The whole point of shale is that you can get it going again quickly and piecemeal based on the price of oil. It puts a large plateau/floor on oil at $~60 per barrel which is geopolitically very useful.
Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn. The places where it's cheap to get out are ruled by unpleasant people. Shale limits the price they can charge. Yea shale. However, low prices encourage putting CO2 in the air. Boo shale. I wish we would find a better way to reduce use than paying unpleasant people high prices.
> Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn.
I don't think that everyone realizes what would happen if we did so. [0]
> Our calculated global warming in this case is 16°C, with warming at the poles about 30°C. Calculated warming over land areas averages ~20°C. Such temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural regions in the world (Hatfield et al., 2011). Increased stratospheric water vapor would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer (Anderson et al., 2012).
My question is, what is going to stop this trajectory?
There are strong signs that the small amount of increased mean tempreture seen already has been sufficient to downgrade the ability of the environment to sink what has been added.
Sure, but why even make that argument? Nobody cares about this nerd stuff. Maybe the only argument should be that "if we burn it all, then we will all die." That's the level of argument people can understand. That should be the title of every climate study going forward, shouldn't it?
But we don’t die, well we do but that’s unavoidable. Our grand kids or great grand kids are the ones that will really suffer from this, but maybe by then we will have created a successor species based on AI or something so humans would have been obsolete anyways. The 2020s will be known as the decade that made humanity’s continued existence infeasible and unnecessary?
Depends, breaking below $60 per barrel does lead to significant layoffs and it's difficult to rebuild that know-how because knowledge isn't 100% elastic.
The oil glut itself is largely because of the KSA and Russia in the midst of a mutual price war as well as the US expanding it's own production.
That said, it's still an open question of whether a glut will exist or not - at this point it's China, India, and Japan that's become the primary driver for oil prices because they are getting similar deals from both KSA and Russia, and are trying to pressure other suppliers to give similar deals.
1. A significant portion of that ONG infrastructure is in the Russian Far East - especially those that are furnishing the Asian market
2. Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean companies and SOEs all have significant stakes and investments in Russia's ONG infrastructure, such as Sakhalin-I (Japan's Mitsui Group and India's ONGC), Sakhalin-II (Korea's KOGAS and Japan's Tohoku Electric), and Power of Siberia (China's CNPC), so any attack on Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or Korean ONG infrastructure in Russia is viewed as a red line by these countries.
3. Saudi Arabia remains a competitor against Shale, and would continue it's price war against American Shale.
But most oil exports that are subsidizing the Russian economy and providing forex are being exported from the Russian Far East.
Hitting infra in Western Russia makes it painful for civilians and does have a psychological impact of highlighting to the Russia public how war has consequences, but by and large it doesn't do much given that Russia still has the capability to continue garnering foreign currency or operating with foreign markets.
Furthermore, those strikes aren't truly crippling [0] to Russian ONG capacity and the associated sanctions won't have much of an impact given how diversified Russian ONG companies are [1], with JVs and stakes in Western ambivalent countries like China, Congo, Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and others.
The psychological impact of such strikes cannot be understated, but it's not really painful for Russia given that they have chosen to dig in and believe that they can win an economic war of attrition [2] as it stands. If the much more isolated Maduro regime in Venezuela or the Khamenei regime in Iran are able to hold onto power, it's hard to see how these strikes can impact that Putin regime in what has become a war of attrition, especially when regional powers like Vietnam have begun pivoting back to Russia [3], and larger powers like China [4] and India [5] are doubling down on Russian investments.
That's why China, India, and Vietnam have continued to purchase Russian oil, even if resorting to barter agreements such as Vietnam's procurement of the SU-35 [0] and India's agreement for a JV to domestically manufacture the SJ-100 [1] (which also helps their French partner Safran recoup costs, as Safran is part of India's domestic jet engine program and was a partner in the SJ-100 project before sanctions began).
And it's not like Asian countries are purchasing less from other sources either - they're just using the Russian barter to force MFN deals and discounts from other suppliers.
Uh. So we should jack up prices to reduce consumption elsewhere. That will reduce oil consumption and every other consumption at the same time, it's an environmental win-win.
See it seems exceptionally short-sighted to me to continue the race to pull as much carbon out of the atmosphere as possible and put it in the air, but what do I know?
> Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity.
> For context, it took until September last year to pass the 350 GW mark. This year, the milestone was achieved in June. That pace cements solar as the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, global solar output rose by 28% (+469 terawatt-hours) from 2023, more growth than any other energy source.
> Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy analyst at independent energy think tank Ember, said, “These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise. In a world of volatile energy markets, solar offers domestically produced power that can be rolled out at record speed to meet growing demand, independent of global fossil fuel supply chains.”
> Utility-scale solar power capacity in China reached more than 880 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, according to China’s National Energy Administration. China has more utility-scale solar than any other country. The 277 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in China in 2024 alone is more than twice as much as the 121 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States at the end of 2024.
> Planned solar capacity projects will likely lead to continued growth in China’s solar capacity. More than 720 GW of solar capacity are in development: about 250 GW under construction, nearly 300 GW in pre-construction phases, and 177 GW of announced projects, according to the Global Solar Power Tracker compiled by Global Energy Monitor.
(1GW of solar PV is installed every 15 hours globally as of this comment; 4.6TW of new renewables are expected to come online globally in the next four years)
The whole point of shale is that you can get it going again quickly and piecemeal based on the price of oil. It puts a large plateau/floor on oil at $~60 per barrel which is geopolitically very useful.
Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn. The places where it's cheap to get out are ruled by unpleasant people. Shale limits the price they can charge. Yea shale. However, low prices encourage putting CO2 in the air. Boo shale. I wish we would find a better way to reduce use than paying unpleasant people high prices.
> Yes! There's more oil in the ground than we should ever burn.
I don't think that everyone realizes what would happen if we did so. [0]
> Our calculated global warming in this case is 16°C, with warming at the poles about 30°C. Calculated warming over land areas averages ~20°C. Such temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural regions in the world (Hatfield et al., 2011). Increased stratospheric water vapor would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer (Anderson et al., 2012).
My question is, what is going to stop this trajectory?
https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/what-if-we-burn-all-t...
Eventually human civilization breaks down to the point where we can no longer sustain the industry to extract the fossil fuels.
So just to be clear: if we burn all of the fossil fuels that we know about, then we are guaranteed to end human civilization, correct?
That is the plain truth, and we are going to keep making fun of climate activists until we get there?
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In related news about that trajectory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45815912
There are strong signs that the small amount of increased mean tempreture seen already has been sufficient to downgrade the ability of the environment to sink what has been added.
Sure, but why even make that argument? Nobody cares about this nerd stuff. Maybe the only argument should be that "if we burn it all, then we will all die." That's the level of argument people can understand. That should be the title of every climate study going forward, shouldn't it?
People do make that argument. The people who think climate change is a haox aren’t persuaded by the purported consequences of a hoax.
But we don’t die, well we do but that’s unavoidable. Our grand kids or great grand kids are the ones that will really suffer from this, but maybe by then we will have created a successor species based on AI or something so humans would have been obsolete anyways. The 2020s will be known as the decade that made humanity’s continued existence infeasible and unnecessary?
> Sure, but why even make that argument?
To accurately model a physical system humanity depends upon.
> Nobody cares about this nerd stuff.
Clearly false.
Many do. Military types care about ocean tempretures as it facilitates submarine tracking, for example.
> Maybe the only argument should be that "if we burn it all, then we will all die."
Many would suggest burning 90% of it then. That's 10% shy of we all die so that's got to be ok, okay?
> That should be the title of every climate study going forward, shouldn't it?
This is what you want to hang your stance upon? Uniformly stupid titling?
Depends, breaking below $60 per barrel does lead to significant layoffs and it's difficult to rebuild that know-how because knowledge isn't 100% elastic.
The oil glut itself is largely because of the KSA and Russia in the midst of a mutual price war as well as the US expanding it's own production.
That said, it's still an open question of whether a glut will exist or not - at this point it's China, India, and Japan that's become the primary driver for oil prices because they are getting similar deals from both KSA and Russia, and are trying to pressure other suppliers to give similar deals.
Easy solution, bomb more Russian oil infrastructure.
Sure, but we should do that anyway regardless of oil prices.
1. A significant portion of that ONG infrastructure is in the Russian Far East - especially those that are furnishing the Asian market
2. Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and South Korean companies and SOEs all have significant stakes and investments in Russia's ONG infrastructure, such as Sakhalin-I (Japan's Mitsui Group and India's ONGC), Sakhalin-II (Korea's KOGAS and Japan's Tohoku Electric), and Power of Siberia (China's CNPC), so any attack on Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or Korean ONG infrastructure in Russia is viewed as a red line by these countries.
3. Saudi Arabia remains a competitor against Shale, and would continue it's price war against American Shale.
Practically, Ukraine can’t reach that infrastructure anyway. Making western Russia an oil free zone will probably suffice.
But most oil exports that are subsidizing the Russian economy and providing forex are being exported from the Russian Far East.
Hitting infra in Western Russia makes it painful for civilians and does have a psychological impact of highlighting to the Russia public how war has consequences, but by and large it doesn't do much given that Russia still has the capability to continue garnering foreign currency or operating with foreign markets.
Furthermore, those strikes aren't truly crippling [0] to Russian ONG capacity and the associated sanctions won't have much of an impact given how diversified Russian ONG companies are [1], with JVs and stakes in Western ambivalent countries like China, Congo, Egypt, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and others.
The psychological impact of such strikes cannot be understated, but it's not really painful for Russia given that they have chosen to dig in and believe that they can win an economic war of attrition [2] as it stands. If the much more isolated Maduro regime in Venezuela or the Khamenei regime in Iran are able to hold onto power, it's hard to see how these strikes can impact that Putin regime in what has become a war of attrition, especially when regional powers like Vietnam have begun pivoting back to Russia [3], and larger powers like China [4] and India [5] are doubling down on Russian investments.
[0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/1...
[1] - https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/1...
[2] - https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-war-ukraine-next-chapt...
[3] - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/world/asia/3-takeaways-fr...
[4] - https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/power-of-siberia-2-rus...
[5] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-signs-pact-with-sa...
It hasn’t kept up with inflation and the price of hard metal commodities so it’s more like the price keeps going down:
https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...
https://www.macrotrends.net/1380/gold-to-oil-ratio-historica...
Given the sharp rise in production since 2010, it seems the flat price has more to do with increasing supply and less to do with waning demand:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/leafhandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-production-by-country
The rule of thumb is that for every penny of gas price at the pump, averaged over the year, it takes $1 billion of consumer spending.
So if the gas prices drop by say 20 cents per gallon vs last year, that’s $20 billion more dollars in consumer pockets that can be spent elsewhere.
So oil dropping is like reverse tariffs
That's why China, India, and Vietnam have continued to purchase Russian oil, even if resorting to barter agreements such as Vietnam's procurement of the SU-35 [0] and India's agreement for a JV to domestically manufacture the SJ-100 [1] (which also helps their French partner Safran recoup costs, as Safran is part of India's domestic jet engine program and was a partner in the SJ-100 project before sanctions began).
And it's not like Asian countries are purchasing less from other sources either - they're just using the Russian barter to force MFN deals and discounts from other suppliers.
[0] - https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/vietnam-russia-su35-fight...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-signs-pact-with-sa...
Uh. So we should jack up prices to reduce consumption elsewhere. That will reduce oil consumption and every other consumption at the same time, it's an environmental win-win.
It amuses me how OPEC is the world largest cartel... And they go with it
There are a lot of things such as situation _could_ do.
oh no!
Won't someone think of the shareholders ;_;
If you are American, it is _exceptionally_ short sighted to think that energy production in your country is not a good thing to have.
See it seems exceptionally short-sighted to me to continue the race to pull as much carbon out of the atmosphere as possible and put it in the air, but what do I know?
High oil prices means alternatives are more economical and the transition can happen sooner. Low prices keeps us using oil for longer
Low prices destroy oil exploration investment, making it harder to establish future extraction as China pumps clean tech exports to the world.
https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...
(half a million barrels a day of global oil demand is destroyed every year EVs are produced at the current rate China produces them at)
And how is China generating the energy needed for that production?
I'm bullish on nuclear power myself.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transi...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/wind-and-solar-gener...
https://electrek.co/2025/09/02/h1-2025-china-installs-more-s...
> Global solar installations are breaking records again in 2025. In H1 2025, the world added 380 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity – a staggering 64% jump compared to the same period in 2024, when 232 GW came online. China was responsible for installing a massive 256 GW of that solar capacity.
> For context, it took until September last year to pass the 350 GW mark. This year, the milestone was achieved in June. That pace cements solar as the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, global solar output rose by 28% (+469 terawatt-hours) from 2023, more growth than any other energy source.
> Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy analyst at independent energy think tank Ember, said, “These latest numbers on solar deployment in 2025 defy gravity, with annual solar installations continuing their sharp rise. In a world of volatile energy markets, solar offers domestically produced power that can be rolled out at record speed to meet growing demand, independent of global fossil fuel supply chains.”
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65064
> Utility-scale solar power capacity in China reached more than 880 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, according to China’s National Energy Administration. China has more utility-scale solar than any other country. The 277 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in China in 2024 alone is more than twice as much as the 121 GW of utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States at the end of 2024.
> Planned solar capacity projects will likely lead to continued growth in China’s solar capacity. More than 720 GW of solar capacity are in development: about 250 GW under construction, nearly 300 GW in pre-construction phases, and 177 GW of announced projects, according to the Global Solar Power Tracker compiled by Global Energy Monitor.
(1GW of solar PV is installed every 15 hours globally as of this comment; 4.6TW of new renewables are expected to come online globally in the next four years)
Coal decline citations:
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/11/03/us-coal-exports-drop-11...
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66524
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/weakening-demand--st...
As opposed to every other country where it is somehow not short sighted?
This comment thread, discussion, and article are about American shale. I made no statements about other countries.
Though if you are, say, a UAE citizen or Russian citizen, it is indeed in your interest to cheer on a plateau in American domestic energy production.
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