Arthur Berman: "Oil: It Was The Best of Fuels, It Was The Worst of Fuels"
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 558 Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode we meet with petroleum geologist and expert in U.S. shale, Arthur Berman.
In the discussion, Berman explains oil from the ground-up. What is oil? How is oil formed? How did we become dependent on fossil fuels? How much human labor is equal to the amount of energy in one barrel of oil? Where do the majority of carbon emissions come from, and what role can we humans play in helping us reduce emissions? How much oil is left and what are future prospects for oil production and the economy?
Further, Berman looks at the human desire to continue to grow and how it contributes to our collective energy blind spots. If oil is the economy, and oil is depleting, Berman explains why human cultures will one day soon need to learn to be satisfied with enough, rather than more.
About Arthur Berman
Arthur E. Berman is a petroleum geologist with 36 years of oil and gas industry experience. He is an expert on U.S. shale plays and is currently consulting for several E&P companies and capital groups in the energy sector.
For Show Notes and Transcript visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/03-arthurberman
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. |
| 0:15.8 | That's me. |
| 0:17.5 | On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, and our society. |
| 0:26.7 | Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society |
| 0:39.4 | and as individuals. |
| 0:42.8 | Today's guest is Arthur Berman. |
| 0:45.7 | Art is a petroleum geologist with over 40 years of oil and gas industry experience. |
| 0:51.1 | His background includes a master's in geology from the Colorado School of Mines |
| 0:55.8 | and over 20 years working at Amoco, which is now British Petroleum, as well as writing |
| 1:01.4 | articles and analysis for the energy website, The Oil Drum, 10 years ago, which is where we became |
| 1:07.3 | colleagues. In this discussion, Art and I do a bird's eye view of what oil is, what oil does, |
| 1:14.4 | and some common misconceptions about oil and human futures. |
| 1:18.4 | I hope you enjoy this conversation. Art, you and I have known each other for over a decade. |
| 1:37.1 | We talk all the time about energy in the economy. |
| 1:40.2 | I thought it would be a good idea to maybe record one of our conversations. |
| 1:43.3 | But instead of taking a deep |
| 1:45.4 | dive into kind of the advanced nuances of oil depletion and credit growth energy, I thought for |
| 1:53.7 | this first time that we talked together, we might do a little primer on oil and the economy and energy, et cetera. |
| 2:02.4 | So if you're willing, I've never done this before, but maybe we'll just start with a speed |
| 2:07.8 | round where I'm going to ask you a series of basic questions and you give me like 15 to 30 |
| 2:13.5 | second answer. |
| 2:14.5 | And then we'll get into some of the nuances after. |
... |
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