Well people better start innovating, because best case scenario there are 10-12 years of oil and 30-40 years of coal remain. It is hard to believe though, in 100 years we have exhausted a resource that took 3 billion years to accumulate. Yet the ignorant and dare I say stupid, think that somehow we have 100+ years of oil and coal. I guess math is really hard when you're snorting coke up your nose while daddy pays for you to go to Harvard.
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The word "gay" helps homosexual activists push their agenda.
This was terrible. The people of the Stone Age didn't depend on stones to feed themselves. However, the people of Oil Age do depend on oil to feed its people.
So don't worry about peak oil because we'll just totally invent something else. We can just keep growing forever! We'll stand on one another's heads ten deep! We'll never have to conserve, and the free ride will never end! Oh frabjous day!
2055 last drops will come out. By 2040 oil extracting nations will stop supplying. We are screwed. Food which abundant because of oil. Medicine - many chemical compounds from oil. Lubricant-95% oil. Transportation - material carring trucks fueled by diesel. Earth crust has lost adhesions because oil pressure dropped beneath us. We are in big trouble.
Replacing 900 000 000 vehicles to keep 5.3 billion people from poverty. First you need to convince the car manufacturer to start early, not taking short high profit from exploding demand of elcars in 20 years. Good luck with that.
Second you need to replace all ships and planes. Good luck with that.
Third you need an infrastructure to provide electricity to both house and car. Good luck with that.
Oh by the way, 5 people get poor every second. They just don't have realized it yet. Good luck!
@TheUnmaskedMagician Have we not kept on making alternative fuels? And aren't we doing so today? Right now, we have a host of technologies for a host of purposes competing to replace oil.
A little optimistic but I agree with him on a certain level. We already have realistic replacements for oil nearing readyness. So oil may not be a problem. The problem I think will be swoping over completely in time. Governments are stubborn making big changes like that but assuming we get going, oil won't be a huge problem.
kind of misleading title. why did i favorite and like this? Title says preparing for the end of oil, but hes talking about using oil, just more efficiently. Fuckin confusing bullshit.
I like the idea because it will give me things like abalone shell armor. But i still want a car that runs on plasma. How come he didnt mention plasma and antigravity... nuclear fusion, stuff like that. Oil sucks and its boring.
this guy said nothing about EROEI people always forget the main thing, how these people get to speak as it there a expert in front of people who need other people to think for them
Unfortunately unbridled optimism does not always help. "Science advisor: "We are going to run out of fuel if we don't stop using it up so fast. We need to change!". Leader: "We have always had enough fuel, stupid scientist! My father and father's father did, all will continue to get better, our people are getting more well fed and happy! Our population is increasing!". The location, Easter Island 10 years before the last tree is cut down, and the civilisation perishes.
@christo930 Hes describing how, taken from a very large perspective our dependence on any one fuel source is always replaced by newer more efficient fuel sources, long before the current fuel source is depleted.
@rbairos1 It doesn't have to be depleted, there just needs to be shortages, that is, not enough to supply the demand. There is absolutely no new energy source even close to production and we are at least 2 years past peak oil.
Economics will solve it. We will always go for the most cost effective energy source. As fuel prices rise and renewable prices drop (naturally not artificially through government) people will switch over.
The charts were showing how oil was becoming a smaller proportion of our *total primary energy source*. Well, the fact that our total enery use is increasing, coupled with the fact that we use oil for so much more than energy, leads me to doubt his reasoning and therefore his conclusion ("chill out, s'gonna be okay").
My teachers used to impose on us that *our* generation would need to find the solutions to the fossil fuel depletion. Well, we didn't. Now I'm a teacher telling the same thing to my ten year old students.
Except that, now I also have to warn them that by the time they're forty, the technologies and societal development that would help them solve the issue probably won't exist any more due to fossil fuel depletion.
> by the time they are 40, technological society will
> cease to exist?
I warn them that as fossil fuels become depleted, finding and developing new hydrocarbon alternatives will become harder as the most important resources at our disposal become scarcer and more expensive.
I do also think that western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion. For example, we live on a tourism island that will be reduced to a handful of fishing villages.
@ByeCruelWorld What do you know that your doom-predicting teachers didn't?
Hasn't peak oil fears been preached for over a century? Its always apparently around the corner, like the rapture. Im all in favour of developing cleaner technologies, but any abrupt shortage in oil is just contrary to economics.
> What do you know that your doom-predicting teachers didn't?
I know that in the last thirty years no-one has come close to developing new technology to replace hydrocarbons, that we are more dependent on them than ever before, and that we've used much more in the last thirty years than in the previous 100 years. I know that my generation was supposed to have solved the problem by now, but no-one has even made the first step towards it yet. I know that the world's population has tripled.
@ByeCruelWorld How many more reserves have been found in the last 30 years? How many advances in detection, extraction, refining, distribution, etc? To claim that the oil industry is the same as the 70's is not accurate. To teach your child students that the world will suffer a technological collapse in their lifetime through the depletion of oil reserves is as irresponsible as teaching them creationism.
> claim that the oil industry is the same as the 70's
I said that very little has been developed in the way of hydrocarbon alternatives; what's that go to do with developments in the oil industry?
> teach your child students that the world will suffer a
> technological collapse in their lifetime
Huh? I said that finding a hydrocarbon alternative would become more difficult as fossil fuels are depleted. And the collapse I spoke of was localised; tourism here will not last another 30 years.
@ByeCruelWorld " And the collapse I spoke of was localised; tourism here will not last another 30 years."
Actually you said:
"western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion"
"I also have to warn them that by the time they're forty, the technologies and societal development that would help them solve the issue probably won't exist any more due to fossil fuel depletion."
There is no evidence oil reserves will suddenly run dry in 30 years.
> you said: "western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion"
Yes. We won't be able to use fossil fuels in the same manner as we do now, and that change will impact every area of our lives. 'Different' doesn't mean 'collapse'. OUR local tourist economy will collapse: no-one will come here by plane in thirty years, just as they didn't thirty years ago.
> run dry
We will stop using oil well before it 'runs dry' due to cost.
@rbairos1 Peak oil is now in the past, so you can take that idea that because it has happened yet, it will never happen, and put it in your pipe and smoke it.
@VooDooMadMan - He, like so many other "company men" has compromised his integrity and honesty for the bottom line of the company. To me that means he has no integrity and is sub-human. One day, if he can stand to be completly honest with himself, he will realize the ramificaitons of what he has done to our country.
@mikwid I don't know just because someone is optimistic about our future doesn't make him a corporate sell out.I might not agree with his assessment but optimist are needed in the world just as much as pessimist are needed.
What I think he was getting at was that the different kinds of calcium carbonate were progressively better because of small changes in the way they were arranged.He's kind of hinting at a similar solution with oil to rearrange molecules to produce a better version of oil.
@gamesmaster35 That said I've never been a fan of this idea of past events predicting future events especially when applied to nature.Just because this was the way stone, wood and coal went doesn't mean that it will be the same for oil.Fact was we were lazy and we grew complacent.We should have been shaken up in the 70s with the first sign of shortage but we were not.And research into new sources were stagnated by those who would profit from it staying the same.
@gamesmaster35 - I see what you're saying but I feel quite strongly that oil is not the way to to for a clean future. Oil is a dominoe effect of problems.
I think he's making a couple large jumps there. Abalone shells are stronger than chalk, therefore, if we can make something better than coal we will have unlimited energy! Well, gosh, that was easy. Of course he didn't say whether this could be actually done or not, or if we could work OUT how to do it, or how much it would cost,
Actually, oil will never end. I made my engineer master degree in COPPE, an university that works close to PETROBRAS, and professors and workers say that we have been using only 20% of the oil. The thing is, the other 80% is too deep to be extracted easily, and the technology is very expensive. Can you imagine paying 10 to 20 times more just to get your car out of the garage?
We may not completely run out of oil anytime soon but we will quickly run out of easily extractable sources. When oil hits a negative EROEI(energy returned on energy invested) oil will cease to be an effective source of energy. We will probably hit this point within the next 20 years.
I normally enjoy TED Talks but this one really really missed.
You misunderstand me. . .the world is not ending etc Im just trying to give a real solution and Im not going to rely on some expert to tell me there is an invention around the corner that will save us all.
I never put down a TED talk, I really enjoy what they do. I really didn't get a lot out of this though and it seemed short with no real answers. If there's going to be all these great ideas, why doesn't he propose a good number of them now?
just wondering how changing the physical structure of the fuel actually increases the energy potential? is it not just the molecular structure that affects this?
@scoobysimon1 Yeah uh... im a material scientist. I saw this a few days ago and have been trying to understand what he has meant since then. He might have meant re-capturing co2 to make fuel. Other than that I am not sure, He might have just been trying to be cute. It is a thought provoking statement... but i can't figure out what hes trying to provoke!
@scoobysimon1 The particularly confusing bit is that hydrocarbons, the oil we use, is that way nature built a highly dense yet stable fuel. Biology didnt crush carbon and low burn it into coal, geology did. Biology changed CO2 into hydrocarbons which are awesome for fuel... So again.... hes confusing when he says 'what if we tried thinking about it this way '
Sorry folks. Technology is not going to get out of this one. Dead dinosaurs are our inheritance and we are using it up unsustainably. Try to live on the solar energy you can collect today. Stop finding new ways to burn the earth's resources
@seastained "blah blah blah the world is ending there's no hope unless we tear down the oil refineries and all live in wind powered bubbles and never touch the environment again."
Opinions are opinions, no matter how wrong yours are. Just try not to be so condescending about them.
His presentation is not very good, in my opinion he doesn't sufficiently relay the sense of urgency! Compare it with Rob Hopkins Transition presentation at TED!
If people knew how the oil/automobile industry has thwarted progress for the last century, they would call for their boards of directors to hang in the public square.
My worries are that a "Peak Oil" could do the "Apocalyptic Damage" with the panic it would cause, spurred on by economic shock and the guys at the top looting rather than helping move to the next project.
We should let farmers grow hemp for renewable oil resources, just ten percent of cultivated farmland can supp;y America with thirty percent of our oil needs. Enough to run most of the deisel vehicles on the road today,,,,,,,,
A nice little optimism boost, he's probably right, we will come up with something better, it's not like we've been using oil for that long anyway. I like how TED has these short lectures on encouragement
The Stone Age ended because the tribes using flint at the end of their spears were slaughtered by the tribes using bronze and iron on the end of theirs.
"So basically i'm just here to tell you guys that one of you should come up with some brilliant idea to save human kind. no pressure though because we still have lots of teh oilz. come talk to me, i'll fill in some of the details if you want"
He's not saying we can't run out of oil. We can and will if we continue using it at the increasing rate we are, even if our energy dependance PERCENTAGE is less.
He's saying he believes we won't because we will develop our technology and energy sources so that we no longer need oil.
A flawed and confused talk. It lacked any real point or purpose. Such a waste of an opportunity on a platform reaching so many.
@cornzee Well, in 2008 a 2% shortfall in oil prod. caused prices to spike to $147/bbl and started the subprime crisis, and a few trill in derivatives crashed. Since 2008 oil prod. has been plateauing and is now likely in permanent decline, only thing keeping prices down is the debt crisis that's supressing demand. Now theres still a $800 TRILLION derivatives bubble left. How exactly are we going to replace all oil use (cars, food prod. etc.) with no capital and no possibility of economic growth?
The stone age ended, not because we started rearranging the stone into other things, but because we started using better materials... The equivalent of that would be, us not using oil, and getting the energy straight from the source... the sun/nuclear power.
@littlestworkshop I agree with your critique, but cut the guy some slack...he had just over 7 minutes to summarize a presentation that should probably take 2-3 hours.
Oil's declining numbers as a percentage of overall energy use does not necessarily translate into a declining consumption of oil! If total energy increases by 30% and oil's share declines by 1%, we're using more oil despite that oil being a smaller percentage of the total.
Was he trying to deceive or spin? There's no evidence of that. I think the whole talk was just to plant the seed that some form of "clean coal" is being worked on and they're starting the PR.
Hey Mr Sears, no offence, how are you able to look out 100+ years. We are not even able to look 1 year into the future in our society. And btw if you are so skilful why don't you become the worldwide central planer if you have such a foresight.
So 2 trillion barrels left divided by world consumption rates, taking into consideration annual rates of increase, leaves us with "never run out of oil". This guy needs some remedial math.
I can't believe the audience sat through this, a walk-out would have been appropriate. I switched off at 3:30 after the 3rd MS paint graph left me in complete disbelief that someone completed the draft for their talk 3 minutes before they stepped onto the stage. He should be hamstrung and quartered.
You know, he had an interesting end point, but he misrepresented what the term "peak-oil" means, and he works for Shell. Funny that he used a shell in his presentation. Not that I hadn't thought of it before. At a bar. Drunk.
By the way, there is plenty of oil, but not much more that we can efficiently harvest, much less without destroying the surrounding environment.
This was a propaganda presentation, not an information presentation.
I'm sorry, but this is my first thumbs down of a TED.
@DallusDaPwnage The second comment out of the whole lot of you is my favorite: I'm 16 and this felt like the talk was aimed at a 10 year old. Didn't have much of a point to it. Bravo, kid, bravo.
Richard Sears works for Shell. He intentionally skewed the phrase Peak Oil. It means less harvesting because weve used up sources we can get with relative efficiency; it doesnt mean we use less oil because were all riding past geothermal plants and wind turbines on our wireless electric hoverboards His map is bogus, too: much of those reserves are shale oil (tar sands), or impossibly deep and/or below the ocean floor, and because resource figures coming out of Saudi Arabia are suspect.
Weve squandered one of the greatest resources imaginable: every pint of oil burned was millions of years of solar power compounded. And were still using 275 trillion gallons of it each year.
I wish I could moderate these u-tube comment boards to make this into a useful supplement for the video and for continued exploration. There are some good, important points and some seemingly honest debate.
Im optimistic, too, and in awe of feats of human ingenuity, but this guy is a crook.
An interesting talk, and it is possibly true that we can think our way out of this this situation... but not if we exhaust our energy supplies before that breakthrough is made.
Yes he is, and I agree with that assumption. Based on the evidence we have the Human species has continually advanced through the ages. So why not make the assumption that humans will continue to advance? I suggest looking no further than the technology you are using right now to see we are still advancing, computers are continually advancing. personally I'm looking forward to entirely wireless electronic technology, which we may see within the next 20 years or so.
lol it's funny how people take his example of the stones and coal, etc, too literal. he's only giving an example that human beings will find new ways of producing energy and that, by the time they do, they will not have used all of the oil on the planet. It's not a very good example but still, quite funny to see people so confused about it..
Scientists have just created the first artificial life with synthetic DNA. I think what he's getting at is that using artificially made bacteria we'll be able to get them to build high quality carbon fuel sources out of sunlight and nutrients.
I was skeptical about this man until he compared stones with oil. How we stopped using stones, not because we had ran out, but because we discovered alternatives.
So, this guy thinks we can get more energy out of a lump of coal by putting energy into re-arranging its molecules? I'm not entirely sure I understand his point.
Thirdly he claims that the use of energy-dense coal would be more efficient. But how environment-friendly will that be? How are you going to use this altered form of coal? Eat it or burn it? This is not explained in his presentation. If it is burned, then what about greenhouse effect?
Secondly in order to rearrange molecular structure you will need energy! What is so exciting about this guy's talk? Encouraging people to consume more oil? Shitty talk.
Poor speaker and misleading. Don't know what the main purpose of his talk. The only thing I notice is that if equipped with a turbine, his ears can produce renewable energy.
right now, we are digging up or pumping out everything that can burn, and burn it. i think thats a stupid idea, and i think the planet, if it would be a person, would agree with me.
now this tedtalk advocates the following "solution": dig out everything we can find that can be turned into oil, which is, with modern technology, all of what is included in my first statement. and then we turn all that variety of hydrocarbons into oil (he isnt proposing alchemy after all), and burn it.
He seems to be alluding to some new technology that can make a material more energy dense, by moving the molecules around. Whatever. I don't peak oil is a problem anyway.
@TedTracy Exactly, and here is a short video talking about just that: how it takes more and more energy over the years to extract the same level of energy out of the ground: watch?v=WeBtdwPpTQM
Well people better start innovating, because best case scenario there are 10-12 years of oil and 30-40 years of coal remain. It is hard to believe though, in 100 years we have exhausted a resource that took 3 billion years to accumulate. Yet the ignorant and dare I say stupid, think that somehow we have 100+ years of oil and coal. I guess math is really hard when you're snorting coke up your nose while daddy pays for you to go to Harvard.
neo1131 3 days ago
2015+oil=3$ per 1l no 1$ per 1l smile to the oil ;)
secretus3 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
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The word "gay" helps homosexual activists push their agenda.
lightandbeautiful 1 month ago
This was terrible. The people of the Stone Age didn't depend on stones to feed themselves. However, the people of Oil Age do depend on oil to feed its people.
quidproquo2004 3 months ago 2
@quidproquo2004 Without stones you wouldn't have been able to make a fire, fend off predators, or make simple tools for farming.
smiledammit24 1 week ago
Yay, false information!
durkadurka91 3 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
great to see channels like this
juliacotic 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
If oil disappears we will be more healthy or not we can survive without
andreeaweed 4 months ago
why do most genuis's have big ears? XD
StuntmanT 5 months ago
what a tard
optimo34 5 months ago
HE DID NOT ADRESSE HOW MOST OF THE OIL THAT IS LEFT IS IN HARD TO REACH PLACES, AND MUCH IN IMPOSSIBLE TO REACH PLACES... IMPORTANT FACT
frydayupinhere 5 months ago
So don't worry about peak oil because we'll just totally invent something else. We can just keep growing forever! We'll stand on one another's heads ten deep! We'll never have to conserve, and the free ride will never end! Oh frabjous day!
MrGalt 5 months ago
2055 last drops will come out. By 2040 oil extracting nations will stop supplying. We are screwed. Food which abundant because of oil. Medicine - many chemical compounds from oil. Lubricant-95% oil. Transportation - material carring trucks fueled by diesel. Earth crust has lost adhesions because oil pressure dropped beneath us. We are in big trouble.
symmetry08 7 months ago
@symmetry08 i wouldn't be surprised if your 2040 estimate comes earlier than that.
Conspiracy2Riot 5 months ago
Necessity is the mother of invention.
lanksareit 7 months ago 6
Replacing 900 000 000 vehicles to keep 5.3 billion people from poverty. First you need to convince the car manufacturer to start early, not taking short high profit from exploding demand of elcars in 20 years. Good luck with that.
Second you need to replace all ships and planes. Good luck with that.
Third you need an infrastructure to provide electricity to both house and car. Good luck with that.
Oh by the way, 5 people get poor every second. They just don't have realized it yet. Good luck!
bvssvni 8 months ago
Technology will save us all at the very last minute. Oh yeah. Dream on.
numbnuts234567 8 months ago
What an epic talk.
Would you please fill in the details right now ?
You still have 13 minutes to talk !
shodanxx 8 months ago
take that middle east
gergar121 9 months ago
looks like steve jobs in about 20 years
bertrab87 1 year ago
I hope this guy is right, but what if he is wrong
TheUnmaskedMagician 1 year ago
@TheUnmaskedMagician Have we not kept on making alternative fuels? And aren't we doing so today? Right now, we have a host of technologies for a host of purposes competing to replace oil.
spartacandream 1 year ago
yeeeah.. so that was a waste of time.. shame :( my first poor TED talk
reshad1 1 year ago
A little optimistic but I agree with him on a certain level. We already have realistic replacements for oil nearing readyness. So oil may not be a problem. The problem I think will be swoping over completely in time. Governments are stubborn making big changes like that but assuming we get going, oil won't be a huge problem.
Tapey01 1 year ago
what a goober. its all magic
Typho0n86 1 year ago
kind of misleading title. why did i favorite and like this? Title says preparing for the end of oil, but hes talking about using oil, just more efficiently. Fuckin confusing bullshit.
WyldOrbit 1 year ago
I like the idea because it will give me things like abalone shell armor. But i still want a car that runs on plasma. How come he didnt mention plasma and antigravity... nuclear fusion, stuff like that. Oil sucks and its boring.
WyldOrbit 1 year ago
this guy said nothing about EROEI people always forget the main thing, how these people get to speak as it there a expert in front of people who need other people to think for them
nietzschealive 1 year ago
Unfortunately unbridled optimism does not always help. "Science advisor: "We are going to run out of fuel if we don't stop using it up so fast. We need to change!". Leader: "We have always had enough fuel, stupid scientist! My father and father's father did, all will continue to get better, our people are getting more well fed and happy! Our population is increasing!". The location, Easter Island 10 years before the last tree is cut down, and the civilisation perishes.
indulis1 1 year ago
this was a pretty crapy ted talk LAME!
ZerqTM 1 year ago
Only when the resorce shortage effects the top 5% of the worlds top earners will anything ever happen.
geza96 1 year ago
Eventually, we'll run out of resources to pay those who make the ideas... and then we're screwed... Oh wait, that's already happening.
RobotBadger 1 year ago
This was one of the dumbest ted talks I have ever seen. He really didn't present anything. Waste of time.
christo930 1 year ago
@christo930 Hes describing how, taken from a very large perspective our dependence on any one fuel source is always replaced by newer more efficient fuel sources, long before the current fuel source is depleted.
rbairos1 1 year ago
@rbairos1 It doesn't have to be depleted, there just needs to be shortages, that is, not enough to supply the demand. There is absolutely no new energy source even close to production and we are at least 2 years past peak oil.
christo930 1 year ago
What an utter waste of a lecture.
Chalk, Limestone and Mother of pearl...and his point was? :/
TingTang1234567 1 year ago
Dear God.... thanks for that load of nothing.
dryan22 1 year ago
Economics will solve it. We will always go for the most cost effective energy source. As fuel prices rise and renewable prices drop (naturally not artificially through government) people will switch over.
masonkiller666 1 year ago
The charts were showing how oil was becoming a smaller proportion of our *total primary energy source*. Well, the fact that our total enery use is increasing, coupled with the fact that we use oil for so much more than energy, leads me to doubt his reasoning and therefore his conclusion ("chill out, s'gonna be okay").
BungleFeet 1 year ago
Hmmm...
stewartcelani 1 year ago
What the hell was that talk about
Mechanisttm 1 year ago
did he make that graph with MS paint?
summerfunteam 1 year ago
My teachers used to impose on us that *our* generation would need to find the solutions to the fossil fuel depletion. Well, we didn't. Now I'm a teacher telling the same thing to my ten year old students.
Except that, now I also have to warn them that by the time they're forty, the technologies and societal development that would help them solve the issue probably won't exist any more due to fossil fuel depletion.
ByeCruelWorld 1 year ago
@ByeCruelWorld You teach your ten year old students that by the time they are 40 technological society will cease to exist?
rbairos1 1 year ago
> by the time they are 40, technological society will
> cease to exist?
I warn them that as fossil fuels become depleted, finding and developing new hydrocarbon alternatives will become harder as the most important resources at our disposal become scarcer and more expensive.
I do also think that western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion. For example, we live on a tourism island that will be reduced to a handful of fishing villages.
ByeCruelWorld 1 year ago
@ByeCruelWorld What do you know that your doom-predicting teachers didn't?
Hasn't peak oil fears been preached for over a century? Its always apparently around the corner, like the rapture. Im all in favour of developing cleaner technologies, but any abrupt shortage in oil is just contrary to economics.
rbairos1 1 year ago
> What do you know that your doom-predicting teachers didn't?
I know that in the last thirty years no-one has come close to developing new technology to replace hydrocarbons, that we are more dependent on them than ever before, and that we've used much more in the last thirty years than in the previous 100 years. I know that my generation was supposed to have solved the problem by now, but no-one has even made the first step towards it yet. I know that the world's population has tripled.
ByeCruelWorld 1 year ago
@ByeCruelWorld How many more reserves have been found in the last 30 years? How many advances in detection, extraction, refining, distribution, etc? To claim that the oil industry is the same as the 70's is not accurate. To teach your child students that the world will suffer a technological collapse in their lifetime through the depletion of oil reserves is as irresponsible as teaching them creationism.
rbairos1 1 year ago
> claim that the oil industry is the same as the 70's
I said that very little has been developed in the way of hydrocarbon alternatives; what's that go to do with developments in the oil industry?
> teach your child students that the world will suffer a
> technological collapse in their lifetime
Huh? I said that finding a hydrocarbon alternative would become more difficult as fossil fuels are depleted. And the collapse I spoke of was localised; tourism here will not last another 30 years.
ByeCruelWorld 1 year ago
@ByeCruelWorld " And the collapse I spoke of was localised; tourism here will not last another 30 years."
Actually you said:
"western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion"
"I also have to warn them that by the time they're forty, the technologies and societal development that would help them solve the issue probably won't exist any more due to fossil fuel depletion."
There is no evidence oil reserves will suddenly run dry in 30 years.
rbairos1 1 year ago
> you said: "western society will probably be radically different in thirty years due to fossil fuel depletion"
Yes. We won't be able to use fossil fuels in the same manner as we do now, and that change will impact every area of our lives. 'Different' doesn't mean 'collapse'. OUR local tourist economy will collapse: no-one will come here by plane in thirty years, just as they didn't thirty years ago.
> run dry
We will stop using oil well before it 'runs dry' due to cost.
ByeCruelWorld 1 year ago
@rbairos1 Peak oil is now in the past, so you can take that idea that because it has happened yet, it will never happen, and put it in your pipe and smoke it.
christo930 1 year ago
To the naysayers of this video, he's saying stop putting your energy in trying to stop the use polluting energy sources and HELP CREATE BETTER ONES !
DynVec 1 year ago
this is awful.
dickie4thepeople 1 year ago
To say that something is the same and then ask what is different is stupid... didn't like the present.
theWHYing 1 year ago
@VooDooMadMan He's a troll. Just leave it.
niamhdowling 1 year ago
He has a gray pallor. Most likely heart or lung issues.
OgoTomO 1 year ago
@VooDooMadMan - He, like so many other "company men" has compromised his integrity and honesty for the bottom line of the company. To me that means he has no integrity and is sub-human. One day, if he can stand to be completly honest with himself, he will realize the ramificaitons of what he has done to our country.
mikwid 1 year ago
@mikwid I don't know just because someone is optimistic about our future doesn't make him a corporate sell out.I might not agree with his assessment but optimist are needed in the world just as much as pessimist are needed.
What I think he was getting at was that the different kinds of calcium carbonate were progressively better because of small changes in the way they were arranged.He's kind of hinting at a similar solution with oil to rearrange molecules to produce a better version of oil.
gamesmaster35 1 year ago
@gamesmaster35 That said I've never been a fan of this idea of past events predicting future events especially when applied to nature.Just because this was the way stone, wood and coal went doesn't mean that it will be the same for oil.Fact was we were lazy and we grew complacent.We should have been shaken up in the 70s with the first sign of shortage but we were not.And research into new sources were stagnated by those who would profit from it staying the same.
gamesmaster35 1 year ago
@gamesmaster35 - I see what you're saying but I feel quite strongly that oil is not the way to to for a clean future. Oil is a dominoe effect of problems.
mikwid 1 year ago
I think he's making a couple large jumps there. Abalone shells are stronger than chalk, therefore, if we can make something better than coal we will have unlimited energy! Well, gosh, that was easy. Of course he didn't say whether this could be actually done or not, or if we could work OUT how to do it, or how much it would cost,
Fred121212 1 year ago
Fuck you, Richard Sears, you facist piece of shit! Go to hell where you belong.
mikwid 1 year ago
Either way, we need great thinkers and engineers to get to work on this, now.
Neanderthalcouzin 1 year ago
aslong as you dont belive in global warming and that shit i dont care what we do
Evilfisher 1 year ago
this sounds too optimistic
Mudd0000 1 year ago
having oil or coal or anything else to burn is not the issue.
the CO2 and the price are the issues.
making oil from coal is old, but it doesn't help with the general problem.
0MoTheG 1 year ago 4
This has been flagged as spam show
Actually, oil will never end. I made my engineer master degree in COPPE, an university that works close to PETROBRAS, and professors and workers say that we have been using only 20% of the oil. The thing is, the other 80% is too deep to be extracted easily, and the technology is very expensive. Can you imagine paying 10 to 20 times more just to get your car out of the garage?
xandrelimadesign 1 year ago
Comment removed
xandrelimadesign 1 year ago
technology will human labor first...
then no one will be left to enjoy this great discoverys #LOL
either way ... maybe some will
authmaax 1 year ago
technology will end the age of oil, I agree.
don't know why there were critics of this, makes sense to me.
Northwichita 1 year ago
We may not completely run out of oil anytime soon but we will quickly run out of easily extractable sources. When oil hits a negative EROEI(energy returned on energy invested) oil will cease to be an effective source of energy. We will probably hit this point within the next 20 years.
I normally enjoy TED Talks but this one really really missed.
uscdave1124 1 year ago 2
Why would anyone trust a person whose talk is sponsored by big business(AT&T)? Watch and listen to the "good news" we are being fed.
mikwid 1 year ago
@mikwid this man works for Shell
Axbent 1 year ago
@Axbent - Doh! Ha! Sadly, that doesn't surprise me. Facist piece of shit. Hope he's going to hell.
mikwid 1 year ago
You misunderstand me. . .the world is not ending etc Im just trying to give a real solution and Im not going to rely on some expert to tell me there is an invention around the corner that will save us all.
seastained 1 year ago
condescending and not informative.
Ipoonthecasbah 1 year ago
I never put down a TED talk, I really enjoy what they do. I really didn't get a lot out of this though and it seemed short with no real answers. If there's going to be all these great ideas, why doesn't he propose a good number of them now?
devilsgrin6 1 year ago
@devilsgrin6 he did only have about 6 and a half minutes...
dopcodef 1 year ago
@dopcodef Well, then they should give them more time. Especially for a topic as big as this one!
devilsgrin6 1 year ago
@devilsgrin6 agreed.
dopcodef 1 year ago
Too short! They should give him more time.
TugaPipeJunior 1 year ago 2
pretty pointless whe he does not say how thermodynamics set the limits of what you can do. Not everything is possible
robz40 1 year ago
thumbs down
searchher1 1 year ago
Who gives a thumbs down to a ted talk?
drche420 1 year ago
just wondering how changing the physical structure of the fuel actually increases the energy potential? is it not just the molecular structure that affects this?
scoobysimon1 1 year ago
@scoobysimon1 Yeah uh... im a material scientist. I saw this a few days ago and have been trying to understand what he has meant since then. He might have meant re-capturing co2 to make fuel. Other than that I am not sure, He might have just been trying to be cute. It is a thought provoking statement... but i can't figure out what hes trying to provoke!
MaBuSt 1 year ago
@MaBuSt what if he's talking about increasing the potential for energy release?
Same way as catalytic cracking can turn bitumen into petrol, to be used as a fuel.
dopcodef 1 year ago
@dopcodef I have thought about it a bit more and im pretty sure he means turning coal into gasoline or turning it into natural gas.
MaBuSt 1 year ago
@scoobysimon1 The particularly confusing bit is that hydrocarbons, the oil we use, is that way nature built a highly dense yet stable fuel. Biology didnt crush carbon and low burn it into coal, geology did. Biology changed CO2 into hydrocarbons which are awesome for fuel... So again.... hes confusing when he says 'what if we tried thinking about it this way '
MaBuSt 1 year ago
Sorry folks. Technology is not going to get out of this one. Dead dinosaurs are our inheritance and we are using it up unsustainably. Try to live on the solar energy you can collect today. Stop finding new ways to burn the earth's resources
seastained 1 year ago 2
@seastained "blah blah blah the world is ending there's no hope unless we tear down the oil refineries and all live in wind powered bubbles and never touch the environment again."
Opinions are opinions, no matter how wrong yours are. Just try not to be so condescending about them.
dopcodef 1 year ago 2
"come talk to me about it, we'll fill in some of the details"
Rhuthmos 1 year ago 21
@Rhuthmos lol, you took the comment i was going to make!
visualkei72 1 year ago
Maybe we should run out of oil. With out a need for a change a change will never come.
smokeystriper 1 year ago
my first tedtalks that i ever disliked
07jburton 1 year ago
His presentation is not very good, in my opinion he doesn't sufficiently relay the sense of urgency! Compare it with Rob Hopkins Transition presentation at TED!
usertogo 1 year ago
If people knew how the oil/automobile industry has thwarted progress for the last century, they would call for their boards of directors to hang in the public square.
smujismuj 1 year ago
Comment removed
drorjs 1 year ago
really liked his conclusion
SheepRCool17 1 year ago
thank you for saying...its obvious to anyone who knows a little bit about economics.
princeofexcess 1 year ago
extract oil from unused plastic containers
flagship21 1 year ago
It's a good point and I'm actually all-for it.
My worries are that a "Peak Oil" could do the "Apocalyptic Damage" with the panic it would cause, spurred on by economic shock and the guys at the top looting rather than helping move to the next project.
GreenGestalt 1 year ago
We should let farmers grow hemp for renewable oil resources, just ten percent of cultivated farmland can supp;y America with thirty percent of our oil needs. Enough to run most of the deisel vehicles on the road today,,,,,,,,
oregonmotorcyclist 1 year ago
A nice little optimism boost, he's probably right, we will come up with something better, it's not like we've been using oil for that long anyway. I like how TED has these short lectures on encouragement
TheReluctantKing 1 year ago
naive
okonomiyaki4U 1 year ago 2
I'm having a peak wood right now.
sdrawkcabgnipytmi 1 year ago 7
The graph is interesting.
Jackinnnn 1 year ago
The Stone Age ended because the tribes using flint at the end of their spears were slaughtered by the tribes using bronze and iron on the end of theirs.
Experiment47 1 year ago
"So basically i'm just here to tell you guys that one of you should come up with some brilliant idea to save human kind. no pressure though because we still have lots of teh oilz. come talk to me, i'll fill in some of the details if you want"
guitarguy93 1 year ago 4
He's not saying we can't run out of oil. We can and will if we continue using it at the increasing rate we are, even if our energy dependance PERCENTAGE is less.
He's saying he believes we won't because we will develop our technology and energy sources so that we no longer need oil.
A flawed and confused talk. It lacked any real point or purpose. Such a waste of an opportunity on a platform reaching so many.
cornzee 1 year ago
@cornzee Well, in 2008 a 2% shortfall in oil prod. caused prices to spike to $147/bbl and started the subprime crisis, and a few trill in derivatives crashed. Since 2008 oil prod. has been plateauing and is now likely in permanent decline, only thing keeping prices down is the debt crisis that's supressing demand. Now theres still a $800 TRILLION derivatives bubble left. How exactly are we going to replace all oil use (cars, food prod. etc.) with no capital and no possibility of economic growth?
johan404 1 year ago
@johan404
whith ideas, plublic transportation, rock and more rock
atte keep on roking
tenisplayer 1 year ago
@tenisplayer You make even less sense than Sears,
johan404 1 year ago
The sooner we develop clean alternative energy sources, the sooner sheiks will be sitting on vast reserves of mud.
kinsmed 1 year ago
The stone age ended, not because we started rearranging the stone into other things, but because we started using better materials... The equivalent of that would be, us not using oil, and getting the energy straight from the source... the sun/nuclear power.
TheReasonWhyGuy 1 year ago 2
So basically "I drew some graphs and I am sure things will turn out OK because someone invented ideas and things always turn out OK"
littlestworkshop 1 year ago 19
@littlestworkshop I agree with your critique, but cut the guy some slack...he had just over 7 minutes to summarize a presentation that should probably take 2-3 hours.
pdblouin33 1 year ago
Oil's declining numbers as a percentage of overall energy use does not necessarily translate into a declining consumption of oil! If total energy increases by 30% and oil's share declines by 1%, we're using more oil despite that oil being a smaller percentage of the total.
Was he trying to deceive or spin? There's no evidence of that. I think the whole talk was just to plant the seed that some form of "clean coal" is being worked on and they're starting the PR.
robvh2 1 year ago
I hope that "oil dependent" countries realize what this man is trying to say.
boqallaf 1 year ago
Hey Mr Sears, no offence, how are you able to look out 100+ years. We are not even able to look 1 year into the future in our society. And btw if you are so skilful why don't you become the worldwide central planer if you have such a foresight.
danben72 1 year ago
He looks reaaaaaaaally unhealthy, like half-dead.... wow....
Zaorification 1 year ago
So 2 trillion barrels left divided by world consumption rates, taking into consideration annual rates of increase, leaves us with "never run out of oil". This guy needs some remedial math.
etzel33 1 year ago 3
Yeah, this talk didn't really go anywhere...
MrDarkbloom 1 year ago
Wow, look at the y-axis on his energy graph... fail scaling...
MrLimmmm 1 year ago 2
Look at all the downing that gos on when someone points out we will eventually move forward from fossil fuels.
austpom333 1 year ago
remarkably uninformative and useless. the only thing that was remotely interesting was the graphs of peak oil and peak coal.
doedicurus 1 year ago
I can't believe the audience sat through this, a walk-out would have been appropriate. I switched off at 3:30 after the 3rd MS paint graph left me in complete disbelief that someone completed the draft for their talk 3 minutes before they stepped onto the stage. He should be hamstrung and quartered.
seemoretube 1 year ago
@seemoretube You we're really offended weren't you?
JaredHutcheson1 1 year ago
@dragonstorm83 TED gives him a limited amount of time. because of that he can't go into everything he brings up
Mat2DaW 1 year ago
what a waste of time!!!
geoffreyphilip 1 year ago 2
is it just me or did he not really present anything substantial at all?
lishun 1 year ago 13
@lishun
With a lil practice and meth he can be the next ShamWow Guy.
Abalone smaloney Baloney.POW Oil FOREVER!
Ya your right, It was more of a PSA for hopfull future Tech.
M1ST3RHYDE 1 year ago
You know, he had an interesting end point, but he misrepresented what the term "peak-oil" means, and he works for Shell. Funny that he used a shell in his presentation. Not that I hadn't thought of it before. At a bar. Drunk.
By the way, there is plenty of oil, but not much more that we can efficiently harvest, much less without destroying the surrounding environment.
This was a propaganda presentation, not an information presentation.
I'm sorry, but this is my first thumbs down of a TED.
manowar821 1 year ago 4
The way we didn't run out of whale oil? We used and used until there was basically nothing left.
CadenRolland 1 year ago
@dragonstorm83 this guy works for Shell! Go figure!
Axbent 1 year ago
@DallusDaPwnage The second comment out of the whole lot of you is my favorite: I'm 16 and this felt like the talk was aimed at a 10 year old. Didn't have much of a point to it. Bravo, kid, bravo.
trafficlightblind 1 year ago
Richard Sears works for Shell. He intentionally skewed the phrase Peak Oil. It means less harvesting because weve used up sources we can get with relative efficiency; it doesnt mean we use less oil because were all riding past geothermal plants and wind turbines on our wireless electric hoverboards His map is bogus, too: much of those reserves are shale oil (tar sands), or impossibly deep and/or below the ocean floor, and because resource figures coming out of Saudi Arabia are suspect.
trafficlightblind 1 year ago 4
Weve squandered one of the greatest resources imaginable: every pint of oil burned was millions of years of solar power compounded. And were still using 275 trillion gallons of it each year.
I wish I could moderate these u-tube comment boards to make this into a useful supplement for the video and for continued exploration. There are some good, important points and some seemingly honest debate.
Im optimistic, too, and in awe of feats of human ingenuity, but this guy is a crook.
trafficlightblind 1 year ago 2
I feel warm all over now [sarcasm].
Did he miss the part about economic collapse in 2008 which explains why we are using less oil? It isn't because we have so many other options!
I wish he was right, but fear he is wrong.
zthustra 1 year ago 3
An interesting talk, and it is possibly true that we can think our way out of this this situation... but not if we exhaust our energy supplies before that breakthrough is made.
stonetop 1 year ago
Uhhh...."how" might've been nice.
blurglide 1 year ago
LOVE this talk! I think it's a good point, the stone age one :D
colinlikeschapstick 1 year ago
He's basing everything he says on the assumption that humans will continue to advance.... :/
Silverstarlightt 1 year ago
@Silverstarlightt
Yes he is, and I agree with that assumption. Based on the evidence we have the Human species has continually advanced through the ages. So why not make the assumption that humans will continue to advance? I suggest looking no further than the technology you are using right now to see we are still advancing, computers are continually advancing. personally I'm looking forward to entirely wireless electronic technology, which we may see within the next 20 years or so.
zenmonk420 1 year ago
Fluff
frenzyfol 1 year ago
lol it's funny how people take his example of the stones and coal, etc, too literal. he's only giving an example that human beings will find new ways of producing energy and that, by the time they do, they will not have used all of the oil on the planet. It's not a very good example but still, quite funny to see people so confused about it..
gr4ndhustle 1 year ago
dislike...
millamulisha 1 year ago
Scientists have just created the first artificial life with synthetic DNA. I think what he's getting at is that using artificially made bacteria we'll be able to get them to build high quality carbon fuel sources out of sunlight and nutrients.
eoinroe 1 year ago
im just going to repeat what everyone says
shitty talk, shitty shitty talk, shitty talk, shitty shitty talk
TheBlitz1 1 year ago
I was skeptical about this man until he compared stones with oil. How we stopped using stones, not because we had ran out, but because we discovered alternatives.
GMmarine 1 year ago 3
Why does this guy have so many thumbs up??? He is quite possibly the worst speaker I ever heard.
tempemonkey2323 1 year ago
So, this guy thinks we can get more energy out of a lump of coal by putting energy into re-arranging its molecules? I'm not entirely sure I understand his point.
DancingHorses26 1 year ago
this means that we must keep the oil company monopoly? What is this guy really proposing?
mochiam 1 year ago
@mochiam I don't believe his data tell the truth. Wha an apology of oil companies. Come on Ted you can do better than this
mochiam 1 year ago
Took a little long to get his main point across, but seems valid enough.
HDvideosaregood 1 year ago
Thirdly he claims that the use of energy-dense coal would be more efficient. But how environment-friendly will that be? How are you going to use this altered form of coal? Eat it or burn it? This is not explained in his presentation. If it is burned, then what about greenhouse effect?
otterboxiphone 1 year ago
Secondly in order to rearrange molecular structure you will need energy! What is so exciting about this guy's talk? Encouraging people to consume more oil? Shitty talk.
otterboxiphone 1 year ago
@otterboxiphone Shhhh heres a secret, watch the end of that talk again and you'll see hes not talking about rearring the coal molecules ;)
googoo120 1 year ago
Poor speaker and misleading. Don't know what the main purpose of his talk. The only thing I notice is that if equipped with a turbine, his ears can produce renewable energy.
otterboxiphone 1 year ago
that was a pretty contentless talk for TED.whats the plan?we'll work it out somehow
elusivefish21 1 year ago
right now, we are digging up or pumping out everything that can burn, and burn it. i think thats a stupid idea, and i think the planet, if it would be a person, would agree with me.
now this tedtalk advocates the following "solution": dig out everything we can find that can be turned into oil, which is, with modern technology, all of what is included in my first statement. and then we turn all that variety of hydrocarbons into oil (he isnt proposing alchemy after all), and burn it.
kurtilein3 1 year ago
@kurtilein3
I see. I couldn't figure out what his analogy meant. Not much of a solution then.
(Good to see you by the way)
Kargoneth 1 year ago
coal to liquid.
yeah, great. (i know irony doesnt work on the internet).
im not impressed.
kurtilein3 1 year ago
He seems to be alluding to some new technology that can make a material more energy dense, by moving the molecules around. Whatever. I don't peak oil is a problem anyway.
jollyradical 1 year ago
@TedTracy Exactly, and here is a short video talking about just that: how it takes more and more energy over the years to extract the same level of energy out of the ground: watch?v=WeBtdwPpTQM
elboertjie 1 year ago
Uh... I didn't understand his last analogy.
Kargoneth 1 year ago
@Kargoneth Don't worry about it.
The guy was a worthless shill.
Way under TED standards.
Which should be taken as a warning, to us,
that if money has changed hands once,
it could happen more and more.
DonQuixotedeKaw 1 year ago
I thought that was a battery in his hand.
Kargoneth 1 year ago