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[Loud Whispers]

"You actually listened to me? My God what's wrong with you people?" is what comes across from Trump now. Perhaps he really doesn't want a second term.

Sounds to me like he's preemptively trying to defuse the national mob he formed. He talks about how the mob roared about building wall stuff and prosecuting Clinton, I think he fears that if he fails to deliver, he will be destroyed by the very mob he used to gain power

Less "you actually listened to me?"
More "they're watching me."

[TheDarkStar]

Personally, I'm more interested to see what happens to strength of the executive arm of the government in general. Trump managed to take a bunch of people who have previously made efforts to remove various departments and appoint them as head of those same departments. We'll get oil barons in charge of the EPA, telco businessmen in charge of the FCC, etc. Either their self-interest will win out and they'll do everything they can to strengthen their office or their hate for climate change/net neutrality/etc will be stronger and they'll destroy their own job.

[misko27]

"You actually listened to me? My God what's wrong with you people?" is what comes across from Trump now. Perhaps he really doesn't want a second term.

Sounds to me like he's preemptively trying to defuse the national mob he formed. He talks about how the mob roared about building wall stuff and prosecuting Clinton, I think he fears that if he fails to deliver, he will be destroyed by the very mob he used to gain power

Less "you actually listened to me?"
More "they're watching me."

Reminds me of Anthony Weiner's campaign in the city. During an incident with a cat on the subway tracks causing delays that caught the eye of the news, all candidates were asked how they would respond. Bill de Blasio was the frontrunner at the time and eventually the winner (who notably ran as a firebrand progressive who fought for the people against a corrupt city of elites), and the response from his campaign was a noncommittal "we endorse the decision of the MTA and would handle this through the appropriate channels", while Anthony Weiner's campaign (which was was was trailing very, very far behind at this time) responded with "If elected Anthony Weiner will personally climb through the tracks and rescue such cats on his own".

If you are trailing far behind saying such things can seem the only reasonable solution, but if you are actually elected after saying those things....People are going to bring out the tapes of the time you said that.

[Shadowlord]

https://medium.com/@AlexSteffen/trump-putin-and-the-pipelines-to-nowhere-742d745ce8fd#.iesawbzgq

Or, understanding the carbon bubble

[Reelya]

The Carbon Bubble described in that link is probably a lot closer than people think. Wind and solar investment doubled since 2008 and is now about 2.5 times higher than investment in fossil fuels.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/wind-and-solar-are-crushing-fossil-fuels
Solar's share of world power generation doubled every 2 years from 2000-2014. So it's in Moore's law territory, while coal and oil usage is actually shrinking in developed countries, and even China now.

"What we're talking about is miscalculation of risk," said BNEF's Liebreich. "We're talking about a business model that is predicated on never-ending growth, a business model that is predicated on being able to find unlimited supplies of capital."

That really is economic bubble logic. The growth just isn't there, but they need to convince investors that it is. same pattern as previous market bubbles. The good news is that bubble crashes completely wipe out the industry - that means that artificially propping up the coal and oil industry could actually hasten their demise.

[redwallzyl]

please let this happen in trumps presidency. it would be glorious.

[smjjames]

If such an oil bubble were to pop, would that mean gas prices (you know, for cars) skyrocket or would they bottom out?

I wonder if we got a small taste of it when OPEC (Saudi Arabia mostly) decided to glut oil supply to try and drive the shale oil companies out of business. Though they're cutting back because their economies are hurting, the prices might not climb as much as they'd like because shale oil and fracking companies are coming back online.

* smjjames also wonders whether the carbon bubble is bigger than the one behind the Great Depression, if it was a market bubble that was behind the Great Depression.

please let this happen in trumps presidency. it would be glorious.

Also incredibly destabilizing. Not for the US (yay diverstification!), but for those so called petrostates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, pretty much the entire MidEast, other countries that rely totally or almost totally on oil for the economy.

[smjjames]

Such as Canada. Which, considering how linked US-Canada trade is, would be instability for the US as well.

Huh, I never thought of Canada as a petrostate.

It'd be fair to say that every country would be affected to some degree.

[Reelya]

If such an oil bubble were to pop, would that mean gas prices (you know, for cars) skyrocket or would they bottom out?

It would see-saw. The thing would be: investment in the industry dries up, because of new forecasts published with grim outlooks for the coal/oil industry. So if people can't get anyone to invest in oil production, then what's that going to do? Clearly it's going to hit supply, which means price rises. Then, after that, the bottom of the market really does drop out, because of competing techs which are already appearing (electric cars etc). There would still be some oil-based cars, and for a while, gas would be relatively cheap because of oversupply. But after that, there would be a supply correction, and prices would rise. With less users for gasoline, then it would be less efficient to serve y'all, so prices would naturally rise again in the long term.

[Egan_BW]

Hmm. Has anyone thought up a joke yet about how hindsight's 2020, related to the fact that the next presidential election will be in 2020?

[Rockphed]

Such as Canada. Which, considering how linked US-Canada trade is, would be instability for the US as well.

Huh, I never thought of Canada as a petrostate.

It'd be fair to say that every country would be affected to some degree.

According to general economics, a collapse of oil demand would lead to a drop in oil price in the near term.  In the medium term, only oil that is economically less expensive than the oil price will be drawn out.  Oddly enough, with most large and cheap oil already explored and tapped, the most likely continued method of oil exploration will be the horizontal well known as fracking.  A frack well, unlike a traditional well, requires constant "drilling" to remain productive.  This is why after OPEC tried to glut supply the oil companies in the US cut production and with OPEC reducing production more oil wells are coming back online.  A traditional well has a very large start-up cost(drilling) and a low continuing cost (running the pump).  A frack well has a lower start-up cost (which may be more because modern wells are designed to be cheaper than traditional oil-rigs), but a higher continuing cost.  As a result, they are close to small factories in cost.  All this means that oil prices are getting more stable of late, not less.

Now, where does this leave countries?  Countries that mostly consume oil as energy will see their energy bills go down (assuming that solar or whatever actually becomes cheaper than oil).  Countries that mostly produce fossil fuels will see their profits shrink.  Whether a country nets a benefit depends on how much cheaper oil ends up being.  If oil ends up being 1/10 the price, then oil countries had better hope they can make a shift to some other economy.  If the price of oil ends up being 95% current levels, they will have to diversify, but will not be doomed if they go a little slow.

The other thing is that even if somebody came out with a 100% efficient solar cell that they could make and ship for pennies, it would take years to tool up to produce enough to supplant oil as the fuel of choice.  Even if oil gets supplanted, it will take a while before drilling for oil becomes unprofitable.

Finally, just because something has more research budget does not mean that it will experience a breakthrough.  We could spend the GDP of California on training people to kill with their brains.  Or we could spend a tenth that on designing and building a new generation of close attack aircraft.  One of them is going to be a success.  The other is going to enrich a bunch of crazy college professors.

[Sheb]

In the medium term, only oil that is economically less expensive than the oil price will be drawn out.  Oddly enough, with most large and cheap oil already explored and tapped, the most likely continued method of oil exploration will be the horizontal well known as fracking. 

Well, it depends. Fracking requires quite a high oil price, which is part of the reasons why so many frackers suffered when Saudi plunged oil price below 50 $ a barrel. Now that oil is raising they are increasing production though, the total effect being of a ceiling on oil price.

Now, if and when that Carbon Bubble burst, it means the oil production will have to be curtained, either because solar and other are cheaper (in which case the price of oil and gas for car won't raise, not until it become uneconomic to serve all the gas car owner), or because political action is finally taken to stop its use. The most likely way this can be done is with a carbon price or a carbon tax. In that case, the price of gas will raise because you're going to be paying for the carbon you're pouring into the atmosphere.

[Neonivek]

Well... Oil will never be useless mind you... Given that we rely on it for far more then just power...

In fact you are eating oil everyday.

You are literally going outside, bending over, and taking big chomping bites of sand made out of oil every single day for nutrition.

[Sheb]

Fertilizer is made with natural gas, not oil. Still, we do use oil for stuff beyond burning, mostly plastic production (about 10% of oil production if my memory serves). We can produce bioplastics for many applications though, but then you need room to grow the stuff.

[Neonivek]

Fertilizer is made with natural gas, not oil. Still, we do use oil for stuff beyond burning, mostly plastic production (about 10% of oil production if my memory serves). We can produce bioplastics for many applications though, but then you need room to grow the stuff.

I didn't think you went to your back yard and shoveled Fertilizer in your mouth... But I guess plant people have substantially different diets then I do.