Picture is as murky as a barrel of oil, with US companies in 2026 expecting their first production drop in four years
US shale-oil producers were already contending with oil prices at four-year lows. News that they may soon face a significant competitor in their back yard likely wasn’t how frackers wanted to greet 2026.
The US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolaá Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, hit the share prices of independent shale-oil producers, such as Diamondback Energy and Devon Energy, last week.
Over the last 20 years, the US fracking industry has built itself into the main driver of domestic oil production: it accounted for 64% of total US crude oil production in 2023. With average production levels of 13.6m barrels a day (BPD), the US is the world’s largest crude-oil producer.
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of many countries’ energy policies. Many countries believe that continued economic growth will require an increasing amount of energy. That is absolutely true. More growth will require more energy. However, the misunderstanding is the almost subconscious belief that energy = oil and gas. It’s as if many world leaders believe that there are no energy sources available to humanity outside of some relatively rare fossil hydrocarbon deposits. To many, oil and gas is energy and energy is oil and gas. It makes sense why people who think this way believe the choice the world faces is between continued growth or reducing fossil use, as if we must choose one or the other. The fact is, it is possible to grow while reducing fossil fuel use. Between renewables and nuclear power, we can produce enough energy to power a growing global economy.
That being said, infinite growth does require infinite energy. If the global economy continues to grow, at some point we will need all the fossil energy resources, as well as all renewable energy and all the nuclear energy. But we’ll boil our atmosphere just from latent heat before we can use all the energy. At some point, wealthy countries are going to have to decide when enough is enough. We simply cannot grow forever on a finite planet. It’s not physically possible. But in the meantime, developing countries especially can and should continue to grow, and they absolutely can do that without increasing global fossil fuel demand. But that’s largely up to the wealthy countries.
It’s well established that infinite growth cannot happen on a finite planet. That’s why people continue to talk about Mars settlement. Because outer space is literally infinite.
Yeah, space. That’s always the solution. But if expanding into less and less hospitable environments was the next frontier of continued economic growth, why aren’t investors scrambling to build out Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean?
expanding into less and less hospitable environments
the thing is that Mars isn’t even that inhospitable. It only appears that way today because people have no knowledge of it behind the surface.
Like, all you really need to build a settlement is water, electricity and a source of carbon. Mars has all three in ample amounts. There is lots of water on mars (see here). It’s just that it’s buried in rock and needs to be extracted through a technical process.
That’s very unlike Antarctica and the bottom of the ocean where you don’t have energy. And that matters.
Also there’s a spiritual/mystical element to it. People would only complain about “environmental protection” if somebody started drilling for oil in antarctica large-scale to grow food, but on mars there is no such concern. In fact, it is widely recognized that spaceflight is an inevitable destiny of (parts of) humanity and that (parts of) humanity needs to turn into a society that routinely relies on high-tech for this, and mars seems like the perfect playground for this. At least that’s how i look at it. Ask away if you have any serious questions :-)
Like, all you really need to build a settlement is water, electricity and a source of carbon.
That’s not all you need. You also need breathable air and surface pressure that isn’t going to make your eyes pop out of your skull. You need protection from too high levels of radiation.
You’re not living on the surface of Mars. That environment is not survivable. If you’re going to Mars, you’re living underground or in enclosed habitats. You can do that here. Go get a little bit of land here on Earth and build a self sustaining enclosed habitat and live in it. It would be a lot easier and cheaper.
Nah we won’t boil our atmosphere because we will launch rockets to the moon and produce shades on the moon and put them at the Earth Sun Lagrange point and cool the earth down that way. So our ravenous use of energy will give us the energy to fix the problem.
This is exactly what I don’t get about all this. If Trump starts dumping Venezuelan crude on the market, US crude, which is largely dependent on more expensive extraction techniques, becomes less competitive. This means all the oil fields in Texas and Pennsylvania shut down (among others), and all the associated jobs go away
Yeah, there’s been an irony in that the one group that doesn’t really benefit from lower oil prices are oil companies.
Trump and his ilk making ill advised not well thought out decisions that fuck over his voters. Name a more iconic duo.
I suspect there’s probably an “oil glut” (i.e. lots of oil being thrown on the market) right now, but it’s not because of Venezuela (that will take years to build extraction posts) but instead because right now, every oil-producing country tries to sell as much as possible before renewable energy will inevitably drop the demand for fossil fuels to near zero around 2040.
In 2024, 5% of our electric power came from solar. It grows by 30% annually, that means it doubles in 3 years and grows to approx. 50% by 2035.
