Open Thread Non Petroleum

D Coyne Uncategorized

This open thread is for anything energy related that is not specifically about oil or natural gas.

Where possible comments might be moved to this thread if they are posted in the wrong place.

 

253 thoughts to “Open Thread Non Petroleum”

  1. Too much has been said about solar/wind intermittency. Not enough said about its occasional over abundance. Valuable if managed rightly. Defer any load that can be met by such gushers. Relief to the average load, making it easier to meet daily loads.

    1. Too true, cheap electricity can be used to heat thermal mass for later use in heating buildings. It can be used to convert H2O to H2 for energy storage, to run machinery and drying machines, to pump water and other liquids into storage tanks. Also it can run pumped hydro storage for later generation. When the excess occurs and price falls, people and business will learn to take advantage of it.
      Maybe we can sell it to newly electrified railroads of the future. Best to move freight when the cost is low.
      Cheap electric can be used to freeze water for building cooling purposes, ice storage.

    2. For utility scale PV in dry climates (Calif for example), excesses of electricity would be useful for desalination plants.
      For small systems, particularly those off grid – ? flywheels, compressed air
      If it summer in hot climate you could run a heat pump to cool your cement slab, or make ice.
      Doubt many folks will have excess PV energy in the winter (unless they have massively overbuilt their system- $$$).

      1. Thanks, folks, for relevant response. It is clear that best use-in-excess needs some study for max return.

        BTW, I have noticed that the greatest excess does happen when cold and bright outside – early or late winter.

        For me, I am thinking of putting a booster heater on my pyrolyzer so that electricity can automatically top off the oven heat to assure best gas product at all times, and when in excess, take all that heating load.

        That gas goes to a small stirling that automatically keeps battery topped up so homeowner could with confidence drop grid entirely with quite a small battery and instant response to load from free piston stirling, whole package small and affordable.

            1. Thanks wimbi. I am now surveying a number of sites with info on Stirling engines.
              In what do you store the gas?

            4. sites – – unless lots sold and solid performance/life numbers given, forgetit.

              Way too many mere hot air.

            7. No! That’s amazing to me. There it sits,and sits and sits.

              I would buy one in a second, and so would a lot of others.

            8. Hi Wimbi,

              I would buy one as well, unfortunately I do not have your mechanical engineering expertise, so I would have no clue how to build it.

              Has the design been patented by Sunpower?

            9. Yes, but long past. That design could be much improved today.

              Not a project for amateurs,but no different from any new commercial project.

    3. It could be used to distill water, make ice, heat salt, store in car batteries, make ammonia from nitrogen, etc.

      There are many energy intensive processes that could done intermittently but aren’t because current technology assumes electricity is always on. Changing that assumption will lead to a flurry of innovation and the problem will solve itself, I think.

  2. Dennis, I think I finally found a new tax that i can support and it is based on the theory of the cigarette tax or sin taxes in general and was inspired by this article;

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/08/florida-county-commissioners-propose-new-climate-doomsday-property-tax/

    Let’s start tripling all beach front property taxes in blue states: MASS, NY, NJ, CA, WA etc. If after 10 years this state experiment works, we can discuss rolling it out nation wide?

    1. Taxing the rich? Good luck with that, you will find a lot of corporate houses and buildings on the beaches. And we know the corporations only pay 4% of the income tax in this country. It will just be a write off on their taxes.

      1. The dividends declared by corporations are taxed. Capital gains are taxed. Any capital losses are often limited to a relatively small amount on individual tax returns. Is this not double taxation – or worse?

        1. The individual is taxed on all his gross gains, not just profits. Corporations are taxed on profits. Yet corporations use much of the resources and infrastructure provided by society. If they want to be treated like citizens they should be taxed like citizens.

            1. If corporations want the rights of citizens they need to be taxed as citizens. Shareholders are already taxed at a large discount compared to the rest of citizens, so they too are not even taxed once, only a fraction of once.

            2. Are you saying that a citizen making $100,000 a year who receives dividends of $5,000 a year is only taxed a fraction of once?

            3. Oh come on. You are purposely mixing wages and dividends. You know exactly how dividends and profits from the sale of stocks are taxed.

            4. True, the corporation has already paid taxes and now the citizen is taxed again on the corporate profits (dividends).
              GoneFishing, are you double taxed?

            5. If you find some double taxation, don’t complain to me, contact your senator and representatives. I certainly can’t do much about it.
              I think we should tax carbon at the fuel source rather than at the pump or use end. So taxes would be paid at the mine or wellhead on carbon based fuel production.
              I would also like citizens to get a stipend for the resources used, since the citizens own the resources of this country. Private ownership of resources should not be allowed, it demeans our citizenship. So money must be paid to the citizens by whomever removes and sells those resources , after they get permission. Any harm done to the public should also be paid for or not allowed.
              Wouldn’t that turn the energy industry upside down?

      2. America is not a united country. It is a multiracial global empire ruled by a select few who only want more of what they have, which is unlimited money and power.

        And you think this thing is going to hold together?

        1. I do not see anything going on that would break up the United States. In fact, the last 75 years has tightened the union. The cold war, the middle east wars, terror, all brought the US under stronger federal control.

          So how would you divide the US? North and South? East and West?

          I think Puerto Rico should be brought in as the 51st state.

          1. I agree—
            And our colony Guam should be given representation also– it is taxed, but has no representation- the definition of a colony.
            I don’t see a break up under the current paradigm.
            However, if things change as expected, the feedback loops are quite complex.

          1. The biggest cogs/beneficiaries in the global crony-capitalist plutarchy neofeudal musical chairs machine…
            The rulers are the rules, created, upheld and/or circumvented by the mindless and/or ignorant and/or corrupt…

            Kid: “Dad? Why are there rich people?”
            Dad: “What do you mean by rich? You mean like in spirit?”
            Kid: “No-o-o-o-o… Like they have lots of big houses and cars and money!”
            Dad: “Ohhh, you mean those kinds. Well, you see, sweetie, our society allows some people to make more money than other people, working no harder than anyone else. Society then allows those with more money to acquire more land than others. Over time, this creates the dynamic for most, if not all, problems we have in society today, like landlessness, homelessness, poverty, social unrest, war and collapse.”
            Kid: “Why does society allow that?!”
            Dad: “Corruption. Society uses force to uphold undemocratic, unethical laws that say that one person with more money can have more land than another with less money.”
            Kid: “Why can’t we stop that!?”
            Dad: “Corruption again: This setup is upheld by people with guns and weapons, or access to them, like police, security guards and military people– people (among many others) who often don’t understand this basic and very simple immoral core of our society.”
            Kid: ” 🙁 ”
            Dad: “Ya; 🙁 “

            The corporations bigger than nations

            “37 of the world’s 100 largest economies are corporations. Of those 37, most of them are oil companies or banks. It’s worth bearing this in mind when considering why the problem of rising inequality or our failure to act on climate change?”

            “According to him, the dystopia of the Wachowski Brothers’ Matrix trilogy is already here: the technological-industrial ‘machine’ is already running the world, a world where individual humans are but insignificant little cogs with barely any autonomy. No single human being – neither the most powerful politician, nor the most powerful businessman – has the power to rein in the system. They necessarily have to follow the inexorable logic of what has been unleashed.” ~ G Sampath on John Zerzan

            Blood On Your Hands

            “Rulers seek fossil fuel
            As the poor still eat their stools
            And watch the thunder flash
            Unleashed for oil and gas, oh…

            Five corporations earn more than forty-six nations
            You’ve got blood on your hands
            You’ve got blood on your hands
            Corruption at the highest levels
            Man made hell and a man made devil

            You’ve got blood on your hands
            You’ve got blood on your hands
            Jacques De Molay turns in his grave
            As Cecil Rhodes rides out again…” ~ Killing Joke

  4. Two threads is the way to go.

    The physical: data and analysis – what was, is, and is likely to come.
    The philosophical: what to do about it.

    No one looking for hard data and analysis on production and reserves wants to wade through discussions on agriculture, but post peak agriculture is of utmost relevance to the reality of peak oil, as are post petroleum energy systems.

    There’s a nice mix of opinion here and it’s nice that it isn’t excessively constrained topically.

  5. There is a residential area in Boise, Idaho that has been heated by geothermal energy for many years.

    Geothermal can be harnessed to usable energy quite easily.

    http://publicworks.cityofboise.org/services/geothermal/

    Up and down the Rocky Mountains, geothermal is always there.

    Liard Hot Springs in northern British Columbia is a great place to visit.

    Even Yellowstone has some geothermal hot springs.

    Hot Springs, South Dakota is where newly weds go for some fun, I hear. The next day, they head for Deadwood.

    You know what they say in South Dakota, Hot Springs tonight, Deadwood tomorrow. har

    Here’s how the Russians get around when there is no road:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJUMOzx_zE

    1. USA HOT SPRINGS MAP

      http://acme.com/jef/hotsprings/

      A few hot springs in the east but the west seems to have the corner on the market, as well as Alaska.

      I prefer the big island of Hawaii myself, soaking in a brackish pool of volcanic heated water right near the ocean is far better (and cheaper) than the spa. A lot of the older locals go there for relief from aches and pains.
      Don’t need the heat in Hawaii, but it could produce electricity. And the roads get resurfaced for free occasionally.

      BTW Yellowstone has more than some hot springs.

      1. It would have to be used to produce electricity, as hot springs are usually in sparsly inhabited areas. Plus, sometimes they quit as in the Queen Charlottes 2 years ago, although it is starting to return. Liard is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, Colo…not so much.

        1. Drilling for hot rocks could keep some of those out of work petroleum drillers busy and funded. Producing steam from hot rocks to run turbines would probably cause less fuss than drilling for oil and natural gas.

  6. Paris air pollution is worse some days than in Beijing.

    http://e360.yale.edu/digest/paris_bans_pre1997_cars_fight_air_pollution/4756/

    We have a bunch of fossil fuel true believers who just flat out refuse to learn anything about the externalized costs of using fossil fuels on the grand scale.

    It’s perfectly true we are stuck and cannot give them up, but it’s equally true we can cut back and come out way ahead by doing so.

    And while I am not a good enough researcher to prove it, I think it is fairly obvious that COLLECTIVELY, what we are spending on subsidizing renewable energy production, electrified automobiles,tougher efficiency standards, etc, is more than offset by our collective savings on the purchase costs of fossil fuels.

    Pretty soon, within five years most likely, we will be getting ten percent of our electricity in the USA from wind and solar, and this means that the combined sale of natural gas and coal for purposes of generating electricity will be off by very close to ten percent by VOLUME.

    Since reducing the sale of any generic commodity has the result of depressing the market price of that commodity, our actual collective savings will be substantially greater. How much greater is anybody’s guess. My own guess is that wind and solar electricity generation at ten percent of our gross production will reduce the actual consumption of coal and gas combined ( for generation) by at least nine percent, given that a little more hot spinning reserve is needed with more renewables penetration on the grid.

    This loss of sales might depress the cost of coal and gas on average by as little as two or three percent, or as much as ten or twenty percent. Nobody actually knows, and even educated guesses are hard to come by.

    In any case the collective savings for all of us who are NOT involved in the coal and gas industry will probably far exceed what we spend subsidizing wind and solar power.

    1. “Pretty soon, within five years most likely, we will be getting ten percent of our electricity in the USA from wind and solar

      Mac, that sentence sent me to take a look at the data that I use to produce my graphs on electricity production every month. The percentage of electricity being produced by non hydro renewables has been doubling about every six years when looking at the annual data. The figure was 5.4% in 2012 so, it should be over 10% by 2018. One might say, “but, that is all non hydro renewables, not just solar and wind” but, the data tells another story. The growth of wind and solar is far out-pacing that of other renewables, with wind and solar combined making up just 20.4% of non hydro renewables in 2005 but, contributing 71.8% in 2015 and 79.8% in April 2016.

      The monthly data also tells another story. All non hydro renewables produced 7.6% of US electricity last year. Looking at the monthly data, the contribution from non hydro renewables was less than 7.6% in January and February, when the contribution of solar is at it’s weakest and the the absolute amount of electricity generated is around it’s winter peak (see chart below). The contribution of non hydro renewables was also below 7.6% during the mid year, peak demand months of June, July, August and September. This suggests to me that the peaks in demand have traditionally been met by non renewables. If one looks back at the graph for solar power output based on the EIA’s electric power monthly it would appear that a paradigm shift may be about to occur. Solar production peaks in the middle of the year during the peak demand months. My guess is that solar is going to become an increasingly important source of electricity during the summer months since. it matches both the mid year and mid day peaks quite nicely,

      Finally, solar industry data suggests that there is quite a boom underway with solar in the US at the moment and wind industry news suggest that the wind industry isn’t doing too badly either. I would not be surprised to see wind and solar hit 10% of US electricity by next year. For 2016 here are the percentage contributions of wind and solar combined.

      January 5.68
      February 7.21
      March 8.05
      April 8.02

      In another couple of weeks, we should have the data for May.

  7. this is freakin great:
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/07/09/lets-cook-limestone-to-raise-atmospheric-co2-to-1000ppm/

    The world has a CO2 problem – there is not enough free CO2 in the atmosphere, to maximise food production, alleviate world hunger, green deserts, and to attempt to hold off the next ice age. But if my calculation is correct, raising CO2 to a safer level would be surprisingly affordable.

    Although a lot of nonsense has been written about CO2 harming plant growth, the reality is commercial greenhouse growers maintain elevated CO2 levels of around 1000ppm, because one of the most effective means of promoting plant growth is to make sure plants get enough CO2 – enough being defined as a significantly higher concentration than is currently available in the atmosphere.

    The world is also almost certainly teetering on the brink of the next glaciation. I’m not suggesting it will start tomorrow, but interglacials, of the kind we are currently experiencing, typically only last 10-15,000 years. We are well past the Holocene Climatic Optimum, the peak of our current interglacial. Without serious anthropogenic intervention, it is all downhill from here. There is no guarantee raising CO2 will prevent or mitigate the slide into the next glaciation period, but given the catastrophic consequences the coming ice age will have on human civilisation, it has to be worth a try.

    I am doing my part??

      2. I’m pretty sure there was a sarc switch somewhere. Well, we’re back to wet July on the coast, and across Canada’s boreal. My buddy says almost every helicopter not on specific fire contract is parked. Many have gone home. It can change, but fire season is usually well over by mid-August in the north.

        1. Having a drought out in northeast, finally got some rain, but rivers are still low. My lake (natural) is almost two feet down below normal, beaches are growing. Plants are mostly doing OK, but I notice some trees are dropping leaves already.
          Sixty-five percent of the northeast is under some form of drought. Twenty-one percent is moderate to severe. No extreme drought areas yet.

    2. Although a lot of nonsense has been written about CO2 harming plant growth, the reality is commercial greenhouse growers maintain elevated CO2 levels of around 1000ppm, because one of the most effective means of promoting plant growth is to make sure plants get enough CO2 – enough being defined as a significantly higher concentration than is currently available in the atmosphere.

      Anyone who thinks that what happens in the confines of a commercial greenhouse, can be safely applied to ecosystems globally is a pompous ignorant fool! Unfortunately that profound a level of ignorance probably can not even be cured by access to knowledge.

      https://goo.gl/3ehmt0
      Biodiversity and the Meaning of Human Existence
      Lecture series by E.O. Wilson

        1. I always thought so called climate change was a tool the passionate Left was using to thwart western industrialism/capitalism. That article and comments now leave absolutely no doubt in my mind. Its so scary, the types of people the left lets into there party, the types of people who want to destroy America from within by forcing us into giving up our freedoms to live only the way they decide for us. ~

          1. Yes Nancy, for over 150 years scientists have been building a giant conspiracy to control the industrialism and capitalism that funds their research. All that physics and chemistry is just a ploy to take political control.
            Good thing it’s not working!

            1. “..,.Good thing it’s not working!…”

              …and good thing that, when it does “sometimes” work (ie.: Siberia and Canada burning….or Alaska not having snow in March for the dog race……or GreenLand being warmer than NYC in JUNE….or….or….),

              we have people like Nasty…. I’m sorry, I meant Nancy who point out the great left conspiracy and save us from it……

              God bless you Nancy….. what can we do without people like you!
              Your time and advice is very valuable, so PLEASE do not spend it with us moronic lefties here at this blog…Please!
              Go to R. Limbaugh or A. Jones or somebody similar….
              Freedom can use your service better there…..

              Be well,

              Petro

            2. I just wish they (right wing geniuses) had not taken over the radio stations.

            3. ….oh there is PLENTY of left wing slime to go around out there as well, GF.

              There is absolutely no difference between the two…

              REPUBLICRATS and DEMOCLICANS are one and the same….lets not forget that…..

              Be well,

              Petro

            4. There’s a great deal of difference.

              Two party politics forces candidates towards the middle. If a democrat moves to the left, then the republican can grab those voters and win. In a two party system, neither candidate can allow much daylight between themselves and the other.

              The answer: moving the frame for the whole debate. That’s the realm of candidates, like Sanders, who don’t actually care if they win, but just want to shift the debate.

              Also, of course, it’s the role of the media, but conservatives have been buying the media and making it dishonest. The Washington Post has been an interesting but minority counter-example, with a Silicon Valley type buying it…

            5. Ha, Ha. Thankfully I am neither. But I must say the right winger is the most delusional and paranoid of the bunch, also the most selfish. I sometimes listen to their radio rants as a form of entertainment, sheer fiction.

          2. God bless you Nancy….. what can we do without people like you!

            Thank you for saving us “freedom-NOT-loving libtards” here at this blog…ThankYOU, ThankYou!

            But, since your time and advice is very, very valuable, PLEASE do not spend it with us moronic lefties here at this blog…Please!
            Go to R. Limbaugh, or A. Jones, or S. Hanity, or somebody similar….
            Freedom can use your service better there…..

            Be well,

            Petro

            1. I’m with Nancy. Why worry about global warming?
              Why even bother worrying, we’ve got Trump.
              But seriously, we should just the burn fuel at our whim.
              Sure we may get some catastrophic crop failures that will lead to famines.
              And we may lose some lowlands over the coming century, but we’ll just move higher up. Nancy has some backyard space, I’ve heard. [I never really liked swamps anyway].
              But we have too many people, and most are becoming ‘lefties’. No great loss.
              So why sweat it. Just use AC.

            2. “…So why sweat it. Just use AC….”

              …and, while you’re at it, point the air flow at nancy …..

              Be well,

              Petro

            3. Wow, an image of Slim Pickens riding the bomb down just went through my mind. Yeee Hawww, let’s just enjoy the ride down.
              As Maynard G. Krebs said “What, me worry?”

      2. I am currently reading Anthill by E.O. Wilson. A remarkable novel which I found in our local library. Interesting parallels between ant wars and human conflict. I also recall his massive tome on Ants.

        1. Nature is warfare and conflict. Territory, food sources and sunlight are being constantly battled over with physical presence, biochemical weapons, teeth, claws, muscles, beaks, toxins and stingers.
          As Cleggy of Last of the Summer Wine put it when he and his buddies were appreciating a the hills and dales of a view of the English countryside.

          Clegg: It’s easily done. Some of us look at a view like this and all we can see is how bonny it is. But if you’re really in tune with nature, if you concentrate and listen, then soon, faintly on the breeze, you begin to sense the million munching teeth of tiny things scoffing even tinier things.

          1. But if you’re really in tune with nature, if you concentrate and listen, then soon, faintly on the breeze, you begin to sense the million munching teeth of tiny things scoffing even tinier things.

            Ah! Yes! But in the end, it is the tiniest of the tiny things, the archaea and bacteria that end up scoffing even the biggest of the big things! The biomass of all those tiny things far surpasses the biomass of everything we think of as big and important like ourselves…

            And that doesn’t even take into consideration the SLIMEs
            Subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial ecosystems.
            Humans are more insignificant than they could possibly ever imagine!
            🙂

            1. What goes around, comes around. Eat, be eaten, round it goes.

              BTW, I keep a supply of antibodies and white blood cells available to eat up the tiny bad ones. I bet I get more of them than they get me, until the end of course. But it takes billions of them to eat one of me, once I let them.
              I also keep a supply of friendly bacteria, just to help out. We work together.

              Humans are just one version of life, surrounded and inhabited by other forms of life. It is such an interesting world, sad to see so much of it disrupted. But the rest are there, always pressing, always ready to take over if we just step back for even a short time. Crunch, crunch, nibble, grow.

              LED headlamps are great for finding reflective eyes at night. Deer, bear, owls, rabbits (red) moths and spiders. Oh the spiders. Sometimes there are thousands of spider eyes staring back at me on my night walks, they are everywhere, at least for a while, until they eat everything and each other.
              Sure would creep people out if they could actually see their world.

            2. If you ever get a chance watch National Geographic’s
              Savage Garden. Leslie Nielsen stars and narrates.

            3. And while we’re communicating about this, new strategies in that regard are evolving…

              Naturally, we all represent potential forks in our own species’ evolution…

              10 million years or so from now, there may evolve one or more new forms of ‘human’…

              Maybe there will be some that eat an exclusive diet of neoRepublicans, or others that prey– maybe via some kind of appendage that looks somehow disruptive and/or like Tony Seba, Elon Musk or whoever have you, and reminiscent of a deep sea fish’s for luring prey, growing out the ‘forehead’– on those leftover from the techno-industrial age.

    3. thats funny TT.

      On the other hand, I find it very interesting how people can turn their ‘ideology’ [of any topic] on a dime if their personal financial incentive is flipped.
      For example, take someone who hates the idea of imported products, and offer them a good job at the ‘imported food council’- and they will overnight become a champion for that industry.
      I tend to disregard the opinions of those who have inherent conflicts of interest on particular topics.
      I don’t go to Greenpeace for news on Global Warming, but I also have learned to tune out industry guys on both sides of the issue as well.
      Their vested interest blinds them. Although I do see that some of it is in jest (I think).

      btw- I love fossil fuels (until we somehow don’t need them anymore- which, in reality, is just wishful thinking for a long long time). I burn them up every day (directly or indirectly), like the other 6-7 B who have a few dollars.

    4. Hi Texas Tea,

      We have the data for the last 800,000 years for atmospheric CO2. What that data shows is that ice ages do not occur when atmospheric CO2 is above 250 ppm.

      If atmospheric CO2 reaches 450 ppm (it is likely to be much higher, probably 510 to 600 ppm), it will take approximately 5000 years for atmospheric carbon dioxide to fall from 450 ppm to 275 ppm.

      Concern over future ice ages is unwarranted until approximately 7200 CE (if atmospheric CO2 reaches 510 ppm, consistent will my medium scenarios for the URR of coal, oil, and natural gas.)

      There are many who think my estimates are too low, if they are correct then atmospheric CO2 might reach much higher levels (650 ppm would be roughly consistent with my high scenarios).

      There are others who believe the fossil fuel resource will be far lower than my medium cases and if they are correct and my “low scenarios” prove more realistic, then we may remain under 480 ppm of atmospheric CO2 and severe climate change might be avoided, this only moves the eventual fall to 275 ppm of atmospheric CO2 to 7100 CE.

      In any case, concern about future ice ages requires very unrealistic assumptions such as permanent increase in aerosols that are never removed from the atmosphere or clouds that reflect most of the sun’s energy and cool the planet or big changes in the planetary carbon cycle compared to the previous 800,000 years. Basic physics suggests such scenarios are highly unlikely.

      1. Hi Dennis,

        All true, but there are other areas of concern as well: some revolve around potential feedback processes (Of course feedback can go two ways.) One elephant-in-the-room is Arctic sea ice. Grade 8 science tells us ice floating on water is a buffer that keeps water at zero degrees. As you know, each gram of ice takes 334 Joules of heat to change it into water (and, once ice has turned into water any further heat goes into raising the temperature of the water). So, keeping things at our Grade 8 level, melting ice absorbs eight times as much heat as it takes to warm up the same mass of water from zero to 10°C. Naturally, as ice disappears, extra energy then goes into raising the water temperature.

        Stating the obvious, sea ice can reflect up to 90% of sunlight back into space but once the ice has melted ocean water reflects about six percent of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest: we know sea ice in the Arctic is disappearing which could lead to feedback on a huge scale.

        Please don’t think of this as a condescending comment, it’s not meant that way. My wife always used to say (she frequently taught math/physics to engineering students) when you’re trying to make a point, keep it simple. That’s ALL I’m trying to do.

        1. Yes Doug, we are collectively conducting one massive chemistry/physics experiment on the biosphere, with each 7.3 B of us contributing to various degrees.
          Maybe when there was less than a billion of us, and when we hadn’t cut down half the native forests and then using coal, it didn’t add up to much of an effect.
          But now, we are one of the gorillas in the room.
          Who knows where the experiment will lead- no one does. But make no mistake- the experiment is well underway. An experiment with no goal other than to ‘go forth and multiply’. That is a broken ideology!
          We are on the verge of a great contraction, of our own doing, one way or another.

          1. Well, God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” or something like that. Guess we should just get on with it and totally fuck the planet, as commanded by Him (or Her).

            1. Doug, do you actually do as you are told? Come on, if we actually listened we would still be wandering the garden of Eden.

        2. Hi Doug,

          I am fairly sure that the climate scientists are aware that the earth’s albedo will change as the Earth becomes warmer, some research suggests that about 1000 Gt of carbon emissions (all sources including land use change) after 1750 results in a 50% probability that we will exceed 2 C of warming.

          In my comment to Texas Tea, I am basically arguing that we are unlikely to experience another ice age in the next 5000 years (or longer), I suspect you would agree.

          I agree there is great uncertainty about climate change with ECS ranging from 2C to 4C, full ESS (earth system sensitivity) may be higher (4C to 6C), but it will take thousands of years before the full effects would be realized.

          The uncertainty is the reason I believe man should transition to wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal power and use energy far more efficiently in general.

          We also need to offer free education to all women and free birth control, this will go a long way to stopping population growth as soon as possible, 2050 would be best, but 2070 is likely to be more realistic.

          I realize you are doubtful that any of this is possible, I just look for solutions to obvious problems. You may well be right that implementation is unlikely.

          I look at progress that humans have made over time and think that perhaps we can progress further. Total fertility ratios (births per woman) fell from 5 in 1965 to 2.5 in 2005, if total fertility ratios fall worldwide to 1.75 births per woman by 2045 (a slower rate of decline than 1965 to 2005) the population problem is solved and we will see a peak by 2070 or earlier.

      1. Doug, no need to be alarmist about all this! Don’t you know there is an ice age that’s almost here. I know because the the Sun has lost it’s spots

        http://goo.gl/m4m76L

        YOU may not have noticed but our sun has gone as blank as a cue ball. As in, it’s lost its spots.
        According to scientists, this unsettling phenomenon is a sign we are heading for a mini ice age.
        Meteorologist and renowned sun-watcher Paul Dorian raised the alarm in his latest report, which has sparked a mild panic about an impending Game of Thrones-style winter not seen since the 17th century.

            1. I remember when such things were just science and not fluff for the news media or grist for the anti-science spin masters.

    2. Don’t worry, all that smoke will cause global dimming that will cancel out the increase in global warming from the CO2, for at least a month or two. The smoke will also keep the bugs down.

    1. Your equipment runs on software? I think the only software you ever had was women’s lingerie. 🙂

      1. Unfortunately the little black magic box now rules on the farm tractor just as it does on the automobile.

        My own equipment is already old, and the boxes are few enough that I can just swap them out. After market electronic parts are available for older equipment.

        The goal with the new stuff appears to be that you call the dealer, and he sends a man making twenty bucks , or maybe thirty, out to work on it, and the dealer charges you a hundred twenty five, or more. If it’s real busy, you may not get a mechanic for a week or two, depending on how much the dealer values your business. The guys that owe him half a million or so will get prompt service. The guys who own second hand bought at estate sales will get involuntary sex.

        Waiting three or four days on a farm at the wrong time can be about equivalent to waiting an extra hour for the cops or fire department in an emergency. Whatever is at risk is apt to be lost.

        1. Unfortunately the little black magic box now rules on the farm tractor just as it does on the automobile.

          Only if you want it to! I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on hacking some of those black boxes helping a friend of mine resurrect some late model crashed vehicles he purchased at auction, really fascinating stuff! There is even a whole industry that has sprung up devoted to doing just that. You can always hire some geeks from your local high school too.

          The other option might be to join the open source movement and just do away with black boxes entirely.
          http://opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/

          1. Hi Fred,
            Personally I am all in favor of open source and if in a position to do so, would not only require all code be made public on cars etc once the warranty is out. I would also force manufacturers to post a bond guaranteeing availability of their one off applications that are full of burnt in code for at least twenty years from the date of new sale.

            I am not personally good enough to hack electronics but I do realize there are people around who can do so. Unfortunately, they usually charge a lot, and there are so MANY variations of the black boxes, doing so many things, that finding somebody who has hacked a particular box on a particular machine is tough going. So the hacker has to learn the machine before he can even start.

            You are right about kits. I have bought and installed an after market computer and wiring kit that allows a late nineties vintage Chevy v8 to run as good as new in an OLD truck. Switching to a relatively late model engine out of a wreck is a bargain compared to overhauling an old carburetor engine. The savings in gasoline and tune ups alone soon pay for the extra work and parts in short order. Cold weather starting problems are history, etc.

  10. Does it make sense to anyone that we have no coherent national energy policy, and no joint policy with Canada?
    Is exporting natural gas and condensates in anyway wise, in a country that has to import huge amounts of energy?
    Is torpedoing an oil pipeline (Keystone) that would bring Canadian fuel south in anyway smart?
    Is the lack of a high level radioactive waste storage facility and standardized transport mechanism, with the waste currently being ‘temporarily’ stored in ponds at the generating sites, anything but stupid?
    Does it make any sense to not have a joint energy collaboration mechanism in place at the highest levels of the governments of Canada and the USA?
    Does it make any sense to hobble along on a piecemeal regional electricity transmission system, rather than a modern, comprehensive one?

    What about some leadership on this front, a five year plan, some bi-partisan thinking?

    I must be having a naive moment here. Sorry.

      1. Don’t worry about the radioactive waste, Bill Gates will find a use for it.

    2. By BJORN LOMBORG

      Well, just like healthy food vs double bacon cheeseburgers, with a side order of large fries washed down with giant sodas, there’s food for thought and there is junk food for morbidly mindless thinking. For the record, anytime I see Mr. Lomborg’s name attached to something, I just roll my eyes and try to find something a little healthier for my mind to snack on.

      Back in April Mr Lomborg had another of his WSJ pieces thoroughly debunked.

      http://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/bjorn-lomborg-overheated-climate-alarm-wall-street-journal/

      SUMMARY

      On 4 April 2016 the US Global Change Research Program released a comprehensive overview of the impact of climate change on American public health. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Bjorn Lomborg criticizes the report as unbalanced. Ten scientists analyzed the article and found that Lomborg had reached his conclusions through cherry-picking from a small subset of the evidence, misrepresenting the results of existing studies, and relying on flawed reasoning.

      Though I’m pretty sure Mr. Lomborg is laughing all the way to the bank.

  12. On mulling over the problem of huge excess of solar/wind, I suddenly realized a perfect use which could take any level of oversupply and store it for any length of time, non-battery. That’s it, the world is saved.

    No more than the pyrolyzer does it all! If and when lots of electricity, heat the pyrolyzer with it , run more trash thru it at the rate needed to soak up the excess juice, put the resulting gas into storage, and pile up the carbon. Think of that – solar powered, carbon negative and cheap.

    And during the cloud months, run the gas thru the omnivorous stirling to keep the battery up, while running everything on the small battery/inverter.

    Has big advantage over hydrogen- simpler and produces carbon from atmosphere.

    1. Has big advantage over hydrogen- simpler and produces carbon from atmosphere.

      Noooooh! Don’t you realize that would doom us all?! You’d take away all the plant food and usher in the next ice age all in one fell swoop!

      1. Fred, we are headed for 1000 ppm CO2 at least, when all factors are taken into account. Might be good to sequester some of the CO2, most of it is recycled in the process, but some is sequestered.

        1. Jeeze! It seems every time I’m 100% sure, that a comment of mine is so far off the wall, that there is absolutely no way anyone could possibly take it seriously. And I think I can safely eschew a smiley face emoticon or a Sarc Tag. Someone manages to come along and completely dash any and all remaining hope I might still have harbored for humanity!

          2. Hi Fred,

            Maybe Gonefishing was also kidding.

            It is unlikely that there is enough fossil fuel that can be profitably extracted to get us near 1000 ppm of atmospheric CO2.

            With about 1200 Gt of carbon released from all fossil fuel burning, natural gas flaring, cement production and land use change atmospheric CO2 will reach approximately 500 ppm in 2100. This is consistent with my medium fossil fuel scenarios and reasonable assumptions for land use change and cement producton, I assume population will peak in 2070 at about 9.15 billion and then decline to 8.8 B by 2100.

            There is unlikely to be double the fossil fuel URR that I have assumed in my medium scenarios. The coal resource will be far smaller than assumed in some of the unrealistic IPCC scenarios (RCP8.5 would make Lynch and Yergin proud, but I find their assessments unrealistic).

            1. Maybe not C02 at that level, but perhaps other stuff like methane at that C02 level.

            2. Annual growth rate of CO2 has risen from about 0.7 ppm to 2.2 ppm since 1960. Rate is increasing lately. A conservative estimate for 2050 would be 495 ppm CO2, from human sources alone. Add about 75 ppm for other greenhouse gases.

              With CO2 delta hitting over 3 ppm annual atmospheric lately, those numbers might be very conservative.
              Expect a lot more naturally produced greenhouse gas in the future.

            2. Global food supply depends all on plants, ultimately. We all eat plants and plant products. Most of us also eat meat, having come from animals eating plants. So if the number of plants begin decreasing, we would all starve.

              The importance of this to the whole theory of increased CO2 causing the Earth to warm is, that the plants take on CO2 and without it don’t survive. Because we can say it is simply not a pollutant. A big decrease in CO2 would then result in a big decrease of plants. This maybe isn’t a problem one century ago, but with billions more people living now compared to the century ago, millions of people would die if we started to decrease CO2, which caused a decrease in plant availability. To continue survival of civilisation and habitable planet, we must then see that absolutely no current CO2 is removed, so that no current CO2 levels ever decrease.

            3. Shit! Note to self: always remember to include smiley face when not being dead serious about something… Look at what happens if you don’t. 

            4. GF, I was just messing a bit with wimbi and being sarcastic!

              I’m not the least bit worried that someone will cause a problem for plants or usher in an ice age by devising some kind of technology for sequestering CO2.

              I think I must have dozens of posts on this site regarding the problem of ocean acidification and it’s consequences to coral reefs!

            5. As the ocean warms, it’s ability to absorb or retain CO2 is less.
              The choir singing for more CO2 does not seem to know that the earth was filled with mega-mammals during these glaciations. Life and plants had no problem not only continuing but producing a huge variety of species. Just not dinosaurs.

            6. Hi Gonefishing,

              I use a Bern type model which is consistent with the research of David Archer. I agree there will be no ice age for 15,000 years or more so it is certainly not a concern of mine.

              At the same time scenarios such as RCP 8.5 are not consistent with peak fossil fuels in the 21st century.

            7. Dennis,

              Is RCP8.5 consistent with future unknowns like permafrost melt, extended wildfire seasons, in situ coal gasification, loss of carbon sink in a warming ocean, release of methane clathrates? Are the lower two RCPs consistent with anything at all given human nature and their requirement for global wide effort to remove CO2 from the atmosphere? So why single out RCP8.5 for special attention?

            8. Hi George,

              RCP8.5 would require all coal, oil, and natural gas resources to be burned by 2100, does that seem reasonable?

              Note the word resources rather than reserves. The scenario needed would make Yergin say, no way, too optimistic. 🙂

            9. It seems reasonable in order to give an upper limit, which is what RCP8.5 is supposed to be. And no more unreasonable than assuming the CO2 extraction and FF replacement needed to give the lower limit (RCP2.6) will take place. And if the natural sources that IPCC have not included start to become more prominent we might need an RCP10. It is difficult to see very well yet but so far we seem to be going slightly higher than RCP8.5, and recent CO2 increases at above 3ppm year to year indicate things might be getting worse not better.

            10. Hi George,

              RCP8.5 has 1000 ppm of CO2 by 2100 (that is not CO2 equivalent, do you believe that is a reasonable upper limit scenario?

              If so, I strongly disagree.

            11. Fred. I am honored to receive any attention from you at all.

              Have any thoughts on the pyrolysis process to put carbon out of air and into ground?

            12. “No more than the pyrolyzer does it all! If and when lots of electricity, heat the pyrolyzer with it , run more trash thru it at the rate needed to soak up the excess juice, put the resulting gas into storage, and pile up the carbon. Think of that – solar powered, carbon negative and cheap.”

              Why is your approach better than simply storing the trash?

              Pyrolyse produces CO and other carbon containing molecules which are burnt to CO2.

              The cheapest storage for excess electricity is often a resistant heater in a community heating facility.

              All others like electroylse or P2G require expensive hardware that only runs in an econimical way with high FLH, i.e. not suitable for storage of generation peaks.

            13. All others like electroylse or P2G require expensive hardware that only runs in an econimical way with high FLH

              Have you seen any good estimates of the cost of that hardware?? I’ve had a little trouble finding such estimates…

            15. “carbon goes to ground, not to air. So, carbon negative power.”

              If you bury the trash most of the carbon stays in the ground, too.

              And again, CO is one pyrolysis product. The ratio between cabon and CO is of course detremined by the trash – more oxygen gives more CO.

            16. “Have you seen any good estimates of the cost of that hardware?? I’ve had a little trouble finding such estimates…”

              The 12 cent per kWh for P2G (methan) was calculated with 6000 FLH in one Fraunhofer paper, the costs of the hardware were around 7 cent per kwh. (Can’t find the article at the moment)

              Electric heater are the most economic way to store peaks, load shifting another.

              PS: In “Klimaretter” the calculate with 10 cent/kWh methan with electricty generated by wind turbines, they do not give share of hardware.

              http://www.klimaretter.info/energie/hintergrund/19450-dem-windgas-geht-die-puste-aus

            17. Hi Gone fishing,

              What are you using for fossil fuel URR to come up with 1000 ppm of atmospheric CO2? Perhaps Professor Wadhams has not been introduced to the concept of peak fossil fuels. The RCP8.5 emissions scenario is based on a World where fossil fuels never peak, it just is not going to happen, there are not enough economically recoverable fossil fuel resources available on the 3rd rock.

            18. Apparently you have not listened to Wadhams presentations. Find them on YouTube.

              The numbers given by NASA are 1400-1500 ppm CO2, for burning all the fossil fuels. There are other large sources of greenhouse gases beyond human produced ones, and other greenhouse gases than CO2. Of course, CO2 is only one factor in global warming.

              So what numbers do you have for total global fossil fuel and the source for those numbers?
              The EIA says there are 4 trillion tons of coal just in the US, total resource base.
              Also EIA gives world technical oil resources at 3.4 trillion barrels and gas resource at 23,000 trillion cubic feet.
              I don’t pretend to know what future mining and drilling technology will be devised, so those technical estimates are just a guess as far as I am concerned.

            19. Hi Gonefishing,

              So you do not think fossil fuels will peak before 2050?

              Ok. I strongly disagree.

              For a summary of Steve Mohr’s thesis see

              http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6782

              and for the full PhD thesis see

              http://ogma.newcastle.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6530

              Mostly Steve Mohr’s work and the work of Jean Laherrere and David Rutledge are the source of my URR estimates and also Hubbert Linearization for my low estimates.

              The coal resource is different from coal reserves, the amount that is profitable to produce is what is relevant.

              The EIA estimates of future production are not very good, they have always overestimated future World output and probably always will.

              My estimates can be found at the links below:

              http://peakoilbarrel.com/coal-shock-model/

              http://peakoilbarrel.com/oil-shock-models-with-different-ultimately-recoverable-resources-of-crude-plus-condensate-3100-gb-to-3700-gb/

              http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-natural-gas-shock-model/

              If all of the fossil fuels are burned in my medium scenario through 2100 and then fossil fuel use is rapidly reduced to zero by 2112. Then CO2 peaks at 496 ppm in 2104.

              Total fossil fuel carbon emissions (not CO2, multiply by 3.664 to get CO2 emissions) are 1172 Gt from 1750 to 2112 and other carbon emissions from cement production land use change and natural gas flaring are 227 Gt of carbon for a total of 1399 Gt of carbon or 5126 Gt CO2.

              About 60% of cumulative emissions after 1900 (4148 Gt CO2 emissions) get sequestered by the global carbon cycle based on the Bern type model I used.

              Through 2013 55% of post 1900 fossil fuel carbon emissions were sequestered. If we assume with high emissions the amount sequestered falls to 40%, then we would need about 2500 Gt of carbon emissions to get to 1000 ppm of CO2.

              My “high” scenarios have a total fossil fuel URR of 1872 Gtoe with fossil fuel carbon emissions of 1520 Gt (CO2 emissions are 5565 Gt). We would need at least 9160 Gt of CO2 emissions to get to 1000 ppm of atmospheric CO2.

              Bottom line, for those who believe in peak fossil fuels, the belief in the RCP 8.5 scenario (where CO2 increases to 1000 ppm by 2100) is not logically consistent.

            20. Yes, if you constrain the model, a low result will occur.
              I don’t see constraints yet and there are large sources of greenhouse gases not in our control that are being released and will increase with time.

              It would be nice if your model was correct, if EV’s and wind and solar showed up in droves so that people would not go crazy over trying to get all the fossil fuel out of the ground.
              But even so, I and quite a number of professional climate scientists think that we are entering a natural feedback period where it will not matter much what CO2 humans add to the system.
              You see there are a couple of large differences between this interglacial period and all of the preceding ones, that make your scenario invalid.

            21. Hi Gonefishing,

              It is carbon dioxide which is most important because it has a very long residence time in the atmosphere (a half life of over 10,000 years).

              Other greenhouse gases are much less of a problem because they do not remain in the atmosphere so long.

              Has there been some change in the laws of physics since the last interglacial, I was unaware of this? 🙂

              RCP 8.5 is a nonsense scenario, not realistic at all.

              Do you think peak fossil fuels is not likely?

              If so, and you believe by magic all fossil fuel resources, that is, a recovery factor of 100%, is reasonable, then in that case we could talk seriously about RCP8.5.

              Otherwise, it ain’t gonna happen.

              Fossil fuel resources will be constrained by demand and profitability as prices rise.

              The most likely scenario is between RCP4.5 an RCP6.0, even RCP6.0 requires fossil fuel URR similar to my high scenarios, which many folks here at POB find highly unrealistic on the high side (in fact many think my medium scenarios are too high).

              On methane we have the following by David Archer

              http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/much-ado-about-methane/

              His conclusion:

              “It’s the CO2, friend.”

              Also

              http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/09/the-story-of-methane-in-our-climate-in-five-pie-charts/comment-page-2/

      2. Hi Gonefishing and George Kaplan,

        I tried to create a scenario that was unreasonable, but not laughable for CO2 emissions.

        Note that RCP8.5 has atmospheric CO2 (not CO2 equivalent) reaching 1000 ppm by 2100.

        My unreasonable scenario (much more fossil fuel extracted than is likely to be possible) has all anthropogenic carbon emissions (fossil fuels, natural gas flaring, cement production, and land use change) peaking in 2025 and then remaining on a plateau until 2100 and then abruptly going to zero by 2113 (not a realistic assumption but done for simplicity and to try to get close to 1000 ppm by 2100).

        Note that even with my high URR fossil fuel scenarios (about 1870 Mtoe of fossil fuels) it is very unlikely that more than 1400 Gtoe of fossil fuels will be extracted by 2100, when converted to carbon emissions we would have 1145 Gt of carbon(C) from fossil fuel emissions plus 193 Gt C from other sources for a total of 1338 Gt C (4904 Gt CO2).

        The scenario presented below has cumulative carbon emissions of 1567 Gt (5741 Gt CO2) and is not a reasonable scenario in my view, but is presented for illustration.

        1. Using a Bern type model that matches well with publications by David Archer for the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, the scenario presented above results in the following atmospheric CO2 levels (in parts per million, ppm). Two alternative scenarios with 1000 Gt and 750 Gt of carbon emissions are presented for comparison and actual CO2 annual data through 2013.

          The “unreasonable” scenario (1570 Gt C emissions) peaks at 572 ppm CO2 in 2103, roughly between RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 (but closer to RCP6.0).

        2. But RCPs are just what they say – representative pathways, designed to bound the problem, they are not based on specific cause and effect scenarios. As I understand it IPCC, or the scientists they review, tried doing that before and there proved to be too many unknowns and feedbacks so they gave up. So you are presenting a reasonable case but it is not comparable to what IPCC are doing, so can’t be used to argue against their case. They are presenting an upper bound, and in presentations I’ve seen it’s usually referenced as you said as “burning all fossil fuels”.

          1. Hi George,

            In many many presentations I have seen, RCP8.5 is presented as a business as usual scenario.

            Does 100% recovery of all known fossil fuel resources strike you as Business as usual?

            In fact there has never been 100% recovery of a fossil fuel resource and would argue that there never will be.

            It would seem that a “reasonable” upper bound would be Steve Mohr’s high case, see

            http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6782

            and for full thesis

            http://ogma.newcastle.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:6530

            Bottom line, 100% of fossil fuel resources will not be recovered, just talk to petroleum engineers or mining engineers. In the real world RCP 8.5 is not going to happen, RCP6.0 should be the upper case.

        3. Considering only the “high” scenario and taking a longer view to 2500 CE, when the ocean has fully warmed and is approaching “equilibrium” (this is when the ECS temperature change is fully realized, ECS is estimated at 3 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 to 560 ppm), we have the chart below. If carbon emissions fall to zero (from anthropogenic sources), atmospheric CO2 falls to 438 ppm by 2500 CE. That level of CO2 would correspond with 2 C of warming above pre-industrial temperature in 2500.

          Note that we don’t know what the ECS is, the range is 1.5C to 4.5C, with 3 C the best guess. We would be wise to keep atmospheric CO2 under 475 ppm, in case the ECS is 4C rather than 3C or lower.

          1. There is no causation assumed between the carbon pathway and temperature. The pathways just represent a possible progress for carbon release (for RCP8.5 the highest possible). The four pathways can then be used to look at the possible impact on temperatures without worrying about the feedbacks.

            1. Hi George,

              Well the basic point is that studies that focus on RCP8.5 are a waste of time because the scenario is not reasonable, and there are many studies that focus on this “worst case scenario”, which is essentially never going to happen because depletion of fossil fuels will never allow it to occur.

              Do you think that 100% recovery of all fossil fuel resources is a reasonable upper bound?

              If so could you give me a likelihood that 100% of fossil fuel resources will be extracted?

              My probability estimate is zero.

            2. Hi George,

              The RCPs are used as inputs to the GCMs which include the feedbacks, the only two reasonable pathways are RCP4.5 and RCP6.0, I agree RCP2.6 is also unreasonably low and unlikely to be achieved, but it is more likely than RCP8.5.

              I guess my perspective may be skewed because I am convinced that fossil fuels will peak and decline due to depletion.

              If one has faith that fossil fuels output can keep increasing until 2100, then there would be more cause for concern.

              There may be many who participate here because they do not think fossil fuels will peak before 2100.

              For those that believe in peak fossil fuels before 2030, a concern that RCP8.5 will come to pass just is not logically consistent.

              Atmospheric CO2 will rise to about 530 ppm, if my high scenario is correct and consumption of fossil fuels ramps down sharply in 2100. If my medium scenario is correct atmospheric CO2 will be lower, about 497 ppm in 2103. Atmospheric CO2 falls to about 400 ppm in 2500 and if the ECS is 4C, then temperature will be 2.1 C above pre-industrial in 2500 (assuming it takes 400 years for ocean temperatures to approach equilibrium), if ECS is 3C temperature would be 1.5 C. In 2103 the temperature would reach about 1.75 C above the 1880 to 1919 mean temperature (-0.36C relative to 1951-1980 mean Temperature).

  13. Here’s some extra-somatic energy at work.

    I have had some ground squirrels hanging out in the farmyard for the past four months or so. They know where to find something to eat. They have little bellies and there is plenty to eat, so I have to be tolerant of their trespassing offense. I don’t want to use poisoned oats, birds would eat them and die.

    I’d be grief stricken killing squirrels and unwittingly murdering small birds like doves. Real tears, not from some crocodile. I’d be as guilty as a wind turbine chopping up a golden eagle out there in the Golden State. It would be cognitive dissonance all over again, a big dollop of it. If I can’t be kind to one of the earth’s little creatures, then why should I be concerned and outraged at some stupid wind turbine killing raptors? Just another stupid hypocrite is all I would be living by a double standard, a pirate flying the Jolly Roger. If anybody is insouciant, it would be some crusty old pirate ready to keelhaul the captain of the ship. Argh, not har. You get the picture.

    But wait, there’s more!

    For a few weeks now, an owl has been hanging around working for food. I don’t have to do the work of plinking at ground squirrels with my .22 even.

    Had a few crows trespassing before that, but owls and crows aren’t friends, so the crows moved on.

    The owl is some natural extra-somatic energy put to good use, me thinks the owl is picking off the ground squirrels so I don’t worry too much about the ground squirrels, they’ll have to watch out for the owl, for their own good. The owl kills two birds with one stone, scatters the crows to the four winds and depopulates the ground squirrels so they don’t overshoot.

    Many thanks to the owl and the good work. Makes life easier, no dreaded drudgery ridding the ground squirrels all by my lonesome. Nature at work all day long. Doesn’t cost a dime, the owl does the work and doesn’t present any kind of bill, works for free.

    This afternoon, I am going to have to do a raindance, the soil is becoming more like dust than dirt.

    The soil’s water tank is empty and needs a fill up.

    Of course, I have the weather app, so I do know what is headed my way later on today. The raindance is for fun and practice. har

    Make July National Owl Month. Today can be officially National Owl Day. For a reason.

  14. I think somebody will eventually figure out a way to keep eagles away from wind turbines.

    Maybe a standardized, cheap short range radar could be installed to detect eagles, and then automated drones could be launched to chase them away.

    Seriously , this might work. The technology is getting cheaper by leaps and bounds, and standardization can work miracles. I don’t see any reason drones can’t launch automatically, and return to their perch and plug themselves right in to their charger, other than the cost , which would be pretty high for now , but later??????????

    I don’t know much about eagles , but crows virtually always manage to chase hawks out of the neighborhood. The hawk is in charge so long as he is way up there, he can dive on a crow or rabbit for lunch.

    But once he gets down low, the crows can easily stay above him and if he doesn’t manage to get away, they will drive him to the ground and mob him. Hopefully somebody who knows more about eagles will comment.

    1. I have seen buteos turn the tables on crows occasionally, but accipiters are dangerous at all times for crows and blue jays, at any altitude and any position.
      Eagles will attack drones that bug them.

      1. Eagles are just stupid dumb assed oversized hawks, in principle at least.;-)

        If they have the balls to attack drones, then the obvious solution is the same as when I can’t fix something with a hammer. The solution is OBVIOUSLY A BIGGER HAMMER,err, drone.

        Seriously, a few days research ought to suffice to figure out a combination of screams and flashing lights and other audiovisual effects that would deter brother and sister eagle.

        If the worst comes to the worst, then the drone could be armed with a little squirt gun that shoots something eagles find very unpleasant, maybe water laced with cayenne peppers.

        I might not be the brightest light around, but given a little time and money, I bet I could fool a literal bird brained eagle.

        How about a drone that looks like an eagle TWICE as big? Are eagles territorial?

        Or how about just raising lots of domesticated rabbits, and turning them loose inside a fenced hunting area just a few miles from the wind farm? All the local eagles would learn pretty quick where to find an easy fast food lunch. Just DROP IN, and have TAKE OUT rabbit!

        I can just see the rabbit protection league getting all huffed up like an angry chicken. But the rabbits would die happy, as opposed to caged chickens.

        In the last analysis, we must be realists and understand that eagle worship is no good. It’s a hell of a lot better to sacrifice SOME eagles to wind turbines than it is to sacrifice a LARGER slice of the environment, many individuals of many species, to the fossil fuels industries.

        3. As far as I know, eagles are only being killed by turbines in significant numbers in one place: Altamont, CA.

          It’s not a really widespread problem, despite the efforts of anti-wind folks to paint it that way.

        4. No real problem. As soon as the wind people get wise, they will use kites one km up, where eagles are thinly scattered. Kites are FAR superior to ground towers in every way except mind set.

    2. “I think somebody will eventually figure out a way to keep eagles away from wind turbines.” ~ Oldfarmermac

  15. This is a response to Texas Tea:

    try plotting US life spans with the use of fossil fuels and then get back to me.

    Here is a more in depth response to your comment that I didn’t want to post on the ‘Oil Only’ thread. Basically there is something profoundly and fundamentally wrong with this idea that an anthropocentric view is somehow more important than an all encompassing more biological and ecosystems focused point of view.

    What people seem to misunderstand is that the world that was produced by fossil fuels and the one we are currently living in, is decimating the very biodiversity that underlies the continuation of the basic conditions that are necessary for those long productive lifespans. Fossil fuels are at a point of producing ever diminishing returns if the well being of the world’s ecosystems are taken into account. In this regard, those who argue that a BAU style of life based on alternatives such as wind and solar are just as bad, are in my view actually correct. We can’t continue with our anthropocentric mind set.

    E. O. Wilson characterizes this particular anthropocentric mode of thinking as symptomatic of a much larger problem, he calls it: _”The Fallacy of the Anthropocene”

    I’m writing a trilogy. The first was The Social Conquest of Earth, which dealt with where we come from.The Meaning of Human Existence deals with what we are. And the final part, The End of the Anthropocene, will look at where we are going.

    The major theme of that upcoming book will be that we are destroying Earth in a way that people haven’t appreciated enough, and that we are eroding away the biosphere through species extinction, like the death of a thousand cuts. I want to examine the new ideology of the anthropocene – namely those who believe that the fight for biodiversity is pretty much lost and we should just go on humanising Earth until it is peopled from pole to pole; a planet by, of and for humanity. It sounds good, but it’s suicidal.

    We need to urgently better understand our place in the biological world. We need to collectively grow up and start practicing a very different kind of stewardship of that world.

    1. Hi Fred,

      I agree. I don’t think many who argue for a transition to wind, solar, and hydro envision human population expanding forever, I certainly don’t. I anticipate a peak and decline in human population which will reduce pressure on the ecosystem and eventually EO Wilson’s half earth vision can be realized. In the chart below I expect the trajectory will be between the 1.5 and 1.75 TFR curves (the curves from 0.75 to 2.5 represent total fertility ratios (TFR), average life expectancy is assumed to increase to no more than 90 years in this scenario.

      1. I agree. I don’t think many who argue for a transition to wind, solar, and hydro envision human population expanding forever, I certainly don’t.

        Neither do I! However I also think that the stabilization of global human populations is but one of the variables that need to be taken into account to successfully be able to defend biodiversity.

        Another very significant issue is how we consume available resources and how we distribute them in a equitable manner.

        Can we for example, continue to allow an economic paradigm that creates the existence of a quasi parasitic elite caste of highly skilled corporate marketing professionals and sales people whose sole purpose is to manufacture demand for, and sell products, whose intrinsic value is highly dubious?

        Products which are then financed with money created out of thin air by another caste of ultra specialized professionals working in the financial system. Money, which then can only be paid back in a system fueled by infinite growth and that only benefits a very small segment of the global population.

        Even more fundamental questions can be raised about general quality of life issues and how societies around the world will provide even the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, clean water, energy, healthcare, etc…

        These points barely scratch the tip of the iceberg in how the Anthropocenic (not to be confused with Anthropocentric) view of the world will impact the way we define our future role as either protectors of biodiversity or making the tragic mistake of ignoring its importance.

        1. Hi Fred,

          Yes there are many problems, fewer people will help, better education will help, resource scarcity will drive up prices of some goods and may change demand. Also people may shift their preferences to well made durable goods that last a lifetime rather than cheap throwaway items. Growth will stop as population declines and the impact on the planet will be lessened. As resources deplete it will become cheaper to recycle and design products where the manufacturer is responsible for the product cradle to grave and will design the product to be more easily recycled.

        2. Hi Fred,

          Does that chart look like stabilization of human population? Looks more like a radical reduction of human population to about 2 billion by 2300, or possibly 1 billion if TFR falls to under 1.5.

          Don’t you think that would help with biodiversity?

          It would also likely lead to a fundamentally different society where the built infrastructure is overabundant and could potentially be shared more equitably, this would be a political choice made by the humans on the planet.

          Maybe better education and fewer people will lead to some positive changes in society. Hard to predict.

          1. No doubt that chart depicts a rather steep reduction in population which I would assume and hope would then be followed by a long term stabilization. I think that would go a very long way in creating an environment that would also greatly benefit the preservation of biodiversity and possibly diminishing the danger of going through another major extinction event. Granted there are a couple of asteroids out there that might still dash such hopes… 🙂

            1. Populations are often very cyclic, so why not assume that will be true for homo sapiens too? When we run to the end of the rope, down we go. After that we need to learn to throttle our use of resources and keep population down, or do it all over again.

            2. Hi Gonefishing,

              As humans are the predator and are omnivores, we are a little less dependent on the prey than a coyote so it is not clear that such a sinusoidal pattern will be evident in the future. It does not seem to coincide with the last 250 years for human population so I will go with the work of human demographers.

            3. First, I did not imply a timescale or amplitude to human population levels. Second, coyotes do not just eat rabbits, but increasing rabbits (like fossil fuel) allow the coyote to raise it’s population and become dependent upon rabbits.

              More primitive cultures did follow a rise and often times quick fall in a somewhat cyclic pattern.

              If you haven’t noticed, we have lately boosted our ability to predate on both animals and plants via technology and fuel energy. That has allowed us to raise population well above previous levels, but forcing us to become dependent upon technology and fossil fuels for survival. It will just take more time to hit peak food as we have more access to food now, but the food sources are getting limited . Give it more time.
              We are running out of room, water, fuel, fish, some materials, etc. Agriculture and ranching may be hitting a peak.
              Other looming conditions indicate agriculture will take a big hit in the future.
              I think at this point we are more rabbit than coyote. The coyote depends partially on the rabbit, but humans depend on everything working well to stay alive. One thing going, like oil or electricity, can bring us to our knees.

              Of course it could also happen in a multiple way, smaller multiple failures slowly eating away our ability to keep civilization running. We are tough and resilient, but also far out on a limb.

            4. Hi Gone fishing,

              Here we also see things differently, human population will peak and decline, not because of limitations on food, but due to better control of human fertility. As fossil fuels deplete their price will rise and they will be replaced by alternative energy.

              Population peak and decline will be crucial to reducing human suffering in the future and will solve many problems.

              The approach advocated by some demographers is education for women as a key ingredient to reduce the total fertility ratio. I think free access to birth control would also help, but it is probably not enough.

            5. Here we also see things differently, human population will peak and decline, not because of limitations on food, but due to better control of human fertility.

              Good grief Dennis, give me a break. It is not one or the other, it is both, it has always been both and it will continue to be both.

              Which of the two has the most effect waxes and wanes over time. Right now in the developed world fertility control has the most control but in the undeveloped world it is famine, disease and conflict that has the greatest effect on population.

              In the future it is far more likely that the latter rather than the former that will have the greatest effect on population.

            6. Hi Ron,

              The undeveloped World is where population is growing most rapidly. No doubt there will always be war, famine, disease, and poverty.

              We can assume things will get worse, but if women have improved control of their fertility through education, empowerment, and access to birth control, total fertility ratio will continue to decrease and eventually population will peak and decline.

              This will improve the situation for everyone, but especially those in poverty.

          2. Dennis, I suspect ‘better education’ to be somewhat more correlational than causative in terms of reducing fecundity.

            1. 1.5 billion is very optimistic.
              I would say 400 million would be more realistic under ideal conditions.
              We had 700 million in 1700 when we were liveing with real time energy inputs.
              However we had oceans full of fish, and continents to plunder, a stable climate, and many intact ecosystems.
              None of that is true today.

            2. I’m tempted to agree, Duncan.
              Unless we get the hell off the runaway train that is BAU, hope, of whatever kind, may be progressively whittled away the longer it remains, and we remain with it, on the tracks.

              David Holmgren, of permaculture fame, relatively recently wrote an essay advocating, if recalled, a deliberate crash of BAU– ‘Crash On Demand’. I think Nicole Foss responded to it suggesting that it will soon crash itself anyway, and therefore to just let it do so (and to prepare for that eventuality).

              Incidentally, I managed to skim your linked essay at RealClimate. It’s a good one and makes me think of Jay Hanson’s contentions. If you especially like doom reading, here’s a potential and fairly new one (which I’m about to read) and something our own Petro may have already read, given one of their recent comments.

              Quote from it:

              “The reason that net energy is so important is because it places absolute limits on a group’s drive for status. Net energy is based on physical law (a law like gravity). In absolute terms, net energy is always limited, and peaks and falls with each overshoot cycle (loop.) Can you see why a steady-state economy is impossible?
              Steady states are impossible because both energy law, and our genetic drive for unlimited status prevent them!” ~ Jay Hanson

            3. The only question will be how it unwinds.
              Do we have some input of intelligence and wisdom, or go full speed into the wall?

            4. Hi Duncan,

              The chart goes to 2300, further declines are possible, fewer people will mean fewer resources used and less pressure on the environment, more stuff can be recycled and reused, better products with longer useful lives can be made (and that are built to be repaired). More efficient use of all resources will become common as resources become scarce.

              I don’t know what the ideal number is but lower fertility rates can reduce population by a factor of 4 in 200 years, so we could easily be at 500 million in 2400 or 2500 if necessary.

      2. Japan’s population seems on-track to shrink significantly:

        “Now, the country has begun a white-knuckle ride in which it will shed about one-third of its population — 40 million people — by 2060, experts predict. In 30 years, 39% of Japan’s population will be 65 or older.

        If the United States experienced a similar population contraction, it would be like losing every single inhabitant of California, New York, Texas and Florida — more than 100 million people.”

        —————————

        http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-japan-population-snap-story.html

        ________________

        ‘White-knuckle ride’? This is a good-news story. Japan is leading the way. The 1.50 TFR curve in the plot you posted would be great news, assuming it can be realized without war, famine, epidemics, or by penalty of death or harm by authoritarian forces. Humanity can persevere while becoming more in-balance with the rest of the planet. Since ‘Star Trek’ ain’t gonna happen, managing our sustainable existence on this one and only ‘Earth-like’ planet we have, know of, or can access is the only reasonable course of action for those who value human life (as well as all the other life on Earth).

        Peace out.

        1. ‘White-knuckle ride’? This is a good-news story. Japan is leading the way. The 1.50 TFR curve in the plot you posted would be great news, assuming it can be realized without war, famine, epidemics, or by penalty of death or harm by authoritarian forces.

          EXACTLY!!

          1. Migration will take care of any losses in the US. Those tunnels under the Trump wall will be quite active. Autonomous cars will be waiting to pick them up and take them wherever they can afford to go. 🙂

            Aren’t we getting 1.5 million legal immigrants a year anyway?

        2. Yes, but Japan will be going out in style– equipped with electric cars, solar photo voltaic electric panels, nuclear power, salarymen, and assorted technologies, the BAU powerhouse that Japan (was) is was(?). <– *editor: please fix

          Tecnotubbie

      3. This got me looking at population trends in my neck of the woods. Apparently the indicators are going in the right direction but, something tells mr the statistics don’t tell the whole story.

        While I can think of two other men my age with no kids yet, there’s the barely literate woman who was my late father’s care giver for the last three years of his life, who had to take maternity leave to have her fifth child at the age of 39. Then there are at few desperately poor and.or unemployed, twenty something year old females who are single mothers of two or three kids and the male laborers who claim to have fathered any number of children but, seem more interested in acquiring a car or motorcycle than making sure their kids get a good education.

        What the statistics would seem to me to indicate is that, those who can probably afford a child or two are choosing to delay having children while it is often those who can least afford it that are throwing caution to the wind. That does not seem like a formula for increasing the percentage of the population that exercises good judgment when it comes to raising families. Those with good judgment will not “inherit the earth”! Looks like the survival of those least able to control their reproductive impulses, survival of the horniest if you like!

        2. Hi islandboy,

          I imagine free birth control and free education for women would help. You can be horny and not have kids.

          I am assuming that healthcare is not free on your island.

    2. Fred,

      The problem of humanity eliminating other species shouldn’t be confused with the problem of fossils fuels. Eliminating fossil fuels can only help. Suppressing the growth of wind and solar would not help other species in the least.

      Persuading people to leave habitat alone, and move to a new vision of stewardship is perfectly compatible with a comfortable and prosperous life for humans. Actually, it’s the only way it will happen: poverty degrades people’s ability to think…

  16. – Gas Demand Destruction –

    The ten+ year old electric resistance hot water heater I had started leaking. Looking to replace the old water heater, and with a constant desire to lower my electricity consumption, my research led me to choose a Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWH).

    HPWHs have a high first cost, but the yearly savings leads to an early payback. They also have the added benefit of providing cooling and dehmidifcation when they are installed in an interior space. Being in a part of Canada that has hot humid conditions in summertime this is a bonus.

    The 30 gallon (114 L) hot water tank I was replacing was in a basement with a low ceiling. HPWH water heaters generally come in two sizes, 50 and 80 gallons ( 189 l and 303 L). The 80 g tanks were too tall for the basement (glorified crawl space – concrete floor, insulated, heated and ventilated), so I had to settle for a 50 g HPWH. I ended up choosing the GE Geospring as it was locally available and the retailer had it on sale at the time. It also had a pretty high energy factor of 3.25. Not the highest but close enough, and more importantly radily available.

    As mentioned, from a summertime perspective in my part of Canada the cooling and dehumidification of the HPWH is a bonus. Indeed, I had been contemplating buying a dehumidifier for the basement, so the HPWH is saving me the purchase cost of the dehumidifier and the electricity to run it. I have been in many basements in my region of Canada that have a dehumidifier constantly running in an effort to keep humidity reasonable (the cool damp kind of humidity that makes things musty). So I can see how a HPWH can add value for most Canadian homeowners, not just in reduced electricity consumption.

    BUT… I live in Canada!

    1. Thankfully, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, has already done the research…

      Water heating savings
      Results for the two heat pump water heater systems were comparable. In winter, the heat pump water heaters consumed on average 5.0 kWh/day, a 61% energy savings compared to the conventional electric water heater. In summer, the heat pump water heaters consumed on average 4.3 kWh/day, a 60% energy savings compared to the conventional electric water heater.

      Impact on heating loads and operating cost
      In winter, the results were similar for both heat pump water heaters. As expected, the savings in energy use for water heating was offset by an increase in furnace energy consumption for heating.

      CONCLUSIONS
      Through these experiments, heat pump water heater operation was shown to have no impact on overall house energy consumption in the winter and a significant reduction in overall house energy consumption in the summer.

      Similarly, Alex Wilson has a post on his experience with a HPWH in his Vermont home.

      The GE Geospring HPWH that I purchased does give me the option to use straight resistance heating. So if I find that the HPWH is cooling the basement too much I could just change it over to resistance heating. That said, the house is heated with a geo-exchange heat pump (aka geothermal) that has a desuperheater that heats a separate hot water tank which supplies the HPWH. I’ve never really known how much hot water the desuperheater provided. I’ll get a better sense of it this winter.

      The value to the grid of HPWH is interesting. With a HPWH, the lower power demand flattens the demand curve. And for homes with PV using the HPWH as energy storage would be cheaper than purchasing additional batteries. Storing water at a high temperature and then using a mixing valve to supply hot water at a safe temperature is easy enough.

      1. aws. I got a water heat pump and run it only when sun shining. Plenty of hot water, no apparent effect on whole house load. I live 40 north in an average for usa place.

        My mini-split home system takes its air from a big cistern that hangs around 13 – 15 C year around and takes care of our fairly well insulated essential rooms all year.

        Seems to me this is a solved problem. And the new ones are even better.

        1. How do you control the HPWH so that it only runs when sun is shining? Just curious what controllers are out there.

          BTW, the HPWH I bought has an option to make it wi-fi enabled. Very internet of things like. I could see how the HPWH could be used as a Distributed Energy Resource.

  17. “ ‘Slavery did not end because everyone became moral,’ he says. ‘The reason slavery ended is because we had an industrial revolution that made man’s muscles obsolete. For the last 150 years, the economy has been based on man’s mind. Capitalism, it turns out, works better when people are chasing a carrot rather than being hit with a stick…’ ” ~ Fred Magyar

    Slavery, per se, never ended (and you don’t necessarily need much in the way of muscles for the new kind), it just got re-done. And with crony-capitalist plutarchies (powered by fossil fuel), brought a whole host of problems which have only gotten worse. Why do we have sites like POB in the first place?
    Pure capitalism doesn’t exist and people are not made to be hit with sticks or mindlessly chase carrots, whatever that asinine comment means.

    “Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted as early as Cicero in Ancient Rome. With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery, while Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines…

    The introduction of wage labor in 18th century Britain was met with resistance, giving rise to the principles of syndicalism. Historically, some labor organizations and individual social activists have espoused workers’ self-management or worker cooperatives as possible alternatives to wage labor…

    “Despite being often criticized for posting information on disruption and things like very small scale distributed energy generation with solar and wind by previously poverty stricken Africans and other under privileged people around the world…” ~ Fred Magyar

    Once again:

    “The more globally connected the economy has become, the less relevant community strategies — especially those funded by governments or the World Bank — are to addressing the structures that create poverty and exacerbate its worst effects.

    Unfair trade rules, border controls, and ecological disaster — none of that is news. Yet it helps place small-scale development in perspective. If elites in rich countries truly wanted to help poor people and were willing to sacrifice some of their share of global resources to do so, they wouldn’t need to bother searching for the right blend of technical fixes and participatory openness in their aid policies. They could simply reverse their self-interested policies.

    In a context in which rich nations continue to rig the international system to ensure that wealth accrues to certain places, lock poor people out of those places, and then consume resources at a rate that will probably render much of the planet uninhabitable, there is something bizarre about the current obsession with helping poor people help themselves. Fostering local solidarity seems beside the point.” ~ Daniel Immerwahr

    “…Now is the time to [embrace] …the rapid disruptive change happening all around us.

    Good Luck to All! And may that Star Spangled Banner yet wave upon the early morning light of a new world. A world connecting people to people with all the benefits of technology and helping us better understand and help each other.” ~ Fred Magyar

    If this isn’t just lip-service, and you are truly interested in, as you write, ‘A world connecting people to people with all the benefits of technology and helping us better understand and help each other‘, then understand this:

    ‘Rapid disruptive change’ is different from ‘disruptive technology’, and appropriate technology is one that is ethically and democratically-derived, otherwise it can become rapidly disruptive in general to people’s lives and the planet in general. Which it is already! Or have you not been paying attention?
    Technology for technology’s and/or profit’s sake and/or elite-driven technology are not appropriate technologies.

    Star Spangled

    “This is paradise, the endless sprawl
    Broken windows and empty malls
    Society crumbles and stomachs rumble
    Incarcerated, on these shores thy kingdom come

    Star spangled banner of bloodlust
    Imperial agenda bleeding us
    The lies of security
    Veneer of democracy
    Liberty strangled
    Star spangle

    Defiler of Gaia, leecher of oil
    Devourer of mud in, ritual blood
    Fed by nuclear fission, inherently wrong
    Blinded by greed, thy kingdom come
    Thy Kingdom come…”

    1. “ ‘Slavery did not end because everyone became moral,’ he says. ‘The reason slavery ended is because we had an industrial revolution that made man’s muscles obsolete. For the last 150 years, the economy has been based on man’s mind. Capitalism, it turns out, works better when people are chasing a carrot rather than being hit with a stick…’ ” ~ Fred Magyar

      Caelan, please stop your habit of attributing quotes to me that are not mine! That is a quote from George Hotz!

      1. Hey Fred,
        What about the rest of my comment?! 😉
        Your quote– which I nested in ‘subquotes’– ostensibly about someone ‘universally regarded as a sort of software savant’ (to quote Brian Rose) and ‘into’ self-crashing driving cars– actually appears as your quote of a quote of Hotz. So Hotz it is then? Yay.

        As for ‘habit’, if you want to call it that, perhaps you’re projecting a little?

        In looking for that, incidentally, I also found this…

        “Hey, some people follow the Kardashians, I have ADHD and compulsively read all kinds of science papers.” ~ Fred Magyar

        Ok. That might explain some things.
        (For me, incidentally, Kardashian is all about a race to the bottom, about focus.)

        “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychiatric disorder of the neurodevelopmental type. It is characterized by problems paying attention, excessive activity, or difficulty controlling behavior which is not appropriate for a person’s age.” ~ Wikipedia

        Have I got that correct, Fred? Is that a fair quote?

        In any case, with regard to ideas about creating a world we can live with/in, or historical insights into crony-capitalism, industrialism, wage slavery and whatnot, I’m unsure George Hotz would be one of my top choices, probably even below Kim.

        Happy science-paper reading, BTW. I trust that you temper that with other forms or activities.

        1. Have I got that correct, Fred? Is that a fair quote?

          No, it isn’t, because I do not really have any psychiatric disorders! that was just an expression of self deprecating humor. I tend not to take myself too seriously.

          1. Ok, cool. It did seem a little contradictory. I mean, reading science papers and having trouble concentrating?

            “I tend not to take myself too seriously.” ~ Fred Magyar

            Unsure about that, but in any case, hopefully we take Mother Earth seriously.

  18. I find the way I’ve been treated by the writers here after writing my comment to be rude and insensitive. Yet I see this all the time on the internet from Democrats, who obviously claim to be the party of tolerant people who want to welcome everybody into the party, but then always find a way to turn against you with intolerance whenever you express an opinion that goes against whatever they personally believe and want all others to personally believe.

    This definitely comes into play with the Democrats currently being the ones who believe in the Climate Change Theory. They want to get all us conservatives to do the same. How I found this Peak Oil Barrel in the first place is an example of the methods, as Google — well known to be a very liberal Silicon Valley corporation — decided that this web site would be relevant to me after I searched for the latest up to date gas prices in Idaho (where I live).

    1. Next Google will make you buy an electric vehicle. Just go where Google leads you.

    2. Are you calling me a Democrat?

      Now, that is insensitive and insulting!

    3. Nancy- you are correct in that many people are rude, and on these blogs they say things that they would never say to your face, no matter what side of the political fence they are on.
      I too am guilty of that.
      There is a value to a site such as this, however, in that it provides a reality check to people, and exposes them to ideas that they may have not considered before. But you have to have a thick skin, and have to try to remain civil.
      Most people have intense preconceived notions, some of which are spot on, and some of which are plastic baloney. Scientific fact vs opinion, presumption vs political soundbite, vested interest vs un-biased observer- all competing to rise above the cluttered fray.
      The best I can offer is to keep an open mind, and fight the tendency to be hemmed in by partisan thinking (either way of course).

    4. I find the way I’ve been treated by the writers here after writing my comment to be rude and insensitive. Yet I see this all the time on the internet from Democrats, who obviously claim to be the party of tolerant people…

      Oh you are just too thin skinned. That’s just the way Democrats and Republicans talk to each other. Learn to live with it. What you read on the internet is just anecdotal anyway. You are judging 43%* of the American people by what you read on the internet. Give me a break!

      This definitely comes into play with the Democrats currently being the ones who believe in the Climate Change Theory.

      Oh good god, climate change is not a theory, it is a scientific fact. Why is it that the majority of Republicans, though not all, disbelieve in science? The universe is almost 14 billion years old, the earth and our solar system is 4.6 billion years ole, humans evolved form a lower order of species, global warming is a fact and professional wrestling is fake. Republicans should learn to live with those facts.

      *Gallup. As of October 2014 , Gallup polling found that 43% of Americans identified as Democrats and 39% as Republicans…

      1. “…the earth and our solar system is 4.6 billion years old…” CORRECTION: Earth and life were created in six 24-hour periods 6,000 years ago. I’d be better if you stuck to the facts Ron.

        1. My Bronze and Iron Age Fiction is lacking.
          Is that what the Talking Snake said?
          (I hear he hangs out with the Rib Woman under that Magical Tree)

            1. Wow, I wonder what combination of plant alkaloids have to smoked to see a rainbow snake or talking snakes ( no, I don’t mean lawyers or politicians). 🙂
              Personally I prefer the hoop snake, much more likely and no need for kangaroo heads and alligator tails. Only have to smoke punks to see that one.

      2. ” professional wrestling is fake”….
        I can’t believe you said that Ron. You are breaking my bubble, man
        Next thing you’ll say is that the bible was written by people!

    5. Hi Nancy,

      If you want to learn about climate science try

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?f=Welcome-to-Skeptical-Science

      or

      https://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm

      I guess the main thing (I now have skimmed the article you referred to in your first comment) is that there are lots of people that are convinced that climate change may be a problem and that not taking action is a threat to western civilization.

      Even if the problem is not as bad as some believe, (we don’t know for sure how sensitive climate is to increased carbon dioxide, scientists believe over long periods (roughly 400 years) between 2 C and 4 C of warming above temperatures in 1800 are likely of atmospheric CO2 rises to 560 ppm (double the pre-industrial level). Generally biologists and ecologists believe more than 2 C of warming will be a problem for the flora and fauna of the planet (including humans).

      Setting climate change aside (because you are unlikely to believe what I say), a second problem is that fossil fuels are likely to peak and then decline in output. We need energy to keep the economy functioning so other forms of energy will be needed to replace fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) which will become expensive as they become scarce. We can develop wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, and nuclear power as replacements for fossil fuels. If we don’t do something we will be short on energy, which will not be very good for human civilization in my view.

      The scenario below is what I think may happen to fossil fuel output in the future. Output is in millions of metric tonnes of oil equivalent per year (Mtoe/a), multiply by 7.33 to convert to millions of barrels of oil equivalent per year. This scenario is based on my “medium” URR estimates for fossil fuel (URR=ultimately recoverable resources).

      1. Hi Nancy,

        The scenario above had a slight error on the natural gas scenario, corrected chart below, the scenario peaks in 2025. Remember that World demand for energy continues to grow as the economy grows, energy efficiency will help reduce the rate of growth to some degree, but without an expansion of non-fossil fuel energy sources the World will see more expensive energy as supplies run short.

    6. Seriously?

      Your comment included ” the types of people who want to destroy America from within”.

      You were suggesting that the people you disagreed with were demonic traitors who wanted to destroy America.

      And, you’re surprised that they thought you were hostile, and responded with (very, very mild) hostility??

      Seriously??

    1. “As goes the Arctic, so will the rest of the world follow.”

      Yes, that’s the key point: melting of Arctic ice poses long-term threats because sea ice plays a huge role in reflecting solar radiation away from Earth. As the Arctic becomes darker, on average, increasing its ability to absorb heat and causing further warming of the oceans, a runaway feedback loop is generated. It’s called Arctic amplification.

      1. Plus the release of CO2 and methane from frozen land and cold ocean coastal plains as they warm. Not just albedo.

        1. Plus the oceans circulation dynamics and their own changing effects on the climate, weather, and ocean and land biology and bioregions, etc….

          Too many unknowns for my taste and for the cavalier regard that some approach this kind of thing that seems to speak of the remarkable arrogance of our ignorance.

          It’s like, for some, while the rest of the planet gets trashed, somehow the climate is immune.

          We are talking about a real planet, not a lab construct.

  22. 124 Police Officers Were Killed In The U.S. Last Year
    “Some more facts that don’t match the hero narrative. Police deaths while on duty are on pace to be at a record low in 2016, down 60% from the peak in 1974. Gun related homicides are also trending towards the lowest levels since 1900. In 1991 there were 24,700 homicides in the U.S.

    Last year there were just over 16,000 homicides, down 35% while the population grew by 26%. The number of guns owned by American citizens has tripled since 1991.

    Does this match the anti-gun narrative of the left and the popos? Does the government want to confiscate our guns because of crime or because they are worried we will use them against a tyrannical establishment? The militarization of police forces isn’t to protect us.

    It’s to protect them from us.”
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-11/124-police-officers-were-killed-us-last-year

    feel free to discuss among yourselves ✋

    1. Everybody has a piece of the truth, if you look far enough.

      While I have my differences with TT, I must defend his interpretation of the facts in this case.

      It’s not that the government has a PLAN to collect everybody’s weapons, but rather that such political movements gain a life of their own, and once well established, they can grow like cancers for many various reasons.

      Various people with no stake in an issue, except fear, which is often groundless, allow and encourage politicians to go wild writing unjustified laws. Various special interests have reasons to spend money and political capital encouraging the passage of such laws.

      Pot prohibition and alcohol prohibition are prime examples. After alcohol was legalized again, the alcohol industry had a vested interest in making pot illegal.

      There is not now and there has never BEEN a shred of evidence justifying putting pot on Schedule One. Cops and judges who knew better were unwilling to say so in public, for fear of being labeled soft on crime.Criminal lawyers and jail house guards wanted the extra business. The companies that sold alcohol and tobacco, which are unquestionably demonstrably a hundred times more harmful, continued on their merry way for the most part.

      Anybody who is willing to sign away a basic right and freedom for a little temporary safety deserves neither rights nor freedoms, for down that path all too often lies tyranny.

      I try to go where the evidence leads me, rather than where my personal prejudices lead me. The evidence leads me to believe in forced climate change, European style single payer health care, and some other rather liberal policies. The evidence does not lead me to believe that preventing a few nut cases from murdering a few dozen people once in a while is worth the price in terms of our basic freedoms.

      We talk about human life as if it were precious, but only when it suits us. We could save fifty times , or a hundred times, as many people by getting drunk drivers off the road as we could by collecting guns. I have never heard that any body has a RIGHT to drive drunk.

      Of course those who say they only want to ban assault weapons will protest that they don’t want to take my shotguns, etc.

      But I know numerous such people personally, and they make it perfectly clear, privately, what their long term intentions are. Some of them will rush in to deny this, in every case , but those same partisans will be just as quick to insist that R types intend to jail women who want an abortion. Some R types would like too, certainly. Likewise, so would a great many anti gun types like to see everybody but the cops disarmed.

      I have needed police at twice when they failed to show up in time to be of any help. Once they were an hour late, even though there were cops in patrol cars within a mile or two, and on the other occasion they finally showed up only to harass the people who called them, with the troublemakers LONG GONE.

      My second wife was Jewish and lost all her known European relatives in the Holocaust. I know that if every Jew had had a gun, Hitler would still have had his crematoriums and mass graves , and his slave labor, but it would have cost him. Plenty. Nobody except his own followers had a weapon by the time he was ready to reveal his true colors to those other than his close followers. Sure he put it all in his miserable book, but hardly anybody other than his followers read it, and almost all of those who were not followers refused to take it seriously.

      Having said all this, I have enormous respect for the cops I know personally, and law enforcement is generally professional quality in my home state and next door North Carolina. It wasn’t always so.. I can remember the first sit ins at “white only ” businesses in nearby Greensboro as if it were only yesterday.

      There’s a joke that goes to the effect that a cop for some reason goes to some old ladies house and discovers that she has a dozen various guns. So a cop asks her what she is afraid of, and she proudly replies “NOTHING “.

      This rant might conceivably be related to oil and energy in terms of the potential collapse of business as usual and society going mad max, lol. It won’t hurt my feelings if it is deleted.

      ‘

      But there are places even here in the USA where whole damned police departments are crooked as a barrel of fishhooks. Black lives do matter, and there is a culture among cops of covering for each other, even when the cop is known to be an outlaw by his peers.

      SOMETIMES the R types and old time conservatives are RIGHT. I have a relative, too close for comfort, who was apparently born a psychopath, and who caused more trouble for my family and community than anybody else I know by a factor of five or ten, over fifteen to twenty years time. He is now serving the last fifteen years of his last sentence and won’t be paroled unless the weepy hearts manage to get him out.

      If they do succeed, I pray to Sky Daddy that one of them takes him in as a house guest.Incidentally the last time he was arrested, the immediate grounds were that he was in possession of a firearm, after being convicted of a felony. Charges of various other sorts were made at that time. Gun laws never stopped him from having a gun, until he was locked up, and gun laws didn’t stop him him from hospitalizing a woman a third his size with his fists, and assaulting a man his own size with a mattock. He would have most likely have killed him, if I hadn’t had my trusty old double barrel handy. We didn’t even call the cops that day , it would have been a waste of time. He had the cops called on him, and was arrested so many times, that it was a running joke in the community.

      Does any of this mean three strike laws are well written and equitably enforced? NO. But it proves they can and do work.

  23. Somebody up above quotes Jay Hanson as proving a steady state economy is impossible. I have read some of his stuff , and he knows some things.

    But neither he nor anybody else to my knowledge has proven that a steady state economy is impossible.

    The fact that we enjoy sex and generally procreate at rates higher than necessary to maintain a given population does NOT distinguish us naked apes from the rest of the biosphere.

    Nature provides no brakes on the impulse to procreate when conditions for doing so are favorable. So long as food, shelter, water, cover from enemies, etc, are sufficient, populations of just about ANY organism tend to increase.

    Nature’s way of putting on the brakes include famine, disease, inter species competition, intra species competition (aka war in our own species) , inclement weather, etc.

    There is no intrinsic reason a group of humans, large or small, cannot live more or less sustainably in a given location, so long as they are for some reason unable to create new technologies that enable them to escape the natural limits nature places on their numbers.

    Technology can be limited by either a lack of resources, or by cultural taboo, or both.

    People have lived in more or less stable numbers for long periods of times on islands, where there were few or no materials that would allow much in the way of technological progress.

    The Bushmen ( I apologize if this term offends any pc types, but I don’t know what other name might be in fashion at the moment) of Australia may have actually LOST some technologies they possessed at the time they made landfall on that continent. So far as I know, they lived sustainably for many thousands of years, and were doing just fine until the arrival of Euros.

    And so far as I know, the accepted explanation for their failure to create new technologies is that the resources needed to do so, stepping stone fashion, up the technological ladder, simply weren’t available to them.

    You can’t go from stone to iron or copper unless the right resources are in place and available to exploit iron or copper with the tools you already have. You can’t even go from primitive stone to sophisticated stone tools unless the right kinds of stone, workable stone, are available.

    Of course these people might have eventually discovered the metal working technologies, but they didn’t, historically, and it only takes ONE example to prove a hypothesis or theory wrong, so long as it is a nice solid irrefutable example.

    They proved they could live without much in the way of technology for a very long time, without their numbers getting to be so large they destroyed the environment that supported them.

    Now as to whether we can control our desire to have large families and thereby gain security, power, and status, in relation to other people , I am not altogether sure we are able to do that, but I think there is evidence enough to assume we CAN do so.

    If collective circumstances force our personal hands, society as a whole can force individuals to have only one or two or no children at all. We KNOW this much is true.

    Many many ideas that were once laughed at and considered absurdities have eventually come to be accepted cultural realities. Slavery as such is rare in most of the world now, so rare as to be nearly non existent in many societies. Women vote and men in armies, some armies at least, say YES MAAM like they mean it, lol.

    All kids go to school in most societies, etc.

    We might come around to the position that having more than two children is culturally taboo, and enforce the taboo with real penalties.

    Personally I am not willing to accept the argument that a steady state economy is an impossibility. It is probably true that such an economy on a world wide basis may be unattainable as a practical matter, due to the tendency of people to wage resource wars, but I can’t see any physical reason why a given geographical region cannot have a long term sustainable economy.

    If metals and fossil fuels were in extremely short supply, then a society similar to some agricultural societies that existed a few centuries back might last more or less indefinitely.

    1. YO MAC

      ANCIENT SUPERNOVAE BUFFETED EARTH’S BIOLOGY WITH RADIATION DOSE

      “Ancient supernovae likely exposed biology on our planet to a long-lasting gust of cosmic radiation which also affected the atmosphere…would have had a massive effect on the terrestrial atmosphere and biota of the time…the two stars exploded 1.7 to 3.2 million and 6.5 to 8.7 million years ago…..”

      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160711100838.htm

      1. I can understand the high energy muons being ionizing radiation and causing mutations, but I don’t see the climate effect. Supernovae should only have effects for weeks or a few months. Climate effects should be minor and short lived. Weather might be changed for a few months. The average planetary temperature had been dropping for a long time, I doubt if the supernovae caused the glaciations.

        Wonder what Betelgeuse will do?

        1. What’s cool is that you can make out its pinkish color with the naked eye.

    2. OFM Steady state? Study the physicist Charles Galton Darwin and the economist Nicholas Georgesu-Roegen.

    3. Hi Glen,
      Limited time here at the moment, but Gail mentions the steady state thing in her most recent article too.

      Hey plebes & dreamers…
      Recent comments from everybody’s petroleum pet, Petro, over under Fractional Flow:

      “Mr. Likvern,

      POB has dramatically changed for the worse since Ron ‘retired’ and put Dennis in charge

      Is becoming more and more a hostile, plebeian blog…..
      Do you mind me commenting here about debt, money and oil…as well as climate and nature….?

      I will try to not abuse my stay…

      Be well,

      Petro”

      Gotta luv that syrupy-sweet quip from beyond left field and across the river.

      And a little further down…

      “…oh, and keep dreaming about those Teslas and Leafs of the future….we need dreamers.
      Life would be monotonous without them…” ~ Petro

      Do we detect any notes of hostility? Hell no. Only the delicate floral notes sipped from our glasses.

      Be good,

      Cae

        1. I wouldn’t take it personally, you’re doing a fine job. It is just Petro’s way. ‘u^
          POB will evolve for as long as it continues.

    1. Seems as if climate is going where it was predicted. At that annual rate 541 ppm by 2050. Probably start running up faster now that we are losing the Arctic.

      High Amazon wildfire risk.
      “It’s the driest we’ve seen it at the onset of a fire season, and an important challenge now is to find ways to use this information to limit damages in coming months,” said Jim Randerson, Chancellor’s Professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine.
      http://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/high-risk-wildfire-projected-amazon

    2. Disclaimer: The atmosphere is composed of about 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen by volume. No other gas constitutes more than 1%. CO2 is, in fact, a trace gas representing approximately 0.04% of the volume of dry air in the atmosphere.

      Additionally reference Wikipedia Atmopshere of Earth entry: “The three major constituents of air, and therefore of Earth’s atmosphere, are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon. Water vapor accounts for roughly 0.25% of the atmosphere by mass. The concentration of water vapor (a greenhouse gas) varies significantly from around 10 ppm by volume in the coldest portions of the atmosphere to as much as 5% by volume in hot, humid air masses, and concentrations of other atmospheric gases are typically quoted in terms of dry air (without water vapor). The remaining gases are often referred to as trace gases, among which are the greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.“

      1. No shit, Sherlock! And in other news, a trace amountof arsenic can kill you…

        1. The scientists studying the climate change think CO2 adsorbs 1/7 th as much infrared and heat energy from sunlight as H2O (vapour) while also generally having 188 x fewer molecules than H2O while also capturing 1200 x less heat than H2O. Yet man-influenced CO2 gets blamed for 99.9% of all the current climate change (formerly global warming/before 2000) and not the more abundant water vapour? But because of rising CO2 we are supposed to destroy our economy and standard of living?

          1. What will really destroy our economy and standard of living is all the ignorance displayed by the likes of this comment!

            Yet man-influenced CO2 gets blamed for 99.9% of all the current climate change (formerly global warming/before 2000) and not the more abundant water vapour?

            Any chance you could explain to us the difference between a feedback and a forcing?! I didn’t think so!

            http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Water_vapor_accounts_for_almost_all_of_the_greenhouse_effect

            As the atmosphere heats up, it can hold more water vapor. As such, we can reasonably expect that the hotter the air is, the more humid it can be and, because water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas, the hotter the air will get. This positive feedback leads us to an obviously erroneous conclusion – that we should already be boiling. Since we’re not, there must be something that provides negative feedback to at least partly compensate for the positive feedback, and there is – precipitation in the form of rain, snow, sleet, hail, etc. Small local variations in temperature can create massive differences in the amount of water vapor present in the local atmosphere – a hot high pressure system drives the humidity down and stops precipitation, while a cooler low pressure system permits condensation and then rain or snow. All in all, this means that water vapor that enters the atmosphere persists there a very short period of time – about 11 days – while CO2 persists in the atmosphere for decades to centuries.

          2. To Valbuena and LT

            OK smartypants, since the increase, and we are talking differentials here, in radiative forcing caused by added CO2 is about +3 w/m2 and the change in radiative forcing which regularly causes glaciations and warmings is only about 1 w/m2 or less; which one causes more heat changes in the global system?

            One of the big fallacies is that it is the total amount of forcing caused by the total amount of greenhouse gases that is important. Nope. It’s the change in forcing, since we live at the crux between a frozen planet and a world empty of ice. Small forcings over a long period of time or large forcings over a short period of time both induce feedbacks in the natural system that produce the major changes in global climate and ice cover.
            Think of CO2 as being the match that sets the fire, the amount of energy in the match is small, the amount of energy released in fire is large, but without that initial push, the system stays stable.
            Just the reverse in ice age glaciations, small forcings from tilt and orbital changes cause small changes in temperature, which then cause changes in CO2 level, which then melts more ice, causing higher temps and more CO2 and lower albedo, until it is almost all melted and humans can run over the planet thinking things will stay the same. Feedbacks rule, but they are due to multiple variables set in motion by one change.

  25. http://e360.yale.edu/digest/tax_credit_solar_growth/4760/

    Solar power is going to be growing by leaps and bounds in the next few years in the eastern US. This will be cutting into demand for coal more than gas.

    Now here is an interesting question. Since gas is much better suited to load balancing, might gas consumption actually INCREASE – at the expense of coal- under some conditions, because of wind and solar on the grid ? In other words, if the cost of gas and the cost of coal are about even, then with increasing solar and wind penetration, gas will gain a competitive advantage over coal because of the easy ramping up and down.

    So in some markets, gas consumption for electrical generation might actually increase due to having more wind and solar power.

    1. “Since gas is much better suited to load balancing, might gas consumption actually INCREASE – at the expense of coal- under some conditions, because of wind and solar on the grid ?”

      This was the working model for Germany a few years ago. However in reality, coal was able to defend its share better than NG as coal power plants were flexible enough and ran when a thermal kWh from coal was cheaper than from NG.

      I have no reasons to assume that the situation is different in the USA, only when NG is cheaper it is used, load following is in larger scale not the killer argument it was assumed to be.

  26. Republicans? What Republicans? We don’t need no stinkin’ Republicans, whatever they are.

    I am on a quest to rid the world of Republicans. The sooner they are gone, the better.

    Actually, the same goes for those goofy Democrats too.

    Purdy much zero tolerance for any Republican or any Democrat. Look at what both parties have done! Good Lord. Americans are afflicted with Stockholm Syndrome, completely brainwashed.

    Both Republicans and Democrats deserve to be swept into the dustbin of history.

    They can’t get there soon enough. Hell is too good a place for them and I don’t want to see a single one of them when I finally arrive there.

    More cowbell if it helps any at all. Cowbell energy, the good stuff.

    1. Yes, the hard shelled egg, an innovation that allowed animals to invade the land, messing with the plants. However, I think insects were first. Of course when one thinks about it, the egg came long before the chicken, so that question is answered.

      But back to the insects that proceeded the egg laying tetrapod by 180 million years. They solved the egg problem long before the animals all due to those crusty crustaceans learning to breath air to get some new real estate. They performed flight 400 million years before the Wright brothers, so flight is no big deal. By the time genus homo came along there were so many flying creatures you had to swat them away to even see. Even then it took homo whatever 2 million years to figure out how to fly. Then just a little over one hundred years later, people are saying it’s bad to fly. Weird, schizophrenic lot.

      As far as fossilized carbon goes, nature spent huge amounts of energy and time burying that stuff away. Think of all the rain and wind to cause erosion and sedimentation to cover it up. Whole mountain ranges had to die to get that stuff buried. If nature spent that much time and energy burying it why don’t we see that as a sign to keep it there? When nature buries it’s dead that deep, maybe that is an indicator it’s not safe to keep it up top. No other creature would do what we do. Are we mental?

    2. Hi Ronald,

      Pinning you down is harder than holding onto a well greased pig.

      But I really would like to know how long you think oil, gas, and coal will last – meaning by last, that there will be enough to keep the wheels turning and life as usual perking along.

      Please keep up the great work, your posts are just about always good for a smile, and many a belly laugh.

  28. “Has there been some change in the laws of physics since the last interglacial, I was unaware of this? ”
    I will give Dennis the short answer to his snide remark to me about the laws of physics. Too crowded up page to respond.

    Dennis, we can assume that the laws of physics have not changed during the relatively short period of the latest Ice Age (multiple glaciations).
    The Holocene is different than any other interglacial period for several reasons. If you look at a temperature graph of the earth during the ongoing Ice Age, the temperature falls slowly, a glaciation occurs over a period of nearly 100,000 years then rises relatively quickly to a warm interglacial period. Wait and repeat. Up till now the periods have been quite short with a sharp return to descending temperatures and eventually the next glaciation. The Holocene plateaued out for 10,000 years, no sharp peak in the temperature record.

    Next is the greenhouse gas level is much higher than all the previous glaciations.

    So we have a strangely plateaued climate and much higher positive radiation forcing at the time when one would think the temperature should be dropping due to changes in orbit. Instead the temperature is rising.
    CO2 peaked at 220 to 280 ppm at the end of past glaciations. Now it is over 400 ppm and there are several other greenhouse gases added to it by industrial civilization.

    Third difference, the true radiative forcing of the current slug of CO2 is being masked by industrial pollution. Measurements show that that 9% of the sunlight is being blocked by pollution effects.
    Nine percent of the 270 w/m2 that reach the surface of the earth is 24 watts/m2 that is not reaching the earth, much of which will happen shortly after we stop the industrial pollution.
    Even if these measurements are only half true, that is a lot of radiative forcing.

    1. Hi Gonefishing,

      The current understanding of physics as represented in GCMs covers all of that and I am well aware of the physics, there is incomplete understanding of clouds and aerosols and their interaction so need for further research.

      Note that in the comments further up thread I am simply arguing that we should use reasonable RCPs, research using RCP8.5 is a waste of time because there is zero likelihood that anthropogenic emissions will be high enough to get to 1000 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

      I have asked you before, do you believe that fossil fuel output will keep increasing until 2100?

      If so could you suggest a rate of increase?

      I have shown the result if we assume a plateau in carbon dioxide emissions from 2025 to 2100 with a rapid decline in emissions from 2100 to 2113. This requires more fossil fuels to be extracted from 2016 to 2100 than in my “high” scenarios.

      Do those high scenarios seem too conservative to you?

      Chart below.

      1. Hi Dennis,

        What you’re missing is that we have entered an era where climate will be determined by feedback loops, popularly called tipping points. Feedback loops are complex in themselves and even more complex when considered as part of an integrated global climate system. Some are already at work; others have yet to kick in. The results are not predictable.

        1. Well said, some high level climate scientists believe we are at the 50% probability level that natural feedbacks no longer need increased CO2 from humans to keep pushing the climate warmer. In other words, we may no longer be in control and shortly we will not be in control.

          Dennis does ignore field measurements and seems to rely on models. Which is fine, but can miss a lot. Ignoring global dimming, which is from direct field measurements and current reality, not models; is like ignoring an oncoming truck. Can’t blame him too much, the IPCC tends to leave out and minimize anything they do not fully understand, leaving a lot of room for error in their models.
          Still despite all the claims of a cooler future, the ice is disappearing, the dimming is still there, the temperature of land and ocean are still rising, and both fossil fuels and population are still chugging along like none of that is happening. Still following the 8.5. Sigh.
          Think I will go out and enjoy the warm weather. Have a great day, everybody.

          1. Hi Gonefishing,

            I am not claiming there will be a cooler future until perhaps 7500 CE.

            I am using data for CO2 and fossil fuel emissions (both from the field).

            I am not aware of any field measurements from the future, so if you can get those for me I will use them :).

            I consider aerosols in the CSALT model (not my model, it is Webhubbletelescope’s). The “A” in the model stands for Aerosols.

            In the model below I use the “high” fossil fuel scenario (downthread) and the average values for S, L and T from 1880 to 2013 as inputs after 2015, A is set to zero (no aerosols).

            The model predicts about 2.1 C of warming above the low 20 year average from 1880 to 1900. The zero on the temp scale is the 1951-1980 average temp, the low point from 1880 is -0.4 C.

            1. I meant cooler than what I was saying, it’s all relative, not cooler than now. Have a good one Dennis, nice chatting with you.

            2. Hi Gonefishing,

              Thanks for the chat.

              You never answered my repeated question,

              “Do you think fossil fuels will peak before 2050?”

              Not sure why you don’t want to answer, perhaps you don’t know/and/or don’t care.

              Most climate scientists think carbon emissions are pretty fundamental to predicting what will happen to future climate. Scenarios that presume 5000 Pg of cumulative carbon emissions (like RCP 8.5) are not very useful.

              We won’t come close to that by 2100, my medium scenario for fossil fuels (considered much too large by many at peak oil barrel) would result in 1200 Pg of carbon emissions by 2100, a little more than a factor of 4 lower.

            3. Due to the fact that fossil fuel production is determined by price, technology, human desire and can be affected by other technologies; I do not see any way to predict fossil fuel use or production in the future. It could be low, it could be high, it could be both.

              The earth is not in radiative equilibrium. Ice, snow, permafrost and water are not waiting for equilibrium, they are changing now. We are looking at 3C this century, way too fast for ecological systems to adapt (that means they die).

              Here is the latest forcing issue I came across, we are at a low point in the Milankovitch cycle. Radiative forcing in the Arctic from this cycle will rise for thousands of years and not be lower than this for 40,000 years, in fact considerably higher than present 25,000 years from now
              Even with this low point, temperature is still going up and the Arctic is melting. Radiation will only increase from here for a long time.

              Happy Anthropocene, the Holocene is done.

            4. Hi Gonefishing,

              For the past 450,000 years the glacial interglacial cycles have been about 100,000 years rather than 40,000. Also the last interglacial lasted approximately 16,000 years based on ice core data and atmospheric CO2 gradually fell from 266 ppm to 184 ppm over a 90,000 year period.

              The last glacial interglacial cycle was about 115,000 years from 243 ky BP to 128 ky BP.

              The next interglacial maximum occurred 121,000 years later about 6,000 BP, but anthropogenic interference will interrupt a new glaciation due to excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Without that interference we would expect the next interglacial maximum temperature to be approximately 112,000 years in the future.

              If carbon release by human activity is limited to 1200 Pg, consistent with my medium scenario chances are good that climate change might not be a problem.

              Limiting carbon emissions as much as possible remains wise in my view due to uncertainty. Perhaps the worst case scenarios are correct, in which case fewer carbon emissions would be better.

              As depletion raises fossil fuel prices it is likely that less fossil fuel will be extracted as substitutes become competitive.

            5. You misread again, I did not say the interglacial maxima were forty thousand years apart. I said the radiative forcing would not drop back to current level for 40,000 years. Look at the graph at the bottom of the page.

              “If carbon release by human activity is limited to 1200 Pg, consistent with my medium scenario chances are good that climate change might not be a problem.”
              You are joking, right? I hope so.

            6. Hi Gonefishing,

              The radiative forcing for the planet is what is of more importance, as can be clearly seen the temperature in the past has not corresponded well with radiative forcing in the Arctic, the relationship is not well understood. This is pretty clear from your chart at the end of the post.

              Whether 1200 Pg of carbon is a severe problem is not known. If TCR is 2 C and ECS is 3 C as mainstream scientists believe, 1200 Pg of Carbon emissions from all sources may not be a severe problem.

            7. Temperature corresponds to what happens with radiative forcing on this planet if you consider the phase changes of water- they are fully related to temperature.
              Vapor-Liquid-Solid all are highly related to the what the radiative forcing does and control the radiative forcing. It is a water planet. Water in it’s various forms and transitions control most of the radiation on earth. Those forms change with temperature changes.

            8. Did you not understand the effects of having increased forcing due to higher CO2 in the Holocene than at any other time in the history of this Ice Age? Last time around just simple orbital forcing made Greenland lose much of it’s ice sheet and ocean levels were considerably higher than now. Now add to that more radiative forcing. So what do you think of that scenario? It’s real and happening right now.
              Temperatures will reach considerably higher, which will increase natural amplification.
              I really think that underplaying the effects of increased greenhouse gases, global brightening and all the natural feedbacks is a dangerous course to take. Sure it placates politicians and overly-cautious scientists, but it does not look strongly at reality and how things actually work.

            9. Hi Gonefishing,

              Yes it is clear that Carbon dioxide levels are higher, the sea level is a little trickier, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the sea level record.

              I will go with the scientists on this, especially the “overcautious scientists” that like to back their theories with some data. There is much that we don’t understand about climate, but the science suggests an equilibrium climate sensitivity of about 3 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2, the shorter lived greenhouse gases such as methane are of less importance.

              I will go with David Archer of Real Climate on methane not being likely to be a big issue and Gavin Schmidt (also at Real Climate and Goddard) who suggests ECS is likely to be close to 3 C and TCR roughly 2C (for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 to 554 ppm).

              These gentlemen are well aware of the carbon cycle and various feed backs in the climate system.

              At this point we are getting nowhere, we will just have to disagree.

            10. Hi Gonefishing,

              It may well be that the orbital parameters will keep things from getting too warm.

              Consider that without the excess carbon dioxide, the Climate might be cooling and we would be gradually moving towards a cooler climate, there is no doubt some variation from one glacial interglacial cycle to the next which might explain differences in sea level (though sea level is not vet well measured and the difference between current sea level and the last interglacial may be within the margin of error.

              There are definitely different views within the climate science community. The views at Real Climate are pretty mainstream and my view is consistent with what they say there.

              These might be some of the “overcautious” scientists you refer to.

              I like my scientists to make claims they believe are backed by evidence rather than speculation.

            11. Dennis said, “It may well be that the orbital parameters will keep things from getting too warm.”
              I posted elsewhere about Milankovich cycles. The Milankovitch cycle actually peaked about 10,000 years ago and it’s component of radiative forcing has been falling every since.
              We are bottomed out now and will get increased radiation for then next 40.000 years when it finally comes back down to this point again. So any cooling should already have been in progress and the reversal should show effects soon.
              That means a combined increased forcing from Milankovitch cycle, anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and several natural feedbacks.

              As I stated elsewhere, the typical interglacial temperature point is quite narrow, this one settled into a plateau and is now rising (despite the cycle reaching a low point). So the climate is no longer following the Milankovich forcings. I will post a graph of Milankovich forcings at the bottom to give more room.

        2. Doug says- “The results are not predictable.”

          That is the most accurate thing I’ve ever read about the massive chemistry experiment we are conducting in the atmosphere.
          Playing with fire.
          300 million years of accumulated fire (reduced carbon, that is).
          Cherish each day.

          1. Doug says- “The results are not predictable.”

            This is PRECISELY why a conservative with a reasonably decent understanding of the ABC’s of the hard sciences should be advocating for vastly increased research in environmental matters.

            A decision in favor of supporting the renewable energy industries, and supporting tighter environmental regulation as well, is a no brainer on the basis of the precautionary principle alone.

            Any self trained engineer, or back yard mechanic, or computer programmer, or business manager, or damned near anybody at all, understands that when you start randomly messing with the adjustments of a machine, or a business, or a relationship with another person, the odds are at least a thousand to one that you will make things WORSE instead of better.

            1. I predict jellyfish, giant spiders, reptiles (I like the flying ones) and lots of bugs, big bugs. If they are lucky there will be giant amphibians too.

              We are not randomly messing with the machine, most the messing is consistent, growing in scale and some of the results are quite predictable. Add heat, more heat gets added by nature, back to the coal age or something similar.
              Palm trees in Alaska anyone?
              It’s just that most people don’t want to hear it.

        3. Hi Doug,

          I will go with the science and not speculate on potential tipping points that may or may not occur. Physicists are pretty smart, they might be missing something, but I think the GCMs get things roughly correct, most of the climate scientists think 3 C is about right for ECS with TCR at about 2C. There are some that think it might be lower and others that believe it might be higher. I agree there is much we do not know.

          If you are of the opinion we should reduce carbon emissions, I agree, I just don’t think much is accomplished by creating “business as usual” cases that require 100% of known fossil fuel resources to be extracted by 2100.

          To call such a ridiculous scenario (RCP8.5) “business as usual” seems unscientific. It would be like claiming, with a straight face, that fossil fuel use will be reduced to zero by 2020. 🙂 Even I don’t make claims that are that ridiculous.

      2. Using the scenario above and again assuming rapid reduction in fossil fuel use after 2100 (10% lower per year to 2105, then 20% lower per year to 2109 and then a 1.1 Gt reduction of CO2 emissions until 2113 (zero anthropogenic CO2 emissions from 2113 to 2500). We get a scenario with 1372 Gt of CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources (fossil fuels, cement production and land use change) from 1850 to 2112. The atmospheric CO2 peaks at 531 ppm in 2102 and falls to 417 ppm in 2500.

        Many who read this blog think the medium scenarios I have presented are too optimistic (too high) and that the “high” scenarios presented here are “wildly optimistic”. I think the high scenarios are optimistic and the medium scenarios are realistic.

        Chart below with atmospheric CO2 for the “high case” from 1950 to 2500.

        1. Emissions scenario for CO2 that is the input for the model above in chart below.

          CO2 emissions in Gt for all anthropogenic sources.

          1. Nice charts. I can follow these with time. Could you post the temperature chart expanded, say 2000 to 2050.

            1. Hi Gone Fishing,

              For the high fossil fuel scenarios from my coal, oil and natural gas shock models we have 1372 Pg C emissions from 1850 to 2113.

              Chart with temperature 2010 to 2060 below with BEST land ocean 12 month centered average.

    1. I live near one of those massive ash spills, went right into a scenic river. The cleanup took a long time and a lot of money. That coal power plant never ran again and is now razed. Replaced with natural gas generators.

      The other nearby coal power plant has not run in years. The coal pile was removed and no action has been taken to remove it or replace the generators with another fuel. That was closed because of long running law suits by two nearby states and the EPA regulations, for pollution.
      A nearby town had constant clashes with the power plant because it was dumping it’s ash in quarries at the edge of the town.

  30. ExxonMobil Is Still Funding Climate Science Denier Groups

    Two Decades of Duplicity

    Shortly after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol international climate treaty, Exxon went on a spending spree to block federal efforts to address global warming. The company, which was outed by a 2007 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), spent $18.62 million from 1998 — a year before it merged with Mobil — through 2005 on a network of more than 40 groups. From 2006 through last year, it spent another $14.35 million, for a total of $33 million.

    That’s just what can be gleaned from the company’s tax filings and statements, however. Corporations are not required to disclose all of their political spending, and there is reason to suspect ExxonMobil has spent quite a bit more on its climate disinformation campaign. A former ExxonMobil executive who wishes to remain anonymous told UCS that the company secretly allocated as much as $10 million annually for what insiders called climate “black ops” from 1998 through 2005.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/exxonmobil-is-still-fundi_b_10955254.html

    1. Hi Gonefishing,

      You do realize that there was generally cooling from the Eemian peak near 120,000 BP to the last glacial maximum about 22,000 years ago. So warming does not necessarily conform to the ups and downs of the Milankovitch cycles as there were several big oscillations between 125,000 BP and 22,000 BP with slowly decreasing atmospheric CO2 over that period from 270 ppm to 184 ppm.

      1. Don’t see what you see. I see two peaks hitting highs of 525, and one broad peak reaching 510. Much of the time it was over 475. The temperature does not fall evenly if you look at the actual temperature after the Eemian, lots of ups and downs. Also one must look at the CO2 levels. Making assumptions from one variable about a complex system generally does not work.
        All I said was that the current Milankovitch cycle had reached a minima and would rise from here, adding one more positive forcing to the current set of forcings. Also, notice that this minima is above the 475 line, not as low as many.
        It would be interesting to find a study relating the growth of ice sheets. related to temperature, Milankovitch forcing and CO2. Maybe I will look for one soon.

        1. Hi Gonefishing,

          What I see is that the changes in CO2 in the atmosphere do not match the Milankovitch forcings well. The large swings in Milankovitch forcings do not show up very strongly in the CO2 record, we don’t have very goo global temperature reconstructions before 22,000 BP. Chart below with CO2 on left axis and Global temp on right axis from 22,000 BP to 6500 BP, date scale uses uses CE years rather than BP scale where CE = 1950-BP.

          1. The CO2 will start to rise as the ice sheet melts, it’s a phase change world. Phase transistions of water involve energy. The temperature change is very related to the phase changes. CO2 is also because melted ice sheet exposes carbon on land and warming water cannot hold as much CO2.

            Take the ups and downs as ice sheet melting and growing. Both temperature and CO2 follow each other quite well.

  32. Challenge that assumption-
    Assumption. Oil depletion means the end of suburbia. People won’t be able to afford to drive all around, to work, to shops, to school, to play. Suburbs will become ghost towns.

    Challenge. Not so fast. Electrification of the auto fleet will enable those who can afford the transition to continue getting around, at least for the range that their vehicles allow between charges.

    Still, getting products from far afield will likely become much more expensive, challenging the family budget severely. In Hawaii, groceries and standard hardware items (like 2 x 4’s) are very expensive. This is due to transport costs, not tariffs. This pricing of non-local items a picture of the not to distant future.
    Is your towns/cities hinterland in good shape? Got milk?

  33. Largest U.S. deepwater wind farm planned off of New York – 15 turbines will generate 90 mw of power.

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