358 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, November 28, 2018”

    1. Their projection for 2 degree equivalent is at yr 2037.
      Assuming they are close with that, we will be pretty far along the fossil fuel depletion curve by then.
      And hopefully global downsizing will be well underway???

      1. You may be right.
        However, considering that the IPCC budget is way too extreme, I give us 5 to 7 +/- 5 years to shut down carbon emissions altogether to not broach 3C. That might involve drawdown also.

        1. I see the 2020-2025 time-frame as critical. If we miss that…

          NAOM

          1. Hopefully peak fossil fuels in 2025 to 2030 will lead to higher fossil fuel prices which may speed the transition to alternatives, good public policy would also help along with changes in individual behavior (buy solar panels or pay for green tags, switch to smaller vehicle that is a hybrid, plugin hybrid, or EV, drive less, bike, walk, and use public transport more, seal air leaks in homes, install higher levels of insulation, replace furnace or boiler with heat pump (ground source in colder climates), recycle more, buy quality products with maximum useful life rather than cheap throwaway goods, buy locally produced goods, eat organic foods, eat less industrially produced meat and poultry products, compost garbage, there is probably a lot I have missed.

            Choose to have one child rather than 2 or more, or adopt.

            1. I think that 25-30 is too late. We need to have this in place 20-25 and then 25-30 will be the years where this will bite. Another 5 years, another 5 years – no, too late. Of course we can’t do everything in 20-25 but we can set things in motion so the following 5 years make the change, it is the initiation of the process that is needed.

              Look on it as an upward slope now with a transition during 20-25 (preferably early 20s but we just lost 4 years with that idiot) then a downward, accelerating slope through 25-30.

              NAOM

            2. Notanoilman,

              I agree it is too late, realistically I don’t see the needed changes occurring until peak fossil fuels is reached. Maybe my estimates are incorrect and peak fossil fuels will be in 2020, but unfortunately my guesses in the past have usually been too early for the date of peak oil (in 2012, I expected 2020, but as I get more data it looks like 2023 to 2027 is the most likely date for peak oil, followed by coal(in 2030), and finally natural gas (probably before 2035).

              I am not suggesting something should not be done, only that I don’t think enough people take the threat of climate change seriously so that in fact we won’t see the needed policy changes come as soon as they should.

              If I ruled the world, there would be a broad tax on carbon emissions and other greenhouse gas emissions as well, the taxes collected would be returned to all citizens equally, or could be used to provide health care coverage where it doesn’t exist, reduce tax rates on the middle class, or to pay down debt.

              As I am not in charge (thankfully), we will have to wait for politicians who will make this happen (in nations where there is representative democracy).

              In short, I am in agreement that the changes should start tomorrow or today. I do not know how to create that reality.

              One last thing, peak oil is likely to change attitudes a lot, so potentially we could see a pretty steep drop after the peak is reached, oil will become very expensive and governments make join the band wagon, we might see a WW2 type response and things might change very rapidly, technically it’s possible, political will is all that is needed.

            3. Africa is a very large continent with many nations and cultures. It has a wide variety of climate, economics and ecosystems. Problems will need local solutions, such as what to do about the drying up of hydropower. Even the need for high tech is questionable when many people are at a very primitive and low economic level. Can they maintain it, replace it? High tech is a trap, once you have it you need to maintain and replace it and then need more. Long term low tech solutions are better.
              The best we can do is offer what we have and let the various nations and localities make informed decisions about energy, water, agriculture and health.
              I know many banks are no longer supporting coal mining or coal power projects but China and India are in Africa building these projects now. Coal use will increase, being a mostly untapped and local resource. Once large scale batteries become cheap then solar might compete in those situations.
              Until then, Africa is growing economically at about 5% per year overall and is a hotspot for population growth. If this continues, all forms of energy will be tapped and switchover to renewables might take 40 or 50 years or more.
              Much of the current energy is biomass, that won’t support a large increase in economy and population.

            5. Gone fishing,

              My guess is that the build out of wind, solar, evs, heat pumps, passive solar, etc in developed nations will drop the price of these technologies due to economies of scale, the less developed nations will skip the expensive fossil fuel route and move directly to alternative energy paradigms because they will be the less expensive option. A peak in output of fossil fuels will result and emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels may quickly (over 10 to 15 years) fall to zero.

              That’s the hope, though better public policy would aid in an orderly energy transition.

            6. Dennis,
              I can think of two scenarios that would reduce CO2 and methane output faster than yours. Nuclear war and an unstoppable global pandemic.

              However, even without those I doubt if this reduction will play out very well at this point. By the late 2020’s onward people will be too busy trying to survive the increasing weather chaos and much of the economy will be drained attempting to recover and protect areas so funding and industry to change over to renewables at a fast pace will diminish. It doesn’t take much to shift agriculture in the world from good to mediocre or mediocre to poor. Weather changes and timing of rains or thawing is critical. Starvation ensues.

              By the 2030’s we will be facing a major loss of ocean fish and depletion of soils.
              Mass migrations will further stress already stressed nations. Sea level rise will continue it’s inexorable damage due to rise and integration of salt into farmlands.

              If the added stress of loss of petroleum occurs, the first steps will be some conservation and building of high mpg ICE types. EV’s won’t reduce enough cars in the world until later in the 2040’s with fast growth and even later taking a reasonable growth.

              There will be too many stressors across the globe to do anything smoothly, let alone help developing countries. We are at least 20 years too late and the best we can do is head directly to a low energy civilization over the next 10 years.
              That won’t happen everywhere so walls and limits will be struck, hard in some places.

              BTW, don’t run your carbon levels to zero since that would indicate modern civilization has ceased. 20 percent and much later 10 percent as we learn and implement new technologies would be the minimums without a total crash.

            7. I hope you paid attention to the global megaproject video I posted. It exemplifies the continued BAU insanity at high levels of government and corporations.

              Everything we build uses energy, materials and time. Then it has to be maintained/replaced. The trap of modern industrial civilization.
              There is no way or reason to maintain all that poorly designed and energy intensive infrastructure in the future. Basically it is a waste, bridges to nowhere that leave the world stranded further down the depletion slope.
              Most money and energy that should have gone into converting civilization to a less harmful more sustainable system will be frittered away. Unless a major change of mindset occurs and reduction in petrol will not do that.

            8. Energy transition scenario with rapid build out of wind, solar, EVs, as rapid as I believe is technically feasible. This is about the best we can hope for in my opinion, reality will be a struggle to remain under 1000 Pg of carbon emissions from anthropogenic sources of CO2 from 1800 until emissions cease.

            9. As you state, that is a lower boundary, unlikely to happen. Upper boundary will be finding new, cheaper ways to developed fossil fuel reserves as well as tapping methane hydrates. Two to three hundred years of burning.
              Middle scenario implies another hundred years of burning which would give plenty of time to develop renewable energy and change civilization if other things did not get in the way (see my comment above concerning some of those).

              We have a five to ten year window to mostly halt all carbon emissions and start some drawdown. Otherwise it’s off to the Eocene. I think we could live in a 3C or even 4C world, not sure about much higher, but probably at a highly diminished level. Mammals did quite well during those hot times, diversified and grew in population. Only lately have they run up against it.
              Ice Ages and humans are tough on the world.
              A few comet/asteroid strikes and major volcanism hurts too.

            10. It’s pretty obvious that we will have to start soon on a campaign of carbon sequestration. As I’ve mentioned a few times, I think the first 6 inches of topsoil is where carbon should be stored.

            12. We chose to have one child but we had twins. You just can’t trust Mother Nature.

              ‘Love ’em both.

    2. So…

      We’re pretty much fncked aren’t we?

      Ah well.

      The good times were fun while they lasted. I guess my soon to be born kid will get to enjoy the not so good times.

      Tough break kid.

      :-/

    1. That is a cool truck. Note that when you fully load an F150 crew cab (Raptor version) the MSRP is almost 70k, so this EV pickup may be trying to compete with these high end pickup trucks. Average MSRP for F150 XLT crew cab is 43.5k and average price paid is about 41k according to true car. The features that come standard on the EV truck seem more in line with the loaded F150 which might be about 60k after discounts.

      Edit: On reading the Motor trend article this truck is not full size but more like the Taco which loaded is about 47k, so about a 14k premium for the EV. Might be a difficult sell. Though I doubt the Taco gets to 60 mph in 5 sec.

      The 61.5k version has about 240 miles of range, less when towing and not clear what load (is it fully loaded at 240 miles of range?)

  3. The Wall Street Journal has just run two op-ed pieces this week. One on Tuesday and one today. Titles below. So this appears to be the new pitch. We no longer dispute climate change, but it won’t be a big deal.

    The Climate Won’t Crash the Economy

    Climate Change Is Affordable

    1. So now the liberal hoax known as “Global Warming” includes among the hoaxters the WSJ and most insurance companies as well as the entire legitimate scientific community. Them sneaky libs do get around.

  4. Even the rivers don’t want it.

    Greenhouse emissions from Siberian rivers peak as permafrost thaws
    This finding was unexpected as it means that rivers in Western Siberia actively process and release much of the carbon they receive from waters melting in degrading permafrost and that the size of these emissions might increase as climate continues to warm” says Professor Doerthe Tetzlaff, Department of Geography at Humboldt-Universität and Head of Ecohydrology at IGB, and one of the researchers in the team.

    https://www.hu-berlin.de/en/press-portal/nachrichten-en/september-2018/nr_180903_00

  5. Near 100% of the contiguous United States is going to get extreme cold to start December. Just like with the entire months of October and November, this is at odds with the climate models, which had been predicting an abundance of well above normal temperatures for all of the Lower 48. Is December going to be the third month in a row of the climate models being completely wrong?

      1. Again I said nothing about global temperatures or records (either hot or cold) but people like you always attack and accuse me of doing so. My point was, climate models for October, November, and now possibly December, have shown a continued warm bias towards the Lower 48 United States when in reality colder than normal temperatures have predominated.

        1. The jet steam meanders are a new phenomena produced by Arctic amplification and scientists are in the process of understanding them better. It’s no surprise they aren’t fully represented in the models. To me they look like fairly fine detail effects as well so might be difficult to model highly accurately even on the most powerful computers available (I might be wrong there). If US is cold somewhere else is extra hot, The Arctic especially so in October, less so this month, but it’s warming again now; Alaska is evident from the map you show, Australia is breaking records and the Pacific is just starting an El Nino so it’s warm all over.

          The map you posted says nothing about “extreme” cold it’s about probability that it will be colder to any degree than usual, you seem unable to understand the difference. Evidently you do believe the shorter term models that produce the monthly weather maps – these are based on exactly the same science and probably written by some of the same people as produce the longer term, and therefore inevitably less accurate, climate models. There’s a big difference between climate models predicting extra variability, high warming in some areas, higher drought probability etc., which they have been doing very well, and saying in October 20xy the temperature in Kansas will be exactly Z°C, which seems to be the criterion you are judging them by and is basically impossible at any level, they can just try to get closer and closer. Scientists apply known mathematical methods to decide how close is good enough for their purposes and how the unknowns affect the results; I doubt if you do the same.

        2. As George said- climate models do not predict the temps for any particular month in any particular location.
          That is weather.
          Weather models beyond about 7-10 days are not very reliable, and no one should expect them to be.

          To misrepresent climate as weather, or vise versa is either a
          1)mistake,
          2)ill-informed or
          3)disingenuous.
          Why do you Bob do that repeatedly- 1,2, or 3?

          If it is because you simply want say something like-‘I don’t believe in climate change and all the variability we see is well within the normal range’, well then so be it. Better to be straightforward than
          dis-ingenuous. If I’m off base on this, please clarify.

          1. You are correct that climate models cannot predict specific temperatures months in advance. They do make bets on the temperature anomalies that will be observed though. They frequently do a poor job. For example, the USA’s top climate model came out with this prediction for November’s temperature anomalies.

            1. Then the experts at the Climate Prediction Center and The Weather Channel used the results from the climate models to make there own maps of November’s temperature anomalies.

            2. Now we can look at how good the predictions were. Of course this map only shows the Lower 48 and the month isn’t completely over yet, but still we see the actual anomalies will not come close to what the top climate model and climate researchers predicted.

            3. Whatever!

              In a report released ahead of the COP 24 climate summit in Poland, the World Meteorological Organization pointed out that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, and that “2018 is on course to be the 4th warmest year on record.”
              https://phys.org/news/2018-11-temperatures-hottest.html

              Which is it Bob-
              To misrepresent climate as weather, or vise versa is either a
              1)mistake,
              2)ill-informed or
              3)disingenuous.
              Why do you Bob do that repeatedly- 1,2, or 3?

            4. Adios Bob Frisky.
              It is clear from your few comments that you have nothing relevant or constructive to add to any discussion of interest to me.
              You are an intentional propagandist.

              You have earned the ignore button, along with CM and Tran.

              I am interested in perspectives that I have not embraced. But, the information or opinions I’ll entertain must be well-reasoned or substantiated. Not the crap or incoherent stuff you guys spout off.

            5. “Screw Trump and any asshole that for any reason still supports him!” ~ Fred Magyar

    2. Climate models don’t have national borders, so your post is irrelevant to climate models.

    3. Once again Bob the weatherman conflates probability with relative temperature. The probability of a below average temperature may be 80% but the actual temperature may end up above average. Oh, these probabilities are following predictions made on global warming and climate change, nothing to see – move on.

      I wonder why he never shows up for when probabilities are for above average temperatures

      NAOM

  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UP_-Bvf5fU
    HUGH MONTGOMERY: ARE HUMANS LIKE A VIRUS ON PLANET EARTH?
    It’s likely this was posted before and I missed it, but it’s worth another look.

    One planet says to another: “I think I’ve got the human virus,” the other says: “Don’t worry it never lasts long.”

    He covers soil erosion, fishery collapse, groundwater drainage, freshwater lake loss, deforestation before go over climate change impact. Only briefly mentions other resource depletion but it was a fairly short talk.

    Without climate change we are in terrible terrible trouble. If you add in climate change our situation becomes absolutely desperate.

    This is a pretty good complementary view concentrating on energy.

    MOST IMPORTANT PEER REVIEWED PAPER ON CLIMATE CHANGE – TIM GARRETT – CIVILIZATION IS A HEAT ENGINE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1LVxiBU43o

    1. Well, that was interesting. Thanks for posting these. No new information for me, but it’s good to see it in such compact form (i. e. Hugh Montgomery).

  7. I have been researching how Instagram has permanently changed our society. Here are some of the articles I came across. Have you noticed any ways Instagram has changed your own life or your community?

    Snapping point: how the world’s leading architects fell under the Instagram spell
    Oliver Wainwright

    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/nov/23/snapping-point-how-the-worlds-leading-architects-fell-under-the-instagram-spell

    The social media platform, now counting 800 million users – more than a tenth of the world’s population – has since grown to become one of the most influential forces in the way our environments are being shaped. For a place to be shared on Instagram is no longer a chance by-product of a photogenic design, but a primary concern that drives the ambitions of clients and designers. The idea of “doing it for the ’gram” has moved from the preserve of Like-hungry teens to board meeting discussions and multimillion pound budgets.

    Architect David Tickle, of global mega-firm Hassell, first became aware of the phenomenon while presenting a design in a competition for a new public square in Sydney. “One of the judges said he really liked our scheme because it was ‘highly Instagrammable’,” he recalls. “We hadn’t designed it with that in mind, but we realised that the stacked layers of terraces that we had proposed lent itself well to … social moments that could be captured and shared. We joked about it then, but it’s now become part of our vocabulary and an important way that we think about projects.”

    Instagram is having an increasingly visible influence on the kind of work being commissioned to adorn our cities’ streets and squares. The immense popularity of public sculptures such as Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate in Chicago, a mirror-polished bean that reflects visitors and the surrounding skyline in a warped bulge, has led other cities to seek similarly sharable spectacles, in which the viewers themselves become an integral part of the artwork, placed centre stage in a piece of constructed scenography.

    Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel, an elaborate $200m staircase to nowhere, currently under construction in New York’s Hudson Yards, is an archetypal piece of shareable design. Billionaire real-estate developer Stephen Ross wanted an iconic bauble that would become a tourist magnet – an “Eiffel Tower for New York”, as he put it.

    Roughly the shape of a 46 metre-high goblet, as wide as it is high, the Vessel’s proportions will fit nicely into Instagram’s square frame, while its multiple landings and polished copper soffits will offer innumerable shareable moments.

    1. Instagram is supposed to be friendly. So why is it making people so miserable?
      Alex Hern

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/17/instagram-is-supposed-to-be-friendly-so-why-is-it-making-people-so-miserable

      In 2017, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), an independent charity that seeks to improve people’s wellbeing, conducted a UK-wide survey of 14- to 24-year-olds, asking them about the big five social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. Users ranked how their use of the platforms affected everything from the quality of their sleep to their Fomo – the fear of missing out on what others are enjoying.

      Instagram came last, scoring particularly badly for its effects on sleep, body image and Fomo. Only Snapchat came close in its overall negativity, saved by a more positive effect on real-world relationships, while YouTube scored positively on almost every metric – except its effect on sleep, for which it was the worst of all the platforms.

      “On the face of it, Instagram can look very friendly,” says the RSPH’s Niamh McDade. “But that endless scrolling without much interaction doesn’t really lead to much of a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. You also don’t really have control over what you’re seeing. And you quite often see images that claim to be showing you reality, yet aren’t. That’s especially damaging to young men and women.”

      1. Designing people’s Instagram Stories is now a million-dollar business
        By Katharine Schwab

        https://www.fastcompany.com/90259515/inside-the-big-business-of-instagram-story-design

        Every day, 400 million people open up Instagram and flip through Stories, the app’s short, ephemeral photo and video updates from people they follow. Since its launch in 2016, Stories has become a popular way for people to share more about their lives–and more often. But with that immediacy has come a pressure to seem cool and spontaneous all the time. It’s also a challenge for brands that use Stories to advertise; companies need to produce fun, current content on a daily basis, and manage those Stories the same way they manage their permanent content elsewhere online–even if it quickly disappears.

        1. I don’t use Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp or anything owned by Facebook due to their lack of respect for use data.

          NAOM

        2. Everything I think about social media and ever present SmartPhones is pretty well covered in The Shallows, Digital Vertigo and The Internet is not the Answer. They do pretty much the opposite of what was hoped for, promote group think instead of individuality, cause a continuous state of semi-paranoid stress, turn gossip from a way to promote co-operation to a domain for sociopaths and previously hidden sociopathic tendencies, destroy any respect for real skills and knowledge in favour of least common denominator self-promotion at any cost, rewire brains as if they are taking drugs to get the hedonic treadmill dopamine fix, remove all the evolved tit-for-tat controls on behaviour that make normal social life reasonably comfortable, make people think looking busy is somehow a good thing, create permanently plugged in and unaware anti-social zombies, etc. Basically they take a large chunk of what it means to be a human and flush it down the toilet, why would we expect to be happy after that?

          1. Now there’s another new article out that brings up several of these very topics.

            I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me a lot happier — and that’s a big problem for social media companies
            Christina Farr

            https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/01/social-media-detox-christina-farr-quits-instagram-facebook.html

            Giving up Instagram in the first few weeks reminded me of when I tried to give up coffee, the world’s most popular drug. Just like when I was weaning myself off caffeine, I had regular pangs re-engage with my habit and I felt different, even a bit empty.

            It dawned on me after a few weeks that my social media usage was anything but intentional, which gave me a jolt of motivation to keep the detox going.

            Occasionally, I noticed myself typing in the letter “F” on a browser to get to Facebook without realizing I was doing it. I’d also mindlessly try to pull up the Instagram app on my iPhone, and would need to remind myself that I’d deleted it for a reason.

            That got me thinking more deeply about a conversation I had about four years ago with a former Google project manager, Tristan Harris, who I first met when working on a story about habit-forming apps. He described social media back then as “hijacking our minds.”

            Harris was among the first to make the connection between neuroscience and social media, and question whether it’s even possible for many people to use social media constructively.

            One example he used is the “bottomless bowl,” referring to studies that show that humans will often consume more out of self-refilling bowls than regular ones. The news feed format pioneered by Facebook, he says, is just like that, in the way it seduces us to keep scrolling through an endless stream of content for far longer than we planned to.

            1. The biggest issue is what might be the long term effects for quality and quantity of life on the generations of children being raised with social media and 24 hour iPhones. Their environment is furthest from the environment of evolutionary adaption that developed us than for any previous generation. Obesity and depression rates are already rising, lack of exercise will show up in various problems (spinal, muscular, circulatory etc.), emotional issues that currently don’t even have a name might be coming. At the same time they are going to face issues we haven’t seen in western countries for two or three generations – resource limits, increasing manual labour, robots, receding retirement age, food shortages, environmental conditions that are marginal for human comfort, loss of contact with any wildlife – for which they may be uniquely unprepared.

    2. These types of considerations are making their way into designing and building apartments and homes as well—basically as a marketing technique to try and catch the eyes of younger people who are especially attracted to anything with large social media appeal. The issue for architects and planners is how to incorporate these features in ways that don’t detract from the bottom line. I think one of the greatest challenges the world faces right now is how to actually profit from social media. Thus far there has been relatively limited success, even though most everyone in business recognizes social media will have to be the primary medium for marketing going forward because nearly all of the traditional methods are fading among the up-and-coming generations.

      1. Thus far there has been relatively limited success, even though most everyone in business recognizes social media will have to be the primary medium for marketing going forward because nearly all of the traditional methods are fading among the up-and-coming generations.

        I doubt that very much! To support my objection, I recommend reading Douglas Rushkoff’s book, ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus’.

        There is a fundamental reason why social media is a long term money losing proposition within the current economic paradigm, but I won’t say what it is, read the book or google one of Rushkoff’s talks on youtube if interested…

        Cheers!

    3. One of the few really good things about being 75 years old is that I neither know nor care about anything like Instagram.

  8. For those who are still thinking that electric vehicles are an all-or-none proposition, it is just not so.
    Between full internal combustion(ICE) and full electric vehicles (EV) there will/are many shades of copper.

    Excerpt here from one article discussing such transition-

    ’48 volts’

    Mild hybrids — vehicles with internal combustion engines that have been upgraded with 48-volt electrical systems, stop-start and regenerative brakes — are offering some suppliers a fast path into electrification.
    At an added cost of $1,000-$1,200, vehicles with 48-volt systems can achieve half the CO2 reduction of a full hybrid, but at 30 percent of the cost.

    “This is an elegant solution — especially for bigger vehicles,” Eichenberg said. “Larger vehicles will lend themselves to this technology while smaller vehicles will be plug-in hybrids or EVs.”
    A number of key suppliers are betting on this trend and investing to reposition themselves. In 2012, Continental AG added 48-volt systems to its portfolio by spending $1.2 billion to develop technologies for electrified vehicles….
    Hybrids and EVs will require plenty of specialized hardware from suppliers. But it is the software that will drive profits.

    Delphi Automotive, for example, is promoting its ability to integrate 48-volt systems with a mild hybrid powertrain. The trick to that technology is in the software that controls when the vehicle should use its electric motor and when it should switch to the gasoline engine, said Mary Gustanski, Delphi’s vice president of engineering.

    “The key is knowing when to use your electric power,” Gustanski said. “There are certain times when electrification gives you a lot more value for power. That’s all done with software.”

    Delphi’s latest project: combining a cylinder deactivation system — dubbed Dynamic Skip Fire — with 48-volt technology. Gustanski said the combination reduces fuel consumption up to 19 percent.

    Delphi also touts its technology portfolio for EVs, but 48-volt systems have one big advantage: Automakers need them now, and demand will keep growing over the next decade.

    By 2030, annual sales of 48-volt systems are expected to grow to $29 billion globally, according to Eichenberg….

    In fact, the Bolt may be a sobering example of what is to come. According to a UBS report in May, 87 percent of the Bolt’s electric powertrain, battery and infotainment system are supplied by LG Electronics and LG Chem.

    That doesn’t leave much for GM’s traditional suppliers.

    To be sure, the auto industry is wrestling with other technology game changers such as infotainment and self-driving vehicles.

    But Eichenberg predicts electrification will prove to be a far greater disruption.

    “If you are not dealing with this today,” he warns, “as time goes on you will have fewer and fewer options.”

    http://www.autonews.com/article/20170730/OEM05/170739947/which-suppliers-will-survive-electric-era

    1. Why do industries resist change, like the car industry resisting the transition to EVs?

      They’re afraid. Change brings disruption. It brings winners and losers. Being good at familiar technologies doesn’t bring success: you could end up like Hudson Motors, having your lunch eaten by that new conglomerate General Motors: just because you were a really good bicycle maker, and these new horseless carriages look a lot like big bicycles, doesn’t mean you’ll succeed at these newfangled things. Now, of course, its GM vs Tesla.

      Everyone is afraid of being one of the losers.

      1. Keep in mind Nick, that when you are very big, and build a series of factories employing many thousands of people, and have long-term contracts with suppliers of materials and specialty parts, and labor unions, and municipalities, it is not easy to just shut it all down.
        GM just announced this week that 4 factories are being shuttered, even one for the under-performing volt. They don’t make these decisions lightly and it plays havoc with all the workers.
        Its hard to pivot when you are big. Big ships have trouble changing directions in small channels. Sometimes they get lucky and smart with their decisions, and often not.
        How quick could you sell your house and move into a newly bought one, if you decided you should? Bet it takes more than a month, sometimes a year. Now think if it was a thousand houses.

        1. I agree with those specifics. In the broader picture, it sounds like an argument that this is a new problem.

          This is a long term problem: the US car industry has been resisting EVs dating back to at least 1992 when the Clinton administration starting pushing hybrid-electrics with the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. Sadly, Detroit passively resisted the program.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles

          Then Detroit took advantage of the election of George Bush to kill the PNGV program, and sabotage the 1990’s CARB push for EVs. The Bush administration gave Detroit what it wanted by pushing the red herring of hydrogen vehicles to undercut EVs. Meanwhile, Toyota and Honda grabbed the ball and created the Prius and Insight.

          GM created the EV-1 in 1996 in response to the CARB push, but literally scrapped the program (and the cars) the first instant they could.

          GM only created the Volt in 2010 under pressure from Tesla (as famously described by Bob Lutz, the primary internal advocate of the Volt). Now it’s scrapping the Volt.

          So. Detroit, as well as the global car industry, has had plenty of time to plan for EVs. They’ve spent that time resisting and sabotaging, and focusing on short term profits. That, of course, has included an emphasis on inefficient SUVs, which are profitable mainly because of the massive, longterm “Chicken Tax” subsidy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

          SUVs, of course, take us to the related topic of Detroit’s vicious fight against fuel efficiency. The industry couldn’t quite fight CAFE standards in the 1970’s due to the shock of the OPEC embargo, but it managed to freeze the standards in the late 1980’s (the average US car still has only about the same MPG as the Ford Model T). The Clinton PNGV program was itself an inferior alternative to raising CAFE standards. And, SUVs were a massive loophole through which Detroit literally drove trucks. Trucks were excluded from the CAFE standards to begin with, because legislators couldn’t imagine passenger cars built on a truck platform. The moment Detroit started to make “sport” utility vehicles the loophole should have been closed, but…Detroit pressure kept it open.

          This is a very, very long term problem. Not only has Detroit known about it for a very long time, it has actively shaped the path to our current problems.

    2. I’ve been doing some thinking about EV uptake, and I’m starting to think hybrids are a better idea.

      Currently there are about 1 bn cars on the road. 80 million new cars are sold each year. Cars average about 14 years of age(in the US at least), so 70m million (about one fourteenth of a billion) are scrapped each year. That makes 10 m more on the road each year or about 1% fleet growth.

      Since there are so few EVs, especially older ones, practically all the cars being scrapped are internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Large numbers of EVs will start getting scrapped after 2030, assuming they live as long as ICEs. Fast growth means low average age.

      10m EVs (including plugin hybrids) could be reached in three or four years, on current trends. When that happens the number of new EVs will equal total fleet growth, so the number of ICEs would stop growing. New ICEs will just replace older ones being scrapped, which would cap demand for oil. If EV sales grow as fast as battery production, the number of ICEs on the road should start to fall before 2025.

      But the key question is how fast battery production can grow. These guys predict 1 TWh by 2028:

      https://www.visualcapitalist.com/battery-megafactory-forecast-1-twh-capacity-2028/

      A high end Tesla has a 100 KWh battery. At that size, you could build 10m EVs in 2028. I suspect utilities and others will gobble up a lot of those batteries, but I will ignore that here.

      The current trend is for EVs to get bigger and bigger batteries. EVs could get a lot more efficient, reversing this trend, e.g. by reducing the need for battery heating and cooling. At 50KWh, you still only get 20m EVs. If the new car market has grown to 100m by 2028, that’s only 20%. ICEs numbers would be declining, but not very quickly.

      Hybrids massively reduce the need for liquid fuel without eliminating it. But at the same time, they massively reduce battery size. A Prius has less than 10KWh. At that size, you could build 100m in 2028, completely replacing the new car market for ICEs.

      So unless more batteries are produced, I suspect hybrids would reduce liquid fuel consumption faster than EVs could. It depends on how much hybrids save, but I don’t have good numbers for that.

      1. I see these as an intermediate, weaning step as too are CNG vehicles. It not only avoids the nattery hurdle but infrastructure hurdle of going straight to electric, not to mention the comfort blanket of a ‘real’ engine for some drivers.

        We are having our bus fleet swapped out for CNG models that will benefit in several ways. First: reduced (but not eliminated), second: many buses are 10-20-30 years old so the new ones should be more efficient, third: no more big clouds of black smoke (YAY!), fourth: an excuse to modify routes to make the network more efficient and I expect there are more advantages still. This also avoids a lot of infrastructure change to support electric buses. I would hope that the next generation is electric.

        NAOM

        1. There are lots of them in Holland. The buses are really clean and quiet compared to diesel. They make this odd humming noise instead.

          1. I haven’t noticed any hum but they are a bit quieter than the mobile scrap heaps we had before. Note that Mexico doesn’t have such high noise standards as Europe and the drivers are not as skilled.

            NAOM

            1. But Mexican buses are a adventure! And cheap. Rode them daily when living in PV.
              I’m still alive—–

            2. “I’m still alive—–”
              Just don’t cross the road in front of one. 😉
              I like the way that, when the bus is very full and someone gets on at the back, their fare is passed, person to person, down to the driver then the ticket and change is passed back.

              NAOM

  9. CLIMATE CHANGE IS MORE EXTENSIVE AND WORSE THAN ONCE THOUGHT

    Climate scientists missed a lot about a quarter century ago when they predicted how bad global warming would be. They missed how bad wildfires, droughts, downpours and hurricanes would get. They missed how much ice sheets in West Antarctica and Greenland would melt and contribute to sea level rise. They missed much of the myriad public health problems and global security issues. Global warming is faster, more extensive and just plain worse than they once thought it would be, scientists say now…

    In nearly every case, when scientists were off the mark on something, it was by underestimating a problem not overestimating, said Watson, the British climate scientist. But there are ultimate worst cases. These are called tipping points, after which change accelerates and you can’t go back. Ice sheet collapses. Massive changes in ocean circulation. Extinctions around the world.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-climate-extensive-worse-thought.html#jCp

    1. Makes sense to me.
      Most scientists are pretty cautious about making projections, and being dramatic, and being involved in matters of the press and politics. Just by their nature.

      1. Not only that but avoiding spooking their sponsors with ideas that are too scary.

        NAOM

        1. Why should scientists worry about ideas that are too scary? Most of their sponsors are politicians that earn billions from the industries pushing support for climate change the most, therefore scare predictions would be worthwhile to them (and the sponsors, and the scientists).

          1. It’s fascinating how conservative propaganda completely reverses reality.

            When oil company money is controlling politicians, they claim that politicians have been bought by the “other side”. When a reporter asks Trump about his racism, Trump tells the reporter that the question is racist.

            Black is white. White is black.

          2. Tran. That is just stupid talk that you learned from someone with an agenda. I’m you wouldn’t make it up on your own.
            I know many people with science degrees, and not a one has ‘sponsors’ that are funded through politicians or their donors. Or sponsors at all for that matter.

          3. Care to reveal even one such case of a politician earning even thousands from the industries pushing support for climate change, with at one clearly identified “industry” that is “pushing support for climate change”?

            On the other hand, I can dig up lots of (US) politicians that are receiving significant contributions from FF interests and PACS that are opposed to the idea of anthropogenic climate change. We can start with Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, James Inhoffe, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Orin Hatch and the list goes on. There are some Democrats in there (2 out of 20) but the lists are dominated by global warming denying Republicans! For example:

            https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?cycle=2018&ind=E01

            From the web site:

            https://www.opensecrets.org/

            Where’d you get yours?

            From the OpenSecrets web site, the top recipient from the oil and gas industry in 2018 was Ted Cruz at $505,163 while the top recipient from the Alternate Energy Production & Services was Claire McCaskill at $62,386. This is available data. Imagine what’s going on with the dark money?

            Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on you for this one!

            1. Yes, the politician is none other than Algore. Where do you think he gets his money from to travel round the world, go to climate change conventions, make movies that don’t fill theaters, own multiple mansions and so on?

              Now on the industry’s side, look at Solyndra. Politicians scratched their backs with billions of bailout funds, then Solyndra scratched politicians backs with sponsorships. That was until the company went bankrupt.

            2. Ridiculous examples!

              The real money, is fossil fuel money behind mostly GOP politicians…

              And I’m guessing you must be another Koch brother sponsored Climate Science denying Troll!

            3. According to OpenSecrets dot org, in 2000 Al Gore got the grand sum of $10,300 from the Alternate Energy Production & Services while your boy got only $7,450. In 2000, your boy also only got the tiny sum of $2,033,151 from the oil & gas industry while, Al Gore got the princely sum of $144,514 from the same oil & gas industry, more than either Rudy Giuliani, John McCain or Rick Santorum.

              Try again! And this time please just don’t go pulling Fox News/Rush Limbaugh. talking points out of you ass, without any reliable data source to back it up!

              As for Gore’s source of wealth, according to this Huffington Post article:

              But Gore made the bulk of his money as a media mogul and an Apple board member. In January 2013, he pocketed about $70 million after taxes from selling the Current TV network he co-founded in 2004 to Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera. He’s earned tens of millions more in recent years by selling off Apple stock awarded when he joined the tech giant’s board of directors in 2003.

              “He would be way more influential if he admitted to everyone he’s been putting his money where his mouth is,” Jigar Shah, a top clean energy investor, told HuffPost. “He is still in this politician mentality.”

              It’s 2018 and there’s this thing called the internet where you can find most of this stuff instead of relying on the “people are saying” news agency your president is so fond of.

            4. Bloody ‘ell! You can’t even get the guy’s name right, how do you expect us to listen to anything else you say.

              NAOM

            5. ‘Algore’ is Limbaugh’s invention/convention.

              It flags Tran as a Dittohead, which is Rush’s apt term for his own listeners.

            6. Adios Tran. It is clear from your few comments that you have nothing relevant or constructive to add to any discussion of interest to me.
              You have earned the ignore button

  11. https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/societal-choices/italy-and-energy-a-case-study/

    Interesting article by Jancovici on Italy. It’s basically been in recession for 7 years, and that is tied closely to energy use (possibly especially tied to decline in Algerian gas supply and with hydroelectric in decline too). Debt has ballooned to compensate and is unlikely to be repaid.

    I think the long term trends on GDP for many OECD countries point to their economic growth ending before 2025 and similar things will be happening – high debt, turn to nationalism, traditional economists floundering around for explanations and solutions where there might be none. Once enough countries embrace extreme politics then the wars will start, maybe Ukraine/Russia will be seen as the first.

    Climate change will also be especially bad for southern European areas from Spain through to Greece and Turkey, which are all generally poorer than the more industrial northern pats, with increasing drought, even desertification under the worst scenarios. Hydroelectric availability may decline quickly. There is likely to be a growing stream of economic/climate migrants/refugees going somewhere or other, probably north assuming it is any better.

    1. Tim Morgan has written quite extensively on falling prosperity (discretionary income after essentials like food and rent has been paid) for OECD countries and often links it to Brexit/Trump/nationalism/etc.. He now claims that global prosperity/capita has peaked too: https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/138-inflexion-point/

      His blog is a good read. His not transparent with the data he use but he is one of the few economists who understands that the economy (and society) runs on energy.

      1. Agreed – I follow his stuff. He seems to think there might be a solution if we can only find the right working methods, which I increasingly don’t. There’s still at least a hint of “the rational actor” in most economics arguments, whereas we are all actually driven by “the selfish gene”. The behaviours from each way would often tend to look the same, especially in a growth economy, but they wont in a collapse.

    2. Italy is ground zero for the developed world, a few years ahead of many such countries with the coalescing issues of aging demographics, slow growth/excessive debt and entitlement load, and soon to become a significant issue- loss of cheap fuel.
      At least they are generally sunny.
      Add to that a geographic position that makes them a destination for southern climate-change migrants.
      Definitely one to keep an eye on.
      Will Germans consent to take on their debt?

      1. Unsecured debt. Bad move by other countries and the Italians can repossess the country if the government can’t pay up. 🙂
        Short term problem anyway. Population peaked a few years ago.

        Why no cheap energy? Lots of sun.

        1. “Why no cheap energy? Lots of sun.”

          Good question. Because it will take many tens of billions of dollars to buy and install it, and time.
          Hard to get more financing when you are so far in debt.
          Just try it at home- be far overextended on your credit, behind in your payments, and with a declining income and future prospects. Then go to the bank (Germany) and ask for yet another loan, for a project with a 30 yr return of 4%. They will charge you more on loan interest than your rate of return on the capital invested, or there abouts.

          Good example of why going into this peak oil/high CO2 crises we would want to debt free, or close to it. Its going to take a hell of a lot of money to transition.

            1. Capitalism may not work during a global crisis and the peaking of fossil fuels may exacerbate the crisis affecting BAU. However, nowhere is it written that solar and wind are worse options than fossil fuels because they supposedly depend on fossil fuels to be produced. It seems likely that the exact opposite will prove to be the case with specialty and niche production of petrochemicals one day soon being produced with the help of ultra cheap solar, wind and battery storage…

            3. That article talks about payback of the energy used in manufacturing of the PV modules, and is highly optimistic (and with no source cited). But that doesn’t reflect the price of an installed system.
              10-20 yrs is more like it in good conditions (replacing a high electric rate, free or very cheap land or roof, excellent solar input, no financing charge). And I doubt Germany will give Italy a solar subsidy for the projects they would in effect be financing.

              If the payback was less than ten years, we would all be getting offers on TV and in our mailbox to invest in 30 yr US Solar Bonds paying something like7% interest. Unfortunately, no one is even offering 3% on such a bond, which would be funding utility scale PV in the southwest.

            4. True, which will become much lower as renewables come on line.

              If the US really wanted PV (other than utility sized) they could reduce the price to the consumer by a lot. Other countries do it much cheaper.

              Why does home solar energy cost so much in the United States?
              Here in the land of technology leadership and free-market enterprise, American regulation has more than doubled the cost of solar.

              The regulation comes in three un-American guises: permitting, code and tariffs — and together they are killing the U.S. residential market. Modernizing these regulations, primarily at the local and state level, is the greatest opportunity for U.S. solar policy in 2018.

              To highlight the opportunity, let’s look at Australia, where nearly 2 million solar systems have been successfully and safely installed.

              As of early December, installed costs in the main Australian markets were at $1.34 per watt, compared to $3.25 per watt in the U.S. What does that difference stem from?

              https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/home-solar-energy-cost-much-united-states.html

              So I guess we will have to wait until power prices rise far enough to push the non-free market into making it more palatable. That could be quite some time.

            6. Permitting and code costs here in Cali were pretty minimal- less than 10% cost of our system. $2.40/w installed 2017

          2. Interest rates are much lower than 4% for solar installments. They are an incredibly good investment, because in Italy they pay for themselves in a few years.

            It’s amazing how Republican propaganda has warped the way people think. Italy has a problem with government debt, but its balance of payments is positive, thanks to an export surplus. That means the country as a whole is a net saver. This has been the pattern since the seventies, except of a few years in the recent downturn. Republicans will have you believe that government debt is the only debt that matters, but this is just stupid.

            The article is full of canards, but the two biggest ones are that energy is somehow money, and that oil is a good source of energy.

            Energy is not money, and debt can be repaid without expending energy. We are entering an era of rapid dematerialization of the economy.

            Oil is a crap source of energy, excellent for storing energy in a moving vehicle but completely unable to compete in power generation. It does not “power the economy”, except in oil exporting countries. Most of it is wasted on the modern potlatch of driving in circles in ludicrously oversized vehicles.

            If you put these two canards together you end up with the brain dead belief that we have to waste gas to stay alive as a species. Oilmen find this attractive, of course, but it’s basically just stupid.

            1. “Oil is a crap source of energy […] Most of it is wasted on the modern potlatch of driving in circles in ludicrously oversized vehicles.”

              Another way you could say this: Oil is a crap source of energy, most of it is wasted generating unused heat.

            2. alim- you say solar is cheap and you can get extremely cheap business loan for its installation, even if your credit rating is crap.
              Well, sounds nice.
              Try to pencil out a project in Italy, or USA for that matter using real numbers.
              Its not as financially miraculous as you say.
              How many people do you know who have saved up 15-20K to put down on a system? Go down to a lending institution and tell them you want a loan for big project – see what interest rate you get.
              I did it, with savings. Eventually it will be a good deal if I stay put for at least a decade. No way it will have payback before ten yrs, even in my sunny scenario (with high backround electric rates and a ‘low cost’ system).

            3. Interest rates are extremely low, even in the real negative range. It’s hard to find any way to save up money for retirement, because the charges are higher than the interest rates.

              Rooftop solar pays for itself in 10-12 years easily in most places in Europe. It’s not hard to see that there are few investments to a homeowner with a better return.

              A lot of people aren’t homeowners, and a lot of house roofs are poorly configured for solar. But millions of houses are there to deliver massive growth to the industry.

            4. People forget that when they add solar on their home or property it increases the value pf their property. Around here there is no property tax on solar so the value added is even higher. So the whole payback equation changes then.

    3. George Kaplan,

      There is one factor that will have something of a mitigating effect: TAP, if that pipeline system that it’s at the end of is finished. NG all the way from Azerbaijan oboy. Not a silver bullet, admittedly.

    4. I’m formulating some ideas around economic growth driven by growth in renewable energy consumption. Unfortunately I can’t find any clear examples yet but, I have a feeling that within the next couple of years, stories will start to emerge about regions, maybe even whole countries that are experiencing growth in their economies that can be attributed specifically to the use of renewable energy.

      The thing about renewable energy is that the costs are largely front loaded, you have to build the harnessing technology before you get a single unit of energy. Once the upfront costs have been paid, there is little to no cost for each unit of energy harvested, so it makes sense to put all of the energy being harvested to use. I am not aware of any location that currently has excess renewable energy capacity coupled with storage technology to store more than just a few hours of energy production. Neither am I aware of any locations that have set up infrastructure to take advantage of low cost, excess renewable energy, on a massive scale, on the occasions when it is available.

      In other words there are no modern, industrial scale examples of how to make hay when the sun shines, that I am aware of. The first company, region or country that figures out how to do this effectively should do very well. I started thinking about this stuff after reading the following Forbes piece:

      If The U.S. Goes Green, It Can Avoid Economic Hardship And Prevent At-Risk Nations From Going Dark

      Costa Rica is a haven — a country filled with beaches and rain forests and one that runs entirely on renewable energy. Blessed with an abundance of wind, solar, geothermal and hydro energy sources, it is able to keep the lights on for its 5 million residents. Most of its emissions come from the transport sector, which it hopes to electrify. Its goal is to be carbon neutral by 2021.

      To be clear, Costa Rica’s economy is uncommon: It has no manufacturing base while it relies on its agricultural and tourism sectors to power forward. The country, meanwhile, has no military, which means that it can allocate resources to a clean energy infrastructure. But after spending a month there, I can report that other countries can learn from this Central American nation.

  13. Photovoltaic report from the real world- [38 degree N, 13 miles west of the Golden Gate, Nov 2018]
    It is one month from the winter solstice.
    One sunny day home our system produced- 25.12 kwh.
    Two days later on a cloudy and rainy day- 2.54 kwh.
    Thats a 10 fold difference folks. I am thankful for the rain and clean ocean air.

    Average annual electrical consumption for our household is 17 kwh/d
    This does not include heating, which is supplied by Nat Gas.

    The point here is that I am glad to have robust grid-supplied electricity. And that grid will need a strong source of electricity even during the darker times of year, and at night. Assuming we want to keep the economy churning during the winter- Charge those cargo trucks, bake that bread, keep the hospital running, for example.

      1. “Design for January not March.”
        I would need a roof that was the size of a 7000 sq ft home, and an extra 80K sitting around.

        On a bigger scale, this really is a problem with the dark cold times, unless you live in a very windy zone. Calif has a fair at best wind resource, compared to its requirements.

        There is a big potential for deep ocean offshore wind, but it has not be proven cost effective- yet. I think it will at some point. Calif/OR has a huge deep offshore wind potential. It will take quite a bit of time time, atleast two decades I’d guess, to build it out, once designs and costs are validated and decisions are made

  14. THINK CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX? VISIT NORWAY

    Temperatures in Spitzbergen, on the island of Svalbard, hit 4C on Monday. At this time of year, they should be around minus 16C. Locals are having to adapt to a fast-changing environment, one that leaves Norway’s environment minister Vidar Helgesen in a sweat. “What is happening now is a harbinger of things to come, we are seeing drastic changes,” he tells Climate Home. “One of our major glaciers is retreating one metre a day, two kilometres in five years. It’s happening very fast and the world should take note.

    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/02/07/think-climate-change-is-a-hoax-visit-norway/

    1. I worry about the seed bank. The permafrost was supposed to protect it but what happens when that is gone? (Very long term not temporary measures)

      NAOM

  15. Report: 42% of global coal capacity now unprofitable

    Dive Insight:

    The environmental case against coal power is familiar, but the fuel persists at least in part because it has traditionally been a low-cost option. That is rapidly changing as renewable energy prices fall and natural gas remains low. Carbon Tracker’s report aims to help make the financial case for mothballing coal plants, as more and more are projected to lose money in the coming years.

    Carbon Tracker says that in its business-as-usual scenario, which includes current environmental regulations, major coal capacity markets like China, the United States and the European Union, “become ever more cash-flow negative. … This analysis highlights a power sector mega trend: with or without climate policy, coal power is increasingly a high-cost option.”

    Investors can save money, the report finds, by closing down coal plants in line with the Paris climate accord which aims to hold the increase in global temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

    1. Not long ago, just a little over one hundred years ago, the coal mines were often owned by the railroads. The coal mines operated at little profit and the railroad took the bulk of any profit.
      It is happening again, the power producers are losing out and the money is in distribution.
      That will not work for long when the public and business realizes it can make much of it’s own power for the cost of distribution or less.
      So most grid distribution is going to come under fire over the next decade, unless they move to renewable energy and cut their charges by using lower cost sourcing.
      Who knows where this will go.

  16. Larger than Texas, mostly forest covered B.C. has become a big carbon source and it’s not coming from where you think.

    B.C.’s SURGING FOREST CARBON EMISSIONS

    Few are aware that British Columbia’s forests are now releasing more planet warming carbon dioxide than all other provincial sectors combined, or that these forest emissions are not counted as part of the total in provincial greenhouse gas inventories. These massive and growing forest emissions are a result of destructive logging, beetle outbreaks and wildfires. B.C.’s forests stopped absorbing more carbon than they release in the early 2000s and uncounted forest emissions are now often greater than those that are counted.

    Wildfire emissions have skyrocketed, and we must now expect to add roughly 190 million tonnes to the annual tally, for a yearly total of about 245 million tonnes of uncounted forest emissions. Our suffering forests were only capable of absorbing 28 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2015. The numbers we are able to access demonstrate that we can expect about 217 million tonnes of “uncounted” annual carbon dioxide emissions from B.C.’s forests, once [2018] data becomes available.

    https://us.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=british+columbia&hspart=ore&hsimp=yhs-001&type=yff_ars_00_00

    1. Don’t use an axe on trees, use a piledriver, sink em in so far the CO2 can’t escape. 🙂

      Sorry just got this picture, in my mind, of a beetle deaded tree being stomped into the ground like a foundation piling.

      NAOM

      1. Great way to make splinters and produce a lot of CO2 transporting and operating a pile driver.
        Isn’t our penchant for intervening with nature what got us into this fine fix?

      2. Notanoilman,

        Recently I asked one of our local forestry people if it was better for the environment to burn bug killed trees or let them fall and rot. He said the long answer is the stuff of PhD theses but the short one is burning produces CO2 and tons of bad health issues from smoke and letting trees fall and rot results in a lot of methane production which is mostly what happens now owing to the popular, and cheaper, out of sight, out of mind solution. He didn’t mention pile drivers.

        1. To be more serious about this, what ways could that wood be used? Are there any lumber uses for it – use dead trees instead of cutting down live ones? Pelletise it and use it to partially replace coal, ok, gives off CO2 but avoids the methane issue and cuts coal extraction.

          NAOM

          1. “use dead trees”
            Therein lies the problem. When a tree dies in the forest there is a multitude of life that uses that cellulosic hulk as both food and shelter. The tree is turned into life and into soil . The continued intervention of removing trees from the forest depletes life and soil. The carbon they talk about is given off by living species that have a place on this planet.

            The constant intervention in the life cycle of the planet by humans (of good, bad and selfish intention) has resulted in the widespread devastation of the ecosystem and the potential loss of untold species.

            The whole idea of bio-carbon burying is just another way to make biological wastelands. All in the name of counteracting humans continued use of destructive systems.

            1. Yes. The best thing we can do with dead trees is to let them slowly disappear into the earth. Just walk away.

            2. Ok, the two of you, what happens about the methane released?

              NAOM

            3. We have to live with that.
              Lets talk about it again once we achieve a stable population below 2 billion. See if its still an issue worth worrying about.

            4. We will get to under 2 billion people but there are 2 paths. One where we may talk about these things the other where that will not be possible. Guess which one the world is on.

              NAOM

      3. Oh come on, can’t we have a solar powered piledriver! 😉

        NAOM

    2. Interesting, and not good.
      I suspect that a similar dynamic is occurring with many forests that are undergoing a long-term drying out, and logging.
      Northern Calif/S.Oregon comes to mind.
      Southern margins of the Amazon.

  17. The Cities That Amazon HQ2 Left Behind
    By Victor Luckerson

    https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/11/30/18118211/amazon-hq2-search-cities-left-behind

    Before the Amazon HQ2 hysteria started, Bob Duffy twice asked Jeff Bezos to make an investment in Rochester. The upstate New York locale once employed about 60,000 tech workers, when the film empire of Eastman Kodak was one of the most valuable enterprises in the world. Duffy worked at Kodak as a messenger and dark room production tech for a year after high school. His wife, Barbara, worked in the company’s HR department for 20 years. Their house is mortgaged through ESL Federal Credit Union, the bank that founder George Eastman established in 1920 to help Kodak employees finance their homes. “Kodak had such an impact in almost every aspect of civic life,” says Duffy, who served as Rochester’s mayor from 2006 to 2010. “If you needed something done, Kodak was there to help you.”

    In September 2017, Duffy read about an exciting opportunity. Amazon planned to open a second headquarters that would house 50,000 employees. In the words of CEO Bezos, this would be a “full equal” to the corporation’s Seattle home base. The company promised billions of dollars in direct investment, and further investment from commercial and real estate developers was sure to follow. Metropolitan areas across the continent with at least 1 million residents were invited to apply.

    Why not Rochester? thought Duffy. Amazon could be the city’s Kodak for the modern era. In its 208-page bid, submitted in tandem with nearby Buffalo, the city proposed housing Amazon on the old Kodak campus, the symbol of a faded tech giant. But Rochester was knocked out of the running for HQ2 in January. “We always held out hope that we would make the top 20. I was disappointed when we didn’t,” Duffy says. “Many midsized cities do struggle and they do work very hard for growth. … [Amazon] could come in and actually transform the environment with their investment.”

    With the benefit of hindsight, it’s now clear that few of the 238 communities that applied for HQ2—including many of the 20 finalists—ever really stood a chance. On November 13, the online retailer announced that HQ2 will not be an HQ2 at all; instead, the company will open two smaller sites in Long Island City, a Queens neighborhood in New York, and Crystal City, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Those cities already house Amazon’s two biggest offices away from the West Coast. They’re nexuses of financial and governmental power. And they’re just a few miles from two of Bezos’s lavish homes. Amazon broke the rules of its own game, then picked the most obvious candidates.

    Increasingly the U.S. economy is centered on so-called “superstar cities” like New York, D.C., and San Francisco. These places, like the giant corporations that call them home, benefit from scale, deep talent pools, and network effects that make their power more entrenched as time goes on. Other locales struggle to keep pace, just like the brick-and-mortar retailers trying to compete with Amazon’s might. The HQ2 frenzy resonated so broadly because many places knew a chance like this would never come around for them again.

    Now that it’s over, the cities that lost are left to make sense of a process that was always stacked against them. Meanwhile, Amazon is set to reinforce an economic system that is increasing inequality, monopoly power, and political polarization in one fell swoop. “We really do have two classes of places,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “We have the superstar metros that are highly technology based … and then we have hundreds of places that are sort of left behind.”

  18. Fake eruption could dim sun and combat global warming
    (paywalled at the times)
    A scheme to dim the sun by mimicking the impact of volcanic eruptions will move a step closer next year with the first experiment in the stratosphere.

    Scientists hope to prove that spraying tiny particles 12 miles above the Earth’s surface could reduce global warming by reflecting some of the Sun’s rays back into space.

    The deniers will be on this like flies on shit, but I’d ask them why they think money should be spent in this way when, according to their cant over many years, there is no problem (answer is that the solution aversion goes away).

  19. I tend to agree with Nick G and others that the energy problem is resolvable, but it gets ever harder to deny Ron’s assertion that we are in deep overshoot, and the resulting ecosystem destruction is and will be insurmountably catastrophic.

    Here’s a cheery little piece from the NYT that discusses the insect apocalypse: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html

    It talks about the windshield bug splat phenomenon. I first read about this several years ago, and it truly was a vertigo inducing “holy shit” moment to realize that I had never noticed or thought about the fact that those bug splattered windscreens that were a standard feature of childhood road trips, and made scrubbing off the thick paste of bugs a necessary ritual at every refueling, were a thing of the past; the bugs were gone.

    And if the bugs are gone, buddy, it’s easy to imagine that we’re not far behind.

    Here’s some tidbits from the article:

    In the United States, scientists recently found the population of monarch butterflies fell by 90 percent in the last 20 years, a loss of 900 million individuals; the rusty-patched bumblebee, which once lived in 28 states, dropped by 87 percent over the same period. …

    [A] German study found that, measured simply by weight, the overall abundance of flying insects in German nature reserves had decreased by 75 percent over just 27 years. If you looked at midsummer population peaks, the drop was 82 percent. …

    In Britain, as many as 30 to 60 percent of [insect] species …including various kinds of bees, moths, butterflies and beetles… were found to have diminishing ranges. …

    monitored species were declining, on average by 45 percent. …

    Ornithologists kept finding that birds that rely on insects for food were in trouble: eight in 10 partridges gone from French farmlands; 50 and 80 percent drops, respectively, for nightingales and turtledoves. …

    Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just three decades. …

    In Denmark, an ornithologist named Anders Tottrup … noticed that rollers, little owls, Eurasian hobbies and bee-eaters — all birds that subsist on large insects such as beetles and dragonflies — had abruptly disappeared from the landscape. …

    In 2013, Krefeld entomologists confirmed that the total number of insects caught in one nature reserve was nearly 80 percent lower than the same spot in 1989. …

    Scientists at Radboud University in the Netherlands, who did a trend analysis of the data that Krefeld provided, controlling for things like the effects of nearby plants, weather and forest cover on fluctuations in insect populations. The final study looked at 63 nature preserves, representing almost 17,000 sampling days, and found consistent declines in every kind of habitat they sampled. …

    [T]he world’s largest king penguin colony shrank by 88 percent in 35 years …

    [M]ore than 97 percent of the bluefin tuna that once lived in the ocean are gone. …

    93 percent of the land where [tigers]… used to live is now tigerless. …

    A 2013 paper in Nature, which modeled both natural and computer-generated food webs, suggested that a loss of even 30 percent of a species’ abundance can be so destabilizing that other species start going fully, numerically extinct — in fact, 80 percent of the time it was a secondarily affected creature that was the first to disappear. …

    It is estimated that, since 1970, Earth’s various populations of wild land animals have lost, on average, 60 percent of their members. …

    A study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if you look at the world’s mammals by weight, 96 percent of that biomass is humans and livestock; just 4 percent is wild animals. …

    [A] tropical ecologist named Brad Lister returned to the rain forest where he had studied lizards — and, crucially, their prey — 40 years earlier. Lister set out sticky traps and swept nets across foliage in the same places he had in the 1970s, but this time he and his co-author, Andres Garcia, caught much, much less: 10 to 60 times less arthropod biomass than before. (It’s easy to read that number as 60 percent less, but it’s sixtyfold less. …

    Radboud researchers have analyzed long-term data, belonging to Dutch entomological societies, about beetles and moths in certain reserves; they found significant drops (72 percent, 54 percent) …

    The article is a well written narrative that paints a much bigger picture than these dismal facts convey. It’s a worthy read.

    2. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a monarch (butterfly) in ages! Used to see them all the time when I was a kid, granted I live in the city now, while I used to live out in rural areas as a kid.

      It makes me wonder if we won’t just keep on doing what we’re doing, till one day we notice the insects are all gone, along with the other life that depends on them!

      1. Screw Trump and any asshole that for any reason still supports him!

        1. The Republicans will soon realize Trump is their cement boots on the parties poll numbers. The sooner they remove their shoes will be the sooner they will be able to come up for air. They got their tax cuts, deregulation, racism and judges with nothing else Trump for to deliver. It’s time for the Republicans to put Trump in the rearview mirror and cut him loose. It’s time for impeachment for survival.

    4. I wish more of our faith leaders would speak out against all the ways we are harming His creation.

      1. Good luck with that. The Bible is not very insect positive. Most of the references to insects are to swarms of locusts, or plagues of flies, scorpions (not insects, I know) as a threat, or worms as symbols of corruption and decay.

      2. VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to the Catholic clergy, and it would be better for priests who are actively gay to leave rather than lead a double life, Pope Francis says in a new book.
        “Pedophiles are just fine, however”.

        Without out the pedophiles and homosexuals, the ranks would be decimated. Many of the remaining would be a mixture of control freaks, and those who are simply trying to avoid work. This doesn’t apply to just the catholic.

        1. I don’t see any difference, as a priest, between an homosexual and an hetro. Both must choose to abstain from what their body is demanding of them.

          The whole concept of a celibate clergy is insane. I believe it comes from the medieval focus on accumulating property for your offspring and the concept of primogeniture. If you send the second (and third, etc.) sons off to the clergy there will be no competition for the accumulation of property. That didn’t work and what they are doing today doesn’t work.

    5. “And if the bugs are gone, buddy, it’s easy to imagine that we’re not far behind.” ~ Bob Nickson

      “In case you missed the news or posting from the last thread,
      the game is on for electric pickup trucks-
      Rivian 0-60 in 3 seconds and 11,000 lbs towing capacity

      Here is motortrends take on it…

      Priced at 60K is too high, but it and its competitors will bring the price down in a few years I suspect…” ~ Hickory

      “For those who are still thinking that electric vehicles are an all-or-none proposition, it is just not so.
      Between full internal combustion(ICE) and full electric vehicles (EV) there will/are many shades of copper.” ~ Hickory

    6. Google’s Parent Has a Plan to Eliminate Mosquitoes Worldwide
      By Kristen V Brown

      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-28/how-to-kill-mosquitoes-google-and-verily-have-a-plan

      Silicon Valley researchers are attacking flying bloodsuckers in California’s Fresno County. It’s the first salvo in an unlikely war for Google parent Alphabet Inc.: eradicating mosquito-borne diseases around the world.

      A white high-top Mercedes van winds its way through the suburban sprawl and strip malls as a swarm of male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes shoot out of a black plastic tube on the passenger-side window. These pests are tiny and, with a wingspan of just a few millimeters, all but invisible.

      “You hear that little beating sound?” says Kathleen Parkes, a spokesperson for Verily Life Sciences, a unit of Alphabet. She’s trailing the van in her car, the windows down. “Like a duh-duh-duh? That’s the release of the mosquitoes.”

      Jacob Crawford, a Verily senior scientist riding with Parkes, begins describing a mosquito-control technique with dazzling potential. These particular vermin, he explains, were bred in the ultra-high-tech surroundings of Verily’s automated mosquito rearing system, 200 miles away in South San Francisco. They were infected with Wolbachia, a common bacterium. When those 80,000 lab-bred Wolbachia-infected, male mosquitoes mate with their counterpart females in the wild, the result is stealth annihilation: the offspring never hatch.

      Better make that 79,999. “One just hit the windshield,” says Crawford.

      Verily guards its technology closely. But it stands to reason that if it succeeds in making mosquito control easy and cheap enough, it could have a lucrative offering on its hands: Many governments and businesses around the globe might be glad to pay for a solution to their mosquito problems.

      As the efforts to wipe out mosquito-borne diseases have ramped up, a few different approaches to the problem have emerged. Bill Gates alone has pledged more than $1 billion for technologies that may help wipe out malaria, including controversial efforts to genetically modify mosquitoes. Verily’s approach relies on a variation of a very old strategy known as sterile insect technique, in which a population is gradually killed off by interfering with the ability to reproduce.

      It’s unclear what would happen if the world’s disease-causing mosquitoes were done away with. The ecological role that mosquitoes play hasn’t been thoroughly studied, though some scientists suggest we might be just fine without them.

      1. “It’s unclear what would happen if the world’s disease-causing mosquitoes were done away with. ”
        Operating without knowledge is standard operating procedure when something is troublesome or inconvenient. What little knowledge we do have is refuted by many as is seen on this very blog site.

        We know the result, the reduction and extinction of many other species. The increase of the human species and the increase of the bio-weapons to more species as “success” is seen.

        Leave nature alone or become just another statistic, one that will not be recorded other than in the soil as the toxins and disturbance ceases.

        1. Aedes aegypti are not native to the Western Hemisphere.
          They were introduced.

      2. Great, eliminate another food source in the environmental chain. While I do not like mosquitoes, we have Dengue around here, I don’t see elimination as the answer but control or attacking the diseases they carry. I note that one recent trial of this method was a failure and did not reduce the population. Maybe a regulated return of DDT as it is extremely helpful in eliminating the little b*s from houses when applied to ceilings but I do not support its widespread spraying.

        NAOM

        1. Swallow population around here is down at least 80 percent. No need to go further.

      4. One of the roles that disease bearing mosquitos play is to make it more difficult for large numbers of humans to invade and prosper in sensitive natural habitats and ecosystems.

        Humans are apparently much dumber than yeast. Especially the humans at Alphabet and Google!

        Mosquitos are a natural vector for keeping human populations under control…

        Cheers!

  20. Yep, it’s not the economy… It’s the ecosystem, Stupid!

    And for the record, I’ve posted links to numerous scientific papers on insect biomass loss and the devastating consequences to birds, reptiles, fish and amphibians.

    Just imagine you ordering a large pizza and when they bring it to you, you open the box and 75% of it is gone!

    Bon apetite!

  21. Interesting that with all the grim issues we face the world’s ongoing 83 million per year population increase is rarely mentioned. A taboo topic perhaps? BTW, British Columbia has a small population of just under 4.7 million. Of course it is steadily growing with an increase of between 5%-7% every 5 years since 2001. About average for the world I guess.

    GRIM TIDINGS FROM SCIENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE

    Scientists monitoring the Earth’s climate and environment have delivered a cascade of grim news this year, adding a sense of urgency to UN talks starting next week in Poland on how best to draw down the greenhouse gases that drive global warming.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-grim-tidings-science-climate.html#jCp

    1. ” A taboo topic perhaps?”
      People afraid to contradict the pope, you know with Inquisition, Ethnic Cleansing, Conquest and such.

    2. I find quite a number of reasoned discussions on the topic as well as many mentions of it as being a critical factor in overshoot and limits.
      However, population control has become a conspiracy theorist area so any public discussion will bring out the nutters.

      1. At this point, I’m starting to come around to the idea that out nutting the nutters, may just be the better part of valor! What have we got to lose, eh?!

        BUT!!! No More Trumps!
        .

  22. Here we have it folks, 2028 is the date when solar and wind electric production will equal fossil fuel production and replace it within twenty years.
    Deep cuts (80% reduction) in greenhouse gas emissions require that fossil fuels are pushed out of all sectors of the economy. The path to achieve this is by electrification of all energy services.

    Straightforward and cost-effective initial steps are: to hit 100% renewable electricity; to convert most land transport to electric vehicles; and to use renewable electricity to push gas out of low-temperature water and space heating. These trends are already well established, and the outlook for the oil and gas industries is correspondingly poor.

    https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/solar-and-wind-will-replace-fossil-fuels-within-20-years

    I think I will go refill my cornucopia now.

    1. I think I will go refill my cornucopia now.

      I thought Cornucopia would always magically refill themselves, no?!

      1. Not since the Age of Reason (Enlightenment?). Since then it’s a monthly subscription and was delivered, now by Amazon.

    2. Use of fossil fuels will not go away until a cheap alternative is found for powering aircraft, ocean vessels, large trucks, and the like. Also, most who believe the alternate power sources discussed here are the answers to all our woes are highly gullible and unaware of the serious ecological damage caused by the production, installation, maintenance, and disposal of such. I have been working with researchers and partner industries for years now trying to implement these new technologies but in the Obama years it basically turned into a race to find more government subsidized funds with few other incentives to progress the technologies. Heck, scientists are able to bring in fat stacks of cash trying to find ways to make substitute / synthetic petroleum blends, which just goes to show that even government understands you can’t make use of hydrocarbon-based fuels go away completely.

      1. Apparently you seem to be oblivious to the serious ecological consequences of a hundred years of extraction, refining, distributing and using of fossil fuels to build out our current global civilization.

        Time to say goodnight, Daybeer..

  24. Extinction and Overspecialization: The Dark Side of Human Innovation

    “The authors briefly cover the three basic classes of extinction, and then present three assertions why human innovation should be reconceptualized as too much specialization. This position turns on the notion that technology, consumption patterns, and overpopulation together are beginning to compromise the integrity of the global ecosystem.”

    A Fuller Explanation

    “Fuller was profoundly impressed by the danger of overspecialization. He was once asked to speak at a convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the experience provided one of his best parables. Whether by luck or through Fuller’s characteristic genius for detecting significant patterns, he happened to encounter two papers with a striking similarity presented at different sections of the conference. The reports, on biology and on anthropology, both happened to discuss the phenomenon of extinction: the former investigating various extinct species, and the latter, extinct human tribes. Both papers concluded that the cause of extinction was overspecialization, which, taken to an extreme, precludes general adaptability.”

    “You’re apparently a retired scientist and I’ve said this before, that science and other specializations have their own myopias, essentially by definition and practice. The world is a big, intertwined and complex place. Technoreductionism, if that’s a word, and magic bullets and stuff like those don’t cut the mustard.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

  25. So I have a prediction. If the Trump regime collapses – for regime it is – I suspect it will not be his frolics with the Russians which destroy it. Nor his corruption, nor his domestic lies. Nor his misogyny. Nor his anti-immigrant racism. Nor his obvious mental instability, though this clearly connects him to his friends in the Arab world. The Middle East has already got its coils into the White House. Trump is a friend of a highly dangerous state called Saudi Arabia. He has adopted Israeli foreign policy as his own, including the ownership of Jerusalem and wholehearted support for Israel’s illegal colonisation of Palestinian Arab land. He has torn up a solemn treaty with Iran. He has joined the Sunni side in its sectarian war with the Shias of the Middle East, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Bahrain and, of course, in Saudi Arabia itself.
    …
    [T]he Arabs and Muslims who live in territory which many of the American supporters call the holy land may well decide his future; after all, he thinks he can decide theirs.

    –Robert Fisk
    (I have some issues with Fisk)

      1. It makes sense that a country producing and buying a lot of EV’s would be heavy into the supply chain. With electric car sales rising fast in China, the need for materials is greater there than other countries. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/06/01/electric-car-sales-are-surging-in-china-infographic/#4fc667b5d1f7

        China has climbed fast past the number of vehicles that the US has registered. The number of vehicles registered in China reached an all-time high of 300.3 million at the end of March, with cars accounting for two-thirds of that number. The Chinese market is expanding fast, the US market is stale.

          1. Warning! VERY slow load due to huge images, someone hasn’t learned to use previews + Gallery!

            NAOM

            1. Yep! Being that we are well into the 21st century it is rather annoying, to say the least. That level of digital graphics illiteracy and ignorance ceased being acceptable circa mid 1990s… Ugh!

            2. Seeing as how I use Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) the easiest choice for image manipulation for me was ImageMagick and seeing as how that is open source, it is also available for Windows and Mac! It allows me to easily crop and resize images to make the file size smaller than the 50k needed for posts to this web site.

              Have you heard of it Fred?

            3. Have you heard of it Fred?

              I have!

              However given that I have over 30 plus years of computer graphics experience on all the Operating systems you mention with probably more software than most people have ever even heard of, my personal choice for image manipulation is a high end scientific and technical illustration package that runs on Windows and Mac. It does everything that the entire Adobe suite of software does, plus it can do nanometer precise CAD drawings, GIS, and about 100 other file formats as well… It does have a rather steep learning curve! 😉

            7. Free/Libre Software

              “Bob,
              https://www.canvasgfx.com/en/products/canvas-x-2019/” ~ Fred Magyar

              Is it free/libre software?

              “When a program respects users’ freedom and community, we call it ‘free software’.

              We also sometimes call it ‘libre software’ to emphasize that we’re talking about liberty, not price. Some proprietary (nonfree) programs… give the program’s developer power over the users, power that no one should have.

              …nonfree programs have something else in common: they are both malware. That is, both have functionalities designed to mistreat the user. Proprietary software nowadays is often malware because the developers’ power corrupts them. That directory lists around 350 different malicious functionalities (as of October, 2018), but it is surely just the tip of the iceberg.

              With free software, the users control the program, both individually and collectively. So they control what their computers do (assuming those computers are loyal and do what the users’ programs tell them to do).

              With proprietary software, the program controls the users, and some other entity (the developer or ‘owner’) controls the program. So the proprietary program gives its developer power over its users. That is unjust in itself; moreover, it tempts the developer to mistreat the users in other ways.

              Even when proprietary software isn’t downright malicious, its developers have an incentive to make it addictive, controlling and manipulative. You can say, as does the author of that article, that the developers have an ethical obligation not to do that, but generally they follow their interests. If you want this not to happen, make sure the program is controlled by its users.” ~ Richard Stallman

            10. What’s your bandwidth Kenneth*? Mines about 6 Mb/s.

              NAOM

              *Play on REM

            11. Mine is 120Mb/s down, Eugene*

              play on Pink Floyd- ‘careful w that axe’

      2. Musk’s goal is 0 Cobalt and I would expect this to be achieved. I don’t know if Sodium ion batteries also use Cobalt. Trump should be putting efforts into US Cobalt production not Coal production. Fine ‘businessman’, cough, who cannot see a future trend.

        NAOM

          1. Thanks, been looking at them for a 4s3p, couldn’t find a 4s charger.

            NAOM

  26. News just in!

    Milestone – Australia renewables output hits 9GW for first time

    This weekend brought the first days of summer, some searing temperatures in Queensland and some mini-tornadoes in South Australia – and also a record level of production from renewable energy in Australia’s main grid.

    This graph above, courtesy of Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College in Melbourne, and sourced from their OpenNem data feed, shows that the level of renewables was above 9,000 megawatts (nine gigawatts) for the first time on Saturday.

    This weekend brought the first days of summer, some searing temperatures in Queensland and some mini-tornadoes in South Australia – and also a record level of production from renewable energy in Australia’s main grid.

    This graph above, courtesy of Dylan McConnell from the Climate and Energy College in Melbourne, and sourced from their OpenNem data feed, shows that the level of renewables was above 9,000 megawatts (nine gigawatts) for the first time on Saturday.

    This occurred at midday, when the share of renewables in the NEM hit 39.7 per cent. Even without hydro, the contribution of large scale wind, large scale solar, and rooftop solar nearly beat 9GW for the first time, and on Sunday it did.

    Lots of graphs at the linked web page.

    The growth of utility scale PV in Australia has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past twelve to eighteen months. There’s a NEMWatch widget in the right side sidebar of the page that has bar graphs showing the contribution of each source for each state. Last year the utlity scale solar was a little sliver for each state. At the time of this post Queensland was getting over 600 MW from utility scale solar and over 900 MW from rooftop solar. So utility scale has gone from “a sliver” to two fifths, in less than eighteen months!

    1. Keeping things in perspective:

      AUSTRALIA IS SET TO BECOME THE WORLD’S BIGGEST EXPORTER OF NATURAL GAS BY 2019

      https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-natural-gas-exports-growth-2019-2018-1

      And,

      The Australian government has rejected the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report’s call to phase out coal power by 2050, claiming renewable energy cannot replace baseload coal power. The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said Australia should “absolutely” continue to use and exploit its coal reserves, despite the IPCC’s dire warnings the world has just 12 years to avoid climate change catastrophe. He said the government would not change policy “just because somebody might suggest that some sort of report is the way we need to follow and everything that we should do”.

      https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/09/australian-government-backs-coal-defiance-ipcc-climate-warning

      2. Doug I posted this a week ago but it bears posting again. Public sentiment in Australia may be lead to a change of heart!

        Victoria votes for solar, batteries and climate action, as Labor wins in a landslide

        Victoria’s Labor Party has been returned to power, after a state poll that delivered a crushing defeat to the Liberal-National Coalition, and a clear endorsement of strong policies on climate change and renewable energy.

        The stunning victory is expected to give the Labor Andrews government about 55 seats – and possibly as many as 58 – in the state’s 88-seat Lower House, as electorates considered to be safely Liberal swung to Labor, and marginal seats morphed into Labor strongholds…..[snip]

        Meanwhile, the federal Coalition is busily reassuring itself that this was a state election, fought on state issues.

        But for senior members of the party like former energy minister and current federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the huge swing against the Coalition in the heart of his very own inner Melbourne “leafy green” electorate must draw uncomfortable comparisons with Wentworth in NSW.

        “If the message of the Wentworth by-election wasn’t clear enough, the Liberal Party have been given another reminder,” said Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Alix Foster Vander Elst.

        “Australians are sick of the climate denial and scare-mongering. They want action on climate change and an energy system dominated by renewables and they will vote for parties who can deliver them.”

        It is my considered opinion that the Australian government, like the current US administration, does not represent the views of the majority of the electorate but, instead is pushing the agenda of the very wealthy FF industry that, backed their election campaigns with hefty funding. We have a few months to see how big a backlash the Australian Federal government is going to experience at the polls. If last months US mid terms are anything to go by, it is going to be a bloodbath!

        I sense that the world over, thinking people, most of whom vote, are beginning to see the FF industry funded propaganda for what it is. I sincerely hope that is the case but, as I said we will have to wait a few more months as far as Australia is concerned.

        1. I really hope you’re right but remember, as we speak, Adani is moving ahead with their giant Carmichael mine. The Company expects this mine to produce 2.3 billion tonnes of low-quality thermal coal over 60 years.

          1. Production and consumption are very different things.

            Lots of coal companies are finding that they have no customers, in both the US and China. Lots of f coal-fired electric generation has plummeting utilization factors, as customers leave. Plants with 60 year lives are going to be abandoned.

            Just because people are building coal mines and generation doesn’t mean the customers will come.

            1. Yes Adani will spend ~ $16.5 billion dollars in the construction of the largest coal mine in Australia, because he wants to store the coal produced in his backyard.

            2. After long discussions of LTO companies losing money, you need to ask if companies sometimes make mistakes and lose money?

              Check Peabody coal.

            3. You have sources/links showing stockpiles of coal that can’t be sold, Nick?

            5. “Just because people are building coal mines and generation doesn’t mean the customers will come.”

              Adani Power the largest private power producer in India. The Company recently added the fourth 660 MW unit. So, Adani is its own customer.

            6. The consumers are the people consuming electricity. It’s the same dynamic whether the mines and the generation are integrated or independent. Coal won’t be competitive.

              Something like 40% is uncompetitive right now, based on out of pocket costs. Internalize pollution, or wait a few years for solar costs to fall, and the rest will also be uncompetitive.

          2. It’s intriguing how these things turn out sometimes! Doug makes his comment about Adani “moving ahead with their giant Carmichael mine” on Sunday evening EST, Monday morning Australian time and by last night (Dec 3), Tuesday Dec. 4 in Australia, this pops up over at reneweconomy.com.au:

            Adani coal project does not have a social licence – it must be stopped

            Mining approvals for the extraction of Galilee Basin coal by groups like Adani and companies associated with Gina Reinhardt need immediate review.

            Considerable new information is available about the climate impacts of exploiting one of the largest untapped coal reserves on the planet. New coal projects are losing their social licence to operate as society understands the serious impact of climate change on humanity and the ecosystems we depend upon.

            The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued earlier this year has now concluded, with 99% certainty, that coral reef systems like the Great Barrier Reef will be lost if nations do not act to prevent the continued unabated production of additional Co2 which will cause 2 degrees of global warming.

            One of the world’s greatest unnecessary causes of Co2 production is the burning of thermal coal to produce electricity.

            Given that this is no longer necessary because renewable alternatives are cheaper, the Adani coal project, and other new coal projects have been stripped of any rights to a social licence to operate. I contrast that to coking coal that is still needed as economic alternatives remain unavailable just yet.

            As one of the largest donors to the Liberal Party and the Institute of Public Affairs, proponents associated with the Galilee Basin coal projects have had both the potential and the incentive to influence past approvals and are likely to seek to prevent a review of any of these or stop future approvals.

            So, despite what Adani expects to do, there appears to be considerable opposition to this project from within Australia. It will be really interesting to see what happens in the Australian federal elections next March.

  27. There is a lot of talk about geo-engineering. Everything is theoretical at this point but the one most infamous is spraying SO2 high into the atmosphere to make reflective clouds and particles, thus further dimming the light reaching the sun.
    This would need about 5 to 15 million tons of SO2 each year to reduce temperature and keep them down about 1C. The next problem is getting the SO2 high enough, 80,000 feet would be best. This involves building special heavy lift high altitude aircraft. Even if they carried 500,000 pounds per trip that would be minimum of 20,000 trips per year. Smaller loads might be needed since there is little air at 80,000 feet.
    Besides the huge cost of those specialized aircraft, facilities, increased production and storage, etc. there is also the cost of fueling and the extra CO2 load added to the atmosphere to accomplish this.

    If the CO2 level falls eventually, the atmospheric injection could be reduced and stopped.
    If the CO2 level keeps rising the amount sprayed would need to increase and the harm from stopping increases also.

    It would be a program that needed to run for up to several hundred years. If it worked.

    Of course rainfall patterns could shift and the ozone levels in the upper stratosphere change.

    1. How would you feel if a program like this commenced?
      Who gets to decide?
      What if it was carried out by a major coal industry or country, as a for profit scheme,
      or to earn ‘green credits’?
      Could it be funded by ‘green credits’?
      What if the Democrats were the primary proponents, or Russia, or OPEC?
      What if a Branson, Musk, Gates, Ma, or Bezos figure unilaterally decided to fund a private campaign?

      Maybe we will hear about such things during the next big el nino.

      1. Bangladesh – if the alternative is your country gets wiped because of inaction by the rich nations why should they be bothered with other side effects that don’t affect them, or the mayors of Miami, Shanghai etc. if the alternative is a few trillion lost in real estate prices from flooding.

          1. Piers Corbyn (brother of our putative future PM) is truly bonkers. There are almost yearly reports by him in the Daily Express (normally about now) predicting our coldest winter ever, I don’t think they have ever come remotely close to being correct.

          2. It’s all over the web that we are headed for a little ice age because of the solar minimum. Someone should tell those idiots that we have a solar minimum every 11 years. If a solar minimum could cause a little ice age then we would have had 9 little ice ages in the last 100 years.

            1. It will ‘funny’ when this little ice age minimums end up being hotter than the average temps were 30 yrs ago.

            2. They are referring to a Mauder minimum which last a long time…100 years? and coincided with a mini ice age. Solar output via observation of internal movement seems to indicate another Mauder minimum…over and above a 11 year cycle.

      2. “How would you feel if a program like this commenced?”

        Me and Mother Nature would be chortling at the irony.
        Humans are good at building techno traps and never seem to learn until the tiger’s breath is on their collective neck.
        Instead of solving the problem, they want to Band-Aid the problem which encourages the problem to continue.

    1. Let me know when someone figures out how to stop and reverse ocean acidification. Even if you manage to reproduce corals 100s of times faster if their habitat is too hot and acidic they won’t survive in the wild…
      Kind of a bummer!

      1. Is coral living at the cooler margins of their range more resistant to acidification, or is temp irrelevant to this process?

        1. Warmer waters affect corals by causing them to eject the zooxanthalae, symbiotic algae, on which the depend in part for their nourishment. So cooler waters might help. However ocean pH affects the CaC03 chemistry of building their structures. Making them more vulnerable to breaking…

          https://www.whoi.edu/news-release/scientists-identify-how-ocean-acidification-weakens-coral-skeletons

          Corals grow their skeletons upward toward sunlight and also thicken them to reinforce them. 
          The new research, led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), shows that ocean acidification particularly impedes the thickening process—decreasing the skeletons’ density and leaving them more vulnerable to breaking.           The study was published today (Jan. 29, 2018) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

          Cheers!

          P.S. NAOM, soft corals by definition, do not build hard support structures out of CaCO3

          1. True. i expected that there would be no hard structures affected, but would the change of ph affect their growth in other ways?

            NAOM

      2. Yeah, if it don’t get you one way it gets you another. While on the subject, are soft corals affected by acidification?

        NAOM

      3. Great Barrier Reef to be restored by ‘coral IVF’

        https://news.sky.com/story/great-barrier-reef-to-be-restored-by-coral-ivf-11565807

        Scientists in Australia are attempting to restore the Great Barrier Reef by using IVF-style techniques on coral.

        Experts will try to capture millions of coral eggs and sperm during the annual coral spawning in the Larval Restoration Project, dubbed “IVF for the Great Barrier Reef”.

        The tiny corals will then be grown in floating booms for around a week and when the larvae are ready they will be reintroduced to the most damaged parts of the reef.

        Professor Peter Harrison, from Southern Cross University in New South Wales, one of the project leaders, called it “the largest larval restoration project that’s ever been attempted not only on the Great Barrier Reef but anywhere in the world”.

        He said: “For the first time we are going to try on a large scale to capture literally millions of eggs and sperm during the coral spawning event. We’re building spawn catchers floating off Moore Reef off Cairns.

        :: Sky’s Ocean Rescue campaign encourages people to reduce their single-use plastics. You can find out more about the campaign and how to get involved at http://www.skyoceanrescue.com

        1. That’s great!

          Unfortunately it doesn’t solve the problem of climate and acidification…

          Corals still need a healthy environment in which to live!

          1. Sadly I think the Northern Part of the GBR will be mostly finished off by this years El Nino.

            1. Certainly not outside the realm of possibilities.

              Though it still boggles my mind that there has already been this much coral reef die off in such a blink of a geological eye.

              I’m coming around to the idea that anyone still denying these realities needs to be permanently locked up and the keys thrown away.

              I’m pretty sure that our children will not forgive us for what we have wrought!

            2. Too many coal mines, we are running out of canaries.
              (non-linear indications from the boundary species)

  30. (In non-petroleum because it’s about *demand*, not production.)

    The key thing I’ve been watching for is for when Wall Street decides to stop funding the orgy of fossil fuel extraction. This requires low oil prices due to low demand. I’m not sure they’re low enough yet.

    It’s very interesting that gasoline is glutted. It’s glutted due to excessive amounts of light crude from the Permian and excessive refinery operations to produce diesel. The refinery margins have gone to zero already. With gasoline glutted, all production is for diesel, partly in anticipation of ships switching to diesel. This means, basically, that the Tesla Semi is what kills oil demand and drives the major oil companies into bankruptcy. It needs to be produced as quickly as possible, but mass production probably won’t be until 2020 (which is also when ships will switch to diesel).

    The next year should be interesting for demand, but 2020 will be the *really* interesting year. Saudi Arabia’s finances should also break in 2020 or 2021.

    1. It’s not just Tesla, with a whole host of EVs coming to the market the pressure is only going to rise.

      NAOM

    2. For more detail on the gasoline glut: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/What-Crashing-Refining-Margins-Mean-For-Oil-Markets.html

      As cars slowly get more efficient, people cut back some on driving, less store runs due to internet shopping and bulk delivery, and the economy runs downward for many people. the need for gasoline diminishes. Eating at the edge of this is the hybrid/plugin EV movement. Every million EV’s means another 65,000 barrels per day of petroleum not needed for gasoline production.
      Plug in EV’s were being sold at the rate of about half million per year in the US, expect that rate to reach 1 million per year by or before 2020.
      There are about 4 million plug ins world wide now and registrations were increasing at 55 per year. In 7 years that is 86 million plug-ins on the road. A dent in the petroleum demand and if large EV and hybrid trucks start to take off then even more so.
      The complexity of price of fuel versus demand will start to break down as new disruptive systems come into play. Complex wasteful systems rarely can compete with simpler more efficient systems.

      As a greater percentage of people become urbanized the demand for liquid fuels will become less.

      1. Internet and home deliveries are going to take a growing bite out of store runs. As people find the advantage of it they will use it more. One van can do the work of 10 or 20 cars. Here, most major stores deliver when asked, today I will order a load of pet food to be delivered. Motor spares, butchers, paint suppliers and many more have motorbike delivery. We also have 2 companies delivering to your order by motorbike and I have seen at least one bicycle delivery going around. All this cuts into fuel use.

        NAOM

  31. The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity’s greatest threat in thousands of years. The broadcaster said it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of “much of the natural world”. He was speaking at the opening ceremony of United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Katowice, Poland. The meeting is the most critical on climate change since the 2015 Paris agreement. Sir David said: “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate Change.
    “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46398057

    Lot’s talking if nothing else yet … no wait, I forgot all those fancy, high priced EVs.

    The extinction of much of the natural world has already happened and we’re unlikely to reverse that (or save much of the remainder) whatever happens with climate change.

    1. Attenborough is a good mouthpiece for this situation. An excellent speaker and presenter, his many years of experience in films and public presence will come across better than most scientists. Still one must be amused at the several decades delay from when Hansen first presented a very grim case in a strong way to now when the world finally starts to get a bit excited over it all. Even Schwarzenegger got into the act. We need TV and movie personalities to be our communicators since TV and movies are the ubiquitous methods of communication and propaganda. A slight sense of anxiety and urgency is now becoming propagandized. Let’s see how long for that to settle down and we can get back to our main business, crushing current nature.

      A society that loses respect for and does not demand respect for it’s learned elders is lost anyway.

      But to make you feel better, coming soon to a road and parking lot near you is a way to charge cars on the fly and while parking without wires. How Wireless Charging For Electric Vehicles Will Solve Range Anxiety https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq6e-0SRlz0

      I mean we wouldn’t want any anxiety among the 10 or 20 percent that can afford all this.
      What? You think the money to build out all that expensive infrastructure should be used to better purpose? Sorry, the 80 percent will be excluded from civilization, as it is now. You should not have supported a representative government instead of an actual democracy if you wanted a say in things.
      Go back to your TV’s and smart phones, to watching sports. Enjoy yourselves while the world burns and your jobs have not all been taken away by the machines.

      I wonder when a global meeting of leaders to handle the population and consumption problems will ever meet. Even if we “solve” global warming (fat chance), the whole thing grinds to a halt anyway.
      I also wonder when the screaming and running starts. Screaming muffled by the aluminum and carbon fiber cocoons with wheels. [my guess is when the power goes off]

      Have a nice day.

  32. 1805 — US: Dammit!? William Clark reaches Pacific Ocean after floating down the Snake & Columbia Rivers. Clark’s journal entries noted an appalling lack of enormous hydroelectric dams.

    1. from the article- “Investors in plants that failed to show substantial NOx emission cuts collected the tax credit anyway because the Internal Revenue Service allows them to prove emissions reductions with laboratory tests.” [rather than real-world results]

  35. This is interesting, to me anyway. Reserve currency status never lasts forever of course. Maybe this will be one of Herr Trump’s legacies (i.e., speeding dollar’s downfall).

    EU PROPOSES WIDESPREAD ‘DE-DOLLARIZATION’ INITIATIVES

    “In the most blatant and transparent reaction to Washington’s continued vassal-ization, the European Commission has reportedly formulated a plan to reduce the role of the dollar in international trade…

    With Russia actively de-dollarizing, along with Iran, and China slowing its Treasury purchases (while publicly proclaiming support) but promoting its petroyuan contracts, Europe’s shift away from the petrodollar could be more posturing or could be the end of the beginning of the end as the dollar’s reign as reserve currency ends slowly at first then all at once.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-03/eu-proposes-widespread-de-dollarization-initiatives

    1. EVs for personal transport in the UK seem to be almost entirely irrelevant (paywalled at The Times).

      As I learnt about “solution aversion” last week I am going to use it here and say that EV proponents are very well off in a global sense and have an entirely subjective set of solutions that they find acceptable, and that all require zero sacrifice of happy motoring, single vehicle independence.

      The good news from the chart below is actually that new vehicle sales appear to be declining overall, and quite quickly, maybe recession is the only answer.

      (p.s. This wasn’t supposed to be a reply to Doug).

      2. Not quite sure how that squares with this:

        Plug-Ins Account For Over 3% Of New Car Sales In UK In October 2018

        October was strong, but a downturn lies ahead.

        In October, some 4,704 new plug-in cars were registered in the UK, which is not only 31.8% more than a year ago, but also a high 3.06% market share:

        1,256 BEVs (up 86.9% year-over-year)
        3,448 PHEVs (down 19.1% year-over-year)

        So far this year, the market increased by 22.7% to 49,558 aan t average market share of about 2.4%.

        A couple of things. Insideevs is an “EV cheering” site so probably their choice of data and the way they present it has a decidedly positive slant. From what I can gather on-line, The Times is a center right news source so, they may have picked their data and presented to try and give a less enthusiastic view of the situation. One thing is for sure, conservatives in the western world are clearly in the pockets of the FF industries and do not want the public to perceive of EVs (of any stripe) or renewable energy in a positive way.

        Then there’s this:

        Global October Sales: New Record For Plug-In Electric Cars

        About 2 million plug-in electric cars will be sold in 2018

        In October 2018, sales of plug-ins again not only grew like crazy year-over-year, but also hit a new all-time high.

        EV Sales Blog estimates that in total, some 208,800 plug-in electric cars were sold last month (up 75%), several thousand above the record from September. November and December probably will raise the bar even higher.

        See more our sales reports for October 2018 here.

        With about 1,490,000 sales in the first 10 months of 2018 at average 1.9% market share, it’s very probable that 2 million plug-ins will be sold this year with well over 250,000 in December (usual peak month of the year). In 2017 ,total sales were 1.2 million, which shows us how fast the market expands.

        1. PHEVs (hybrids in the chart and growing in numbers sold) aren’t emission free, they are just range extenders (I’m not sure of the numbers but I think they save 20 to 50% of oil, maybe more if the driver takes. lot of care). The Times may be a lot of things but it definitely doesn’t massage data in a news report, the fines would be quite large (not so sure about some of op-ed columnists always though but they have more leeway).

          1. PHEV’s aren’t emission free, but they can result in a massive reduction in fuel use and emissions.
            I have one that gets 32 miles on electricity (its big enough to put a sheet of plywood flat inside).
            My electrical ride is 69% of total miles driven, with petrol 31%.
            The ICE kicks in only when I go for longer trips, seamlessly.
            This could surely be improved if they allowed you to pick a bigger battery pack (I would), at the sake of cargo room. I would opt for a 3″ sheet of battery that would cover the whole cargo space. That would probably get me another 50 miles (guessing based on size).

            So, for me, the ICE is the range extender, and in most weeks it sits idle.
            Now I just have to figure out how rarely to get routine servicing.

            Also, if I was under price duress from high oil, I could probably get my electric ride up to about 100% of total without giving up anything in daily life. I haven’t been to the gas station since 2nd week of Sept (when I went up to the mountains) and still have 1/2 a tank full.
            This wouldn’t work at all if I was a long distance driver usually, but I’ve left plenty of petrol for them to buy at the station.

          2. I have a Chevy Volt, technically a PHEV. It has an all-electric range of up to 65 miles, normally about 55 for me. I went 14 months without putting gas in it and would have gone longer but I took an 800 mile trip. It averaged about 41 mpg.

            The car has a nifty feature that allows me to run it 100% on gas when on the freeway, then when I get in town I can go back to 100% electric. Most days I am able to charge it 100% at night when rates are the lowest. It is smart enough to know (with programming) when the rates are low so I never have to use the highest cost electricity.

            1. Does it know when the rates are low, and preferentially charge at that time, or do you have to tell it what time to charge?

      3. George –

        “…EV proponents are very well off in a global sense and have an entirely subjective set of solutions that they find acceptable, and that all require zero sacrifice of happy motoring, single vehicle independence.”

        Yes indeed, I personally know about 10 (wealthy) Norwegians who have an EV and this certainly applies to all of them. Plus, the fact that it’s a lot easier driving around Norway with an EV than an ICE car (no taxes on purchase, driving in Bus lanes, toll roads and ferry fees waived, free municipal parking, etc.). The one thing that seems common to all Norwegian EV owners, the ones I’ve met anyway, is: There, I’ve done my bit for the environment, now, where shall to go for our holiday? Maybe to Uganda to visit a wildlife park then over to Brazil for a boat trip down the Amazon.

        Where I live in Western Canada, I’ve yet to see an EV. And, can you imagine hiring a neighbor kid to shovel heavy snow off your roof hosting solar panels? In any case, I’ve never seen a solar panel on a roof here perhaps partly for that reason. BTW, the centre where I go to visit doctors and sometimes shop has a population of roughly 100,000 and I’ve yet so see an EV there — not one. Here, guys mostly drive pickups, gals SUVs. Electricity here is generated mostly from gas and/or hydro. Wood stoves are ubiquitous outside city limits.

        1. Yeehah, Canada’s version of Texas with 17 percent of the population and more land area. Beautiful place, mostly uninhabited.

        2. Even though EV’s represent the fringe in most communities, in others they are becoming almost commonplace.
          But the big news is that they have been developed to the point where there are many models ready for mass production that are really very good.
          That wasn’t the case 5-10 yrs ago.
          The EV and hybrid industry is at the beginning of the 2nd inning, and there will come a time in the next 5-10 yrs when the majority of new vehicle buyers will be taking a long hard look at them. Peak oil will demand it.
          The transition decade starts now.

      4. George,

        I’m confident that you don’t really want to promote fossil fuels. But…that’s what you’re doing.

        When you repeat climate denier talking points you promote fossil fuels.

        The idea of individual sacrifice is a climate denier talking point: sacrifice turns off people, and an emphasis on individual efforts would guarantee a disorganized and ineffective response to climate change.

        If sacrifice were necessary, then it would be necessary to say so: you’d be a Cassandra, ignored even if you were right, but you’d be doing the right thing. But…it’s not necessary: EVs and renewables are simply better than their legacy predecessors.

        1. Nick-“The idea of individual sacrifice is a climate denier talking point: sacrifice turns off people, and an emphasis on individual efforts would guarantee a disorganized and ineffective response to climate change.”

          If I get what you are saying, I couldn’t disagree more.
          The truth is harsh. Wallpaper doesn’t hold up a weak wall.

          Lets not say that solar is weak in the winter? Really? Is that what you are saying?

          1. Agreed – I actually think cherry picked denialism is more palatable than cherry picked condescension, and I think the reply proved my point about narrow and subjectively acceptable solutions fairly well.

            1. Too true, the more well off people are the more they accept sugar coated BAU which does not confront 90 percent of the problems and predicaments.
              But in a societal system that is based on 90 percent lies and 10 percent twisted truths, one must expect many to succumb to the indoctrination and never deeply question.

            2. My point is that renewables and EVs are good ideas regardless of whether they solve ALL of our problems.

              Attacking them is counterproductive. If you want to to point to other problems, fine.

              It’s weird – people seem unable to understand the idea of raising people’s awareness and expectations without attacking them, and the the good things that they are already doing.

              As I think of it, it’s like people on the left, attacking their allies because they’re not even further on the left: it seems to be easier to be angry at those who have done something, and therefore raised your expectations that they might do even more.

            3. I was not attacking you personally, unless you are your ideas. I was pointing out that your idea of non-sacrifice which implies the continued devastation of the ecosystems on a large scale is fatally and horrendously flawed.

              If we cannot disagree with ideas presented here (and often I am personally attacked for my ideas and conclusions) than this is just a waste of space, time and energy.

              The only successful path forward involves completely sacrificing current society and civilization versus the continued mass sacrifice of the ecosystems (communities of species) and the general environment.

              That will need to be taken in steps (short ones) since the mass indoctrination of human superiority and commercial ownership of the world is deeply ingrained. Though totally false as we are in the process of finding out.

            4. GF,

              This discussion started with a comment about EVs, quoted below:

              “all require zero sacrifice of happy motoring, single vehicle independence.”

            5. NG,
              You said”The idea of individual sacrifice is a climate denier talking point: sacrifice turns off people, and an emphasis on individual efforts would guarantee a disorganized and ineffective response to climate change.”
              When just about every global warming/climate change mitigation site on the web touts personal changes and sacrifice. Sometimes going as far as jail time.

            6. Hmm.

              It’s a complex discussion. I certainly think that personal change is a good idea. But, the nitty gritty primary work of dealing with climate change has to happen on a collective, governmental level. Vehicles became twice as efficient in the US because of government standards (CAFE), not due to consumer choices. Hybrids were developed because of government initiatives (PNGV). EVs were developed because of government initiatives (CARB). PV, wind power and battery tech would be nowhere close to it’s current state without government initiatives (NREL and many others).

              Assuming you’re correct about an emphasis on personal change at climate web sites (and that’s a big assumption), I’d say that web sites are just like mainstream media: they have to fill their columns with something. The nitty gritty primary work of dealing with climate change has to happen on a collective, governmental level, but I’d guess you can only say that kind of thing so many times, and then it’s not news. Plus, of course, if you “politicize” your web site you will be relentlessly attacked (because, of course, you’re threatening to actually doing something effective). So, you have to have articles about which vehicles are most efficient, or how to insulate, or which foods are most sustainable, etc., etc., etc.

            7. NG said “Assuming you’re correct about an emphasis on personal change at climate web sites (and that’s a big assumption), I’d say that web sites are just like mainstream media”

              Appreciate the innuendo makes me feel right at home here, but I said climate change mitigation websites. That means those are groups dedicated to stopping climate change not just studying it. These people are not afraid of the system. They know what is going down.
              Maybe you need to get out off your cloud and come down here with the rest of us once in a while. It’s dirty and nasty but educational.
              Me, I just got done helping insulate another house. Dirty work but effective. Be doing some more soon. Helps people keep their bills down and keeps the oil in the ground too. I spend time each week training people to cut back and reduce their footprint. But enough about me.

              If you think the government is the only way, well then go that way. Get on their case, sue them if you have to.
              I hate to tell you this, the only reason there is an EPA is because of extreme public pressure. Representatives, senators and executives don’t go against their owners without a lot of pressure.
              CAFE standards were introduced in 1975 to help prevent a repeat of the near riotous and sometimes deadly occurrences from the 1973 oil embargo initiated by Nixon.
              Government caused recession, government caused high inflation, government caused embargos and violent gas lines. Sure go with the government, they might eventually get things right.
              That’s why it is legal to totally fuck up the world.

              Same with Social Security and other social aids, the leaders were saving their collective butts and the “American Way”.

            8. GF,

              I think your personal efforts are great. And, of course, in a certain sense all we have is our personal efforts – god won’t do it for us.

              But the question is: where do we focus our personal efforts: one house at a time, or on changing building standards to require efficiency, PV, etc.?

              Those people who demanded the EPA got an enormous ROI for their efforts. Corporate lobbyists probably get a 1000:1 ROI for their campaign contributions.

              So, we need personal work. It’s inspiring, it’s accessible, and once you learn about this you kind’ve have to do it.

              But we also need to be working on the governmental levers of power.

            10. So all you want to do is attack people personally?

              Hmmm. It seems to be easier to be angry at those who have done something, and therefore raised your expectations that they might do even more.

          2. No. Solar isn’t perfect, it’s just better than FF.

            Of course solar is weaker in winter. But, there are solutions, including a robust grid, as you’ve said before.

            1. Hi Nick.
              We are at a point or scale were every step we take hurts something in the natural world, even PV.
              So we need to pick the lesser of two evils.
              Lets not pretend about anything.
              Lets not oversell nucs, or solar.
              We need to know the potential, and limitations up front as best we can.
              Just how well will an EV do in the winter?
              Just how much does it cost to fully decommission a nuc plant?
              Just how much radiation is released by the coal industry (a lot)?
              Just how bad was the toxic river pollution behind the PV plant in Zhanghou?
              Just how much backup baseload energy does the NE usa require if it tried to go full out solar and wind over the next 25 yrs (alot)?

              We need to consider all the elements, convenient or inconvenient.
              That doesn’t mean you also can’t be a proponent of the option you conclude is the least damaging, and most sustainable.

              ‘Mother Nature’ isn’t kind and gentle.
              Sustainable doesn’t mean we won’t be causing global mass extinction. Maybe just a bit slower.

              I have nothing against you.

            2. Not on the topic of Nick but on the topic of estimating potential relief from eco-destruction, I want to discuss control.
              With fossil fuels we lost control, most of the product was heat, pollution, dispersed CO2 and methane waste streams all or mostly not under our control. Then the whole population was enlisted in the pollution and ecodestruction by having them use the products.

              With PV the major pollution can occur at the production site (factory) where control of pollution is possible and recommended. Whereas with fossil fuels a lot of the pollution occurs at the mines and at the exhaust pipe/smokestack.

              PV and wind have a huge advantage since they don’t pollute at the generation site but only at the production factory. Not only is pollution lower and localized but it is fully controllable, unlike dispersed end use sources.

              To equate the pollution needed to generate a few pounds of silicon and glass to the many tons of coal and natural gas that are needed just to produce the energy shows a misconception about magnitude and amount.

              One thing that industrialists do not want is control, since then the problem lies in their laps and the world cannot be used as a waste stream by enlisting the whole population into their destructive ways. In other words, when the whole population is no longer guilty of criminal activity they might just turn upon those that continue to pollute and destroy.

            3. Just how much backup baseload energy does the NE usa require if it tried to go full out solar and wind over the next 25 yrs (alot)?

              We need to apply the same standards to FF and solar/wind. In this case, NE USA does not have abundant domestic FF (unless you count the Marcellus, I suppose, which I don’t think of as being in NE). It has to import most of it’s FF, and it has a great deal of trouble doing so. On the other hand, it has wind and solar, so if it were to rely fully on those two things (and it only used long distance transmission as a solution, though there are many other solutions that should be part of an optimal, lowest cost solution) it would only have to import a minority of it’s needs.

              Solar and wind are better than coal and NG.

            4. Once you build about ten thousand (a guess) offshore wind turbines in NE waters, you can start thinking about scaling back fossil baseload. Otherwise people are going to burn all the forest, and then the furniture, to keep warm. It ain’t trivial. To belittle the challenge does not help you get there. If anything, a massive sense of urgency is needed to commence the effort.

            5. You don’t want belittle to the effort.

              You don’t want to exaggerate it either.

              Average power consumption in the NE region is roughly 15GW. That would suggest maybe about 6GW from wind (40% market share). With 7MW turbines and a 45% capacity factor you’d need about 1,900 turbines.

            6. Hi Nick.
              Consumption is in GW/hrs.
              So I’m not confident in your assertion about the numbers.
              Also, in the winter time the NE will to need to be supplied almost entirely by wind (if no fossil fuel).
              How many turbines at 7 MW are installed now (or their equivalent)?
              Its going to take a hell of a lot of them, and people are pretending we have a couple more decades.

            7. Hi Hickory,

              Power is in watts, and energy is in watt-hours. Multiply watts by 8,760 hours in a year (24 x 365 = 8,760) to convert to watt-hours. I prefer to think in terms of power – its seems simpler. But, if you prefer energy, than just convert my numbers to that.
              FWIW, a forward slash (“/”) is shorthand for “per”, so GW/hrs would be gigawatts per hour, which would be confusing.

              Now, would the NE region of the US need to rely entirely on wind? Again, that’s if we apply a higher standard to renewables, and insist that they be entirely domestic, without any power imports at all. The NE imports a lot of fossil fuels. Why not renewable power? It would be a lot cheaper to import wind power from Iowa, hydropower from Quebec, and solar power from the Carolinas, or Texas.

              Finally, yes, I agree. We need to ramp up renewables a lot faster than we are. The problem isn’t that we don’t have the men, materials and energy to do it. It’s that we have lots of FF power plants that would have to be closed down, and their owners are fighting desperately to prevent that. That’s why they got Trump elected…

        2. Nick G,

          How is humanity going to slow down the destruction of the ecosystem if people are not willing to make individual sacrifices? Did you watch the Hugh Montgomery video that George Kaplan posted above? It provides a good frame of reference of the types of issues we face:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UP_-Bvf5fU

          In the end, I think the sacrifices may not be made by choice, but I am also interested in learning your opinion on this.

          1. Well, I’ll try to take a look – videos are terribly slow. I took a quick look at another of his presentations – his ideas seemed sensible (like: flying to a climate change conference is a reasonable compromise, one can make individual changes like not putting one’s money in a financial institution that is irresponsible).

            I object to an emphasis on personal change because I think it’s relatively ineffective: one can’t buy responsible products and services if they don’t exist. Most of the time they’ll only exist due to collective action, not individual. For instance, high efficiency A/C only exists due to regulation. Wildlife protection requires parks, Zoning, enforcement of species protection, etc.

            My focus is on energy, and there the idea of sacrifice is just FF propaganda: FF is inferior on cost, quality, safety, etc.

            1. Just out of curiosity, do you live a completely fossil fuel free lifestyle?

              Thanks

            2. Well, as I said, I think the primary emphasis needs to be on systemic change. I work extensively with government.

              But, yeah, I try. I live in a 92% walkable neighborhood, I use electric trains for at least half my travel, my lights are LED and my house is insulated enough to keep the heat off down to freezing outside.

            5. And…that’s one of the places the “system” part comes in.

              For me, at the moment, PV’s not possible – it needs to be at the utility level.

  36. UK is set to have a drop in new PHEVs due to cuts in subsidies. This has come from fleet owners where users have been fueling up instead of plugging in. Hopefully, with new models coming in, there will be an increase in pure EVs.

    NAOM

  37. More news (op-eds?) from Australia by way of reneweconomy.com.au

    Why coal – and not renewables – is root cause of surging Australia power prices

    New analysis from BloombergNEF (BNEF) shows that the rising cost of coal power generation in Australia’s is the primary – yet often overlooked – cause of the recent doubling of power prices on the National Electricity Market (NEM).

    The new analysis from BNEF confirms that thermal coal power prices have doubled in two years, and in turn caused a doubling in the price of coal capacity in the NEM, so much so that wind and solar are now lower than even just the short-run cost of thermal coal from the spot market. The short run cost does not include the money spent on building a coal plant.

    “This means that it is already cheaper to build a new solar or wind plant than burn export-linked coal in an existing, fully depreciated, coal plant,” BNEF analyst Ali Ashgar says.

    Two million Australian households now have rooftop solar – and they vote

    But what is really interesting to note from the CEC report, particularly as a federal election looms, is the political status of those and other top solar postcodes.

    As you can see in the list below, every single one of the CEC’s top five solar postcodes in Queensland and WA reside in Liberal-National Party held electorates – both at the state and federal levels.

    Bundaberg, QLD. Fed MP is Keith Pitt, LNP; State MP David Batt, LNP
    Mandurah, WA. Fed MP is Andrew Hastie, LNP; State David Templeman, ALP
    Hervey Bay, QLD. Fed MP Llew O’Brien, LNP; State Ted Sorensen, LNP
    Caloundra, QLD. Fed MP Andrew Wallace, LNP; State Mark McArdle, LNP
    Toowoomba, QLD. Fed MP John McVeigh, LNP; State Trevor Watts, LNP

    But they may not be for long, particularly if the federal government continues to play dumb on renewables and instead align itself with the nebulous concepts of “24/7” and fair-dinkum power.

  38. A vision of carbon neutral power around the globe by 2050

    A scenario in which no additional oil, coal or nuclear capacity is built and renewables grow at a pace of 3-4%, would see solar comprise 69% of the global electricity system by 2050. According to an EU thinktank, such an effort would boost European manufacturing, creating jobs and prosperity.

    The European Technology and Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP PV) has released a position paper aimed at the COP24 climate negotiations in Katowice, Poland that opened this morning. In its communication, the EU parliament thinktank sets out a vision of 100% renewable energy generation by 2050.

    Referring to peer-reviewed scientific studies, the ETIP PV says solar has the potential to become the world’s most abundant energy resource. The technology could make up 69% of the global energy mix in 2050, up from 1% in 2015. In addition to solar energy, the thinktank says wind power could rise from 4% of the global energy mix in 2015 to 18% by 2050.

    The assertion is based on a study by researchers at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology, which assumes that after 2015 no additional nuclear, coal or oil capacity would be built, while the share of renewables continuously grew by around 4% per year — that way PV would come out as the largest resource in 2050. Hydro capacity would reduce by half, down to 8% from 16% in 2015

    1. “A scenario in which no additional oil, coal or nuclear capacity is built and renewables grow at a pace of 3-4%”
      But isn’t energy demand supposed to grow at about 3 % per year as more people move up the economic scale and population grows, according to the mainstream outlooks?

      Sounds half-assed which means it has a higher probability of occurrence or at least starting.
      I doubt if there will be much applied to growth of any kind after 2030, in fact world energy use will probably start falling in the 2030’s, maybe sooner.

  39. White House seeks to end subsidies for electric cars, renewables

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items, including renewable energy sources.

    Asked about plans after General Motors Co (GM.N) announced U.S. plant closings and layoffs last week, Kudlow pointed to the $2,500-to-$7,500 tax credit for consumers who buy plug-in electric vehicles, including those made by GM, under federal law.

    “As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies,” Kudlow said. “And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth.”

    Asked about a timeline, he said: “It’s just all going to end in the near future. I don’t know whether it will end in 2020 or 2021.”

    1. A good election ploy ‘We just killed your subsidies now vote for us’

      NAOM

    2. Good. The more shit they do the better. Still might get re-elected.

      1. Still might get re-elected.

        No, no, no… Not a fucking chance that will happen. He will be lucky if he serves out the remainder of his term.

        1. Oh Ron, I sure hope you’re right.
          But I think the republicans have a strong chance of winning again.
          Depends on economic performance.
          The republicans appear not to give a rats ass about Trumps utter lack of dignity, in fact they seem to revel in it.
          And the democrats of Calif might not give the country a candidate who is able to get the popular vote plus 4 million.

          Crash and burn path seems like the most likely one to be traveled.

          1. Sociopaths never listen outside their own heads and greedy sociopaths only care about getting more money and power, not the means.

    3. White House seeks to end subsidies for electric cars, renewables ‘Western/elite/Global-North’ technotrinkets.

      Maybe once some kinds of facilitations for technotrinket dreams are sufficiently uprooted, the waking work of rapid fossil-fuel powering down and planting more nature can especially dig in.

    4. Republicans are not only on the wrong side of history, they are apparently also downright dishonest and stupid.

      They don’t seem to have a clue about how the world is changing.
      They also don’t want to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and centralized power distribution.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-F5DQA7iiKM

        1. I wish that lady being interviewed (CEO) spoke English. I need a written transcript.

          LOL! Given that she is English, that is more than a tad ironic, wouldn’t you say?

          Umm… You did know you could display a text of the conversation, just by clicking on the ‘CC’, (Closed Caption) icon at the bottom right hand side of the video. Right?!

          It is a standard feature of most Youtube Videos.

      2. With an attitude like that, you can forget Santa coming to your house on his clean coal powered sleigh to deliver you a MAGA hat for Christmas.

        Make America Great Again Rally – Biloxi, Mississippi, 26 November 2018

        1. Geoff- that picture has earned you a rare spot on the IGNORE list.
          I would vote to split the country. The picture represents some place I’d never go.

          Think independently if you know how. (turn off fox)
          Adios!

          1. Well, in the event you see this message, I apologize for letting you think I was serious with that post. I would never go to one of his ignorant, hateful rallies. I often have to watch them for work, though. White House staffers throwing MAGA hats and Trump/Pence T-shirts out into the spectators happens at some of the bigger, “special” rallies that are held in stadiums as opposed to airplane hangers. The rally in Biloxi was Christmas-themed with indoor snow (disproving climate change), life-size nutcrackers, and a faux fireplace which President Trump used to enter and exit the stage.

            1. OK Geoff. I didn’t catch your ?sarcasm.
              That whole scene just reinforces my severe nausea.
              Ugly to look at.

  40. “Pollyanna. It’s laughable. Probably some kid in Silicon Valley.” ~ Survivalist

    “You’ve said a lot of generalities, and now you’re resorting to attacking the person rather than the arguments.” ~ Nick G

    “Ron,

    Where does the idea that ICE’s could be replaced quickly come from?

    It comes from here, you dummy!” ~ Nick G

    1. Sellouts

      “CM, you have all the attractive characteristics of a lamprey… After reading some of your chaotic jumbled posts I wonder if you have any actual comprehension of reality at all or just exist in a one dimensional mental delusional space inside your own head.” ~ GoneFishing

      “Gonzo means bizarre or crazy. Look it up. See education helps you to not sound so… offensive.” ~ GoneFishing

      “I have a reasonable idea of what gonzo means enough not to need to look it up, but I think there’s a subtle distinction to be made between modding your nickname to Gonzo and outright claiming you as actually being gonzo…

      Nevertheless, in a recent previous thread, I think you went with me well beyond the level of my playful tease with your nickname.” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

      “GoneFishing means I no longer am a hired corporate scientist but retired… So be flattered I spend any time on you…

      …you can either stop using it or continue to, your choice. It reflects on you not me.” ~ GoneFishing

      “You’re no longer a hired corporate scientist and are retired? …This despite your ‘tantrum’ lobbed at me over my pulling a previous comment of yours for ‘external peer review’, being bothered by a nickname mod, while suggesting that I be flattered that you spend any time on me?

      I wonder if you’re deliberately trying to assume the definition of ‘gonzo’ to make some kind of point…” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

      “Oh, bullshit. You brought up the topic and then you try to use it against me. Fuck off.
      You try to use comments as traps to put respondents in your erroneous judgmental boxes. You also promote fossil fuels through constant attack on renewable energy and sustainable systems. Those are dastardly and wicked actions.
      They are the actions of someone trying to disrupt conversation and promote chaos.” ~ GoneFishing

      You have claimed that you’re a retired corporate scientist and I thought about specialization then and so thought to mention both in context with each other, and seeing as you replied to my initial comment.

      ‘Respondents’ can put themselves in their own ‘traps’, so to speak, and occasionally, I’m more than happy to illustrate it– in part because we put ourselves as a species in traps, such as via science and technology, the corporation, so-called government and of course plain stupidity, arrogance, irresponsibility and ignorance.

      We have sold and are selling ourselves and our planet out, retired corporate scientist.

      Corporate Elect

      1. “So be flattered I spend any time on you…” ~ GoneFishing

        Wait, what?

        Like maybe we should all be flattered that you spend ‘any time‘ on this forum with your awesomeness, wherein any questioning of it risks incurring your (irrational, unscientific) wrath?

        “You try to use comments as traps to put respondents in your erroneous judgmental boxes.” ~ GoneFishing

        Like this?
        Again, kelsivictor wasn’t me, but I leveraged it of course. By contrast, you never denied you were MarbleZeppelin.

        ” ‘MarbleZeppelin’ would make multiple messages a day for hours at a time. Then he got in an argument with Ron Patterson and promised to leave for good.” ~ kelsivictor

        So why’d you return?

        1. There are a number of prima donas here who throw fits, threaten to leave, possibly do leave, but then often return, perhaps under a new identity like in the case you described.

    2. i wonder if Africa could boost GDP and prevent future famine by enacted policies requiring the singing of more songs? Instead of politicians promising “jobs, jobs, jobs” they could promise “songs, songs, songs”. That’d get the economy going!

      1. On a serious note, I have noticed a lot of African sounding pop music on the radio recently.

        Jamaica has it’s own home grown genre of pop music (reggae) and radio here is dominated by US pop music (top 40, hip-hop/rap, R&B, dance etc.) and Jamaican music with a sprinkling of Eastern Caribbean music especially at carnival time. In a similar way that hip-hop/rap evolved in the US, Jamaica has seen a sort of offshoot of reggae music evolve that is very popular with younger people. These newer forms of pop music seem to have been facilitated by synthesizers, drum machines and computerized digital recording that have allowed any body with little or no formal music training to “make beats” on top of which people can rap or sing.

        I find this “new music” decidedly less musical than the music I grew up listening to. Before the advent of modern synthesizers (keyboards that can mimic just about any instrument known) and drum machines music recording was dominated by (mostly) trained musicians with written scores and lots of time spent in professional recording studios with trained recording engineers. IIRC even disco music in the seventies was sometimes performed by a full orchestra despite the fact that the focus was on the rhythm! Now anybody with a a laptop, the right software and optionally, a midi controller or two, can throw some beats together, lay some vocals and have a top 40 hit.

        Which brings me back to Africa and the idea of “songs, songs, songs”. So now we have a Moroccan-American performer called French Montana with a video on Youtube titled “Unforgettable ft. Swae Lee”, filmed on the streets of Kampala, Uganda with over 815 million views. There’s also a Nigerian performer Davido, with his video, “Fall” at over 98 million views, now the most viewed Nigerian video on youtube. Finally there’s another Nigerian performer, Runtown with his video “Mad Over You” at over 77 million views.

        There are people earning millions of dollars from youtube videos and every music video has a whole crew of performers and production personnel that earn a living from their efforts, So this new genre of pop music from Africa, Afrobeats, is being played all over the world as pop music and has the potential to bump GDP up quite a bit! No joke!

      2. Survivalist,

        You seem to be thinking about a theoretical answer to a theoretical question asked by Minqi in a previous Post.

        I was going to say: “It was theoretical, and not intended to deal with daily reality. Let it go.”

        But then I read Islandboy’s comment, and was reminded that it’s not entirely irrelevant to daily life: things like music really are important, and not to be ignored as intangible, or “just” entertainment.

    1. This author seems to mainly be worried about GM and Ford:

      “To a certain extent, Tesla’s capital raises are exactly what one would expect. Young firms in capital-intensive businesses must invest heavily at the outset; in return, revenues shoot up very quickly, as we see with Tesla.

      If a young firm manages its costs well, they grow slower than revenues and profit rises rapidly as a result; eventually the period of heavy investment slows, and the spending can be completely covered by generated profits. Until that point, the firm is structurally bankrupt – it must tap capital markets to remain a going concern.

      Tesla is a new company, but what about GM and Ford – two stalwarts of American Industry?”

      1. Tesla is a new company
        It is over 10 years old.
        But I’m rooting for it!

  42. Wholesale Power Price Cannibalisation

    “Research from Cornwall Insight has revealed that as capacity and output from solar and windfarm projects continues to increase, in coming years, the ‘cannibalisation effect’ is set to lower wholesale power prices to the extent that, if unchecked, it could jeopardise investment in new renewables capacity.

    The paper poses questions that need to be considered by policy makers, such as: will intermittent renewables be financially viable without subsidy?“

    Low Oil Prices: An Indication of Major Problems Ahead?

    “In fact, the whole ‘Peak Oil’ story is not really right. Neither is the ‘Renewables will save us’ story, especially if the renewables require subsidies and are not very scalable. Energy prices can never be expected to rise high enough for renewables to become economic.”

    And in other news…

    The Boring Company cancels plans to open one of its Los Angeles test tunnels

    1. Of course renewables are making it harder and harder for renewables in rich countries. Renewables will spread faster in poor countries because there is already much too much energy produced and consumed in rich countries.

      In rich countries, the energy business is about two thirds blatant waste, but it goes on because the producers profit from it. The role of renewables is destroying profits, thereby (mostly) killing off the industry. This damages the renewable industry as well, just like chemotherapy makes your hair fall out.

      In poor countries there are real shortages of energy, so renewables will spread quickly, vastly increasing the energy services available to the poor, but never providing the huge amounts of wasted energy rich countries now have.

      The line between energy producers and energy consumers will continue to blur. When millions of households become producers, the ideology of cheap energy will lose its attraction. As a producer, I like the idea of high energy prices. As a result, conservation will seem more attractive.

  43. OPINION: IN NORWAY EVs = BAU

    Having borrowed my Niece’s fancy Mitsubishi EV to visit relatives in Norway this summer I found myself driving over awesome bridges and through amazing tunnels, for which the country is famous. And, with 96 percent of Norway’s energy needs covered by electricity from hydro power, the expected lower reservoir levels had driven spot power prices to above 45 euros per megawatt hour, double year-on-year. This got me thinking.

    Because, there are over 900 tunnels in Norway with total length exceeding 750 km. There are 20 or so bridges exceeding one kilometer in length. So, what’s the cost of all the paved roads, hydroelectric dams, tunnels and bridges to create, and maintain, this ever-expanding network that allows fewer than five million Norwegians to crisscross the country, summer and winter, safely and comfortably in their cars? I’ve no idea.

    But, in the main, all this elegant infrastructure is there to allow people the freedom to drive efficiently throughout the country. So, as far as I’m concerned, my driving to visit relatives, or people commuting to work, or to a ski holiday, driving a fancy EV (or an old Volvo ICE) is simply, BUSINESS AS USUAL — when you factor in associated infrastructure costs. Obviously I don’t expect the EV aficionados to agree.

    Incidentally, the Lærdal Tunnel was built during a five-year period from 1995-2000 at a cost of roughly 125 million dollars. This is a link in the ferry-free road connection between Bergen and Eastern Norway. It is 24.5 km long. Not a joyful commute for the claustrophobic.

    1. I thought the point of EV’s was to eliminate fossil fuel exhaust and increase efficiency. Flying cars can come later.

      1. And, I thought my point was: What about all the fossil fuel, energy and cost required to provide electricity, roads, ferries, tunnels, bridges, etc. that allow EVs, or whatever, free rein to move about the countryside?

        Aren’t people running around willy-nilly in their luxury personal transport BAU by another name? Norwegians are all rich and tend to live a rich lifestyle and, as I’ve said elsewhere, they tend to point at their EV as proof of green credentials and continue with their globe trotting lives – fossil fuel be dammed. Even my Grandchildren see the irony in this.

        1. As we convert to renewable energy, electric vehicles and machines all that fossil fuel will fade away. At least that is the thought lately.

          The US and Norway have a similar road length per capita.
          Canada has about twice as much per capita.

          Rich countries can afford a lot of road and it is necessary to run a techno-industrial society. At least until flying cars and trucks happen along. 🙂

    2. Doug Leighton,

      I often wonder about the same things. If we are going to make a renewable energy transition then everything that supports our infrastructure should also be powered by renewable sources. Like the diggers, bulldozers and road pavers that you alluded to. I will not argue that closing this loop is thermodynamicly infeasible, but I think it is going to be logistically difficult. And it is unclear how much time we have before environmental issues and resource constraints make this prohibitive. Some would argue that we do not have much time at all.

      So if “the idea of sacrifice is just FF propaganda” then what exactly is happening on this front? I guess that’s another question I have for Nick G. Personally I think we should be investing our time and energy in electrified public transit, but that may be considered a form of “sacrifice” for some.

      1. If we try to solve everything at once we will be overwhelmed and solve nothing. Let’s use the tools we have now and fill in the blanks as we go.
        I aim in two areas, fossil fuel reduction and ecosystem enhancement. The first is easy compared to the second.

        Around here proposed projects for public transit outside of the very heavy density city regions never come to fruition despite public support, so it’s happy motoring all the way.

      2. I use electric trains for roughly half my travel. They’re great: quiet, safe, fast. Far better than personal cars. Not a sacrifice at all.

        But…I’m lucky enough to be able to be in a place that built it a long time ago, and where it’s dense enough to still make sense.

        Sadly, the cost of the driver is the primary cost for mass transit (most transit employees are paid a living wage, unlike car sharing gig drivers), and it’s prohibitively expensive and inconvenient for very roughly half of all passenger miles (low density areas, night and weekend, etc.).

        It will be fascinating to watch the evolution of transportation, with car sharing and autonomous driving.

    3. So what’s your point? You would rather see us all go back to living a caveman existence but electric cars get in the way of that fantasy?

  44. More joyful news from the equatorial forests front:

    COLOMBIA TROPICAL FOREST FIRES SPIKE AFTER 2016 PEACE ACCORDS

    “Researchers found a 600 percent increase in fires in protected areas across biodiversity hot spots following guerrilla demobilization in Colombia. They also calculated a 52 percent increase in the probability of deforestation within parks for 2018”.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-colombia-tropical-forest-spike-peace.html#jCp

    1. Colombia has huge problems with slash and burn agriculture. You can fly for many miles over mountains stripped in this way. This also leads to severe flash floods that have claimed many lives and brought much destruction. On attempt to replant trees failed when villagers came and destroyed the new plantings.

      NAOM

      1. Yet one hardly hears about the mountain top removal going on in the US. Thousands of streams destroyed and continuous pollution of land and water.

        An area roughly the size of Delaware has been mined for coal in Appalachia using mountaintop removal, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
        http://www.wvpublic.org/post/study-shows-area-size-delaware-affected-mountaintop-removal-coal-mining#stream/0

        This type of mining affects a much wider area than just the mine itself.

        Interesting tidbit, in 2015 it took three times as much land area to get a ton of coal compared to the 1085 to 2005 period. Diminishing returns on destruction.

        1. Right, and I betcha they don’t want windmills on the hills for aesthetic reasons.

          NAOM

          1. What hills? They blew them up and took them away!
            “And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
            Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
            Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
            Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away”

  45. It appears that Hyundai/Kia have hit it out of the park with their Kona/e-Niro compact SUVs. Two very positive video reviews from Fully Charged:

    Hyundai Kona, a game changer? | Fully Charged

    KIA e-Niro | Fully Charged

    This might be what Tony Seba was talking about when he predicted that all new car sales will be EV by 2030 (2025 if you watch his most recent presentations), these vehicles appear to represent so much better value than their ICE powered counterparts. The Koreans will not be able to make enough of these vehicles fast enough. It appears to me that production of these vehicles is going to be severely constrained by battery availability. These vehicles will go on sale in select states in the US early next year.

    1. Both the Ioniq electric and the Kona have shown front end break away on acceleration and turns, even on dry pavement, in reviews I saw. Best to check this out if you live in snowy/icy regions.
      Otherwise looks good.

      1. Drove my brother’s new Nissan Leaf in the snow in Germany. Even had the seat warmers on…

        Didn’t find handling all that much worse or better than any other car I have driven in winter conditions.

        Disclaimer the car was equipped with snow tires, range was a little bit diminished. Having said that my recommendation is to stay off the roads when it is snowing! That’s what fireplaces and hot chocolate are for! ?

        Cheers

    2. IfCE will end with a bang not a whimper, I do not see Nick’s long tail playing out. As use reduces so will the support services such as fuel, transmission shops etc until they become un-economic and either have to push up prices to survive or close. Once a fuel station becomes the only supplier for miles around, with no competition, what will they do with their prices? Better EVs at the one end and failing support at the other will crush the IfCE between them.

      KIAs will be interesting around here. I am seeing more and more on the street so maybe I will start seeing electric ones. Nissan has a charging station at their service centre but I have not seen any of their EVs about. Hmmm, do androids dream of electric cars?

      NAOM

      1. Actually, I agree about ICEs having an abrupt end in some places. You can see it already in very dense places like Manhattan, where it’s very tough to find a gas station.

        I think Israel is hoping to have that happen very soon.

        1. The problem is the lack of batteries. 80m ICE cars are sold every year. (Most of these replace scrapped vehicles.)

          If EVs averaged 70 KWh battery capacity, you would need 5600 million KWh of battery capacity to replace those sales. That’s 5.6 Terawatt hours. If that capacity starts been produced, the ICE fleet would disappear pretty quickly. But 5.6TWh is much bigger than any forecast I’ve seen for the near future. 1 TWh by 2030 is more likely.

          Meanwhile some nice EVs are being brought to market, but waiting lists are very long. The problem is definitely on the supply side.

          The only good news is that the forecasts are always wrong 😉

          About Manhattan, it would make more sense to simply ban cars completely than to wait for EVs. For example, almost no areas in old New York (south of Wall Street) should allow cars.

          1. Lack of batteries is problem due to people who drive 3 miles per day who want 300 mile range, because of range anxiety, when 30 miles would be adequate.

            NAOM

    3. Hyundai Kona- yes impressive. And they will have a lot of competition soon.

  48. “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” ~ Smedley Butler, ‘War Is A Racket’ (1881-1940)

    Sugar Daddy

  49. What Did the 1973 Oil Embargo Teach Us?

    October 17, 2013 | By Amory Lovins

    The results were stunning. During 1977–85, the U.S. economy grew 27 percent, oil use fell 17 percent, oil imports fell 50 percent, and imports from the Persian Gulf fell 87 percent; they’d have reached zero in 1986 had President Reagan not reversed the policy. Oil burned per dollar of GDP fell by 35 percent in eight years, or an average of 5.2 percent per year—enough to displace a Persian Gulf’s worth of net imports every two and a half years.

    OPEC’s oil sword was shattered in a dozen years as customers saved oil faster than OPEC could conveniently sell less oil. It sales plummeted 48 percent, breaking its pricing power for a decade. Then in 1985–86, as massive new energy supplies belatedly arrived to meet needs efficiency had already filled, energy gluts crashed prices. Policymakers, instead of finishing the job, hit the snooze button for a decade.

    By the 1991 Gulf War, we put our kids in 0.56-mpg tanks because we hadn’t put them in 32-mpg cars (enough to displace Persian Gulf oil). Yet oil imports continued to soar, reaching 60 percent of oil use in 2005 and returning to 1973-level dependence only this year. Thus today, America pays $2 billion a day for oil, plus $4 billion a day for its hidden economic and military costs.

    https://rmi.org/1973-oil-embargo-teach-us/

    So much for government getting it right. Instead of continuing the efficiency system, moving toward a sustainable society, we frack our way to global oblivion. We had our chance and had a few good leaders that saw the destabilizing influence on the nation by depending upon oil. Yet now we depend more than ever and renewable energy has to wait for the “free” market to move forward. At least Germany and a few other countries have shown the way.
    All so some Americans do not have to sacrifice. I am sure the half of the US driven toward and into poverty has appreciated that.

  50. Here’s an article about how the ride sharing schemes aren’t as good for the environment as people often think.

    The social costs of ride-hailing may be larger than previously thought

    https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/11/03/the-social-costs-of-ride-hailing-may-be-larger-than-previously-thought

    Far from reducing congestion by encouraging people to give up their cars, as many had hoped, ride-hailing seems to increase it. Bruce Schaller, a transport consultant, estimates that over half of all Uber and Lyft trips in big American cities would otherwise have been made on foot or by bike, bus, subway or train. He reckons that ride-hailing services add 2.8 vehicle miles of driving in those cities for every mile they subtract.

    A new working paper by the University of Chicago and Rice University spells out one deadly consequence of this increase in traffic. Using data from the federal transport department, they find that the introduction of ride-sharing to a city is associated with an increase in vehicle-miles travelled, petrol consumption and car registrations—and a 3.5% jump in fatal car accidents. At a national level, this translates into 987 extra deaths a year.

    1. I think there’s a negative correlation between oil price and obesity rates because high cost makes people walk more and/or snack less, it would be interesting to see if there’s anything similar over time with increased obesity with more ride sharing.

    1. Absolutely fantastic. Laugh out loud funny and full of actual data rather than ad nauseum opinions.

      1. I guess I have no sense of humor at all. Didn’t get as much as a chuckle out of me. I find John Cadogan to be a little confusing in that:

        1) He is not a global warming denier
        2) He does not support continued burning of coal
        3) He does not approve of the politicians that are doing the coal industry’s bidding
        4) He appears to support the idea of spending big on renewable energy (rather than spending it on 13 million Model S’)
        5) He believes in “doing something about the biggest emitters in our energy supply apparatus”

        At the same time he appears to have taken a snapshot of the situation at the time he made the video (Dec 2017) and used the data available at the time (some dating back to 2015) to do all of his calculations. He strangely appears to have ignored several exponential factors at play.

        He appears to have assumed that the carbon intensity of Australia’s electricity generating apparatus is fixed at “85% hydrocarbon based”, when in fact the situation is changing there and relatively quickly as these things go. In this thread alone, I have linked to several articles at reneweconomy.com.au that support this. Here is another:

        Why South Australia energy transition is seen as model of success around the world

        Simon Holmes a Court, from the Climate and Energy College, gave a key-note presentation to the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney on Tuesday that punctured many of the principal myths around South Australia – namely that the shift tor renewables in that state has caused prices to rise, destroyed reliability, and hasn’t done much on emissions.

        So here’s a bunch of graphs to prove how wrong that is.

        The first, at the top, shows the significant transition in the South Australian grid over the last 10 years. Coal disappeared by 2016, largely replaced by wind, the amount of gas generation that is used has reduced, largely displaced by rooftop solar and the emerging large scale solar. And the reliance on imports is now reduced – the state is now more likely to be exporting rather than importing.

        At about 7 minutes into the linked video, Cadogan makes the blanket statement: “this cannot be done in practical terms there’s no production capacity and not enough lithium”, in relation to a thought experiment involving replacing Australia’s vehicle fleet with one comprised of all Tesla Model S 75Ds. First, the Model S was never intended to be a mass market vehicle in Tesla’s master plan. That role goes to the model 3 but, more on that later. Second, he does not back up his claim that there is not enough lithium. A quick Internet search unearthed the following:

        Is there enough lithium in the world to replace all petroleum-cars with battery-electric vehicles?

        Using the 0.15 kg of lithium per kwh, and assuming that cars all have 40 kwh batteries and that there are 100 million of them sold per year at some point in the future (vs. 80m in 2010), that’s 100 * 40 * 0.15 * 10^6 kg = 0.6 million tonnes, which is well above current production. To outfit 1 billion cars, it’d be 6 million tonnes. This is below the current estimate for the total reserves and the resource base, both of which are growing. It also neglects potential improvements in lithium usage per kwh.

        So let’s just say the “not enough lithium” line is debatable.

        Cadogan appears not to have paid attention to Elon Musk’s own description of his strategy for fulfilling Tesla’s mission statement, “Accelerate the advent of sustainable transportation.” Musk has made public in several interviews his strategy of starting with low volume, high priced products with a view to increasing volumes and reducing prices over time. He has said that every purchase of an expensive Tesla now is making a contribution to a lower cost Tesla in the future. The current situation is that Tesla is now making upwards of 1,000 cars a day with a targeted volume of roughly half a million for next year (2019), a significant portion of which will be base models (less than AUD 50,000). His disdain for Tesla seems almost irrational and given that his schtick is apparently helping new car buyers negotiate better deals, Tesla’s business model reduces his value to somewhere around zero, justifying his hatred for the company.

        Cadogan completely ignores the coming crop of sub AU$50,000 EVs set to arrive on the Australian market in 2019. Apart from the Nissan Leaf and the Renault ZOE, the only ones that existed when he made his video, had been on the market in the US for less than a year and only one is going to be available soon (mid December 2018), the Hyunai Ioniq. He did not know about the Gigafactory now under construction in China and made no mention of the Tesla Semi, which had only been introduced to the world in the previous month.

        All in all, I was less than impressed with the lack of acknowledgement in Cadogan’s presentation of the potential for exponential growth, both with respect to renewable energy and EVs and will file it in the same place as all the other analyses that suggest that Tony Seba’s projections can never happen.

        1. He assumes instantaneous growth to 100% adoption of EVs for every car, that far is beyond exponential growth; he makes every assumption as optimistic as possible; he projects all that into the future – December 2017 numbers are not used at all except for costs, and even if you half the car cost and double the battery production rate that’s still 500 billion Australian Dollars and a 400 year wait to get them all. He has a very clear suggestion for an alternative strategy, actually two: 1) stop exporting coal, 2) use the best brains available to come up with some real, practical solutions that will make a difference (and possibly 3) get some politicians who actually understand the issue – Turnbullshit is a great name, but he’s been kicked out now, I think the new chap might be worse).

          1. Exactly! Some people have a comprehension problem when more that one point is mentioned, or even then.

            1. Oh, I comprehend perfectly, that Cadogan does not get the implications of exponential growth. To be sure, if the world were to transition to a low carbon emissions state in the next ten years the problems with 80 plus million more homo sapiens per year, with the attendant pollution, fresh water use, food production, loss of biodiversity and deforestation to mention a few, would still be with us, not to mention ice cap loss and climate chaos.

              It should be possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. There is no need to avoid attempts to address the CO2 problem. That is precisely what the Koch brothers, Gina Rinehart and the rest of the FF and mining industries want us to do. Move along! Nothing to see here!

            2. “If all you have is a hammer/solar panel business/electric car business, everything looks like a nail/problem in need of a solar panel/electric car.” ~ Abraham Maslow, with some additions

              “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” ~ Upton Sinclair

            3. Caelan, are you retarded, or stupid or delusional or what? How many times do I have to repeat myself? My interest in and focus on solar PV and EVs has little to do my salary. I see them as the most feasible way for the little island I live on to finally be able to generate electricity on the scale require to operate homes, businesses and institutions and transport people and goods around, without the burdensome, seemingly unending recurrent expenditure on imported fuels. If that can be made to work here, it is probably good for most of the tropics and places like Africa, Australia India and much of the Americas.

              Just yesterday I was walking through the busy transport hub near where I live and thinking to myself how alien I feel in my own country among my fellow citizens. Everybody caught up in the rat race, hustling to make more money to buy the latest clothes or a motorcycle or a car or a home or some rum or cigarettes or pot (cannabis) or even just the next meal. Nobody apparently too concerned about all the young, unemployed, unmarried women, having babies, often without the support of the low life that knocked them up. Not much concern about the deluge of single use plastics and other garbage being dumped all over the place, including the storm drains that empty out into the ocean, at least not concerned enough to do anything about it. Nobody too concerned about poor farming practices, leading to erosion and soil run off, not to mention loss of viability of soils. Apparently nobody in the least concerned about the CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere by our electricity generating plants or the fleet of vehicles that crawl into and out of the towns and cities at rush hour every day. Nobody really concerned about the pollution they cause when they burn trash or the clouds of thick black diesel particulates (smoke) belching from the exhaust pipes of some trucks and buses.

              As I have said before, my income is derived from services to the business of entertainment, BAU to the max! I would much rather be doing something concrete to help the people of my island emit less CO2 from the generation of electricity or from transport but, as of right now that is not how I earn a living. So you come here to preach to me about what you consider the folly of advocating for solar PV and EVs? Gimme a break!

            4. Just food for fodder, Alan…

              I have little idea what you are doing over there, though do recall you mentioning something to the effect of ‘being in entertainment’, whatever that meant, but in what capacity, context or vis-a-vis your ‘solar gig’ was unclear.
              And of course anyone can write anything they want in the shadows of being online and anonymous.

              In any case, until or unless otherwise specified, you can’t expect Peak Oil Barrel to be a dumbed-down frictionless/devil’s-advocateless shilling platform, such as for solar panels or electric vehicles.
              As such, I would respectfully suggest it be considered at least also as a forum for healthy devil’s advocation and criticism for balance, and stuff like that.

              “Caelan, are you retarded, or stupid or delusional or what?” ~ islandboy

              ‘what’ 😀

          2. He assumes instantaneous growth to 100% adoption of EVs for every car, that far is beyond exponential growth; he makes every assumption as optimistic as possible; he projects all that into the future

            I saw it as a thought experiment, one I have done to try and estimate how much additional electricity would need to be generated in the US if all vehicle miles traveled in the US for a given year (2015 IIRC) were to be traveled in vehicles with the consumption rates similar to those of the Tesla Model S. What makes it ridiculous is that he goes on to question the practicality of it using figures based on 2018 lithium production and EV manufacturing infrastructure. That is magic, not how exponential growth works. When I did my estimates, I did not try and figure out how practical it would be to actually replace all of the existing fleet in an instant (or even a year or two). That would have been ridiculous.

            Exponential growth would be something like volumes doubling every three years, which translates to 100 x current volumes in twenty years. That would result in 100 million plug in vehicles per year in less than twenty years, not tomorrow though. It would also suggest 100 x current levels of lithium and other battery raw material production in less than twenty years. The point is we really don’t know how things are going to play out. I’m watching these things very closely with my fingers crossed. For any one who chooses to suggest that this type of growth is impossible, US production of electricity using solar energy has grown roughly one hundredfold in the last decade or so.

            1. His point isn’t to question the practicality of the solution and he doesn’t say it is impossible, he simply says it gains very little even with the best possible assumptions that he uses, that the money involved is very large and could do much better if spent elsewhere, and he points out with examples how extreme his assumptions are. I’m pretty sure he knows full well what exponential growth is – he has simplified things as much as possible and always on the optimistic side. Your second paragraph doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the video so I don’t know how to reply to it.

      2. I gave up on it. All that he needs to say could be said in 2 or 3 minutes if all the nonsense was cut out. Once again it is a case of Solution X will not save the world when what it will take is a Solution A..Z, tick the box All.

        +1 on Islandboy’s comment.

        NAOM

    2. So this is what happens when far right Republican types try to use “facts”. You would have to be a real cheesehead to believe this guy and his cherry picked right wing pseudo-reality. A real display of non-critical thinking to soothe the right.
      Since this will only be taken seriously by the those already with their heads and hands deep in, no need to explain I hope. Right wing comedy-propaganda.

      1. Fish, great attack on this man. Would you care to address his argument?

        Did you watch and listen to the entire 19 minutes of the video. I think he makes an excellent argument.

        He is definitely not a right wing nut case. In fact he gives the right his wrath. I would say he is a liberal science believer.

        1. ” Fish, great attack on this man. Would you care to address his argument?”
          I go after ideas not the man. Don’t know him or care to.

          Have even fact checked this guy before giving him your pat on the back, Patt?
          You will find his numbers so cherry picked and wrong that it’s not even worth discussing. At least I found that. I can see how his delivery appeals to you.

          His main objective appears to be to convince people that EV’s make no difference at all or are too small to make a difference, even though vehicles in Australia produce about 17 percent of emissions. He also uses $100,000 car to make the calculation for cost when we can buy a 200 plus mile range EV for less than the expected average cost an Australian will pay for their next new car. You heard me right, EV’s are now on parity with ICE costs. So no extra cost for Aussies by switching over to EV’s. So he is only 1 trillion dollars off on the cost of switching to EV’s.
          His calculation for CO2 is another gimmick used by deniers and repugs, since by the time we get that many EVs the grid had better be renewable.
          PV and EV’s are growing together.
          Speaking of PV he takes a negative shot at that too.
          Yes, electricity production is a large emitter of greenhouse gases for Australia, about 40 percent. Need to move away from coal to more renewables to get that down. That appears to be happening.
          His solution is to stop exporting coal. Good luck on that fantasy, I am sure that the Aussies will jump just stop their number one export. Again the number he uses 22 billion dollars is way different than reality which is 65 billion dollars a year for coal exports. Again he uses the false trillion dollars in extra car cost to make his false coal export solution look even better.
          See the difference, even his facts are not facts.
          He also contradicts himself and says his solution is not possible. Very helpful there.
          His attacks on Tesla are pathetic and typical of fossil fuel promoter trolls.

          Not sure what kind of nut case this guy is but he is sure helping the fossil fuel promoters and the right wingers. That video needs to be removed from public view.

          The reality is that every EV in the US saves at least 500 gallons of fuel a year. So they are a threat to oil and somewhat of a threat to coal and gas too.
          However PV is a direct threat to coal and gas. PV makes an EV 100 percent clean. In the US 32 percent of EV owners also have PV on their roof.
          See why people get upset?
          Then since ICE motors and cars are under threat, all those people involved in that industry and all the supporting industries are under threat too.
          So of course they will find novel ways of spreading doubt and deception, even putting lipstick on pigs for the naïve to date.
          We used to call it snake oil, now we just call it oil.

  52. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/monumental-disaster-at-the-department-of-the-interior/?utm_medium=spredfast&utm_content=&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=SciAm_&sf203620664=1

    “Monumental Disaster at the Department of the Interior

    A new report documents suppression of science, denial of climate change, the silencing and intimidation of staff”

    Nick G, I know you said videos are too slow, but maybe you can speed-read the link above and offer your thoughts. Any tips on how to remain optimistic in light of this?

    The full report can be found here:

    https://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/science-under-siege-department-interior-2018#.XAfpAjFOn-g

    1. Harold Hamm had been a frequent critic of the slow approval process for oil & gas permitting on DOI land in the previous president’s administration. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a strong say in getting Zinke his job as secretary, since Zinke is from Montana and understood how slow permitting on federal lands was needlessly holding back development of the Bakken within his state.

    2. Well, it’s depressing, I agree.

      It looks like the overall impact isn’t enormous. For instance, the DOI manages about 500M acres, and the Trump administration has reversed protections for about 2M. That’s bad, but it’s only .4%, those changes are being challenged in court (many of DOI’s bad changes have been reversed by courts), and those protections can be reinstated by succeeding administrations.

      I was amused to see that one author said that Zinke’s efforts to hurt the DOI have been slowed down greatly by his incompetence and the incompetence of his appointees.

  53. EL NIÑO COMING SOON

    “The ocean surface water in the region watched for El Niño warmed rapidly in the past month. There is also a strong sign that more very warm water is working its way to the surface from deeper ocean depths.”

    https://www.mlive.com/weather/2018/12/ocean-waters-warming-rapidly-el-nino-coming-soon.html

    Meanwhile, atmospheric CO2 showing healthy growth so no problems there.

    Daily CO2 Dec. 3, 2018: 409.18 ppm Dec. 3, 2017: 407.04 ppm

    1. Something different appears to be happening with the CO2; it has been above the predicted trend for the Keeling numbers almost every day since September, usually it jumps above and below. There was a big to do over the plateau in reported emissions for 2014 to 2016, but all that meant was linear instead of exponential growth (and actually it still looks exponential to me for the atmospheric concentration so maybe the sinks have been lower in efficiency and we’ll see – or maybe are seeing – a jump with growing emissions coming back).

      Something funny happening in the Arctic too, something not seen before seems to happen every year now since the thick ice disappeared so maybe not so funny, ice extent growth was high in November and then suddenly stopped growing and has plateaued, another few days with low growth and there will be new daily records below the 2016 numbers, which looked at the time (to me anyway) like an extreme outlier.

      1. What is the magnitude of the CO2 differential above the predicted line? How does it compare to previous fall/winter excursions?

  54. GREENLAND ICE SHEET MELT ‘OFF THE CHARTS’ COMPARED WITH PAST FOUR CENTURIES

    “Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet has gone into overdrive. As a result, Greenland melt is adding to sea level more than any time during the last three and a half centuries, if not thousands of years,” said Luke Trusel, a glaciologist at Rowan University’s School of Earth & Environment and former post-doctoral scholar at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and lead author of the study. “And increasing melt began around the same time as we started altering the atmosphere in the mid-1800s.”

    One noteworthy aspect of the findings, Das said, was how little additional warming it now takes to cause huge spikes in ice sheet melting. “Even a very small change in temperature caused an exponential increase in melting in recent years,” she said. “So the ice sheet’s response to human-caused warming has been non-linear.” Trusel concluded, “Warming means more today than it did in the past.”

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-greenland-ice-sheet-centuries.html#jCp

  55. Maybe the main problem here (on planet Earth) is too many people and, God will be pleased, we’re about to add another billion plus. Then again, perhaps a sprinkling of EVs will save the planet?

    CURRENT EXTINCTION RATE 10 TIMES WORSE THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

    “Life on earth is remarkably diverse. Globally, it is estimated that there are 8.7 million species living on our planet, excluding bacteria. Unfortunately, human activities are wiping out many species and it’s been known for some time that we are increasing the rate of species extinction. But just how dire is the situation? According to a new study, it’s 10 times worse than scientists previously thought with current extinction rates 1,000 times higher than natural background rates. The work has been published in Conservation Biology.”

    https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/current-extinction-rate-10-times-worse-previously-thought/

    1. perhaps a sprinkling of EVs will save the planet?

      Or perhaps complaining about EVs will do the job.

  56. Don’t worry boys and girls, we’ve got (maybe) twelve years to play with.

    CARS AND COAL HELP DRIVE ‘STRONG’ CO2 RISE IN 2018

    A booming global market for cars has helped drive CO2 emissions to an all-time high in 2018, say researchers. The main factor in the near 3% rise has been coal use in China, driven by government efforts to boost a flagging economy. But emissions from cars, truck and planes using fossil fuels continue to rise in all parts of the world. Renewables have also grown this year, but are not keeping pace with the CO2 rise.

    The research, carried out by the Global Carbon Project (GCP), says that this year’s “strong” rise is projected to be 2.7%. That’s much bigger than 2017’s 1.6%. This will worry scientists as they had seen CO2 emissions relatively flat for the three years before.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46447459

  57. Assessing vulnerabilities and limits in the transition to renewable energies: Land requirements under 100% solar energy scenarios

    “The transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land. Nevertheless, most analyses to date have concluded that land will not pose significant constraints on this transition. Here, we estimate the land-use requirements to supply all currently consumed electricity and final energy with domestic solar energy for 40 countries considering two key issues that are usually not taken into account: (1) the need to cope with the variability of the solar resource, and (2) the real land occupation of solar technologies…

    Replication of the exercise to explore the land-use requirements associated with a transition to a 100% solar powered economy indicates this transition may be physically unfeasible for countries such as Japan and most of the EU-27 member states. Their vulnerability is aggravated when accounting for the electricity and final energy footprint, i.e., the net embodied energy in international trade. If current dynamics continue, emerging countries such as India might reach a similar situation in the future. Overall, our results indicate that the transition to renewable energies maintaining the current levels of energy consumption has the potential to create new vulnerabilities and/or reinforce existing ones in terms of energy and food security and biodiversity conservation.”

    A comment elsewhere pertaining to the article:

    “I am surprised that Capellan-Perez does not appear to reference Vaclav Smil’s analyses of energy density. (look for Smil-article-power-density-primer.pdf ). Smil explains the realities very lucidly. As ever, the assumption is continuing BAU – which cannot continue. Capellan-Perez seems to have discounted the massive resources required as well! (which would have to be underlain by fossil-fueled manufacture).” ~ Hugh Spencer

    I’ve read comments from some people, such as hereon, to the effect that ‘renewables are fossil-fuel extenders’– whatever that means and/or what they mean by it. It’s been awhile since I’ve read it, though– maybe a couple of years?– so maybe they’ve changed their tune. To truly or, to be charitable, best, extend fossil fuels, it would appear that we simply shouldn’t burn them.

    1. To truly or, to be charitable, best, extend fossil fuels, it would appear that we simply shouldn’t burn them.

      Ha! Try telling that to a crowd of red cap wearing Trump supporters or Scott Morrison (Austria) and his supporters or Bolsonaro and his supporters.

      1. To truly or, to be charitable, best, extend fossil fuels, it would appear that we simply shouldn’t burn them.

        LOL! Does whoever made that comment even have a clue how much energy the internet uses?! The very same Internet, which that commenter had to use, for his or her comment to be readable by other users of said Internet…

        https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/06/28/how-much-electricity-does-it-take-to-run-the-internet/#5ec6e62c1fff

        Berkeley Lab: It Takes 70 Billion Kilowatt Hours A Year To Run The Internet

        Most of which, despite significant strides to transition to alternatives, is still powered mostly by some form of fossil fuel.

        Meaning that for any individual using technology to post comments on the Internet while suggesting fossil fuels shouldn’t be burnt at all and at the same time also being against the transition to renewables because that also requires burning some fossil fuels, is either a rather profoundly ignorant, or more likely, a hypocritical stance, to say the least!

        Cheers!

        1. Internet By Carbon Credit and Offset

          Another typical red herring logical fallacy above by Fred Magyar that distracts from the critical importance of the reduction of the burning of fossil fuels.

          “Drove my brother’s new Nissan Leaf in the snow in Germany.” ~ Fred Magyar

          I wonder how much internet access that, alone, would buy someone– Florida to Germany and back by plane, (as one flies over the anthropogenically-damaged ecosphere).

          My carbon footprint is sufficiently small by many comparisons to more than offset any time online.

          “Berkeley Lab: It Takes 70 Billion Kilowatt Hours A Year To Run The Internet” ~ Fred Magyar

          How many for the airline industry?

      2. Maybe ask the ones that got/will get their places burned down from forest fires or flooded or blown away from hurricanes, etc..

  60. No ice age in the forecast.

    SCIENTISTS RULE OUT IMMINENT SUN INDUCED COOLING OF CLIMATE

    Scientists predict that the next sunspot cycle would not be insignificant. Their ensemble forecast surprisingly suggests it could even be stronger than the cycle which is just ending. They expect the next cycle to start rising in about a year following the end of the current sunspot cycle minimum and peak in 2024. Bhowmik and Nandi predict space environmental conditions over the next decade would be similar or slightly harsher compared to the last decade. They find no evidence of an impending disappearance of sunspot cycles and thus conclude that speculations of an imminent sun-induced cooling of global climate is very unlikely.

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-scientists-imminent-sun-cooling-climate.html#jCp

  61. Fred,

    TECHNIQUE INSPIRED BY DOLPHIN CHIRPS COULD IMPROVE TESTS

    Now, inspired by the sound sequences used by bats and dolphins in echolocation, MIT engineers have devised a technique that vastly improves on the speed and accuracy of measuring soft materials’ properties. The technique can be used to test the properties of drying cement, clotting blood, or any other “mutating” soft materials as they change over time. “This technique can help in many industries, [which won’t] have to change their established instruments to get a much better and accurate analysis of their processes and materials,”

    Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-technique-dolphin-chirps-soft-materials.html#jCp

    1. The technique can be used to test the properties of drying cement, clotting blood, or any other “mutating” soft materials as they change over time.

      LOL! Someone deserves a Nobel in literature for that sentence alone! 😉
      Gotta love the mind that finds a way of put clotting blood and drying cement together in a scientific article.

      On a slightly more somber note, too bad we are destroying so much of the natural world before we can learn everything it has to teach us!

      Cheers!

Comments are closed.