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The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Wide Boundary News: Peak Oil (Not!), Peak Dispatchability, and WEF Risks

The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.8549 Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2026

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week's Frankly is another edition of Nate's Wide Boundary News series, where he invites listeners to view the constant churn of headlines through a wider-boundary lens. Today's edition features reflections on a new peak in crude oil production, the growth of non-dispatchable electricity, and a report recently released by the World Economic Forum assessing global risks. Nate ties each topic to the larger story of the Great Simplification, updating listeners on what pathways might be available to pursue the long-term stability of humanity in the biosphere. 

What factors have contributed to the new peak in oil production? How does dispatchability play into the current electricity landscape? And when global experts outline the future risks facing our world, who do we call on for action today? 

(Recorded February 4th, 2026)

 

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Greetings. Here is a quick overview of some things in the news. Wide Boundary Style.

0:17.8

Okay, this is not actually this week's news, but I only discovered it this week, as I have not been paying close attention.

0:26.2

But in late 2025, we made a new all-time high in crude oil production.

0:33.3

Yes, we've already been making new highs, including the natural gas liquids and other lower

0:38.1

BTEU, lower quality liquids that make plastic baggies and such and are now labeled as oil.

0:44.3

But Q4, 2025 marks a new all-time high in crude plus condensate category, which is truly oil.

0:55.0

In mid-2020, after oil's price plunge in my public presentations, I said that November

1:05.2

2018 would be the all-time high of crude and condensate with 90% confidence.

1:11.6

Well, I was wrong.

1:14.6

Some of the new highs and the extension was debt-fueled.

1:19.6

Some of it was productivity on drilling and finding oil from AI.

1:23.6

Some of it was OPEC policy opening the spigot. Some of it's a lag from the 2022 price

1:31.7

spike from the Russia-Ukraine war. But in total, new all-time highs in oil. Crude oil,

1:39.5

the engine of the carbon pulse has not peaked.

1:49.0

While we're on the topic, here is a recent graph of U.S. production.

1:55.1

And as I mentioned last week, the biophysical gauntlet is where prices that would benefit consumers are not high enough for oil producers to justify investment.

2:01.3

So we had a near-term peak late in last year, and now there's a decline, and oil is under $60 a barrel.

2:11.5

There are not any more significant shale resources in the United States after the Permian enters permanent decline.

2:20.3

So I suspect the next great migration will be to the Monteney Shales in Alberta.

2:28.3

And as a wide boundary but obvious comment, the last I checked, Alberta was not part of the United States.

2:36.4

Okay, a related thing in the energy news that I also didn't foresee is that electricity prices

2:43.8

would be increasing now much faster than gasoline, heating oil, diesel, and the like.

...

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