It will be better for the enviros’ mental health if they forget about CO2.
Ugo Bardi writes at Energy Bulletin:
Recently, Rembrandt Koppelaar has published on the Oil Drum a summary of the world’s trends in energy production. The report tells us that the oil industry is struggling to maintain the present levels of production. It may not have peaked yet, but clearly it can’t resume the past trends of increase. That’s not surprising, it had been foreseen already in 1998 by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere (link). What’s striking, instead, is the leap forward of coal. The world’s total energy production is not peaking and that’s because of the rapid growth of coal, as you can see here, from Koppelaar’s report:..
Also remember that the coal supply has had MASSIVE deposits in the US placed off limits by the government. There’s a lot more here, if we’d just use it.
That coal curve is in need of some serious global government “externality.” — And you just know it’s on the political agenda of IPCC’s upcoming AR5.
Separately, I wouldn’t use the word “clearly” when talking about oil trends. And that’s before accounting for frakking. The only thing clear is that governments are trying to stop the technology that produces while OPEC can afford to keep it old style.