{"id":20173,"date":"2016-04-22T19:44:26","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T00:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20173"},"modified":"2016-04-22T19:44:26","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T00:44:26","slug":"we-could-be-witnessing-the-death-of-the-fossil-fuel-industry-will-it-take-the-rest-of-the-economy-down-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=20173","title":{"rendered":"We Could Be Witnessing the Death of the Fossil Fuel Industry\u2014Will It Take the Rest of the Economy Down With It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Could Be Witnessing the Death of the Fossil Fuel Industry\u2014Will It Take the Rest of the Economy Down With It?<\/a><\/h3>\n
In just two decades, the total value of the energy being produced via fossil fuel extraction has plummeted by more than half. Now $3 trillion of debt is at risk.<\/div>\n
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Photo Credit: Pixabay<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s not looking good for the global fossil fuel industry. Although the world remains heavily dependent on oil, coal and natural gas\u2014which today supply around 80 percent of our primary energy needs\u2014the industry is rapidly crumbling.<\/p>\n

This is not merely a temporary blip, but a symptom of a deeper, long-term process related to global capitalism\u2019s escalating overconsumption of planetary resources and raw materials.<\/p>\n

New scientific research shows that the growing crisis of profitability facing fossil fuel industries is part of an inevitable period of transition to a post-carbon era.<\/p>\n

But ongoing denialism has led powerful vested interests to continue clinging blindly to their faith in fossil fuels, with increasingly devastating and unpredictable consequences for the environment.<\/p>\n

Bankruptcy epidemic<\/strong><\/p>\n

In February, the financial services firm Deloitte\u00a0predicted<\/a>\u00a0that over 35 percent of independent oil companies worldwide are likely to declare bankruptcy, potentially followed by a further 30 percent next year\u2014a total of 65 percent of oil firms around the world. Since early last year, already 50 North American oil and gas producers have filed bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

The cause of the crisis is the dramatic drop in oil prices\u2014down by two-thirds since 2014\u2014which are so low that oil companies are finding it difficult to generate enough revenue to cover the high costs of production, while also repaying their loans.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas companies most at risk are those with the largest debt burden. And that burden is huge\u2014as much as $2.5 trillion, according to The Economist. The real figure is probably higher.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Could Be Witnessing the Death of the Fossil Fuel Industry\u2014Will It Take the Rest of the Economy Down With It? In just two decades, the total value of the energy being produced via fossil fuel extraction has plummeted by more than half. Now $3 trillion of debt is at risk. Photo Credit: Pixabay It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9913,1361,195,12428,1330,328,2092,1729],"class_list":["post-20173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-alternet","tag-bankruptcy","tag-debt","tag-deloitte","tag-denial","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-nafeez-ahmed","tag-oil-and-gas-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20174,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20173\/revisions\/20174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}