#oil #gas #gasoline #coal #fuel
Denmark is phasing out oil and gas extraction from the North Sea by 2050.
The Czech Republic, meanwhile, plans to phase out the use of coal by 2038.
The Associated Press reported these forecasts in two separate articles. They were published Dec. 5, 2020, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Just a few decades ago, these commodities, in some cases, were scarce and expensive.
But over those decades, cleaner, more renewable forms of energy evolved in terms of pricing. In other words, when these clean energy forms were introduced, they were too expensive to compete with fossil fuels, even though fossil fuels are among the worst pollutants in an industrialized world.
Now, the progress with clean and renewable energy has brought the prices to a more competitive level. That has resulted in less use of fossil fuels and more use of clean energy over time.
That has caused the fossil fuel market to price itself downward, perhaps permanently.
When you pile a pandemic on top of that, you have a near collapse of the fossil fuel market.
During the pandemic, businesses were closed or limited, people didn’t drive or travel as much, and that brought a natural decline in fossil fuel use.
Where will this all lead? If you work in the fossil fuel industry, which decades ago paid very well and promised a prosperous future, you need to be concerned.
In fact, ANY legacy industry workers need to be concerned. Almost daily, technological advances punch holes in what many thought were forever businesses.
These changes in energy, and other industries, will produce different kinds of jobs. Are you ready for that, if you work in a legacy industry?
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Meanwhile, we all need to keep watch on our own jobs, industries and businesses. We have to continue to ask ourselves: will there be a need for this in five years? What other thing could come along, or be invented, to do what we do? Is my company looking to downsize, or otherwise reorganize, to prepare for these changes?
Remember, if you can see trends and changes from where you sit, it won’t be long before your bosses will see them. And, they won’t hesitate to act on them.
The world of employment is changing, not just in the energy sector. Workers cannot expect that someone, or something, will bail them out if they are suddenly put on the street. To complicate matters, you are unlikely to know when you will be put on the street, until you are.
Therefore, it’s best to plan ahead. Have a Plan B in place, ready to go when that day comes, or before. You may smile as you get tossed out of your job, if you plan ahead.
Life as we know it changes by the day. Perhaps we all need to change with it.
Peter