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by the 1950s humanity had it all. steam called electricity combustion

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engines and even nuclear power. we were at the top of our energy game rolling in

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cheap abundant energy. nothing could bring us down well except for the fact

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that coal oil and uranium are limited resources. everything is limited [man goes swimming]

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resources actually. even the Sun is gonna run out of hydrogen in a few you know

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billion years. then it's core will collapse and its outer layers will

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devour the earth. this is such an uplifting video. but on the bright side

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at least we've got some time before that happens. and we have more pressing

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business like what's gonna be the next song of the summer? or what's gonna

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happen when oil keeps getting rarer and more expensive .what well they're come

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forward. anyway these days we hear a lot of advocates calling for us putting more

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time and money into researching green renewable energy sources. where did that

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movement begin? well not in the early 1900s that's for sure. back then nobody

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was worried about things like carbon emissions peak oil or rising energy

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prices. didn't look like we'd ever run out of coal or oil. and yeah coal slow

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smelled gross but it was probably totally fine right? well sure there were [people wear masks in smoke]

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early murmurs of fear people couldn't look at our mines and oil wells and then

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look at the increasing rate of consumption and put two and two together.

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much later in 1956 a man named M king Hubbert published the paper that

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essentially said

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while hovered invented the idea of peak oil - which would be the moment when oil

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production would peak and then decline. after peak oil

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there won't be discoveries of deeper oil wells and oil production while takin

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noes dive. our fossil fuel based world might not grow forever. while Hubbert

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wasn't the only person saying dooms day things. world had to face the idea that [lighting flashes]

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we were running on a quarter tank of fuel down a long dirt road, no gas

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stations and no emergency plan. well there were lots of different reactions

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to this realization. one was the environmentalist movement of the 1960s

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and 70s which said we should lower our consumption of energy and change our

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lifestyles. presumably by wearing more beads and flowers and stuff. well others

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saw the whole thing is a national security issue. maybe we were running out

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of energy but we'd be fine as long as the Russians ran out first. ha ha take

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that commies. but some just saw a huge business opportunity whoever came up

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with the next big deal in energy could be a bazillionaire. [people mock renewable energy]

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others refused believe that we're running out of anything and that we

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should just take a chill pill or a handful of them. apart from those last

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guys with the mellow vibes everyone agreed that new ways of generating

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electricity would be super great, and so the push for renewable energy

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technologies began. we're off to the races but it's been a slow race to say

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the least and like watching slugs race each other while hauling cement blocks.

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yeah it's a gonna replace NASCAR any time. [race track shown]

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