109 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, February 21, 2020”

    1. It has come up in my world also.
      We shall see, might be a sign of something serious.

  2. The Digiconomist site (below, hat tip to Survivalist) gives an estimate of 657 kWhs per Bitcoin transaction, compared to .001 kWhs per Visa transaction.

    https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

    657kWhs is nuts. Again, that’s very roughly $40-$50 in pure energy costs. So, buy a hamburger for $4, and pay $40 in transaction costs!?!?!

    Am I missing something? Are Bitcoin enthusiasts asuming that it would never be used for transactions equivalent to less than several thousand dollars?

    2. The number includes the mining costs, I guess. That’s the bitcoin equivalent of marble in a traditional bank.

      The transactions themselves aren’t so expensive. But they are MUCH too slow (and expensive) for real world applications. High latency is the Achilles heel of any distributed application.

      Bitcoin is based on a blockchain, which is just a distributed ledger. Every transaction gets published across the entire network. That will never provide acceptable performance to the billions of transactions happening every minute worldwide.

      The rule is that a database can be distributed, consistent or fast — pick any two.

      1. Alim,

        I think that “mining” and creating new coins is an essential part of building the Bitcoin ledger:

        “Bitcoin mining refers to the process of digitally adding transaction records to the blockchain. … As an incentive to mine and contribute to the network, the miner who solved the problem is rewarded a block of Bitcoin.”

        https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/bitcoin-mining/#:~:text=Bitcoin mining refers to the,transaction records to the blockchain&text=As an incentive to mine,rewarded a block of Bitcoin.

        As more computing power is brought to bear, the problems become more complex, so it appears that electrical consumption per transaction will only increase if bitcoin continues to become more popular:

        “10 Minutes per Block
        Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, designed the Bitcoin network to allow for a block to be mined every 10 minutes. To maintain this 10-minute pace, the difficulty of the mathematical problems adjust automatically.

        When there are more miners and more computing power attempting to mine, the level of difficulty will increase. When there are fewer miners and less computing power, the level of difficulty will decrease.”

        This also suggests that Bitcoin latency is synthetic: no amount of computing power can provide “instant” transactions.

        1. Nick —
          Mining is creating new coins. It is intentionally difficult to prevent inflation. No mining is required to continue doing transactions with existing bitcoins. So if mining were stopped tomorrow, you could theoretically keep buying and selling stuff with bitcoin, it there were a market for anything denominated in bitcoin, which there isn’t. The current value of all bitcoins is over a trillion dollars, so there is no shortage or need for mining.

          It’s a bit confusing because when the price of bitcoin goes up, as it recently has, it is deflation in bitcoin terms. Or it would be deflation if bitcoin were used much as currency. The explanation is that when bitcoin prices are high, goods and services that might be bought with bitcoin are cheap in bitcoin terms.

          Right now bitcoin is high, so energy is cheap and lots of it is being used to make more coins. As I mentioned above, chips are very short now, but a lot of chips are being sold to miners to the detriment of gamers as well.

          Mining is a feature of bitcoin, but not of the underlining distributed ledger, blockchain.

          A distributed ledger is just what it sounds like — a list of transactions that is stored decentrally. For example if I buy a T shirt with cash dollars at Walmart, Walmart stores the transaction, but I don’t. If I use a credit card, it would appear as a separate transaction there. In a distributed ledger world there is only one transaction on a public ledger which does not belong to the buyer or the seller.

          A transaction is just the movement of a coins or fractions of coins from one account to another. It does not record why the transfer occurred. Ownership of the accounts is encrypted, but the transactions are open, so the number of coins on any account can be calculated by running through the entire list of transactions (the blockchain) since 2009, or whenever the ledger kicked off. The list is stored redundantly on many independent servers.

          Mining is a magic transaction where a coin appears out of nowhere and is assigned to a specific account. Mining adds to the number of coins that can appear in the ledger. It is a special feature of bitcoin that bitcoin’s blockchain allows.

          The cost of mining is a special case unrelated to the cost of moving things between accounts. The assuage fears of inflation, mining is difficult. These difficulties can only be surmounted with high powered chips and lots of energy. The cost of mining increases exponentially with the number of coins already mined.

          If the Bitcoin price crashes (which is likely) mining will stop dead. In 2018 bitcoin denominated energy prices tripled overnight, and mining came to a screeching halt. But now bitcoin is sky high. The anonymous person who created bitcoin is said to have mined a million coins, now worth 50 billion dollars.

          1. Mining is a feature of bitcoin, but not of the underlining distributed ledger, blockchain.

            That’s my understanding: different kinds of cryptocurrency can have different rules. But…

            No mining is required to continue doing transactions with existing bitcoins.

            That’s not my understanding, for Bitcoin. Are you sure? Could you double check?

            1. Nick —
              Mining is used to improve security, but as far as I know the level of security is sort of arbitrary. That is why the price falls at an arbitrary rate.

              I can check though.

          2. Alim-
            This cryptocurrency discussion had started on a prior thread that got cut-off.
            It was focused on the energy aspect.
            I re-post it here, curious if the article rings true to you-

            “We’ve got a manufactured energy problem folks. A new one. A massive one.
            Cryptocurrency. I am no expert on this, but I read a similar story from differing sources.

            “In fact, if you add all electricity used by Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook [datacenters, etc] together, you still are at about 1/4th the amount of power that bitcoin uses today.
            “Currently, about 146 million transactions are made every year through bitcoin. Our current financial system, which includes bank transfers, credit card transactions, paypal transfers, and much more, well, that amounts to a whopping 500 billion transactions a year.
            “If bitcoin had to replace all 500 billion yearly transactions and its power requirement scaled as it has thus far, the whole world would need to generate 18 times as much electricity as it does today just to power this financial system. ”

            And no one , no organization, no committee of chosen leaders, no governing board, no group subject to democratic or political pressure
            is in charge.
            Its a snowball rolling downhill and gathering speed, with no steering wheel.

            I am not arguing the relative merit of one money system over another.
            Just pointing out that this cryptocurrency version of value exchange and record just so happens to require a massive energy input, or else it simply disappears into the coldness of space.

            For your reading pleasure-
            https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/20/everything-about-bitcoin/

            2. I don’t think cryptocurrency will ever replace money. It’s too expensive and too slow. The is no way to speed up a distributed model like that.

              About mining, There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins, so mining has to end eventually. The miners do offer a service that has to be paid for somehow.

              The service would be replaced by some payment scheme. some sort of tax I guess. Mining exists to bootstrap the currency.

              What I don’t know is how much their energy consumption would fall when the new system comes in. Maybe not so much.

              BTW, even without cryptocurrency on current trends it looks like server farms are going to make up nearly all energy consumption in a few decades.

          3. Alimbiquated,

            Without mining, there is no way to verify the validity of transactions on the ledger. That is the entire point of mining. Initially, mining was given a bitcoin reward (block reward) to incentivise doing the work that validates transactions, and as a nifty way to create new bitcoins. Once all bitcoins have been created, mining must still continue, otherwise transactions cannot be validated. Instead of being rewarded with new bitcoin, miners will be rewarded entirely via transaction fees.

  3. The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a report indicating that 3 year growth in utility and commercial scale solar PV production capacity in the USA 2020-2023, will just about quadruple-
    52.6 GW currently increasing to a projected 203.8 GW

    The photons are starting to coalesce.

    1. Just this morning I saw the following over at the PV Magazine web site:

      The US added 16.5 GW of PV in 2020

      Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and sharp economic contraction, the U.S. achieved a record year for renewables in 2020, adding a combined 33.6 GW of solar and wind capacity.

      That’s according to the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, an annual joint report from BloombergNEF (BNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE).Records were also set for each individual technology in 2020. The report said solar bested its previous 2016 high with 16.5 GW built, while wind had its strongest year ever with 17.1 GW added. The report further noted that utility-scale solar+storage projects are growing in popularity across the country.

      BCSE President Lisa Jacobson explained, “Global supply chain disruptions, workforce protection measures, and policy uncertainty required adaptation across the industry.”

      “In a year when so much went sideways, it was a blockbuster year for renewable energy build,” added Ethan Zindler, BNEF’s head of Americas. “Decarbonization of U.S. energy accelerated in 2020, and the benefits will be felt for years to come.”

      I took a look at the Growth of Photovoltaics Wikipedia page and note that the last time the US installed less than 10 GW of PV in one year was 2015. It got me thinking, how long before the annual amount is 20 GW? Then how long before 25 GW? Looking at the trends if we don’t see 20 GW this year, it should be 2022 at the latest. It looks like at least 25 GW is in the cards for 2023. Based on recent trends, the high side could be looking like 20+25+31 = 76 GW and the low side looks like 19+22+25 = 66 GW cumulative additions by the end of 2023. 52.6 + 76 ≠ 203.8 . Note that annual installation figures from the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook include residential PV so it would appear that the FERC report anticipates a very significant uptick in the rate of installations!

      1. CF (capacity factor) of an energy production facility indicates what percent of theoretical output of a particular set of equipment is actually produced when it is out in the field doing its job.
        For solar we now have some pretty good data accumulating, and even a rough national average figure.
        Realize that CF for solar PV in Arizona is going to be much higher (30.3%) than in Pennsylvania (15.8%), simply because it is less cloudy.
        For the nation as a whole the current data indicates a solar CF close to 25% [26.5%/24.5%] for the currently installed national project portfolio.

        What use are these numbers? Well, when IslandBoy notes that the Covid year of 2020 had 16.5 GW of new solar PV installed, this is equivalent energy output to about 4 full-size (1000MW) Nuclear plants. This assume the nuclear plant CF was 100%. In reality nuclear plant average CF is in the lower 90’s. They need maintenance and refueling, which cuts into operating time.

        As time goes on we can count solar installation in terms of nuc plant equivalents. Sometime soon we will see a year where the equivalent of 10 nuclear plants of new solar energy output was installed. By the end of this decade we will be talking serious national capability.
        https://emp.lbl.gov/pv-capacity-factors
        https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity

        Better fix up that grid Texas- “ERCOT, the grid that services 90% of Texas added almost 1,700 MW of solar in 2020 but could add another 9,000 MW in 2021 if all projects in late stages of development are completed on-time,”
        That is like adding 3 nuc plants this year in Texas.

        https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/22/9-gw-of-texas-solar-power-could-be-added-in-2021/

        1. Good thoughts.

          A quibble: that article about capacity factors for various forms of generation was clearly written by an anti-renewable, pro-nuclear Trumpite. It said:

          “Capacity factors allow energy buffs to examine the reliability of various power plants.”

          Capacity factor tells us very little about reliability. Reliability means that you can count on it being there when it’s supposed to. Solar in Arizona is very reliable: it will almost always be there during the day, when it’s expected. Coal is relatively unreliable: it requires a lot of unexpected repairs. Natural gas is relatively reliable, but has a much lower capacity factor than shown in that article, as much of it is used for very short periods.

          “Nuclear has the highest capacity factor of any other energy source—producing reliable, carbon-free power…”

          Nuclear is relatively reliable in some respects, but a plant can “trip” without warning, causing the loss of a very large chunk of power in minutes, and may not return for days (or much longer, occasionally). That’s why small grids like Ireland avoid nuclear entirely.

          Capacity factor is high for nuclear because it has high capital costs, and low marginal fuel costs, not because of it’s “reliability”. Capacity factor for wind and solar will rise very gradually until total capacity rises above peak demand, and then it will likely drift lower as capacity continues to rise relative to peak demand – which will be a good problem to have.

          1. Forgot Hydro production….. where I live it supplies 100% and is fully renewable (BC)

            All our electricity is Hydro and we have mucho extra for export, particularly when site C comes on line. Fuel costs? $0 Dam building costs are certainly far less than nukes. No spent fuel issues or decommissioning costs.

            Production would not be allowed on salmon migration routes these days, thus no more upper Columbia (s). Site C is on the Peace river which flows north. Stikine would be excellent producer, but will never happen due to salmon migration and first nations. Upper Liard, just below YT border is feasible but may have a lifespan due to the high silt loads from the Kechika River, plus power line costs down the Rocky Mtn Trench.

            I flew water survey teams for years around to various monitoring sites.

            There are further opportunities in northern Canada. A problem we have had is US customers asking for power in extreme need, but then suing exporters for higher costs. Customers also not wanting to pay a regulated cost/guarantee for industry stability for standby sources or power. In short, users want it both ways, cheaper market prices in times of plenty, but don’t want to pay higher prices in times of high demand, nor do they want a blended price guarantee.

            https://globalnews.ca/news/395756/bc-hydro-loses-265-million-lawsuit-in-california/

          2. Hey Nick.
            This is not a correct/factual use of the term Capacity Factor-
            “Capacity factor is high for nuclear because it has high capital costs, and low marginal fuel costs, not because of it’s “reliability”. Capacity factor for wind and solar will rise very gradually until total capacity rises above peak demand, and then it will likely drift lower as capacity continues to rise relative to peak demand – which will be a good problem to have.”

            It makes me think you do not use (or want to use) the Capacity Factor terminology like the rest of the energy industry, or maybe just don’t understand it .
            For those seeking clarification- From Energy Education 101
            ‘Capacity Factor is the ratio between what a generation unit is capable of generating at maximum output versus the unit’s actual generation output over a period of time.’

            https://www.nmppenergy.org/feature/capacity_factor

            1. I don’t see a conflict between what I said, and the quote you provided.

              If a nuclear plant can generate 1 gigawatt, and it provides 930 megawatts on average, that’s 93% capacity factor. The denominator in the calculation is “name-plate” capacity. A nuclear plant may have a maximum of 1 GW, and a practical maximum average of 93% due to maintenance and refueling downtimes. The *actual* average will depend on demand, cost and the priority given to the generation source.

              Why is the actual US nuclear capacity factor so high? Because fuel costs are low and capital costs are high, so it makes sense to prioritize nuclear generation.

              If this were France, and nuclear was the primary power source, the capacity factor would be significantly lower as the plants would “load follow”, rather than simply maximizing output. France is fortunate in that it’s part of a larger grid so it can mitigate this effect somewhat by exporting power at night to places like Switzerland, where they reduce hydro output at night and then they can sell it back to France during the day at the period of peak demand. But, still, French nuclear power factors are significantly lower because of their dominance of the French grid.

              Similarly, wind and solar plants currently maximize output for the same reasons: zero fuel cost, high capital cost. Wind and solar capacity factors are currently rising slowly because of gradual improvements in output due to multiple incremental improvements in generator sizing, siting, efficiency, attitude and angle control etc., etc. When we get to the point that wind and solar dominate the grid they will have to reduce (“curtail”) output during non-peak times. The optimum cost point will probably involve substantial “over-building”, just as it does with the current grid.

              Some natural gas plants have a very low capacity factor because they’re used as “peaker plants”, rather than “base-load” (single cycle plants with low capital cost and high fuel cost). If you only use a plant for 100 hours per year, it’s capacity factor will only be about 1% (100 run-hours/8,760 hours per year), despite having been engineered to be able to run most of the time.

              Does that help?

          3. I looked up the writer of the first document about capacity factors. I noted that it took a pro-nuclear approach. Well, here are his articles: https://www.energy.gov/eere/contributors/mike-mueller

            You’ll notice that almost all of his articles are nuclear boosterism (in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy!). I would guess that this is a direct result of the Trump administration packing agencies with anti-renewable flacks.

            1. As opposed to the pie in the sky Green New Deal?

              I’m all for calling the likes of Shellenberger and Mueller out as being in the pockets of the nuke lobby, but let’s not pretend renewables aren’t equally culpable. And also utterly unable to provide a replacement to our fossil fuel culture anyway.

        2. The problem with this solar is:

          During the blizzard last week, their output would have been ZERO. There has to be a complete second backup energy structure.

          With our current technology level, this has to be gas, with gas plants / fuel cells for getting electricity from it.

          Gas supply can be shifted from natural gas to synthetic gas / bio gas by the time. But without this, even 100 GW extra solar capacity won’t keep you warm in a one week blizzard.
          Big converter tech has to be developed / installed still. We speak of a storage depth of double digit Terawatthours, not a few Gigawatthours.

          Here in Germany there are especially in Winter, periods up to 3 weeks where there is not much wind and even less solar. And cold enough weather, with the green party wanting to switch heating to heat pumps. So even more electric demand (We don’t have much normal electric heathing here, it’s mostly gas or oil).

          Battery technic isn’t big enough for this – at least not in the next 30 years. You want all batteries to electrify transport business – and want to fast load the battery of a snowplow in the middle of a snow fall.

          1. Yes. It is clearly so.
            “The problem with this solar is:
            During the blizzard last week, their output would have been ZERO. There has to be a complete second backup energy structure.”

            At this point, and for the next couple decades anyway, solar and wind will serve as fossil fuel extenders- Allowing civilization to continue on with possibly adequate energy supplies despite a massively overgrown population and energy demand. This does not not ‘save the world’, or prevent completion of the grand destruction of the environment.

            It is naive to think that modern economies can be fossil fuel free [‘ban fracking’] anytime in the near future. But is also fool-hearty to fail to deploy solar and wind as fast as can be achieved, where it is sunny and windy (unless the goal is to intentionally engineer/hasten a civilization crash due to energy shortage).

          2. Are you talking about the Texas cold snap? Have you seen any evidence that wind and solar didn’t work just fine, where it was weather-proofed (like it would be in most places!)?

            I’ll grant you, when thick clouds block the sun solar output can be greatly reduced. But, it won’t go to zero, and wind output will likely be higher in storm conditions.

            “About 60% of the energy sources offline in Texas on Wednesday and Thursday were thermal — that is, power plants that run on coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy — while the rest was from solar and wind farms, ERCOT said.

            Cold weather is the obvious culprit: All different kinds of power plants in Texas, not just wind turbines, have trouble operating in arctic weather as their instruments freeze. In fact, earlier this week, wind farms were overperforming forecasts, said Rebecca Miller, a research manager at Wood Mackenzie who tracks output across the state.”

            https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-blackouts-millions-lost-power-in-storm-went-wrong-2021-2

            1. failure to grasp the big picture, or understand what is meant by Capacity Factor.
              so it goes

            2. Or…disagreeing with you.

              Gosh, when someone disagrees with you, could there be information they have that you don’t? Could it be worth talking about it, and finding out??

              When I’m disagreeing with someone, one strategy is to to mirror back one’s understanding of the other’s argument.

              In the case of capacity factor, you provided quotes which seemed to agree with what I said, so I’m not sure where to go with that.

              In the case of renewables during blizzards, my understanding was that: Eulenspiegel argued that renewables can’t perform during a winter storm event and that a 100% backup system was needed. I provided evidence showing that wasn’t true in the case of the Texas blackout.

              Your thoughts?

            3. After the initial storm there is often a longer period with calm winds and blocked sun.

              Anyway, sun isn’t that high in winter.
              Here you can check the german energy production of the last years. You often can find periods of 1-3 weeks where there was not much combined solar + wind – especially in the winter months:
              https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=EN

              Another problem: You won’t get a alternative energy build out with an energy free market – you’ll need a regulated state market.
              When you want the most energy produced by sun and wind, you have to overbuild. A lot, propably more than 50%.

              This means, in a big time period market price of electricity will go to Zero. Only in a regulated or monopol market producers can survive this.

            4. Eulenspiegel,

              I agree with all of that.

              The funny thing is, most of the US has the regulated state market you’re talking about: a “capacity market”, in which grid managers (Independent System Operators) conduct reverse auctions of guaranteed capacity.

              Guess which part of the US doesn’t have that: yes, it’s Texas…

              ———————————-
              You also mentioned overbuilding – here’s a study of that from the University of Delaware (hat tip to Dennis) which suggests that overbuilding wind is cheaper than backup. See pages 65 and 66.
              http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

            5. That wind farms might ‘overperform forcasts’ or that their overbuilding might be ‘cheaper than backup’ seems rather immaterial if they are not stable and, for example, create cascading failures.

              At the same time, a ‘regulated state market’ may be self-defeating where complexity, low stability and low EROEI energy is concerned.

              Texas Trip

              “Texas received the kind of cold weather event that I had wished upon my own home last November. What followed was exactly what I had predicted would have happened if similar weather had hit the UK:

              ‘The sudden loss of a high-inertia fossil fuel plant at a time when there is too much wind can cause a dangerous drop in frequency. This leaves the grid operators with the choice between frying electrical appliances and components across the country or cutting the power…

              Perhaps, after we have collectively shivered in the dark (maintaining strict social distancing, of course) for a couple of weeks, with intermittent access to everything from television and the internet through to food and… dare I say it… toilet paper, we can at least have a debate about the feasibility of green growth, and whether we might need to do far more to shrink our energy dependence and de-grow a large part of our economy.’

              The physics behind what happened in Texas this week are almost identical to those which caused Britain’s power outage in August 2019 – only the type of bad weather was different. Stable grid frequency is what allows us to plug electrical appliances into the system without frying them. It is also what prevents the components of the grid from irreparable damage. In the UK, the grid operates at a frequency of 50 Hz – in the USA it is 60 Hz – with a margin of no more than 0.5 Hz either side. In traditional – fossil fuel and nuclear – systems, grid frequency is backed up by inertia – the massive steel turbines acting like flywheels to iron out any second-by-second fluctuations. Non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs) like wind turbines and solar panels do not have this in-built protection, and so depend upon energy storage, nuclear baseload and fossil fuel back-up to avoid a dangerous loss of frequency. And the higher the proportion of NRREHTs added to the grid, the greater the chance of a frequency failure. In both the UK and Texas, it was the failure of backup following a weather-related interruption of wind generation which triggered the cascading power outage across the grid.”

  4. While we quibble, Nature is in freefall.

    FRESHWATER FISH IN ‘CATASTROPHIC’ DECLINE

    “Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone extinct, 16 in the last year alone. numbers have plummeted due to pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56160756

    1. While we quibble, Nature is in freefall.

      I agree – at some point you have to take action beyond sharing information. What do you think would be useful? What personal actions do you recommend? What do you concentrate on yourself?

      1. At 80, I am an observer rather than an actor. Most of my travel these days comprises walking my dog, attending medical appointments, or buying groceries. Living in a rural community (nearest neighbor being a couple of miles away) all I can do is provide moral support to kids and neighbors who are doing their best try and keep our natural habitat healthy — apparently a failing exercise as songbird, fish and insect populations here have been plummeting recently.

        When I moved here from the city (Vancouver) I put up a dozen squirrel-proof nesting boxes to encourage tree swallows. For the first few years they all were occupied and mostly produced two hatches — a lot of birds. Now I’m lucky to have three active nests. Apparently the swallow population in Canada has decreased by an estimated 76 per cent over the past 40 years, a lack of insects to feed being the main reason, I presume?

        1. I have 9 swallow boxes around my house and another 5 across the road. 5 boxes full here and 3 full ones across the road last season. I only wish I had a banding type program as I’m convinced the offspring return to the same area? Why? The ones at my house watch me as I go about my chores and live my life, obviously well used to me. They always do this. Most had two broods this past year. The ones away are on vacant land we own and they continually dive bomb me if we wander over too close. Our house is on a river and the property has a pond. Certainly no shortage of insects. I dug the pond for the insects and for mallards. I stock it with Crayfish from the river and salmon fry use it for a nursery some years. (Coho). Trout move in and out and it is also full of sticklebacks.

          Where did you move to Doug, at least which general area? I live in Sayward west of Campbell River where the elk rule the Valley. We now have resident grizzlies here, too.

    2. Prayers to all of the people who’s livelihood is affected by mother nature’s wrath against fish.

  5. BTW

    WORLD’S HUGE ICE LOSS IS SPEEDING UP

    “Planet Earth is losing its frozen mantle faster than ever as the world’s huge ice loss intensifies. Between 1994 and 2017, the polar regions and the mountain glaciers said farewell to a total of 28 million million tonnes of ice. This is a quantity large enough to conceal the entire United Kingdom under an ice sheet 100 metres thick. More alarmingly, scientists warn, the rate of loss has been accelerating. Over the course of the 23-year survey of the planet’s ice budget, there has been a 65% increase in the flow of meltwater from the glaciers, ice shelves and ice sheets. Early in the last decade of the last century, ice loss was counted at 0.8 trillion tonnes a year. By 2017, this had increased to 1.3 trillion tonnes a year”

    https://climatenewsnetwork.net/scientists-say-worlds-huge-ice-loss-is-speeding-up/

  6. Tesla To Become First Crypto Only Hedge Fund Ever

    https://www.valuewalk.com/tesla-become-first-crypto-only-hedge-fund-ever/?amp=1

    Tesla’s Bitcoin investment could be bad for the company’s climate reputation and its bottom line
    “Given Bitcoin’s current environmental footprint, the deal flies in the face of Tesla’s purported interest in moving the world to cleaner sources of energy and commerce.”
    https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/08/teslas-bitcoin-investment-could-be-bad-for-the-companys-climate-reputation-and-its-bottom-line/

    What a wanker

    1. Lol this guy is the biggest piece of work. I don’t understand how people worship this prick.

      1. “I don’t understand how people worship this prick.”
        In the USA most people are very skeptical and somewhat distrustful of Elon Musk the person. On the other hand they do respect him for the ‘can do’ spirit he has when it comes to big projects. I haven’t seen any worshipping. Maybe I just don’t know that tribe.
        On the other hand we do “worship this prick.” on a large scale- look no further than how the country loves the trump asshole.

        1. Hickory, I would rewrite it:

          >> On the other hand we do “worship this prick.” on a large scale- look no further than how 31% of eligible voters loved Trump <<

          However it is a very scary 31%.

          1. PS Hickory, good (but sad) call of yours on 500,000+ dead from covid by the end of February.

          2. agreed john. i don’t see how those 31% won’t have to forfeit their voting privilege for the next 24 years.

    3. I love the idea that a guy who wants to colonise Mars, and backs the HORRIBLY energy intensive waste of time that is crypto, is revered as a green pioneer because he made 100 year old car tech a cool thing.

      Also, fuck PayPal, just because.

  7. I’m wondering if Musk got hold of some bad dope or something.
    And so far as bit coin is concerned, I’m having a very hard time understanding what’s to stop it from collapsing down to almost nothing, someday, when something goes wrong with the encryption, or some major governments start throwing people in jail for using it or whatever.

    I’m forced to admit I must take a back seat to some kids not yet in junior high school when it comes to computers and such, but so help me……… I do understand that an ordinary fiat currency is backed by the credit of and faith in the government that issues it. That’s a foundation made of sand, but at least the sand is right out there where you can SEE IT.

    Faith in bit coin and such seems more to me like religious faith……….

    If anybody can explain in language comprehensible to a layman why it should hold it’s value, long term, other than FAITH, I sure would appreciate it.

    I can see why it would be handy and even well worthwhile to have enough bit coin to buy a few things over the internet, but to put a big chunk of money into it, other than on the basis of a gamble that it will go up forever seems idiotic, from my pov.

    I forgot to mention that as long as it doesn’t collapse that I understand how useful it can be for money laundering or getting money into or out of a given country.

    1. getting money into or out of a given country

      I don’t get that. How is converting money into Bitcoin any more secret than wiring it out of the country? And if secrecy depends on putting all of your money into Bitcoin well before you need to do something like getting it out of a country, why not just maintain your money in an offshore account in conventional money?

      1. Bankers can be made to tell their secrets, when a government decides it’s worth the trouble of freezing bank assets, locking up some executives, etc.

        But from what little I ( think) I know about cyber currencies, it’s harder to track them by a mile.

        1. OFM,

          I’d say that fans of cryptocurrency agree with you on that.

          As best I can tell, the primary fans of cryptocurrency are the very wealthy, and criminals. And very wealthy criminals. Cryptocurrency isn’t administered by government, which means that there is no transparent democratic oversight. That’s good for the wealthy, which demagogues everywhere will assure you is good for everyone…

          Cryptocurrency looks like a weapon of plutocracy.

          1. “Cryptocurrency looks like a weapon of plutocracy.” ~ Nick G

            I suppose it might also depend on whose ‘plutocracy‘ we’re talking about.

        2. Yeah, a lack of government administration and oversight is very handy for the wealthy, and criminals, and wealthy criminals.

          Demagogues everywhere will assure you that lack of transparent democratic oversight is a good thing…

          1. Of course government has been, and can be, likened to a criminal organization.

    2. Yes, Bitcoin is like Studio 54 or MySpace. Either it’s cool or it isn’t.
      Or maybe it’s like those giant heads on Easter Island. They competed to build the biggest ones until the ecosystem collapsed. Then they stopped.

    3. It never will become a main currency, because no government on Earth is going to give up that capability. You may as well wish for open borders and $100/hr. minimum wage, as they’re about as likely as crypt replacing fiat.

      It doesn’t even matter if a better candidate like Ether is adopted either. The very nature of the thing will get shot down or co-opted by central banks, something that was even a main plot point in the excellent show Mr. Robot.

  8. Anyone surprised? Funny how quickly a blackout or two will change your priorities!

    MEXICO WAS ONCE A CLIMATE LEADER – NOW IT’S BETTING BIG ON COAL

    “I’ll put obstacles in the path of the private sector, which invested most in renewables and I’ll put most of my efforts – and at least 80% of the budget – into fossil fuels.”

    Not only is López Obrador betting big on fossil fuels, he is also curtailing clean energy. The populist president has promoted a vision of energy sovereignty, in which state-run bodies – the oil company Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) – pump petroleum and generate electricity. Private players, which have heavily invested in clean energy, are relegated to a secondary role in López Obrador’s vision – while emissions and climate commitments are an afterthought.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/15/mexico-coal-fossil-fuels-climate-crisis-amlo

    1. And, on the opposite side of the globe:

      AUSTRALIAN COAL EXPORTERS BRUSH CHINESE BAN ASIDE

      “Australia has overcome China’s alleged coal import ban, with exports increasing during December, according to Australian Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt. The value of Australia’s coal exports increased by 26 per cent compared with November, with thermal coal accounting for most of the increase to meet demand during the northern hemisphere’s winter.”

      https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/australian-coal-exporters-brush-chinese-ban-aside/

      1. Closer to home,

        AS OIL PRICES LANGUISH, ALBERTA SEES ITS FUTURE IN A ‘COAL RUSH’

        “A “coal rush” in the province could see at least six new or expanded open-pit coal mines built up and down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, mostly by Australian companies. Together, these projects could industrialize as much as 1,000 sq km of forests, waterways and grasslands. Alberta has eight operating coal mines and more than 91bn tonnes of mineable coal, but until recently, Alberta had a restrictive coal-mining policy that’s been in place for 44 years to protect drinking water for millions of people. In 2015 the previous Alberta government announced a plan to eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2030, a goal Canada’s federal government embraced three years later to help fulfill Canada’s greenhouse-gas-reduction commitments to the Paris Agreement…

        Yet despite the commitment to eliminate coal-fired electricity, the new conservative provincial government has pulled out all the stops to increase coal production for export. It rescinded the 1976 coal mining policy without public consultation, after spending months wooing Australian coal companies. It also reduced the corporate tax rate from 10 to 8%, axed provincial parks in coal-rich areas, offered 1% royalties (Australia’s is a minimum of seven), and passed legislation to fast-track project approvals.”

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/15/alberta-canada-coal-rush-mining-exports

        1. DougL,

          Sounds like Alberta’s provincial government has been paying attention to what goes on just the other side–the western slope–of that same stretch of the Canadian Rockies, in British Columbia. Alberta does produce coal but from out in the flat part of the province; BC produces nearly ten times as much, from mountain-top removal (think: West Virginia) in Elk Valley, uses some of it, and ships the rest out of just north of Vancouver if my failing memory serves. This is metallurgical coal used in making steel; it’s also called coking coal. Alberta would be producing the same stuff.

          I’ve heard of a saying that BC is green on the Coast and brown on [sic] the Interior.

          Time for tea, then Port–Kopke Fine Ruby, new to me. I’m not a fan of ruby Ports but Kopke makes a good one.

          1. “Time for tea, then Port–Kopke Fine Ruby, new to me. I’m not a fan of ruby Ports but Kopke makes a good one.” ~ Synapsid

            You’re out of control. ‘u^

            …What about tea with a shot of port?

            1. Caelyn Macintyre,

              Port in tea? In my Irish Breakfast 100% Assam from Harney and Son? Port is for drinking, not for altering. Now, a shot of Powers Irish Whiskey in that tea–that’s a very good idea. With milk, of course. The Irish know how to drink tea, they do. That’s why they invented whiskey first, so as to be ready when tea came along.

            2. Of course I was joking about adding port to tea, but whiskey sounds great and I’ve added vodka to cold matcha green tea lattes many times before. But then, vodka seems to go with practically anything.

              In any case, (raises glass) here’s to the Irish.

            3. Port?
              It’s sort of OK, in limited amounts.
              As a former resident of Sonoma County, it is all about dry reds and Scotch.
              Milk? You must be kidding.

            4. Hightrekker,

              Milk in tea, of course. We’re talking Ireland here, land of happy tea drinkers, happy whiskey drinkers, and happy cows. It all fits together.

              I specified Assam, you recall. Perfect with milk.

            5. Milk in tea, of course.

              Let’s not have our Asian friends have culinary distress.

              But milk is sometimes used in Asian tea.
              To each his or her own.

          2. Elkford has had huge layoffs of late and Tumbler Ridge was shut down 15? years ago. My buddy’s son was laid off this year from his heavy duty mechanic (tech) job. Quinsam Coal near Campbell River was shut down in 2016, tried to reopen, and was since shut down permanently. They produced Thermal. If they can’t make it producing virtually next to seaport not likely to happen in Alberta…or Wyoming….Montana.

            I suspect this is a pump and dump proposal and not about actually mining.

        2. It also reduced the corporate tax rate from 10 to 8%, axed provincial parks in coal-rich areas, offered 1% royalties (Australia’s is a minimum of seven),

          Sounds like a gift to corporations and their investors…

      2. The Chinese will talk big about certain things, but geopolitically, there was no danger of them shutting out Aussie coal imports. What were they going to run their economy on otherwise? It was an empty threat.

    2. Doug, am I right in thinking that you’re not really comfortable with moving away from fossil fuels?

      1. Wrong, we should have started moving away from fossil fuels, especially coal, decades ago. But we didn’t and the consequences will be dire!

        1. Ah, I agree.

          My sense is that renewables, and solar in particular, are cheaper (and cleaner) than coal, so that Mexico would only hurt itself by backing away from renewables. Is that your view as well?

          1. So-called renewables, aren’t actually renewable, depend on industrialism, crony capitalism and government (theft, subsidy, etc.), and are often billed as fossil fuel extenders. That’s a very bad mix.

          2. Uh huh. Cleaner? Yes, all that PV cell production certainly doesn’t come with any mining problems for the environment.

            Cheaper? Only when deployed in a world with abundant fossil fuel energy.

            And also academic. Renewables have displaced nothing in terms of our energy usage. They have been, are, and likely always will be efficiency boosters for fossil fuels.

            The time to switch was literally decades ago. It’s way, way too late to be on the “renewables will continue BAU” train without cognitive dissonance.

        2. Coal is an abundant and inexpensive domestic energy source that we turn our backs to at our own peril. The tragedy experienced by millions of Texans during this month’s cold snap shows what happens when society decides to rely on intermittent energy sources. No matter if the wind is blowing or not, the sun shining or not, coal defiantly endures all weather conditions while providing many good-paying jobs to rural areas where such jobs are often hard to come by. As to any potential consequences of utilizing coal, keep in mind there has never been a period in the millions of years of geologic history where global climate wasn’t changing in some way. This includes the very period of time when coal itself was in development underneath the ground.

          1. Sadly, pretty much nothing in that paragraph was realistic. This might be a good thing to look again at how wind and solar are cheaper than coal:

            Here’s a look at external costs:

            ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
            Issue: Ecological Economics Reviews
            FULL COST ACCOUNTING FOR THE LIFE CYCLE OF COAL
            Our comprehensive review finds that the best estimate for the total economically quantifiable costs, based on a conservative weighting of many of the study findings, amount to some $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal. The low estimate is $175 billion, or over 9¢/kWh, while the true monetizable costs could be as much as the upper bounds of $523.3 billion, adding close to 26.89¢/kWh. These and the more difficult to quantify externalities are borne by the general public.

            Still these figures do not represent the full societal and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside from mortality related to air pollutants released through coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments; the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term impacts on the physical and mental health of those living in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate. The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price of coal per kWh of electricity generated.

          4. When coal formed it took enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to turn earth into a snowball; had humans been around we wouldn’t have survived. If we burn enough (which is not much) the opposite will happen and we will be in a hot house – human’s won’t survive, at least as anything but very few hunter gatherers at the poles for a few millenia. There has been one period when climate hasn’t changed much and that has been the last 10,000 years, which has been the reason we can have agriculture, grow grains in excess and have civilisations. So keep in mind it’s worth reading a few books before trying to dazzle us with your (lack of) wisdom.

            1. George Kaplan,

              Coal is buried swamp–it forms by action of heat and pressure on remains of land plants especially trees that died and were buried in wet settings. The first large coal swamps formed in the Carboniferous (named for coal) that began about 360 million years ago and went on for about 60 million years, and atmospheric levels of CO2 did indeed drop then. The Snowball Earth time was about 300 million years before that, though, back in the Precambrian long before land plants let alone forests.

              There were other notable times of coal formation, here in North America especially during the Cretaceous and the Eocene.

              Had you come upon a source that conflated Snowball Earth and coal formation?

            2. Thanks – I should hace included the word almost. Reading endless crap from these denier trolls doesn’t do much for your thinking processes or blood pressure.

              Georg Feulner. Formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 201712062 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712062114

            3. George Kaplan,

              If Feulner’s paper is about the Pangaea glaciations during the Carboniferous and early Permian: that resulted at least partly from the drawdown of CO2 caused by the spreading forests, yep. Much of North America was below sea level then except for the range where the Appalachians are today. Expansion and contraction of the ice sheets in high latitudes shifted the coastal coal swamps (today’s Gulf Coast is a good analogue) along those mountains toward the shallow sea at the center of the continent and away from it as sea level went up and down, and laid down what became the great Appalachian coal measures.

          5. Let’s not make out that the ERCOT fiasco was because of renewables. It was because Texas had neglected to winter-proof their fossil fuel systems AND their renewables. There are plenty of other states that have had cold snaps that do not knock out their CCGT, coal, and wind turbine networks.

            They also love their independent grid, which further exacerbated matters.

    3. Climate leader? This is a Country that allows the flinging of garbage over every convenient bluff where it is lit and allowed to smolder. I remember riding one of the third tier buses every day in order to access a remote beach. The driver finished his two litre pop, opened the door while driving and flipped it out as neat a trick as I have ever seen. Here, every week or so a couple of quads prowl the local highway and pick up every scrap of trash, no matter how small. There are absolutely no local dumps and if you are caught illegal dumping you are fined…after you remove the trash and face the humiliation.

      Emissions and climate commitments have never been a priority. The people are too busy trying to survive while the few make off with all the money.

    4. Texas would have been much better off if they had been better connected to the US grid, so the Mexican president’s decision that self sufficiency is the key is a bit bizarre.

      1. I think that the Mexican president is doing the same thing as we’re seeing in Brazil, and what we just had in the US: someone who pretends to advocate for working and poor people, but who actually works for the very wealthy.

        Pushing issues that appeal to fear and prejudices (but don’t actually help and often actually hurt working people, like independence from the US), is part of that.

  9. For those who remember ROCKMAN from other sites:

    He’s fine and dandy. He lives across the road from the big refinery at Beaumont, a ways east(?) of Houston. He said temperatures got down to 14 there but they’re OK.

    He’s been in a motorized chair for a few years now; he used to mention his MS.

  11. From opinion piece by Ezra Klein in New York Times this morning. [Pay Wall ???]

    We don’t realize how fragile the basic infrastructure of our civilization is.

    TEXAS IS A RICH STATE IN A RICH COUNTRY, AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED

    “The world’s economic systems teeter atop “backward-looking risk assessment models that merely extrapolate historical trends.” But the future will not be like the past. Our models are degrading by the day, and we don’t understand — we don’t want to understand — how much in society could topple when they fail, and how much suffering that could bring. One place to start is by recognizing how fragile the basic infrastructure of civilization is even now, in this climate, in rich countries…

    It is not just our energy infrastructure that is unprepared for climate change. It is our political infrastructure. It is our social infrastructure. It is our psyches. There’s long been a hope that repeated climate crises will force Republicans to enlist in the fight to stop, or slow, climate change. How can you ignore the crisis when it is your constituents who are frozen, your home that is underwater? But what we saw in Texas is the darker timeline — a doom loop of climate polarization, where climate crises lead, paradoxically, to a politics that’s more desperate for fossil fuels, more dismissive of international or even interstate cooperation…

    Cooperation is humanity’s superpower, and the way we have enlarged our circle — from kin, to tribes, to religions, to countries, to the world — is miraculous. But the conditions under which that cooperation has taken hold are delicate, and like everything else, part of the biophysical system in which we live. We are changing that system in ways we do not understand and with consequences we cannot predict.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/opinion/texas-climate-change.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

    1. I’m afraid I’m of as optimistic as Ezra on this matter. If the current trend in politics is anything to go by, it’s either nationalist populism or a return to BAU and hoping for that best with some nice platitudes about equality and green living.

      When the shit hits the fan, I doubt people will be all that accommodating of co-operation with the other tribes. I’m happy to be wrong, history however indicates this may be unlikely.

  13. The Utilities have crippled most Residential Solar Systems.
    Only 2 companies in the US can meet these new requirements.
    Let’s fix Module Level Shutdown and do it the right way.Need your help.
    https://www.fixmlsd.com/

  14. I’m waiting for somebody to explain to me why bit coin is safe in any fundamental sense.
    It appears to me that it exists as a matter of faith in whoever controls it.

    2. OFM- “it exists as a matter of faith in whoever controls it.”
      Thing is- No one controls it. No government, no governing board, no central bank, no World Bank, no IMF, no EU, no Buffet, no Morgan Stanley, no Musk or Bezos.
      It is now a huge snowball carving out its own path. No one can say stop!, or change direction. It is an automaton and no one knows where it ends up.
      There is no one to say- “hey, this whole thing is using too much energy to function”. “Its a big mistake. lets unwind it.”

      In the USA- what is the role of the SEC is supervising cryptocurrency transactions, stability and legality?
      “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a large independent agency of the United States federal government that was created following the stock market crash in the 1920s to protect investors and the national banking system. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market manipulation”

      You would be accurate to say- “it exists as a matter of faith from those who own and use it”
      That is true for other moneys as well.
      If there comes a time when the faith is no longer solid, a huge crash could ensue.

  15. Is anyone surprised?

    CARBON-CUTTING PLEDGES BY COUNTRIES NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH

    “We are very, very far from where we need to be,” U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said. “What we need to put on the table is much more radical and much more transformative than we have been doing until now.”

    Instead of limiting the world to only 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times—the more stringent of two Paris accord goals—the data shows that world “is headed to close to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and a global catastrophe if this is not curtailed quickly,” said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a private group that tracks countries’ emissions targets.

    And, after dramatic decreases in carbon pollution in early 2020 because of the pandemic lockdown, initial data shows that near end-of-the-year emissions were back up to 2019 levels, pushed by China’s industrial production.

    https://phys.org/news/2021-02-carbon-cutting-pledges-countries.html

    1. You must be surprised since you keep posting variations of this same story over and over and over and over again, for years.

      1. Thank you Doug! Very little ranks as high in importance as the environmental collapse news as it unfolds.

    2. Large government bureaucracy is just about the worst possible solution to that ‘problem.’ We gotta just adapt to the changes as they come.

      1. The idea of a large government bureaucracy is an oil industry scare tactic: carbon taxes are simple to administer, and don’t require any more government than we have now: they’re mostly just fuel and utility taxes, which we already have.

        1. We already have large complex government bureaucracy.

          Remember, too, and regarding your ‘oil industry scare tactics’, that government-owned firms control most of the world’s oil reserves and that complexity can be subject to the law of diminishing returns.

  16. Who created Bitcoin? Hint: It’s not who you think

    “Moving back to the United States (or whichever government created Bitcoin), most people think that a government couldn’t have created Bitcoin because it would be counterproductive to them controlling the money supply. However, for countries like Russia and China, they already don’t control the money supply of the world’s reserve currency so it makes sense for them to set about creating another form of currency that no one could control.

    That also would strengthen the case that the creator was some government outside of the United States.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

    ————

    “NOT TO WORRY….

    Humans need not worry about the Falling EROI, the Falling Carrying Capacity or the degradation of the environment. Those no longer matter now that BITCOIN is now trading over $11,000.

    Technology will solve all our problems and Bitcoin will make us all wealthy once again. ~ steve

  18. KunstlerCast 341 — Yakking with Derrick Jensen about ‘Bright Green Lies’

    “Bright Green Lies exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of leading environmental groups and their most prominent cheerleaders. The best-known environmentalists are not in the business of speaking truth, or even holding up rational solutions to blunt the impending ecocide, but instead indulge in a mendacious and self-serving delusion that provides comfort at the expense of reality. They fail to state the obvious: We cannot continue to wallow in hedonistic consumption and industrial expansion and survive as a species. The environmental debate, Derrick Jensen and his coauthors argue, has been distorted by hubris and the childish desire by those in industrialized nations to sustain the unsustainable. All debates about environmental policy need to begin with honoring and protecting, not the desires of the human species, but with the sanctity of the Earth itself..” ~ Chris Hedges

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