations" as any sort of "globally applicable truth" is really hard. The tendency, at every level, is to drop back into certainty.
And at higher levels of systems (our conscious levels) the "search" aspect of life is about the freedom to search, not simply the known, but also the known unknown and the unknown unknown; and the risk profiles and constraints and strategies appropriate are very different in each of those domains. Our educational and social systems tend to focus on the domain of the known (for goof reasons), but the solutions to known issues often lie in the other domains, and they will always involve actions beyond exist structures (legal, economic, ethical, political, social) by definition, and that will be hard - that is, by definition, beyond the set of known constraints.
So yes, we need to search beyond known constraints, and that demands awareness of known constraints, and awareness of known strategic and systemic responses to risk, and the highest levels of responsibility.
I am clear that our current economic legal and political systems are no longer fit for purpose in the context we have created, and they are far more complex, with far more sets of necessary constraints, than most people are aware of; so there is nothing even remotely simple about generating the necessary sets of reforms, and it is what survival demands of us (and always has done, throughout history, if one put an appropriate set of systems lens to the study of history).
The simple notion that evolution is all about competition and power, is a gross and terminal oversimplification of something necessarily deeply more complex, fundamentally cooperative, and fundamentally respectful of diversity.
Like Scott I am cautiously optimistic that the future can still be better than most imagine possible, and all the risks that Nate is speaking of are real, and many more besides. Survivable futures, survivable systems, have to incorporate all of this complexity, have to be based in cooperation and freedom and responsibility and uncertainty. Any level of over simplification will fail.
Like Scott, I think we have to step up and part of the leadership that takes us to the survivable, those currently trapped in any level of over simplification cannot do so, by definition. And none of this is easy, and it cannot be just the young. As Scott noted, most of human knowledge is not captured in words, it is embodied in our being. Words help us communicate that which can be communicated, and we all, each and every one of us, embody orders of magnitude more knowledge than we can convey in any set of words - the evidence in the literature for that assertion is overwhelming.
So yes, keep up the good work, and be the change, at every level of system and structure you are willing and able, family, community, politically, intellectually, technologically - whatever it is that works for you.
I love many of Scott's comments and perhaps most particularly about 1:33:10 - "not just completely factual but factually complete", each to the best of our limited and fallible abilities, and each time targeted to what seems most probably to be the context most available to our listeners, and most relevant to our survival long-term.
I haven't finished yet, but around 26min he's trying to equate technology with energy. They're not the same thing. Technology REQUIRES energy. There is no better "thing" than hydrocarbons that we know of (or are allowed to know of). Anyway, just had to itch that scratch. I look forward to the rest of the conversation. Thanks for uploading the chat.
It's intriguing to hear an oil spokesman cite the national security concerns of Chinese predominance in materials and manufacturing of renewables technologies. As if the oil grades that the USA actually USES aren't almost entirely from foreign sources. Fracking has made the US NET oil trade nearly balanced, but we've not escaped national security concerns with supply.
47:00 The hindenburg was actually filled with hydrogen, and the disaster led to some stigma that certainly slowed development in hydrogen fuels.
It's worth noting that liquid hydrogen has an energy density of aroung 120 MJ/kg, almost three times more than diesel or gasoline, though obviously handling and storage is more tricky.
Personally, I found this interview painful straight out of the gate. Mr. Tinker’s spin and bias seemed obvious very early on and at the risk of potentially learning something new and
Personally, I found this interview painful straight out of the gate. Mr. Tinker’s spin and bias seemed obvious very early on and at the risk of missing out on potentially learning something new, I’m going to skip finishing this one. Thanks Nate.
Thanks, Scott
Thanks, Nate
I learned a lot .
I didn't know this guy before I found this video. Thank you Nate for giving him a spot in your channel. This is a great discussion as Mr. Tinker explains, in clear layman terms, so many important aspects and details of how and what is drilled and why we use hydrocarbons compared to any alternative. I have been involved a little in the shale stuff... Tinker's metaphor of "farming" shale plays is fantastic. Second comment: Peak oil is all about our (perhaps arrogant) assumptions of human population size and growth. If we manage a downward population curve in a humane manner, peak oil becomes far less meaningful. If we go full steam business as usual, the notion of what is humane will become absurd.
The guest understands the importance of economics, the laws of supply and demand, and the importance of prices.
The fastest way to reduce our consumption of oil would be to replace personally owned vehicles with community owned fleets of EVs for ride sharing. The batteries should be bidirectional so they can provide backup power when the grid is down. The prices of solar panels and batteries should include the cost of recycling the materials. A global carbon tax would help, too.
🤣😂🤣😂 Humanity is well and truly F&%ed, it just hasn’t realised it yet, but you know what I’m really sad for it’s all the other earthlings we share this planet with that we are sacrificing on our way to a 17th century lifestyle and eventual extinction 👉 ua-cam.com/video/KtQG9EiDr9k/v-deo.htmlsi=oZH3Wg2fn7z9pWGD 🤔
"private sector pays for"... well, they do get billions in subsidies from the US government. btw i always like the interviews w/people who have worked in the fossil fuel industry since they have a different perspective and bring different details forward.
Dr Tinker, we don't have opinions about burning fossil fuels and using them throughout society, "We follow the science", how about you? Invite this fellow back Nate, I fully support you inviting him. Thanks
There is another thing that Dr. Tinker didn't mention. The improvements in technology (at least up to now) allow us to pump more oil but at a higher cost. There is nothing cheaper than just punching a hole and letting the pressure push the oil up. The next step is to pump the oil up. Next is fracking the tight oil. Each is more expensive than the last. There is no guarantee that the next technology will not be even more expensive. We really do need to get off of oil and on to the next thing before the costs kill us (not to mention the climate).
This is key. He said here in the US, we’ve only gotten about 5 to 10 percent of the total amount. Did I understand that correctly? How will that impact the cost of extraction?
Fascinating!
OH my god, the ignorance😮
This John Wayne impersonator really gets my goat.
I got Ed Norton's Pete Seeger from the A Complete Unknown film.
We are not going to leave it in the ground now or in the future. We are just not that type of species.
Wetiko would never stand for it.
The only way it will stay there is when it is too expensive to extract. My guess is deep geothermal energy might be the one technology that could achieve that globally. If you can actually drill one well and get a century of electricity for pumping fluid in a loop that will make ff too expensive.
@DanA-nl5uo My guess is the problem with most forms of energy like that is the lack of portability. Nate has past guests that have addressed that issue. We will likely have to generate power locally and avoid long transmission lines. Do people want to build cities next to geothermal stations...or next to hydropower plants....or next to wind or solar? That is a harder sell. It is how things used to be. We would settle where there was water and the ability to run mills.
@@SteveBoyington-i1e deep geothermal wells can in theory be drilled next to all the power plants with steam turbines today and simply change the plumbing for the steam source. Nuclear power plants coal power plants or natural gas can all in theory be modified to accept steam from deep geothermal wells. The drilling technology is in the R&D phase combination of laser technology and ultra sonic is what I have read about. There new a couple of prototype sites but it is my understanding they need to do more work on drilling deeper it was a while ago I read about it I forgot how close they got already.
We do not get educated about food. Not about how it's produced, processed, transported, traded, not unless you're in Future farmers of America in high school. What he's talking about in terms of education about food would be the equivalent of knowing what octane gas to put in your car.
Always good humans and powerful thoughts focused on future reality. Thanx Nate.
I'm sorry Scott, 6:50 But that expense for all of our energy doesn't account for the energy requirements of the physical process to bring the energy to market and the energy consumed is uncorrelated to the cost. You make no account through your entire model of the Economy, your views lack a foundation/basis in reality.
Rather the basis of value is the function of the neuron response of the consumers.
10:41 The sediments entered the metabolism of the biosphere a few billion years ago. There haven't been sediments since. We have consumed 1/2+ the absolute capital base of fossil Oil, it's still all there in the atmosphere. We could capture it, turn it into Oil, that would be a sunlight battery. Sunlight, the low entropy, the power unvalued in the global economy.