you finished watching it already?

I reject the basic premise that anything like that is actually needed.

You reject that the cost of extracting crude out of the ground will continue to rise?

If so it will be primarily due to politics, with the preferred solution being the one I mentioned.

Additionally I have seen many "we can make gasoline out of "X" schemes come and go for decades, where "X" might be anything from coal to algae to cow patties. None have been economically feasible.

isn't it logical that we extract the lowest cost oil reserves -- the lowest hanging fruit -- first. And that as we have to dig deeper, mine less pure sources, or go out further in to the ocean, the associated risks and costs will rise?

oil shale wasn't economically feasible in the past. And here we are, drilling oil shale.

The technology for finding and extracting oil keeps improving. Absent external forces it is going to be a very long time before making fuels from other sources is going to be an economically viable proposition. I very much doubt it will happen in my lifetime.

Extraction technology is expensive, and it has largely been funded by rising fuel prices. Similarly, technology for finding alternatives (not necessarily replacements) will keep improving. I agree that it will take a while before viable replacements for hydrocarbons are found. It is a relatively cheap and dense source of energy. (and renewable according to some theories). But people will keep trying nonetheless. It will gradually creep into niche applications first. Ironically, mines are one of the fastest growing customers of electric vehicles. It turns out that it's cheaper to drive EVs than to pump noxious gases out underground mines.

There's no shortage of things to pick apart in what the video proposes.
But I think that before you slam an argument, you should know what it is.

I agree with the general direction, if not with every detail, of MMJoe's argument. On the one hand, I do believe, like Scotty, that the current technology of electric vehicles is not the answer. Even the mainstream media has been running reports on the devastating environmental impacts of mining for nickel, lithium and other precious metals. They are bad, very bad. And, as Scotty points out, the technology is inherently inefficient for trucks, and any kind of long-distant haul, in a car or truck. This technology is inherently a niche technology, a transition technology.

On the other hand, when considering oil and gas energy sources, there's enormous "externalities", which include massive and multi-generational tax breaks to behemoth oil corporations, severe health consequences to populations nearby extraction and refinery sites and the still unfolding scenario of and obvious effects [from many points of knowledge and experience] of climate change, including the likelihood of climate migration in the hundreds of millions, if not a billion people, over the next couple of generations. So, I can say without any hesitation: The status quo will not endure. In fact, it's already gone.

I can't say what technology will ultimately be both cost-effective and climate neutral. But it won't be oil, not in its current form, regardless of what the Fat Cats at the Texas Railroad Commission, Oil and Gas Division, have to say.

And, no, they're not coming to take away our old technologies, anymore than someone showing up in 1982 and demanding I surrender my 8-track tape player. No one has come to the door to confiscate my VCR, or even my DVD player. They just get supplanted, over time. (After all, the Amish still have their horses and buggies, in upstate New York and Pennsylvania).

My fear is that there's going to be a lot of waste in top-down incentives. Governments may well choose to back the wrong technologies. (If you know anything about, let's say, the $170 million the FBI spent for a network computer system that was never put into operation, because it never did work, you'll see the point). But frankly, I've seen the same stupidity in large, for-profit, national medical entities and databases, as well, including very poorly designed portals and information system for doctors and patients. So, there's no inherent magic in private entities choosing technologies.

There will be a new, viable technology, and we will be surprised by it. Whether it comes and :"goes viral" in an appropriate time frame, that's another matter.

Finally, the pace of technological and social change in Western cultures is dizzying. But the future comes, like a hurricane, and renders the artifacts and social arrangements of the past as "vintage," "antique" in a proverbial blink of an eye. And that is the vortex that will swallow all our old and loved cars into memory and then oblivion. Until then, we care for them, appreciate them, keep them in efficient and cost-effective shape and let the future take care of itself.

Oh stop with the global warming boogeyman man. Have you learned nothing from Al Gore? News flash... we are still in an ice age. It's unusually cold right now. The planet is normally hotter and more CO2 rich (like the dinosaurs had). The planet will now return to the way it's supposed to be for a while, and then it's going to freeze over again in about 100k years. Just like it did many times before. Humans know bugger all about the planet and its processes. Our weather records span a pitiful blink of an eye in the grand scheme.

When I was a kid, most people were just fine with "lets try to minimize air pollution to keep the sky blue, and the air clean and breathable, " But then the enviro-fascists had to double down with this doomsday nonsense.

Correct, @mmj, "climate change" (aka "ManBearPig") is a natural phenomenon due primarily to our emergence from the Little Ice Age. It is also the excuse being used by governments to forcibly impose unnecessary, massive, disruptive, and destructive societal changes. (Technological changes would otherwise come gradually in their own time due to nature of progress - something like Mr. Fusion may well lie in the future. There is no urgent need to force these changes.)

Also when it comes to oil production it is not only fuels, it is lubricants, plastics, and much more. As I've mentioned in the past I spent the better part of a decade working in the R&D labs of a major oil company and among other things my job was to develop software that monitored and controlled the cracking process. Many products come out of the same barrel of oil. I don't buy the environmental arguments against the use of oil. There has been massive progress in reducing the environmental effects, and as far as "tax breaks" all businesses are able to deduct the costs of their businesses. (Also in the end businesses whether oil companies or the corner deli don't pay taxes, their customers pay them. Business is about return on investment and taxes are a business expense passed on to customers.)

Until very recently gasoline in most parts of the U.S. has actually been less expensive than it was in the 1960s in recent years, when the overall rate of inflation is taken into account. Then a political change took place and now we have cancelled pipelines and increasing restrictions on oil exploration. What we need is a political swing the other way to get back on track.

Vote them out and keep them out very well said Mr. Tobias!

These are really good arguments from both point of view.

I skimmed through the video and that's my impression as well. This guy and his company are basically claiming to have found a way around the fundamental laws of physics. Seen this kind of rot many times before over the decades. It's pure hucksterism meant to separate the unwary from their money.

let me guess ... BMW buys "carbon credits" by giving money to them.

The articles didn't mention that, however that is a distinct possibility.

likewise 😉

did you buy their stocks or something?