UC Berkeley

Never, in oil’s one and a half century of commercial extraction has the global oil industry’s future been so fraught. The renewable energy transition, an ongoing investment and volatility crisis, the decline in the quality of reserves and current production, renewed fears of geopolitical conflict, and the inherently anarchic character of capitalist oil production have all converged to cast a shadow over the future of oil, and energy as a whole. This dissertation is a combination of four distinct essays, each of which contributes to unraveling the current juncture. My argument, put simply, is that under this convergence, the capitalist renewable energy transition will be plagued by the greatest period of dysfunction the oil industry has ever seen, impacting billions of people around the world in their access to energy during this time. This, what I call, ‘Carbon Purgatory,’ deserves study as this tumultuous period of transition begins.