Errata — The Energy Trap

12 October 2026

How the price of oil is set, and the figure for annual oil use

Pages 36 and 37 say that cheap oil ‘dilutes’ the cost of expensive oil, so that ‘a $120 barrel is viable if the volume-weighted average is $60’. That is a clumsy oversimplification, and wrong. Oil sells at one world price, set by the last barrel buyers still take, and every buyer pays it. Cheap oil earns its producers a profit; it does not lower the price anyone else pays. The danger the passage describes is real, but it works through the price of that last barrel, not an average: as cheap oil runs down, the world must call on dearer oil, and every buyer pays the dearer price.

The book gives annual oil use as ‘thirty billion’ barrels on pages 46 and 49, and ‘roughly thirty-seven billion’ on page 48. Both figures are right, but they measure different things. The world produced about thirty billion barrels of crude oil in 2024, and consumed about thirty-seven billion barrels of all oil products, which include liquids separated from natural gas. Page 46 called the crude figure consumption.

Neither correction alters what these passages show: the sentence the passage opens on, ‘There is an oil price above which the economy contracts’, is unchanged, and the discoveries on pages 46 and 49 are still under a tenth of the crude oil produced.

Corrections

Page	Printed	Should read
36	‘not fixed; it is a moving target determined by a global blend. The economy can absorb expensive, difficult oil only as long as a massive base of cheap, easy oil dilutes the total cost. A $120 barrel is viable if the volume-weighted average is $60.’	‘not fixed. Oil sells at one world price, give or take its grade, set by the last barrel buyers still take, whether it cost $10 in Saudi Arabia or $40 in the oil sands. The more cheap, easy oil there is, the cheaper that last barrel, and the lower the price.’
36	‘not that any single barrel becomes too expensive, but that’	‘that the price of that last barrel rises too far, because’
36	‘the expensive sources it was carrying drag the global average upwards. At some point the average cost exceeds’	‘the world must call on dearer sources, and every buyer pays the higher price. At some point that price exceeds’
37	‘and it is invisible right up until it triggers, because the blended average masks the fragility underneath.’	‘and its scale stays hidden until it triggers, because the price cannot show the volume that is barely viable.’
46	‘while consuming thirty billion’	‘while producing thirty billion barrels of crude’
49	‘while producing thirty billion’	‘while producing thirty billion barrels of crude’

Both corrections have gone to the publisher for future printings. Sources for annual oil use: crude oil and lease condensate production, US Energy Information Administration, about 82 million barrels a day in 2024; oil consumption, Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy 2025, 101.8 million barrels a day.

28 September 2026

Figure 1 (energy density) and the comparisons drawn from it

Figure 1 on page 14 gave two wrong values, and four passages elsewhere in the book need correcting with it.

The hydrogen bar showed 5.6 megajoules, which is the energy in a litre of hydrogen compressed to 700 bar, not in a kilogram. Hydrogen has no single fair figure per kilogram: the gas alone holds about 120, but carried in a vehicle it needs a pressure tank many times its own weight. The bar has been removed. The book’s hydrogen chapter makes the argument in words, where the use can be named.

Natural gas was shown at 55 megajoules per kilogram, the gross heating value of pure methane. Natural gas as delivered is about 47 net.

Neither correction alters the interpretation of the figure: the diesel and battery values, which it exists to compare, are unchanged.

Corrected Figure 1: energy density in megajoules per kilogram. Natural gas 47, diesel and crude oil 44, bituminous coal 24, dry wood 16, lithium-ion battery (pack) 1. — Figure 1, corrected. Energy density, megajoules per kilogram. The fuels are weighed bare, the battery complete. Natural gas: GREET 1.8d.1, Argonne National Laboratory, as tabulated in the ORNL Biomass Energy Data Book (2011), Appendix A.

Corrections

Page	Printed	Should read
14, Figure 1	Hydrogen (700 bar): 5.6 MJ/kg	Bar removed (see above)
14, Figure 1	Natural gas: 55 MJ/kg	Natural gas: 47 MJ/kg
15	‘succeeded precisely because coal is denser – with roughly twice the energy per kilogram’	‘succeeded largely because coal is denser – with half as much again per kilogram’
15	‘another doubling up the ladder’	‘nearly a doubling’
50	‘Oil – the most energy-dense, most versatile, most irreplaceable fraction’	‘Oil – the most versatile, most irreplaceable fraction’
116, Glossary	Energy gradient: ‘(also known in the technical literature as “exergy”)’	‘(the work it makes available is called “exergy”)’

The corrected text sent to the publisher for future printings also rewrites the Figure 1 caption, tightens the wording on energy quality, and adds natural gas to the historical sequence of wood, coal and oil.