Talk:Fossil fuel phase-out/Archive 2

Requested move 24 May 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Steel1943  (talk) 04:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Fossil fuel phase-out → Phasing out of fossil fuels – There was an RM in 2016, which proposed moving to "Fossil-fuel phase-out", on the grounds that the current title is ungrammatical and requires a hyphen in "fossil fuel" as a compound modifier. That proposal (which was also lumped in with others) failed to gain consensus, but there was some support for an alternative construction, "Phasing out of fossil fuels". I'm proposing that as a formal RM, and in isolation, now. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 09:48, 24 May 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943  (talk) 12:56, 4 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The existing title is snappier. And alliterative. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:37, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I've looked for the WP:SNAPPIER and WP:ALLITERATIVE sections within our WP:Article titles policy, but I have to confess I haven't found them yet smiley.png &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 14:46, 24 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose - not an improvement, tho neither are very encyclopedic titles. Perhaps Phase-out of fossil fuels to match other articles, but I feel like that's only appropriate to historically document after its completed. This article seems to be both about providing arguments for the phase-out and alternatives (the Fossil fuel phase-out section should be reduced to a single paragraph or cut fully as almost none of it speaks about phase-outs), and also describing specific phase-out initiatives/proposals (in which a better title is "Proposals to phase-out fossil fuels") - not about a lot of actual completed phase-outs. -- Netoholic @  20:23, 24 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Split of "coal phase-out"
I propose to split the section "Legislation and initiatives to phase out coal" to an article specific to coal phase out. Other details specific to coal from this article can also be moved. I think there is enough material to have a separate article on the topic. --Ita140188 (talk) 04:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Excellent idea Chidgk1 (talk) 07:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Sustainability
Article currently reads in part Fossil fuel phase-out is the gradual reduction of the use of fossil fuels to zero use. (my emphasis)

This seems an extreme and oversimplified view to me. Is no level of fossil fuel use sustainable? Have there been no reliable secondary source studies published as to what this level might be? I have skimmed the article, perhaps not as thoroughly as I might, but I can't see any cited.

If any do exist, and regardess of their conclusions (which might be 0% as the article lead suggests for all I know), surely we should have a fairly prominent section on these conclusions? Andrewa (talk) 18:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Technically, any use of fossil fuel is unsustainable in the long term, since fossil fuels are limited in quantity. I also think the wide consensus among scientists is that fossil fuels should be phased out completely by the end of this century at the latest. At least this is the (often implicit) assumption I always find in the literature. This should not be confused with the possibility of using carbon based fuels, such as methane, of non-fossil origin (for example with P2G). --Ita140188 (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, this may well be true but I think we still need sources.
 * Our article on Sustainable energy currently reads in part Sustainable energy is the practice of using energy in a way that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" and gives two references.
 * That seems to me to allow some (perhaps small) use of fossil fuel. The Sun will swallow the Earth at some point, or so it is believed, and obviously fossil fuel reserves that remain at that point will have little relevance to anyone. So a level of consumption that delays exhaustion to that point would seem "sustainable" by this definition.
 * Certainly a Fossil fuel phase-out is necessary. All I'm questioning is whether there is consensus that it needs to be to 0%.
 * And I'm not saying that you are wrong. Just that there is more than one way of seeing things, so it's very important that we base our claims on sources. Andrewa (talk) 08:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)


 * In the last half of this century we will need to sequester astronomical amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This is practically a certainty given the consequences of not doing it (complete change of world climate and coastlines). By that time, emitting carbon would be so expensive (since avoiding emissions will always be cheaper than extracting the corresponding carbon from the atmosphere) that there cannot be a significant fossil fuel extracting industry. Moreover, the necessary future development of P2G and other similar technologies at scale will render the production of fuels much cheaper than fossil extraction. I find it very unlikely that there will be any fossil fuel use at all in 2100. I don't have a source for this, but I think it follows from any reasonable assumption about the economics of climate change. --Ita140188 (talk) 09:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I share some of these opinions, but here is not the place for them, and even less is the article the place for them. Here we are concerned about improving the article, and specifically with either finding sources for the claim made in the lead or removing it.
 * The best we have so far is that this is the (often implicit) assumption I always find in the literature. Going from this implicit assumption to stating it in the article would be original research. But it says often. So there are exceptions... sources that assume this explicitly. And we need to find them. Because otherwise we can't leave the (unsourced) claim in the article.
 * And it's not enough to find sources that recommend phase-out to 0%. What we need is a source that says, as our article does, that only a phase-out to 0% can be considered a phase-out at all. And that's a much stronger claim.
 * But even a source that states that a phase-out to 0% is essential would be an improvement. We could then rephrase the lead to this weaker claim. Andrewa (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Are plastics within scope of this article?
For example second sentence of lead:

"Crude oil and natural gas are also being phased out in chemical processes (i.e. production of new building blocks for plastics, ...) as the circular economy and biobased economy (i.e. bioplastics, ...) is being developed.[1]" Chidgk1 (talk) 17:04, 25 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Not really, no. FF phase-out is to get to zero carbon. Using FF's to make plastics is entirely compatible with that. Some people fail to get beyond "but plastics are made of FFs and FFs are bad", though William M. Connolley (talk) 17:31, 25 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Edited for scope Chidgk1 (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would be simpler to keep scope of this article limited. However, the info added on the old version of the page should be available on some wikipedia article(there is currently none). We already have a page on renewable energy transition, and this fossil fuel phase out page, but the phase out of the fossil fuel industry really comprises much more. What about making a Phase-out of fossil fuel derivates page (a simple stub with the info from the old fossil fuels phase out page would do).
 * I also made a Dedicated bio-based chemicals page and a Drop-in bioplastics (which perhaps may be worked out further as a "Drop-in chemicals" page or "Drop-in alternatives for fossil fuel derivates" page or whatever can be made. The idea is to describe the changes needed to replace the fossil fuel derivates in industry (i.e. petrochemical industry) obviously.

Can you (or someone else) get a start on this ? --Genetics4good (talk) 15:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I have moved your comment here as it seems a more relevant place. I don't really have any views on this. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:56, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Scope and structure of the article?
I think it is duplicating other articles too much - for example Renewable energy transition. I think it should focus more narrowly on the topic.

So now that we have a fairly large "Renewable Energy" subsection I suggest deleting subsections "Hydroelectricity", "Wind Power", "Solar" and "Biomass" and replacing the "Nuclear Energy" subsection with an extract of the lead of Nuclear Power.

"Energy efficiency" section could be replaced by an excerpt of the lead of Efficient energy use.

"Phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles" section should briefly summarize the state of fossil fuel phase out for other types of air, sea and land vehicles not just cars. "Biofuels" subsection could be deleted in favor of just links to Biofuel and maybe Aviation biofuel from within the text of "Phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles".

"Studies about fossil fuel phase-out" could be deleted as a section and the newer studies integrated into the article.

"Public opinion" section needs globalizing.

"Challenges of fossil fuel phase-out" could perhaps be updated, expanded and split into subsections.

"See also" needs slimming down.

Main heading "Types of fossil fuels" could be deleted and the subsections renamed "Coal phase out", "Petroleum based fuels phase out" and "Natural gas fuel phase out".

Sections on industrial heat and residential heating could be added.

Without going into too much detail on individual countries are there any general principles yet of how to phase them out? Some comparison of the relative position of countries/regions in the process?

More info on the speed of the phase-out? Cost-benefits so far? Can lessons from coal phase out be applied to oil and gas? Positions of fossil fuel companies?

After all that the lead could be expanded.

Do you agree that it could be improved and if so what do you think should be done? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm always happy when I see you removing outdated and off topic information from articles. I agree broadly with what you want to do. I wouldn't go into too much detail about individual countries indeed. A broader comparison of regions might work. I'm not the biggest fan of excerpt myself, but I do see their value when you want to improve loads of articles at the same time. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Broadly agree with the plan. However, I am against the use of automatic excerpts (using the template) in articles. Although we can start from the relevant article lead, I think each excerpt should be rewritten to focus on the topic of this article specifically. --Ita140188 (talk) 10:55, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
 * As the wind power section was so out of date and I did not want to spend a lot of time on it I replaced it with an extract for now. But I am sure that if you or anyone else has time to rewrite it you will be able to do a better job than the extract. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:12, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you are aware of what is changed and improved in the article. Broadening public opinion by globalizing sounds good and editing main/subsections are definitely needed as you planned.--Iambellaj (talk) 12:46, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Using excerpt from Wind power
, regarding your question in Special:Diff/993793477 – this is just a guess, but the error at Special:Permalink/993793005 could have been caused by the URL http://www.fleksenergi.dk/Files/Billeder/FleksEnergi%20pr%C3%A6sentationer/blarke-17april-intro.pdf which is used in one of the references at the page Wind power. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've attempted a fix: Special:Diff/989455935/993820556 for the Module:Transcluder. I'm not very familiar with Lua's mw.ustring.gsub function, so let's ask the author of the module., could you please take a look? There is a test case for "Wind power" at Template:Excerpt/testcases. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That looks good to me per mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua reference manual. However, it also looks like the same fix Sophivorus made on 17 November, which was reverted. Certes (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I have worked round it by getting rid of cites from lead. But presumably could recur if someone added a cite to lead in future. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:21, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * According to the Lua manual, in  in , only   is special and needs to be escaped.  It seems to be a 5.1→5.2 incompatibility that escaping other characters unnecessarily is no longer permitted, even those which would be special in   and other functions.  So, I think   now only works for  s and not  s.  If I'm right then we just need to replace   by   as I've done in Module:Transcluder/sandbox (or wrap that effect in a simple new function).   I have a version ready for the sandbox but am getting edit conflicts so can't save.  Certes (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This issue is rather tricky but I believe it was properly fixed by User:Leoncastro at the central module here. I just updated the sandbox to incorporate the fix and the testcases look good. Is it equivalent to your fix? Sophivorus (talk) 20:14, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that version might work under Lua 5.1 but would give errors under 5.2. We are using some hybrid of the two versions.  It is replacing (for example) [ by %[ in the call to escapeString then manually replacing the %[ by % again afterwards.  My tests suggest that will give an error in 5.2 if the ref happens to contain a [.  Certes (talk) 20:18, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Please go ahead and replace the current sandbox with your version. I'll do some tests and deploy. As always, thanks for your amazing skill! Sophivorus (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm struggling to find a test case that breaks things. Putting %2 in the ref breaks the current module, and my change fixes that, but so does yours.  I've gone ahead and put my version in the sandbox anyway but I won't be offended if you overwrite it. Certes (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I updated the central module and local sandbox with your fix, checked every test case, then updated the local module and previewed a few pages with it. Everything looked cool so I deployed. Thanks again and I'll stay on guard in case some issue pops up, cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 13:46, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks . That update also edited comments (requested vs. non-requested files) which I didn't change intentionally: please can you check that's correct? Certes (talk) 14:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Checked, all's good. Sophivorus (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Do you want to reintroduce the excerpt now? I previewed reverting your workaround but the Sustainable energy sidebar appeared twice and I'm not sure what to do about that. Certes (talk) 14:37, 13 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I put a cite in and the excerpt is still fine. Thanks everyone. Chidgk1 (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Isolari. Peer reviewers: Lkashef.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

US specific info moved to talk page
I moved the below here as someone may wish to put it in a US article

US government debate over mitigation strategies
Part of the current debate revolves around energy policy, and whether to shift funding to increasing energy conservation, fuel efficiency, or other energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear power. At congressional peak oil hearings, Rep. Tom Udall argued that while rising oil prices would encourage alternatives (both on the supply and demand side), the costs and impacts of other issues involved with petroleum based personal transportation (such as pollution, the economic effects of global warming, security threats caused by sending vast amounts of money to the Middle East, and the costs of road maintenance) should also be taken into account. "Because the price of oil is artificially low, significant private investment in alternative technologies that provide a long-term payback does not exist. Until oil and its alternatives compete in a fair market, new technologies will not thrive."

In 2005, the Congressional Budget Office suggested that, "the federal government could more effectively increase the efficiency of the nation's automotive fleet by raising gasoline taxes, imposing user fees on the purchase of low-mileage-per-gallon vehicles, or both." This would give automakers more incentive to research alternative fuel technology and increased efficiency (through lighter vehicles, better aerodynamics, and less wasted energy).

Hans-Holger Rogner, a section head at the IAEA, warned in 1997 that the level of incentive required for market driven research and development will actually rise. Because production costs are not expected to decrease and because of the continued emphasis companies give to short-term profits, "a regional breakdown for 11 world regions indicates that neither hydrocarbon resource availability nor costs are likely to become forces that automatically would help wean the global energy system from the use of fossil fuel during the next century."

The problems of privately funded research and development are not unique to peak oil mitigation. Bronwyn H. Hall, graduate economics professor at the Haas School of Business, points out that, "even if problems associated with incomplete appropriability of the returns to R&D are solved using intellectual property protection, subsidies, or tax incentives, it may still be difficult or costly to finance R&D using capital from sources external to the firm or entrepreneur. That is, there is often a wedge, sometimes large, between the rate of return required by an entrepreneur investing his own funds and that required by external investors." The severity of the problem for energy is echoed in the International Energy Agency's latest report

In the US, transportation by car is guided more by the government than by an invisible hand. Roads and the interstate highway system were built by local, state and federal governments and paid for by income taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, and tolls. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is designed to offset market imbalances. Municipal parking is frequently subsidized. Emission standards regulate pollution by cars. US fuel economy standards exist but are not high enough to have effect. There is also a gas guzzler tax of limited scope. The United States offers tax credits for certain vehicles and these frequently are hybrids or compressed natural gas cars (see Energy Policy Act of 2005).

In order to be profitable, many alternatives to oil require the price of oil to remain above some level. Investors in these alternatives must gamble with the limited data on oil reserves available. This imperfect information can lead to a market failure caused by a move by nature. One explanation for this is Hotelling's rule for non-renewable resources. Even with perfect information the price of oil correlates with spare capacity and spare capacity does not warn of a peak. For example, in the early 1960s (10 years before oil production peaked in the United States), there was enough spare capacity in US production that Hubbert's predicted peak of 1966-1971 was "at the very least completely unrealistic to most people," preventing the necessary steps being taken to mitigate the situation. The absence of accurate information about spare production capacity exacerbates the current situation.

Lester Brown believes this problem might be solved by the government establishing a price floor for oil. A tax shift raising gas taxes is the same idea. Opponents of such a price floor argue that the markets would distrust the government's ability to keep the policy when oil prices are low.

In 2007, a Pentagon Report, "Space-Based Solar Power: An Opportunity for Strategic Security" proposed Space-Based Solar Power as a macro solution to peak oil and fossil fuel depletion. Recently a proposal for US leadership in SBSP won the SECDEF D3 competition. Engineer Keith Henson discussed the scale in "Dollar a Gallon Gasoline". Mike Snead has recently assessed prospects for US fossil fuels and SSP in "US fossil fuel energy insecurity and space solar power". Snead and Henso recently put out a video. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Masdar moved to talk page
I moved the below here as it seemed not really globalised and is out of date - if worthwhile maybe someone could summarize in a couple of sentences

Masdar, an experiment in mitigation
One government which is moving forward with mitigation plans is the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The United Arab Emirates economy minister stated in 2007 that the UAE do not believe that relying on oil revenues is sustainable, and so are moving to diversify their economies. Besides allotting land for solar power plants and partnering with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build an alternative energy research institute, a new city is being constructed 17 km east-southeast of the city of Abu Dhabi, which will rely entirely on solar energy, with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology. Known as Masdar (Arabic for source), the initiative is headed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC) The project is estimated to take some 10 years to complete, with the first phase complete and habitable in 2009, and a goal of housing 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city is intended to cover 6 km2, with no point further than 200 m from a solar powered personal rapid transit link, housing energy, science and technology communities, commercial areas, a university, and the headquarters of the Future Energy Company. By relying on sustainable energy sources, keeping cars out of the city, returning to older architectural conventions (such as reducing air conditioning costs with large tents and narrow spaces between buildings), using sewage to produce energy and create soil, taking advantage of all recycling opportunities (including for and from construction), and reusing gray water, Masdar is designed to be a city which will consume no oil.

Chidgk1 (talk) 08:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Integration of merged content
@Akdulj @Bearian @LegalSmeagolian @Joyous!

Have done the merging which did not need thought - over to you Chidgk1 (talk) 08:11, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * You rock. Thanks. I corrected the target at the redirect page to point here, and adjusted the talk-page tags. Joyous! | Talk 17:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Merge of "mitigation of peak oil"
User merged all the text in mitigation of peak oil into this article following a short discussion. Why was this article the target of the merge and not peak oil, which seems to be the most obvious choice? Ita140188 (talk) 08:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I don’t know - perhaps @LegalSmeagolian can tell you Chidgk1 (talk) 12:07, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a good question. But the peak oil article actually has lots of problems itself (too long and detailed). I think it needs to be reworked to focus on just the concept, not on all the issues around production, reserves and so on. But it's a little bit strange that no alternative targets for the merge were discussed at the time (here), only fossil fuel phase-out. EMsmile (talk) 13:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Predicting the timing of peak oil
@EMsmile @Ita140188 @LegalSmeagolian

and anyone else. You may like to contribute to the discussion at Articles for deletion/Predicting the timing of peak oil Chidgk1 (talk) 14:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I deleted “ Implications of an unmitigated world peak”
I deleted the below because it turned out that the energy crisis was not what they expected but was caused by Mr Putin and did not really affect the US anyway

Implications of an unmitigated world peak
According to the Hirsch report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy in 2005, a global decline in oil production would have serious social and economic implications without due preparation. Initially, an unmitigated peak in oil production would manifest itself as rapidly escalating prices and a worldwide energy crisis. While past oil shortages stemmed from a temporary insufficiency of supply, crossing Hubbert's Peak means that the production of oil continues to decline, so demand must be reduced to meet supply. If alternatives or conservation (orderly demand destruction) are not forthcoming, then disorderly demand destruction will occur, with the possible effect that the many products and services produced with oil become scarcer, leading to lower living standards. Shipping costs are particularly relevant to a country like Japan that has greater food miles. US indications of economic volatility have manifested themselves in the largest increase in inflation rates in 15 years (Sept. 2005), due mostly to higher energy costs.
 * Air travel, using roughly 7% of world oil consumption, would be one of the affected services. The energy density of hydrocarbons and the power density of a jet engine are so necessary for aviation that hydrocarbon fuels are nearly impossible to replace with electricity, to an extent beyond any other common mode of transport.
 * A US Army Corps of Engineers report on the military's energy options statesThe Army and the nation’s heavy use of oil and natural gas is not well coordinated with either the nation’s or the Earth’s resources and upcoming availability.
 * Shipping costs On average, a one percent increase in fuel prices leads to a 0.4% increase in total freight rates. Using this rule of thumb, the recent doubling in oil prices has raised averaged freight rates by almost 40%.
 * Increasing cost of oil for importing countries ultimately reduces those countries' purchase of non-oil goods abroad. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco discusses oil and the US balance of trade: Oil prices have almost quadrupled since the beginning of 2002. For an oil-importing country like the U.S., this has substantially increased the cost of petroleum imports. International trade data suggest that this increase has exacerbated the deterioration of the U.S. trade deficit, especially since the second half of 2004.
 * Significant oil producing countries will have a national purchasing advantage over similar countries with no oil to sell. This can result in larger militaries for oil producers or inflation of the price of whatever commodities they purchase. Saudi Arabia purchased US$40 billion worth of arms from the US between 1990 and 2000.
 * The United States averaged 464 USgal of gas per person in 2004. Therefore, increased gasoline cost will likely make gas reducing alternatives increasingly necessary and common for lower income US residents.

Those who feel that much more drastic imminent social and cultural changes will occur from oil shortages are known as doomers. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:34, 21 February 2023 (UTC)