445 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 31, 2017”

  1. I just posted this in the last non-petroleum post, but I’ll add it here too, so it doesn’t get buried.
    _____________

    Since the latest news is that Trump will likely pull out of the Paris Accord, this is relevant. I’ve read that there are even people who are glad that the US will pull out because they believe the US would try to dilute the Accord actions.

    If the US is going to be a roadblock to cleaner technology, I hope Europe and China and India move past us, even if it results in a decline in US economic influence.

    EU and China strengthen climate ties to counter US retreat: China and the EU have come together to fill the vacuum should Donald Trump decide to retreat from international action on climate change by forging a green alliance to combat global warming.

    In a stark realignment of forces, documents seen by the Financial Times show that Beijing and Brussels have agreed to measures to accelerate what they call the “irreversible” shift away from fossil fuels and the “historic achievement” of the Paris climate accord.

    1. Interesting twist of reality- fracking has enabled this country to back off on coal consumption (with a much lesser contribution from solar/wind thus far). We will continue to drop our coal consumption over the next decade. This is big climate news, but our drop will be more than offset by increase in coal consumption in Asia- from India arcing on up through Korea, just watch the data as it rolls in.

      One of the most important things we can do in the USA is to adapt to the high probability scenario, that being a significant warm up with associated higher risk of coastal and river bottom episodes of inundation. Every time we issue a building permit or renew flood insurance in these lowest 3 ft, we are wasting the precious collective resource of the country. These would be much more wisely spent on infrastructure/development uphill. The bottom 3ft should be gradually reverted to wetland. It will be one way or the other. Manhattan, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Boston, Sacramento are just some of the cities with huge areas and dollars at risk.
      Adaptation?

      2. But China and India have a global economic opportunity to take the lead in clean energy technology. The Trump administration is doing nothing to plan for the future, so the US will likely decline as a trend setter. We can offer a big market, but if recession hits again and we don’t want modern products and we don’t support global trade, we may not be buying so much.

        We’ll have military might, but the world may choose to ignore it, or depend on us less, and we’ll just be spending our national budget in military hardware while other countries use their resources more productively.

        1. Boomer II
          Check comparisions. China is spending much more on military than solar.http://chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/
          Onerous EPA regulations pushed most heavy industry overseas to China.
          Germany spent $25 billion on inefficient PV & wind for little benefit only to have China spend more on efficient PV mfg to sell back to germany. http://fortune.com/2017/03/14/germany-renewable-clean-energy-solar/

          The UN/IPCC is seeking $160 trillion tax over 40 years. Is that the wisest expenditure???
          Far better to invest in next gen R&D rather than subsidizing current technologies. See Bjorn Lomborg & Copenhagen Consensus.
          https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/30/claim-four-trillion-dollar-per-annum-carbon-tax-required-to-save-the-world/

          3. >inefficient PV & wind

            Efficiency doesn’t matter when the fuel is free.

            The rest of your post is just as nonsensical.

        2. China Leads the Charge on Clean Energy | The Cipher Brief: “America’s regulatory framework is going to try and reverse the tide of what to me is an inevitable technology-driven transformation; it might have a short-term stalling effect of that transformation in the American economy, but I think it won’t change the outcome, it will just transfer the benefits away from American industry towards China, and also India, as those two countries continue to accelerate their transformation of their economies.”

          “I think China by stealth and by strategy gained global technology leadership: they have built or bought the best technology in the world, they also have the capital funding availability, and the policy clarity to drive that technology leadership. It’s about investment, jobs, and exports. It’s about global industry dominance for industries of the future. When you look at the Chinese government, almost every external decision they make is about going global, the One Belt One Road policy is about going global. You have a very clear long-term policy framework, and state-owned enterprises are rapidly implementing that policy, and they’re doing it both through acquisitions and greenfield investment.”

        3. Surprising developments in China, India could blunt Trump's climate rollbacks: “The results of the Climate Action Tracker’s report are bolstered by findings from a Center for American Progress analysis of China’s coal consumption. The report makes clear that the argument that China’s emissions would outweigh any progress made in the U.S. is, at best, outdated, and more accurately a zombie argument.

          As David Roberts writes at Vox, China is taking on coal head on by shutting down older, more heavily polluting plants in favor of newer, more efficient facilities and renewables. It is also planning for a non-coal future based on renewables.”

            1. Boomer- you seem desperate to insert wishful thinking on so many of these energy issues. Wishful thinking doesn’t change reality, but I suppose it can be comforting.
              Time will reveal the facts.

            2. I am looking at reality.

              China has wanted to become a world economic power for a long time. It took over our manufacturing. Now it has the opportunity to become the world leader in clean energy technology and to fund development internationally.

              With the US pulling back on international development, trade, and energy transitions, we’re creating openings where China can step into.

              Anyone can see what China has accomplished in the last few decades. Why would we assume that won’t continue?

              The United States hasn’t been this isolationist for a long time, and I can’t think of a time where the country intentionally walked away from being a technology and scientific leader. Trying to return to the 1950s isn’t going to serve us well because the entire world has changed.

              I’m not even talking about climate. I am talking about economic development. An economy primarily based on fossil fuels doesn’t have much to offer when those are no longer a source of income.

            3. Let me stress again. I am not talking about CO2 or climate change. I think we should be reducing carbon use whether or not we can stop devastating climate change. As some of us have said before, we’re all going to die, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be healthy until we do die.

              What I am talking about is economics. I think Trump administration policies will prove to be counterproductive. And if the US economy declines (which I think it will given the direction we seem to be headed), other countries will use that to their advantage.

              In course of history, other global powers have declined. The US will likely head that direction if the goal is to retreat into the past rather than facing the challenges of the future.

              Am I sorry that China might take the lead in renewable energy? Better China than no one. Can they make a difference? Yes, even cleaning up the pollution in their cities is making a difference.

            4. I believe Boomer is close to the bullseye just about all the time when he talks about China, industrial policy, long term planning, renewable energy, etc.

              The leadership of the world seems to be passing to the Chinese, or maybe the Indians, since they have the desire , will power, and means to achieve it.

              We’re allowing it to slip away.

            5. China takes a mercantilist view of trade, and it is a massive importer of fossil fuels. So one reason for them to go green is that renewable energy sources are well spread out around the world, and you can make money selling the equipment.

              In fact, and country or region that is a net importer of fossil fuel is stupid to stick to them when local renewables sources exist.

              I’m thinking for example about Florida, Nebraska and Nevada, just to name a few.

      3. This is big climate news, but our drop will be more than offset by increase in coal consumption in Asia- from India arcing on up through Korea, just watch the data as it rolls in.

        I’m not sure that is the case any longer, things on the ground are changing very fast. Besides massive investments in solar, wind and battery backup technology the Chinese have come up with a way to retrofit their coal burning generating plants to pebble-bed nuclear reactors:

        https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/239588-starting-2018-china-will-begin-turning-coal-plants-nuclear-reactors

        It’s a common refrain among climate change down-players — those who accept its reality, but who argue that we can’t or shouldn’t do much about it — that, sure, first world Western countries could be doing a lot more to reduce their emissions, but it hardly matters when you’ve got countries like India and China pumping more and more pollution into the very same biosphere. The argument has been getting weaker in recent years, as even developing nations have started to sign on to meaningful climate action plans. Now, Chinese atomic energy experts have announced an ambitious plan to begin turning the country’s coal plant infrastructure into working nuclear power stations. The first working demonstration unit could begin real commercial operations as early as 2018.

        The plan could turn the growing Asian nation into one of the world’s most aggressive actors on climate change — though just as important to China is nuclear’s ability to help deal with its growing problem with air pollution. It could also kickstart the global nuclear industry, which was flagging even before the Fukushima disaster of five years ago. China may be about to prove that newly advanced nuclear tech offers a way for some large industrialized nations to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint without bankrupting themselves, or simply betting that solar and wind power will progress fast enough to matter at all on the global utility scale.

        1. With Trump alienating Europe, it is easy to imagine new alliances forming around new energy.

          1. Yes, the world is rearranging itself around the relationship between EU and China, with India as a third leg. The Old World is where the action is, which is why things like the New Silk Road are so important.

            Afghanistan is returning to its traditional place in the center of the world. Greece is becoming the gateway to Europe again. Liverpool has faded, and Rotterdam will follow. The Atlantic era, which began in 1492, is over.

            Seems hard to believe, but imagine how Mediterranean countries felt when the Atlantic suddenly became the focus of world trade and development.

            1. Interesting thoughts, there. Add to that that trade across a continent, by electric train, is very much easier than trade across an ocean, by electric boat.

              NAOM

            2. And to take the idea further: North America was the land of vast resources. So as long as we had apparently unlimited resources, we were on the rise.

              If we use up our natural resources, then we have less to offer and the focus can shift back to Europe and Asia.

        2. Hi Fred, I hope I am wrong, but it still looks like the Asian countries are track to strongly escalate coal burning. At this point, the alternatives are still just wishful thinking and talk. We shall see, but don’t count the carbon credits just yet.

        3. I guess that it is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer – but, not to me. What is/are the intrinsic element(s) of coal plants that makes them great for conversion to nuclear?

          Cheniere Energy (LNG) spent billons of $’s to import LNG, but then while that was taking place, the US generated a glut of natural gas. They said, not to worry. We can use most of the equipment to export LNG, and do it faster. Sounded reasonable, but they were overly optimistic by several magnitudes. They may have been better off starting from the ground up.

          1. I guess that it is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer – but, not to me. What is/are the intrinsic element(s) of coal plants that makes them great for conversion to nuclear?

            As usual your handle is spot on! China is a 5000 year old culture and they don’t do short term planning. They have planned this for a while and all their more recent coal fired plants were built with this conversion already in mind.

            http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/chinas-plans-to-begin-converting-coal.html

            China’s plans to begin converting coal plants to walk away safe pebble bed nuclear starting in the 2020s

            China’s HTR-PM (high temperature pebble bed nuclear reactor) project is squarely aimed at being a cost-effective solution that will virtually eliminate air pollution and CO2 production from selected units of China’s large installed base of modern 600 MWe supercritical coal plants.

            It is a deployment program with the first of a kind commercial demonstration approaching construction completion and commercial operation by mid to late 2018. Major parts of the machinery will be able to be merged into the existing infrastructure.

            The current critical path item is the completion of the steam generators — one for each of the two reactors. The shells and internals have been completed, but the final stages of attaching the piping to the thick-walled, large diameter pressure vessels will delay site delivery until sometime close to the middle of 2017.
            .

            1. Fred’s dead on about converting coal burning plants to nuclear plants.

              The turbines could care less where the steam originates, so long as it’s plentiful and reliable.

              In principle, all that’s needed is to connect the steam generators of the new reactors to the piping supplying steam to the turbines.

              The coal fired boilers are most likely going to be scrapped, but it does occur to me that if there is no shortage of real estate at the plant site, the coal burning equipment could be maintained on a stand by basis, ready to run within a few hours, for peanuts. This might be worthwhile as insurance, depending on how reliable the new reactors prove to be.

              It might be possible to salvage most of the coal related equipment and convert it for reuse at another site burning gas as a peaker plant.

            2. Looks like only a small percentage of coal fired units will be switched to nuclear.

            3. That is correct, only a few of this particular design are in the work for now.

              …from selected units of China’s large installed base of modern 600 MWe supercritical coal plants

              It’s just one more relatively small nail in coal powered generation’s coffin. Though it might show a viable path forward for transitioing even further away from coal in the near future.

        4. I’ve read a lot of articles about the “nuclear utopia” about to unfold in China in the last 10 years and I’m completely underwhelmed with the results.

          And Extremetech is way off with the cost estimates of PV:
          “the cost is around $5,000 per kilowatt of installed capacity, or about 1.5 times as expensive as solar photovoltaic cells”

          Here in Germany, a large PV-plant (“large” by our standards, i.e. < 50 MWp) costing more than 1,200 $ per kWp would probably bancrupt it's owner. 3,000 $ / kWp is economically unfeasible and grossly overpriced.

          1. Hi Gerry,
            There are VERY good reasons to build pv and wind farms, and to install pv at the residential scale.

            Cost is not the only factor that requires consideration. I suppose you know what a nuclear submarine or an aircraft carrier or armored division costs. We have lots of these things, and yet they are all pretty close to worthless, except for ONE or maybe two purposes. The day may come when we depend on them for our survival as a people and a country. They are also useful in terms of helping us get our way in international affairs of course, since a lot of other countries shelter under our military umbrella at less cost than building their own up sufficiently to go it alone.

            Times are changing, old boy. It’s true oil and gas are cheap, for now, but every day we have around eighty million barrels left in the ground than we did the day before, and the quality of it grows less, and the expense of extracting it grows greater, year after year, in terms of the big picture.

            Countries that are keeping the pedal to the metal ( trucker slang for steady investment ) in renewables understand that the day is coming when they will NOT be able to import fossil fuels cheaply, and that there will be times when fossil fuels are simply unavailable at any price due to war, or unaffordable, due to great demand on the one hand and depletion on the other.

            Then there’s the economic payoff to be had by being the leader or one of the leaders, in the next generation economics. Renewables are almost for sure going to be cheaper than fossil fuels within another ten to twenty years.

            In the past, it was necessary to subsidize renewables to encourage faster growth, to in turn reduce the costs of renewables as they scale up.

            Sometime in the next five or ten years, it will become necessary to subsidize traditional generating plants, in order to keep them ready to run on a standby basis during periods when the wind and sun fail to cooperate as well as we would like.

            1. Apparently my English is far worse than I expected, otherwise you’d not have misunderstood me.

              I do expect renewables to get even cheaper than now and installed capacity to rise sharply.

              About the subsidising of traditional generation for backup purposes: We’re already doing this in Germany. But I’m not sure it is actually needed right now. I suspect it to be good lobbying by the coal plant owners.

            2. Back to you Jerry,

              Sorry , I misinterpreted your comment about the cost of PV in Germany as meaning you are opposed to renewable energy because it’s too expensive.

              It IS expensive, and will remain expensive for a long time, but it IS getting cheaper, and it will continue to get cheaper even as depletion eventually forces the price of fossil fuels WAY up, assuming we continue to depend on them.

              The renewables advocates who are constantly telling us that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels generally lie by omission by way of failing to recognize the incontestable fact that for now, and for quite some time to come, it will be absolutely necessary to maintain the existing fossil fuel generating industry because renewables really AREN’T dispatchable, excepting hydro, and the wind really does take a few days off from time to time, and clouds really do block the sun, which takes the night off EVERY night, lol.

              I like to tell it like it is, or at least like I believe it is.

              But even though we must maintain most or maybe nearly all our fossil fuel generating capacity for now, and for some years to come, I sincerely believe that renewables ARE CHEAPER, in terms of the big picture, and that they will eventually displace the fossil fuel generating industry to the point that the market for coal and gas as generating fuel shrinks to a very minor fraction of what it is today.

              It’s not just the straight up dollar cost, it’s public health and the overall environmental cost of fossil fuel that makes it too expensive, along with the economic security aspects of having to import fuel in more countries than not, plus some other reasons I won’t go into at this minute.

            3. I consider the “fossil backup” argument to be partly invalid.
              As Japan demonstrated in 2011, even nuclear plants have backups powered by fossil fuels. In 2010 30% of electricity in Japan was generated by nuclear plants, at the end of 2011 this was down to zero (or almost zero, can’t remember exactly and I’m too lazy to research now).

              So unless the cost for this backup is counted against nuclear, which never happens, I refuse to count this against the cost of renewable generation.

              Of course this argument intends to level the playing field for discussion. I do neither ignore the low output of PV in winter, nor the non existent output at night.

      4. It may prove to be politically impossible to do much in the way of doing a better job managing subsidized flood insurance. There are too many people with too much money and influence at risk, people who will fight tooth and claw to keep the subsidy, no matter how much it might cost the people as a whole later on.

        But maybe there could be something along the lines of a graduated sunset arranged, whereby current property owners would be protected at a gradually reduced maximum level say, with coverage being reduced at say one percent per year, or two percent, and at some point, terminated , when the property changes hands.

        I don’t have any problem with people who are too bone headed to know better than to build in a flood zone, but I am not at all interested in bailing them out when the inevitable flood eventually arises.

        Maybe there could be a policy than no new subsidized policies will be written, or that any new construction started after a certain cut off date, will be exempted from coverage under any emergency government relief program.

        I’m not saying that we shouldn’t send the National Guard to rescue the PEOPLE in such places, but rather that all the legal documents involved in ownership of property in such places should clearly state in large print that there WILL BE NO DISASTER MONEY provided in the case of repairing or replacing buildings placed in flood plains past a certain cut off construction date.This might be a politically achievable compromise.

    2. President Trump basically has no other option but to withdraw from the Paris Agreement at this point. He needs to provide his base with a successful example of fulfilling a campaign promise. Furthermore, withdrawing is really going to stick it to the liberals, which, after 8 horrendous years under Obama, is the only thing the base wants anyway.

      1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/22/here-are-76-of-donald-trumps-many-campaign-promises/?utm_term=.861e1e4fe1bf

        I like #17. Maybe he could start with that one.
        17. Never take a vacation while serving as president.

        Maybe Trump should call those Duck Dynasty dudes and get some foreign policy advice on Iran.

        Congratulations America, you just elected a snowflake version of Caligula. Good luck with that.

        http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/opinions/trump-home-all-alone-borger/

        What a fragile little snowflake lol Donald Trump is nothing more than a sad-sack self-pitying weakling who can’t stop whining about how bad he’s got it. Pathetic.

        1. What a fragile little snowflake lol Donald Trump is nothing more than a sad-sack self-pitying weakling who can’t stop whining about how bad he’s got it. Pathetic.
          .

          .

          1. That’s why he’s porking it on these days. Two scoops and a golf cart do not make a svelte hombre….just a fat goof.

            1. I bet his wife needs a good shag. Snowflake probably doesn’t set the bar very high in that department.

      2. Hi Geoff,

        The problem with fulfilling that campaign promise is that it is at odds with his other main promise to make America great. Unless to the base of the Republican party, great is synonymous with poor. 🙂

        The rest of the World might react by imposing a carbon tax on US goods at their borders so that the high carbon goods from the US are not dumped on their domestic industries.

        China, India, and Europe will have the high moral ground and US produced goods will be uncompetitive. This may lead to more loss of manufacturing jobs and the Chinese, Indian, and European Markets will be very difficult for US companies.

        Its the economy…

      3. Furthermore, withdrawing is really going to stick it to the liberals,

        Aside from that being akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face, the rest of the world really won’t give a flying fig.

        1. Many Republicans seem quite fine with destroying their own country and undermining it’s economic empire if it means being able to stick it to the liberals and/or getting reelected. Reminds me of the collapse narrative of many great powers; sacrifice the power of the empire in order to retain your rule over it. It is a heavy contradiction to bear.

          1. It reminds me of the Taliban shooting little girls in the head as punishment for going to school, and murdering aid workers trying to stamp out polio.

            The Republican Party is living in the wrong century.

      1. Hi Texas Tea,

        For something based on reality try

        http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/67058.pdf

        An excerpt:

        Over the past decade, wind power has become one of the fastest growing sources of electricity generation in the United States. Cumulative wind capacity grew from about 9 gigawatts (GW) in 2005 to approximately 74 GW by year-end 2015. On a percent-of-total-generation basis, wind grew from 0.4% to 4.7% over this same period.

  2. Rick Perry’s grid study sounds strikingly similar to the one Travis Fisher wrote for fossil fuel interests in 2015

    In his February 2015 report for the Institute for Energy Research (IER), Fisher attacked wind and solar power as “unreliable” sources of electricity.
    http://www.energyandpolicy.org/travis-fisher-rick-perry-grid-study/
    Meanwhile:
    http://globalnews.asia/elon-musk-now-working-against-green-energy/
    Meanwhile:
    Centralized Dinos must kill Distributed Generation.
    https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/05/31/house-representatives-trumpet-support-sunivas-trade-petition/
    Why ?
    https://energy-news.xyz/2017/05/15/is-bigger-2/
    ——
    Oppertunities for Resilience may be slamming shut – Got PV?

  3. Readers might be interested in the linked article.

    As an aside, I predicted to family and friends some time ago that Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan Pipelines would not be built due to tanker spill concerns on the BC Coast. Gateway stopped dead, and I still believe Kinder Morgan is done like toast. I would also like to predict that Justin Trudeau (otherwise known as Boy Wonder) will lose the next Federal election due to Kinder Morgan. Majority of BC west coasters do not want bitumen piped and tanked from any west coast port. Landlocked folks don’t care so much, but coast people do.

    I live on a river just inland from a prolific estuary on Johnstone Strait. I personally know hundreds of people who will gladly go to war over this issue, (myself included).

    When I mention Kinder Morgan I am referencing the doubling of the line and tripling the export volume. The original pipeline will still remain.

    https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/05/31/Pipeline-Rhetoric/

      1. The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Accord is an excellent test to see if belief can trump reality.

  5. I’m having too much fun with HB to give it up right now.

    http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politics/hillary-clinton-recode-loss/

    “Hillary Clinton says she takes full responsibility for her decisions.

    There’s just one catch: She says her decisions weren’t the reason that she lost to Donald Trump.
    At Recode’s Code Conference in California on Wednesday, the former Democratic presidential nominee was reflective, quick to crack jokes — and eager to cast blame. The more than hour-long question-and-answer event marked the latest in a series of public appearances for Clinton in which she explicitly took on the actions of those around her and other external circumstances in explaining why she lost on Election Day.
    “I take responsibility for every decision I make — but that’s not why I lost,” Clinton said.

    I had a good friend die about three years back, a hard core redneck conservative who was technically well educated, a man who over the course of his life read hundreds of classic books, etc. The only real difference between him and a true believing Clintonite is that he was a true believing Republican. Both kinds believe what they want, ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

    He smoked Camels and drank Budweisers , and he knew more than enough hard science to understand the statistical implications of these habits.

    But at least I can say this much for him. He said before he died of a cancer that is statistically tightly correlated with tobacco and alcohol that HE took it on himself to smoke and drink on a regular basis.

    Clinton doesn’t seem to be able to wrap her head around the fact that if she hadn’t HAD a stupid and risky secret email system, there wouldn’t have been any problems associated with it. I have engaged in some risky behaviors over the years, and sometimes I paid a steep price for doing so, although I mostly got away with it , and came out smelling like a rose as the result, when my luck held.

    Her luck didn’t hold, she was found out. If it had been a Republican caught with her email, she and my old buddy HB would be crowing with glee, celebrating the heavy coverage.

    “Perhaps Clinton’s most fresh and savage criticism on Wednesday was directed at the Democratic National Committee. She went as far as to say that when she became her party’s presidential nominee, she inherited “nothing” from the committee.”

    Wow! Here I have been all along suffering under the impression she OWNED the DNC more or less fee simple, lock, stock and barrel, as the result of reading about how it rigged the primaries in her favor to the extent that some of the top people were forced to resign for doing so, and that D Party lawyers actually had to go to court and argue that the D Party has no obligation to run a fair primary contest, charter or no.

    “”I’m now the nominee of the Democratic Party. I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party,” Clinton said. “It was bankrupt, it was on the verge of insolvency, its data was mediocre to poor, non-existent, wrong. I had to inject money into it — the DNC — to keep it going.”

    Well, she could afford it I guess, she was raking it in by the millions in donations to her family slush fund, and making secret speeches to the banksters at roughly a million bucks an hour, as best I can estimate.

    And of course it would NEVER occur to her that maybe some people believe that she was deathly scared of what the public would think of the content of those speeches, to the point she would rather risk losing a few million middle of the road voters than have the people know what she said for those millions.

    I could go on of course, but there are copyright issues, the link is there, and it’s CNN, which has often been called the Clinton News Network by more than a few people.

    She can blame the DNC for lack of good data, but the fact is that she surrounded herself by elitist yes boys and girls, and the Party officials refused to even TALK to anybody outside the Clinton camp, when it came to data, polling, etc. I don’t have the links proving this handy, but they are in my notes someplace. A long time party official was told in no uncertain terms he wasn’t IMPORTANT ENOUGH to talk to anybody higher than a gofer answering a phone, etc. Of course he was associated with the Sanders campaign, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have useful info, and the good will to share it.

    She was stupid enough to call one of the LARGEST voting blocks in the country stupid, and while a good many white men ARE stupid, they don’t appreciate such insults as a group, nor as individuals.

    The ones who are most prone to take offense are usually thinking I’m the only person left who can be made the butt of any sort of joke or insult, at no cost. Nobody else is treated this way, I’m now the subhuman, the N word of the last hundred years, unworthy of even simple common courtesy in public discourse.

    Well, a good many men tend to take sufficient offense at this sort of insult that they either stay home, or vote for the opposition, figuratively giving the D establishment the straight finger. It never ceases to amaze me how boneheaded elitist Democrats can be in such situations.

    Is making fun of poor guys who never had any real shot at getting a decent education more important to the ones who are in the habit of talking about stupid and ignorant Trump voters than actually winning elections?

    Nobody, excepting people already on board with you, will ever listen to anything you have to say if you habitually insult them, their parents, their grandparents, and their culture, while cutting other people all the slack they could ever possibly want.

    I know for an absolute fact that there are LOTS and LOTS of ignorant black people, but nobody in this forum goes out of their way to insult them, or call them stupid. They avoid doing so as carefully as they would avoid a poisonous snake.

    Ask the question, why should a black man be ignorant, and you will generally get the excellent and generally true answer that society in general and our educational establishment in particular failed him.

    Well, here’s a CLUE for the clueless among us here. I know dozens of ignorant white men, and white women too. Notice I avoid the word stupid, mostly. They aren’t stupid, any more than an ignorant black man or woman is stupid. They are ignorant, all too often, because they never really had an opportunity to get a decent education.

    You CAN communicate with them, if you make an honest effort to do so, and you CAN bring them around to supporting causes such as single payer health care, renewable energy, sensible drug laws, clean air laws, clean water laws, etc.

    Maybe later tonight I will post a rant about approaches that WORK when you want an ignorant white man’s vote.

    Like it or lump it, you aren’t likely to see the D Party, in any form, return to power anytime soon without the votes of the butts of your favorite jokes.

      2. OFM voted GREEN.

        Here’s a link containing the actual facts in terms of money in the last presidential election.

        https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/campaign-finance/

        Clinton says the D’s were bankrupt, or nearly so.

        Take a look at the numbers in this link, and then take a look at the CNN quote above, about her bitching about having to put money into her campaign.

        If she had the political brains of an orangutan, in terms of understanding PEOPLE, she could have won going away.

        BUT NO, she was so fucking arrogant she spent her time with banksters, and didn’t even show up in the states that put Trump over the top. She found out the hard way about giving the working people in places like Wisconsin the figurative straight finger.

        They gave it back, for real.

        There will never be enough investor class people who will vote D for the D’s to win until the D party gets it’s head out of it’s ass and gives up its Republican Lite ways, and takes the problems and fears of ordinary people seriously AGAIN.

        1. United we stand, divided we fall

          Didn’t you learn anything in 2000 from the Ralph Nader vote ? You had a binary choice on November 8.

          You failed to protect the polar bears. Your hate overwhelmed you.

            1. Trump pulls out of Paris Accord, supports Russian oil industry.

              Just more Republican BAU.

          2. The nature of war, political, economic, or literal, is that you take chances and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose a battle, but win the war.

            The Republican Lite faction of the D Party lost the last battle, big time, with the R’s taking over not just the WH but gaining more power than ever all the way down to the village dog catcher level.

            But the D Party as a whole will emerge the stronger for this loss, because it has been served notice that running as imitation Republicans isn’t going to get the job done. If the D’s want to win, they are going to have to quit brownnosing the big money donors that have controlled the D party by way of their big bucks contributions in recent years, and run some candidates that light the fires in the hearts of the younger generation, and working people. Young people and working people don’t live on investment income, lol.

            Trump and company appear to be well on the way to fucking up so often in so many ways that the D’s have a truly excellent shot at regaining control of the House next time around, and the WH and maybe even the Senate after that.

            I never cease to laugh about Clintonites telling us how Sanders would have lost because Trump would have labeled him as socialist, when he was basically PROUD of that label, whereas Clinton was forced to run with a giant ball and chain around her ankle due to her career long baggage train, which was a gift from Sky Daddy to the R party, sure enough.

            All that anybody needed to know about her, in terms of electoral politics and choosing a winner is that every R in the country was hoping she would be the D nominee, due to that baggage train, her wooden elitist personality, etc.

            4. You got taken.
              I don’t think I would trust you on a trip to Bogota.

  8. Analysts: Leaving climate deal likely wouldn't add US jobs – ABC News: “Many big companies say they must make long-term investment decisions based on the assumption that most countries will stiffen environmental standards. Accordingly, they are increasingly investing more in green technology.

    ‘The business sector is moving ahead anyway,’ van Ark says. ‘Businesses that are into this are into it for the long haul. Not just for four years, the term of a president.'”

  9. An important area for any emerging technology is agreed upon standards. This is important when you want to have interchangeable parts and if you want products to be networked. Agreed upon standards were important for both the Internet and for cellphones.

    I haven’t seen anything yet about the Paris Accord and related standards committees, but likely there will be some connected to clean technology.

    As some big companies are rightly concerned, if the US isn’t part of those negotiations, it will have less influence. But that is also the reason why some people would be happy for the US to drop out — so it can’t exert influence on what the rest of the world decides to do.

    Here’s an example of how cellphone standards played out. I can’t access the whole article, just the abstract.

    From 3G to 4G: standards and the development of mobile broadband in China: Technology Analysis & Strategic Management: Vol 23, No 7: “This paper explores the way that increasing engagement in international standardisation processes has enabled Chinese firms to become global players in mobile telecommunications technologies and China to become a major influence in the international information and communications technology (ICT) standards arena.”

    1. “This definitely also changes how we are looking at the United States.’”

      That would be a mistake! Hopefully the world can look past Washington and the current administration who are alienating not only most of the countries in the world, but also it’s own citizens. It is becoming increasingly clear, that the vast majority of American citizens in all 50 states do not support the path this administration is on. Not even the people who actually voted for him!

      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-paris-climate-deal-agreement-poll-support-popularity-americans-states-a7765626.html

      Majority of Americans in every US state supports Paris climate deal Trump is poised to withdraw from. About seven out of 10 registered US voters say that America should participate in the agreement.

      Even Fox News scored the president’s approval ratings last week at just 40 percent.

      The network’s analysis showed white voters and Americans without a college degree—two demographics crucial to Trump’s base during the 2016 election—were beginning to sharply disapprove of the president’s overall performance more than ever before.

  11. Quitting Paris Agreement Could Herald Trade Wars Against U.S. – TheStreet: “Quitting Paris could have major implications on U.S. trade relations and pose a significant risk for American companies, hundreds of which have pushed Trump to stay in. Energy firms could be especially affected.”

    “‘The conclusion of Paris disagreement and a world of differential carbon pricing regimes is likely to be a trade war,’ said ClearView Energy Partners analyst Kevin Book. ‘Anything that gets us closer to trade reprisals surrounding energy of any kind is bad for energy writ large.'”

    “For example, companies such as Cheniere (LNG) , Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) , Oneok (OKE) and Williams Companies (WMB) , all large exporters of natural gas and liquefied natural gas, could be affected. Any trade-dependent energy subsectors could be impacted, including refiners, power generation technology firms and upstream oil and gas companies.”

  12. City of Huntington Beach still cleaning up mess from oil industry almost 80 years ago

    “A few showed up to Wednesday’s zoning administrator meeting to voice concerns with the cleanup process.

    Resident Richard Miller said he was concerned that toxins could spread to the water table when the company excavates during the well abandonment.

    “I don’t know what’s inside there,” Miller said. “It shouldn’t be touched.””

    http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-ascon-20170531-story.html

    1. Since these predictions are usually a bit premature we have plenty of time to start the reduction of civilization and if properly timed there will be less use of copper with time.
      Since about 19 million tons of copper are produced each year, a one year supply would make 5.3 TW of wind turbines, according to the article. Since turbines will become more efficient with time, that could be over 6 TW.
      Since total average global generation is 2.3 TW, I don’t think copper is a problem for windmills.

    2. Most uses of copper can be replaced by aluminium. Copper carries more current by volume, but aluminium carries more current by weight.

      For example, long distance transmission is primarily via aluminium.

      And, carbon (graphene, etc) is likely to replace many more applications of copper.

      1. Comparing aluminum to copper as a conductor on the basis of volume or weight versus current carrying capacity is ok, but it’s a LONG way from a complete comparison.

        Yes, aluminum works very well indeed in long distance transmission, because it works well in larger diameters without insulation where volume doesn’t matter, the mechanical workability of the metal matters in only minor fashion, where insulation is not needed, where corrosion is minimized by the large diameter versus smaller surface area, and where there are RELATIVELY FEW CONNECTIONS.

        As the wire size goes down, as in building everything from houses to cars to electronics, the problems associated with aluminum grow exponentially, especially the corrosion problem at connectors or connections, and the difficulty of actually making those connections secure and durable increases exponentially.

        So we will continue to use copper to the extent we can afford it, and the amounts that go into small appliances, cars, and even wind turbines aren’t all that large, on an individual appliance, car, or turbine basis.

        Aluminum has been virtually outlawed by way of residential building codes in some places, and so far as I know without checking, in most places. Too many fires, too many wiring failures that do not result in fire but nevertheless require an electrician show up for repairs.

        I won’t personally go near a house as an investment with aluminum wiring unless I plan to gut it and rewire it from scratch.

        But it WILL work, if copper is unavailable.

        The beautiful thing about copper is that it’s so easily recycled, and the more expensive it gets, the more worthwhile it is to recycle it.

        Of course aluminum is easily recycled too, especially if it’s in the form of beer cans, lol.

        1. aluminum…WILL work, if copper is unavailable.

          Yeah. I think the problems that residential aluminum wiring experienced were transitional: a different metal is going to need different gauges, different forms of wiring, different connections (especially with legacy copper wires & fixtures), etc: slightly different manufacturing, installation and other forms of engineering. This is a good example of why builders don’t like doing anything new: there are always “teething” problems, and pioneers are the ones with arrows in their back.

          I agree that residential aluminum won’t come back until copper prices really skyrocket – the first generational effort gave everyone a bad taste, which will discourage a 2nd generation. But, aluminium can be used in a lot of other places. For instance, you can easily build electric motors with aluminium instead of copper windings.

          Other forms of substitution are also important, e.g., silicon (fiber optics) for telecom; carbon (graphene, etc) for power, aluminium for construction (gutters, etc), and so on.

        2. The Airbus 380 was delayed because aluminum is hard to bend.

          They were on target with copper wiring for the entertainment systems etc but decided things were going so well they could save weight by switching to aluminum. Aluminum is lighter but bigger and harder to bend, so the plans needed to be changed.

          Fine, they did that in Toulouse . In Toulouse the also had a new software version that supported 3D views of the layouts. But they didn’t install thesoftware in Hamburg, where assembly occurred, so as not to interrupt production.

          The software provider promised that the 3D views created in Toulouse would be compatible to the 2D software still in use in Hamburg, but that turned out to be false. The result was a train wreck that ultimately caused the delay, thanks to all the dependencies in the project.

    3. Hi Benjamin,

      There is a lot of aluminum and copper can be recycled.

      1. I remember in the 80 they said Africa would never get phones because there wasn’t enough copper around for the land lines. Now there’s like 800m mobile connections in Africa.

    4. Why even worry about it? The economists will fix it!

      “Chief amongst these optimists was the late Dr Julian Simon, formerly professor of economics and business administration at the University of Illinois, and later at the University of Maryland. With regard to copper, Simon has written that we will never run out of copper because “copper can be made from other metals.”

      Excerpted from the late Dr. Albert Bartlett’s talk on Arithmetic, Population and Energy

      1. There’s no question he got a little carried away there (embarrassingly enough, he does refer to transmutation), but really, his argument was about substitution with other materials or technology.

        And, basically, he was right.

  14. It’s clear over the Arctic. Ice is melting rapidly. NASA world view has some great pictures. Below shows the last remaining thick, multiyear ice north of Greenland, which has been driven away from the shore and reduced to rubble over the past week. It’ s a humbling thought that possibly there will never be multiyear ice seen there again, or at least not be human eyes (or satellite cameras).

    https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

    1. A better understanding of the situation sees the mass balance of Greenland is massively positive at the current time. Besides that Greenland is so enormous the ice at just a tiny portion in the north of the country isn’t really going to make much difference anyway to climate one way or the other.

      1. My goodness – I thought that old, unrealistic world map had gone away. Actually, Africa is about 15 times larger than Greenland. Here’s a more realistic world map:

      3. George Harmon – you are an ideal contra-indicator in that everything you say is exactly wrong.

      4. Oh, for fuck’s sake look at a globe, they aren’t all that hard to find.
        .

        2. Hi George Harmon,

          Any comment?

          Are you going to explain to us that the current understanding of Greenland’s area is wrong?

          Wikipedia is often a good place to check your facts, before you post something that makes you look silly.

          For example

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland

          Area of Greenland is 2,166,086 km2 (836,330 sq mi)

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa

          Area of Africa is 30,370,000 km2 (11,730,000 sq mi), 

          Ergo, Africa is 30,370,000/2,166,086= 14 times larger than Greenland.

          Africa is the 2nd largest continent, most people learn this by at least the 3rd grade.

  16. Now the whole world is going to hate the US and we will fall behind in renewable energy jobs and technology. What a disaster.

    1. There’s absolutely no need to get hysterical here. Just as Trump said, he is elected to look after the best interests of all Americans by getting us back on the road of peace, prosperity, and jobs by making the economy grow 3% or more, each year. That’s exactly what Trump’s decision does, and why it’s a good one. The truth is, the Paris treaty was morally unjustifiable for the economy and job market. Dealing with climate change was clearly a secondary concern as well, since China and India are being allowed unfairly to just continue to expand their emissions and consumption. The reality is, for us here on this side of the globe, we would’ve ended up sending huge sums of tax money and job opportunities off to some big black hole, while the climate wouldn’t have gotten cooled down in any measurable way.

      1. What a remarkable series of unrealistic statements. Each sentence even less realistic than the previous…

        So. What’s the best thing to do with such comments? Ignore? Respond calmly with realistic information, using as a “teachable moment”? Simply point to another website which debunks such things?

        1. Teachable moments require that the person is teachable. Jason T is clearly a prime example of one of Amerika’s many fact resistant human beings. Perhaps a link to debunk is more appropriate as it might be of interest to those other readers here who like the facts.

          1. Yeah, I don’t worry much about the person who happens to post stuff like this. At best they’re starting from an aggressive point of view and with a lot of misinformation, so chances of getting through to them seem slim.

            But…there are a lot of other readers (aka lurkers), who may be ready for good information.

            1. A dialogue with a fact resistant human is surely a waste of time. Links for lurkers is a fine idea though.

            2. Ninety percent of what I post is geared towards lurkers who may not yet have made up their minds about political issues, ranging from internal D Party politics to the pro and con arguments about genetically modified crops, pesticides, etc.

              Nobody ever has too much information, especially in the case of topics where most of the info they encounter is accurate but cherry picked.

              There are very real problems associated with using pesticides and herbicides, for damned sure, but the people who are opposed to their use very seldom ever really acknowledge the upsides associated with using them, and the upsides are as impressive as the downsides.

              For instance we would have to put at least two to three times as much land under the plow in the USA to maintain current levels of grain production without the use of manufactured fertilizers , insecticides, herbicides, lots of fossil fuel powered machinery, etc.

              YES, it’s THEORETICALLY possible to do it organically, but it’s NOT possible as a PRACTICAL matter, not now and not for a LONG TIME to come.

              I fully understand that the odds of my changing HB’s mind about anything approach zero, ditto his chance of changing my mind, lol.

              http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/hillary-clinton-dnc-data-pushback/

            3. “But…there are a lot of other readers (aka lurkers), who may be ready for good information.”

              Dead on. Perfectly centered in the bulls eye.

              And the best way to get thru to them is to figure out what turns them off about an issue, and what turns them on about the same issue, and emphasize what they like, rather than what they DON’T.

              I believe it’s a mistake to constantly harp about climate change when trying to encourage the acceptance and growth of the renewable energy industries, in cases where the audience is working class and conservatively oriented socially and politically, and especially in the case when the audience is not technically well educated.

              Look, it’s as simple as falling off a log. Technically literate people are mostly already on board anyway, and liberals of all stripes are on board even if they are technically illiterate, due to the fact that tribal solidarity is more important to any political camp than any possible actual facts which might contradict tribal policies and cohesion.

              Suppose you ( rhetorical) are a well educated liberal with his heart in the right place, and a working brain. ( Education does not necessarily imply a working brain, no siree. Some of the best educated people I ever met don’t have a clue about reality. )

              So- You are having some real problems, with your job and your health and your family. You are entirely focused, or almost entirely focused, on managing your IMMEDIATE problems.

              How much weight are you going to put on the fact that a few extra beers will put another five pounds around your waist over the coming year? If you are having a lot of trouble paying your current bills, how much attention can you pay to investing for the long term?

              If you aren’t sure who is right, or who is even competent, in advising you whether you should or should not eat eggs, or some red meat, or whether you should eat only organic foods, how much attention can you pay to these questions?

              And if you suspect that some of the people advising you to do certain things are less than honest, well then, you ignore them or cuss them.

              Does this make sense, or not? If anybody actually believes this scenario is unrealistic, in human terms, please say so. My next comment will take it to the logical conclusion in terms of communicating with the opposition political camp.

        2. LOL! anyone who seriously believes that anything Trump has done or will do could possibly create 3% growth, is absolutely not worth talking to. They are either just plain lying outright or they are just too damn stupid and you’d be better of spending your time having a conversation with a donkey’s asshole… (no puns or double entendres intended!)

      2. In what manner is the Paris treaty morally unjustifiable for the economy and job market, Kantian, consequentialist, Rawlsian, Aristotelian, some other? Please enlighten us all here with your ethical analysis and insight.

        1. Aristotle got just about everything wrong.
          Modern science started with the rejection of Aristotle.
          Lets hope Jason is not counting in that.

          1. “Aristotle got just about everything wrong “.
            True in respect to the natural world, but he nevertheless made his mark that will stand just about forever in respect to morality, law, philosophy, etc.

            ‘

            1. Aristotle and Plato were in the “Ronald Reagan” era of Greek Philosophy.
              Almost all the good stuff happened in 5th Century Athens (we are still living in that world).
              Without the Catholic Church, Aristotle would not be “the player” he is.

      3. Hi Jason,

        As I was watching Trump’s speech, I imagined who could believe this crap?

        There is a minority of people that are fooled by con men.

        Oh well. The US is treated so unfairly, wa wa.

        People in other nations must be laughing at us because we elected a cry baby. Well not we, because I didn’t vote for Trump, along with a majority of my fellow citizens, but maybe some time we will have Democratic elections.

        Try http://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm

        if you want to understand why this is important.

      4. Jason T and Charles Van Vleet,

        Thank you so much for your comments.

        It’s a breath of fresh air to see someone stand up to those who would deprive us of our national sovereignty, prosperity, and republican form of government, as well the fake science, fake news, fake economics and fake morality that are used to justify this soft coup.

        1. Ah, too bad. Some of your comments about shale seemed somewhat informative, and now you’ve gone and made it clear that your thinking is deeply vulnerable to bad, bad propaganda.

          Damned shame.

          1. No, all three commenters (Jason T and Charles Van Vleet and Glenn E Stehle) are the same guy. Glenn’s role is to provide legitimacy to the others. So he posts non-crazy things.

            Welcome to the internet.

    2. The US wasn’t in the Kyoto Agreement either. You don’t hear MSM mention that old classic anymore, wonder why? Anyway the world didn’t blow up then without US participation, and it won’t blow up this time round either. Personally I think we should all look forward to the lower taxes & increase in jobs by not being part of another phony global agreement.

      1. Charles has been drinking the Trump koolaid again.

        Like Charles, I am glad that Trump has officially confirmed that Evolution is fake news.
        I am so sick of trying to appear smarter than other apes.
        Now I can just just relax with a beer and watch Hannity explain it all to me.
        And how I am going to have lower taxes, and can spend that money on more air conditioning, and on some of that mail order stuff from the evangelist shopping network.
        Yeh!!

      2. Hi Charles van Fleet,

        Let’s assume climate change is not a problem (I don’t believe this, but perhaps you do).

        Do you believe that fossil fuel resources are unlimited?

        At some point these will peak and decline and other sources of energy will be needed.

        Without enough energy or more efficient use of energy there will be very little economic growth.

        The US will be left behind by the rest of the World as they develop the technologies of the future, coal and oil are not the way forward and natural gas can be used as a fuel to bridge the World to a wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear future.

        The rest of the World may choose to isolate the US and impose carbon taxes on US goods at their borders. The US economy is not likely to be helped by Trump’s policies, he is seen as a clown by the rest of the World.

        1. Dennis Coyne said:

          Do you believe that fossil fuel resources are unlimited?

          At some point these will peak and decline and other sources of energy will be needed.

          So that’s the real reason that peak oil has to happen now, or in the very near future, and not 20 or 50 or 80 years from now. After all, if peak oil is 50 years in the future, the urgency to transform the world into the prophesied green heaven on earth disappears.

          North America (Canada, US and Mexico) is exceedingly rich in oil and gas natural resources, whereas Europe and China are exceedingly poor. Do you believe that might have something to do with the difference in perspectives and agendas?

          1. Hi Glenn,

            No just based on reality. The US has a fair amount of coal and natural gas, but much less oil than you seem to believe. The oil from LTO, deep water, and oil sands is not cheap.

            Peak oil will happen much sooner than 50 years.

            Let’s say we follow the Trump plan and the rest of the World also follows his brilliant lead.

            The World demand for oil grows at 1.2 Mb/d (based on IEA assumptions) from 2017 to 2021 and US LTO output grows about 2 Mb/d (a little more optimistic than the EIA’s AEO 2017). The 2 Mb/d (output at about 10 Mb/d due to declining output from offshore and conventional onshore) does not even satisfy US crude demand for refineries (16 Mb/d), increased NGL output helps very little with liquid fuel demand (gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel/kerosene).

            The US with its “abundant resources” (proved reserves are 35.2 Gb at the end of 2015) will continue to need to import oil. The US uses about 5.8 Gb of crude per year, even if 2P reserves are 60 Gb that is 10 years of supply, the problem is there are limits to how fast reserves can be developed and extracted. In 2015 about 22.5 Gb of reserves were producing reserves and only 3.28 Gb of C+C was produced, an extraction rate of 14.6%, it is doubtful the extraction rate can be raised much further, eventually it becomes difficult to maintain output because the oil produced must be replaced with an equal amount of new developed reserves each year, just to maintain a plateau (I have assumed 9 Mb/d).

            No, the rest of the World understands science and is concerned about climate change, we only have one planet and the science is very clear.
            Note that the abundant North American resources are not enough to make North America self sufficient and Mexico and Canada are parties to the Paris Accord unlike the US which shares this distinction with Syria and Nicaragua.

            Canadian Oil sands take a long time to develop, CAPP expects Canadian output will increase by 1.1 Mb/d from 2016 to 2030. Mexican crude output is declining and the net from Canada and Mexico will be a wash.

            You seem to be buying a lot of industry hype. The oil peak will be in 5 to 10 years for the World, we should conserve our resources and plan for the future (even if we do not understand science).

            1. Well Dennis, you certainly have all the well-worn talking points crafted by the transnational ruling class down pat.

              After reading that, I was so inspired I went over to DonaldJTrump.com and made a rather generous contribution.

              It is, after all, important to put one’s money where one’s mouth is.

            2. Seems like the Permian is the only boom area right now. So when that declines, there won’t be any more oil plays to save us.

            4. How does that help the US?

              I suppose if we re-fight WWII, we’d be grateful to have an oil exporter right next door. But otherwise, oil in Mexico doesn’t do anything for employment or prosperity in the US.

            5. Let’s see. We want to put up that wall and yet assume they’d be happy to sell us that oil. Maybe a middle finger instead.

            6. Boomer II,

              US oil and gas companies who want to participate in Mexico’s future energy party, and it looks like it’s going to be a big one, are certainly alarmed by Trump’s anti-Mexicanism.

              Hillary Clinton was the deus absconditus, the concealed puppeteer working behind the scenes who pushed through Mexico’s energy “reform.” This amendment to the Mexican constitution privatized Mexico’s oil and gas industry and opened the door for US oil and gas companies to invest in Mexico’s vast shale fields.

              Hillary Clinton, coautora de la reforma energética de Peña Nieto
              http://www.proceso.com.mx/412450/hillary-clinton-coautora-de-la-reforma-energetica-de-pena-nieto

              US oil and gas producers are alarmed that Trump’s anti-Mexicanism could get the US disinvited from Mexico’s future energy party, a replay, for instance, of what happened in Iran in 1979.

              Peña Nieto = Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

              And in fact the Chinese ambassador to Mexico stated that China is ready to move in if Trump’s anti-Mexicanism becomes unbearable. So China undoubtedly has its eye on the prize too.

            8. As the US retreats from the rest of the world, China is will take advantage of this. They have the money to do so and are more than happy to make deals.

              What Trump is doing may play well with his hard-core supporters, but from a business standpoint, he is making it harder from many US businesses.

              America First may be a good campaign slogan, but dealing with changes in the global economy is more complex than that.

      3. Jason T and Charles Van Vleet,

        Thank you so much for your comments.

        It’s a breath of fresh air to see someone with the cojones stand up to those who would deprive us of our national sovereignty, prosperity, and republican form of government, as well as to the fake science, fake news, fake economics and fake morality that are used to justify this soft coup.

        1. The idea that transitioning away from oil and other FF is a loss of freedom is propaganda, created by the FF industry.

          The most effective tool for transitioning away from FF would be a carbon tax, which is simple, and requires no more regulatory structure than already exists. Fuel taxes, utility taxes, excise taxes: these all exist now. Raising their rates would deprive no one of their freedom. It would, however, deprive FF investors of their profits – that’s the real problem.

        2. Want to know what national (and personal) sovereignty and prosperity look like?

          The image below shows a Tesla Model S P100D (American made!) , a seven passenger sedan that can accelerate to 60 mph faster than a McLaren 12C, Porsche 991 GT3 or a RS, Ferrari 488.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_cars_by_acceleration

          Those blue rectangles represent the size of the solar array needed to provide that car with 15,000 miles of yearly driving*. That system can be had for ~$11k. Since it is warrantied for 25 years, that works out to be $0.88 per gallon equivalent at 30 mpg.

          And, if a Tesla is a little too top shelf, that same array would power a Hyundai Ioniq EV for ~20,000 miles annually.

          Is it possible the fossil fuel industry is not aware of this?

          Doubtful.

          The democratization of energy is well underway.

          *10 x 350w capacity @ 42d lat, 180d asimuth, 35d tilt, 14% efficiency losses, fixed rack mount. Tesla epa rated @ 35kWh/100mi (98mpge); Ioniq rated at 25kWh/100mi (136mpge).

          1. “The democratization of energy is well underway” with a car who’s starting price begins at $218,200?

            Oh lordy–

            No wonder you guys lost the election.

            3. So you guys are arguing over whether the car costs $218,200, $140,000 or $71,300, all of which are out of the price range of 90% of American car buyers.

              Like I said, one cannot help but be gobsmacked by the political tone deafness of the environmentalist glitterati.

            4. Ah come on Glen surely a man with your vast oil derived wealth shouldn’t even bat an eye at these paltry amounts, eh!
              I’m sure you have a garage full of high end luxury ICE cars. I mean, what’s the point of coming here to tell all us poor folk, about how good it is going for you if you don’t own at least a few of these cars?

              2017 Audi S8 4.0T Plus $115,900

              2017 Jaguar XJ XJR Long Wheelbase RWD $121,000

              2017 BMW ALPINA B7 xDrive $137,000

              2017 Maserati Quattroporte GTS GranSport RWD $145,500

              2017 Aston Martin Rapide S Base $206,000

              2017 Mercedes-Benz AMG S65 AMG S65 RWD Sedan $226,900

              2017 Bentley Flying Spur W12 S $244,600

              2017 Rolls-Royce Ghost EWB Sedan $329,325

              And we haven’t even started with the Porsches, Lambourghinis and Ferraris…

            5. Glenn,

              You’re going out of your way to be insulting – the comment about Tesla specifically said that a much cheaper EV would do as well.

              Intentional insults are the definition of a “troll”.

              Do you want to be a troll?

            6. What do you mean, “does he want to be a troll”? Posting a blatant lie about the starting price of a Tesla makes him one automatically.

  17. With the US no longer backing the Paris Accord (along with Syria and Nicaragua), it gives the rest of the world a point around which to unite against the US. For those who have felt the US has had too much power for too long, this is probably good news.

    Here’s something related to Trump’s standing with Europe these days.

    Germany Is Ushering in a Post-America World – Pacific Standard: “Merkel’s declarations are ‘an important step toward the multi-polar world order in the making, that is irreversible,’ says Walter Mignolo, a professor at Duke University and one of the world’s foremost scholars of decolonialism, who has spent his life tracking the rise and what he envisions as the impending fall of U.S. and Western hegemony. ‘For the mutation to multi-polarity to be smooth, the E.U. has to grow up, come to age as Merkel said. And Macron said also during his campaign: The E.U. has to take its destiny in its own hand and stop being the obedient child of the U.S., which is—and was—humiliating.’

    Mignolo believes the world is transitioning to one in which ‘there will no longer be one superpower calling the shot,’ one that is ‘multi-polar.'”

    1. They say every cloud has a silver lining, even the one that’s dumping on you, lol.

      It’s probably a good thing, almost a dead sure good thing, that the rest of the western countries face up now to the fact that Trump or no Trump, history marches on.

      It’s rather likely that historians a thousand years from now will be talking quite a bit about the decline of the USA, and the rise of Asian countries, over the course of the remainder of this century.

      Trump will likely succeed in speeding up our relative decline to some extent, but that’s about all.

      We just don’t have the sort of mindset anymore that would enable us to remain on top of the heap, economically. We have SOME people with the right mindset, but we don’t have the overall culture or the overall citizenry needed any more.

      Success has it’s price. There’s a saying in the study of wealth, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Daddy and Mommy get the business started, the kids who grow up encouraged and motivated build it up, and the grandkids who never have to strike a tap at a snake, and wouldn’t in case of need, feel entitled to spend it, and they do spend it, and wind up broke.

      I have a very hard time nowadays finding a working young guy who is willing to give up his Saturday morning to make enough extra money to buy his family groceries for the week, etc. They all talk about how eager they are to have an extra fifty or hundred bucks, and how they would like to learn a little about the things I do, as my helper, but when Saturday morning rolls around, they very seldom show up. I finally located a middle aged old school woman who is physically able to help with minor construction work,light farm work, machinery maintenance, etc, and show her as necessary how to do the work, such as greasing the backhoe, rooting trees to be transplanted, etc.

      She doesn’t even really need the money. She saves it, and she says she might as well get PAID to get some exercise. Different mindset.

      The fact that we are mostly focused on getting our candy RIGHT NOW bodes very ill for us as a country.

      The most today’s typical younger person seems to be willing to do is put in his forty, and after that, he perceives it as an IMPOSITION on him to work any more hours, rather than an opportunity, all to often.

      One of my two surviving sisters is well up in HR with a major corporation that is going gangbusters, manufacturing glass products, and she tells me the company finds it tough to impossible to recruit enough employees who will stick because of mandatory overtime ten to twelve hours a week. Thirty or forty years ago, as a youngster in the same line of work, but with small companies, she found the availability of overtime to be one of the best selling points in getting the best applicants signed up.

      Her company has one of the best bennies packages, and a great employee relations program all around, such as buffet dinners on the clock with great food every month at any plant that runs the whole month without an accident. Christmas parties with gifts for everybody, real gifts worth something, day trips to nearby resorts at company expense, etc, at least three times a year, etc, for everybody including the janitors.

      The purchasing power of wages has declined since then, in manufacturing in this general area.

      The general mindset among older guys, who grew up willing to work, is that anybody here who actually wants a job has one. The ones who don’t, mostly aren’t really interested. This is a gross exaggeration of course, but there’s a LOT of truth in it.

      There are plenty of people here out of work, but the ones who will show up regularly, sober and awake, generally find permanent employment within a few months, sometimes better than what they had previously.

      Times aren’t all that good, but they aren’t all that BAD either, locally.

      1. The purchasing power of wages has declined since then, in manufacturing in this general area

        I find it puzzling when companies claim that they can’t hire people. Classical economics tells us that a gap between supply and demand is caused by a market failure: prices aren’t rising to the point where supply and demand meet. Translation: these companies refuse to pay enough to hire the people they want.

        A different, and somewhat contradictory thought: disabilities are a major and often invisible cause of unemployment and underemployment. These disabilities include mental and physical problems, and substance abuse. It’s easy to blame people for their problems (like drinking), but it doesn’t fix them.

        1. Hi Nick,

          You DO have a point, the only reason any company in this general area can’t find enough qualified employees is that the company doesn’t want to pay high enough wages.

          I believe this is generally true across the board just about all the time just about everywhere. It’s rare that enough qualified people don’t exist, except in the cases of new fast growing industries where the number of openings greatly exceeds the number of people with relevant training and or experience.

          The situation with the company my sister is with is that they really do expect people to show up on Saturdays, and to work a couple of hours extra many days, as needed.

          Pretty soon most of the new hires decide their free time is worth more than the over time wages. I suppose this indicates that they are living well enough on forty hours to be satisfied, even if the wages in this area are low compared to other areas. Living expenses are low too. You can rent a very nice moderate size house for five or six hundred a month, a house with a storage garage, a nice yard, privacy, heat pump, well and septic system, no water and sewer bill, and a great view of the mountains and still be within fifteen or twenty minutes of work , lol.

    2. If the US pulls all of its NATO troops out of Germany, I wonder how Europe will react. I think that the French will start studying German.

      1. I don’t think the US would pull out of Germany because we need somewhere to put all of that military we are spending money on.

        Unless, of course, the US military transitions to one big Navy and cuts back the Army and Air Force.

        1. The perpetual war types certainly aren’t happy with Trump’s proposed cuts to defense spending, below even the Obama administration’s, and are gearing up to fight Trump on the budget.

          Personally, I would like to see the US become energy independent and get out of all the resource wars in the Middle East, the Levant and Northern Africa.

          If Europe, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and the Gulf states want regime change in Syria so they can build their natural gas pipeline across that country, then let them fight and pay for that war. Syria is of no great strategic or economic importance to most Americans, regardless of what the Republicrat war party says.

          Defense hawks gird for budget brawl
          http://thehill.com/policy/defense/335352-defense-hawks-gird-for-budget-brawl

          Defense hawks are hunkering down for a fight to get all $640 billion they say is necessary to rebuild the military after President Trump’s budget proposal fell short of their expectations….

          Trump’s $603 billion base defense budget leaves out much of what was on defense hawks’ wish lists….

          The budget includes no additional ships from what was planned under former President Barack Obama, though officials have said the administration supports adding another littoral combat ship and has promised to issue a correction to the budget.

          The budget would also add no new soldiers and buy eight fewer aircraft than Obama had planned.

          1. Hi Glenn,

            Can you describe how Trump plans to get us to 16 Mb/d of crude output, so we can become energy independent? Note that declines in Mexican output will offset any increases in Canadian C+C output so expanding to North America doesn’t cut it for oil.

            Dreams of energy independence, will remain that until demand for oil is reduced to the amount we can produce (no more than 10 Mb/d, which is likely to decline quickly after 2023 and probably sooner.)

            Is the plan to switch to CNG fueled cars or trucks? I have not seen that mentioned by Trump or Perry.

            1. Dennis,

              Well actually north America is not that far away from being petroleum independent, only about 4 million bopd.

            2. Dennis,

              The US is not that far away from being energy independent.

              In its reference case from the 2017 Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA predicted the US would become energy independent by 2026.

              And in a couple of the side cases, the EIA predicted the US will become energy independent before that date.

              In two of its side cases, it predicted that the US would become petroleum independent no later than in 2022.

              Regardless of what you may believe, it is certainly within the realm of possibilities for the US to become energy independent, and even petroleum independent, in the not too distant future.

            5. Hi Glenn,

              The reference case is very optimistic, with 100 Gb of LTO output (it is more likely to be under 50 Gb), the high oil price and high technology cases are just silly.

              The (too optimistic) reference case leaves us still needing oil imports through 2040.

              So the short answer is that the “abundant” oil reserves will require measures to reduce demand for oil or lead to very high oil prices by 2025.

              This is why demand for EVs (Tesla Model 3 will start at 35k in 2018), EV prices will also decrease over time as production scales up and economies of scale drive production costs lower.

        1. The big bullies can sometimes be outsmarted… and France has other allies even if the US no longer counts as one! So whose side are you on Glen?!
          .

          1. I’m on the side that says let Europe pay for, and fight, its own resource wars.

            1. They are. It’s going to be done with renewables and deals with China. The smart countries will become less resources dependent.

            2. The Philippines decided not to renew leases on US military bases back in the 1990s. Countries don’t always want a major US military presence in their countries.

            3. Of course, the US didn’t try that hard for renewals. Historically, the Philippino bases were needed for coal refueling…

            4. By the time the leases were up, coal wasn’t a factor.

              Clark and Subic had been heavily damaged by the Mount Pinatubo eruption and would have required significant rebuilding, so that played a big factor in the US accepting the decision.

            5. Yeah, I remember the cleanup.

              And yes, coal as a factor is a historical footnote. But, still…that’s a large part of why these bases were originally created. And, in an age of a nuclear navy, these island ports were less important.

            6. That’s great. Europe and China can join forces to achieve regime change in Syria, along with any other ambitions they might have in that region to fulfil their energy needs, and the US can extract itself from that quagmire.

              And “The smart countries will become less resources dependent”?

              Just when, pray tell, do you believe that might begin to happen?

              UPDATE 2-China crude oil imports shatter record, top U.S. intake
              http://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-trade-crude-idUSL3N1HK1DG

            7. I agree – the US should do everything it can to avoid wars in the M.E.

              What’s the cheapest and most effective way to do that? Reduce our oil consumption, and encourage other countries to do the same.

              What’s the best way to do that? Everything that the Paris agreement would do: moving to electric transportation, and encouraging solar power (which could replace at least 5% of oil consumption around the world, which is used to generate power by utilities, companies and residences).

            9. Glenn was over at OFW blog for a while, causing the disruption that is going on here.
              He or she eventually left, with his or her tail between his or her legs.
              Don’t know if a paid troll, or just a ill informed sociopath.

            10. Well my world is really looking up.

              I have a president who isn’t out to destroy the oil and gas business the way the last one was, and in fact appears willing to extend a helping hand.

              The oil fields in West Texas have began to boom like never before.

              The price of leases in the Permian Basin has soared from $15,000 an acre back in 2010 to $50,000 to $80,000 an acre now.

              The operator of one the leases I have a nice royalty interest under in the Permian Basin just staked three new wells, so I should soon be seeing a big boost in my O&G income.

              Life is grand.

              No complaints here.

              I’m laughing all the way to the bank, regardless of your bitterness and delusions of grandeur.

            12. Well, that certainly clarifies why you’re promoting the oil industry, regardless of the pollution it causes, the wars it creates or the recessions it causes. You make money from it.

              Working in the oil industry is an honorable thing. But not spreading misinformation to promote it.

            13. Glenn, looks like you’ve been sucking on the Donald’s little covfefe

            14. Fred,

              What? And miss out on all the fun to be had here?

              No way.

            15. What? And miss out on all the fun to be had here?

              Oh, come on now, surely with all that vast wealth you have accumulated from your oil investments, there must be better things you can do with your time!

              Like learning Mandarin…

            16. I’m quite glad the Permian is doing well. It’s pulling money away from other areas. I’m in an area where there is citizen opposition to local drilling, so if companies are losing interest in my area and going to the Permian, the better for everyone.

              Plus the Permian is set up for oil. It isn’t a matter of companies trying to drill in residential suburbs. Better there than in my state.

              I’m skeptical about people who talk about how great it is for oil companies right now because evidence suggests otherwise. I am also skeptical when people come to this forum to encourage more drilling because that seems counterproductive. Why increase supply and therefore keep prices low?

              I am also skeptical about the financing of fracking. Seems like funding companies that lose money and put more oil on the market than is necessary right now does no one any good.

              There’s too much rah rah to make good economic and financial sense. Unless you have stocks, loans, and leases to unload on the uneducated.

            17. Bommer II said:

              “I’m skeptical about people who talk about how great it is for oil companies right now because evidence suggests otherwise.”

              Me too. The Permian Basin, for as long as oil prices remain below $60 or $70 per barrel, is like a diamond in a goat’s ass.

              But for those who have a piece of that diamond, like is fantastic!

            18. But you could be making a lot more if prices were higher. Why does anyone want more drilling right now?

            19. And why does anyone who wants oil prices to rise talk about how much oil is available? It just encourages talk of a glut which keeps prices low.

            20. Boomer II,

              A lease that produces 20,000 barrels of oil per month at $40 per barrel has greater sales ($800,000/month) than a lease that produces 3000 barrels of oil per month at $70 per barrel ($210,000/month).

            21. What does that have to do with anything? Why sell all your oil right now at a low price when you can wait and sell it later at a higher amount?

              If I were doing it, I’d be talking up oil scarcity to drive up the price, rather than talking about how plentiful oil is and therefore driving down the price.

              Now, someone who wants to sell leases, or sell oil company stock, or attract lenders would have an incentive to talk about how much oil there is and how much money there is to be made. But someone who wants to drive up the price of oil would talk about how there isn’t enough oil to meet demand and how it is priced too low right now.

              This especially isn’t a forum to find readers who are envious of lease holders.

              There are so many other investment opportunities that the gas and oil industry isn’t all that attractive right now.

              Seems like your message is the Permian is great. If it is great for you, fine. But why the need to talk it up here? Are you trying to sell something?

            22. Maybe some people who have bought leases in the Permian are getting nervous because they paid too much. Are you talking up the Permian to help some of them get out? Otherwise the numbers will speak for themselves. We can look at production, we can look at expenses, and we can look at oil prices. The BS and the hype is totally unnecessary.

            23. Boomer II,

              Since when is $800,000/month in income worse than $210,000/month in income?

              Why is it that when Elon Musk lowers the price of his EVs, or the renewables industry lowers the price of its energy production or battery storage, it’s a good thing, but when domestic shale oil & gas producers lower the price of their energy production, it’s a bad thing?

        2. France, UK and Germany are more than a match for Russia. They couldn’t conquer it but in a non nuclear dispute they could destroy its forces until the will to fight is lost. Russian army is mostly shit. USA is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the world, and Washington is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the USA. America is collapsing. It’s par for the course. I’m sure the world will get along just fine without the USA playing globocop.

          https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/war-college/id1023774600?mt=2&i=354970122

      3. Clueless,

        could you provide an list of units (brigade equivalents) of forces in Europe?

        Hint: The USA reduced her ground forces in the same extend as Germany by 5/6. 🙂

        The non-NATO EU members Finland Sweden and Austria provide much more brigades than the USA.

        Neither during the cold war nor now the USA provided/provides the main contribution of ground forces, therefore, only the decision to dissolve NATO would be a thread for some time.

  18. We had many comments here about how fast driving patterns might change.

    I just saw this about how quickly retailing has changed. First it was Walmart wiping out many traditional stores. Now it is Amazon and online stores eliminating physical retail stores and malls.

    Retail Jobs & Malls Decline Nationwide | National Review: “One in ten employed Americans works in retail. Those jobs are going away.”

    1. None said late stage capitalism would be fun.
      It is a race to the bottom.

      1. Well aren’t you kind of a mostly empty kind of guy. There’s plenty of room for a better life or world. You have to apply yourself.

    2. One of my dead redneck Republican friends was very fond of saying he didn’t want to hear any crap about times being tough when people were bitching about the price of gasoline while buying sugar water at four or five times the price.

      I know a woman who has worked at the same fast food restaurant for going on twenty years as a cashier, with no hope of advancment, due to habitually stopping there for coffee over the years. So when I asked about her sticking so long, she said she owned her little house within walking distance, and could get by without a car, even in a small town with virtually nothing in the way of mass transit. She’s also within walking distance of a couple of supermarkets, and an occasional cab ride to a doctor, etc, isn’t a budget buster.

      I foresee our society changing so that people and their work get to be closer together, a LOT closer, on average, over time.

      And when this happens, most of the fast food jobs and convenience store jobs will indeed be history. I am already buying a third of my spare parts and consumable chemicals other than regulated pesticides on the net. Prices are typically at least a third less for the same exact products, sometimes even two thirds less, and delivery is generally within 24 to 48 hours, at less cost than a trip to town.

      Brick and mortar retail in the future are going to be dependent on service and expertise on the part of the people in the store. If the staff can’t add value by interacting with the customer………..

      1. he didn’t want to hear any crap about times being tough when people were bitching about the price of gasoline while buying sugar water at four or five times the price.

        So true. Soda/pop is a testament to the astonishing power of advertising to sell things that are bad for you and AND expensive.

        Just like the currently dominant brand of politics…

        1. Hi Nick,

          I’m convinced that if the founders of this country had had the slightest clue concerning the rise of mass media of all kinds ( radio, television, internet , magazines, not just the bare bones and barely affordable newspapers and books of their time ) and the consequent rise and power of the advertising industry, they would have devised a way to exclude advertising from the protections granted the free press.

          1. I believe that up until recently US constitutional law made a sharp distinction between commercial and individual free speech. Advertising and campaign contributions were absolutely subject to strict regulation.

            It was only after the Supreme Court was packed with rigidly pro-business ideologues that this changed. Sadly, it’s hard to protect against this kind of thing, as any basic governing document (like a constitution) will always need interpretation.

            Someday I expect decisions like Citizen’s United to be reversed, and at some point they will be viewed the same way we now view pro-slavery court decisions.

      2. Hi OFM, I hear you on the closer to work thing. Lots of people will be renting rooms and changing their large homes to duplexes.
        The problem I see is that there may be no jobs at all in many areas of business we now have. With the advancing use of computers and robotics as well as the rise of Asia (and now the possible move for Europe to be more independent), we may be facing a time when jobs are few and far between within a decade.
        Going to be a whole new world in so many ways. I hate to think that the US will have large slum shack villages like we see in other parts of the world or that we well go back to living in tiny efficiency apartments, sharing beds. Will happen on a large scale if our direction does not shift quickly. Don’t want to be depressing but there are so many people in the US anchoring us to the past that moving forward is extremely difficult.

        1. Hi GF,
          I ‘m afraid you are right about jobs disappearing wholesale, especially the sort of jobs that don’t require a lot of education or specialized training.
          The consequences are going to be anywhere from awful to catastrophic, in terms of human suffering and political backlash.

          But with some luck, we may be able to make enough adjustments to avoid catastrophic consequences. One possibility is some sort of jobs program that pays people to work at any project that benefits society overall, such as planting trees along the shoulders of highways, upgrading public parks, refurbishing all public buildings to reduce energy use, etc.

          From an ethical pov, it could be that we will be able to pay people just to keep old folks comfortable at home rather than warehousing them in nursing homes. If the caretaker is necessarily going to be supported on what is essentially welfare ANYWAY, it might as well be a welfare oriented job rather than an outright GIFT of living expenses.

          The remaining jobs can also be divided among more people by cutting back the hours each person works.

          Solutions probably exist, whether we will implement them is another question altogether, and whether they will be adequate is an open question.

          Personal servant ought to be a growth field, lol.

          Another possible partial solution is to make it easy for people who own houses close to jobs sell them to people who live farther away, when circumstances permit. There’s no real reason, with UPS and Fed Ex trucks, etc, all over the place, and with e commerce, etc, that older folks should feel compelled to live close in to a city center or other employment magnet after they retire these days.

          So it ought to be made easier for them to sell or rent to people who HAVE to be there where the jobs are five or six days a week. I will never live closer than twelve miles to town, unless town grows this way. I can get a ride when necessary, later, when I won’t be able to drive, and stay in my present home, more economically than I could live in town.

          1. it could be that we will be able to pay people just to keep old folks comfortable at home rather than warehousing them in nursing homes.

            Heck, from a practical point of view it makes all the sense in the world. Why not? Just because these jobs are currently low paid doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable.

            Just ask yourself: how much work is needed? How much is there, that we need to do or have done? Healthcare, eldercare, childcare, education, research, environmental cleanup, etc. There’s a LOT of work needed in the world. Just medical research alone, and all of the possible support jobs could keep a large percentage of the population working.

            It’s really not that hard to find a way to structure things to get them done, and people working. When the world is perfect, and nothing is left to do….then we can go to negative income taxes, or some such form of income redistribution. Until then, there’s lots of work to do.

    1. Thanks for the link: “So installing a base load power plant is no longer your only option. You can now look at solar, wind and storage as alternatives, and still be able to manage the reliability of the grid. So that is the takeaway I would like you to have.”

      1. The time when NEW baseload power plants will be unnecessary may not be very far away at all, except maybe when an old conventional plant is worn out and must be replaced.

        As the ready availability of wind and solar power from renewables farms distributed over large areas and connected with new distribution lines grows, we will need less and less fossil fuel base load capacity.

        But it’s going to be a long time before we can do without fossil fuel generation, even in places where the wind and solar resources are excellent. Cheap enough storage technology simply doesn’t exist yet to do without conventional backup.

        And even if cheap super batteries are invented and deployed, it will probably be better to maintain some conventional capacity as backup rather than build out enough storage to entirely do away with that conventional backup.

        The law of diminishing returns applies. The last ten or twenty percent or so of battery or other storage capacity would rarely be needed, making the cost of it extremely high. A few conventional plants kept ready to run wouldn’t produce any serious amounts of pollution, for two reasons. One, they would for sure be the newest and most efficient of the conventional fleet, and two, they wouldn’t be running except when the weather is exceptionally uncooperative. This could be as little as a week or two a year perhaps, or as much as a month or two, maybe.

        1. Certainly true OFM. We should happily keep Nat Gas capacity on board for as long as we can. Certainly for major use during the winter time.
          And we should certainly be extending powerlines to isolated windy and sunny spots.
          The day we achieve 100% renewable electrical supply in Calif will be a sunny and windy day in 2026, but the annual contribution in that year will amount to 46% [my off the cuff guess]. We will still need lots of fossil in that year, and for many to come.
          That guess attempt makes me think an on-line lottery trying to predict the 1st day Calif achieves 100% renewable electricity would be a popular game.

  20. Come to Oklahoma City. Nissan and Oklahoma Gas & Electric [OG&E] have teamed up. There is a Federal tax credit of $7,500 on a Leaf. Nissan and OG&E will kick in $10,000. So a Leaf that lists for $35,000 can be had for $17,500.

    1. Same thing in Colorado. Nissan and Xcel Energy. A person here said that with the discounts and rebates she got a new Leaf for under $14,000.

      1. Holy crap, we have to get rid of our idiota governor Susana Martinez and elect Michelle Lujan Grisham! New Mexico has plenty of sunshine…

        Maybe Tesla can build their next battery gigafactory here…and solar cells to boot.

    2. Something similar happens in Iowa.

      The owners of wind generation facilities in Iowa receive a total of 2.5₡ per kwh in subsidies from the state.

      The Iowa Wind Energy Production Tax Credit is equal to $0.01 per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated from wind at facilities located in Iowa. The Iowa Renewable Energy Tax Credit is equal to $0.015

      https://tax.iowa.gov/sites/files/idr/WEP%20and%20RE%20Tax%20Credit%20Evaluation%20Study.pdf

      Then they get subsidies from the federal government which amount to another 2.3₡ per kwh.

      https://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-credit-ptc

      So if you total it all up, wind energy producers get a total of 4.8₡ in state and federal subsidies in Iowa, which exeeded the March wholesale price of electricity in the midwest by at least 1.4₡ per kwh.

      It’s like owning a printing press at the expense of the taxpayers.

      1. Hi Glenn,

        When tax credits benefit the oil and gas industry it is not a subsidy, only when it is for wind and solar, interesting.

        When all of the favorable tax subsidies given to the oil and gas industry are eliminated, we can eliminate them for wind and solar as well.

        In Iowa and other plains states with excellent wind resources wind power will kick the butt of natural gas powered electricity generation without any subsidies, as long as the playing field is level.

        Can you explain for us why Texas is the leading state for wind power? Are they giving out a lot of subsidies to the Wind industry there?

        1. It is the typical business model:

          Privatize the profits
          Socialize the risk

        2. Dennis,

          Can you point to one single case in the oil and gas industry where the tax credits, or any other subsidies as far as that is concerned, it receives to produce a barrel of oil or an MCF of gas exceed the price to buy a barrel of oil or an MCF of gas on the free market?

          Other than the depletion allowance, can you name any tax credits or subsidies that the oil and gas industry receives which are over and above those that any other industry in America receives?

          Texas hands out no state subsidies to the wind industry, other than some low property evaluations and exemptions from local ad valorem taxes for wind farms. But a lot of industries receive those, including the oil and gas industry, so it creates no competitive advantage. The only subsidy the wind industry receives in Texas is the federal subsidy of 2.3₡ per kwh.

          So if Texas can do it without additional state subsidies, why not Iowa?

          If, as you claim, “In Iowa and other plains states with excellent wind resources wind power will kick the butt of natural gas powered electricity generation without any subsidies, as long as the playing field is level,” then why aren’t they doing it?

          Or in other words, if the wind industry in Iowa is as stellar as you claim it is, why does the state of Iowa have to subsidize it 2.5₡ per kwh over and above what Texas does?

            1. Thank you so much for the studies on subsidies, which very much serve to reinforce my point.

              • Subsidies to non-fossil-fuel energy are considerable and have been increasing over time.

              • A rough estimate by the GSI indicates around US$ 100 billion per year are spent to subsidize alternatives to fossil fuels.

              • The average subsidy for energy generated from wind is 5.0₡ per KWh, and for energy generated from fossil fuels 0.8 ₡ per KWh.

              • Wind is subsidized at a rate six times higher than what fossil fuels are subsidized.

              • Revenues raised through taxes levied by OECD countries on energy, mainly fossil transport fuels, petroleum product taxation,
              including Goods and Services Tax and Value Added Tax, are more than $1.2 trillion per year.

            3. • The average subsidy for energy generated from wind is 5.0₡ per KWh, and for energy generated from fossil fuels 0.8₡ per KWh.

              • Wind is subsidized at a rate six times higher than what fossil fuels are subsidized.

            4. it is now 2017 not 2007.

              Using 10 year old figures is a typical denialist troll method.

              NAOM

          2. Hi Glenn,

            That is up to the citizens of Iowa. Maybe they know science there.

            2. The title to this link is more click bait than anything else, but the article itself is reasonably well written and reasonably balanced.

              Just about everybody just about everywhere wants his cake and wants to eat it too.

              Most of us get our material goods and energy from places far away, not many of us live near coal mines or oil wells or hog farms or beef feed lots or steel mills, etc, as a percentage of the population.

              Within a decade or two, it’s very likely we will start having real problems with depletion of gas and oil, and after that, it won’t be too much longer before coal depletion also becomes a problem.

              The good people of Iowa who are opposed to wind farms are probably perfectly happy to get their electricity from coal mines that are destroying what’s left of the environment of Kentucky and West Virginia the places out west, Colorado and Wyoming IIRC, where coal mining is coming on strong.

              I doubt they have any problems with burning gasoline made from oil pumped up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, although the people who live down that way DO have some problems, lol.

              For a long time I used chemicals that aren’t exactly good for the environment in my own work, and there is little doubt in my mind that I am or was in small part responsible for some people getting sick and even dying as a result, although the NET benefit to society of my producing food by the thousands of bushels was large in relation to the cost.

              My impression from reading this link, and numerous others over the last few years, is that the large majority of people in Iowa are very happy to have the jobs and the tax revenues associated with the wind industry.

      2. they get subsidies from the federal government which amount to another 2.3₡ per kwh.

        How do you calculate that? The link you provided says the tax credit is worth 1.84 cents for the first 10 years, which would look like maybe .8 cents per kWh over the life of the wind farm.

  21. It’s getting closer comrades:

    Massive crack in Antarctica ice shelf grows 11 miles in 6 days – 8 miles remain before Delaware-sized iceberg calves – “It will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula”

    http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2017/06/massive-crack-in-antarctica-ice-shelf.html

    A massive crack in an Antarctic ice shelf grew by 11 miles in the past six days as one of the world’s biggest icebergs ever is poised to break off.

    The crack in the Larsen C ice shelf is now about 120 miles long, and only eight miles remain until the crack cuts all the way across, producing an iceberg about the size of the state of Delaware.

    1. And the resultant sea level rise is zero? (sea ice). Land ice or glacial ice melt would be a problem however. And it does point to continued global warming…

      1. Zero sea level change from the calving but if this leads to an ice shelf break up, as previous calving events have, then glaciers would be destabilised and those would add to sea level change. Dominoes.

        NAOM

        1. I like that domino analogy, quite appropriate. One thing leads to another.

          I discussed the changes in Arctic solar insolation a while back due to orbital changes. It was ignored as not being significant. However the change at 65N and 65S amounts to 0.5 watt/m2 per century, which is about one quarter of the total global warming increase from GHG.
          As the Arctic gets more light as well as quickly eroding albedo just the radiation changes will be much stronger than GHG’s (unless large natural CO2 and methane outputs occur).
          As the Antarctic and southern oceans get less light due to orbital changes they will not be warmed as much, however if the sea ice area coverage diminishes the albedo change could be the major factor for a few centuries.

          The big question is, if the AMOC stalls will that keep more heat in the southern ocean? That would affect Antarctic ice loss.

  22. It is obviously getting colder.

    Warmest March

    2016

    +1.23°C +2.21°F

    2nd Warmest March

    2017

    +1.05°C +1.89°F

    Coolest March

    1898

    -0.65°C -1.17°F

    Data retrieved:
    May 7, 2017

  23. Here’s another article about why Trump had to ditch the Paris agreement. Again the whole matter comes down to jobs and prosperity. Pretty easy to understand.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/06/01/paris-deal-harms-us-prosperity-opposing-view/102401950/#

    Last month, I signed a letter with 21 of my Senate colleagues urging President Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. The 2015 deal made by the Obama administration runs counter to the actions President Trump has taken to deliver regulatory relief to American families and workers since he took office.

    Chief among those actions is an executive order to end President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan. The carbon dioxide rules at the center of the Clean Power Plan amount to an intrusive overreach, and the Supreme Court has halted their implementation.

    The Paris agreement stood in the way of President Trump’s efforts to eliminate these costly carbon dioxide rules. But this would be the least of its harm. A report released in March by NERA Economic Consulting suggests that the climate deal could cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion and more than 6 million industrial sector jobs by 2040.

    Like many Americans, I questioned what this hefty price tag would actually buy. There is little evidence that the Paris agreement would significantly reduce the growth of global temperatures — or that it would substantially change the level of the seas. In other words, why should we put American livelihoods at risk and subject U.S. sovereignty to international litigation when the climate change agreement offers little return on its investment?

    Americans who are concerned about carbon dioxide should be pleased with recent developments. Market-driven solutions helped reduce CO2 emissions by 12% in the past decade. Besides, the United States already engages with other countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty adopted by the Senate in 1992. Under the Constitution, legally binding treaties require a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

    The Paris deal would have threatened our country’s prosperity. Because job creation is one of President Trump’s principal goals, I am glad he has initiated what our letter suggested: “Make a clean break from the Paris agreement.”

    Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is a member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.

    1. That’s not an article: it’s a political pitch. This republican simply asserts that reducing pollution would hurt job creation. Sadly, he’s wrong.

      He refers to NERA: here’s an article that seems informative:

      “To understand why President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the global Paris climate agreement, we might start by looking at the sources he relied on to justify his decision.

      But we’re not going to start there, but we will end there.

      Instead, let’s go back to the early 1990s. The tobacco industry was facing multiple bans on advertising its products in countries around the world.

      So the tobacco industry took ownership of a study that reviewed a bunch of other studies about the claimed impacts of tobacco advertising on actual tobacco consumption.

      In short, the study, handed to Phillip Morris International, concluded there was no real link between tobacco advertising and smoking levels. Studies that had found a link were probably flawed, the report claimed.

      The reports, the letters, and the memos back and forth, are all buried away in the Tobacco Industry Documents Archive at the University of California – San Francisco.

      Clearly, the report would help the tobacco industry to argue there was no need to regulate the advertising of its products, because that advertising didn’t make a difference to smoking levels one way or the other.

      National Economic Research Associates

      The company that carried out that tobacco study was National Economic Research Associates.

      Why is this relevant to Donald Trump and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement?

      When Trump spoke of the “onerous energy restrictions” he claimed the Paris deal placed on the United States, he cited figures from a report by the very same National Economic Research Associates (NERA).

      According to the NERA study, the Paris agreement would cut coal and gas production, and “cost” America 2.7 million jobs.”

      https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/01/tobacco-fossil-fuels-tracing-roots-trump-s-claims-paris-climate-deal

    2. Trump hasn’t been honest about the economics. He claims he can bring coal jobs back when even the coal industry says it won’t happen.

      Anyone who sells natural gas is in favor of the Paris Accord because it means more natural gas sales.

      Trump is promoting declining industries at the expense of growing ones. Most of the business community supports the Paris Accord. From an economic point of view, it is a bad decision to pull out.

    3. President Trump understands that abundant, cheap energy is a necessary ingredient in keeping a modern, consumerist, capitalist economy thriving.

      California, with its massive giveaways to wind and solar, which results in exorbitant electricity rates, is the poster child of exactly how not to run an economy.

            1. California has shown steady growth at 110 billion dollars per year. Texas was growing at 100 billion dollars per year but went flat since 2014.
              So Texas is in hover mode while the California economy keeps growing. Despite California having some of the most stringent pollution laws and pushing renewable energy.

            2. Somebody ought to point out that the economies of California and Texas are so large in large part because they are two of the largest states with a couple of the largest populations and well situated in just about every respect to be economic powerhouses.

              And it’s a well known truism that nothing succeeds like success. Once a state is going gang busters, it tends to attract the right sort of new people and businesses.

      2. Must be why California’s economy is bigger than all but five nations.
        To be fair, Texas is 10th, about a trillion dollars behind California in GDP.

        1. If California doesn’t do something about its stalled economy, Texas’ GDP will surpass that of California by 2025 given current trends.

          1. Glenn, you need to contact your doctor and have your meds adjusted

            7. But I hate to tell you this, but 12.6% growth over 9 years is not exactly setting the world on fire.

              Ironically it has, but not in a way that one would want…

            8. Glen is just pulling your strings. Ignore him. He stated above he is having a lot of fun here.
              To respond will just mean a lot of adolescent garbage filling the site.

            9. Over 19 years in that series, I see CA at 2.9% CAGR, and TX at 3.2%.

              That’s not much difference.

            10. Forget percentages, the California economy is growing faster than Texas by a large actual dollar amount.

            11. I’ve been around Texas and Calif.
              Nice place to Actually Live Score-
              Calif 847
              Texas 59

              [score considers climate, culture, economic indicators]

            14. WebHubTelescope (@whut),

              Why is it that you and so many others who frequent this website are so hostile to factual information?

              Why is it that, when presented with the facts, your only response is to shoot the messenger with a barrage of ad hominem?

          2. Glenn-
            If still alive, you have better odds that you will trading antibiotics for arrowheads with the tribe in the next valley in 2025.

        1. At 22c/kWh, my average monthly bill is $10.60. UK apartment: fridge, cooking, heating kitchen, computer, lighting, stereo.

          1. My electric bill is a very reasonable seventy to ninety bucks American per month, somewhat more in air conditioning season. But I heat water with electricity, do laundry and dry it with electricity, have two large refrigerators, food freezers, outside lights, a domestic water system powered with electricity, cook with electricity, and run quite a lot of power tools with grid juice as well. Plus the usual computer and other small devices.

            A substantial portion of the bill consists of taxes.

            Electricity for most people is a world class bargain. It certainly is a great bargain for me.

          1. A big reason that there are more poor people living in Calif is that they stay for the climate even if things don’t work out well economically for themselves.
            Secondly, many poor people and immigrants come to attempt to find a place in the vibrant economy. Those things happen in Texas as well.
            Not so much in Nebraska.

        2. America’s Future: California Or Texas?
          http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/americas-future-california-or-texas/

          A state’s poverty level is a good place to start for measuring the effectiveness of state policies that encourage job creation, self-sufficiency, and upward mobility. Since, for a variety of reasons, average poverty rates are higher among minority groups and immigrants, it’s important to both measure overall poverty rates and to compare rates between like demographic groups.

          1. Hi Glenn,

            Depends where you look for poverty rates

            http://www.povertyusa.org/the-state-of-poverty/poverty-map-state/#

            At the site linked above in 2014, overall poverty rate was higher in Texas than California.

            You seem to be a free market guy, for those types government should not be involved and the market decides optimal income distribution.

            In that case income per capita would be the best measure and California is way ahead of Texas on that score card.

            Data in chart below from FRED.
            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

            1. Dennis,

              Well yes, as both the stories I linked above explain in detail, it does “depend where you look for poverty rates.”

              The poverty rates that PovertyUSA cites are what are known as the “official poverty rates.”

              As the author of the article from the The Sacramento Bee explains, “The official poverty rate is based on a half-century-old formula that takes into account only a narrow range of incomes and living costs.”

              To be more specific, the official poverty rate takes into account only one cost: the national average cost of food.

              In 2016 the poverty threshold used for the official poverty rate for a family with two adults and two children was $24,339.
              https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html

              The threshold was the same for San Francisco as it was for Oklahoma City, even though living costs in San Francisco were far higher than what they were in Oklahoma City. It did not take into account the local cost of food, and completely omits any consideration for the cost of clothing, shelter and utilities.

              Given the obvious inadequacies of the official poverty rate, in 2010 the National Academy of Sciences announced that it had developed what is called the “Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM).”

              The SPM uses local food costs, and also takes into consideration the local cost of clothing, shelter and utilities to determine the poverty threshold.

              So you tell me, which poverty rate do you believe more accurately reflects the lived experience of real flesh and blood families, the official poverty rates that PovertyUSA cites, or the Supplemental Poverty Measure that the Sacramento Bee cites and was developed by the National Academy of Sciences?

      5. “What is ‘the economy’? What is that, that thing that there? Explain please… But look! And here! And here! That cannot be…
        Problem with translator…
        Take me to your leader…
        Hahaha no-no-no… Really? This one here? Really? You have good sense of humor…
        We will sail you to Mars on a solar starship… a solar panel photon starship. If you want. Because, the economy. You see. All hail, Righteous Economy. Grow! Grow!
        Like that? Did I say that right?” ~ Planetoid Warrior

        Hey Glenn… I think I saw you over at Gail’s house. You get around, don’t you? EV?

        …So, ok, what’s the deal– your take– with alternative energy and the economy in general? Should we go all-natural?
        If we do, how do we leave the planet for good, then?
        But maybe, just maybe, we can leave it for good in our minds. We can pretend it doesn’t exist. The economy and government will help. They must!

    5. “Market-driven solutions helped reduce CO2 emissions by 12% in the past decade.”

      And that’s why so many companies are getting greener. It is good business. It will continue to happen. As long as the administration doesn’t try to prevent the switch to cleaner energy and better energy efficiency, we’re headed that way.

      If Trump wants more jobs, implementing clean energy technology will create more than trying to maintain business as usual in declining industries.

      And as the world focuses on carbon reduction, more companies will want to be part of that market.

      Bucking Trump, These Cities, States and Companies Commit to Paris Accord – The New York Times: “Multinational companies will still need to follow ever-stricter emissions laws that other countries are adopting, no matter the location of their headquarters. Automakers like Ford Motor and General Motors would still need to build cars that meet stringent fuel economy and emissions standards in the European Union, Japan and even China, not to mention California.

      American companies also face the wrath of overseas consumers for abandoning what has been a popular global agreement — customers who could buy more Renaults instead of Chevrolets or Reeboks instead of Nikes.

      ‘Pulling out of Paris would be the worst thing for brand America since Abu Ghraib,’ said Nigel Purvis, a top environmental negotiator in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and the chief executive of Climate Advisers, a consulting firm.”

    6. Trump will stick to the withdrawal process laid out in the Paris agreement. That could take nearly four years to complete, meaning a final decision will be up to the American voters in the next presidential election. Just more smoke screen BS from the snowflake Trump.

  24. Trump seems to think it is going to be the US against the world. But I think it will end up being the world against the US.

  26. PIOMAS Arctic ice volumes from Amy are out – still well below any other year but the gap has closed a bit. The running average still lowest but it’s declining only about half as fast as six months ago; it might be turning to follow the quadratic tend line fitted to data up to last December. The weather forecast is for above freezing, high pressure and blue skies over most of the Arctic over the next two weeks, plus possibly setting up for a lot of transport of the smashed up ice to the Greenland Sea, so no help really in slowing any ice loss down.

    1. probably you will see the gap between years get big again very soon now that trump dumped Paris. like usual the globalist temp adjusters will want to teach America a lesson and get even at our president. as right now the score is Trump 1 – Climate Change Scientists 0. 🙄

        1. Sigh! Seems the Koch inspired troll bots are out in force around here recently.

          George Harmon
          Jason T
          Glenn E Stehle
          Charles Van Vleet
          mr.razler

          Oh, I almost forgot…

          Bob Frisky

          One can pretty much predict the timing of the onslaught of their idiotic comments by following what Faux News has on the air.

          1. Doesn’t take much of an education to see that ALL of the curves lately are well below the averages (which are themselves descending) and never cross an average line. What more blatant indicator of the progressive loss of Arctic ice volume can there be?

            One thing I notice is the dearth of news in the major media outlets about this unfolding situation. They will report some minor astronomical event or some communication satellite launch but climate is rarely reported let alone consistently tracked and detailed. Even the so called liberal ones (who spend large amounts of time on fluff).

            1. Doesn’t take much of an education to see that ALL of the curves lately are well below the averages (which are themselves descending) and never cross an average line. What more blatant indicator of the progressive loss of Arctic ice volume can there be?

              Oh, for a moment there, I thought you were going to say: “What more blatant indicator of the progressive loss of IQ can there be among science deniers”?

            2. How about “What more blatant indicator of the progressive loss of brain volume can there be among science deniers?”?

            3. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-trump-mit-idUSKBN18S6L0

              Massachusetts Institute of Technology officials said U.S. President Donald Trump badly misunderstood their research when he cited it on Thursday to justify withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.

              Trump announced during a speech at the White House Rose Garden that he had decided to pull out of the landmark climate deal, in part because it would not reduce global temperatures fast enough to have a significant impact.

              “Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100,” Trump said.

              “Tiny, tiny amount.”

              It would seem his brains are even tinier than his little hands… very, very tiny!

              Perhaps we should cut him a bit of slack, there isn’t a whole lot of peer reviewed science in any field, that he can follow on Faux News, which unfortunately is where gets his whole understanding of reality.

              On the other hand, here are some examples as to what ‘REAL’ scientists from around the world think about Trump’s action.

              https://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-reacted-to-the-us-leaving-the-paris-climate-agreement-1.22098

              How scientists reacted to the US leaving the Paris climate agreement
              What the United States’ departure from the historic pact means for efforts to fight global warming.

          2. Fred – you forgot the Wikiman, who acts like a performing seal and thinks that having learnt to copy and paste one article from wikipedia, even though he has no idea what that article is actually saying, we must all want to see him perform the trick over and over.

    2. Gap has lessoned a bit, but it is still 1200 cubic km’s below previous record low for the same time period.

  27. A fascinating paper on the development of high resolution climate grids and the distribution of weather stations around the world.
    http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/~barrylab/classes/climate_change/HijmansIJC2005.pdf

    I find it quite astounding that we are willing to spend many billions of dollars on satellite technology including missions to Mars and other planets to collect data, yet leave large and important parts of our own earth fairly unobserved and recorded. Why not put robotic probe systems on the Ice caps and other isolated regions, including drones? We could have thousands of these for the cost of a couple of space missions and get detailed information to corroborate and calibrate satellite data, as well as add to the total amount of information.

    Blank spots and doughnut holes, civilization is filled with them.

    1. Wow, lot to digest in that paper, I’ll come back to it later…

  28. WikiLeaks exposes Pandemic:
    Pandemic
    1 June, 2017

    Today, June 1st 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the “Pandemic” project of the CIA, a persistent implant for Microsoft Windows machines that share files (programs) with remote users in a local network. “Pandemic” targets remote users by replacing application code on-the-fly with a trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine. To obfuscate its activity, the original file on the file server remains unchanged; it is only modified/replaced while in transit from the pandemic file server before being executed on the computer of the remote user. The implant allows the replacement of up to 20 programs with a maximum size of 800 MB for a selected list of remote users (targets).

    As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with the “Pandemic” implant will act like a “Patient Zero” in the spread of a disease. It will infect remote computers if the user executes programs stored on the pandemic file server. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, it seems technically feasible that remote computers that provide file shares themselves become new pandemic file servers on the local network to reach new targets.

    2. Now, once that bacteria spreads to major weed species – won’t it be fun?

      NAOM

      1. To be fair that doesn’t seem very likely as it needs quite a bit of help through the artificial inoculation process. Though as we all know, nature does bat last…

        1. I am just recalling the history of GMO organisms transferring things like glyphos and Bt resistance. May be difficult, but these things seem to come to pass. Who wants kudzu on steroids?

          NAOM

    4. I grew up in Brazil and my extended family are farmers, soil scientists and agronomists so I am quite familiar with the fact that sugarcane has symbiotic intracellular nitrogen fixing bacteria living in it’s root cells. This is a huge natural advantage to sugarcane growers since it greatly reduces and in many case completely eliminates the need for the application of artificial nitrogen based fertilizers thereby allowing sugarcane to be grown in soils that would likely not be able to support other kinds of crops.

      So I did a bit of fact checking on ‘N-Fix’ technology and the science behind it. While the premise sounds promising the available peer reviewed information on it is a bit sparse and seems to come mostly from researchers who also happen to be principals in the company and own the patents on the technology, so there may be a certain level of conflict of interest involved. Though to be fair, they themselves clearly state that.

      In any case I found this paper in the Bio Med Central and it gives a good overview of the technology. To be clear, it is far from being a magic bullet but it does seem to show some promise on many different fronts.

      https://agricultureandfoodsecurity.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40066-016-0084-2
      Establishing symbiotic nitrogen fixation in cereals and other non-legume crops: The Greener Nitrogen Revolution
      David DentEmail authorView ORCID ID profile and Edward Cocking
      Agriculture & Food Security20176:7
      DOI: 10.1186/s40066-016-0084-2© The Author(s) 2017
      Received: 19 August 2016Accepted: 14 December 2016Published: 1 March 2017

      Abstract

      Haber’s invention of the synthesis of ammonia from its elements is one of the cornerstones of modern civilization. For nearly a century, agriculture has come to rely on synthetic nitrogen fertilizers produced from ammonia. This large-scale production is now supporting nearly half of the world’s population through increased food production. But whilst the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers brought enormous benefits, including those of the Green Revolution, the world needs to disengage from our ever-increasing reliance on nitrogen fertilizers produced from fossil fuels. Their pollution of the atmosphere and water systems has become a major global environmental and economic concern. Naturally, legume crops such as peas and beans can fix nitrogen symbiotically by interacting with soil nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, bacteria that become established intracellularly within root nodules. Ever since this was first demonstrated in 1888, consistent attempts have been made to extend the symbiotic interaction of legumes with nitrogen-fixing bacteria to non-legume crops, particularly cereals. In 1988, a fresh impetus arose from the discovery of Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus (Gd), a non-nodulating, non-rhizobial, nitrogen-fixing bacterium isolated from the intercellular juice of sugarcane. Subsequently, strains of Gd inoculated under specific conditions were shown to intracellularly colonize the roots and shoots of the cereals: wheat, maize (corn) and rice, as well as crops as diverse as potato, tea, oilseed rape, grass and tomato. An extensive field trials programme using a seed inoculum technology based on Gd (NFix®) indicates that NFix® is able to significantly improve yields of wheat, maize, oilseed rape and grasses, in both the presence and absence of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Evidence suggests that these benefits are accruing through a possible combination of intracellular symbiotic nitrogen fixation, enhanced rates of photosynthesis and the presence of additional plant growth factors. Here, we discuss the research events that have led to this important development and present results demonstrating the efficacy of NFix® technology in non-legume crops, in particular cereals.

    1. It could be worse – we didn’t quite get to RCP8.5 levels, except for N2O, although above RCP6 and RCP4.5 and trending higher. We just need that idiot to post the wiki article to tell us all about what trace gases are for the umpteenth time and everything will be fine.
      p.s. I got the mid year values straight from AGGI site, I don’t know why methane doesn’t converge to the RCP points.

      1. Looks like CO2 will cross the RCP 8.5 in the near future. Don’t worry with 8 billion people by 8 years from now and oil probably starting to fade, coal and natural gas burn will increase quickly.

        1. What most of the scenarios of a world at RCP 8.5 levels rarely address are carbon cycle feedbacks due to ocean acidification, especially as to the capacity of marine ecosystems and organisms such as corals, crabs, shrimp, molluscs, and calcareous phytoplankton to adapt to an accelerating decline in pH levels.

          Here’s a pretty good primer as to the basic chemistry: https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/Assets/Nemo/documents/lessons/Lesson_3/Lesson_3-Teacher's_Guide.pdf

          First, CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid (H2CO3-):
          (1) CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 –
          Carbonic acid can then dissociate into bicarbonate (H+ CO3-):
          (2) H2CO3 -> H+ + HCO3- –
          Bicarbonate can then dissociate into carbonate ions (CO3 –)
          (3) HCO3 -> H+ + CO3 —

          (1) CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3-

          (2) H2CO3 -> H+ + HCO3-

          (3) HCO3 -> H+ + CO3 —

          When first viewing these equations it may appear that both hydrogen ions and carbonate ions increase in solutions as a result of CO2 dissolving in seawater. This is not the case! This would be true if the reactions above only occurred in a single direction but chemical equations can actually go in either direction. A more correct representation of this would be:

          (4) CO2 + H2O H2CO3-

          (5) H2CO3- H+ + HCO3-

          (6) HCO3 H+ + CO3 —

          It is ultimately the rates of occurrence and net direction of the above reactions that determine seawater pH and carbonate availability. First when CO2 dissolves in seawater the primary reactions that occur are (1) and (2) going in the direction as listed.

          Equation (2) shows that formation of carbonic acid results in an increase in the hydrogen ion concentration (and thus a decrease in pH). This leaves equation (3) as a key player in determining carbonate availability in seawater. Chemical reactions in seawater can send any of the above equations in either direction as the system tries to maintain equilibrium. As more CO2 dissolves and H+ ions increase in solution, equation (3) will shift in the opposite direction (to the left) to produce bicarbonate. Thus in the system’s attempt to reduce the hydrogen ion concentration, it binds hydrogen and carbonate ions together thereby reducing carbonate availability to marine organisms.

          To get an idea as to what happens to CaCo3 structure in an acidic environment, just drop a small piece of chalk into a glass of vinegar…

          Cheers!

        2. This shows the CO2Eq numbers calculated from the radiative forcing that the AGGI page gives to three significant figures. The numbers presented in the AGGI for CO2Eq are rounded off to the nearest ppm so giving a difference of 4 for each year, but in fact it was 3.5 to mid year 2015 followed by 4.9 to 2016 – actually a marked acceleration. It will probably be less for year go to mid 2017, but if we get another El Nino is likely to be increasing again from now.

    2. “The only thing counter-balancing these high levels of greenhouse gases are the atmospheric sulfate aerosols, produced by such things as burning coal, that help reflect back the Sun’s energy. Without those, the Earth would already be on a rapid path to catastrophic climate change.”

      Apparently tripling the amount of coal burned since the 1960’s has not been enough to stop the temperature rise. We need to get rid of those catalytic converters to have a chance at that. 🙂

  31. Scott Pruitt, in his Whitehouse press conference Friday, made it clear that President Trump’s intent is to take the shackles off of domestic US oil and gas producers, lowering energy costs for US consumers, and also greatly reducing CO2 emissions:

    What we have to remember, when it comes to enviromental agreements and international agreements with respect to things like the Paris agrement, is we have nothing to be apologetic about as a country. We have reduced our CO2 footprint to levels of the early 1990s, and in fact from 2000 and 2014 we reduced our carbon footprint by over 18%. And that’s been largely accomplished through innovation and technology, not government mandate. So when we look at issues like this we are leading with action, not words….

    As the president emphasized in his speech, this administration, and the country as a whole, we have taken significant steps to reduce our CO2 footprint to levels of the pre 1990s. What you won’t hear, how did we achieve that? Largely because of technology — hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling — that has allowed a conversion to natural gas in the generation of electricity. You won’t hear that from the environmental left.

    And so we need to export clean coal technology. We need to export the technology in natural gas to those around the globe, India and China, and help them learn from us on what we have done to achieve good outcomes. We’ve led with action, not words.

    Paris truly, Paris at its core was a bunch of words committed to very minimal environmental benefits and cost this country a substantial amount of money and put us at an economic disadvantage.

    White House Press Briefing. June 2, 2017. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, EPA Scott Pruitt
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laxt1Ua7-Y4

      1. Trump is clearly incompetent. Anybody who still thinks that Trump is a good President is just down in the dirt dumb.

        1. “Why do working-class Bush voters tend to resent intellectuals more than they do the rich?” David Graeber asked in 2007. “It seems to me the answer is simple. They can imagine a scenario in which they might become rich but cannot possibly imagine one in which they, or any of their children, would become members of the intelligentsia.”

          For if you’re not a part of the intelligentsia, well, how can you possibly make the world better for your existence in it? This frustration, however, is precisely what makes perfectly decent people, whose only sin is that a self-arrogated cognitive elite doesn’t consider them particularly useful, such easy pickings for political con men who assure them that they’re actually the smart ones. And that, all in all, is not very smart.

          1. So how did that deplorables schtick work out for you in the last election?

            It never ceases to amaze how anti-liberal the “liberals” have become.

            1. Come now Glenn, you think I voted for HRC?
              Calling me a liberal is a low blow!
              Voted for Iraq War
              Voted for Patriot Act
              Voted for Keystone Pipeline
              Called TPP the “Gold Standard” of trade deals
              On the board of Wall Mart

              I could go on, but truthfully, she seems to like a wingnut like you,
              a huge wet dream!

            2. Yours is a touching testament of those who believe that Victorian strategies will still work in the 21st century.

              Cornel West described them in The Future of the Race, and they’re not too different from the elitist manifesto you spouted in your 8:20 AM comment.

              As West explains,

              “They rest upon three basic assumptions.

              First, that the self-appointed agents of Enlightenment constitute a sacrificial cultural elite engaged in service on behalf of the impulsive and irrational masses.

              Second, that this service consists of shaping and molding the values and viewpoints of the masses by managing educational and political bureaucracies.

              Third, that the effective management of these bureaucracies by the educated few for the benefit of the pathetic many promotes material and spiritual progress….

              [A] good Victorian critic…argues on rational grounds for the legitimacy of his cultural elite. They are worthy of leadership because they are educated and trained, refined and civilized, disciplined and determined. Most of all they have ‘honesty of heart’ and ‘purity of motive’.”

              But, as West objects,

              “Yet we have little reason to believe that people who delight in the works of geniuses like Motzart and Beetoven or Goethe and Wordsworth are any more or less humane than those who dance in the barnyards to the bajo plucking of nameless rural folk in Tennessee… Are they not just as prone to corruption and graft, envy and jealousy, self-destructive passion and ruthless ambition as everyone else?

              [T]here is still no emphatic call for accountability from below, nor any grappling with the evil that lurks in the hearts of all of us….

              A fuller understanding of the human condition should lead us far beyond any notions of free-floating elites, suspicious of the tainted masses — elites who worship at the altar of highbrow culture while ignoring the barbarity and besitality in their own ranks.”

            3. West is a Cabbage For Christ.
              You need to wade into the deeper end of the pool.

            4. If recalled, Hightrekker is an anarchist, like me, Glenn, and maybe like you, such as if you really think about it. Maybe you have already done so? And? Otherwise, maybe you’re into societal S&M?

              Fred Magyar may have crossed over to the dark side and decided to brown-nose the crony capitalist plutarchy/corporates, although he never really seemed to spelled it out if he was ever on the light side to begin with. So maybe his nose was already well-integrated. At the same time, is being a proponent of anarchy or anarchism the same as being an anarchist? Not necessarily, I would think, such as if one has two faces and/or says different things depending on which side of the mouth they come out of. (It is imagined one might especially have to speak out its sides if their nose was far enough up inside.)

              If the above made you think of general nation-state political discourse, you might be onto something.

              I think Cornel appeared in The Matrix, yes? It is apparently a modern day version– at least the first one– of Platos’ Cave. Plato’s Cave is apparently an allegory of the current societal (and of course, planetary) S&M.

              So, ok, can you give us a synopsis of what your own personal takeaway from your quote is? Like how Ron Patterson might do so under each graph when he posts an article?

              Also, nice to catch you here again like not quite the old days, and stirring things up. Last time, I wasn’t really paying as much attention to your comments as I might now, inasmuch as my time will allow. But try to elaborate on your quotes if you could and if you might not usually. Thanks!

            5. Glenn is either a repug that likes to deal drugs and oil, or a anarchist on training wheels.
              Probably the first.

            6. Let’s see what he says, if anything. Glenn?
              Also, you may wish to refresh your browser, as I’ve edited my comment in between that and eating over my laptop.

            7. Caelan,

              My synopsis of what my “own personal takeaway” of the Cornel West quote is?

              In short, one either believes in democracy, and “accountability from below” as West puts it, or they don’t.

            8. Glenn– wade a little deeper. West is a Cabbage for Christ.
              Really, you need a larger box to live in.
              You have no idea what democracy is.
              “Not even wrong”- you don’t know enough o even reject the analysis.

    5. Those natural gas producers were in favor of the Paris Accord because it encouraged countries to replace coal with natural gas. And the increase in natural gas use has put the US coal market in decline, which Trump claims he will save.

      The pull out of the Paris Accord was a political move, not an economic one. And it is already creating a backlash against the US. But that could end up being the issue that weakens US standing in the world. That’s a good thing if you feel it’s time for the US to have less global influence.

      1. It wasn’t that clearcut.

        The giant transnationals like ExxonMobil, with only 20% of its production and profits coming from inside the U.S., and 80% from outside, were all in favor of the Paris accord.

        The small domestic producers, however, were opposed to it.

        Neoliberalism, globalism and one-world governance are very much under attack now.

        Some in the energy industry, particularly smaller operators or those that work only in the United States, had found little to like in the Paris agreement.

        Texas Alliance of Energy Producers represents smaller oil and gas operators — not companies the size of ExxonMobil. Climate change regulations threaten to impose more costs on the 3,000 members, said chief lobbyist Bill Stevens.

        “We have a lot of respect for Exxon, but our primary membership is smaller independents,” Stevens said. “They’ve been struggling for the last two to three years with oil prices, trying not to go into bankruptcy.” Climate change is a “non-issue for them, and they’d as soon be out of Paris.”

        The energy industry-backed American Council for Capital Formation recently reported that the Paris accord would eliminate $3 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP) and 6.5 million jobs by 2040. Conservative group the Heritage Foundation last year predicted the Paris agreement would cause a GDP loss of $2.5 trillion and eliminate around 400,000 jobs.

        Despite Big Oil Support, Trump Calls For Exit From Paris Accord

        http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/110653-despite-big-oil-support-trump-calls-for-exit-from-paris-accord

        1. Any company selling natural gas has reason to support more natural gas use globally. This article was posted in this forum before and another person pointed out it had more to do with whether a company was primarily an oil producer or a natural gas producer more than it had to do with the size of the company.

          1. Where does the article say that?

            Can you point to where?

            Can you point to any article, or any evidence, that supports your claim?

            1. The article didn’t say that. Someone posted a comment here to the article suggesting it was more about a split between natural gas producers and oil producers than the size of the company.

              So while the article said it was big companies against little companies, someone here suggested it was natural gas producers against oil producers.

            2. What’s the definition of cognitive dissonance? I’d suggest some prat who believes in a one world governance conspiracy and at the same time asserts that any valid idea has to be supported by an article from the established media.

  32. Why pulling out of Paris Accord damages America’s economic future | TechCrunch: “People can disagree about the scientific premise behind climate change, but it’s an inescapable fact that the world is driving ahead to replace carbon energy with clean energy anyway. That makes advanced energy technologies one of the biggest business opportunities of the next couple of decades. The companies and nations that take the lead will become the next economic superpowers.”

    2. Dead on.

      Depletion in and of itself guarantees that either the world switches to renewable energy, or that the world reverts to an animal powered, wood fueled economy.

      My personal conclusion is that the Trump administration is simply doing what’s politically expedient from the administration’s pov, short term, while displaying the usual Trump administration disregard for the long term and for the truth.

      BUT

      It’s possible that the American economy will do better over the next two or three years with the emphasis taken off renewables and put back on fossil fuels, and this could conceivably help Trump and the Republicans get re elected. Politicians generally put the short term first.

      Plus of course by de emphasizing renewable energy, Trump is putting big bucks in the pockets of his friends in the fossil fuel industry, etc.

      Trump is accelerating our (American ) relative decline in relation to the rest of the world, no doubt.

      My personal opinion is that the renewable energy industries will continue to technically advance and grow at a blistering pace on world wide basis no matter what Trump does or does not do.

      More countries than not are acutely aware of the problems associated with importing and paying for fossil fuels even today, and well aware that in the future, these problems can only be expected to get worse, given a growing world population and economy, and a depleting supply of fossil fuels.

      The political and economic incentives are all on the side of renewable energy, conservation, etc, in in countries that have to import large quantities of fossil fuel.

  34. This could be a good thing if you believe the US has been too dominant.

    Why Trump Actually Pulled Out Of Paris – POLITICO Magazine: “He is creating an intentional leadership vacuum, dispensing with the long-standing notion of the United States as the indispensable nation—just as he did when he withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in Asia, with his tepid commitments to NATO on his trip to Europe, and with his proposal for drastic budget cuts in foreign aid and international diplomacy. … He’s opening the door for China and Europe to take over the role of global leaders on climate change, and maybe the world’s other major problems.”

    1. One could argue that Trump has become the vehicle to end US dominance of the world. Should make for interesting times.

        1. When you are the largest county on Earth, with massive resources, a small and well educated population, no international debt, and a military that no one will mess with (vaporization of your enemy at will), things are not all that bad.
          Jest saying!

    2. Thank goodness.

      Playing world policeman comes with a huge pricetag and only a few crumbs for the everyday American.

      It’s an indulgence which the weary titan can no longer afford.

      1. I think many on the left would also support a pullback of US global military operations.

        I follow military strategy pretty closely, and I am curious how the US military might be reshaped if politics suggests we go this direction. How big a military do we need if we no longer plan to be occupying countries and fighting wars across the globe?

        1. “When governing groups are deprived of their special economic privileges, their interests will be more nearly in harmony with the interests of the total national society.

          At present the economic overlords of a nation have special interests in the profits of international trade, in the exploitation of weaker peoples and in the acquisition of raw materials and markets, all of which are only remotely relevant to the welfare of the whole people….

          [T]he unequal distribution of wealth under the present economic system concentrates wealth which cannot be invested, and produces goods which cannot be absorbed, in the nation itself. The whole nation is therefore called upon to protect the investments and the markets which the economic overlords are forced to seek in other nations.”

          — REINHOLD NIEBUHR, Moral Many & Immoral Society

          1. Again, a reduction of the US military and our military presence around the world would be supported by most liberal voters.

            I realize that Trump is selling the idea to his supporters by talking about “America First,” but if the net result is less military action by the US, liberals will be happy with the result.

            The “talk tough but cut the military budget and pull back on military operations” may be the way to accomplish goal.

            1. I can discern no consistency in Trump’s policies.

              He seems to be intent upon forcing regime change in Syria. This could escalate into a direct confrontation with Russia and Iran, and seems to be no different than the foreign policy advocated by Hillary Clinton.

              He also seems to be in love with Reaganomics, which has not at all been beneficial to the 90%.

              But on the other hand, he proposed to cut military spending to a level below what Obama had proposed, which set off a howl from the Republicrat war party.

              He’s taken on the deep state and tried to get this unelected, burearocratic directorate under the control of our elected officials.

              So I’ve just about given up on trying to figure him out. He’s a man of many contradictions.

            2. kakistocracy (plural kakistocracies)

              Government under the control of a nation’s worst or least-qualified citizens.

  36. I have asked this question several times before, without getting the hoped for results, but hope is eternal, lol.
    Does any body here have links to professionally written articles that discuss the effects of having a lot of wind and solar power on the grid on the market prices of coal and natural gas?

    I have a thousand links about the relationship between wind and solar power and the PRICE OF ELECTRITY, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

    A B C level economics theory tells us that when you substitute commodity A for commodity B, the sale of B declines, and so does the price of B, as the usual consequence.

    The substitution of wind and solar energy for coal and gas energy in generating electricity is obviously reducing the sale of both as generating fuel.

    I’m looking for any numbers or estimates of the numbers involved.

    My sneaky suspicion and firm hope is that the tax money we are spending on subsidizing the wind and solar industries is or will in the not too distant future be returned to society as a whole, plus a profit, by way of lower prices for coal and gas, which in turn means lower prices for food, cars, washing machines, bridges, etc.

    Of course this also means some very real pain for coal mining people, and I care about them, but I don’t give a crap about the owners of the coal industry itself.

    If I’m right, this is a very powerful argument in favor of subsidizing renewable electricity, one that will go down JUST FINE with the typical man and woman you meet on the street.

    1. While I understand what you are looking for… To be honest, I only put in a half hearted effort in looking for something that directly answers your search criteria. I couldn’t really find even one well written paper that specifically addresses your question.

      As you said, there are tons of sources, both from the lefty cornucopian hippie greenie weenies and the righty luddite hopey brownie wownies with the reality being somewhere in between them:

      First from the cornucopian lefty hippie greenie weenies:

      https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/25/cost-of-solar-power-vs-cost-of-wind-power-coal-nuclear-natural-gas/

      Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas

      And from the righty luddite hopey brownie wownies
      http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Natural-Gas-Is-Already-Losing-To-Renewables.html

      Natural Gas Is Already Losing To Renewables

      Fact of the matter is, you’d need to probably do the research and analysis yourself to get exactly what you are looking for by reading between the lines of a lot of articles and papers such as the ones I linked to above.

      My hunch is, you are probably right that as more renewables come on line, it will negatively affect the market value of natural gas and especially coal making them less and less economically viable as an energy source.

      1. Thanks Fred,

        Unfortunately I’m already an old fart and my skill set doesn’t include the ones needed to do the research and crunch the numbers, and I don’t have years enough left to justify learning them, nor disposable income enough to hire out the job.

        But I’m sure as hell that somebody has done some work on this possibility, and my cynical old gut tells me that if my case can be made in a convincing fashion………..

        Show a man something that improves his own personal economic situation, and he is very apt to find reasons to support it.

      2. Fred,

        the cleantechnica article used numbers and pics published by Lazard, not a green organisation per se but an US based investment bank, which have produced very good data the last decade. 🙂

  37. Trump Dumps the Paris Climate Agreement, But Big Companies Will Still Fight Climate Change | WIRED: “Facebook’s data centers, those energy-gulping engines of the knowledge economy, are now powered by 100 percent clean and renewable wind energy. The company aims to power all of its operations with at least 50 percent clean and renewable energy by next year. Facebook also negotiates renewable energy tariffs on behalf of itself and other businesses and has open sourced its data center designs for other tech companies to build atop. Meanwhile, Google expects to run its entire global operation, including data centers, on 100 percent renewable energy this year. The new Apple Park is already running on 100 percent renewable energy. Last year alone, Apple reduced its carbon emissions by nearly 585,000 metric tons.

    And while President Trump framed this decision as an effort to protect American workers, Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric, one of the top employers in the country, was among the loudest voices advocating to stay in.

    ‘As a company we think that climate change is real,’ Immelt recently told students at Georgetown University adding that the withdrawal is ‘not going to change one thing that we do regarding energy efficiency…and I think all business is going to feel the same way.’

    But the private sector’s commitment to sustainability extends far beyond tech. In April, Walmart announced its plan to remove one gigaton of emissions from its supply chain by 2030, the equivalent of taking 211 million cars off the road for a year. And just this week, Exxon shareholders overwhelmingly voted in favor of the company sharing more transparent information about the impact of climate change on its business.”

    “This global agreement gives governments around the world a chance to stand up for the businesses in their own backyards and know that their fellow signatories will listen. ‘The risk is that the world will move forward in a way that doesn’t reflect US corporate interests,’ Deese says.

    The United States, in other words, has just walked away from the bargaining table where the framework for the future will be created.”

  38. “There is no sense in going along with BAU unless you still have your thumb in your mouth. At your ages. Rush hour? What’s the rush?! Self-driving electric cars? That’s for kids.

    You want a challenge? You want to really use your cerebral cortex? Then wriggle out of your diapers and deal with politics and poverty.

    Electric cars and Space X are glorified Tonkas. For sandboxes. For Musk and his asinine adolescent fantasies– cars and moon rockets. While overseas people have their simple, wholesome lives poisoned by, often foreign, industry. Do you know or do you care what industry actually does, beyond its front-end, what it wants you to see only? I doubt it.

    If we remove the current status-quo-modus-operandi-cum-mental-model, then everything can change (and make real transition a walk in the park, rather than some half-assed kludge that prolongs the agony). If we don’t then we just continue to suck at the teet of BAU while we foul our nest (crap our diapers) and continue the burning.

    The whole rush-hour-going-to-work premise is completely whacked.

    Some of you don’t really want disruption. You want a greewashed BAU. If you wanted disruption, you’d be talking real social change.

    So you want to stay infantile? Then you will cling tenaciously to ‘technology’ and drool and babble on with its details to the exclusion of what really matters in your miserable existence here on the only home you have. And the little monsters will (continue to) be us.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

    ” ‘Some of you don’t really want disruption. You want a greewashed BAU.’ [~ Caelan MacIntyre]

    Yep.

    You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.” ~ Glenn Stehle

    Synchronicity 2
    “Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
    Contestants in a suicidal race…”

    Spirits In The Material World
    “If it’s something we can’t buy
    There must be another way…”

    1. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
      – Jiddu Krishnamurti

        1. “Fishing is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that”

      3. “… So money goes toward those who will create even more of it. But, basically economic growth means that you have to find something that was once nature and make it into a good, or was once a gift-relationship and make it into a service. You have to find something that people once got for free or did for themselves or for each other, and then take it away and sell it back to them, somehow. By turning things into commodities, we get cut off from nature in the same ways we are cut off from community.” ~ Charles Eisenstein

        There are of course right ways and wrong ways to do things.

        Hightrekker, maybe this is what your babe in bed did when she got up:

  39. Wow, 20% renewable first quarter 2017- way ahead of schedule…

    According to the EIA, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal power accounted for 10.68 percent of total electricity generation in the first quarter of 2017. If you include electricity from conventional hydroelectric plants, renewables made up nearly a fifth of total electricity generation—as much as 19.35 percent.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/renewable-energy-generation-in-the-us-dramatically-exceeds-2012-predictions/

  40. http://fortune.com/2017/06/04/toyota-tesla-collaboration-sale/

    Some people including the author of this link think Toyota is putting just about all the company’s research bets on fuel cells, and almost none on batteries.

    Maybe so.

    But it’s obvious enough that if Toyota can simply BUY batteries, or battery technology, five or ten or twenty years down the road, well then, in that case Toyota WILL NOT be way behind all the rest of the industry in case fuel cells don’t pan out. There’s not really much all that difference in a conventional car and an electric car, in terms of building it, with the exception of the battery, and there will be even less difference between battery powered electrics and fuel cell powered electrics.

    Not many people seem to be giving it very much thought, but the fact is that a lot of battery patents are already expired, or will be expiring soon, and most of the relevant patents still in effect are probably not actually on the battery itself, but rather on the technologies involved in manufacturing the battery.

    Batteries that are “good enough” and generic and reasonably cheap may be the rule in ten years or so. If Toyota has to use such batteries, and they perform almost as well as the newest ones just out, Toyota will still be well positioned to sell electric cars, and beyond that, Toyota will probably have cash and clout enough at the bank to simply BUY a state of the art battery company, thereby solving the battery supply issue.

    If fuel cells do pan out, I expert that it will take at least a decade to build the first wave of hydrogen fueling stations that will have to be built in order to sell hydrogen fueled cars in substantial numbers.

    That’s a long time, in the commercial world, but look at the flip side, depending on how the tech of hydrogen production plays out, if fuel cells do indeed scale up well.

    If ways are found to produce free hydrogen at VERY LOW cost from water or abundant low value bio materials and wind and solar electricity, we would basically be home free in terms of short term energy storage. Cheap fuel cells in homes and businesses would make it possible to get rid of just about all our coal fired electricity, and quite a lot of gas fired juice as well.

    I don’t think it would be necessary to lay hydrogen lines all over the place, anymore than it is natural gas lines in order to have gas or lp gas out in the countryside. Hydrogen could be delivered by trucks- trucks fueled with hydrogen, lol, although truck delivery would depend on one more lucky card- the availability of reasonably cheap hydrogen storage tanks.

    I haven’t run across much in the way of links that are about the possibility of storing hydrogen underground after the fashion that gas is stockpiled in the warm months for use during the following winter.

    Any links dealing with the storage of hydrogen in large quantities for long periods of time, weeks to months, will be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

    Shipping hydrogen in pipelines will require the use of some sort of special steel or lining for the pipes, but it can be done, and it seems likely that it would be much easier and cheaper to build hydrogen pipelines than it would be to build high voltage direct current transmission lines to move wind and solar energy from the places it’s plentiful to the places it’s needed.

    Pipelines once built are not eyesores, and a ruptured hydrogen line won’t result in any significant environmental problems, so there probably won’t be any insurmountable political problems associated with hydrogen distribution.

    1. It’s the Japanese government that’s pushing fuel cells; they have committed to the infrastructure so both Toyota and Honda have fuel cell cars. The Toyota Miri: https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html

      Also, in the US there are some incentives pushing fuel cells. There are EV credits that car manufacturers need and they can buy them from Tesla (or others) if they don’t have enough. But, You get a lot more credits for a fuel cell car than a battery one. It is possible to get the higher credit with a battery, it just needs to have a range of 300 miles and recharge to 95% in less than 15 minutes (which Tesla is working on).

      Here is a demo of a hydrogen refuel station, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hAlsGtrJrY

      If the H2 comes from something renewable it’s a lot less efficient to use hydrogen than it is to use batteries. You have to make the fuel, compress it, transport it, etc.

      1. Hi Preston,

        You have made a very important point.

        Efficiency really matters, and at first glance it looks as if batteries are the clear winners, based on efficiency.

        But in the long term, it’s possible that fuel cells may actually be a lot cheaper than batteries, and that they might not require as much in the way of expensive materials which could be in short supply. Lithium could get to be pretty expensive someday, if it’s needed in quantities sufficient to build millions of large capacity batteries per year, or even per month.

        It’s also possible that wind and solar farms will be built out to the extent that there will be substantial amounts of otherwise useless basically free electricity,quite a lot of the time, unless some opportunistic use can be made of it, and manufacturing hydrogen gas could be just the ticket in that respect. The opportunity to use this otherwise surplus electrical energy to manufacture hydrogen would of course go a long way towards justifying the construction of wind and solar farms on the grand scale needed to ensure adequate production on windless or cloudy days. There will be some other uses for it as well of course, such as manufacturing ammonia once natural gas is in short supply- and eventually it WILL BE in short supply , due to depletion.

        It seems to me that storing renewable electrical energy in the form of hydrogen will very likely be WAY WAY cheaper and easier than storing it in batteries. I just can’t see enough batteries being available to store enough electricity to deal with a week of bad weather, never mind enough to get thru the winter when solar production will be way down EVERY day, compared to summer.

        The storage problem and distribution problem is the last, biggest and only major technical hurdle between current day fossil fuel business as usual and a fossil fuel free renewable energy future.

        I can’t see swapping out batteries ever really being a practical way of extending the range of cars and getting the range of battery powered heavy trucks up to a level that will make them practical for other than very limited local use.

        Such batteries are for now and will for quite some time to come too expensive and too large and heavy and the electrical connections are too touchy to swap them easily and quickly and economically. Furthermore, they aren’t standardized in terms of size and shape, or voltage , etc, and standardization sufficient to enable swapping on the grand scale would be very tough, maybe impossible.

        And even if swapping is technically manageable in and of itself, a battery swapping station capable of charging dozens or hundreds of such batteries simultaneously would require a hell of a heavy duty grid connection, which could be a big problem in and of itself.

        Fuel tanks on the other hand can very easily be standardized, and swapping them out is easy and fast, depending on how big they are of course. Only a very few sizes would be needed, and the connecting hardware, mounting brackets, etc are already standardized and in commercial use. A typical small car might need only one small one to go all day, or maybe two. One or two middle sized ones would be enough for a pickup truck, and maybe four large ones, slung under the trailer, would likely be enough for an eighteen wheeler to roll all day, etc.

        Hydrogen tanks are still very expensive and heavy in relation to their capacity, but there is a very real possibility that they will be cheap enough and capacious enough within a few years to giterdone.

        The physics and chemistry involved are over my ancient head, but the tech has something to do with the hydrogen being absorbed onto or into some sort of spongy material rather than simply compressed. It already works in the lab, maybe it will work in the real world as well.

        I’m not betting any of my own money on these technologies, lol, but I wouldn’t bet against them, lol. I would put some money on them if I thought I would live long enough to see the long term payoff.

        “Predictin’s hard, ‘specially the future” , sez Yogi.

        1. Good points OFM, it doesn’t hurt to have some alternatives.

          I know Tesla is working on long haul trucking solutions using batteries but hydrogen fuel cells might work better for long haul trucks – leaving the limited battery supplies for passenger vehicles.

          Battery based cars charge at home so you always leave home with a full tank – you don’t get that feature with fuel cells. However, fuel cells can be run in reverse or maybe they could make a home hydrogen generator using electricity and water. No one is thinking about that now because we are all used to trips to the gas station, but electric car uses really love never having to go to a gas station.

          1. Hint— long haul trucking using batteries is not possible with current technology.

            1. Well, wired liked the idea https://www.wired.com/2017/04/tesla-electric-truck/

              But you are right, with only 200 or maybe 300 miles of range it’s not exactly long haul. They mention adding a fuel cell to boost the range to 1000 miles, so that’s pretty good. They are talking about 600 or 800 KWhr batteries; charging them fast is an interesting problem.

            2. Still is not a reality.
              We shall see when the rubber meets the road, and like many of Tesla’s ideas, they often end up in the waste bin.
              (not that that is bad- failure is part of science and wisdom).
              But Tired writers are often techno narcissist by self selection.
              This author thinks it can’t happen for biophysical reasons:
              http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319263731

            3. From the article:

              “Granted, EV drivers visiting the most popular Supercharger stations often find themselves waiting in a queue. Selling the Model 3 in any significant numbers will exacerbate that problem, so you can imagine what might happen if Tesla starts building big rigs. ‘They’re also going to run into problems with the grid—just try charging 100 trucks at one location,’ says Milton.”

              Again, it’s important to also keep the idea of hard/natural limits, scale, numbers and time and their interplays in mind.

              Just because, say, the ‘prices are coming down’, or ‘this or that is possible’ doesn’t necessarily mean anything per se, and can be reckless, foolish, dangerous and myopic ways of thinking and looking at things.

              BTW, in the sunshine and actually outside and off the computer, I ran into someone yesterday, in their late 60’s by their own admission, who’s into beekeeping and uses a hive called a ‘top bar’ or ‘African/Kenyan’ hive. They have also, unsurprisingly, planted a lot of flowering plants. Good fun, minus the odd sting I guess. But it’s self-empowerment, community-empowerment, and nature-empowerment all wrapped up into one, and only one small, if important, example.

              Win-win-win.

              It’s working with nature and our natural keystones– a novel concept for some people, apparently.

              The image isn’t of him, but I get a feeling that this guy would agree with the aforementioned.

    2. Depending on your definition of “electric vehicle”, Toyota has more experience in them than everyone else combined. Their best-selling Prius hybrid has all the elements of an electric vehicle – high-voltage battery storage, electric motor drive train, high kW power electronics. And they’ve researched, engineered, and built millions of them over the past 20 years. Their new 20-mile-range Prius-Prime plug-in PHEV is selling like hot-cakes and will likely end up being the most popular plug-in hybrid in the world by the end of the year. Just 4 months on the market and it is starting to out-sell the Chevy Volt PHEV.

      The key area Toyota may be weak on is autonomous vehicle technology. GM is really all-in with that technology which, paired with wireless-self-charging EV’s, will revolutionize personal transportation :

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/business/general-motors-self-driving-cars-mary-barra.html

      1. So what.

        Where are you going? What are you fleeing?

        The revolution of personal human transportation happened a long time ago. They’re called legs/feet.

    2. Hi benjamin,

      Reduce pseudo-economic activity, then there is less of a need to replace.

  44. Quit Paris Agreement, urge Coalition MPs
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/quit-paris-agreement-urge-coalition-mps/news-story/4e25dcd83c8c6b2069d6d0ae3a366421

    A breakaway group of Coalition MPs is urging Malcolm Turnbull to consider pulling Australia out of the Paris climate accord after Donald Trump abandoned the agreement and shattered the international consensus on limiting global temperature increases….

    Several Coalition backbenchers spoke out to question the value of the Paris Agreement and whether Australia should reconsider its involvement. Queensland senator Ian Macdonald called for a review to consider an Australian withdrawal, arguing Mr Trump’s decision would “bring a new serious look at the whole question of climate change”.

    “I think with America now out, China and India lukewarm at best, then what is the point of the Paris accord?” Senator Macdonald said.

    Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen said he did not subscribe to the theory of “catastrophic anthropogenic climate change”, describing the Paris Agreement as “pretty much pointless”.

    “I would prefer that we weren’t part of it given that it’s non-binding,” Mr Christensen said. “I realise the Australian government’s position is that, with or without the US, we’re staying in the Paris Agreement. However, if it was my call we would be out.”

    Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the US withdrawal required Australia to “reconsider our own approach”, while NSW colleague Craig Kelly said the government should “monitor” Australian involvement.

    “If you look at the details of Paris, it clearly put the US at a substantial comparative disadvantage vis-a-vis China and Russia,” Mr Kelly said. “It’s clearly not in Australia’s interests for the American economy to be weakened.”

    Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi said: “We should withdraw from the Paris Agreement. I think it’s entirely pointless. Nothing Australia does in this space is going to change the temperature or the climate by any measure.”

  45. German carmakers fear losing competitive edge after U.S. Paris exit
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-german-carmakers-idUSKBN18T1Q0?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5931c4f004d3010e2771c95a&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

    Germany’s powerful car industry said Europe would need to reassess its environmental standards to remain competitive after the United States said it would withdraw from the Paris climate pact….

    “The regrettable announcement by the USA makes it inevitable that Europe must facilitate a cost efficient and economically feasible climate policy to remain internationally competitive,” Matthias Wissmann, president of the German auto industry lobby group VDA, said in a statement on Friday.

    “The preservation of our competitive position is the precondition for successful climate protection. This correlation is often underestimated,” Wissmann said, adding that the decision by the Unites States was disappointing.

    The VDA said electricity and energy prices are already higher in Germany than in the United States, putting Germany at a disadvantage.

    The VDA represents carmakers including BMW (BMWG.DE), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler (DAIGn.DE).

    The VDA’s warning comes as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the strongest advocates of the global pact to curb emissions of gases that speed climate change, said there was no turning back from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

      1. Negative Electricity Prices Are Not A Sign Of Renewable Success
        https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2016/02/19/negative-electricity-prices-are-not-a-sign-of-renewable-success/#2e7d51803806

        Advocates of wind and solar power often point to low or negative prices for electricity in wholesale markets with a heavy reliance on those sources as representing success, but this reflects their ignorance of the utility system and basic economics and is misleading as to the true cost of power from these sources.

        The first mistake is thinking that negative prices reflect the low cost of production. In the short term, prices are driven by the market balance, not production costs since obviously costs are never negative.

        Another mistake can be seen in the tendency of some advocates to point to specific periods of low prices, rather than overall prices. The best example is in Germany, with its aggressive promotion of renewable power. One advocate argued that, “Even as GE’s Chairman griped that a German steel mill pays four times the typical U.S. industrial power price (perhaps reflecting a confusion between U.S. and Euro cents), the average German wholesale price for June 2013—essentially the price such big industries pay—fell to a record low of 2.8 Euro cents or 3.7 U.S. cents per kWh, well below his 5-cent U.S. benchmark.”

        Compare and contrast with a report from Der Spiegel in September 2013: “For society as a whole, the costs have reached levels comparable only to the euro-zone bailouts. This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants — electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion.”

        The reality is that German electricity prices have been inordinately high, in part because of the temporarily elevated price of natural gas imports from Russia, but also because of the growing reliance on renewable energy. I don’t have 2013 data, but the IEA reports that in 2015, German prices were 17.9 cents per kwh for industry, and 39.5 cents per kwh for residential customers, versus 7 and 12.5 cents respectively in the U.S.

        Why do prices go negative sometimes? Not because of impressive efficiency gains in power production, but because of market imbalances. Wind and solar are not just intermittent, but unpredictable, meaning supply fluctuates frequently and rapidly, often leading to gluts of power which cannot be stored. Utilities find themselves having to choose between shutting down conventional plants or dumping supplies on the market, essentially paying buyers to take them. Coal and nuclear plants cannot be started or stopped quickly, and while gas turbines are more flexible, running them intermittently as backup drives up their costs.

          1. Fred, were or are you somehow involved in the solar panel biz? If so, how did it go, or how is it going?

            “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~ Upton Sinclair

      2. As I understand it, Germany and the German people made a collective decision to pay high residential electricity rates , which subsidize both the domestic renewable energy industries and industrial electricity customers to a considerable extent.

        The trade off comes in two parts for the German domestic customer. First off, Germany is an exporting nation, a nation just about as dependent on importing raw materials and exporting finished goods- EXPENSIVE high quality high priced per item goods- as any nation anywhere. So German workers and consumers benefit from having pretty decent economy that provides LOTS of jobs, good wages, and LOTS of taxes.

        The other trade off is that while Germans pay high prices for electricity NOW, later on Germany will be far better positioned economically, due to having to import far less fossil fuel as generating fuel, saving the country megabucks in hard earned foreign exchange money.

        And of course if as most of us in this forum believe will be the case,eventually, when it becomes NECESSARY to do without large quantities of fossil fuels at any price, due to depletion, nationalism and hoarding among exporting countries,war, etc, then the countries that have the biggest head start and best trained people will dominate the renewables industries, which are dead sure to be one of the biggest of big new things.

        We hear a lot about how the Chinese are long term thinkers,but not so much about Germans when it comes to long term thinking. Personally I believe the Germans as a people are one of the most forward looking nations on earth, and that they have a VERY good grasp of the catastrophic problems they will be facing unless they succeed in giving up the importation of fossil fuels on the grand scale.

        I also believe that it will be impossible for the Germans to maintain their current high living standards based on exporting automobiles and similar goods, long term, because other countries with much lower environmental standards and much lower paid workers can and will succeed in building automobiles and sell them cheaper than Germany can.

        The building of automobiles and similar goods is basically a race to the bottom in a globalized world. Even here in the USA, it’s a race to the bottom, with the manufacturers leaving the northern states and moving production to southern states where they can operate more profitably, and sell cheaper, which they MUST do, if they expect to compete with Asian manufacturers in American domestic market.

        If Germany is to succeed as an exporting nation long term, success will depend on dominating NEW large scale industries, industries which require the sort of training and skills that make German workers renowned as among the world’s best.

        I have worked with some of them, personally, and they are so good it’s scary, with for example the average sort of German trades guy with say three or four years of experience as good as the best of our domestic guys with three times the experience.

        They just flat out take job training a hell of a lot more seriously than we do. I learned almost everything I know about trade work piecmeal on the job. A German welder knows as much the day he leaves welding school as I knew after a decade or two of welding intermittently, and he knows stuff I NEVER learned at all, although I held some top level certifications. His knowledge is comprehensive ,whereas mine is or was broad, and deep in many respects, but dangerously spotty in other respects.

        1. “As I understand it, Germany and the German people made a collective decision to pay high residential electricity rates , which subsidize both the domestic renewable energy industries and industrial electricity customers to a considerable extent. ”

          That is correct. And one could add that the average monthly bill of a German household is not higher than the bill of an US citizen.

          “I also believe that it will be impossible for the Germans to maintain their current high living standards based on exporting automobiles and similar goods, long term, because other countries with much lower environmental standards and much lower paid workers can and will succeed in building automobiles and sell them cheaper than Germany can.”

          Here I disagree. In real industry pay of workers are only a small issue, despite contrary propaganda. 🙂

          Hint: BMW admits that worker pay is only 5% of the costs in a modern factory. It is hard to save much, when the alternative sites have a worse infrastructure and not well trained workers.

          And in many fields other low wage countries can not compete quality wise.

  46. Australia likes to think of itself as being a leader in green energy, taking great strides to “save the planet” from CAGW. The ban on fracking in Victoria is a perfect example.

    However, it’s pure hypocrisy and delusional thinking………

    FACTS AND FIGURES

    Black coal is Australia’s second-highest export commodity.

    Australia is the world’s leading coal exporter.

    In 2009-2010 Australia exported 293.4 million tonnes of black coal to 33 destinations.

    Black exports have increased by more than 50% over the past 10 years.

    Japan takes 39.3% of Australia’s black coal exports – the largest share, with a total of 115.3 million tonnes exported last financial year.

    China is our second largest market with 42.4 million tonnes in 2009-2010, almost double the previous year.

    Australia was the only one of the world’s 33 advanced economies to grow in 2009 during the worst global recession since the Great Depression.

    http://www.minerals.org.au/resources/coal/exports/facts_and_figures

    Australia’s thermal coal exports to rise 0.7%/year through fiscal 2021-2022
    https://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/sydney/australias-thermal-coal-exports-to-rise-07year-27810513

  47. There’s a been a lot of Glen around here these days. Oops, grab the mops! Clean up in aisle 4! There’s been another Glen spill…
    .

        1. Ha! Ha! Ha!

          I’ll try to remember that as I’m headed to the bank to cash my oil and gas royalty checks.

  48. Monday morning Quiz – Who arranged the assassination of JFK? CIA or Texas Oilmen.. Anyone confused?

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-04/putin-hints-jfk-was-murdered-deep-state-which-now-after-trump-and-russia

    OIL Depletion Allowance – JFK vs Texas oilmen

    “On 17th January, 1963, JFK presented his proposals for tax reform. This included relieving the tax burdens of low-income and elderly citizens. Kennedy also claimed he wanted to remove special privileges and loopholes. He even said he wanted to do away with the oil depletion allowance. It is estimated that the proposed removal of the oil depletion allowance would result in a loss of around $300 million a year to Texas oilmen.

    After the assassination of JFK, LBJ dropped the government plans to remove the oil depletion allowance. Richard Nixon followed his example and it was not until the arrival of Jimmy Carter that the oil depletion allowance was removed.”

    1. Longtimber,

      Is that quote you cited part of the ZeroHedge article?

      I couldn’t find it anywhere in the article.

    2. And if the deep state is available to the rich and powerful to knock off U.S. presidents they don’t like, do you reckon Warren Buffett will contract it to knock off Trump?

      After all, Trump has threatened to wean Buffett’s wind energy business off the public teat.

      • One of the biggest winds at green energy’s back is coming from the world’s second-richest man, Warren Buffett.

      • Buffett and his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway have spent more than $17 billion on renewable energy since 2004.

      • Two years ago at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual power conference Buffett pledged to nearly double that. This year Berkshire is on track to spend almost $1 billion on its Iowa wind facilities alone.

      • The fastest-growing portion of Berkshire’s energy business is MidAmerican, which generated $524 million in operating income in the first nine months of 2016, up $102 million from the same period a year ago. A third of that came from wind.

      • Greg Abel, CEO of Berkshire’s energy division, in 2015 earned $1 million in salary, but also collected an $11.5 million performance bonus, and a one-time, $28 million payment from a long-term compensation plan.

      • In early 2016, Berkshire announced its largest project yet, a 2,000-megawatt wind complex in Iowa. Construction on the $3.6 billion project begins in 2017.

      • Ater the new project in Iowa is complete, Buffett will likely be the largest producer of wind energy in America.

      • A huge part of Berkshire’s wind-energy play is pegged to tax credits, of which it recognized $336 million in 2016.

      • The government is set to phase those out over the next decade, and that may accelerate under President-elect Trump, who has called global warming a hoax and who has said he doesn’t want to subsidize wind power.

      • The biggest wild card in wind’s future may be federal tax credits. A utility like Berkshire’s MidAmerican can lower its tax liability through production credits for 10 years for each project. The federal government offers a tax credit of 2.3¢ for every kilowatt-hour produced.

      • MidAmerican’s new Iowa project alone, once finished, will generate over $29 million a year in tax credits for Berkshire.

      • Buffett freely admits that without the tax credit his desire to get into wind energy would have been greatly diminished.

      • In an interview with the New York Times in November, Trump said of wind-power projects, “We’re subsidizing windmills all over this country [and] for the most part they don’t work… I wouldn’t want to subsidize it.”

      • Trump’s closest energy advisers, like Carl Icahn and Harold Hamm (who each own oil companies), have been calling for an end to subsidies.

      Will Donald Trump Blow Warren Buffett’s Clean-Energy Bet Off Course?
      http://fortune.com/warren-buffett-wind-power-berkshire-hathaway-energy/

  49. CONGRESSMAN SAYS GOD WILL TAKE CARE OF CLIMATE CHANGE — IF IT BECOMES A “REAL PROBLEM”

    Congressman Tim Walberg, a Republican from Michigan, told a town hall meeting last week that God will “take care” of climate change if and when it becomes a “real problem.” He explained his position this way: “Why do I believe that? Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us,” he said. “And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, He can take care of it.”

    https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/05/congressman-says-god-will-take-care-climate-change-becomes-real-problem/

    1. I kind of agree with the Republican- except what he calls God I’d call “Nature”.
      Climate Change will certainly happen in some version, and the humanity experiment will be incidental roadkill. Even those who pray and vote ‘right’.

      1. Yep-
        No Psychopathic Sky Daddy needed, or the Cosmic Jewish Zombie—

      2. God will take care of it, but humans might not like it. Anyone who thinks God will fix this mess with the best interest of humanity in mind is just down in the dirt dumb.

  50. The following are U.S. GDP growth rates for every year during the 1930s…
    1930: -8.5%
    1931: -6.4%
    1932: -12.9%
    1933: -1.3%
    1934: 10.8%
    1935: 8.9%
    1936: 12.9%
    1937: 5.1%
    1938: -3.3%
    1939: 8.0%

    When you average all of those years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.

    That is really bad, but it is the kind of number that one would expect from “the Great Depression”.

    So then I looked up the numbers for the last ten years…

    2007: 1.8%
    2008: -0.3%
    2009: -2.8%
    2010: 2.5%
    2011: 1.6%
    2012: 2.2%
    2013: 1.7%
    2014: 2.4%
    2015: 2.6%
    2016: 1.6%

    When you average these years together, you get an average rate of economic growth of 1.33 percent.

    1. This current low growth rate is why I think consumption, and with it oil consumption, will slow. I don’t see anything Trump can do to prime the pump other than a push for more renewables because that would require more investment and result in more jobs.

      Trump’s infrastructure plans appear not to involve federal money, so that may not result in a big push. And cutting taxes doesn’t mean companies will invest.

      1. Cheeto Jesus will probably put this train wreck into the ditch before any significant “growth” happens (r>g the elite will still be pulling away)

    2. 2005 was the last year the United States GDP grew by 3% or more. The reality is, before then 3% yearly growth or more was really common. The GDP grew at that level especially during the Reagan Years. The past 8 years have been nothing but economic stagnation and suffering as we all had to put up with an incompetent egoist in the White House. Fortunately, the people realized their past mistakes, and finally elected a president who not only recognizes the amazing power of 3% economic growth for our nation’s businessmen and entrepreneurs, but is doing everything in his power to once again achieve this level of growth.

      1. Yep, Sir Ronnie The Lessor come in #4 with modern Presidents:
        (lets see if Cheeto Jesus can top even Obama and the Bush fiascio)

        1. Five of the six presidents at the bottom were Republicans. Not an especially good track record.

          There’s nothing that Trump is likely to do which will give us a roaring economy.

          But if people want to hope, that’s their business.

          1. One must give credit to Sir Ronnie coming in 4th.
            But he tripled the national debt to get a little over 3%.
            A Military Keynesian.

      2. finally elected a president who not only recognizes the amazing power of 3% economic growth for our nation’s businessmen and entrepreneurs, but is doing everything in his power to once again achieve this level of growth.

        Bwahahahahahaha!!!! Oh yeah! he’ll do that alright! Especially if he brings back, coal and steam engines!

        Did any of you morons ever take a basic math or a physics course? Do you even know what an exponential function is? Do you understand why infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible. Even ‘Economists‘ know that much!

        Not sure if your reading level is quite up to par but I suggest you read this book to get a clue about what may be coming down the pipeline: Your worst nightmare isn’t ISIS or even illegal Mexicans. It’s AI, robotics, and synthetic biology.

        Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
        Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldTV4qowNms

          3. Hi Jason T,

            Many liberals (including me) know economics quite well. A financial crisis tends to slow growth down and it takes some time to recover.

            Average real growth in disposable personal income per capita has averaged about 2.3%/year from 1947 to 2004 and has slowed since then to under 1%/year from 2005-2016.

            Data from FRED

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0A048NBEA

      3. Yair . . .
        Folks, I’m a retired farmer, we’re overstocked, there are limits, growth cannot continue indefinitely.

        I saw article perhaps forty years ago that outlined our present predicament and showing how a properly managed “economic stagnation” or as the writer put it “a steady state economy” is the only way our species can survive.

        Cheers

        Growth cannot

        1. Yeah, you’d think this would be as irrefutable and obvious a piece of general knowledge, as the law of gravity but we continue to hear imbeciles, luddites of the populist and ultra nationalist ilk, touting continued or returning industrial economic growth as a solution to our problems.

          This is as idiotic a notion, as trying to bring back coal mining, heavy industry and factory jobs to make Murika Stupendous Again! That train left the station in the early 20th century. Unfortunately we now have to deal with a resurgence of anti science, anti humanist, authoritarian, xenophobic neo facists and neo nazis.

          Here’s a sobering book:
          On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
          by Timothy Snyder.
          For those who don’t read, here’s a Youtube video:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_jmswbhTZc

          1. It would help if more economists emphasized that we are not longer in a cyclical pattern where we have recessions and then rebound with strong growth. Bit by bit more of them are addressing this, but we still don’t have them collectively acknowledging that the past is no predictor of the future. They aren’t ready to take the leap and declare business as usual is dying.

            1. Sounds kind of like the anti-anthropogenic climate change herd…

              Anyway, many of the mutants, so to speak, that this civilization and its business-as-usual have managed to produce may find it increasingly tough-going as the world changes around them and, along with it, the evolutionary niches that its status-quo opened up and that many then comfortably and beautifully occupied.

              Within the human species there contain any number of formative subspecies, so to speak, some of whom may not make it through the upcoming evolutionary bottlenecks.

              Making a tidy money-profit, driving handsomely in rush hour traffic or working flawlessly in corporate office settings might be among those disappearing niches that take their vanishing breeds of human along with them…

              Vanishing: The extinction crisis is worse than you think
              (documentary)

          2. Coal boasts to creating 70 new jobs by opening a new mine. In 2015 (anybody find 2016 figures?) renewables added 35,000. Speaks for itself.

            NAOM

      4. real GDP per capita is the better measure.

        High growth rates were in part due to high population growth from 1947 to 1973.

        1. Capitalism in The 21st Century explores this at length, and shows how 1945-1975 was such a aberration.

    3. Hi High Trekker,

      Real personal disposable income (income minus taxes) per capita increased by 1.1%/year from 1929 to 1939 (trend line fit to natural log) slope is average increase per year over the period an by only 0.88%/year from 2006 to 2016, so it has been a bad decade.

      Generally we expect an economy will grow more slowly as the nation becomes wealthier.

      The average rate of increase of real disposable income per capita from 1947 to 2004 was 2.32% per year and from 2005 to 2016 it was 0.92%/year average annual growth.

      Data from FRED

      https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0A048NBEA

      1. Wages actually peaked in the US in 1974 (along with energy per capita- what a coincidence!).

        Then, it all stopped. In 1974, wages fell by 2.1 percent and median household income shrunk by $1,500. To be sure, it was a year of mild recession, but the nation had experienced five previous downturns during its 25-year run of prosperity without seeing wages come down.

        What no one grasped at the time was that this wasn’t a one-year anomaly, that 1974 would mark a fundamental breakpoint in American economic history. In the years since, the tide has continued to rise, but a growing number of boats have been chained to the bottom. Productivity has increased by 80 percent, but median compensation (that’s wages plus benefits) has risen by just 11 percent during that time. The middle-income jobs of the nation’s postwar boom years have disproportionately vanished. Low-wage jobs have disproportionately burgeoned. Employment has become less secure. Benefits have been cut. The dictionary definition of “layoff” has changed, from denoting a temporary severance from one’s job to denoting a permanent severance.

        No sweat for our investor class, as long a r>g

        Graph:
        http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

        1. Hi High Trekker,

          A big problem in the US was the Reagan revolution where the wealthy put their man in power and we had a big transfer in wealth from poor to rich through a massive change in the tax code, so the stagnating wages was primarily a matter of all real GDP growth accruing too the wealthy after 1980.

          This could be fixed by reinstating a progressive tax code where all loopholes that allow the wealthy to avoid paying taxes are eliminated.

          No more tax breaks for capital gains, dividends, etc, we could even eliminate corporate taxes so that the “double taxation” argument could no longer be used to shield the wealthy from taxes on capital gains and dividends.

          All other tricks to avoid taxes by setting up trusts etc, should also be eliminated.

          Then set up US tax rates similar to pre-1965 and have the brackets slide with inflation each year (written into the tax code).

          This will eventually get the income distribution to be more equitable.

          We would need a massive change in attitude of the US population to accomplish this. Unlikely to happen until Great Depression 2 in 2033.

  51. Anybody interested in what’s going on in Venezuela in particular and that general region overall should be reading Fernando’s blog.

    I can’t vouch for everything you might read there, but taken all around, he has been on target pretty much all the time, as proven by later reports in the mass media.

    https://21stcenturysocialcritic.blogspot.com/

    His latest is about Gold in Sacks trading in Venezuelan bonds. Note that our federal government is infested with countless gold in sacks senior people running circles thru the revolving door, like fleas on a stray hound, regardless of which party controls the WH, in recent times.

      1. To the best of my memory, Fernando has been posting good stuff about Venezuela, Cuba, and the general area from the time he first joined the forum, or at least since he first commented on Latin American politics.

        His opinions are a tad old fashioned in the eyes of most liberalish leaning observers, lol, when it comes to communism, but his links are always good ones and he has been proven right in his predictions, by and large.

        Now as it happens, while I do not think of the USA as a virgin when it comes to dirty politics, I tend to mostly agree with him in respect to the history of communism. We Yankees have quite a lot of blood on our hands, but compared to the old USSR, and the countries that are still dominated by old commies, we are rather staid and respectable, when circumstances allow.

        But we do tend to get as violent as necessary to protect our interests when it comes to access to Middle Eastern oil, etc.

        This willingness to share opinions with Fernando could be the result of some nitwitted liberal professors trying to convince me back in the sixties that the Iron Curtain was built and maintained to keep the rest of the world out of the old USSR, rather than the inmate citizens of unfortunate countries such as East Germany IN.

        After that I read everything I could find by Russian dissidents, as well as the stuff written by authors with some ACTUAL experience with communism and the old USSR.

        Other professors at roughly the same time were determined to convince me that men are something separate and apart from the natural world, that animals possess NO intelligence and act entirely on the basis of instincts, etc. I knew better even then, in both cases.

        You only have to find a person or an institution unquestionably has his or its head out of sight up his or its ass once, twice at the most, to take his or its dogma with a LOT of salt thereafter.

        Ditto a person’s ethics, although a few less than model citizens do occasionally give up their dirty rotten ways and morph into model citizens. Not many. And there are hardly ANY politicians at all among this small number, in my personal opinion.

        I actually have a great deal of respect for a lot of very liberal people, some of whom are pretty damned smart, even geniuses, but common sense always applies, and nuance always applies.

        When a Noam Chomsky for instance says that a person brought up in a particular religious environment never escapes his childhood indoctrination, there is a certain measure of truth in this argument.

        But I grew up in such an environment, and knew fifty other kids fairly well that did the same. A few of them today are serious pious Christians today, maybe a dozen, maybe half of them are nominally Christians in that they observe most church dogma most of the time. A good quarter of them pay about as much attention to what they were taught at church and by their parents as a buzzard pays to the smell of it’s food. I personally know people who were indoctrinated as kids who break most of the rules as adults, including the rules about rape, robbery, gluttony, avarice, paying heed to civil authority, paying taxes, being kind to strangers and poor people, etc etc.

        On the other hand it’s also true that some people DO continue to believe in their early indoctrination, although they often find it advantageous to pretend otherwise.
        Among these people are racist cops, racist union members, etc, who know that they had best keep their mouth shut if they want to keep their jobs and their privileged positions in society.

        So they act as if they are reformed, or were never prejudiced, but in actuality, they have not really changed at all. There are teachers, accountants, truck drivers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, and people from just about all other walks of life who pretend to be people they are NOT, for practical reasons.

        I know one guy who is a teddy bear, once you get to really know him, but he generally acts as if he were a nazi outlaw biker, maybe because he thinks that if he isn’t mean and tough it means he’s not a real man. Brains aren’t his long suite, lol.

      1. Looks beautiful up in Finnmark today and a relative heat wave due over the next week at 10 degrees above average. I guess by your logic that proves climate change and global warming is real, in one simple argument.

  55. May 2017- 409.65

    https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html

    Interesting pattern. 4 months downward/8 months upward per year. If the Arctic has hit a tipping point with emitting more CO2 than it sequesters then we should see some changes in getting over the May to June hump- for example 8 months up/one month sideways/3 months down.

    1. 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. Below, please avail yourself to an illustration and list of references which may be used to gain a proper scientific understanding of the true ramifications of these recent CO2 measurements.

      Wikipedia, Atmosphere of Earth entry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth: 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.

      Climate and the Carboniferous Period, http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html: There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 18 times higher than today. The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.

        1. From the Copernicus site: “Only three months from October 2015 onwards have been less extreme than January 2007, which was previously the month with the highest anomaly (0.54OC). The warmest instances of each month of the year occurred from October 2015 to September 2016, and each of the eight months since then has been the second warmest on record for that month of the year.”

          The data seems to be confirming the estimates (e.g. from Gavin Schmidt) that El Nino contributed only about 0.05 to 0.1 degrees to the record temperatures in 2015 and 2016, and the rest was in line with the long term trend (or indicating some acceleration). With another El Nino more likely than not and possibly the IPO and AMO lining up to be both positive we might be breaking 2016 records by some margin within a couple of years.

  56. Are the trolls out because Trump withdrawing from the Paris Accord has actually energized rather than shut down the countries, companies, states, and cities wanting to cut carbon use? Has he triggered a backlash that has the trolls worried?

    1. Has he triggered a backlash that has the trolls worried?
      Hard to say for certain.
      There do seem to be a preponderance of dialogue pairs and rehashing old topics in this post- almost as many as at Peak Javier. If I was inherently evil and placed in charge of a Media Manipulation effort around denying Climate Change, I might set loose all my assets in anticipation of Trump’s leaving the Paris Climate Accord. Not necessarily in concert with it, but in anticipation of it in hopes of furthering my aims by piggybacking on his actions.

      I suspect that we are reaching a practical limit for conflict here: any more cons, and it verges on a denial of service attack (it’s also interesting that it only takes one– a Javier or Glenn, in this instance- to make this site almost unusable.) The evil me managing such an attack would go to some effort to make it appear unprofessional: too much action will make site owners take action, or cause the site to lose visitors or close down, killing a valuable tool for reaching my audience.

      My thought (as I’ve said before) is that their effort is not to change the minds of regulars, but to make it appear to individuals investigating Climate Change for the first time (or looking for greater depth) that there is no consensus. It is a safe assumption that people will be doing more research while Climate Change is so active in the news cycle; this is where the most bang for the buck is.

      -Lloyd

      1. I was expecting the increase in trolls. I think moderation is required for the reasons you state.

        NAOM

  57. Hey guys (and gals)! For the past couple of weeks I’ve been busy preparing for a trip to the UK in the first week and sort of helping with preparations for my nephew’s wedding this last weekend. As a result I was barely able to lurk, let alone post any comments and just this morning got around to reading this thread. I note that I was not around for the return of my (least) favorite troll GS (Gold in Sacks Koch) who it seems we are destined to follow around, cleaning up the never ending stream of bull shit that emanates from him.

    I saw some news that came out the day I arrived in the UK a week ago that may be the reason the troll army has been out in force, led by the troll in chief. Here goes:

    Solar, wind meet more than 10% of U.S. electric demand in March

    EIA’s Electric Power Monthly shows that during March wind and solar together met 10.1% of U.S. electricity demand. This the first time that these two sources combined have ever met more than 10% of power, a fact which was first reported in the TerraJoule newsletter.

    When you add the hydro from a wet spring on the West Coast, which alone provided more than 10% of the nations’s electricity, as well as biomass and geothermal power, all renewable energy sources combined met 24% of electric demand in March.

    But while hydro, biomass and geothermal capacities have been relatively stable in recent decades, solar and wind and growing fast. Over the full year 2016 solar and wind met 7.6% of U.S. electric demand, up from only 6.1% the prior year. As recently as 2012 these two sources did not meet even 4% of total demand.

    I had updated my usual graphs based on the Electric Power Monthly but, had missed that little tit-bit (wind plus solar at just over 10.1%). The figure I have for all renewables is lower at 21.74% versus the above article’s 24%. I will post the graphs with some additional commentary (which shoul rile up the rubes) in the next non-oil thread.

    Additionally, maybe it’s headlines like the following that, have the troll brigade and their backer’s knickers in a knot:

    Solar to attract more investment than coal, gas and nuclear combined this year, says Frost & Sullivan

  60. The de-energizing of civilization.
    If one looks at the energy use per capita, after a long steep rise, suddenly in the late 1960’s the world hits and undulating plateau.
    How could this happen, the energy use gain is not tied directly to population growth? In a world where more people are moving into energy using lifestyles.
    Increasing efficiency, leaps of technology in such things as lighting. But also a drive to use less energy and refine processes to use less energy. Business is often good at cutting costs when the methods and tech are available.
    So what is driving all this. Profits? Lower bills? A sense that there are limitations? Actual limitations? If that steep rise had continued we would be using more than twice the energy per capita.

    Maybe the next step will be lower energy per capita, an energy descent. A world where people using externally generated energy is not the norm.

    1. Good moring, Survivalist

      I would have posted the Forbes link about ripping off the cancer research money if you hadn’t beaten me to it.

      Here’s another, I am going to make a pitcher of something good, even at ten am, lol, put aside all other business, unless prevented from doing so by Acts of Sky Daddy, and be on the phone with a few hard core Sanders guys and girls laughing my ass off.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/07/why-the-latest-russia-news-paints-an-increasingly-grim-picture-for-trump/?utm_term=.1f758ab38ba3

    1. Light Electrification Leads 2018 Buick LaCrosse Updates

      DETROIT — The Buick LaCrosse expands its technological credentials by adding eAssist light electrification for the 2018 model. The combination of an electric motor with Buick’s latest 2.5L four-cylinder engine delivers quiet, refined and spirited efficient performance backed by the value and customer experience expected of Buick.

      This new eAssist system, when coupled with the four-cylinder engine, has a 19 percent increase in city fuel economy compared to the LaCrosse’s advanced V-6 and leverages a compact lithium-ion battery pack to provide select benefits found in fully electric vehicles, such as torque-assisted launch, energy-saving regenerative braking and exceptionally smooth stop/start. It will be the standard powertrain for the 2018 LaCrosse, which goes on sale this fall.

      “Executing innovative technologies in an approachable and meaningful way is core to Buick,” said Duncan Aldred, vice president, Global Buick and GMC. “By adding the eAssist system to the LaCrosse, our technology flagship, we are making electrification accessible to our customers as we chart our course to the future of mobility.”

      Compared to previous Buick eAssist executions, this newest iteration is more sophisticated, powerful and compact. With its 9 percent increase in overall torque, drivers get the responsiveness expected from a full-size sedan. In addition, the newest eAssist system is discreetly packaged to maintain the LaCrosse’s fold-down rear seat and ample trunk space.

      http://media.buick.com/media/us/en/buick/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2017/jun/0605-2018-lacrosse.html

      **********

      You need to turn off Hannity and get over your hard on

  64. Crazy as it seems, President Trump seems to be the Great Unifier. After the backlash of the withdraw from the Paris climate accord, all the other countries and corporations, as well as some U.S. governors and mayors, vowed to follow through and double down on their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and show Mr. Trump that it was a mistake to pull out of the Paris agreement. The way the opposition is banding together, the U.S. may see the biggest drop in emissions since we pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Of course back then President George W. Bush was the culprit and he pulled out even after Europe wanted him to show his commitment to the climate change treaty and called on him to find “political courage”. The U.S. then led the world in reducing carbon emissions which fell from 12% from 2005 when Kyoto went into effect to 2015 with the biggest carbon drop in the industrialized world. It seems the U.S., inspired by high energy prices and a shortage of natural gas, discovered new techniques reducing coal emissions in favor of natural gas. So, if history is a guide, the U.S. pulling out of the Paris accord may be the best thing for the environment and will save the U.S. billions of dollars and jobs as the rest of the world wants to show President Trump how wrong he is.

    http://www.321energy.com/reports/flynn/current.html

    1. That’s the conclusion I have come to. The Paris Accord withdrawal has given many entities a reason to unite toward a common goal – to fight climate change and to oppose Trump.

      As I have said before, Trump thinks it’s the US against the world, but it is turning out to be the world against the US.

      1. As I have said before, Trump thinks it’s the US against the world, but it is turning out to be the world against the US.

        No, the world is not against the US or at least certainly not against the majority of the American people. I think the people who represent the rational democracies of the world are against what they clearly recognize as the neo-fascist authoritarian nationalists and populists, represented by a small minority of Trumpkyites.

      2. “As I have said before, Trump thinks it’s the US against the world, but it is turning out to be the world against the US”

        Trump could care less what the world thinks. He only thinks about benefiting himself and has no moral compass.

  65. GE to develop 800 MW wind project in Vietnam

    The $2 billion Joint Development Agreement was one of five agreements announced on 31st May to support the development of Vietnam’s energy and aviation sectors during the visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to the United States. The signing ceremony marks the next phase of the collaboration on the project announced in November 2016 that is being developed with local partner Phu Cuong Group. The project is in support of the 1 GW initiative that GE and the Ministry of Industry and Trade signed in May 2016.

    https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/wind/ge-to-develop-800-mw-wind-project-20170605

  66. Hightrekker’s link has me rolling in the floor, laughing. Whoever wrote it knows as much as HRC about rabble rousing, etc..
    But the thing that makes it so effective is that it has enough truth in it to work.

    “According to Hillary, the email scandal was the biggest “nothing-burger” of all time but it was she who decided to have that homebrew server in the first place.”

    “Clinton tried to blame the DNC for faulty polling to which Andrew Therriault, the DNC’s data science guru rebutted as “f*cking bullshit” and that it was Hillary’s crackerjack team of screw-ups led by neo-McCarthyist Robby Mook who ignored warnings about Wisconsin and Michigan.”

    I don’t think it’s justified to call Mook a neo Macarthyist, but her team sure as hell screwed up like the Three Stooges when it came to running a presidential campaign.

    “It wasn’t Vladimir Putin who advised her to spend so much time pandering to identity groups and hanging out with foul-mouthed rappers, cop hating diva Beyonce’ and multimillionaire basketball player LeBron James on the weekend before the election instead of visiting white working-class people in the Rust Belt.

    It was Hillary’s decision to embrace Goldman Sachs while essentially spitting on these white voters that turned the Rust Belt into her campaign’s killing fields as that impregnable “Blue Wall” came crashing down on election night.”

    Now maybe it’s unfair of me to get in the first lick, since I’m up earlier, being a dirty sider (east coast ) rather than a shaky sider( west coast), but that’s reality.

    Your turn HB.

    I just know you will figure out a way to stick your foot in your mouth, the way you did a couple of days back pointing out that Trump has Gold in Sacks people in his administration, apparently unaware that they are the same ones Obama had, or else entirely interchangeable with them, lol.

    It’s EXPECTED that R’s will suck up to Wall Street, they ARE Wall Street. It’s the D’s sucking up that has put the D’s in the dog house with working people, and by fucking Sky Daddy, working people outnumber investor class people by a substantial margin, and are NECESSARY to the D’s winning elections.

    You nose in the air elitist types must eventually recognize the truth of this observation, and I am going to continue to remind you of it. Otherwise the R’s will remain in power indefinitely, from dog catcher to president.

    1. “The Republicans were (and are) rabidly anti-worker and pro-wealth. And the working classes, the ones slowly being destroyed and ground into the dust by their policies, were their most fervent supporters.”

      “Looked at from that perspective, it’s easy to see why the majority of the Democratic Party abandoned the cause of the working class. Why keep advocating for a constituency that actively hates you and votes against you?”

      http://hipcrimevocab.com/2016/11/19/why-did-voters-suddenly-start-caring/

    2. So the Green Glitterati isn’t a large enough constituency to win a presidential election?

      Who wudda ever thunk it?

      Certainly not Hightrekker…..

      Cornel West a “Cabbage for Christ”?

      Help me.

    3. “Otherwise the R’s will remain in power indefinitely, from dog catcher to president”

      The hate you and your poor friends display is your demise. Thank you for the tax cuts.

      “You need to turn off Hannity and get over your hard on”

  67. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/06/spectacular-drop-in-renewable-energy-costs-leads-to-record-global-boost

    The incredibly fast growth of the renewable energy industries combined with the unexpected fast drop in birth rates together convinced me that there is at least a fair chance that some portion of industrial civilization will survive what would otherwise be a total collapse due to overshoot.

    Five or ten years ago, I was a hard core doomer.

    Predictin’s hard, ‘specially the future, sez Yogi.

    Trump can’t stop this growth, but he will slow it down somewhat in the USA, to the detriment of the American people, and his policies may result in slowing the growth of renewable energy on global basis.

    But at the rate he’s fucking up, we may be rid of him within a year, which would be good news indeed.

    The odds are apparently still against it, but they are getting noticeably better from week to week.

    I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be a Republican congress critter in a swing district next election, lol, given the choice of breaking with the party or losing my seat.

    Barring some miraculous good luck on the part of the R’s , I hereby predict that the D’s are going to have a banner year in 2018, maybe even regaining control of the House. It’s looking better every day for them, and they aren’t even having to work at it, the R’s are busy as hell shooting off the remainder of their own toes.

    1. Not everyone on the left is so sanguine, counting their chickens before they hatch.

      From Salon:

      Wake up, liberals: There will be no 2018 “blue wave,” no Democratic majority and no impeachment
      http://www.salon.com/2017/05/27/wake-up-liberals-there-will-be-no-2018-blue-wave-no-democratic-majority-and-no-impeachment/

      Electing a Democratic House majority (which is 95 percent unlikely to happen) and impeaching Trump (which is 100 percent not going to happen) might feel good in the moment, but wouldn’t actually fix what is broken. Considered as a whole, the “blue wave” fantasy of November 2018 is a more elaborate and somewhat more realistic version of the “Hamilton elector” fantasy of December 2016: Something will happen soon to make this all go away.

      (Let’s throw in the caveat that there are plausible universes in which the Republicans ultimately decide to force Trump out of office for their own reasons. Entirely different scenario.)

      If you don’t want to believe me now, I get it. But take a good hard look at Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte, and go through all the excuses you have made to yourself about how and why that happened, and we’ll talk….

      That brings us to the final and largest point: Exactly who is kidding themselves that the Democratic Party, in its 2017 state of disarray and dysfunction, is remotely capable of pulling off a history-shaping victory on that scale?

  68. This link is somewhat dated, but relevant. The same topic is a lead article in the WSJ today, but behind a pay wall.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-shipping-regulation-imo-idUSKCN1240KF

    I’m pretty sure the per item cost of fuel for blue water shipping is entirely trivial, so I’m not worried about the economic impact of requiring shippers to burn reasonably clean fuels rather than the super dirty bunker oil they typically use today.

    But I’m hoping somebody here knows enough about oil refineries to say something about what other uses bunker fuel can be put to. Maybe it could be used to make asphalt for instance?

    Maybe in the worst case it will turn out to be so expensive to get out the sulfur and so forth that it’s worthless and the oil industry will have to dispose of it, maybe by injecting it into exhausted oil fields or something.

    Sulfur is a major industrial feed stock, but the last time I read up on it, there’s a glut of it around, and so it’s not worth much- certainly not enough to justify separating it from bunker oil to sell it, but maybe between adding value to bunker fuel and selling the sulfur, separation might work.

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