Big Dan educates PBD podcast on the reality of oil.

FIVE CENTS!

I don’t think that’s an extreme exaggeration. It may actually be worse than that.

The origin story of petroleum is a scam. It’s a lie. The price of oil is a lie. It’s based on manipulated expectations and false assumptions.

Oil doesn’t come from dead dinosaurs or smooshed plants. It comes from fucking carbonaceous rocks and hydrogen gas, and the Earth has more rocks and hydrogen than anyone can imagine.

These reservoirs of what they call “proven reserves” are constantly being filled back up with petroleum that seeps through from the mantle, where it’s created, into the crust where we can extract it. There is literally millions of years worth of oil in the planet.

In that respect the price of oil should be arbitrarily close to zero. The only cost is extraction and transport—which are always decreasing.

They manage the price of oil with fear and lies about supply. The reality is that petroleum is the second most ...