16 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, November 14, 2019”

    1. So…… Maybe you think Walmart plays fair ?

      As Amazon comes up with new tricks, Walmart will be among the first to copy them on the grand scale.

      It won’t be too many more years now before we see a LOT of shopping centers converted into apartments.

      I’m buying lots of stuff, good brand name stuff, for HALF on the net, compared to local stores, and saving more on the trips to pick my stuff up than shipping to my door costs me.

      Example, radiator for a friend’s car, best local price, one fifty, got it for HALF at Auto Zone online, lifetime warranty, plus free shipping for orders over one hundred bucks. Paid with debit card, dropped off less than forty eight hours later by Fed Ex, added a couple of things such as antifreeze and oil, saved at trip, saved a hundred bucks, saved an hour just going to pick up the part.

      Five hundred bucks for new parts for my old Buick, best price available locally, less than three hundred at Rock Auto, top brand names, perfect service so far on over a dozen orders for old friends who don’t do computers, and fifty in a row for a friend who runs a garage and buys parts from Rock Auto a couple of times a week.

      Not much in the way of warranty, other than exchange right away, but for half price, you can afford to forget the warranty, with good brand names.

      Times they are ah’ changing, my friend.

      And if they had sent the wrong one, I could have dropped it off at the nearest AutoZone store, free shipping of the correct one, etc.

      And as often as not, I can get small parts about as fast online as I can get them by ordering them at local stores that sell and service the brand I need parts for.

      But never fear, Walmart has online shopping too!

  3. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/14/20963824/drug-resistance-antibiotics-cdc-report

    We are now in the era where we pay for our past foolishness, and no mistake.

    If you have to go to a hospital for a procedure unavailable elsewhere, it’s best to get OUT asap. IN the hospital is the worst possible place to be, in terms of super bug infections.

    My long term best friend’s mother died of MRSA, after going to the hospital to have a minor cut treated. He would have just put some mercurochrome and a band aid on it, if he had been on the scene.

  4. And in the meantime…….
    https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-cybertruck-unveiling-event-invitations/
    https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ford-mustang-mach-e-suv-electric-revealed/

    Ford has switched a third of the company R and D engine budget from ICE to electric, over the last year or so.

    Maybe electric vehicles will sell fast enough that there might not be a peak oil supply crisis, if our collective luck holds out, for a very long time.

    And if by some great stroke of luck, the economy holds up long enough, I can see enough wind and solar farms being built that we could actually manufacture enough liquid synthetic fuel to run existing expensive equipment,eventually, such as farm tractors and construction equipment, as the oil supply gradually dries up.

    1. Ford is scheduled to announce their new EV Mustang line of vehicles this coming Sunday.
      Some prelim photos look interesting.
      Hope the price is right.

  5. The European Union’s public European Investment Bank (EIB) will end fossil-fuel investment by 2021, including gas, and invest billions more in renewables energy development. This is part of an initiative called the « European Green New Deal », named after Ocasio Cortez’s « Green New Deal ».

    I think it will have a marginal effect on oil industry, even if it is pretty encouraging. What do you think ?

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/european-investment-bank-will-end-fossil-fuel-financing-11573827713

    1. That process seems to have been first reported in 2014. A Google Scholar search for the name gave no results since that time. “If it sounds too good to be true, it ____”

      1. Thanks Paul. That answers the next question that I was going to ask here of why everyone missed that running dirty water through at titanium screen had the magical effects described in the article. It did seem too simple. Oh well, so much for a little good news. The search continues for that.

  9. On this date:
    1859 — Evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species is published.

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