The article “Physics, fracking, fuel, and the future” had many crucial omissions and misleading statements and thus failed to give a clear idea of where we are and where we are headed with regard to fossil fuels in general, renewable energy, and energy technologies. For example, climate change, the main driver in the push to reduce fossil-fuel consumption, was not mentioned in the article.

Moreover, the authors do not seem to realize that the movement away from fossil fuels is already well under way. The Energiewende (Energy Transition), Germany’s program to change to low-carbon, nonnuclear energy sources, is never mentioned, and that Germany, Spain, and Italy already obtain more than 20% of their electricity from renewable resources is ignored. The authors seem unaware of California’s goal to generate, without nuclear power, 30% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020 and 50% by 2030.

The authors attempt to discuss petroleum extraction modeling: Their figure 2 shows a plot of US crude-oil production and results from M. King Hubbert’s model. Inexplicably, the strong decrease in US petroleum production in the past year is omitted. That decrease is not due to resource limits but rather to the unprofitability of shale-oil production at oil prices of about $45 a barrel. Fracking has indeed opened up a significant new source of oil, but just like conventional oil it is a finite resource and production will peak based on economics and other factors.

Hubbert crafted an econometric model with political constraints.1 The key role of economics is obvious: If oil is too expensive, demand and extraction will drop, as it did in 1973; if too cheap, companies will go bankrupt and supplies will drop, as they have in 2016. The role politics plays is less obvious than that of economics since regulations passed to restrict production and increase prices are unpopular and thus not widely debated. For example, in 1932 the US Congress established a tariff on oil imports to protect the US oil industry from cheaper foreign petroleum.

If US producers had been forced to compete with oil first from Venezuela and then from the Middle East, US production would have peaked in the mid 1950s. Understanding how the oil market functions is crucial if oil production is to be modeled properly. Since 1973 the market has been divided between OPEC and non-OPEC producers, with OPEC adjusting production to obtain prices it deems appropriate based on economic and geopolitical considerations.2 

In 2004 Exxon Mobil used that understanding and Hubbert’s model to project a peak in non-OPEC conventional crude-oil production by about 2010, at which point OPEC would have complete control of the market. Based on that projection, Exxon Mobil declared that it would build no new oil refineries in the US3 since increased supplies of oil for them could not be guaranteed. In fact, non-OPEC conventional crude-oil production peaked in 2005, and OPEC raised prices rather than increase production.

Finally, the authors seem unable to imagine a world with much reduced fossil-fuel consumption (see the caption of the article’s figure 1). My house in Princeton, New Jersey, demonstrates that such reduced consumption is certainly possible. We insulate heavily, use high-efficiency windows, appliances, and lighting, and buy renewable wind electricity off the grid; a geothermal heat pump heats and cools our home; a heat-pump water heater supplies hot water; a photovoltaic array on our roof adds some renewable electricity to our grid. We also use an electric car for local travel.

Alternatives to fossil fuels and technologies, including energy efficiency and conservation, are actually widely available and affordable both in the developing and developed world, but may not be as cheap as fossil-fuel technologies. All of us should adopt the new (and old) high-efficiency technologies and work to inform the public that alternatives are available and that we can live quite comfortably without much fossil-fuel consumption at all.

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A.
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Oil Gas J.
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21
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22
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2005
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2.
A.
Cavallo
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Nat. Res. Resour.
11
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3
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187
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2002
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3.
S.
Nauman
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Trends in Oil Supply and Demand
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Washington, DC
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2005
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