264 thoughts to “Open Thread Non Petroleum- Oct 3, 2016”
Wow,
a year ago this site had 1-2 posts by Ron every week, 5-6 hundred comments – most of which were written by 20-ish fairly knowledgeable people….
….nowadays it has 6 posts a month….. 3 of them are “non petroleum” ones commented mostly by 3-4 people arguing with another 2 …… and (sadly) the “non-petroleum” posts get 4-5 times as much comments as the petroleum ones (by the same 3-4 people)….
A year ago we had Ron’s brilliant essays….. nowadays we have Dennis’ “colourful scenarious” and F.Magyar/C.Macintyre/Javier “intellectual” debates…..
…the number of commentators missing from before show the story…..
… the number of comments show the story….. the “level” of them…
Substantial explanative comments by Likvern, Petro, S.StAngelo and others were a common event on this site a year, or so ago……..
….. now, E. Peters Bakken rigs next month are a thing that gets a hundred “thank yous” ( …as if it was important for what we are facing and what this (once brilliant) site was/is concerned with/about…)
…… sad!
…… sad indeed!
MeTruthNot
P.S.: I sincerely hope you are doing fine Ron!
…..and I truly hope you come back and claim this sites intellectualism again……
…. miss your essays dearly….
“a year ago this site had 1-2 posts by Ron every week,”
If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.
Scoop Nisker quote
:>)))
Well now, our new member surely thinks this forum has gone to hell in a hand basket, doesn’t he ?
So tell us , MeTruthNot, in what way have you contributed to the forum?
It’s easy going around with your nose in the air bitching and moaning.
People come and go.
The regulars here know that Ron is well up in years now, and busy with family issues, and so not able to do as much as formerly.
If you have a contribution to make, other than bad mouthing the hard work of the folks who are still writing the essays, posting the graphs, pointing out the relevant links in the news, etc, then although I can’t speak for Dennis, I am reasonably sure he will publish it here , for you, if it’s decently written and sensible, and deals with one of the issues that Ron himself considers as proper subject matter for this blog.
In case you haven’t noticed, they are right up top:
Home
Energy and Human Evolution
Of Fossil Fuels and Human Destiny
OPEC Charts
The Competitive Exclusion Principle
The Grand Illusion
What is Peak Oil?
World Crude Oil Exports
World Oil Yearly Production Charts
I can’t remember seeing much if any thing here that doesn’t fall under one or another of these categories. Just the one, fossil fuels and human destiny, logically expands to cover anything that has ever been posted here, petroleum or non petroleum thread.
And in case you haven’t noticed, lol, Ron himself has been a regular contributor of not only primary content but also comments when the subject is economic collapse, new technology, over population, resource shortages, banking crises, etc, etc.
As a matter of fact, he has posted today concerning the possibility of a Chinese economic collapse.
Maybe your only real reason for reading this blog is to try to make a buck in the oil markets. In that case, there are plenty of other places you can find production data, etc, but this is still one of if not the very best, and provides more and more detailed oil production info than any other free site I know of.
Most of us, excepting perhaps a few hands on guys who want to focus strictly on oil markets and the actual business of getting oil out of the ground and into cars and trucks, accept peak oil as either a present day reality, or a reality that will arrive within the easily foreseeable future. Those hands on guys have the petroleum threads.
The exact date of the peak really doesn’t matter much to the rest of us, because we are focused on the bigger picture of what will happen when not only oil but lots of other critical resources come up in short supply. We are truly fascinated by the interplay of new technology, economic and environmental destruction as the result of using fossil fuels recklessly, politics, plain old chance or fate, human ingenuity, human stupidity, and the kitchen sink for good measure.
Dennis is good enough to provide us with open threads so that we can indulge this interest, and to the best of my knowledge, this is the best single blog on the net dealing with these topics. If you know of a better one , please post the address, lol.
This arrangement may not be perfect, but perfection is a rare thing indeed, and it works ok.
You owe Dennis an apology. It’s a safe bet that he has forgotten more about oil and anything and everything else than you can ever hope to know.
It’s perfectly obvious to anybody who bothers to actually THINK a little that Dennis puts in a LOT of unpaid work running this blog, and that we are all greatly indebted to him for doing so. Ditto for Ron , of course, although he has understandably cut way back.
I’m here for the peak oil timing because I plan to make a lot of money betting *against* oil companies and *for* their competitors. Figuring out when the oil companies go bankrupt and hit the wall is a large part of that financial calculation. (I wish I’d been able to time it with the coal companies, but they’ve already hit the wall.)
This means I’m mostly in the non-petroleum threads, because the petroleum threads are over-focused on *supply*, and figuring out when the companies hit the wall is largely about *demand*.
The amount and placement of the punctuation tells me metruthnot is Petro incognito.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Ya, it seems to have Petro’s signature all over it. 😀
Petro! (and whoever else interested!) Vien nous voir a Permaea.
I sent its rough manifesto to an unsolicited! list of people including Jan Lundberg, Dmitry Orlov, David Holmgren and Guy McPherson…
Jan suggested that it was not ready for prime time or something like that (as if the first animal that dragged itself out of the ocean and onto the beach many millions of years ago that lead to us was not ready for prime time, either, such as for being mammalian or ‘properly’ walking around) and Dmitry told me not to email him again.
Strangely enough, though, some months later, Dmitry is out with a ‘150 Strong’ book and Jan’s Culture Change site at least at last look (a day ago) is down and maybe out and there seems to be a new ‘call-to-network’ site ‘associated’ with it with the number 21 in it (maybe related to some arbitrary age of maturity?)– I forget the title exactly. I also see that some are talking about it– a completely separate, ethically and ecologically-based glocal/translocal ‘free-associating-nodes’ (‘150-ish-strong’) ‘nation’ or society— over at Permaculture Research Institute of Australia’s (of Permaculture Global’s) forum.
Hey, this is relevant news.
We are dropping the ball, but maybe starting to look at picking it up again, only closer to properly. Lots to do though…
Dmitry, while I haven’t read your book or yet listened to JHK’s podcast about it, my initial reaction is that maybe we can have a million 150 strong as a network, and our recently departed (a week ago) Bill Mollison was very specific about this possibility too.
“…it’s a good idea to have a plan for what to do in case of the sudden shutdown of global finance followed by the shutdown of global supply chains for everything from Saudi oil to Canadian toilet paper. Someone who hasn’t made any preparations for that at all is going to have to go and bother those who have…” ~ Dmitry Orlov
Hypothetical Dmitry Orlov: “Hey, the titanic is sinking! The titanic is sinking!”
Frightened Passenger: “Oh my god! Really!?”
HDO: “Yes, really! But don’t bother me anymore about it! I am just letting you know and making a little crony-capitalistic plutarchy money writing books about it, and making googley-eyes about Russia on Russia Today with Max Keiser… I have roughly 150 people to worry about if I choose– maybe they can all fit on my boat and they can wash their butts with the ocean over the edge!”
The alternative is that we have a forum like PO.com that has deteriorated to a simple waste of time.
Hats off to Dennis and guest writers who have kept this window of insight and discussion, open.
I seldom comment, and even less so these days as a life has dropped a bunch of overflowing issues into my lap. Nevertheless, I am grateful to see the familiar names willing to submit their ideas and risk irritating reactions. Thank you for your time, folks…. Most appreciated.
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, maybe Orlando, and Jacksonville all at major category . That might be a big evacuation. I guess they are on the slightly better side for wind speed and not quite directly in the path.
The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.
But even if they were not, the panels would of course help weight down the whole structure and make them essentially hurricane-proof.
But even if the panels did blow off, along with the roofs, did you know that, according to independent research, they can apparently retain about 95% of their efficiency over 5 years?!
Same thing with electric vehicles (EV’s). They are not generally subject to debris and falling trees like the rest of the human infrastructure is. Something about all those batteries and their reverse-polar magnetic charges acting as a repellant maybe.
So anthropogenic climate change? Give me a break.
The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes, and even if they were not, the panels of course would help weight them down.
Don’t know if that is an attempt at sarcasm but in Florida at least, rooftop solar code is quite stringent.
What is required for permitting solar panels anywhere in Florida is that the system meets the Florida Building Code. The 2010 Florida Building Code is now the effective code, and this requires that solar panels (components and cladding) meet wind loads that are imposed upon them. Solar panels must be firmly attached to the building and have enough attachment points to resist wind uplift. The weight of solar panels is negligible and rarely needs to be considered. In most of Southwest Florida, the ultimate design wind speed is 160 mph. In Collier County there is a large area that requires 170 mph, and Marco Island is 172 mph. Using calculations in accordance with ASCE 7-10, engineers determine the wind uplift at any given attachment point and ensure that the attachment method resists the required load at the design wind speed with a safety margin.
I don’t know what kind of ‘stringent codes’ they had in New Orleans, US; Christchurch, New Zealand or; Fukushima, Japan a few years ago, but the hurricanes and earthquakes, etc., there did quite the damage, as they do the world over.
It is one thing to posture or lie about stringent code and yet another to see how/if it is actually understood, implemented and how it plays out vis-a-vis real-world situations.
(And it’s a lot more than just the windspeed.)
Anyway, best to you and folks with the circular windsaw named Matthew.
It is one thing to posture or lie about stringent code and yet another to see how/if it is actually understood, implemented and how it plays out vis-a-vis real-world situations.
Given that I actually worked with permitting for rooftop PV in a number Florida towns and counties I can assure you that in most places it is taken quite seriously.
(And it’s a lot more than just the windspeed.)
No shit, sherlock!
In any case I’ll defer to the civil engineers who sign their names to the permits, it’s their good names that are on the line. Not to mention that, personal pride in their work or altruism aside, they generally tend to go by the book because home owners have access to the legal system and are quite quick to sue when things go wrong.
Well I’m just so infinitely reassured that intact solar panels will preside over government-sanctioned industrial clusterfucks the world over.
Or at least in Florida.
Thanks, Fred.
Governments come, governments go, but the sun always shines on the Sunshine State. Except at night of course.
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.”
Hurricane Gilbert of 1988 exposed a lot of poor construction practices in Jamaica, such as just bending steel reinforcing bars protruding from masonry walls over the “plate”, the wooden member to which the rafters of hip roofs are typically attached. The strong uplift of Gilbert’s winds was enough to straighten the steel bars, resulting in the loss of roofs.
One other problem was not using “hurricane straps” to secure the rafters to the plates, which meant that even if the plate was secure, the uplift separated the rafters from the plate with the same result as if the plates were not securely attached to the top of the walls. Most practitioners in the construction trades are now well acquainted with the threat of hurricane wind uplift and some roofs built or repaired since the passage of Gilbert have been tested a number of times, though not with Category 4 or 5 winds, the most recent being Hurricane Sandy.
Concrete slab roofs are largely unaffected by winds, though they do present problems with energy use/comfort, being large thermal masses that absorb solar thermal energy during the day and radiate it downward into the covered space. You do have a point in that, it seems many installers in Jamaica did not get training in Florida like I did and thus were not exposed to the stringent requirements for withstanding wind uplift demanded by Florida building codes that, Fred has pointed out. As a result I see quite a few installations that IMO will be severely tested during any hurricane strength winds as well as many that have been done right.
This is clearly a case where government setting up regulations can serve a useful purpose. I do not think it is sensible to allow anyone to mount solar panels any way they want and risk panels flying around at over 100 mph. If regulations require that objects be securely fastened to roofs, that is a good thing and an area where IMO, Jamaican regulations need strengthening. Hopefully something will be done before a flying solar panel kills somebody or comes close to it.
As for cars, far more cars are severely damaged by flooding associated with a hurricane than are disabled by flying debris or falling trees and if one generates their own electricity with solar, you are far more likely to be able to recharge your batteries after the storm has passed than people getting regular fuel supplies from gas stations, if public electricity supplies and road networks are disrupted.
Yair . . . .
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.”
WE HAVE A WINNER!!! That’s the most inane comment I have seen on the internet ever!
CM must be joking and fishing for a bite . . . surely?
Cheers.
Did you see the rest of the comment that it was attached to?
…So what did I win? How about an all-expenses paid month-long trip to Franklin Tasmania, with a family home-stay kind of accommodation, and a free intro course at its wooden boat school?
I wonder if anyone’s ever thought of putting giant boulders on a house’s roof to weigh it down like a paperweight in the event of an approaching windstorm…
Caelan, you are the first to think of that. Giant boulders would crush the roof, preventing the hurricane from doing it. Great idea.
Us mortals just use hurricane anchors.
Hillbillies and trailer park trash every where the wind blows hard have occasionally tried using smallish boulders as roof weights to help keep their mobile homes aka trailers in one piece and in the desired spot, lol.
But it’s hard to find stones that are the right size, and flat enough on one side to put them on a roof.
So the materials of choice are cinder blocks and used tires.
This actually works quite well, so long as it isn’t overdone. There are mobile homes near where I live with as much as a couple of tons of eight inch blocks spaced out on the roof.
I suppose a hurricane would blow these blocks right off, but so far we haven’t had any winds above about seventy or eighty mph around here, except for the rare tornado. ( Tornadoes are few and far between in mountainous areas .)
The local building code specifies that trailers be very securely anchored, but the anchors attach to the ladder type metal frames so when a tornado does hit a trailer, it usually leaves the floor and frame intact but rips off the walls and roof and carries away the contents.
I was just being sarcastic of course, but still, far too much of what we do in society today seems too close to putting giant boulders on house rooftops to weight them down.
Mind you, some houses are built of stone, and have clay or slate shingles. Perhaps they are among the best for earthquakes, compared with, say, mobile homes?
And what’s really ‘expensive’, if they don’t last and/or wreck communities and the planet, given externalities, economic musical chairs, and races to the bottom, etc.?
Correction:
“Perhaps they are among the best for earthquakes…”
Should read;
“Perhaps they are among the best for hurricanes…”
😀
China is on the cusp of collapse. The timing is unclear but it will likely be within the next three years.
What Impact Will China’s Collapse Have on the World
The effect of China’s financial and political collapse will be multidimensional in its unfolding, and its impact will be felt throughout the world. Remember, the China that closed itself off from the world for nearly 30 years to develop—or not—in autarky, no longer exists. In that period, China’s crisis were limited n their scope and effect because China was limited in its scope—it was separate from the rest of the world. That is no longer the case.
Today, China is fully engaged with the world, a crucial part in an interdependent and highly sensitive global financial system. Nowhere else is this more true than with regard to the United States. China is the largest foreign buyer of U.S. debt, holding over $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury bonds. Their large bond holdings provided the liquidity needed for the United States to turn around and use that money to buy Chinese goods as well as to fund the world’s greatest military, which supports U.S. foreign policy around the world. Chinese loans also allow for the funding of the United States’ ever-expanding social programs, and China’s deep involvement in U.S. Treasury markets, banking, and trade means that any interruption in China’s participation in the U.S. Treasury bond market would have an immediate impact on the United States’ ability to continue to exist in its current state and status.
If there is a collapse in China, as this book argues s inevitable, there are many possible scenarios and outcomes, some seemingly more likely than others, but all of them seem to lead to a withdrawal from the purchase of U.S. debt by foreign nations. This will have an enormous impact on the United States and the global economy as a whole.
As mentioned above, when China finally decides to withdraw its participation in the U.S. Treasury bond auctions and proceeds to dump large amounts on the open market, the U.S. bond market will collapse overnight, as will the dollar. The dollar will probably not survive such an attack, at least not as a reserve currency. The crashing of the bond market will cause nations to dump the dollar literally overnight. Either or both of these events will tip the balance of an already feeble word economy into a Great Depression, marked by naked competition for resources and, as much as anything else, for food.
The immediate effect of a bond market crash and the collapse of the dollar will likely be a significant level of civil unrest in the United States. From a financial standpoint, interest rates will rise, as will inflation. Hyperinflation may even come about as dollars lose virtually all their value in a matter of days. However, all dollar-denominated assets will also lose their value. This means stocks, real estate, and whatever else might be priced and valued in dollars.
This also applies to all Chinese assets valued in yuan, as well. As we talked about earlier, the fraud and deception of Chinese companies on the U.S. stock exchanges will result in hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars of losses to Americans, and anyone ese who had money in those companies. That would be virtually anyone who holds a portfolio of mutual funds.
Both U.S. banks and international banks would also find their asset base decimated by China’s collapse and the dollar’s collapse shortly thereafter. International trade and credit agreements would likely have to be voided as well. And, since the U.S. economy is the engine of growth for the world, as the U.S. economy collapsed from the fall of its currency from reserve status and suffering from hyperinflation, the foundations of the global economy would be no more. Taking a double hit from China’s economic collapse and the United States’ deep depression and worthless currency would leave the international trade and finance systems in a state of anarchy. The Eurozone economy would continue to shrink, as both its largest source of capital and largest market suddenly went away.
Perhaps the greatest impact on the dollar and global financial system would be the end of the petrodollar arrangement. Since 1975, OPEC has agreed to price and sell its oil on the global market in dollars. This has created a sustained demand for dollars around the world. One could say that the U.S. dollar has been on the “oil standard” since 1975. However, as the value of the dollar plunges in this scenario, OPEC would likely stop accepting dollars for oil almost immediately. In fact, China has already made several assaults on the dollar by creating dollar exclusion zones for trade with countries like Brazil, China, India, and Iran, and it has set up bilateral trade agreements with Japan and Russia, excluding the dollar as an intermediary currency.
The loss of the petrodollar itself, if nothing else happened, would send the United States into a situation of very high inflation, if not hyperinflation, as the value and demand for the dollar disappeared. The U.S. economy—the world’s economic engine—would cease to function anywhere near its previous level and would send the rest of the world into a Great Depression.
Now I don’t agree with everything in this conclusion from that book. However I do agree with most of it. But here is my question to the people of this list. What will be the effect on the world economy of a total China collapse? Remember, unlike most of the last century, we now live in a globalized economy. What happens when the second largest chunk of that globalized economy collapses?
And I will add, if you think it will have very little effect, then you obviously have no idea what a globalized economy really is.
“End of Chinese Dream” link doesn’t work. Try this:
Fortune cookies will be officially debunked as an accurate way to predict the future.
Although, I opened one the other night and it said “growing ur economy at 7% per year is an impossible to sustain exponential curve”.
What happens in China after a collapse? Much of Chinese policy, especially around providing high employment, is heavily influenced by trying to keep a lid on popular uprisings.
I wonder what Confucius would have said about ghost cities and general ‘Westernization’.
Back in 2006 in the Shanghai airport, I was speaking with a hydrogeologist from Korea (China too apparently has potable water problems) and mentioned how China was Westernizing at a time when the West was already starting to go in another direction. ‘Late to the party’
As a humorous aside, when he got up to the checkout counter, they initially spoke to him in Chinese and he responded, apparently somewhat agitated, something like, ‘I’m Korean, talk to me in English!’
Hi Ron,
It is not clear that China’s economy will collapse, if it “totally collapsed” and the Chinese government was unable to do anything to improve the situation (which seems doubtful), then we would be likely to have a World Depression. Proper fiscal and monetary policy would speed recovery, a focus on balanced government budgets will delay recovery.
Also there is a lot of US Government Debt only about 10% is owned by the Chinese Government.
It is unclear why China would feel the need to sell its bonds in a crisis, but if they did resort to panic selling they might drive the price of ponds lower and this would raise interest rates. The higher interest rates makes the bonds more attractive as an investment and money would flow from stocks to bonds. That could potentially lead to a stock market crash if it happens very quickly. Link below discusses who owns the US government debt.
And the Chinese aren’t buying U.S. debt to be nice. Unwinding their bond holdings will have serious negative implications for the Chinese economy which ties back to George’s comment just above.
Hi Stan,
They buy the bonds for the same reason most people do, it is a relatively safe investment. Not much more to it than that.
As far as concern over Chinese debt, looking at Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data and comparing debt to GDP for All reporting nations (World), Advanced Economies, and China, things do not look terrible for China.
Debt to GDP is barely above the World average and less than the average for Advanced economies at the end of the first quarter of 2016.
Yes Chinese debt to GDP has increased, this is expected in a rapidly developing economy.
It is not clear that China’s economy will collapse…
It is very clear that China’s economy will collapse. In fact every economy will collapse within the next 100 years, most likely a lot sooner than that. The only question is when will China’s economy collapse.
But really China is in the process of collapsing right not. The building boom has already collapsed. Every dollar. or yuan, invested if building those massive ghost cities will be lost. That will very likely lead to a banking collapse.
Did you watch that 25 minute video? Watch that then tell me that China will not collapse. Here is the link again: The End of China Inc?
Or you can read the book I quoted from. That should remove all doubt.
Hi Ron,
No I didn’t watch the video or read the book.
You are correct every economy may collapse at some point. I should have said I do not think it is clear that China’s economy will “totally collapse” (I interpret this as unemployment rates of 25% or higher) within the next 15 years.
They are likely to see their population decline due to the one child policy. The UN’s medium fertility scenario sees China’s population peaking in 2030 at 1.45 billion and falling to 1.1 billion by 2100. This should take some pressure off as far as economic growth rates needed to improve GDP per capita.
Hi Ron,
The piece is very dramatic, one focus is debt, household and non-profit debt to GDP is about 41% in China according to BIS, in the US it is 78%, and for all countries reporting to the BIS it is about 62%. Government debt to GDP for all countries is 82% and for China it is 45% (nominal value of debt).
It is bad that the resources were poorly allocated, that is the danger of a planned economy and why properly regulated markets sometimes do a better job. Potentially this could lead to a financial crisis in China, just as the real estate bubble lead to a crisis which started with Europe and North America.
A lot of the Advanced economy crisis was exacerbated by all the CDOs and other derivatives that were fashionable in the lead up to the GFC.
Hopefully the Chinese have learned from past mistakes made in the US and Europe, I do not have enough information to even guess if that is true.
(Hi Dennis, see my comment below first, then this one)
Hi Dennis, I don’t think China will have unemployment rate 25% or above. In fact, currently China does not have reliable official unemployment rate. However, if China’s urban employment simply stops growing (equivalent to an annual increase in unemployment by 10 million), that would be sufficiently a huge shock.
In both graphs, red curves are the profit rate, blue curves are profit share (share of property incomes in GDP), dark curves are output-capital ratios (capital productivity, using right scale)
A few points:
a) The US profit rate historically mostly fluctuated around 15 percent. But it was high in the mid-1960s (about 20 percent) and low in the 1970s. It fell below 10 percent only during the Great Depression.
b) China’s profit rate was very high in the early 2000s, reaching 27 percent by 2007 (nearly twice as high as the US level). But now it has fallen to about 15 percent. There is no indication that this decline will slow down or be reversed. At this rate, it could touch 10 percent in a few years.
c) I have another graph showing Japan also entered into long-term stagnation when its profit rate (using the same concept) fell to about 10 percent.
China has not had a major economic crisis for several decades. We do not know how it is going to look like. But unless the falling profit rate can be reversed, it is difficult to see why a capitalist-oriented economy will not fall into a major crisis if it increasingly fails in its main objective (pursuit of profit).
Remember, China’s officially communist and is actually following something much closer to Marx’s *original* plan. What do they have to do when the profit rate falls?
(1) Tax away the wealth of the rich
(2) Implement more public services (expanded national health service, that sort of thing)
I wouldn’t bet against them doing that.
Ron, I’ve seen those ghost cities up close and personal. It is terrifying, like a Bladerunner set or something.
To witness a literal treeless forest of peopleless cookie-cutter rabbit-hutch skyscrapers fading out into the distance into a smoggy horizon is quite a sight to behold.
Hi Caelan, where did you see those ghost cities in China? Did you go to inner Mongolia?
Inner Mongolia produces more coal than the entire United States. In addition to local environmental issues (grassland degradation, water pollution), it is of global significance in relation to climate change/peak coal/peak oil (related to coal-to-liquid fuels projects)
Hi Political Economist,
Are you the one living in China or Japan? If so, whereabouts? Are you native to there?
I went from Shanghai to Linyi by car and then back again after some time in Linyi, so between the two.
Back in 2006, perhaps the ghost cities were not quite ghost cities then, or called that, and were just developing, but what I saw was what I called then ‘vast cookie-cutter highrise development tracts’ which kind of freaked me out. It was like suddenly being in a dream that starts getting a little nightmarish.
As someone living in the other prison known as Canada, I was not used to the insane, cold and inhuman scale of development. Parts of China looked incredibly bleak and dystopic and it’s probably worse now, 10 years on. I also saw it from the air, all along the east coast, from Japan on down to Shanghai. The patterns of development often looked strangely different than what I was used to seeing from the air. Parts of it looked like what I called then like a giant child had left their giant metal and plastic playthings lying strewn about.
You know, many like to talk about what ‘industry’ produces, like cars and solar panels but they really don’t seem to have any idea what is involved in their production, or at least care, or something. The ecocide and wage slavery. They just don’t seem to give it any thought at all. All they often do is relay some statistic that’s supposed to show the manufacturing and uptake numbers, as if that’s all that matters. I am sure some would do well to actually take a trip to visit some large scale factory and the surrounding city and countryside and see if they feel the same.
I don’t know if I should bother attaching an image, since, presumably, most on this forum know what I’m talking about and the image certainly can’t replace the sensations of being right up close but here it is anyway.
Hi Caelan, I am native of Beijing but now I live in the US.
On this site, sometimes I write stuff like the following:
Thanks and yes, I know about that. I will give it a serious read.
My cold-milk-brewed green tea (a loose leaf tea with ginseng and dried citrus peel that I add to a blender with milk and music and blend for a few minutes on slow) is almost ready (cooled down in freezer, then with a ‘super premium’ vanilla ice cream blended in), so over a nice tea (really more of a green tea frostie) in your honor.
Incidentally, I had a green tea ice cream (Häagen Dazs) for the first time ever at the Shanghai airport then while waiting for my flight. Delish. ‘Where else would one get a ‘super premium’ green tea ice cream, but in Shanghai airport?’, I thought to myself. You could also get Collon snacks there too that are reminiscent of a long colon cut in sections with a supposedly tasty brown fudge in the middle.
Oh and, hey, if you ever had any doubts that Collon was ‘tofu cute’, well now you know.
(Recommended drink accompaniments where available; Pocari Sweat or Calpis, which might do well from a marketing standpoint if it also came as a special ‘Fukushima energy-water’ drink.
Of course both drinks could also benefit from special ‘signature’ versions, maybe with special guest appearances at various markets and festivals of Cal and Pocari, themselves.)
(But the way I see it is if you’re going to build vast tracts of high-rise chicken-coops for humans that they don’t seem to want to live in, you might as well have manufactured snacks for them that look like sliced up colons.)
See the difference?
One’s China. I don’t know where the other is, but maybe somewhere in Europe. And it makes my heart sing.
Where would you want to live between the two?
Parts of the world, not just China, demonstrate very clearly the kinds of effects lack of equality/democracy in local decision-making have on people and planet.
No one in their right mind would allow the kinds of effects that go on in their absence.
There are online magazine articles that suggest that people may live in the ghost cities, but I can tell you right now that, for the most part, they won’t. They won’t, simply because they are not actually made for people. They are made for the dystopic system and its perverse logic.
I almost went to Mongolia.
It’s not working, Political Economist. Too much is not working, and I see it on this very forum as well.
There’s some political economy for you.
Attack of the Monoliths.
At least the monoliths look happy, if nothing else.
They could always have photovoltaic panel friends on that patch of desolate ground just before the clothes bus. It would offer an added impression of scientific and technological progress as well.
Hey, I’m on a roll…
Anyone you recognize in the image below?
But of course they need certain levels of mass complicity. They have no power without complicity.
And they are granted it. At gunpoint, if necessary.
You know, people talk about doom and doomers, but doom is what we already have. We are long past doom and it’s really more of a combination freak-show and slow-motion train-wreck-in-progress.
The ones bitching about doomers and gloomers are maybe the ones that especially don’t actually see or want to see that they’re already in it.
“All political systems that I know of, and most kings, have moved their whole nation to desert. And the things that we saw as most proud– the cities and the canals and irrigation and so on– are the things that killed their cultures. And it continues, unabated. If people don’t seize power back, and make their own gardens, and sit in their own gardens of Eden, then we’re all doomed, and the whole world ends in dust.” ~ Bill Mollison
Hi Dennis, thank again for asking me to comment on this. Let me just give you some of my own thought.
It is always difficult to predict (successfully) major crisis of a major economy. But in this particular case, I think Ron’s suggestion that the Chinese economy may “collapse” in three years is within the range of reasonable possibility.
However, different people may come to apparently similar conclusions based on quite different reasoning. In my case, I rely upon a Marxian indicator that measures the economy-wide profit rate (ratio of total property incomes to business sector capital stock). Historically, this indicator has worked very well in explaining long-term boom, stagnation, or structural crisis of American capitalism.
The same indicator for China was about twice as high as the US level before 2007 (explaining China’s super economic boom). But since then it has fallen rapidly, now at about the same level as the US. But it is trending down. If it keeps falling at this rate, it will soon be at levels that are similar to what the US had in the 1970s. It could even fall to a level that was associated with the US Great Depression.
There are two factors that have contributed to falling rate of profit in China. First, wages have growing more rapidly than labor productivity in China. Second, over investment (relative to sustainable growth) has led to falling capital productivity.
Although there is strong reason to believe that falling profit rate should translate into major economic crisis, it still takes some transmission mechanism through conventional macroeconomic variables and falling profit rate by itself does not tell us in what form the major crisis will take (a depression style collapse or a prolonged stagnation?). Note that so far we have talked about only the “real” side, I have not yet mentioned debt, bubble, et al.
Normally, persistently falling profit rate eventually should lead to collapse of private investment (e.g., US private investment fell by about one half or 10% of GDP during Great Recession) . This is a sort of happening in China now. Private investment used to grow 20-30%, now it’s “only” growing at 2-3%. So a massive deceleration, but not a collapse yet.
In principle, any shortfall of private investment can always be offset by increase in government spending. This is what China attempts to do now. After slow down for many years, state sector investment surged by more than 20% over the first half of this year. I expect China keeps doing this for a while.
What is the limit of government stabilization program? Some might say the limit has to do with debt, real estate bubble. It is not too obvious to me. The US housing bubble matters because the US growth was driven by consumption and consumption growth was fueled by household debt mortgaged against housing values. The Chinese story is different. China is still an investment driven economy. And, if private investment collapses (either because of unsustainable debt or as a result of loss of confidence), in principle, government spending can compensate.
The limit has to do with two things. First, the collapse of private investment may in turn lead to massive capital flight. In the Chinese case, this can be slowed down by official capital controls. But if official capital controls are ineffective, massive capital flight will take place and the Chinese foreign exchange reserves will be depleted. This is the scenario that will lead to massive sale of American bonds, possibly forcing up the US interest rate. Though the impact on American exports and investor confidence may be bigger. This scenario may or may not happen.
Assuming there is no capital flight. Another limit is inflation. This is what happened to US/Europe in the 1970s (stagflation). Falling profit rate leads to recession. The government attempts to avoid recession by using Keynesian expansion. But low level of unemployment is keeping the workers strong, raising wages. Corporations tried to offset rising wages by raising prices, leading to wage-price spiral.
China right now is far from having run away inflation. However, it appears the government stabilization policy has succeeded in stabilizing employment. Urban employment continues to rise at the approximate annual rate of 10 million. Yes, 10 million new urban jobs every year. So wages continue to grow rapidly, no longer at double digits, but still growing at 7-9% a year. This puts pressure on profit.
The dilemma for the Chinese government is the following. If they are serious about the so-called supply-side policy, letting coal mines/steel mills close and let the housing bubble collapse, economic growth rate will lose several percentage points and unemployment will surge. If successful, this will kill working class militancy and stabilize the profit rate (think about the Reagan/Thatcher/Volcker Fed policy). However, it carries enormous political risk and economic risk (the economic collapse may get out of control).
It can persist with its current policy, trying to manage the economic slow down. But so long as employment continues to expand, the capitalists have to raise wages to attract increasingly demanding workers as the rural surplus labor force continues to shrink. This has led to accelerated decline of the profit rate. At some point, private investment will indeed begin to collapse. There will be both economic and political limit to the increase in state investment. Under an “optimistic” scenario, China may end up with a Japanese style stagnation. As high state investment helps to “stabilize” the economy by keeping the aggregate demand above a certain level, the vanishing of private investment leads to near zero economic growth.
But stagnation may derive whatever legitimacy the Chinese government could still command. And it may not be an economic equilibrium either. China may turn from a trade surplus country into a deficit country as its export competitiveness is undermined by slow down of productivity growth and high wages.
On the bright side, this may be the only way for us to stay on the path towards no more than 2C global warming.
Have you seen the latest publication on Nature saying long-term earth system climate sensitivity (for doubling of CO2) may be 9C (not 6C according to Hanse or 3C according to IPCC)?
Hi Political Economist,
Thank you for the excellent analysis.
On the ghost cities, a video that Ron linked gave the impression that a lot of the investment was by the government or was government planned.
Would less planning by the government and simply a well regulated “free” market be less prone to mal investment? I believe you are a fan of a planned economy, it would seem the current poor investments in China would give one pause about how well a planned economy would work.
I am not arguing that well regulated (US from 1933 to 1979) capitalist economy is perfect, but it seems less likely that the scale of the poor investments which are portrayed in China would result. Perhaps the “ghost city” story is overblown.
On the Nature article, I have not seen it.
Looking back at paleoclimactic constraints as Hansen does, he has different estimates for warming climates, in 2011 he estimated the mid-Pliocene was about 1.5 C warmer than pre-industrial Holocene, the atmospheric CO2 is estimated between 380 ppm and 420 ppm at that time. I will use 400 ppm for mid-Pliocene and 280 ppm for pre-industrial(PI) Holocene.
1.5/[ln(400/280)]=4.20
4.20*ln(2)=2.91 C ESS for a doubling of CO2
This seems too low, if we use 390 ppm of CO2 during mid-Pliocene and 1.75 C warmer than PI Holocene we get
1.75/[ln(390/280)]=5.28
5.28*ln(2)=3.66 C ESS (earth system sensitivity) for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
Under reasonable scenarios (RCP4.5 or lower) atmospheric CO2 rises to about 507 ppm and falls to 437 ppm within 400 years (the full Earth system sensitivity will take at least 500 years to reach its full effect).
More recent papers have suggested 4.5 C for the ESS using other lines of evidence and Hansen has repeatedly used an ECS estimate of 3 C and has been consistent on that. Typically the ECS temperature is not reached for 500 years due to the thermal inertia of the ocean. So if carbon emissions fall to zero by 2100 we would expect the ECS temperature to be reached by 2600.
Using a scenario with 1080 Pg of total carbon emissions from 1800-2200 (as in my example above) and 437 ppm of atmospheric CO2 in 2500 we would have an ECS response of ln(437/280)*4.328=1.92 C, the earth system sensitivity is likely to act on more like a millennial time scale (we are talking mainly about the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which will take a long time, perhaps many thousand years.)
Using a Bern carbon model to estimate atmospheric CO2 in 3000 CE, I find 415 ppm CO2, so ln(415/280)*5.28=2.1 C.
A final thought on ESS is that the Change in Global temperature from the LGM to pre-industrial Holocene from Shakun at al 2012 is about 3.2 C with about 1.9 C attributed to changes in CO2 (from 180 ppm to 280 ppm) if ECS is 3 C from a doubling of CO2. This leaves 1.3 C due to other Earth System changes (ice sheets and vegetation changes). Today ice sheets on Earth are about one tenth the size of the LGM, if the effect is approximately linearly proportional we might expect 0.13 C of temperature change due to Earth system effects on a warmer planet with much smaller ice sheets.
That implies an ESS of 3.13C which would be consistent with mid-Pliocene conditions of 400 ppm CO2 and a temperature of 1.6 C above PI Holocene.
In many cases the very high estimates of ESS rely on very speculative methane emissions and often on unreasonable fossil fuel scenarios with 5000 Pg of carbon emissions (RCP8.5).
See Hook et al 2010 for a discussion of emissions scenarios
That paper gets very different results compared to Shakun et al 2012 and Marcott et al 2013. The Temperature change from the LGM to pre-industrial Holocene is 2 times larger. Chart below.
Supplementary excel file has data, same can be found for Shakun and Marcott.
Also Real Climate (Gavin Schmidt) says the ESS estimate by Snyder is incorrect.
Schmidt says ESS is 4.5 to 6 C, but Hansen’s most recent estimate is about 4.5C (I believe that may be too high, or should be the high end of the estimates for a Warm world (from a Glacial maximum we might expect about 4.7 C if the Shakun/Marcott estimates are correct), for a World with ice sheets that are 10 times smaller, probably 3.1 to 3.6 C for ESS is more reasonable.
Hi Political economist,
I miscalculated for ESS from LGM, it is about 4.86 C, so if the ECS is 3 C, the slow feedbacks from ice sheets would cause about 1.9 C additional warming in addition to the fast feedbacks (including sea ice and snow cover changes) contribution of 3 C.
So for a warm world with ice sheets 1/10th the size of ice sheets during the LGM we would expect the effect to be smaller by a factor of roughly 10. This implies an ESS of 3.2 C rather than 3.1 C as I estimated (mistakenly) earlier.
This follows from Hansen and Sato’s 2011 paper, but later papers suggest 4.5 C for an ESS.
On further investigation, the CO2 at the LGM was about 188 ppm, and the average CO2 from 6500 to 10,000 BP was about 261 ppm. The temperature change from the LGM to the HCO was about 3.6 C, which implies an ESS of 7.6 C when warming from a glacial maximum. We will assume 3 C is from fast feedbacks, suggesting 4.6 C from slow feedbacks. Most of this slower temperature change is likely from ice sheets becoming smaller, today with ice sheets 10 times smaller the effect may be 10 times smaller suggesting an ESS for warming of 3.46 C.
Hansen’s larger estimate is due to his assumed temperature change for the LGM to HCO of 4.5 C.
Hi Dennis, thanks for the information. My understanding is that the latest paper is based not just on the time from LGM to 10,000 years ago. The author provided new estimates of surface temperate over the past two million years. Their estimate of the relationship between surface temperate and deep water temperature is different from previous studies.
“Slow” feedback includes not only ice sheet but also vegetation changes. Say, if Amazon rain forest begins to die, would that not lead to 1-2C additional warming?
Dennis said
“Today ice sheets on Earth are about one tenth the size of the LGM”
I think you need to do some fact checking if you mean area. Current ice sheet and glacial area coverage is 1/3 of the last glacial maximum.
Gonefishing,
You are correct, I must have based that estimate on mass or volume, I can’t remember how I came up with it, your roughly 1/3 estimate is correct.
If we use 278 ppm as a 500 CE to 1800 CE atmospheric CO2 estimate and 188 ppm for LGM estimate and use the Shakun et al 2012 estimate for LGM global temperatures, we have about a 3.1 C delta T from LGM to pre-industrial Holocene for Global temperatures.
3.1/[ln(278/188)]=7.925
ESS=ln(2)*7.925=5.493 C for a CO2 doubling.
ECS= 3 C, so slow feedbacks (albedo from ice sheets and vegetation changes) would be 2.49 C of the ESS.
As ice sheets are one third the LGM size the ESS for current conditions would be about 3.83 C. Atmospheric CO2 would need to fall below 400 ppm within a few thousand years to remain at 2C above pre-industrial. It is unclear if complete loss of World ice sheets would happen that quickly, more research on glaciers would be needed to determine this.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice coverage and far less mass takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice coverage and far less mass takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile or moe in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice and that much further north takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
Hi Gonefishing,
That is why we have very sophisticated AOGCMs with interactive atmospheric chemistry and carbon models, these include all the effects you are talking about. The sea ice and albedo changes from snow melt are included in the models, if the Milankocitch changes will increase Northern Hemisphere warming then it is likely that the much larger ice sheet in Antarctica will not be affected as much as the Greenland ice sheet. The Greenland ice sheet is roughly one tenth of the total glacial ice area on land at present. The thermal inertia of the ocean is quite large and it will take considerable time for the ocean to warm. Relative to the LGM, the ice sheet albedo effect for Greenland alone would be 0.1*0.33 or one thirtieth of the ice sheet albedo effect from LGM to pre-industrial (1200 BP to 200 BP). The Milankovitch changes are not that large on a global scale when ice sheets are small.
It’s not just the Greenland ice sheet, which will be the last to go, it’s the Arctic Ocean Ice and the snow cover over three continents. All that will be replaced by dark ground and dark water. Add the solar insolation effect to that. Add the natural GHG’s to that.
That warmer ocean is going to release a lot of carbon over many thousands of years too.
I really would like to see details on a model that captures all those variables.
Melting the Greenland Ice Sheet alone will be like removing a huge 2 mile high mountain plateau from the earth.
If the Himalayas cooled the earth imagine how much warming would happen when the high Greenland Ice sheet stops cooling the atmosphere.
Hi Gonefishing,
The ocean will not be releasing carbon according to the science, it will be sequestering carbon, see Archer 2005, Archer et al 2009, and Joos et al 2013.
A search with carbon and those names will pull up the relevant articles.
Read some work by Schmidt, Miller, and Naranzenko on GISS model to see that all of the albedo factors, carbon cycle and so forth (the only exception is the icesheets which are thought to act over 5000 to 15,000 years). The page below lists several papers describing the model, which is far more sophisticated tan you seem to believe.
No not perfect, but the argument that we have no clue what will happen is incorrect in my view. The models do a decent job of simulating past climate.
Of course there is uncertainty, but past climate as investigated by Hansen and Sato, constrains ESS to between 3 C (2011 paper)and 4.5C (2012 paper) for a World with small ice sheets (present day Earth).
See figure 6 with Pliocene temperatures relative to Holocene maximum, add about 0.5 C to compared to pre-industrial Holocene (500 CE to 1750 CE). This gives a 1.5 C higher temperature during mid Pliocene when atmospheric CO2 was between 380 ppm (Raymo, 1996) and 400 ppm (Lunt et al, 2010). This corresponds with an ESS of about 3.1 C.
Lunt estimates 1.4 times ECS which would be an ESS of 4.2 C. So the average would be 3.65 C.
I think the claim that much of the real estate investment in China is driven by state planning is based on misinformation. I don’t have breakdown for the real estate investment. But for the overall investment, private investment is about 70%, government and SOE investment is about 30%. Until recently, SOE investment share has been falling.
It is true that China’s local governments have encouraged real estate boom in order to benefit from land sales. But this is more like a by-product of bubble rather than the source of bubble.
I am not arguing that planning can solve anything. Nevertheless, it should not be too difficult to see that massive housing bubble can happen in virtually every type of capitalist economy (US, Canada, Japan, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong).
The alternative hypothesis is that if there had been no government “planning” or encouragement, private sector can price the asset values (including housing values) correctly and therefore there would be no housing bubble or excess investment. This is clearly inconsistent with the actual historical experience of capitalism.
In any case, China does not have a “planned” economy now.
About “well regulated capitalism”, one could ask a few questions. First, if it was so good, why it did not last (I am not saying it was replaced by something better)? Secondly, even in the “golden age” when regulated capitalism prevailed, why was only a small part of the world that might be considered “well regulated”?
Given the current political environment, I suppose we are unlikely to return to the good old well regulated days any time soon.
First, if it was so good, why it did not last
It was a victim of it’s own success. If you go for a sufficiently long period without a crisis (because of regulation), people argue that you don’t need the regulations any more.
Hi Political Economist,
Yes there have been bubbles throughout capitalist history. I am most familiar with the US, possibly other places were just as well regulated. I agree with Nick that the prudent regulations put in place after the Great Depression were removed because nobody listens to economic historians (or not those in political power).
After the next Great Depression, perhaps prudent regulations will be re-established (this is mostly regulation of the financial industry). Maybe other wise policies which came out of the Great Depression such as a highly progressive tax system will also be re-instated to reduce income inequality.
The message of Bernie Sanders resonated with a lot of young people, so perhaps things will eventually change in the US.
It seems the real estate bubble in China may be particularly large relative to the US and European bubble of 2008/2009.
Would you agree with that assessment or has the Ghost city meme blown things out of proportion in China relative to the economic data.
Hi Ron,
I agree that a Chinese collapse is possible and maybe even very likely, but I am not so sure it is INEVITABLE.
The Chinese have made a hell of a lot of bad mistakes, no question, but whether they are fatal mistakes is still an open question in my mind.
Back to this point below.
If the Chinese economy does go belly up, you are dead on that it will pull down the rest of the world economy with it because we are all so entangled economically these days. Recognition of this fact is a basic reason I have never been a big fan of globalization, which has not been good to the people who matter the most to ME, namely the hard working underclass who have lost so many jobs as we exported them overseas.
(I come from that background, and although my own immediate family has done very well climbing the economic ladder in the last two or three generations, I have lots of relatives, friends, and neighbors who are in VERY tough circumstances due to globalization. )
Confidence and trust are the two key glues that hold the entire economic and cultural paradigms together. Lose either one or both, and the result is chaos, hell on earth, in proportion to the extent of the loss, at first. But then there will be positive feedback, and the initial loss of confidence and trust will grow exponentially, as your link points out, wiping out one industry after another, until the world economy seizes up like a truck engine run hard dry of oil. That sort of damage is nearly impossible to fix.
Surely anybody with any significant understanding of the way the world economy works in recent times must agree with you, as a PRACTICAL matter.
BUT I am not comfortable with the argument that bad past investment decisions NECESSARILY and inevitably must lead to a future economic collapse. Most people who write about economic collapse seem to believe that DEBT is the key, and will be the one factor that brings down the economic house of cards.
But others have pointed out, correctly, that there is no net debt in the world, that every debt is somebody’s asset. So now – if any given debt is not paid, then the owner of it loses to that extent.
Except for those two all important glues, trust and confidence, there would actually be no net loss to the world economy if most of the debt in the world were to be wiped out by way of political action.
The more important issue in at least theoretical terms in my opinion is resource depletion and environmental degradation and destruction.
Look at it this way. The Chinese have built some ghost cities, which may prove to be a dead loss, or a nearly dead loss. Money is only a TOOL we use to keep track of debt and ownership. Those cities were built BY MEN using ENERGY and MATERIALS.
Except maybe for the scale of the ghost cities, as I see it, they are no bigger loss to the world than the energy and materials we have used here in the USA to for instance build tens of millions of heavy duty pickup trucks used exclusively as commuter vehicles and beer transporters. We yankees may have actually pissed away more energy, skilled manpower, and materials over the last decade on such vehicles than the Chinese have sunk into bad real estate, etc.
Bottom line, my personal opinion is that while a Chinese collapse could result in extremely messy and tough problems for the rest of the world, there is also reason to believe that the rest of the world can at least in theory put splints, tourniquets, and bandages on the wounds and get over it.
I personally won’t have ANY problem at all getting by with American made consumer goods in the place of ones currently imported from China, lol, if it comes to that.
Maybe I am clueless, but I also believe it would be better and cheaper for us to bring back the industries we have exported, rather than to support the people who used to work in them on welfare, while providing twice the cops, jailers, judges, criminal lawyers, etc, because so many of them find themselves in a position where they see their best options as dealing a little dope, doing a little shoplifting, selling sex on a street corner, etc.
There is no way what so ever in my opinion that we can retrain all the older folks stuck flipping burgers, if they are lucky enough to find even that work.
And given our cultural mess, and the lock the public school teachers and D party have on secondary education in this country, we also have a for all practical matters a zero chance for more than half or maybe two thirds of today’s kids to get a sound basic education. The odds for the next couple of generations don’t look a hell of a lot better, and you are hearing this from a hand’s on realist who has been in the trenches.
Some real competition in any form would result in miraculous improvements within a few years, less than a decade, in our public schools, but the odds of that competition coming to be are high to astronomical against.
But there is SOME hope, lol.
It took a Nixon to go to China, and maybe we will get a D president and congress willing to stand up to the teachers lobby, but I am NOT holding my breath, lol.
I am at this time barring major new surprises predicting a Clinton victory, by a fair to decent and maybe even large majority of the popular vote, and an electoral college landslide. At least she ain’t TRUMP, lol. The old gut feeling is back about who will win and I have never been wrong once I get that gut feeling. 😉
By way of clarification, I DO NOT blame the state of our public schools solely on either the D party or the teachers or the pair together.
At least a third of the problem is cultural, arising in the home and community environment, in general terms, and the R party has not earned any gold star attaboys in terms of doing anything to help fix the problems with the schools in poor neighborhoods, except to grudgingly throw a little money at them occasionally.
Money is necessary and will help, but it is NOT sufficient to fix the problems, and will never be sufficient. Structural changes are NECESSARY.
I have heard all the arguments, partisan and otherwise, about maintaining the status quo and I can rip any and all of them up like a chicken on a dry cow turd, as my old country woman Momma used to say, if anybody wants to post them.
I know you taught a bit, Mac, but from your comment I realize you have not actually spent too much time in the career.
A few things to point out for non-teachers reading this:
1) Everyone went to school, so many people believe they are an expert on education and are perfectly willing to denigrate as opposed to help support classroom/school-wide efforts to support their children. (This attitude is commonly directed at doctors, as well….thanks internet).
2) Support from home is declining. I am 61. When I was a child my parents drilled me on spelling and math facts…particularly the times tables though 12X12. If my work wasn’t up to snuff, I did it again until parents were satisfied. Nowadays, it is very very common for parents to simply leave everything to the schools. Here is a sample conversation I have had too many times to count:
“Chelsea tells me she would like to one day become a nurse or work in accounting. I think it is wonderful for a grade six student to be excited about the future. I would like to support Chelsea and you folks in this dream, but there is a problem. Chelsea does not know her times tables and by grade 6 it must be automatic…without thought. There are 30 students in the classroom with a wide range of abilities. There are also 3 special needs students awaiting designation and additional support. There is not enough time or opportunity in the classroom for students to practice drills that should and could be learned at home. The curriculum is too vast, and other outcomes must be met”.
“I understand”, says mom. “We will make sure Chelsea does her work every night”.
“The reason why this is important, and I know this seems silly from a distance, is that if Chelsea does not learn her math facts she will not be able to do fractions starting right now. This increases with every grade. If she cannot understand fractions, she will not have success with algebra. If she cannot do algebra she will be removed from academic math and will be requiured to take math essentials. If she does not complete academic math, she will not be able to enter a science or math program which means she cannot become a nurse or an accountant.”
“I understand”, said mom. “We will fix this at home”.
Of course Chelsea did not learn her math facts and barely graduated highschool. Her diploma and course selection will take her nowhere. In fact, I drove by Chelsea’s house yesterday and noticed a baby buggy outside the front door. I also remember that Chelse (my nick name for her) was a whiz on her phone and very very social.
Chelsea’s parents are the first in our valley to say that school did not do anything for Chelsea, that teachers are lazy and overpaid, and it all needs to be fixed starting with the teacher union. Do you know I actually bought Chelsea some flash cards and provided her a list of web sites for doing fun math drills from home? It didn’t cost me very much, but I would hazard a guess I spent $300-$500 of my own money every year bringing stuff in for kids.
To cut this short, in my life I worked as a commercial pilot for 10,000 hours+. I also have red seal certification in carpentry, as well as C level in welding. I began teaching at age 40 after earning the required degrees, ending up with a Masters degree from Royal Roads University. Of all my jobs and careers, and I have been quite successful and lucky in life, teaching was by far the hardest. I loved working with the kids, but the rest……especially ‘the system’ and community attitudes, are the main reasons I left the profession and retired. My electrician son, earned 2X what our local superintendent earned, much much more than old teacher Dad.
Without our teacher Union we would have run out of vaseline decades ago.
Mac,
Please do some research on job losses due to automation. Automation is the primary reason for hard times for the working class.
For instance, the UAW would be on quarter the size it had in 1970, even if the rest of the world didn’t exist. Ditto for the UMW, textile workers, etc., etc.
Globalization has played a part, but even China’s manufacturing workforce is now shrinking…
And that automation is what makes the economy richer. We can produce more with fewer inputs.
I should add that U.S. workers also benefited from trade with China. It helped lower costs which is the same effect as raising wages. (Yes trade did help depress low skill wages as well.)
Hi Nick,
This will be a very long reply, as it is also working notes for my book. Any well written replies both pro and con may well be quoted therein.
All the folks who read my rants and scribbles and reply are my fact checkers and I really appreciate your help!
We have discussed this before.
I am very well informed about automation, from both a tradesman’s and a professional managers pov. I turned out two or three times as much work as a welder, using newer techniques and machines, in the oughties as I did in the sixties.
And as a farm manager, I went from using forty horsepower machines to three hundred horsepower machines utilizing different operating principles in our orchards, and cut the time needed for the major routine operation of applying pesticides by over eighty percent from the sixties to the oughties. I started hauling apples out of the field in sixty pound crates, hand loaded, and quit hauling them out in thousand pound bins, using a tractor mounted forklift. I sold our last few crops for well under half what we got fifty years ago in terms of purchasing power per bushel sold. I got roughly twice to four times the nominal money, but the prices of the things I bought with it went up from four or five times to twenty times, lol.
Yes, automation lowers the cost of living , except for the folks who lose a major portion of their income as a result of it.
Been there, seen it, done it, got the tee shirt. A drawer full of them actually, because lots of times one of the guys on a job would run some off with a company or crew logo, the dates of the job, and what we wanted to brag about or lie about, lol. So I have one that reads ” Schrader Machine and Welding. If it ain’t the crack of dawn or a broken heart we can fix it. ”
The last really close by furniture factory where I once worked as a maintenance tech has reduced the payroll by a quarter over the last ten years while increasing production, according to the production manager, who is a beer drinking friend and neighbor.
( I suppose everybody here knows I used to be a world class rolling stone when it comes to switching jobs and professions every few months to every couple of years, on average. I did eventually put in six years in the classroom, which is my record longest period except farming. You can slip in a few months trucking, welding, carpentering, etc, during the slow seasons on the farm. You make those months up by working six or seven days twelve hours or longer in the busy seasons. )
Yes, we have lost more manufacturing jobs to automation than we did to exporting, according to some people. Maybe we have. We have also lost a few million more jobs in construction and various other trades to immigrants both legal and illegal. But the losses to automation have been more gradual, and thus less disruptive.
MY first point is that the people who used to have these jobs have paid the price in entirely disproportionate fashion. They have essentially lost their ass because there are VERY few things they can do now, or will ever be able to do, to earn a decent wage or salary again.
These are my people, and I am their partisan spokesman in this case.
Now here is another entirely relevant point that can be made in terms of non linear change, which has been a hot topic here recently.
The price of labor is highly inelastic, just like the price of oil. If there’s excess supply, the price crashes.
If the local furniture plant needs only fifteen people to take the place of retirees or to expand operations in a certain part of the plant, and the HR lady, who used to be one of my sisters, and the production manager, who is my beer drinking friend and neighbor, can get them dirt cheap if over a hundred qualified applicants show up. This has been the case for the last couple of decades or so in that industry.
And incidentally, twenty years to twenty five years ago, all the screws, knobs, fasteners, drawer guides, finishes, etc, everything except the wood, came almost entirely out of American factories. Almost all of that stuff comes from Asia now.
What we have done, essentially, collectively, is to donate the former living standard of our working class to the newly emerging working class in the developing world.
(As an aside, Ocare is a similar deal, with folks making good money being forced to subsidize those who don’t. I know a guy who makes about sixty or seventy, with a girlfriend who makes less than fifteen. She gets good coverage for peanuts, he pays thru the nose for the basic plan, even though he is young, healthy, no high risk factors, etc.
They will be getting married as soon as she graduates, lol, so it’s ok in his case, he is willing to subsidize HER. But from then on BOTH of them will be young, healthy, low risk and paying thru the nose. They are very liberal personally, but they are going to vote their wallets in a few weeks.
It doesn’t take a huge surplus of qualified workers to force wages and benefits offered by employers down dramatically.
Now I am a Darwinist, intellectually, in the literal sense of the word, and I do realize and understand that such changes ARE inevitable, except if politically blocked, and that they can only be delayed or prevented only so long even then.
But we could have kept those jobs and industries home, via politics, rather than exporting them, the export thereof being ENABLED by politics.
Furthermore, there is a BIGGER picture than just the immediate boost to the larger economy, national and world, just as there is a huge difference it the real cost of burning coal and the nominal or purchase cost of burning it.
My second point is that we are paying that cost in substantial part because we moved millions of people from the purchasing power defined middle class to the underclass, where they are either partially or wholly supported on tax money, and it’s not just food stamps, or other direct welfare payments I am talking about. We have armies of social workers, jailers, cops, lawyers, and medical people , in substantial part, that were formerly unnecessary, as part of this downhill slide into poverty or near poverty of so many people.
Move people by the millions from the self supporting tax paying middle class, and put them into the tax consuming lower class, and add in a couple or three or four million more lawyers, cops, jailers, etc, who actually contribute NOTHING to our collective living standard, compared to what they would if employed as ahem, teachers, carpenters, engineers, etc,…………
Now lets look at an even BIGGER picture, namely our place and status in relation to the rest of the world. NOTE, I am a Darwinist, and since I DO believe that there are WINNERS AND LOSERS I personally consider it to be MUCH better to be on the winning side if possible, lol.
If there were no globalization on the grand scale, there would still be an enormous amount of international trade, especially in resources or goods that are obtainable in limited quantities from a limited number of sources.
But suppose we hadn’t enabled the fast rise of China, by allowing China to send junk here by the tens of millions of containers full, in a never ending stream. We wouldn’t be looking at a rising power quite capable, assuming no Chinese collapse, of taking our place as the predominant economic and military power of the world. Your opinion as to the value of this economic and military dominance may be different, of course.
We wouldn’t be looking at coal being burnt in China in mega quantities, at least not so soon. It might have taken them another twenty or thirty years to get where they are NOW, industrially, and the wind is blowing their CO2 here, so it makes virtually NO difference as to WHERE the coal is burnt, etc.
It is true that all the various sciences and technologies would be a little behind their current state of development, maybe a decade or more in some cases, without globalization, but science and technology continue to advance and we would still have just about everything we have today, without globalization in the usual sense of the word.
And we would have a LOT more time, maybe as much as a decade or two, to deal with the economic and ecological storm headed our way as the result of pollution and resource depletion.
Another decade or two of basic research and development would put us in an infinitely better position in relation to renewable energy, conservation, efficiency, and PUBLIC AWARENESS of the gravity of our problems.
I could go on but I am getting sleepy. Old men wake up a lot in the middle of the night, lol, but I will still get in a couple more hours sleep before good daylight.
I may not be able to PROVE my case, but I do have one, and I am more interested for now in honest discussion of it than otherwise. The time to catch errors is NOW , when only a few people will be laughing at me, lol.
I recognize that there ARE real benefits to globalization, with perhaps the greatest one of all being that globalization creates economic and maybe cultural ties that really and truly reduce the odds of major countries going to war with each other.
I will give these benefits due consideration in my book.
Much like the universe is expanding, the US economy expanded. Although the actual manufacturing capability did not fall, the number of manufacturing jobs did. Service and tech jobs filled in, often at lower pay than previously.
The fact is the US economy stretched, enough rich people to afford services, too many workers for the jobs available so pay fell, meanwhile inflation runs on.
A loaf of bread in 1950 cost 12 cents. A loaf of bread is now $4.
Price of a car has gone up 23 times, price of a home by 33 times since 1950.
Wages have risen by only 15 times.
Hi Gonefishing,
If we look at real median family income in 2015 dollars, in 1953 it was $33,000 and in 2015 it was $70,700. The average worker probably doesn’t make twice the income, most families now have two earners and in 1953 more families only had a single income.
Interestingly real household income is only $56,500 in 2015 (in 2015$). So a household is defined differently from a family. A household includes unrelated individuals living at the same address and is wider in scope than a family.
Wages in 1950 were $3210, probably represented a household since there was generally only one wage earner per family. The inflation from 1950 to now is at least 30:1.
Plus, the business world has thought of a larger number of ways to have people spend their money and add costs to buying things. So not only are people making less they are supporting more debts and fees.
At the same time a person (or their family and society) must spend a lot more time and money becoming educated just to qualify for many jobs.
The ratio from 1950 to 2016 is 10:1, according to the BLS.
E tu, Nick?
I am going from real values not government calculated numbers.
You really believe that houses cost $80,000. You think the average new car costs $15,000?
Keep believing. Mulder did.
You think the average new car costs $15,000?
A $15k modern car is infinitely better than a $1,500 car from 195o. Faster, more powerful, safer, much cheaper to drive, more reliable, etc, etc.
Similarly, homes have gotten much larger than they were in 1950, with a lot more extras.
Yes, houses two and a half times as big for 45 times the price. A lot of those houses were not built very well either.
Cars half the size or less for 23 times the price.
Food is so much better at 30 times the price.
All that automation and global trading, yet somehow prices didn’t fall, they rose and wages did not rise with them.
Hi Gonefishing,
Median wages are low due to income inequality. Progressive taxation and subsidized higher education would help to some degree. There has definitely been wage stagnation.
The median sales price for a home in the US increased from 20,000 to 300,000 from 1965 to 2016 (about a factor of 15). From 1973 to 2015 median home size increased by about 50%.
The consumer price index went up by about a factor of 8 from 1965 to 2016, so home prices went up faster. From 1973 to 2015 CPI went up by a factor of 5.4. From 1973 to 2015 median home prices went from 34,000 to 300,000. Adjusting for median home size, the 1973 home (if it were 50% larger as homes are today) would be $51,000, so the median home price has increased by a factor of 5.9, pretty close to the average rate of inflation. The problem is that median wages have been stagnant, with inflation adjusted median personal income only increasing by 30% from 1974 to 2015.
Yes, we have lost more manufacturing jobs to automation than we did to exporting, according to some people. Maybe we have.
Sounds like you’re not convinced.
Okay, think about farming. 100 years ago probably half the population lived on the farm. Now only 2% lives on the farm. What happened to all those people? They were forced off the farm, many of them very, very painfully in the Great Depression. Rising automation, mostly in the form of tractors, reduced the price of farm production. Roosevelt tried destroying crops, and putting a floor on farm prices, but nothing worked. Large farms laid off workers. Small farms went bankrupt. All those surplus people joined the “Okies” going to California, or to the big cities. Farm bankruptcies made rural banks go under, then bigger banks, leading to the credit and liquidity crunch of the Depression.
The US is still a food exporter, yet only 2% of the farmers remain on the farm.
The same thing is happening to manufacturing. The US is still a big manufacturer. Even if we had a net manufacturing surplus, it wouldn’t make much difference – most of those jobs would still be gone now, and the rest would be close behind.
Sad, but true.
Does that make sense?
It’s obvious to anyone involved in production, manufacturing or even services. Machines and computers run the show. Most manufacturers won’t build anything that can’t be machine made. It’s how they stay competitive, how they get the speed of production up and keep the problems and money down.
Even in China:
“The Changying Precision Technology Company factory in Dongguan has automated production lines that use robotic arms to produce parts for cell phones. The factory also has automated machining equipment, autonomous transport trucks, and other automated equipment in the warehouse.
There are still people working at the factory, though. Three workers check and monitor each production line and there are other employees who monitor a computer control system. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory. With the new robots, there’s now only 60. Luo Weiqiang, general manager of the company, told the People’s Daily that the number of employees could drop to 20 in the future. ”
So one day when the machines are making the parts and building the products, when the robots and computers are monitoring the machines, when the autonomous vehicles are delivering the materials and goods, when the machines mine the materials, grow the food, and do everything else. That day the last human will be asked to leave —- by a computer.
What then?
Well,
ROBOT BROTHELS COMING TO UK IN BOOMING SEX TRADE REVOLUTION
There was a great comic discussion of these robots in PlayBoy iirc some years ago.
Once perfected, these robots will cook, clean, screw like rabbits, and park themselves in a closet, once you are satiated, until you hit the remote to turn them on again. Guys won’t have to listen anymore, and women won’t have to put up with male stupidity, lol.
The problem is that I will be dead before they are affordable. ;-(
There’s more to the economy than manufacturing and farming.
Farmers 300 years ago would have had a very hard time imagining what everyone would do in an economy where only 2% of the population lived on farms.
Manufacturing is already only about 10% of employment, IIRC.
What then?
Eventually there will be only one employee and a big dog on site. The employee’s job will be to keep an eye out for any unanticipated problems , and the dog’s job will be to make sure the man doesn’t actually touch anything.
So we will all work for the government. Sort of do that now.
Hi Nick,
Sometimes , I fail to mention the relevant time frame in posting remarks, assuming for instance in this case that everybody would understand I am or was talking about losing jobs to automation in ADDITION to outsourcing, since globalization and outsourcing is what I have been ranting about.
This is after all more of a CONVERSATION than a formal study, lol, and I MEANT my remark about how many jobs we have lost to automation to apply primarily to recent times, the last twenty years or so, since that is the time period wherein most of the OUTSOURCING of jobs has taken place.
You are correct of course in historical terms. Automation and specialization are the two key factors that have enabled us to progress from the hunter gatherer stage to agricultural societies to industrial societies.
When the book is finished, I will go thru it looking for such oversights and outright errors , and have somebody else check for such misleading statements as well.
China is not even remotely survivable.
If the US dollar were to lose it’s status as a reserve currency, something would have to replace it. What would that be??
Reserve currency status is a function of math. Nothing else.
There are more US dollars floating around out there, so there are more reserves in countries that have to convert them.
It is a matter of concvienance and the stability of the US dollar that things like oil are expressed in USA currency units.
If some other country had the largest capital markets and exported their currency more than the USA, Then their currency would be the biggest reserve due to math.
It sounds like you don’t think it’s reasonable to think that the rest of the world will flee from the dollar to other currencies.
China is hoping to raise the profile of the yuan, but if China “collapses”, then that would seem to rule out the yuan as a replacement of the dollar. The Euro isn’t looking so strong.
So…where does this author think that money will go to, if it leaves the dollar?
And from the conclusion of the book: The China Crisis
This link doesn’t work for me.
Nick, you haven’t written anything on your blog since last year have you?
If not, what’s up?
Before opening the file, it is naturally recommended to do an anti-virus scan.
This is gibberish, unfortunately. It betrays a total lack of understanding of macroeconomics.
A Chinese collapse is a very, very different thing from the disapparance of the petrodollar or a default on bonds.
The disappearance of the petrodollar would actually be *good* for the US and would *boost* the US economy.
The default on Chinese bonds would cause a boom in China.
I know this is totally counterintuitive, but it’s correct.
The result is that this whole piece is gibberish. The risks to China are essentially political: can they retain a system where a small unelected aristocracy runs everything, over such a huge, sprawling, and quintessentially *modern* country? Can they reduce corruption — and a lot of people care a hell of a lot about corruption — without introducing democracy? Can they actually keep such a large country together in one piece, a country where there are actually six or seven major languages (even though they share the same writing system, they’re not mutually comprehensible)?
Renewable energy is growing up, new investment more than nullified increased demand for world electricity in 2015.
“World energy investment amounted to $1.8 trillon in 2015, the IEA says, equivalent to 2.4 percent of the global GDP. Around half went towards fossil fuel extraction and distribution, mainly for oil and gas.
Renewables accounted for 17 percent of the total, around $300 billon. The vast majority of which was in the electricity sector, where nearly 70 percent of investment in power stations went towards renewables.”
My new employer imports a lot of PV panels from China. Business is booming, prices are falling in spite of our right wing fossil-funded government slashing subsidies and Brexit vote triggered fall in the value of Sterling and general economic woe. We are benefiting for now from the Chinese import prices falling due to over-production, but this cannot last. Supply is going to dry up when the Chinese producers go broke. Chinese investment into our infrastructure (buying up real-estate, nuclear power stations etc.) is going to disappear. This will reduce demand for the panels we sell. Rising oil prices are going to sharply increase shipping costs. Our economy is so out of balance, that rising demand from the 1% who are doing well and use PV panels as an alternative to roof tiles on their McMansions, cannot offset the collapse that must come when the 99% hit their credit limit even with ZIRP (UK rate currently 0.25%. I bought my first house paying 15.9% interest). House prices now in London require the average young person to save for 20 years just to afford the deposit for a mortgage. Then face 40 years paying back the mortgage. (Do the maths).
Sorry for the rant. It is good whilst it lasts.
There are lots of places to build PV panels in the world and more wanting in. If China production slows down and prices go up a bit, production will run elsewhere. Asia-Pacific region would love the business.
And in other news, Hurricane Mathew looks ever more likely to be hitting south Florida where I am but it also looks like it might sweep almost the entire East Coast of the US all the way up to NYC and more… I might still just fizzle out or it could create havoc all up and down the East Coast. Could be almost as interesting as the complete collapse of the Chinese and world economies. As the Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times”.
Cheers!
Darn, some Japanese guy just invented a windmill to take advantage of hurricane energy. Now he just needs a way to store the power (hydrogen?). Of course Florida isn’t pro renewable energy is it?
Now he just needs a way to store the power (hydrogen?).
How about something like Ambri’s technology — the liquid metal battery — developed at MIT in the lab of Professor Donald Sadoway. http://www.ambri.com/
Of course Florida isn’t pro renewable energy is it?
Nope! it sure ain’t.
What is the major source of energy for electric power in Florida?
Well, according to FPL’s own site, though I would take that with more than a few grains of salt…
FPL uses a diverse mix of fuels at our power plants to generate reliable electricity. Because of our fuel mix, FPL is recognized as a clean energy company, with one of the lowest emissions profiles among U.S. utilities. FPL’s carbon dioxide emissions rate, for example, is 35 percent better than the industry average. FPL currently obtains most of our electricity from clean-burning natural gas. Nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for another significant portion of power production. In addition, FPL has begun operation of three commercial-scale, emissions-free solar energy facilities in the Sunshine State.
2.7 million short Tons coal imported from Colombia to Mobile Blender in 2014. Depending on Air quality, it can be blended with domestic coals to achieve clean air regs. Much of this is re-barged in shallow water barges for “coastal” consumption . May be less of this coming here now that a Scrubber is operational. 2015 Data not there yet. Reactor fuel is imported, but I guess it could be considered local. 99% is clearly high, When we say imported, I mean imported to FL, The $$ leaves the State. Surveys from the 80’s hint at Large NG deposits on the Shelf, not going to be touched anytime soon. Fla is increasing reliant on NG.
Ok, I am just not understanding your use of imported. Imported means from another country. If for some reason they are using a portion of imported coal, then that is a portion of roughly 10 percent of their energy.
I don’t know where the reactor fuel comes from, maybe some from Canada.
Very few states are energy independent. I am not sure why you worry about dollars leaving a state. Commerce between states is commonplace and even the dollars from a producing state do not stay there. Those tourist dollars sure come from outside the state. Those dollars buying all those oranges come from outside the state.
It’s a State/Local Chamber of Commence viewpoint. What $$ stays inside the state for Investment. Think I read where Russia just canceled the MUX fuel program, I thought that was burned up by now.
National Hurricane Center just pulled a fast right turn for Hurricane Matthew. Guess all that hot air coming off Washington was enough to turn the storm (at least on paper).
Looks like instead of a fast sweep up the East Coast, it will slow down and beat on the Carolinas before turning out to sea , at least it’s not headed inland.
That Japanese turbine likely suffers from the usual problems of vertical axis machines. First, it’s operating close to the ground, not high up above the surface boundary layer, thus it will not capture the greater energy available in the faster flows. Then too, the cross section of the air flowing thru/around it is rather small, compared with a bladed design, so the amount of energy available from the air stream is not very large. If they are built much wider and taller, the mass becomes a big problem. Finally, that quoted efficiency of 30% doesn’t say much without defining what it means. Is that a conversion relative to the Betz Limit, or an overall efficiency, excluding the effects which define in the Betz limit? And, what is the geometry used to define the cross sectional area?
In sum, the design appears to be another drag turbine, perhaps an improvement on Savonius or Darius designs, but with similar problems. Designing a system for the highest winds may result in a device which has degraded the overall efficiency. Ultimately, the cost per unit of delivered energy is the key question for such a concept.
Ultimately, having energy production when you can’t import energy anymore is the key concept here.
Since you seem to be analyzing the machine, do you have the specs on it?
Looks like the Major Hurricane Matthew is now headed even tighter to the coast. Batten the hatches Fred!
Yup, I am, trust me!
NHC Advisory 27 Out. Look like Evacuation Time for many East coastals.
Hundreds of Gitmo Personnel arrived here last night.
Like a fun little horizontal circular saw razing the coast all the way up. Zzz-zzt… chtchcshsh… [What was that!? Ahahahaaa!…]… zzzzzz-zzz…
Hypothetical Shirley Temple: “Hey there, little carpenter! Whatcha doin’?!” ^u^
(It looks like the circular saw gets wider as it tracks north.)
But I’m in Halifax Nova Scotia, so I’ll wait until Sunday or Monday and take the ferry across to Dartmouth– and back again!– if there are good waves and it’s still running.
Taking the ferry across in lots of big waves is fun! Kind of like a slow rollercoaster. Last time I did it, I got soaked. Maybe this time it will capsize! ^u^
I imagine the surfers will be licking their chops too.
There are many different models of the Carbon cycle evaluated in the Joos et al 2013 paper.
From section 4.1 of the Joos paper (p.2801):
The evolution of the IRFCO2 (Fig. 1a) shows a rapid decrease in the first few years after the emission pulse and then a continued but slow decline. It reaches a fraction of 0.60±0.14 (±two sdv) at year 20 and 0.41±0.13 at year hundred. In other words, while 40% of the initial atmospheric CO2 perturbation is on model-average removed from the atmosphere within 20yr, it takes additional 80yr to mitigate the next 19% of the perturbation. At year 1000, more than 25% (±9%) of the perturbation is still airborne. This evolution is consistent with earlier model results (Maier-Reimer and Hasselmann, 1987; Cao et al., 2009; Siegenthaler and Joos, 1992; Sarmiento et al., 1992; Enting et al., 1994; Archer et al., 2009; Eby et al., 2009).
Reality strikes again. Real data shows ocean uptake of CO2 is slowing rapidly.
“We are cautious about attributing this exclusively to human-caused climate change because this uptake has never been measured before, so we have no baseline to compare our results to. Perhaps the ocean uptake is subject to natural ups and downs and it will recover again.”
But the direction of the change was worrying, she added, and there were some grounds for believing that a ‘saturation’ of the ocean sink would start to occur.
“The speed and size of the change show that we cannot take for granted the ocean sink for the carbon dioxide. Perhaps this is partly a natural oscillation or perhaps it is a response to the recent rapid climate warming. In either case we now know that the sink can change quickly and we need to continue to monitor the ocean uptake,” said Prof Watson.”
A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows that the North Atlantic absorbed 50 percent more human-made carbon dioxide over the last decade, compared to the previous decade.
Reference:
Ryan J. Woosley, Frank J. Millero, Rik Wanninkhof. Rapid Anthropogenic Changes in CO2and pH in the Atlantic Ocean: 2003-2014. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/2015GB005248
It seems the slower uptake was temporary.
When we consider carbon emissions from 1850 to 2015 and use a Bern type model to model atmospheric CO2, it matches the data pretty well, especially from 1960 to 2015 where we have better data from Mauna Loa (earlier data is from the Law Dome ice core). At least through 2015 the model works pretty well at predicting how much of the carbon emissions get sequestered by land and ocean.
Dennis, you are confusing manmade CO2 with total CO2.
The article I presented not only had a large number of ship cruises (not just four a decade) but more importantly talked of the total carbon uptake of the ocean region, not just the portion that was anthropgenic (which is what the article you presented).
Here is the new data set
“The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) comprises 6.3 million global observations made from research vessels, commercial ships and moorings around the world since 1968. The dataset documents the changes in ocean carbon similar to the Mauna Loa record – or ‘Keeling curve’ – showing the rise in atmospheric CO2 over time. ”
Have fun with SOCAT. Constantly being updated too.
Meanwhile,
SCIENTISTS CONFIRM OCEANS ACIDIFYING AT UNPRECEDENTED SPEED
“The acidification of the world’s oceans, caused by the absorption of huge volumes of carbon dioxide, is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, threatening marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of tens of millions of people, concluded scientists attending the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World held in Monaco from 6-9 October.”
Well the ocean is not absorbing as much carbon dioxide (at least according to Gonefishing), so ocean acidification should be less of a problem 🙂
This may happen at some point, but for now the models predict carbon uptake by land and oceans fairly well.
I agree ocean acidification is a big problem, fewer carbon emissions will help alleviate the problem, even though it is no doubt more complex, it seems it is one potential solution to the problem.
My understanding is ocean acidification is already a big (and growing) problem but will defer to the likes of FredM for an informed opinion.
Hi Doug,
I agree. The question is what do we do about it.
Reducing excess carbon emissions would reduce the rate that the ocean acidifies. Though Fred can correct me as he would know more.
Problem with pH decrease is that the carbonate ion becomes much more scarce. Dropping in half from 280 to 560 ppm atmospheric CO2. That is the building block for shells, so it can reduce the viability and growth of planktonic and coral species.
Hi Gonefishing,
There is a lot of carbon in the ocean relative to the atmosphere. Are you sure the relationship is linear between the level of atmospheric CO2 and the concentration of carbonate ions in the ocean? I would think the relationship would be more complex and likely to be non-linear.
Dennis says : Are you sure the relationship is linear between the level of atmospheric CO2 and the concentration of carbonate ions in the ocean? ? I would think the relationship would be more complex and likely to be non-linear.
OK, it’s only 47 percent for a doubling. 3X initial CO2 gives 43 percent. So it is non-linear.
Just coincidence Dennis, not linearity.
Not that those numbers are that certain, just what NOAA PMEL came up with.
Look at the site you listed, then carbon uptake, and click on the carbon chemistry graphic to get the list of inorganic carbon compounds and their concentrations as atmospheric carbon builds up.
Yeah, the ocean acidification leading to loss of the carbonate ions is the thing which destroys the ocean food chain and causes the mass extinction. It is *the single biggest risk to the survival of the human species*.
Hi Gonefishing,
The ocean doesn’t care if the CO2 is anthropogenic or not, carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. The two studies are looking at how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean.
Do you seriously think that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is selectively absorbed by the ocean in a different way from “natural” carbon dioxide?
Can you explain how the ocean does this? Does it do radiocarbon dating? 🙂
No Dennis, . they are two different studies, one total with massive amounts of sampling, one using C14 ratios to calculate the fossil content with small amount of sampling.
I think you are making a leap of logic.
Since the amount of fossil CO2 is rising in the atmosphere, how can you think they are the same? You would have to know the total absorption rate of CO2, the return rate and the sequestration rate as well as the proportions of each to start.
Al that study did was measure the C14 to C12 ratios of samples. Not the total concentration of CO2 in the ocean.
Read it again. ” A new study shows that the North Atlantic absorbed 50 percent more human-made carbon dioxide over the last decade, compared to the previous decade”
That expresses the differential in relative fossil CO2 concentration not total concentration change.
Fish, you beat me to it but: No Dennis, the ocean (surface ocean water) doesn’t care if the CO2 is anthropogenic or not but this can be, and is, determined by measuring 13C/12C ratios.
OCEANIC 13C/12C OBSERVATIONS: A NEW WINDOW ON OCEAN CO2 UPTAKE (AGU Journal article, with paywall)
Using C13 sounds very error prone. Sure there is a much higher abundance (1 percent) but C13 is stable so the fractional uptake changes due to mass difference would be the driving force. Not a large force and subject to variation dependent on plant type. The comparison would have to be made to inorganic carbon content in the ocean.
You are correct about the difference between the studies.
It would seem that the oceans are becoming more acidic, which seems to indicate that more CO2 has been sequestered over time.
Changes in the AMOC with variation in the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) is one hypothesis for why the CO2 level had changed over the period in the first study you mentioned.
The land and ocean sinks have continued to sequester carbon emissions as we know what the emissions are and we know the atmospheric CO2.
So the data shows that through 2015, the Bern carbon model represents reality pretty well.
Perhaps more carbon is being taken up by land in some years than others depending on weather, fires, etc and the ocean takes up different amounts as well depending upon several different ocean cycles and the SST as well as mixing from deep ocean to surface.
It is actually amazing that such a simple model (the Bern Model) matches the data so well from 1850 to 2015. The input to the model is simply carbon dioxide emissions from 1850 to 2015.
Are you trying to say that the rate of CO2 uptake is the same as ocean temperature rises?
Hi Gone fishing,
The Bern Model was covered by Euan Mearns.
I do not agree with his take, but he has a nice summary of the basic model.
Euan Mearns ideas or models make no sense to me. 120 years to reduce carbon emissions? He is essentially saying that the carbon emissions are being reduced at the rate of emission. Ergo, we would never have seen a rise in CO2 to begin with.
Hi Gonefishing,
I agree Euan’s models don’t make sense to me either.
He needs to explain how atmospheric CO2 remained at 277 ppm for 3500 years from 350 BP to 3850 BP.
I suppose one could hypothesize that land use change and/or volcanoes created just the right amount of CO2 to keep atmospheric CO2 relatively stable.
The physical explanation of Archer seems more plausible, and the peer reviewed literature agrees, as far as I have read.
Hi Gonefishing,
NOAA has information as well on ocean uptake of CO2.
The Park et al. manuscript presents the interannual variability of net sea-air CO2 flux for the period 1982–2007 from a diagnostic model using empirical subannual relationships between climatological CO2 partial pressure in surface seawater (pCO2SW) and sea surface temperature (SST), along with interannual changes in SST and wind speed. These optimum subannual relationships show significantly better correlation between pCO2SW and SST than the previous relationships using fixed monthly boundaries. Our diagnostic model yields an interannual variability of ±0.14 Pg C/ yr (1σ) with a 26-year mean of -1.48 Pg C/ yr.
Nice site, thanks. As you can see nothing is homogeneous on this planet. I had heard -2 Pg C/yr, so their value is lower.
Hi Gonefishing,
Correct, there are different estimates from different researchers and the estimates change as knowledge improves. There have been several iterations of the Bern Carbon Model, and the models are far from perfect.
There is of course variation over time which tends to make analysis more difficult.
I have never argued that there is not uncertainty, there is a great deal of uncertainty. I am confident that the high emissions scenarios such as RCP6 and especially RCP8.5 are highly unlikely as they depend on very optimistic assessments of available fossil fuel resources (RCP8.5 has carbon emissions more than 4 times larger than my medium fossil fuel scenario and more than 3 times larger than my high scenario). RCP4.5 has carbon emissions from 1800-2200 similar to my high fossil fuel scenario.
I am not at liberty to mention his name in this context, but I correspond frequently with a man well known as a heavyweight by really well informed environmental observers, although he is not well known to the public.
This guy is the best informed and most intelligent person, taken all around, that I have ever had the privilege of getting to know, and coming from me, even if I say so myself, that is saying a hell of a lot.
He says privately that he is more worried about the long term consequences of ocean acidification by a country mile than he is about all the other consequences of forced climate change combined, because there is a real possibility rising acidity may disrupt the world ocean ecology enough to flip both the water and the land ecologies into states that will wipe out most larger life forms.
He is not actually predicting this will happen, but rather pointing out that it almost for sure COULD happen, depending on how much coal we continue to burn, etc.
People in his situation have to be careful about what they say in public about certain topics due to funding problems. Some organizations will sponsor certain research topics readily enough, but if you start talking publicly about OTHER topics, that support can dry up.
Hi Old Farmar Mac,
Your friend may believe that there is much more coal that is economically recoverable than is likely to be the case. My high fossil fuel scenarios result in total carbon emissions of roughly 1500 Pg of carbon, if there is no attempt to reduce emissions.
The likely increase in the price of fossil fuels as resources deplete and the likely decrease in the price of wind and solar as those industries ramp up to fill the void left by declining fossil fuels (an economy of scale argument) will likely lead to between 900 and 1200 Pg of carbon emissions, my best guess is about 1050 Pg of total emissions from fossil fuels, cement production, and land use change from 1800 to 2200.
Perhaps this might still result in catastrophic change in ocean ecology due to ocean acidification. Your friend may be envisioning 5000 Pg of carbon emissions (the RCP8.5 scenario aka BAU).
That scenario is highly unlikely.
if there is no attempt to reduce emissions.
Let me suggest different phrasing:
“Just based on current policies, with no further government policy improvements intended to reduce emissions.”.
Why add the words “current”, and “further government policy”? Because the current wind and solar industries exist only because of previous policy interventions, and because at least in theory they could be undone or greatly slowed down by people like Trump. I agree that EVs, wind and solar have a lot of momentum, but preventing the 8.5 scenario depends on their continued growth.
People like the Koch brothers know this very, very well. That’s why they’re so desperately supporting people like Trump (though, of course, they’re being more successful at the local level lately).
Hi Nick,
Even without government policy to push things, the reality is the fossil fuels will deplete and they will become more expensive as this occurs.
One would have to argue that technological progress will only occur in the fossil fuel industry and not in any other energy industry. If that seems like a plausible argument, then we would need to further assume that just in time technology in only the fossil fuel industry keeps costs low and fossil fuel production expanding until 2098 when a plateau is reached that is maintained until 2150 and then output starts to decline. The level of output at the 2100 to 2150 plateau results in about 3 times the carbon emissions per year as in 2015. This scenario is often referred to as business as usual, fossil fuel depletion will mean this scenario is very far from likely.
The RCP 6 scenario has somewhat realistic overall carbon emissions at 2240 Pg from 1800 to 2200 from all sources. Fossil fuel emissions peak in 2080 and decline to 2015 levels by 2115, also not very realistic.
The RCP4.5 scenario is somewhat realistic with only 1460 Pg of total carbon emissions from 1800 to 2200, this is close to my “high” fossil fuel scenario so still a bit optimistic. Fossil fuel emissions peak in 2040 and decline to 2015 levels in 2060.
Bottom line, only RCP2.6 and 4.5 are realistic, with RCP2.6 a little too low and RCP4.5 a little too high, reality may fall between these two scenarios.
Your friend is correct. I have studied this myself and ocean acidification, leading to the inability of plankton to form shells, leading to the collapse of all the ocean food chains, is the single most dangerous risk we are facing, more dangerous than ANYTHING else by a HUGE margin.
The Great Dying (P-Tr extinction) was largely caused by this effect.
This is THE single most dangerous possibility. All of humanity must be mobilized to stop it. Period.
We have a lot more time on everything else. That one, once the plankton stop forming their shells, the food chain collapses within weeks, mass starvation within the year, and then it gets worse.
CHINA’S housing market has been inflated to the point of being the “biggest bubble in history”, a billionaire real estate investor has warned.
The world’s second largest economy has seen a decade-long property boom.
But this could soon pop with devastating consequences, according to China’s richest man Wang Jianlin.
He believes China’s problem is the stark difference between booming cities like Shanghai, where house prices are still rising, compared to huge oversupply in thousands of smaller Chinese cities, where many properties are empty.
Mr Jianlin has amassed a fortune worth £22billion through property and as head of the Dalian Wanda Group.
Speaking about China’s two-sided market, he said: “I know of no good solution to this problem.”
He added that none of the governments measures to address the problem have worked.
The investor also stressed the high amount of property loans in China.
The banks have lent a staggering £2.7trillion to the sector at the end of June.
Yet, the economy has been cooling, which makes counter-controlling more difficult, said Mr Jianlin.
The debt can’t be cut until the economy is back on the up, he added.
The investor has now drastically reduced his exposure to the real estate markets.
Corporate debt in the world’s second largest economy is growing, increasing the likelihood of a banking crisis in the next few years, according to a new financial report.
China’s credit-to-GDP gap stands at 30.1 in the first quarter of 2016, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) revealed in a report on Sunday. BIS, an international banking watchdog, suggests that figures over 10 are clear causes for concern, and that the credit-to-GDP gap measure is a key indicator of banking stress and financial health.
Rapid increases in the credit-to-GDP gap indicate excessive credit growth, putting China in danger of a severe banking crisis, explained Bloomberg News.
Given China’s current credit-to-GDP situation, BIS says a Chinese banking crisis could happen sometime in the next three years.
Hi Ron,
That data on debt to gdp gap from BIS can be found at link below
There have been many countries with debt to GDP gaps above 29 such as Ireland, Hong Kong, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal. Many did poorly after the GFC, “total collapse” did not happen in any of these nations, just a recession. Concern over government debt led to a focus on balanced government budgets which has prolonged the recession in Europe.
Randomness and chaos are what makes everything work. Uncertainty is our limited perception of the two aforementioned conditions and the principles that shift them.
Hopefully Fernando will check in soon, since he is the only person in this forum who has any direct contact with people inside the country, or at least the only one that comments to that effect.
Hello Oldfarmermac. As agreed, I post my comment here in the non-petroleum part. It was a reaction to what you wrote in the Eagle Ford thread:
“It seems inevitable that production in Venezuela must decline soon, and stay down, until that unfortunate country’s political problems are solved, and that is going to take a long time, even after they bottom out.
Getting rid of Maduro is taking longer than I expected, probably because he has the loyalty of all the people who ARE getting food and medicine, etc, by way of preferential handout and employment of supporters.”
My response was:
“The situation in Venezuela is constructed by low oil prices, certain government failures and the intention of the upper class to capitalize the actual crisis (with support of the US). While we can argue if Maduro does or does not implement the right politics, one must know that in Latin America doesn’t exist common ground between the political oppositions. This is not the US nor is it Europe. Rather than dividing Venezuela’s politicians in good and bad ones, you have to see the whole picture. And it’s very dire. A takeover of the right would probably lead to civil war – a situation which the land already had to face in the nineties (and brought Hugo Chavez into power). May nobody believe that the conservative class in Venezuela has any scruple to use violence or to be in any sense more humanitarian than the Chavist government. In economical terms they are probably more efficient – but at what price? Again: There are no good or bad ones, nor does any will exist to put the country on a functional base everybody could live with. And the US will do nothing but helping to push the country towards the failed state status – just like they did with Libya, although in a more covert style.”
Matthew may actually circle and hit the coast twice.
I wonder if there is historical precedent for this happening.
A hurricane expert I am NOT, but I can’t remember hearing about two hurricanes hitting within less than a week on the east coast.
But prior to the air age, radio communications between ships and ships and shore, etc, a hurricane that circled around and hit twice might have been interpreted as two separate storms.
Anybody else find this chart for Arctic temperatures particularly worrying? I think there have been some studies indicating that temperatures there in the past have flipped 5 to 10 degrees C in a few years. Would not such an event likely look like what we have now. Even if it’s only “weather” for this year the number of freezing degree days is being cut by about 75% compared to the recent average shown (note freezing is to about -1.6 to -1.8 in the Arctic; not the blue line at 0 shown). Ice grows at about the square root of FDD so there might be a lot of thin stuff around when the thaw starts again.
The Arctic surface temperature is about 2.5C warmer than it was in 1900 (north of 60N). Albedo changes, lower rates of heat loss due to lower temperatures than equatorial regions, decrease of summer clouds and increase of winter clouds, as well as increased warming from larger expanses of open ocean late into the autumn season all are factors that increase the rate of warming in that region.
The Arctic has been ice free before.
The Arctic has been ice free before.
You make it sound like that is something that happens ever few hundred years or so. The last time the Arctic was ice free was 2.6 million years ago. Geological changes in the earths surface caused the area to become thermally isolated. An ice cap formed and the Arctic has never been ice free since.
It will become ice free again but this time it will be due to human activity.
2.6 million years ago, geologic uplift forced the closure of Arctic Ocean gateways, like the Bering Strait, and thermally isolated the region. That restricted the Arctic’s circulation, causing a build-up of fresh water and conditions favorable for major ice sheets to form. From that point, there was runaway cooling as ice sheets grew as far south as present-day St. Louis and New York City. The most current cycle of ice ages began, and human ancestors were forced to adapt. This started the transition that would result in homo sapiens.
Hi Ron, nice Segway but I neither specified a time period or how much of a season it was ice free.
Look at the Eemian, with forests up into Baffin Island, hippos on the Thames , Greenland without most of it’s ice sheet (just low central remnants). Now tell me that the Arctic Ocean did not have ice free times back then. That’s ice free enough for me and only 120,000 years ago.
Not sure what your point is, mega-mammals were abundant as was life on the whole planet even back 5 million years ago when it was much warmer.
Rapid climate change happens too, for numerous reasons. This time is different, it is caused by an animal species oxidizing the remains of buried dead plants on a global scale. But as you say, we may not change our ways and just keep doing what we do, much as any natural forcing. So if we have no control over ourselves, then the process of warming will continue for a long time, which it will anyway, even if we slow down our carbon activities now. Also the extinction process will continue unless we dramatically cut back on other activities.
Maybe we should rename ourselves Calamitus Fossilium Incendium .
“So if we have no control over ourselves, then the process of warming will continue for a long time, which it will anyway, even if we slow down our carbon activities now.”
CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS RACE PAST TROUBLING MILESTONE
“Carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere passed a troubling milestone for good this summer and locked in levels of the heat-trapping gas not seen for millions of years…What’s more troubling, says Tans, is that the rate of CO2 increase is more than 100 times faster than anything observed in the ice core record that goes back 800,000 years. This will continue as long as fossil fuel consumption remains at its current high level worldwide.”
Doug, Dennis says most of it will go away quickly, so don’t be so alarmist.
I mean the Great Plains will have warmer winters and the forests will grow northward, not all bad news. Canadians won’t have to travel as far south in the winter to get warm, ay. I could do with less snow to shovel too.
Although I must protest their building of 10,000 Empire State buildings per year to sequester all that extra CO2 . There certainly are better and cheaper way than that, as well as les CO2 intensive. 🙂
What, Me Worry? 🙂
Hi Gone fishing,
I just use the information found in Archer 2005.
Fate of fossil fuel CO2 in geologic time
See Table 1 on page 5, which shows about 20% of a 1000 Pg C emissions pulse remains in the atmosphere after 1,000 years, 10% after 10,000 years and 6.5% after 100,000 years.
So yes the scientific evidence suggests about 94% of the carbon emissions will be sequestered in 100,000 years.
“Damage could be “catastrophic”, the state governor said. Evacuation orders have been issued along the coast. Matthew, with winds of 125mph (205km/h), is expected to strengthen and hit Florida as a Category Four storm.”
Hi Gone fishing,
Using a sum of 4 exponentials following the Carbon model mean from Joos et al 2013 from 2000 to 2200 and an earlier Bern model fit to the CO2 data from 1900 to 2000, I use carbon emissions from 1850 to 2015 and a scenario from 2016 to 2200 with total carbon emissions of 1080 Pg C. I get the chart below for 1950-2200 and when the model is run out to 3050 (assuming no fossil fuel emissions after 2110) about 77% of the 1080 Pg carbon pulse has been sequestered, similar to Joos et al 2013 model mean (23% vs 25%). See table 5 in paper linked below (I use the IRF).
That’s ice free enough for me and only 120,000 years ago.
Please post the link that says the Arctic Ocean was ice free 120,000 years ago.
If you noticed, I always post links to support my position. I do wish everyone else would do likewise.
“Based on the paleoclimate record from ice and ocean cores, the last warm period in the Arctic peaked about 8,000 years ago, during the so-called Holocene Thermal Maximum. Some studies suggest that as recent as 5,500 years ago, the Arctic had less summertime sea ice than today. However, it is not clear that the Arctic was completely free of summertime sea ice during this time.
The next earliest era when the Arctic was quite possibly free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, during the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. Temperatures in the Arctic were higher than now and sea level was also 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) higher than it is today because the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets had partly melted” http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq/
The Eemian climate is believed to have been about as stable as that of the Holocene. Changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters from today (greater obliquity and eccentricity, and perihelion), known as Milankovitch cycles, probably led to greater seasonal temperature variations in the Northern Hemisphere, although global annual mean temperatures were probably similar to those of the Holocene. The warmest peak of the Eemian was around 125,000 years ago, when forests reached as far north as North Cape, Norway (which is now tundra) well above the Arctic Circle at
71°10′21″N 25°47′40″E. Hardwood trees such as hazel and oak grew as far north as Oulu, Finland.
At the peak of the Eemian, the Northern Hemisphere winters were generally warmer and wetter than now, though some areas were actually slightly cooler than today. The hippopotamus was distributed as far north as the rivers Rhine and Thames.[3] Trees grew as far north as southern Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: currently, the northern limit is further south at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec. Coastal Alaska was warm enough during the summer due to reduced sea ice in the Arctic Ocean to allow Saint Lawrence Island (now tundra) to have boreal forest, although inadequate precipitation caused a reduction in the forest cover in interior Alaska and Yukon Territory despite warmer conditions.[4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian
I asked the lead author, Leonid Polyak, of Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, when was the last time the Arctic was ice free. He replied:
“The paleo data we have so far is very scant, so we can’t know for sure when the Arctic was ice free in the summer last time. To be conservative, the closest candidate is the early Holocene (roughly ~10 kyr ago), when the insolation in the Arctic was high due to the beneficial orbital configuration; however, the more data I see, the stronger is my impression that there was not that little ice at that time. The next best (actually, better) candidate is the Last Interglacial, about 125kyr ago, again due to orbitally-driven high insolation: the ice was likely very low, but we can’t say whether it was completely ice free in summer or not. There are also a few other major interglacials, which may have had a similar picture, in particular Marine Isotopic Stage 11, about 450 kyr ago. In any case we are talking about very rare events controlled by a forcing very different from today. If none of those intervals was really ice free, then a million year assessment would be correct.”
So we don’t really know. At any rate we know exactly why those earlier periods were warmer. This time we know also, human induced CO2 into the atmosphere.
And thanks again for the links.
Ron, GF,
I’m not sure if this is relevant to your discussion but based on bedrock core samples it seems Greenland was ice free at some point over the last 1.25 million years.
Ice penetrating radar based on aircraft has allowed a detailed view of ice layers and their ages to be produced. Leftover Eemian ice is found in northern Greenland.
Doug,
I think they need a few more samples spread over a large area. Interesting technique though.
Right now we have a combined event, GHG forcing and we are moving into a rising period of insolation in the northern hemisphere. The Arctic regions will eventually see a peak increase of 25 watts/m2, but from now until 40,000 years from now the solar input to the Arctic will be higher than currently.
Not as big of a blast as the Eemian but still significant especially when one considers the added GHG factors which effect the whole globe.
Usually scientists never say definitely, in some of the articles I saw probably, which is a way of saying they are fairly sure.
Yes Ron lots of interesting findings out there, I looked further than I had before and found some other detailed presentations. Right now taking a break from a plumbing job, maybe put up some later.
Indeed, real scientists who are actually studying something of real scientific concern do not use terms like definitely for the simple reason that real science is never fully settled or determined merely by “consensus”. Take a look at gravity, for example. While the experts in the field presume to know just about all there is to know about gravity, general scientific understanding maintains gravity continues to be a theory and therefore not a completely proven concept. So as you can see, for these reasons, anyone who states anthropogenic global warming as a concept and worldview is completely proven beyond all doubt is (at best) ignorant of how science works or (at worst) probably some sort of huckster.
anyone who states anthropogenic global warming as a concept and worldview is completely proven beyond all doubt is…
Fortunately, very few if any people are stating that.
The general consensus in the scientific community is that there is a very serious risk. Preparing for it is like paying for fire insurance.
And, fortunately, eliminating fossil fuels is a good idea even if climate change weren’t a problem.
Hooo boy, that rubbish again.
In science ‘theory’ means that it is well proven and not that is just guess work.
Lydia, it’s the Law of Gravity, not the theory.
I think we can get past gravity and electromagnetics.
Lydia, I think if you understood the interactions between infrared radiation and matter, you would not hold those views. That is all well known, proven science.
If it were not for GHG’s you would not exist, the earth would be a frozen snowball and just another dead world among many.
At times the earth is warmer, at times the earth is cooler. GHG’s are part of that change. They influence phase changes in water and cause further change.
Doesn’t matter what one calls the GHG’s they still have the same effect in the atmosphere.
Lydia, oh Lydia…
The reason that the current arctic air temperature is so far above the trend line is that the area of open ocean at summer ice minimum is far larger than it was a decade ago. This season in particular, the ice became much more broken and dispersed than ever before, leaving open water amongst the ice right up to the geographic pole.
This resulted in the surface rapidly freezing over a large area when the sun finally set, and freezing releases heat to the atmosphere, hence the warmer (but still below freezing) temperatures. This rapid freezing phase has been seen several times in the last few years. This is climate change in action. Once the entire ice cap melts each summer, the heat which is currently absorbed by the ice as it melts will have nowhere to go and will stay in the atmosphere, accelerating air temperature rises. We do not know how soon we will get to that point, it might be as little as 5 years if the current melting trend continues to follow exponential decline by volume.
Hi Ralph, the ice mass of the Arctic Ocean is about one third what it was back around 1970 and the open water period is advancing into the autumn, so the process is underway already. That is part of why temperatures have been rising in the Arctic.
Ice mass reduction per year has been fairly linear though it is starting to give some indication of increasing rates. Even when the Arctic Ocean starts to have ice free days or weeks ice will still form there in the winter.
I think the best measurement for Arctic Ice loss trend would be a 12 month running average of volume as this eliminates seasonal effects, but I have never seen this so maybe there is something in it that skews the trends(?). Anyway using Piomas I generated the curve below. I added a quadratic trend and also two cherry picked recent trends so deniers and doomers can choose their preference (average the two and you get a hiatus).
Looks pretty good George. Makes a nice comparison graph for future changes.
Those arrows remind me of rivers, at any given point they can flow in numerous compass directions, but there is a general flow direction to them.
Just looked (again) at the PIOMAS site. Winter/spring total volume has been hitting a max of 28,009 km3 while late summer amounts are running as low a 4000 km3. Not really a lot to go and with that much range, Arctic could hit it’s first ice free day around 2025.
Ralph – But that isn’t just ‘climate change’ it is ‘abrupt climate change’, is it not? And that sounds like a pretty good explanation of how things might have happened in the past on similar occasions. We may be 2.5 degrees above 1900 on average but we are 10 degrees above ERA40 average (which I think is ECMWF numbers from 1957 to 1980, but not certain). And we haven’t been this high before at this time of year, plus there appears to me to be a distinct trend from 2013 to this year going up during the freezing season.
“Anybody else find this chart for Arctic temperatures particularly worrying?” ~ George Kaplan
(●̮̮̃•̃)|m/
Hey, look, man, just worry about your PV’s, EV’s and industries, ok? And forget about charts like these.
PV’s and EV’s will create the ‘cool factor’ that everybody longs for and that will help ‘cool’ the planet just fine.
The ones worried about PV,EV’s and wind turbines are the fossil fuel energy producers.
If they are ‘worried’, it may be for reasons one may not think.
I’ve already posted some months ago something about some– perhaps many– of them investing in pseudorenewable energy– with our stolen money.
I’ve also already posted this:
“A national oil company (NOC) is an oil company fully or in the majority owned by a national government. According to the World Bank, NOCs accounted for 75% global oil production and controlled 90% of proven oil reserves in 2010.
Due to their increasing dominance over global reserves, the importance of NOCs relative to International Oil Companies (IOCs), such as ExxonMobil, BP, or Royal Dutch Shell, has risen dramatically in recent decades. NOCs are also increasingly investing outside their national borders.” ~ Wikipedia
How do pseudogovernments control decentralized off-grid energy systems? That seems like one ‘worry’.
Caelan, humanity is currently on a path to repeat the P-Tr extinction event, which will include humanity going extinct.
I believe the only workable way to manipulate the little monkey brains of average humans into NOT driving themselves extinct is, indeed, to make it “cool” to stop emitting CO2.
Don’t you agree?
Yes, we would do well to make it ‘cool’, even ‘awesome’, to have ‘the little monkey brains’ stop doing a whole host of things, with emitting vast amounts of C02 being a big one of them.
That’s in part why my nickname on TOD was ‘Tribe Of Pangaea- First Member’; Pangaea was apparently around or just before the time of the ‘Great Dying’.
We may all prove to be ill-fated members of the Tribe Of Pangaea.
Do you want to be Second Member? You can go first if you want and I’ll take ‘Tribe Of Pangaea- Second Member’. I doubt it will make any difference.
The Arctic temperature anomaly is increasing (i.e. it is cooling off slower than expected) – below is prediction for next week, note Greenland is about 20 degrees above average (note also the Antarctic anomaly figure). Ice extent expansion has stalled, so unless it’s getting much thicker, faster I don’t see how this is a latent heat of fusion effect – there has been an explanation that a) the sea water is much hotter than usual and b) with more open water the air is more humid so more precipitation and therefore a latent heat impact from condensation.
Good information. Thanks George.
Unless you’re trying to fool some of the readers, if you are going to post a map such as that you probably should mention the Arctic Oscillation (AO) has presently gone quite negative and is forecast to stay that way through the near term. This is why you see the temperature anomalies you see on that map.
“One manifestation of this ideal of refusing geopolitical borders in favour of older or no borders can be seen in Hogan’s repeated references to the idea of Pangaea, the theorized ‘original’ landmass that eventually broke apart into the continents… Through their reconnection with Native understandings of space and their successful creation of an effective coalition, Hogan’s characters claim citizenship as Native subjects who have a different but valid knowledge of the world and can forge the political power to help shape that world.” ~ Dreaming of Pangaea: Decolonizing Strategies in Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms
Copied from the other thread:
Westexasfanclub says:
10/05/2016 at 8:42 am
“The situation in Venezuela is constructed by low oil prices, certain government failures and the intention of the upper class to capitalize the actual crisis (with support of the US). While we can argue if Maduro does or does not implement the right politics, one must know that in Latin America doesn’t exist common ground between the political oppositions. This is not the US nor is it Europe. Rather than dividing Venezuela’s politicians in good and bad ones, you have to see the whole picture. And it’s very dire. A takeover of the right would probably lead to civil war – a situation which the land already had to face in the nineties (and brought Hugo Chavez into power). May nobody believe that the conservative class in Venezuela has any scruple to use violence or to be in any sense more humanitarian than the Chavist government. In economical terms they are probably more efficient – but at what price? Again: There are no good or bad ones, nor does any will exist to put the country on a functional base everybody could live with. And the US will do nothing but helping to push the country towards the failed state status – just like they did with Libya, although in a more covert style.”
While I am not a scholar of South American history or culture, I do read very widely, and carefully, selecting books by credit worthy historians, etc.
So I know a few things, lol, and agree that there is not a great, deep, sound tradition of law before men in South America, and that for that reason, the countries there have a sorry record of revolutions one after another, repression, poverty, etc. There are other reasons as well, but South America is well endowed with resources, and could be as prosperous and peaceful as Western Europe, at least in theory.
But you paint a picture that in my opinion is worse than it is, actually, because there has been and there is progress being made in political, cultural and economic terms in South America, and things are not as bad there as they used to be.
There is a hard core right wing in Venezuela that, if it were to come to power (again) , would be worse that the Maduro regime, and I will not argue that the oil price collapse is not a primary factor, maybe THE primary factor, explaining the Venezuelan situation as it has unfolded over the last couple of years.
But Maduro and his cronies are hopelessly corrupt themselves, and above all else, in love with power.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Venezuela as a country is now far enough along on the road to becoming a modern peaceful democratic society that when Maduro is gone, there is substantial hope that a middle of the road government will take its place.
I agree that the risk of civil war is high, but I personally lay that risk at the Maduro regime’s feet, because the regime is doing everything in it’s power to prevent a recall election, knowing it will lose.
If things were as bad as you paint them, there wouldn’t be a recall election issue, there would be a civil war already.
There ARE many many people in the country who do believe in law and democracy, on both sides.
So there IS, again in my opinion, substantial hope that when Maduro is gone, Venezuela will soon have, if not a great government, then at least one that is tolerably decent, and that the economy can be gotten onto its feet again, even with oil prices in the dumpster.
Now I have not been an especially big fan of the Obama administration, but taken all around, considering the state of the USA, and the state of the world, and the big picture, Obama has not done too badly, and I do believe his heart is in the right place.
One reason I will never be able to describe myself as a liberal is that I have been in intimate contact with too many well educated liberal idiot professors who for reasons of furthering their own agendas blame every thing that is wrong with the world on DWEM, or their descendants. That sort never has and never will admit that any DWEM did anything right or decent.
In order to get my mandatory passing grade of “A”, I had to play along and kiss their ignorant asses in class. Such is reality if you want to accumulate some grad credits, and even under grad credits, needed to pursue a masters degree in certain fields.
The LIMEYS had their empire, and they could be brutal in the running of it, but in places where they stuck around a good while, they laid the foundations that enabled their former colonies to advance from the rule of men to the rule of law.
Paint me a damned old redneck conservative if you please, but if the British Empire had included Venezeula for a century or two, that country might now be a well governed one.
Saying this is by no means the same thing as saying the Spanish displayed any redeeming qualities in terms of running things in South American colonies, lol.
Hello Oldfarmermac, I wished I could call you a damned old redneck to make this response easy, LOL. But I’m happy to meet a complex and open mind.
You certainly define very well the advantage of the mercantilistic Anglo-Saxon approach of colonialism compared to the feudalistic (and still medieval) one of the Spanish. That’s one of the biggest burden of Latin America till the present days. If the English had discovered America in 1492 and the Spanish had started their colonization with the advanced spirit of the 17th century, things might have come out the other way. But this is, of course, pure speculation.
It is precisely this lack of pragmatism mixed with static feudal hierarchy which preoccupies me. Not to mention all the sequels of the Monroe Doctrine which very efficiently attacked Latin America at its weakest points and succumbed it to the interests of the north for almost two centuries. But I won’t let this become an antiimperialistic rant – empires always work the same way and they always will (In this context I see Venezuela in line with what happened and is happening in Libya and Syria among others).
I rather want to ask myself what could be done within the limits of the possible. I hope very much you are right and there could emerge a new centrist government in Venezuela. It might be very healthy for the country if there were two strong political blocks close enough to each other to allow a change of government now and then. Not that I think a bipartisan system would be the political panacea. But in the case of Venezuela a Democrats/Republicans split of the actual powers would do some good.
Just let me get right one thing: The Venezuelan government isn’t precisely trying to avoid a “referendum revocatorio” – it’s all about the date: If the referendum is going to happen this year, the vote could kick out the whole government. But if the referendum is being held after the 31th of December, they can only vote out Maduro – the government would stay in charge under the guide of the vice president until 2019. The not very homogenous opposition apparently didn’t manage to start the whole process in time and gave Maduro a free kick. Yo can’t really blame him for taking the chance.
And, yes, by the way, I consider myself something like a politically incorrect liberal. So I probably would have had trouble with your professors, too ?
Back atcha W T FC,
You are certainly at least in the nine ring, and mostly in the bullseye, when you talk about Yankee manipulation of South American affairs to their detriment and the gain of our privileged class.
I believe we are pretty much on the same page except for one point. My opinion is that the Maduro regime is has pulled pulling every possible underhanded trick to delay the recall referendum. So I don’t see it as the opposition’s fault that it won’t likely happen in time to get rid of Maduro.
I shouldn’t have called my professors in the soft stuff overeducated idiots. I should have described them as cynical and hypocritical political partisans of the leftish persuasion.
And some of them, in classes such as psychology, etc absolutely insisted that animals ( other than humans, and they put humans in an entirely separate category, assigning us unique and extraordinary powers, while being utterly unable to comprehend the very basic fact of biological evolution, apparently ) have NO INTELLIGENCE.
Now they defended this extraordinary foolishness not because they had EVIDENCE it is so, but because they fucking refused to describe any behavior by any animal, excepting a naked ape, as being anything other than the result of instincts.
Some of them went so far as to say humans have NO instincts, etc.
Ah well, all of them are almost for sure dead by now, lol.
And the evolutionary biologists are almost finished their war with them, except for a few mopping up operations. The younger generation of psychologists, etc, are on board with evolution.
More we approach the past, closer we get to the Übermensch, LOL. It’s definitively better to see what we are than to project what we think we should be. We’re all full of instincts and they are the primary gates of advertising and propaganda. Especially if you think theses gates don’t exist …
Concerning Maduro: You’re probably right that he’s playing dirty. In the end he’s a politician. I sometimes tend to defend the chavism too much. I do so because in the media and between people I know, almost nobody else does. It’s all extremely one-sided and I tend to create a counterweight. In fact things didn’t look that bad, at least until the death of Hugo Chavez and the fall of oil: Poverty diminished, especially extreme poverty, unemployment came down to reasonable numbers and oil production was stable for several years (bitumen production outweighing the continuous decline of conventional production). Probably right now everything there is a mess.
The irony is, that almost all the Venezuelans I met were against Chavez and I had a good time with them. Most of them were educated middle class people and had chosen to leave their country because of the political situation. In Spain I also had encounters with the political branch of chavism and it stroke me as something very static and dogmatic – like you find in other “postrevolutionary” countries. On the other hand, a cuban friend told me his experiences when he worked with Venezuelan prostitutes which were sent to Cuba for some kind of reeducation program: These women were crying, because it was the first time in their life that they were treated like human beings. So, my feelings about Venezuela are very mixed.
Please keep posting anything you happen to know already or come across about Venezuela and Cuba.
I want to know more, and I want to hear it from people who have had or have first hand contact if possible.
And I AM aware, as in the old cop’s adage, that there are three stories in most domestic cases, HIS story, HER story, and THE story, lol.
There is no question that a substantial part of Maduro’s support is due to the improvements that were made earlier by the Chavistas. The folks who got houses, food, jobs, education, etc, earlier are mostly still around, this is not an OLD tale. It’s playing out during the lives of probably half or more of the people in the country today.
I spend a lot of time in Cuba. There life three, almost four generations who fought and/or lived under the revolution. Beautiful people. For me the most beautiful people of this planet (don’t confuse beautiful with perfect). They don’t buy in this propaganda stuff anymore, too many things went wrong, though many depend on the little benefits they can get out of conformity. But what is more important: They have conscience and they know what they have and they also know what they want. Do they know how to get it? That’s a different story maybe. They don’t buy in good/bad, black/white, communism/capitalism stories. They know to differentiate. They know that dollars can be poisoned. They have suffered a lot. Many things lacked and are still lacking in Cuba. But they never gave up. Beautiful people with brains and heart.
some of them, in classes such as psychology, etc absolutely insisted that animals … have NO INTELLIGENCE…Some of them went so far as to say humans have NO instincts, etc.
This is a pretty obvious result of an old and basic religious idea – dualism: humans have a soul, animals don’t.
It’s amazing how powerful this idea is. Even now, we keep seeing headlines about scientists being amazed and shocked to see signs that thinking and intelligence are based on visible and measurable mechanisms in the brain.
You telling me the Talking Snake doesn’t have a soul but the Rib Woman does?
Hello Oldfarmermac, I wished I could call you a damned old redneck to make this response easy, LOL. But I’m happy to meet a complex and open mind.
You certainly define very well the advantage of the mercantilistic Anglo-Saxon approach of colonialism compared to the feudalistic (and still medieval) one of the Spanish. That’s one of the biggest burden of Latin America till the present days. If the English had discovered America in 1492 and the Spanish had started their colonization with the advanced spirit of the 17th century, things might have come out the other way. But this is, of course, pure speculation.
It is precisely this lack of pragmatism mixed with static feudal hierarchy which preoccupies me. Not to mention all the sequels of the Monroe Doctrine which very efficiently attacked Latin America at its weakest points and succumbed it to the interests of the north for almost two centuries. But I won’t let this become an antiimperialistic rant – empires always work the same way and they always will (I see Venezuela in line with what happened and is happening in Libya and Syria for example).
I rather want to ask myself what could be done within the limits of the possible. I hope very much you are right and there could emerge a new centrist government in Venezuela. It might be very healthy for the country if there were two strong political blocks close enough to each others to allow a change of government now and then. Not that I think a bipartisan system would be the political panacea. But in the case of Venezuela a Democrats/Republicans split of the actual powers would do some good.
Just let me get right one thing: The Venezuelan government isn’t precisely trying to avoid a “referendum revocatorio” – it’s all about the date: If the referendum is going to happen this year, the vote could kick out the whole government. But if the referendum is being held after the 31th of December, they can only vote out Maduro – the government would stay in charge under the guide of the vice president until 2019. The not very homogenous opposition apparently didn’t manage to start the whole process in time and gave Maduro a free kick. Yo can’t really blame him for taking the chance.
And, yes, by the way, I consider myself something like a politically incorrect liberal. So I probably would have had trouble with your professors, too 😉
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation (Citizens) was created in 2002 from the merger of two other entities to provide both windstorm coverage and general property insurance for home-owners who could not obtain insurance elsewhere. It was established by the Florida Legislature in Section 627.351(6) of Florida Statutes as a not-for-profit insurer of last resort, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, and quickly became the largest insurer in the state.
—
Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was the costliest storm the United States had experienced, with $26.5 billion in damage. It took a huge bite out of the reserves for claims held by 30 insurance companies doing business in Florida. Eleven insurance companies were bankrupted, while others stopped writing or renewing property insurance policies in the state.[2] Those that remained raised premiums and deductibles across the board and limited the number of high-risk policies they wrote. Almost 1 million coastal homeowners were unable to find any company willing to insure their homes, so the Florida Legislature authorized the formation of the Florida Residential Property and Casualty Joint Underwriting Association (FRPCJUA) and the Florida Windstorm Underwriting Association (FWUA) as the insurers of last resort.[3] The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund was also created and managed by the state as a resource for Florida consumers and insurers. It is funded by assessments to every property insurance policy in the state.
Speech given by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Arthur Burns Memorial Lecture, Berlin. 22 September 2016
The first concerns the physical risks that arise from the increased frequency and severity of climate-and weather-related events that damage property and disrupt trade.
At present, general insurers are on the front line. Thus far, a combination of sophisticated forecasting, a forward-looking European insurance capital regime and business models built around short-term coverage has left insurers relatively well-placed to manage physical risks. Which is why Warren Buffett can observe that climate change is not a threat to Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance business.
Insurers have to update their models constantly and adjust coverage prudently. And in time, growing swathes of our economies could become uninsurable absent public backstops–hardly the prescription for a growing business.
Moreover, if coverage is not maintained, the broader financial system would become increasingly exposed to large and variable physical risks.
Dead malls are popping up all over the states, particularly in the Midwest, where economic decline has sped up the ‘going out of business’ process…
What you are about to see is what happens when malls are abandoned. It’s apocalyptic and really, really creepy…
Hi Caelan,
Things are almost for sure going to get a LOT worse, in my opinion at least, before they get better, long term,IF they ever get better.
The malls are great indirect indicators of wasted resources, no question. But we have wasted many times as many resources on three ton pickups and suv’s used as commuter vehicles and beer transporters.
Times change and the people who used to shop at the old dead malls have mostly just switched to shopping at newer, much more agreeable malls located near where they are living NOW.
For now the owners of such malls mostly still have hopes of getting a good price for them or finding a way to refurbish and repurpose them and make some money themselves. Some owners are writing off losses against taxes due on income from other investments.
Personally I don’t see these old buildings ever being worth much, unless changes in zoning laws are passed that enable them to become mini communities that supply cheap housing intermingled door to door with small businesses. I know several people already out in the boonies where I live that live upstairs or in the back and run their businesses downstairs or out front, including my personal physician.
There are people who live and work in many cities this same way, but to the best of my knowledge, just about all of them are able to do so only because they are grandfathered.
We are in serious need of a new generation of politicians who understand the new reality – a reality that calls for localization as opposed business only, and only certain kinds of business, and housing way way off someplace requiring freeways and automobiles by the tens of millions and oil by the millions of barrels a day.
But having said this much, I do NOT believe there is any danger, short term or medium term, meaning the next two or three decades at least, of our abandoning suburbia, except maybe for the very farthest corners of it. Even there, retirees who don’t need to drive much will be glad to rent or buy houses once rents and prices fall enough to suit them.
Consider a man or woman or couple who have a house in the burbs that they could sell now for two hundred k on up to five or maybe even more. Such people typically drive from five or six thousand to forty thousand miles a year, each, to get to work and shopping.
Almost every last one of them, given the choice, will in my firm opinion choose to drive a plug in car, or an ultra mini car, rather than give up their mcmansion for a non existent comparable apartment near work,or one near public transportation that could reliably get them to work.
People will move as their circumstances dictate. I have new neighbors from northern Virginia, who have sold out at huge profits, and moved here on the proceeds, where daily life as such is far superior to suburbia and the associated traffic jams, etc.
And I have an upwardly mobile young relative who is already well established as a career bureaucrat and is house shopping in Fairfax, lol.
In principle, she could swap the farm (fifty acres, very good land, but idle, nobody is working it, neverthe less a very nice place with a nice house on it) she has inherited for a mcmansion on a half acre up that way, but if she does, she will have to come up with some cash.
Some people think old malls can be converted into greenhouses run by urban farmers. This might work if somebody puts a few million into the conversion, each, but I doubt those millions will ever be repaid. The only real savings would be on transportation and transportation losses.
There is land suitable for greenhouses almost anywhere and every where, within an hour’s drive, that can be bought for a hell of a lot less than it would cost just to rip out the old parking lots and transport in topsoil, etc. Hauling veggies by the truck load for an hour adds only a trivial amount to the retail cost of veggies. Just using a pickup truck to deliver a ton on a daily basis would cost maybe a hundred bucks, that’s fifty bucks an hour for the pickup and driver. I would be ok with with that pay rate on a regular basis, personally, doing such easy work, lol.
Loading time and unloading time does not count, because even an urban farm must deliver to supermarkets, excepting what can be sold on premises, which is not much, compared to total production, for a viable greenhouse operation.
From what I have seen malls lose patronage and eventually close because other more modern malls are built nearby and are often in better locations. Older malls often do not attract the more popular stores and big ticket stores that newer better located ones have.
From what I have seen malls lose patronage and eventually close because other more modern malls are built nearby and are often in better locations.
Not to mention a generational paradigm shift where new technology allows people to eschew shopping in brick and mortar stores altogether. I can think of almost nothing that I couldn’t purchase with my smartphone and have it delivered to my doorstep almost overnight. Why would I want to go to a mall?
Perhaps some of those buildings can be repurposed as localised manufacturing centers in the new age of 3D printing and the products will be delivered by drones and driverless vehicles.
I have posted in the past about Biomimicry and The Circular Economy if any of those ideas can be implemented on a large scale then brick and mortar shopping malls no longer have a raison d’etre. Society and the economy will transition as it has always done or it will perish.
Posting picture of empty shopping malls is IMHO rather pointless in view of the fact one can find plenty of examples and photographs of empty and abandoned buildings from the early days of manufacturing i.e. steel mills and automobile factories in what we now call the rust belt. We can even find plenty sites of entire abandoned civilizations such as the Mayans or Incas. Times and circumstances change, either we adapt or we go extinct.
I must say that Caelan’s desire to go back to a world where we all live off the land without advanced technologies in harmony with nature and the wisdom of the ancient natives in anarchic states is rather quaint… but he totally misses the fact that we now have 7 plus billion humans on the planet. There is no way to go back without advocating for massive dieoff.
Case in point, whatever one thinks of governments, there is no way millions of people living in peaceful enligthened anarchy would have been able to organize a mass evacuation of the population on the Florida coast such as just happened because of Hurricane Mathew! How about dealing with the threat of some pandemic caused by a new virus, or a thousand other existential threats? As an example there would be no way to help the threatened Key Deer that are being infected by a recent infestation of screw worms down in the Florida Keys and we would be sure to lose that species despite all the work that went into preserving them.
Without advanced technology it is game over for most of us.
May I suggest that people attend the online Disruptive Innovation Festival in November as an antidote to the extreme ideas of Neo Luddites.
Because sticking one’s head in the sand isn’t going to help. We may indeed be doomed but going down without a fight just isn’t acceptable in my view.
The themes for this festival are:
The Future of Work
Regenerative Cities
System Reset
Thank Thor your back Fred; thought you might’ve been lost to a salty surge.
More like a local internet service provider outage. I did have internet on my cellphone but it is a little harder to post on that. Today is a good day to go to the beach and see what has been washed up… 🙂
Hi Fred, none of that rain you had made it up the coast to my drought area. I think the hot air in Washington DC turned it around.
You said about closed malls “Perhaps some of those buildings can be repurposed as localised manufacturing centers in the new age of 3D printing and the products will be delivered by drones and driverless vehicles. ”
I had thought for years that those big parking lots and mall building should be converted to solar farms. That might work in a few areas but the cost of the land and the taxes would suck the profit out it. They mostly located in dense high cost/tax areas.
So your idea of industrializing them is probably better, and we will continue to cover rural ground with solar power for now. Got quite a number of them near me.
“I had thought for years that those big parking lots and mall building should be converted to solar farms. […] [Y]our idea of industrializing them is probably better.”
Those two purposes aren’t mutually exclusive.
True, quite true.
Maybe, before it’s too late– if it isn’t already– we are eventually going to realize what’s really important as things like malls; solar panels; roadway infrastructure; general land misuse that includes industrial agro; fracking platforms; tailings ponds; mining pits; removed mountaintops; parking lots; toxic waste dumps; cookie-cutter developer tracts; and assorted corporate squats, etc., all cover the land and soil that we need relatively pristine and intact, and what is left has been degraded and/or is needed for other species as well.
Maybe.
In the mean time, some of us will continue on with the remarkably-mindless discourse on technology, as if technology is going to save us from our glaringly-obvious myopia about the real world.
Well said , Fred.
But maybe people, women in particular, have an inborn itch that calls for scratching , and the only way to scratch it is to go out and HUNT AND GATHER.
Now if you accept the chauvinist hunting and gathering model where in the men bring in the meat, and the women the fruits, nuts, roots, seed grasses, etc, then the men are satisfied with just about anything they can kill, and knock off for the day, but the women have to pick and choose all day long in order to get a sack full to fill the men and kids empty bellies that night.
Plus going to the mall is somewhat of a social experience, even if the participants don’t know each other personally. Maybe we are wired in such a way that we need such experiences.
So maybe malls, or at least communal flea markets and traditional village and town markets will survive due to the way our minds are put together.
Given the opportunity, and money to work with, and the power to kick useless busy bodies off the premises, I could convert an old mall into a very nice little urban style mini community, well suited to housing a thousand or more folks, with a good many of them making their living without ever having to leave the premises. Others could be retirees or commuters.
Glen, if true community got involved cooperatively with ‘malls’ at the start, there wouldn’t likely be a problem with them now. They’d likely be built to last, and be places of soul as opposed to the abandoned monstrosities they have and are becoming. And I can say that about many things about the system. Much of it is as cheap as possible and relatively disposable because it has to be to keep the money/profit flowing and mass production machines running– you know– planned obsolescence and all that?
Communities generally are not asked if, how or where they want something. It’s just imposed on them.
I’ve written something along these lines before:
If you do nothing about the underlying lack of equable input, such as in individual and community empowerment and organization and planning, etc., then you will be extremely lucky if you get anything anywhere resembling a luddite community when the shit hits the fan.
Which is why there is limited point to discussing technology without stuff like equability. You are not going to have anything anywhere resembling a techno-utopia without it.
Besides, just take a look around you. The answer I am talking about is right in front of your eyes: ‘Industrial capitalism’ is wrecking the planet.
You already know this.
Technology is the outgrowth of what appears a human paradox (also so-called ‘lethal mutation’) that’s now killing us as much as it allowed us to survive and thrive all those aeons ago.
Indeed, as I’ve said before, we didn’t need peak oil to collapse previous civilizations.
And of course abandonments aren’t just old rust-belt infrastructures or malls, but entire cities, freshly manufactured.
And there are many good points to posting pictures of all of them, but I realize that some efforts will be lost on some people.
Speaking of which, and in case I forgot to tell you, your oft-repeated ‘neo luddite’ quip is, in context, a bit of a false-dichotomy, and something along the lines of which, for example, old mainstream media outlets can use to keep inquiry shallow and ineffective and perpetuate certain modes and levels of discourse.
Upthread:
“In any case I’ll defer to the civil engineers who sign their names to the permits…” ~ Fred Magyar
“…[e]lite professional groups . . . have come to exert a ‘radical monopoly’ on such basic human activities as health, agriculture, home-building, and learning, leading to a ‘war on subsistence’ that robs peasant societies of their vital skills and know-how. The result of much economic development is very often not human flourishing but ‘modernized poverty,’ dependency, and an out-of-control system in which the humans become worn-down mechanical parts.” ~ Ivan Illich
Well, sometimes the answers to these supposedly mysterious questions can be found right under our noses.
The reason why we have not seen any aliens is likely to be found in the reason why we are still fighting and creating and perpetuating assorted living disparities and problems, planet-wide.
The aliens likely have the same problems.
And unless we and they can solve those problems, we and they won’t be going far.”
“I think if we could get Earth in a living and stable state, not a constantly degrading and dying state, caused by our actions, then we have won some right to go to the stars. But, at present, I don’t think we’d be welcomed anywhere else in the universe. You wouldn’t welcome anybody who laid waste to their house and wanted to live in yours, I’m sure.” ~ Bill Mollison
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~ Aldous Huxley
I took a quick look at your link, Fred, (and a couple of others related) and aside from the corporate clusterfuck of sponsors in the footer, there was nothing that could be found so far resembling people making their own decisions and doing their own work for themselves.
Can you find me something like that please? Perhaps I overlooked it.
I got a sense that it was simply another way for the status-quo to wage slave people ‘sustainably’.
In fact, in looking up the definition of ‘circular economy’, it looks pretty much like an eco-wanna-be-BAU:
“The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy…” ~ Wikipedia
Circular Economy Overview
Today’s linear ‘take, make, dispose’ economic model relies on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy, and is a model that is reaching its physical limits. A circular economy is an attractive and viable alternative that businesses have already started exploring today.
Yes, we have governments and corporations and an economic paradigm that no longer works. If you have a practical way of changing the system without killing off billions of people then I’d love to hear it.
Personally I see no way forward without advanced science and technology and a total system reset. The Circular Economy might, and I emphasize MIGHT, be a way to bring all of the above to work in a new paradigm. Then again it might not and we all die anyway.
In any case my bet is that your ideas for change are less workable because they exclude all of the aforementioned entities out of hand.
In the real world one must be pragmatic and willing to compromise. Good enough is the enemy of Perfect!
I can tell you that it won’t.
Prostitution at gunpoint is not a compromise, Fred.
Technology has to be with equity/equability or it will not ultimately work. Lack of that is what collapses civilizations and the ecosystem. Without it, it doesn’t matter how much tech you have. Like money. All the money in the world doesn’t matter on a dead/dying planet.
Outfits like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation need to get a clue. (I had read that passage by the way.)
As for your people-will-starve meme, that’s just plain bunk.
Once increasing numbers of people take their thumbs out of their mouths and start feeding themselves– like actually learning how to do it– and soon– the better-off they’ll be.
Newsflash: Food (and good soil) is a priority over cars and solar panels.
“Good enough is the enemy of Perfect!” ~ Fred Magyar
Mindless quips are the potential friends of logical fallacies.
“If you have a practical way of changing the system without killing off billions of people then I’d love to hear it.” ~ Fred Magyar
How much reading have you done on permaculture and ecovillages/intentional communities/Transition towns, etc.?
If the system can’t or won’t change, if it’s non-negotiable, then you have to bail– like any bad relationship like that.
If a significant other, for example, is not going to change, to compromise, then you have to leave them, right?
I am not taking a position on this either pro or con, but I am posting it because it is a great illustration of how often the public reaches conclusions based on cherry picked evidence, and how often good science and good evidence is misinterpreted or outright misrepresented in the main stream and alternative news.
This is yet more juvenile-sandbox-toys-level bullshit advertising for garbage from a software company and someone with myopia.
‘So why are we doing this? Oh well we have to be competitive.’ <– The crony-capitalist plutarchy mantra, hook, line and sinker. Eat it up, boys and girls, and watch your world continue to fall out from under you.
POB might as well have ad-revenue-generation from all the technofetishists' wet dreams along the left and right margins. Get your ad-blockers at the ready.
MIT is mentioned in the video…
“Meritocracy also has been criticized by egalitarians as a mere myth, which serves only to justify the status quo, with its proponents only giving lip service to equality.
Khen Lampert has argued that the principle of meritocracy stems from neo-capitalist ideas of aggression and competition…” ~ Wikipedia
government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.
a society governed by meritocracy.
plural noun: meritocracies
a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.” ~ Google dictionary
It goes into some detail. It will take a few minutes just to scan it.
My guess is that once worn out lithium batteries are available in really large quantities, recyclers will find ways to economically recover nearly all the lithium in them , and probably most of the rare earth elements as well. I base this speculative prediction on the premise that the prices of rare earth elements and lithium are likely to go up substantially due to limited supplies, and higher prices are excellent medicine for recycling problems. Scaling up the industry will also allow significant economies of scale and almost for sure new machinery and new techniques resulting in lower recycling costs.
Down here, Soriana and Oxxo both collect old batteries for recycling, consumer types not car. Most car parts places will swap out the battery and dispose of the old one for you or you can just take it to the junk yard for cash. AS lithium cells get more popular the recycling will come but manufacturers must take that into account when making them.
NAOM
EDIT, reminds me I have some to take in.
I am hoping somebody better informed can update me and anybody else interested in some recent new developments in space heating techologies.
I know such set ups as I am describing exist, but not much more. It appears that with electronic controls getting cheaper every year, and the potential market for this stuff growing, it ought to take off.
Consider a natural gas fueled internal combustion engine, a small one, built to last, and totally enclosed for noise control and so as to salvage all the otherwise wasted heat produced when running it.
Direct couple such an engine to a heat pump, and a smallish alternator as well, with electrically operated clutches, rather than gears.
Ok- Now you run this engine, which starts and stops automatically, to drive the heat pump, when heat is needed. You collect almost all the heat of combustion, and funnel it into the building, and use the heat pump as well.
So if the ice is forty percent efficient, you get sixty percent of the heat of combustion, minus minor losses, fed into the building. Then other forty percent is converted into electricity, driving the heat pump, and you get two or three times as much heat out as you put in due to the magic of heat pumps.
It appears that this would cut the consumption of gas for space heating and heating water to a substantial extent, and that it ought to be economical to install such a set up in hospitals and other places that require a lot of heat and hot water.
And if the alternator is sized to match the engine’s output, then anytime juice is at a premium, you could also run the system as electrical backup. It wouldn’t produce enough juice to everything, but it could cut into peak load demand quite a bit. This could save the owner quite a bit in peak demand charges.
I have read about such systems, but I am not finding much. Any comments from anybody working in the field, or any engineer, will be greatly appreciated.
Above comment at 12:24 am I said the engine power is converted to electricity to drive the heat pump, which is one way to build it, but the better way is to direct couple the engine to the heat pump,while dis connecting the alternator. The heat pump fan can be driven mechanically too, at least part of the time. Electronic controls and clutches are dirt cheap these days, and last indefinitely.
If there is substantial thermal mass in the building, engine heat can be stored that way by allowing the inside temperature to rise slightly, a couple of degrees, any time the unit can produce electricity needed to offset peak demand and demand charges. This means that sometimes the heating load could be met using just the alternator, rather than the heat pump.
The beauty of a ng fueled small engine is that it can be fueled directly from a gas main, eliminating the need for a fuel tank, space for the tank, periodic deliveries, etc. Such engines run clean, producing hardly any pollutants at all except CO2, and they could be built to last tens of thousands of operating hours at minimal cost, because they are very simple and could be built to a standard design with the few parts subject to wear easily replaced every decade or so. If the system is properly designed and installed, the engine could be swapped out for a factory refurbed engine in an hour or so.
Along these lines, a nat gas hybrid electric car would also be compelling.
If oil runs seriously short, meaning very expensive gasoline and diesel fuel, before the battery electric or plug in car comes down substantially in price, there is plenty of reason to believe that plenty of new cars will be built to run on natural gas.
Right now the holdup with natural gas cars is basically the same one as with pure electrics- energy storage. The tanks that are needed to hold natural gas enough to provide a couple of hundred miles or more of driving range are prohibitively expensive, just like big ev batteries, lol.
It also takes quite a while to fill such tanks, because they have to be filled to pretty high pressures, meaning special compressors, etc, would have to be installed at service stations and homes in order to get a fairly fast fillup.
It would take hours at least with any reasonably cheap home setup to fill a car from a residential gas line.
And then there is the problem of supply in the first place. Gas lines just don’t go every where the way electric transmission lines do already.
So my guess is that pure electric and plug in electric cars and light trucks will dominate, with relatively few natural gas powered personal vehicles on the road in the USA.
The numbers can play out differently for larger trucks and buses, etc. They run a lot of miles on a daily basis and consume LARGE amounts of fuel. If gas stays cheap compared to oil, then it will probably be practical and economical to run trucks on natural gas most of the time, with a tank of diesel on board to serve as backup fuel in the event there is no truck stop on the route with natural gas pumps.
It’s easy to build a diesel to run on either natural gas or diesel fuel, and there are some gas / diesel dual fuel trucks already in service. It costs only a few thousand bucks to so equip the engine itself. The big expense is the high pressure gas tanks. But it’s common place to put a couple of hundred gallons of diesel in an eighteen wheel over the road truck on a daily basis, with team drivers. The savings on fuel can add up to a substantial sum very quickly indeed.
I anticipate living (if I get REALLY old ) to see diesel fuel cost eight bucks or more here in the USA, and substantially more in countries with high fuel taxes.
I also believe it is rather likely that we will be paying high fuel taxes here in the USA within another decade or two.
So long as high fuel taxes are phased in very gradually, they will go a very long way towards solving some tough problems, without really hurting anybody.
Oldfarmermac: it works fine, but small combustion engines are inefficient. Also, small NG-powered generators are startlingly expensive upfront. In about 2 years, you’ll be able to get batteries for less.
So run your electrical heat pump for space heating and water heating, yes. But why power that from a local gas generator? For emergency backup, you put in batteries. For non-emergency, you have *loads* of options, including solar, solar/batteries, and of course the grid.
If the otherwise wasted heat of combustion thrown off by the engine is captured and diverted into living or working spaces, the efficiency of the engine is not a drawback. You get the same amount of heat from the same amount of gas whether you burn it in a furnace or an engine.
The portion of the heat that is converted into mechanical power, about forty percent, will be in effect multiplied by a factor of two to three by using it to drive the heat pump.
It’s true that small free standing ng generators are very expensive, but if this technology is widely adopted, the engines and generators can be mass produced, to a standardized design, in large quantities, and the price will come down dramatically.
Standardization and volume are the key factors so far as I can see.
Consumer equipment is a joke, and even commercial quality stuff is not a lot better when it comes to portable machinery, in terms of working on it easily and economically.
But stuff such as industrial electric motors, belts, pulleys, mounting frames, etc, is built to a standard set of specs. So when an industrial mechanic needs a new motor, he doesn’t have to specify it by the model number, but rather by the frame specs, rpm, voltage and horsepower, etc. There will be at least a dozen different makes of motor that will all interchange exactly, quickly, and easily. The customer can buy whichever one he wants, all of them will work as intended, without any hassles.
Batteries are good, but they are only capable of storing energy produced at a time when there is excess production capacity, and releasing it as needed. They cannot actually SAVE energy, in the way a heat pump does.
And batteries unfortunately go flat after a few hours. A ng powered heating and generating system will run as long as the gas supply holds up.
There are times when the gas is on but the electricity is off, because just about everything associated with the gas grid is buried. Storms don’t affect it much compared to the electrical grid.
“Consider a natural gas fueled internal combustion engine, a small one, built to last, and totally enclosed for noise control and so as to salvage all the otherwise wasted heat produced when running it.
Direct couple such an engine to a heat pump, and a smallish alternator as well, with electrically operated clutches, rather than gears. ”
For small building the price is the killer. You have to pay for 2 systems (the geneartor is more expensive than a NG burner, the HP too).
From a “macroeconomic” POV: You still use fossil fuel to generate most of the space heating:
with 35% electric efficiency you get 2 units of heat out for one units of fossil energy as input (4* 0.35 + 0.65 = 2.05), that is not impressive.
A gas heat pump which would be much cheaper is already at 1.6 and the combination of a CC power plant (50-60%) with a heat pump gives a better result for less money, too.
And the gorilla in the room is of course that this fossil fuel approach is not compatibel with high RE penetration.
I disagree about the gas consumption.
Most residences that have gas heat use burners that are about ninety percent efficient, on average, maybe a little less.
There is no reason the sixty percent of the heat thrown off by the engine cannot be captured just as efficiently, and used for space and water heating.
The OTHER forty percent would be effectively doubled to tripled, on average, by feeding it into the heat pump, when heat is called for. This effectively gives you from eighty to one hundred twenty from the forty percent converted to electricity PLUS the the sixty percent used directly. Sometimes heat pumps can “pay out” at even better rates than three to one, if the outside temperature is moderate, or the heat pump is a really efficient model.
Such a system should cut gas consumption on average by at least a quarter to maybe as much as half, depending on various factors.
I believe gas consumption would be comparable to and maybe even better than gas consumption using grid juice after delivery losses and power plant losses, even with combined cycle generation.
Cost IS the killer at the moment, for sure. Low volume manufacturing, distribution, installation, and maintenance combined are guaranteed to result in high purchase and maintenance cost.
But the costs need not be as high as you might think at first, because most of the components remain the same. The components of the heat pump will be all the same, with very minor variations, the duct work will be all the same, etc.
The chimney or exhaust vent would be about the same. Adding in a gas burner to this proposed system, to be used as necessary, wouldn’t cost much extra at all. This would enable it to run on gas alone, so long as there is electricity available, in the event the system is down due to heat pump or engine problems, etc. As you point out, gas burners in and of themselves aren’t all that expensive.
In really cold weather, the engine and gas burner could both run, so long as it is not so cold the heat pump fails to deliver some extra ” free ” heat.
Small ac generators are actually quite cheap already, and adding no more than a hundred bucks to the price of one that sells at the factory for three or four hundred would make it bullet proof. ( You can buy pretty good consumer model for a thousand ready to run as a portable power supply including engine,gas tank, starter, frame, 120 and 240 volt plugs, etc etc at a big box store. ).
A basic lawn mower engine in the ten to fifteen horsepower range leaves the factory for no more than a couple of hundred bucks. A small mass produced standardized natural gas engine, industrial quality, could easily sell as for not much more these days, since it would have fewer parts.
Computers and electronic controls etc are now cheap and getting cheaper every day in real terms.
It is true that such systems would at first sell mostly to the owners of larger buildings where there is a need for a lot more heat and a lot more hot water, etc, which would mean the system could be larger and would pay for itself sooner, you have a good point.
I know these things to be true.
What I don’t know, but hope to find out, is how much the cost of manufacturing and installing such systems could potentially fall if they were mass produced, to standard specifications, and widely adopted wherever mains gas is available.
That’s why I am hoping for comments from people who have relevant professional expertise, engineers or economists, etc.
Mass marketing works miracles in terms of prices. You can buy a complete automobile, with an excellent warranty, and a hundred horsepower engine that will last a hell of a long time, for only a little more than you can buy just an engine with a clutch on one end and a radiator on the other mounted in a skid frame from an industrial equipment dealer, rated at fifty horsepower, which is what the auto engine can actually deliver continuously without undue strain . Such engines cost so much mostly because they are sold in relatively small numbers.
Volume is the key to cheap.
As far as renewable energy goes, I am a big supporter, but I also believe that we are going to be depending on fossil fuels for at least another generation or two, to a very large extent, and we should be doing all we can to use them more efficiently, thereby at the same time getting two or three birds with one stone.
Less pollution, cheaper price, longer life of the diminishing fossil fuel supply.
It’s a dead sure thing in my opinion that there will come a time when we are getting substantial amounts of juice from wind and solar power, storing a good part of it via batteries, pumped hydro, etc, when both the wind and the sun will let us down, and let us down hard. When that time comes, every grid compatible generating system in the country will be worth its weight in gold,in the event there is not enough conventional grid capacity to carry the load.
It’s altogether possible that a couple of nukes, or some conventional gas or coal plants could go down unexpectedly, or that the utilities and utility regulators could fail to maintain enough conventional back up capacity.
Such miscalculations are common, witness the Fukushima mess. They underestimated the risk of tsunamis and earthquakes. Hundred year floods arrive oftener, etc.
My opinion is that demand pricing is coming, just about everywhere, although it will be a while arriving. When it does, the owners of their own generating systems will be able to save some money, maybe quite a bit of money, by getting credit for their home grown production fed into the grid, or save the same by reducing their purchased peak hour usage.
I may be wrong about any of this speculation of course. The intent is to get the opinions of other forum members, and thanks in advance.
Plugin hybrids could do that.
230M vehicles all putting out 10kW (only 13HP): that’s 2.3 terawatts, which is about 6 times the average grid demand.
They could easily power the grid for a week.
Hi Nick,
Thirty years from now, your scenario might be reality.
A stationary system of the sort I am talking about could be built and sold today using all off the shelf components, and start contributing to saving on gas and grid capacity immediately.
Maybe. If the costs pencil out. That’s the question, would such a system be economical if sold and installed by the millions of units?
What’s the cost of maintaining The Grid, especially vis-a-vis a declining EROEI fuel supply?
Hang on, let me do a quick search for fun… Not exactly what I’m looking for but here’s an interesting one just the same:
“Intermittent power sources such as big wind and big solar cannot be controlled, because the wind and the sunshine cannot be controlled. This means that if power grids attempt to integrate these unreliable power sources, they will be forced to pay a number of costs on several levels. The cost of maintaining grid stability and reliability will rise. The cost of maintaining existing power plants will rise appreciably. The cost of supporting structures — such as backup power sources, large-scale energy storage facilities, new grid infrastructures, new power management technologies, etc. is likely to prove enormous.
Environmentalists would like to shut down hydrocarbon and nuclear based power plants and replace them with wind and solar. Making an attempt to do so would prove an unmitigated catastrophe. But even the partial replacement of coal, gas, and nuclear by wind and solar could easily prove disastrous, if the integration of wind and solar were pushed too far, and too fast. Frequent shut downs and startups of power plants is costly — both short-term and long-term. Keeping personnel and machine systems on a hair-trigger, just in case wind and solar should pick up or slow down unexpectedly, is ludicrous.
As intermittency takes its toll on machinery and economies, wise and prudent observers should begin to question the rationale for pushing intermittency onto the power grid in the first place. The ‘cure’ for intermittency is thought to be new energy storage technologies at utility scales. But how long before such technologies become economically feasible?
Again, wise persons are forced to question the underlying rationale behind forcing destructive intermittencies onto the power grid.
You may think that only politicians could be so stupid as to quickly push ahead with intermittent sources long before the problems associated with intermittency have been solved. But that is not quite right. Academics and journalists are every bit as stupid as politicians, on that score, as are government bureaucrats — and especially environmentalists. There has never been a shortage of stupidity.
There has always been a relative shortage of workable human ingenuity paired with wisdom.”
“…last week, Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer of Scottish Power — one of Britain’s largest utilities, warned that there might not be enough electricity to go around. Business customers might have to switch off their power in certain circumstances, he suggested. Household bills might have to increase too.
You wouldn’t think that the UK had spent billions of pounds in recent years incentivising new electricity generation. The annual subsidy bill alone comes to some £4.5bn this year (or nearly 15 per cent of the total amount spent on power).
Yet the UK’s main transmission company, National Grid, has warned that the nation’s margin of supply might be no more that 1.5 per cent this winter, down from 17 per cent four years ago. With numbers like these, it would not take much — a severe cold snap, perhaps, combined with a big power station shutdown — to see the lights start to go out.”
CM, in your zeal to bash/discredit renewables you are repeating talking points of the big supporters of the system you claim to abhor. This is a classic piece of anti-renewable rubbish, claiming that renewables will increase costs and decrease reliability on the poor, already stressed grid. It just smells of Koch Industries PR bullshit to me.
In fact, evidence suggests that high penetration of renewable energy on grids may lead to more reliable, resilient grids. Supporters of the status quo however, don’t want people to even consider such thoughts since renewables jeopardize their current business models (extract, burn, sell). In the current situation, with the dominance of large centralized generation, renewables are an existential threat. Even 3MW wind turbines threaten the business model of GW plus central generating plants in that, they make the idea of smaller, distributed generating assets feasible in terms of the final cost of electricity, potentially opening the market to a multitude of smaller players, anarchy if you will!
I have a problem with you not acknowledging the anarchist aspect or renewables. Wind, micro-hydro and in particular solar PV take power away from the large monopolistic utilities and have potential to put production back in the hands of the users. What’s not to love about that?
You might find the following post over at Renewables International interesting Blockchain – Brave New Energy World for Prosumers?Blockchain technology can disrupt the energy system and boost energy democracy. A guest post by Holger Schneidewindt (@cutwindt), Energy Law & Policy Officer at the Consumer Association of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).
Your incessant denigration of renewable energy technology is making me suspicious that you may have a hidden agenda. As for me, I inherited a six acre homestead in the rural parts of my island home when my father died in 2014. My family bought the old, run down, wooden house in 1976, the wooden construction indicating that it was built before the more modern, concrete based construction methods became fashionable amongst the wealthy of the island. I figure it is at least 70 years old, possibly as much as 100, built before the days of public electricity and water supplies were available in rural parts of the island. As such the house was built with a rainwater catchment system, feeding an 8x8x8 ft. (~3800 gallon) concrete walled tank and had what appeared to have been a single piston diesel powered electricity generator, the remains of which sat rusting way out in the back yard until I sold it to the scrap metal scavengers a few years ago.
The public water supply in the area is so bad that my parents decided that the rainwater catchment was a better idea and refused to continue paying for water from the public supply. I see solar PV as a way to transition the house back to it’s pre-modern state, off-grid. Twenty years ago, it would have too costly but, the current prices make it much more affordable, especially if one is willing/able to remain connected to the grid (grid interconnected systems). It is a matter of time before off-grid systems with decent amounts of battery storage become cost competitive with grid electricity in Jamaica.
I grew up with electricity and it has formed the basis of my livelihood since I finished college. I am not about to abandon it’s use in my lifetime if I can help it and am tickled pink at the prospect of being able to generate all I need and maybe extra that I can sell. What about you? Do you plan to give up on electricity, computers, phones etc.? If not, how do plan to get yours if not from the system you so abhor?
P.S. I noticed that the Jamaican eco-village that you provided a link to the other day, under the section “Get Involved -> What does it cost”, has a line item for “Construction of Dwelling with Solar and Water Catchment”. Imagine that! Also I couldn’t help but notice the picture of the diesel powered tractor on the slideshow at their home page (picture 9 of 11).
Hi Alan,
My response here might seem organized a little differently because I decided to respond to your own in a different way…
I have already posted somewhere in these threads that much– 75% to 90%– of these fossil-fuel, or at least oil, industries or reserves are State-owned, and that many are getting into and supporting so-called renewables, including through subsidies– you know– through coercion via theft AKA, ‘taxes’.
I have also read– and previously quoted hereon– that it may be difficult for small players– anarchists or not– without pseudogovernment, to get into the pseudorenewables biz, such as in places like Canada even, never mind pseudo-developing nations.
I guess it depends what kind of business it is.
Small town PV manufacturing plant? That’s a complex and scaled operation AFAIK, as are most, if not all, forms of high-tech. And from there, there’s the issue of inbound and outbound shipping, materials, support, etc..
See my other comments in this thread/under this ‘article’ as well, such as with regard to food and potable water as being priorities, like the mango thing we’ve talked about before.
If you’ve read some or all of them, you should be able to get pretty clearly what my ‘hidden agenda’ is…
Any technology that is to exist and be successful must be equitably-derived and with care of Earth and care of people as paramount.
We cannot have solar panels and cars coming out of the kind of system that they currently do.
In fact, ‘off-grid’ PV is a bit of a misnomer, because it is tied to the system’s ‘commercial grid’.
So, in part, for example, you need the system’s money. And when you need and accept the system’s money, you are ‘grid-tied’.
It is not a denigration of ‘renewable’ tech per se, but, rather, a denigration of the system behind them, a system that denigrates me, you and everyone we know, including the planet and the species on it, species which, bizarrely, don’t need electricity.
The system doesn’t work, and won’t, no matter how promising the tech sounds.
In any case, large scale centralized anything seems to rely on larger energy scales and I can understand how large scale centralized pseudogovernments might feel between a rock and a hard place right now with declining energy scales, so who knows. Exciting times.
I have mentioned the problem of ecovillages in the context of the status-quo with jokuhl some years ago over at TOD. We cannot as easily bail from the status-quo if others are supporting it to a certain degree.
If you want to keep it at least in certain ways, you may just be making it harder for the people around you to get off of it. We are social creatures that need each’s support. Polluting the planet with PV, etc., manufacturing plants, etc., make it harder on populations that are trying to live truly outside of the technobubbles and in more harmony with nature.
There are many people who realize how wonderful their world is when they go off the system, including electricity. I know kind of what it’s like and it’s great. It’s a paradigm shift.
I indeed noticed some problems (and mentioned one or two) with the Jamaican ecovillage, and this dovetails into what I just said about truly getting off the system before it kicks us off unceremoniously.
Incidentally, congrats on your land but condolences for your father. Mine died last year.
I am working a little harder on Permaea, and if you might be interested in offering your piece of land as a ‘land node’ as a growing decentralized ‘country’, please let me know. I have some land here in Nova Scotia that I want to do this with and also to create a demonstration microecovillage with. It’s not as big (2.6 acres standard town block size) but it’s in a small town context. This means that it would be part of your country as well if you are part of Permaea.
I thought of this some years ago and mentioned it briefly on The Oil Drum. As a result, Fred Magyar mentioned a site that is actually doing something kind of like this (‘land nodes’) and I will be contacting them and seeing if they and their ‘land-members’ would like to be part of Permaea as well or vice-versa. Permaea is really just a ‘glue’ for ‘off-the-shelf’ parts that already exist around the world– disparate and systemically-divided-and-conquered groups on the same page that also disagree with the status-quo that would do well as a ‘forge’ with a similar attitude, direction and mutual support structure.
I will check your links out a little later, thanks.
In fact, ‘off-grid’ PV is a bit of a misnomer, because it is tied to the system’s ‘commercial grid’.
So, in part, for example, you need the system’s money. And when you need and accept the system’s money, you are ‘grid-tied’.
Good point! Let me think about that for a moment… Um, no, that is absolute bullshit!
Off grid by definition means, NOT tied to any grid. Solar PV provides the technology for actually creating a decentralized access to electricity that is free of corporate and government influence. You’d think that a fervent proponent of anarchism would prefer that to the current system.
“…that is free of corporate and government influence. ” ~ Fred Magyar
Well what produces those panels? If corporations as they’re generally currently structured produce those panels, and/or ‘government’, for example, coercively sales-taxes and/or subsidizes them, then there is no freedom from corporate or government influence.
I would add that producing a PV panel is a little more than mere influence.
Caelan,
Is everything a conspiracy to you?
Maybe sometimes a subsidy (tax break or low interest loan) is put in place to encourage a better path for society and/or provide jobs for people.
Caelan, as long as you continue posting here by using a corporate produced computer and using corporate provided electricity and corporate internet service while preaching anarchism and claiming you are against all things provided by the so called system you just come across as another deluded hypocrite.
You won’t change anything or anyone’s mind by your constant preaching against any and all technology.
Just curious do you pull your own teeth with string and a doorknob if you get a bad toothache? What happens if the resulting abscess get’s infected do you have some home remedy for that?
You are part and parcel of the very system you rail against.
The rest of us are quite aware of the shortcomings and problems we face and despite your comments we are not necessarily behind that system, but throwing out the baby of science and technology with the bath water is still pretty damn stupid!
It’s simply how the system currently operates, GoneFishing. You mentioned ‘conspiracy’, I didn’t.
Fred, you seem to be choosing to ignore, or pretending to ignore, that I am not against science and technology per se, but as it is currently configured. But I suspect that you enjoy doing so, perhaps rather like how Oldfarmermac had mentioned enjoying making a fool of himself where I was concerned. Hey, knock yourself out. ‘u^
As also mentioned previously, I’m fine with leveraging what already exists, what is already lying around, like those wooden palettes in my design of the treehouse, (which I posted a pic of and which you commented on, if you will recall, WRT the palettes as part of the industrial system), or in the spirit of the late wimbi’s subscription to the local ‘scrap yard’ and its technology there.
I think a lot of that’s called ‘recycling’.
Don’t forget, too, that Neo had to jack back into the matrix to free some people, their minds I guess… at least the minds that still wanted to be free and that were not already hopelessly inured and dependent on the system that they would fight to protect it… like some of you perhaps?
“Morpheus: ‘I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.’ ” ~ The Matrix, via the IMDB
OFM,
you got me wrong.
“There is no reason the sixty percent of the heat thrown off by the engine cannot be captured just as efficiently, and used for space and water heating. ”
In case of (car) engine + electric HP you use of course the 60% “waste” heat of the ICE for heating and you multiply the 40% electric output with a HP, this gives around 2 untis heat for one unit NG: 4*0.4 + 0.6 = 2.2
Or you use a gas HP, which converts 1 unit NG in 1.5 units heat. (Gas HP are only availabel for 15 kW or more, therefore, not useful for small houses).
However, in both cases you use in comparioson to a NG heater bloody expensive alternatives, for which you do not generate am appropriate financial gain.
In contrast, if you burn the NG in a central CC power plant with 50-60% efficiency and only use the electricity with a heat pump, you get a better result for less money.
My argument is that if this sort of system is scaled up, the price of it will come down to the point it is economic. Of course I might be wrong about that.
Consider this. If you need the electricity, and run such a system as a generator, when grid demand is high, you get very close to forty percent percent of the btu content of the gas as electricity on site, no transmission losses, with sixty percent as heat.
That ought to match the results of a combined cycle plant located some distance away, in terms of fuel efficiency, or come very close, plus this would be juice available at times when peak demand pricing is in effect.
I don’t KNOW that such systems will be economic. That’s why I am asking for other opinions. You may be right.
And for what it is worth, the best large diesel engines now get very close to fifty percent efficiency.
Natural gas is suited to high compression, and generator engines are optimized to run at steady speeds. There is reason to believe such engines could be designed to achieve close to fifty percent efficiency. It’s not size alone that makes those big diesels more efficient, it’s the design of them.
Engines designed to run at one constant speed don’t need balance shafts, complicated counterweights, to run smoothly, and the shape of the piston crown, combustion chamber, bore and stroke and rpm etc, can be optimized for the best possible fuel efficiency.
Another point is that larger buildings such as hospitals and super markets are well suited to having their own independent power supplies on premises. The last time a big storm hit in this area, some years ago, a local supermarket had to throw out the stores entire stock of frozen and refrigerated foods, the cost of which was enough to pay for having an in store system adequate to keep the coolers running. Management was unable to rent generators adequate to the job because none were available, and no electricians available to connect them, in time to save the inventory.
So there are considerations involved beyond just potential direct savings on natural gas.
The buyers of such systems may be able to negotiate some savings with their electrical utility on a regular basis by agreeing to disconnect from the grid in the event of a demand crisis, such as a bad storm, or a major generating plant going offline, etc, or they may be able to get a tax credit via the utility and government by allowing the utility to cut back on the construction and maintenance of back up capacity.
But as I said before, I am not expert in these matters. I am actively seeking out expert opinion, both pro and con.
“Natural gas is suited to high compression, and generator engines are optimized to run at steady speeds. There is reason to believe such engines could be designed to achieve close to fifty percent efficiency. It’s not size alone that makes those big diesels more efficient, it’s the design of them.
Engines designed to run at one constant speed don’t need balance shafts, complicated counterweights, to run smoothly, and the shape of the piston crown, combustion chamber, bore and stroke and rpm etc, can be optimized for the best possible fuel efficiency. ”
Yes, but for the small engines we are at 30-40% electric output.
A central CC power plant gives 50-60%, therefore, I as customer have only to buy the HP, no second system and no high O&M costs, which can only be covered by selling/substituting electricity. In Germany with high costs of electricity you need around 5000 FLHs (!) . This leads often to the situation that electrcity is generated when there is no demand for heat.
A game changer would be cheap fuel cells, with 60% electric efficiency and the ability you be used heat led with low FLH (~2000) during the heating season.
“Another point is that larger buildings such as hospitals and super markets are well suited to having their own independent power supplies on premises.”
You can add hotels and small industry. The disadvantage still is that many heat led system create a high must run capacity that hurts, look at Germany, we have sometimes negative prices with 15 GW fossils still producing, CHP is one culprit. 🙂
Free piston engine runs at 42 percent efficiency – direct electric generation.
The US is the third most populated nation at 320 million.
Far behind India and China, America should increase her population by at least another 350 million in the next 50 years to keep up.
Also, I have noticed that there are not enough cars and trucks, not enough roads, there definitely needs to more of both, it will increase the demand for oil, maybe thirty percent or so. An increase of another 50,000 flights of commercial airlines each day would help too. Another 100 million miles of airline traffic each day would increase demand for jet fuel.
If America wants to move forward, those goals need to be accomplished.
Why would America want to ‘move forward’? Haven’t we moved far too forward already?
Yep–
I’m for a “Great Leap Backward”
Clinton fans will really enjoy this little article from the Guardian.
I like it too, but I would like it even better if Sanders were the D nominee.
Trump IS a clown, which makes it a little hard to satirize him, but the picture alone is worth clicking the link, lol.
I have said all along that barring surprises Clinton will win the election,meaning of course that surprises favorable to the R’s were still possible and still might derail her.
I am now ready, in view the short time frame remaining, and the last batch of Trump’s idiotic remarks about women coming to light, to bet twenty to one Clinton will win.
If I were the sort to believe in conspiracy theories, I would go for the one describing Trump as out to destroy the R party while putting Clinton in office.
Every once in a while nut cases do get into positions of great power and influence. Trump is not the first, nor will he be the last nut case to get to or near the top of the heap.
It looks like he will succeed in putting the R party in the dog house,especially with younger women, for a generation at least, maybe a lot longer.
I wonder how many House and Senate seats the R’s will lose.
I’m hoping for some coattails from Clinton and donated to local State Senate races. We have a really nasty bunch of crooks who have been controlling the State Senate for *decades* using dirty tricks, and they happen to be Republicans (plus a few bribed Democrats). If we knock out enough of them, the whole gang will lose power, and they’re *very close* to losing power.
There is corruption in anything.
R and D parties need to be declared illegal, members sent to a gulag for a few years or until they are gone for good, and good riddance to both their sorry worthless hides.
The only solution to the problem. har
True enough!
However the main problem seems to be that religious, political and economic ideologues on both the right and the left are not being adequately challenged because we have a scientifically illiterate electorate.
Let us not forget that both the Remocrat and Depublican parties, are by and large, put into power by the votes of the majority of this very same ignorant electorate.
A Plan To Defend Against the War on Science
The challenge of creating a public able to parse evidence-free “facts” rests with the press, educators and other thought leaders
“Power relations of any kind are ultimately more constrictive of inquiry than they can ever be of benefit to it. The logic is simple: Control can only be achieved through disengagement and rigidity. And so any successful power structure must involve mechanisms to punish and suppress habits of inquiry.
Parents, teachers, bosses and cops… they all achieve control by mimicking the binary system of threats (absolute law and punishment) that the state uses. Rather than an organic system of constant, decentralized give and take that rewards wider attention, the archist [as opposed to anarchist] approach seeks to ideally shrink the subject’s attention down to a single, controllable input. [solar panels? electric cars?] This creates an artificial environment that rewards habits of rigidity and punishes persistent inquiry. And of course these habits are replicated in the communities and structures they create with their peers.
Simply put, it seems obvious to me that there would be more scientists and a higher drive for science in an anarchistic society, plus a higher degree of efficiency that would benefit science directly as well as indirectly…
‘If the State had been abolished a century ago, we’d all have robots and summer homes in the Asteroid belt.’ ~ Samuel Konkin
…^ I should note that I’m using the definition of science that involves seeking direct roots-up explanations (ie physics, mathematics, chemistry and a bit of biology) rather than merely anything that dabbles in empiricism.”
“As others have noted, science is a modern religion. Even the critics couch their criticisms in religious discourse. Arguments against smoking in workplaces are mainly based on health risks to nonsmokers, not on people finding it unpleasant. Environmentalists can mount effective arguments against a project when it threatens a rare species but not just on the grounds that people enjoy things the way they are. Even anarchists may be tempted to argue for self-management because it is more efficient, rather than because it is more satisfying and reduces exploitation and injustice. There is a need to give more priority to ‘nonscientific’ arguments — but how?”
Science, engineering, technology and capital, the four horsemen of our modern age are being implemented to wreck our world. They don’t have to be and in some cases are even being used otherwise. However, the overall picture is still one of destruction, of building anything and everything as well as doing mostly whatever we think is convenient for us.
Let us not forget the underpinnings of our society, education. Whether it be secular or religious, TV and other media, it sets the stage for future endeavors. So what kind of future is being taught right now?
As long as we continue to disrespect the natural world, acting as if it just resources, something to be owned and used for our purposes without extreme forethought, then we are destroying our own foundation.
Culture in Decline: A critical series about our system of civilization and culture, #4 is the war on nature. Series starts with democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbLslkIR2k
Amen RW.
I read you literally loud and clear this one time, lol.
Wow,
a year ago this site had 1-2 posts by Ron every week, 5-6 hundred comments – most of which were written by 20-ish fairly knowledgeable people….
….nowadays it has 6 posts a month….. 3 of them are “non petroleum” ones commented mostly by 3-4 people arguing with another 2 …… and (sadly) the “non-petroleum” posts get 4-5 times as much comments as the petroleum ones (by the same 3-4 people)….
A year ago we had Ron’s brilliant essays….. nowadays we have Dennis’ “colourful scenarious” and F.Magyar/C.Macintyre/Javier “intellectual” debates…..
…the number of commentators missing from before show the story…..
… the number of comments show the story….. the “level” of them…
Substantial explanative comments by Likvern, Petro, S.StAngelo and others were a common event on this site a year, or so ago……..
….. now, E. Peters Bakken rigs next month are a thing that gets a hundred “thank yous” ( …as if it was important for what we are facing and what this (once brilliant) site was/is concerned with/about…)
…… sad!
…… sad indeed!
MeTruthNot
P.S.: I sincerely hope you are doing fine Ron!
…..and I truly hope you come back and claim this sites intellectualism again……
…. miss your essays dearly….
“a year ago this site had 1-2 posts by Ron every week,”
If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.
Scoop Nisker quote
:>)))
Well now, our new member surely thinks this forum has gone to hell in a hand basket, doesn’t he ?
So tell us , MeTruthNot, in what way have you contributed to the forum?
It’s easy going around with your nose in the air bitching and moaning.
People come and go.
The regulars here know that Ron is well up in years now, and busy with family issues, and so not able to do as much as formerly.
If you have a contribution to make, other than bad mouthing the hard work of the folks who are still writing the essays, posting the graphs, pointing out the relevant links in the news, etc, then although I can’t speak for Dennis, I am reasonably sure he will publish it here , for you, if it’s decently written and sensible, and deals with one of the issues that Ron himself considers as proper subject matter for this blog.
In case you haven’t noticed, they are right up top:
Home
Energy and Human Evolution
Of Fossil Fuels and Human Destiny
OPEC Charts
The Competitive Exclusion Principle
The Grand Illusion
What is Peak Oil?
World Crude Oil Exports
World Oil Yearly Production Charts
I can’t remember seeing much if any thing here that doesn’t fall under one or another of these categories. Just the one, fossil fuels and human destiny, logically expands to cover anything that has ever been posted here, petroleum or non petroleum thread.
And in case you haven’t noticed, lol, Ron himself has been a regular contributor of not only primary content but also comments when the subject is economic collapse, new technology, over population, resource shortages, banking crises, etc, etc.
As a matter of fact, he has posted today concerning the possibility of a Chinese economic collapse.
Maybe your only real reason for reading this blog is to try to make a buck in the oil markets. In that case, there are plenty of other places you can find production data, etc, but this is still one of if not the very best, and provides more and more detailed oil production info than any other free site I know of.
Most of us, excepting perhaps a few hands on guys who want to focus strictly on oil markets and the actual business of getting oil out of the ground and into cars and trucks, accept peak oil as either a present day reality, or a reality that will arrive within the easily foreseeable future. Those hands on guys have the petroleum threads.
The exact date of the peak really doesn’t matter much to the rest of us, because we are focused on the bigger picture of what will happen when not only oil but lots of other critical resources come up in short supply. We are truly fascinated by the interplay of new technology, economic and environmental destruction as the result of using fossil fuels recklessly, politics, plain old chance or fate, human ingenuity, human stupidity, and the kitchen sink for good measure.
Dennis is good enough to provide us with open threads so that we can indulge this interest, and to the best of my knowledge, this is the best single blog on the net dealing with these topics. If you know of a better one , please post the address, lol.
This arrangement may not be perfect, but perfection is a rare thing indeed, and it works ok.
You owe Dennis an apology. It’s a safe bet that he has forgotten more about oil and anything and everything else than you can ever hope to know.
It’s perfectly obvious to anybody who bothers to actually THINK a little that Dennis puts in a LOT of unpaid work running this blog, and that we are all greatly indebted to him for doing so. Ditto for Ron , of course, although he has understandably cut way back.
I’m here for the peak oil timing because I plan to make a lot of money betting *against* oil companies and *for* their competitors. Figuring out when the oil companies go bankrupt and hit the wall is a large part of that financial calculation. (I wish I’d been able to time it with the coal companies, but they’ve already hit the wall.)
This means I’m mostly in the non-petroleum threads, because the petroleum threads are over-focused on *supply*, and figuring out when the companies hit the wall is largely about *demand*.
The amount and placement of the punctuation tells me metruthnot is Petro incognito.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Ya, it seems to have Petro’s signature all over it. 😀
Petro! (and whoever else interested!) Vien nous voir a Permaea.
I sent its rough manifesto to an unsolicited! list of people including Jan Lundberg, Dmitry Orlov, David Holmgren and Guy McPherson…
Jan suggested that it was not ready for prime time or something like that (as if the first animal that dragged itself out of the ocean and onto the beach many millions of years ago that lead to us was not ready for prime time, either, such as for being mammalian or ‘properly’ walking around) and Dmitry told me not to email him again.
Strangely enough, though, some months later, Dmitry is out with a ‘150 Strong’ book and Jan’s Culture Change site at least at last look (a day ago) is down and maybe out and there seems to be a new ‘call-to-network’ site ‘associated’ with it with the number 21 in it (maybe related to some arbitrary age of maturity?)– I forget the title exactly. I also see that some are talking about it– a completely separate, ethically and ecologically-based glocal/translocal ‘free-associating-nodes’ (‘150-ish-strong’) ‘nation’ or society— over at Permaculture Research Institute of Australia’s (of Permaculture Global’s) forum.
Hey, this is relevant news.
We are dropping the ball, but maybe starting to look at picking it up again, only closer to properly. Lots to do though…
Dmitry, while I haven’t read your book or yet listened to JHK’s podcast about it, my initial reaction is that maybe we can have a million 150 strong as a network, and our recently departed (a week ago) Bill Mollison was very specific about this possibility too.
Hypothetical Dmitry Orlov: “Hey, the titanic is sinking! The titanic is sinking!”
Frightened Passenger: “Oh my god! Really!?”
HDO: “Yes, really! But don’t bother me anymore about it! I am just letting you know and making a little crony-capitalistic plutarchy money writing books about it, and making googley-eyes about Russia on Russia Today with Max Keiser… I have roughly 150 people to worry about if I choose– maybe they can all fit on my boat and they can wash their butts with the ocean over the edge!”
The alternative is that we have a forum like PO.com that has deteriorated to a simple waste of time.
Hats off to Dennis and guest writers who have kept this window of insight and discussion, open.
I seldom comment, and even less so these days as a life has dropped a bunch of overflowing issues into my lap. Nevertheless, I am grateful to see the familiar names willing to submit their ideas and risk irritating reactions. Thank you for your time, folks…. Most appreciated.
http://www.popsci.com/what-makes-hurricane-matthew-so-dangerous
And looks like it changed trajectory threatening also US:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?5-daynl#contents
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, maybe Orlando, and Jacksonville all at major category . That might be a big evacuation. I guess they are on the slightly better side for wind speed and not quite directly in the path.
The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.
But even if they were not, the panels would of course help weight down the whole structure and make them essentially hurricane-proof.
But even if the panels did blow off, along with the roofs, did you know that, according to independent research, they can apparently retain about 95% of their efficiency over 5 years?!
Same thing with electric vehicles (EV’s). They are not generally subject to debris and falling trees like the rest of the human infrastructure is. Something about all those batteries and their reverse-polar magnetic charges acting as a repellant maybe.
So anthropogenic climate change? Give me a break.
The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes, and even if they were not, the panels of course would help weight them down.
Don’t know if that is an attempt at sarcasm but in Florida at least, rooftop solar code is quite stringent.
https://floridasolardesigngroup.com/do-solar-panels-meet-miami-dade-hurricane-wind-requirements/
What is required for permitting solar panels anywhere in Florida is that the system meets the Florida Building Code. The 2010 Florida Building Code is now the effective code, and this requires that solar panels (components and cladding) meet wind loads that are imposed upon them. Solar panels must be firmly attached to the building and have enough attachment points to resist wind uplift. The weight of solar panels is negligible and rarely needs to be considered. In most of Southwest Florida, the ultimate design wind speed is 160 mph. In Collier County there is a large area that requires 170 mph, and Marco Island is 172 mph. Using calculations in accordance with ASCE 7-10, engineers determine the wind uplift at any given attachment point and ensure that the attachment method resists the required load at the design wind speed with a safety margin.
I don’t know what kind of ‘stringent codes’ they had in New Orleans, US; Christchurch, New Zealand or; Fukushima, Japan a few years ago, but the hurricanes and earthquakes, etc., there did quite the damage, as they do the world over.
It is one thing to posture or lie about stringent code and yet another to see how/if it is actually understood, implemented and how it plays out vis-a-vis real-world situations.
(And it’s a lot more than just the windspeed.)
Anyway, best to you and folks with the circular windsaw named Matthew.
It is one thing to posture or lie about stringent code and yet another to see how/if it is actually understood, implemented and how it plays out vis-a-vis real-world situations.
Given that I actually worked with permitting for rooftop PV in a number Florida towns and counties I can assure you that in most places it is taken quite seriously.
(And it’s a lot more than just the windspeed.)
No shit, sherlock!
In any case I’ll defer to the civil engineers who sign their names to the permits, it’s their good names that are on the line. Not to mention that, personal pride in their work or altruism aside, they generally tend to go by the book because home owners have access to the legal system and are quite quick to sue when things go wrong.
Well I’m just so infinitely reassured that intact solar panels will preside over government-sanctioned industrial clusterfucks the world over.
Or at least in Florida.
Thanks, Fred.
Governments come, governments go, but the sun always shines on the Sunshine State. Except at night of course.
Too true. And on tv too. ^u^
Ok, so I’ll bite.
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.”
Hurricane Gilbert of 1988 exposed a lot of poor construction practices in Jamaica, such as just bending steel reinforcing bars protruding from masonry walls over the “plate”, the wooden member to which the rafters of hip roofs are typically attached. The strong uplift of Gilbert’s winds was enough to straighten the steel bars, resulting in the loss of roofs.
One other problem was not using “hurricane straps” to secure the rafters to the plates, which meant that even if the plate was secure, the uplift separated the rafters from the plate with the same result as if the plates were not securely attached to the top of the walls. Most practitioners in the construction trades are now well acquainted with the threat of hurricane wind uplift and some roofs built or repaired since the passage of Gilbert have been tested a number of times, though not with Category 4 or 5 winds, the most recent being Hurricane Sandy.
Concrete slab roofs are largely unaffected by winds, though they do present problems with energy use/comfort, being large thermal masses that absorb solar thermal energy during the day and radiate it downward into the covered space. You do have a point in that, it seems many installers in Jamaica did not get training in Florida like I did and thus were not exposed to the stringent requirements for withstanding wind uplift demanded by Florida building codes that, Fred has pointed out. As a result I see quite a few installations that IMO will be severely tested during any hurricane strength winds as well as many that have been done right.
This is clearly a case where government setting up regulations can serve a useful purpose. I do not think it is sensible to allow anyone to mount solar panels any way they want and risk panels flying around at over 100 mph. If regulations require that objects be securely fastened to roofs, that is a good thing and an area where IMO, Jamaican regulations need strengthening. Hopefully something will be done before a flying solar panel kills somebody or comes close to it.
As for cars, far more cars are severely damaged by flooding associated with a hurricane than are disabled by flying debris or falling trees and if one generates their own electricity with solar, you are far more likely to be able to recharge your batteries after the storm has passed than people getting regular fuel supplies from gas stations, if public electricity supplies and road networks are disrupted.
Yair . . . .
“The ones that have PV solar electric panels on their rooftops, such as in Jamaica, should be ok, though, since rooftops are among the last things to be destroyed by hurricanes.”
WE HAVE A WINNER!!! That’s the most inane comment I have seen on the internet ever!
CM must be joking and fishing for a bite . . . surely?
Cheers.
Did you see the rest of the comment that it was attached to?
…So what did I win? How about an all-expenses paid month-long trip to Franklin Tasmania, with a family home-stay kind of accommodation, and a free intro course at its wooden boat school?
I wonder if anyone’s ever thought of putting giant boulders on a house’s roof to weigh it down like a paperweight in the event of an approaching windstorm…
Caelan, you are the first to think of that. Giant boulders would crush the roof, preventing the hurricane from doing it. Great idea.
Us mortals just use hurricane anchors.
Hillbillies and trailer park trash every where the wind blows hard have occasionally tried using smallish boulders as roof weights to help keep their mobile homes aka trailers in one piece and in the desired spot, lol.
But it’s hard to find stones that are the right size, and flat enough on one side to put them on a roof.
So the materials of choice are cinder blocks and used tires.
This actually works quite well, so long as it isn’t overdone. There are mobile homes near where I live with as much as a couple of tons of eight inch blocks spaced out on the roof.
I suppose a hurricane would blow these blocks right off, but so far we haven’t had any winds above about seventy or eighty mph around here, except for the rare tornado. ( Tornadoes are few and far between in mountainous areas .)
The local building code specifies that trailers be very securely anchored, but the anchors attach to the ladder type metal frames so when a tornado does hit a trailer, it usually leaves the floor and frame intact but rips off the walls and roof and carries away the contents.
I was just being sarcastic of course, but still, far too much of what we do in society today seems too close to putting giant boulders on house rooftops to weight them down.
Mind you, some houses are built of stone, and have clay or slate shingles. Perhaps they are among the best for earthquakes, compared with, say, mobile homes?
And what’s really ‘expensive’, if they don’t last and/or wreck communities and the planet, given externalities, economic musical chairs, and races to the bottom, etc.?
Correction:
“Perhaps they are among the best for earthquakes…”
Should read;
“Perhaps they are among the best for hurricanes…”
😀
China is on the cusp of collapse. The timing is unclear but it will likely be within the next three years.
The end of the Chinese dream?
Here is the best short video on China that has been produced in years.
The End of China Inc?
As time is running out for China to pay off its bad debts, 101 East investigates if this could be the end of China Inc.
And from the conclusion of the book: The China Crisis
What Impact Will China’s Collapse Have on the World
The effect of China’s financial and political collapse will be multidimensional in its unfolding, and its impact will be felt throughout the world. Remember, the China that closed itself off from the world for nearly 30 years to develop—or not—in autarky, no longer exists. In that period, China’s crisis were limited n their scope and effect because China was limited in its scope—it was separate from the rest of the world. That is no longer the case.
Today, China is fully engaged with the world, a crucial part in an interdependent and highly sensitive global financial system. Nowhere else is this more true than with regard to the United States. China is the largest foreign buyer of U.S. debt, holding over $1.2 trillion of U.S. Treasury bonds. Their large bond holdings provided the liquidity needed for the United States to turn around and use that money to buy Chinese goods as well as to fund the world’s greatest military, which supports U.S. foreign policy around the world. Chinese loans also allow for the funding of the United States’ ever-expanding social programs, and China’s deep involvement in U.S. Treasury markets, banking, and trade means that any interruption in China’s participation in the U.S. Treasury bond market would have an immediate impact on the United States’ ability to continue to exist in its current state and status.
If there is a collapse in China, as this book argues s inevitable, there are many possible scenarios and outcomes, some seemingly more likely than others, but all of them seem to lead to a withdrawal from the purchase of U.S. debt by foreign nations. This will have an enormous impact on the United States and the global economy as a whole.
As mentioned above, when China finally decides to withdraw its participation in the U.S. Treasury bond auctions and proceeds to dump large amounts on the open market, the U.S. bond market will collapse overnight, as will the dollar. The dollar will probably not survive such an attack, at least not as a reserve currency. The crashing of the bond market will cause nations to dump the dollar literally overnight. Either or both of these events will tip the balance of an already feeble word economy into a Great Depression, marked by naked competition for resources and, as much as anything else, for food.
The immediate effect of a bond market crash and the collapse of the dollar will likely be a significant level of civil unrest in the United States. From a financial standpoint, interest rates will rise, as will inflation. Hyperinflation may even come about as dollars lose virtually all their value in a matter of days. However, all dollar-denominated assets will also lose their value. This means stocks, real estate, and whatever else might be priced and valued in dollars.
This also applies to all Chinese assets valued in yuan, as well. As we talked about earlier, the fraud and deception of Chinese companies on the U.S. stock exchanges will result in hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars of losses to Americans, and anyone ese who had money in those companies. That would be virtually anyone who holds a portfolio of mutual funds.
Both U.S. banks and international banks would also find their asset base decimated by China’s collapse and the dollar’s collapse shortly thereafter. International trade and credit agreements would likely have to be voided as well. And, since the U.S. economy is the engine of growth for the world, as the U.S. economy collapsed from the fall of its currency from reserve status and suffering from hyperinflation, the foundations of the global economy would be no more. Taking a double hit from China’s economic collapse and the United States’ deep depression and worthless currency would leave the international trade and finance systems in a state of anarchy. The Eurozone economy would continue to shrink, as both its largest source of capital and largest market suddenly went away.
Perhaps the greatest impact on the dollar and global financial system would be the end of the petrodollar arrangement. Since 1975, OPEC has agreed to price and sell its oil on the global market in dollars. This has created a sustained demand for dollars around the world. One could say that the U.S. dollar has been on the “oil standard” since 1975. However, as the value of the dollar plunges in this scenario, OPEC would likely stop accepting dollars for oil almost immediately. In fact, China has already made several assaults on the dollar by creating dollar exclusion zones for trade with countries like Brazil, China, India, and Iran, and it has set up bilateral trade agreements with Japan and Russia, excluding the dollar as an intermediary currency.
The loss of the petrodollar itself, if nothing else happened, would send the United States into a situation of very high inflation, if not hyperinflation, as the value and demand for the dollar disappeared. The U.S. economy—the world’s economic engine—would cease to function anywhere near its previous level and would send the rest of the world into a Great Depression.
Now I don’t agree with everything in this conclusion from that book. However I do agree with most of it. But here is my question to the people of this list. What will be the effect on the world economy of a total China collapse? Remember, unlike most of the last century, we now live in a globalized economy. What happens when the second largest chunk of that globalized economy collapses?
And I will add, if you think it will have very little effect, then you obviously have no idea what a globalized economy really is.
“End of Chinese Dream” link doesn’t work. Try this:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/09/pictures-chinese-dream-160915122600581.html
Fixed it. Thanks.
Fortune cookies will be officially debunked as an accurate way to predict the future.
Although, I opened one the other night and it said “growing ur economy at 7% per year is an impossible to sustain exponential curve”.
What happens in China after a collapse? Much of Chinese policy, especially around providing high employment, is heavily influenced by trying to keep a lid on popular uprisings.
I wonder what Confucius would have said about ghost cities and general ‘Westernization’.
Back in 2006 in the Shanghai airport, I was speaking with a hydrogeologist from Korea (China too apparently has potable water problems) and mentioned how China was Westernizing at a time when the West was already starting to go in another direction. ‘Late to the party’
As a humorous aside, when he got up to the checkout counter, they initially spoke to him in Chinese and he responded, apparently somewhat agitated, something like, ‘I’m Korean, talk to me in English!’
Hi Ron,
It is not clear that China’s economy will collapse, if it “totally collapsed” and the Chinese government was unable to do anything to improve the situation (which seems doubtful), then we would be likely to have a World Depression. Proper fiscal and monetary policy would speed recovery, a focus on balanced government budgets will delay recovery.
Also there is a lot of US Government Debt only about 10% is owned by the Chinese Government.
It is unclear why China would feel the need to sell its bonds in a crisis, but if they did resort to panic selling they might drive the price of ponds lower and this would raise interest rates. The higher interest rates makes the bonds more attractive as an investment and money would flow from stocks to bonds. That could potentially lead to a stock market crash if it happens very quickly. Link below discusses who owns the US government debt.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/ss/How-Much-US-Debt-Does-China-Own.htm
And the Chinese aren’t buying U.S. debt to be nice. Unwinding their bond holdings will have serious negative implications for the Chinese economy which ties back to George’s comment just above.
Hi Stan,
They buy the bonds for the same reason most people do, it is a relatively safe investment. Not much more to it than that.
As far as concern over Chinese debt, looking at Bank for International Settlements (BIS) data and comparing debt to GDP for All reporting nations (World), Advanced Economies, and China, things do not look terrible for China.
Debt to GDP is barely above the World average and less than the average for Advanced economies at the end of the first quarter of 2016.
Yes Chinese debt to GDP has increased, this is expected in a rapidly developing economy.
BIS data at link below
https://www.bis.org/statistics/totcredit.htm?m=6%7C326
It is not clear that China’s economy will collapse…
It is very clear that China’s economy will collapse. In fact every economy will collapse within the next 100 years, most likely a lot sooner than that. The only question is when will China’s economy collapse.
But really China is in the process of collapsing right not. The building boom has already collapsed. Every dollar. or yuan, invested if building those massive ghost cities will be lost. That will very likely lead to a banking collapse.
Did you watch that 25 minute video? Watch that then tell me that China will not collapse. Here is the link again:
The End of China Inc?
Or you can read the book I quoted from. That should remove all doubt.
Hi Ron,
No I didn’t watch the video or read the book.
You are correct every economy may collapse at some point. I should have said I do not think it is clear that China’s economy will “totally collapse” (I interpret this as unemployment rates of 25% or higher) within the next 15 years.
They are likely to see their population decline due to the one child policy. The UN’s medium fertility scenario sees China’s population peaking in 2030 at 1.45 billion and falling to 1.1 billion by 2100. This should take some pressure off as far as economic growth rates needed to improve GDP per capita.
Hi Ron,
The piece is very dramatic, one focus is debt, household and non-profit debt to GDP is about 41% in China according to BIS, in the US it is 78%, and for all countries reporting to the BIS it is about 62%. Government debt to GDP for all countries is 82% and for China it is 45% (nominal value of debt).
It is bad that the resources were poorly allocated, that is the danger of a planned economy and why properly regulated markets sometimes do a better job. Potentially this could lead to a financial crisis in China, just as the real estate bubble lead to a crisis which started with Europe and North America.
A lot of the Advanced economy crisis was exacerbated by all the CDOs and other derivatives that were fashionable in the lead up to the GFC.
Hopefully the Chinese have learned from past mistakes made in the US and Europe, I do not have enough information to even guess if that is true.
(Hi Dennis, see my comment below first, then this one)
Hi Dennis, I don’t think China will have unemployment rate 25% or above. In fact, currently China does not have reliable official unemployment rate. However, if China’s urban employment simply stops growing (equivalent to an annual increase in unemployment by 10 million), that would be sufficiently a huge shock.
Consider the following two graphs:
The top one is for the US:
http://redchinacn.net/data/attachment/portal/201605/16/012552909heppvzff8d80c.jpg
The second one is for China:
http://redchinacn.net/data/attachment/portal/201606/03/235940ar5hcfj7j3e2c4cv.jpg
In both graphs, red curves are the profit rate, blue curves are profit share (share of property incomes in GDP), dark curves are output-capital ratios (capital productivity, using right scale)
A few points:
a) The US profit rate historically mostly fluctuated around 15 percent. But it was high in the mid-1960s (about 20 percent) and low in the 1970s. It fell below 10 percent only during the Great Depression.
b) China’s profit rate was very high in the early 2000s, reaching 27 percent by 2007 (nearly twice as high as the US level). But now it has fallen to about 15 percent. There is no indication that this decline will slow down or be reversed. At this rate, it could touch 10 percent in a few years.
c) I have another graph showing Japan also entered into long-term stagnation when its profit rate (using the same concept) fell to about 10 percent.
China has not had a major economic crisis for several decades. We do not know how it is going to look like. But unless the falling profit rate can be reversed, it is difficult to see why a capitalist-oriented economy will not fall into a major crisis if it increasingly fails in its main objective (pursuit of profit).
Remember, China’s officially communist and is actually following something much closer to Marx’s *original* plan. What do they have to do when the profit rate falls?
(1) Tax away the wealth of the rich
(2) Implement more public services (expanded national health service, that sort of thing)
I wouldn’t bet against them doing that.
Ron, I’ve seen those ghost cities up close and personal. It is terrifying, like a Bladerunner set or something.
To witness a literal treeless forest of peopleless cookie-cutter rabbit-hutch skyscrapers fading out into the distance into a smoggy horizon is quite a sight to behold.
Nature won’t have any of it. Not for long.
Good riddance.
Hi Caelan, where did you see those ghost cities in China? Did you go to inner Mongolia?
Inner Mongolia produces more coal than the entire United States. In addition to local environmental issues (grassland degradation, water pollution), it is of global significance in relation to climate change/peak coal/peak oil (related to coal-to-liquid fuels projects)
Hi Political Economist,
Are you the one living in China or Japan? If so, whereabouts? Are you native to there?
I went from Shanghai to Linyi by car and then back again after some time in Linyi, so between the two.
Back in 2006, perhaps the ghost cities were not quite ghost cities then, or called that, and were just developing, but what I saw was what I called then ‘vast cookie-cutter highrise development tracts’ which kind of freaked me out. It was like suddenly being in a dream that starts getting a little nightmarish.
As someone living in the other prison known as Canada, I was not used to the insane, cold and inhuman scale of development. Parts of China looked incredibly bleak and dystopic and it’s probably worse now, 10 years on. I also saw it from the air, all along the east coast, from Japan on down to Shanghai. The patterns of development often looked strangely different than what I was used to seeing from the air. Parts of it looked like what I called then like a giant child had left their giant metal and plastic playthings lying strewn about.
You know, many like to talk about what ‘industry’ produces, like cars and solar panels but they really don’t seem to have any idea what is involved in their production, or at least care, or something. The ecocide and wage slavery. They just don’t seem to give it any thought at all. All they often do is relay some statistic that’s supposed to show the manufacturing and uptake numbers, as if that’s all that matters. I am sure some would do well to actually take a trip to visit some large scale factory and the surrounding city and countryside and see if they feel the same.
I don’t know if I should bother attaching an image, since, presumably, most on this forum know what I’m talking about and the image certainly can’t replace the sensations of being right up close but here it is anyway.
Hi Caelan, I am native of Beijing but now I live in the US.
On this site, sometimes I write stuff like the following:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-energy-2016-2050-annual-report/
Hi Political Economist,
Thanks and yes, I know about that. I will give it a serious read.
My cold-milk-brewed green tea (a loose leaf tea with ginseng and dried citrus peel that I add to a blender with milk and music and blend for a few minutes on slow) is almost ready (cooled down in freezer, then with a ‘super premium’ vanilla ice cream blended in), so over a nice tea (really more of a green tea frostie) in your honor.
Incidentally, I had a green tea ice cream (Häagen Dazs) for the first time ever at the Shanghai airport then while waiting for my flight. Delish. ‘Where else would one get a ‘super premium’ green tea ice cream, but in Shanghai airport?’, I thought to myself. You could also get Collon snacks there too that are reminiscent of a long colon cut in sections with a supposedly tasty brown fudge in the middle.
Oh and, hey, if you ever had any doubts that Collon was ‘tofu cute’, well now you know.
(Recommended drink accompaniments where available; Pocari Sweat or Calpis, which might do well from a marketing standpoint if it also came as a special ‘Fukushima energy-water’ drink.
Of course both drinks could also benefit from special ‘signature’ versions, maybe with special guest appearances at various markets and festivals of Cal and Pocari, themselves.)
(But the way I see it is if you’re going to build vast tracts of high-rise chicken-coops for humans that they don’t seem to want to live in, you might as well have manufactured snacks for them that look like sliced up colons.)
See the difference?
One’s China. I don’t know where the other is, but maybe somewhere in Europe. And it makes my heart sing.
Where would you want to live between the two?
Parts of the world, not just China, demonstrate very clearly the kinds of effects lack of equality/democracy in local decision-making have on people and planet.
No one in their right mind would allow the kinds of effects that go on in their absence.
There are online magazine articles that suggest that people may live in the ghost cities, but I can tell you right now that, for the most part, they won’t. They won’t, simply because they are not actually made for people. They are made for the dystopic system and its perverse logic.
I almost went to Mongolia.
It’s not working, Political Economist. Too much is not working, and I see it on this very forum as well.
There’s some political economy for you.
Attack of the Monoliths.
At least the monoliths look happy, if nothing else.
They could always have photovoltaic panel friends on that patch of desolate ground just before the clothes bus. It would offer an added impression of scientific and technological progress as well.
Hey, I’m on a roll…
Anyone you recognize in the image below?
But of course they need certain levels of mass complicity. They have no power without complicity.
And they are granted it. At gunpoint, if necessary.
You know, people talk about doom and doomers, but doom is what we already have. We are long past doom and it’s really more of a combination freak-show and slow-motion train-wreck-in-progress.
The ones bitching about doomers and gloomers are maybe the ones that especially don’t actually see or want to see that they’re already in it.
“All political systems that I know of, and most kings, have moved their whole nation to desert. And the things that we saw as most proud– the cities and the canals and irrigation and so on– are the things that killed their cultures. And it continues, unabated. If people don’t seize power back, and make their own gardens, and sit in their own gardens of Eden, then we’re all doomed, and the whole world ends in dust.” ~ Bill Mollison
Hi Dennis, thank again for asking me to comment on this. Let me just give you some of my own thought.
It is always difficult to predict (successfully) major crisis of a major economy. But in this particular case, I think Ron’s suggestion that the Chinese economy may “collapse” in three years is within the range of reasonable possibility.
However, different people may come to apparently similar conclusions based on quite different reasoning. In my case, I rely upon a Marxian indicator that measures the economy-wide profit rate (ratio of total property incomes to business sector capital stock). Historically, this indicator has worked very well in explaining long-term boom, stagnation, or structural crisis of American capitalism.
The same indicator for China was about twice as high as the US level before 2007 (explaining China’s super economic boom). But since then it has fallen rapidly, now at about the same level as the US. But it is trending down. If it keeps falling at this rate, it will soon be at levels that are similar to what the US had in the 1970s. It could even fall to a level that was associated with the US Great Depression.
There are two factors that have contributed to falling rate of profit in China. First, wages have growing more rapidly than labor productivity in China. Second, over investment (relative to sustainable growth) has led to falling capital productivity.
Although there is strong reason to believe that falling profit rate should translate into major economic crisis, it still takes some transmission mechanism through conventional macroeconomic variables and falling profit rate by itself does not tell us in what form the major crisis will take (a depression style collapse or a prolonged stagnation?). Note that so far we have talked about only the “real” side, I have not yet mentioned debt, bubble, et al.
Normally, persistently falling profit rate eventually should lead to collapse of private investment (e.g., US private investment fell by about one half or 10% of GDP during Great Recession) . This is a sort of happening in China now. Private investment used to grow 20-30%, now it’s “only” growing at 2-3%. So a massive deceleration, but not a collapse yet.
In principle, any shortfall of private investment can always be offset by increase in government spending. This is what China attempts to do now. After slow down for many years, state sector investment surged by more than 20% over the first half of this year. I expect China keeps doing this for a while.
What is the limit of government stabilization program? Some might say the limit has to do with debt, real estate bubble. It is not too obvious to me. The US housing bubble matters because the US growth was driven by consumption and consumption growth was fueled by household debt mortgaged against housing values. The Chinese story is different. China is still an investment driven economy. And, if private investment collapses (either because of unsustainable debt or as a result of loss of confidence), in principle, government spending can compensate.
The limit has to do with two things. First, the collapse of private investment may in turn lead to massive capital flight. In the Chinese case, this can be slowed down by official capital controls. But if official capital controls are ineffective, massive capital flight will take place and the Chinese foreign exchange reserves will be depleted. This is the scenario that will lead to massive sale of American bonds, possibly forcing up the US interest rate. Though the impact on American exports and investor confidence may be bigger. This scenario may or may not happen.
Assuming there is no capital flight. Another limit is inflation. This is what happened to US/Europe in the 1970s (stagflation). Falling profit rate leads to recession. The government attempts to avoid recession by using Keynesian expansion. But low level of unemployment is keeping the workers strong, raising wages. Corporations tried to offset rising wages by raising prices, leading to wage-price spiral.
China right now is far from having run away inflation. However, it appears the government stabilization policy has succeeded in stabilizing employment. Urban employment continues to rise at the approximate annual rate of 10 million. Yes, 10 million new urban jobs every year. So wages continue to grow rapidly, no longer at double digits, but still growing at 7-9% a year. This puts pressure on profit.
The dilemma for the Chinese government is the following. If they are serious about the so-called supply-side policy, letting coal mines/steel mills close and let the housing bubble collapse, economic growth rate will lose several percentage points and unemployment will surge. If successful, this will kill working class militancy and stabilize the profit rate (think about the Reagan/Thatcher/Volcker Fed policy). However, it carries enormous political risk and economic risk (the economic collapse may get out of control).
It can persist with its current policy, trying to manage the economic slow down. But so long as employment continues to expand, the capitalists have to raise wages to attract increasingly demanding workers as the rural surplus labor force continues to shrink. This has led to accelerated decline of the profit rate. At some point, private investment will indeed begin to collapse. There will be both economic and political limit to the increase in state investment. Under an “optimistic” scenario, China may end up with a Japanese style stagnation. As high state investment helps to “stabilize” the economy by keeping the aggregate demand above a certain level, the vanishing of private investment leads to near zero economic growth.
But stagnation may derive whatever legitimacy the Chinese government could still command. And it may not be an economic equilibrium either. China may turn from a trade surplus country into a deficit country as its export competitiveness is undermined by slow down of productivity growth and high wages.
On the bright side, this may be the only way for us to stay on the path towards no more than 2C global warming.
Have you seen the latest publication on Nature saying long-term earth system climate sensitivity (for doubling of CO2) may be 9C (not 6C according to Hanse or 3C according to IPCC)?
Hi Political Economist,
Thank you for the excellent analysis.
On the ghost cities, a video that Ron linked gave the impression that a lot of the investment was by the government or was government planned.
Would less planning by the government and simply a well regulated “free” market be less prone to mal investment? I believe you are a fan of a planned economy, it would seem the current poor investments in China would give one pause about how well a planned economy would work.
I am not arguing that well regulated (US from 1933 to 1979) capitalist economy is perfect, but it seems less likely that the scale of the poor investments which are portrayed in China would result. Perhaps the “ghost city” story is overblown.
On the Nature article, I have not seen it.
Looking back at paleoclimactic constraints as Hansen does, he has different estimates for warming climates, in 2011 he estimated the mid-Pliocene was about 1.5 C warmer than pre-industrial Holocene, the atmospheric CO2 is estimated between 380 ppm and 420 ppm at that time. I will use 400 ppm for mid-Pliocene and 280 ppm for pre-industrial(PI) Holocene.
1.5/[ln(400/280)]=4.20
4.20*ln(2)=2.91 C ESS for a doubling of CO2
This seems too low, if we use 390 ppm of CO2 during mid-Pliocene and 1.75 C warmer than PI Holocene we get
1.75/[ln(390/280)]=5.28
5.28*ln(2)=3.66 C ESS (earth system sensitivity) for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
Under reasonable scenarios (RCP4.5 or lower) atmospheric CO2 rises to about 507 ppm and falls to 437 ppm within 400 years (the full Earth system sensitivity will take at least 500 years to reach its full effect).
ln(437/280)*5.28= 2.35 C above pre-industrial.
Hansen paper at
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
More recent papers have suggested 4.5 C for the ESS using other lines of evidence and Hansen has repeatedly used an ECS estimate of 3 C and has been consistent on that. Typically the ECS temperature is not reached for 500 years due to the thermal inertia of the ocean. So if carbon emissions fall to zero by 2100 we would expect the ECS temperature to be reached by 2600.
Using a scenario with 1080 Pg of total carbon emissions from 1800-2200 (as in my example above) and 437 ppm of atmospheric CO2 in 2500 we would have an ECS response of ln(437/280)*4.328=1.92 C, the earth system sensitivity is likely to act on more like a millennial time scale (we are talking mainly about the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which will take a long time, perhaps many thousand years.)
Using a Bern carbon model to estimate atmospheric CO2 in 3000 CE, I find 415 ppm CO2, so ln(415/280)*5.28=2.1 C.
A final thought on ESS is that the Change in Global temperature from the LGM to pre-industrial Holocene from Shakun at al 2012 is about 3.2 C with about 1.9 C attributed to changes in CO2 (from 180 ppm to 280 ppm) if ECS is 3 C from a doubling of CO2. This leaves 1.3 C due to other Earth System changes (ice sheets and vegetation changes). Today ice sheets on Earth are about one tenth the size of the LGM, if the effect is approximately linearly proportional we might expect 0.13 C of temperature change due to Earth system effects on a warmer planet with much smaller ice sheets.
That implies an ESS of 3.13C which would be consistent with mid-Pliocene conditions of 400 ppm CO2 and a temperature of 1.6 C above PI Holocene.
In many cases the very high estimates of ESS rely on very speculative methane emissions and often on unreasonable fossil fuel scenarios with 5000 Pg of carbon emissions (RCP8.5).
See Hook et al 2010 for a discussion of emissions scenarios
https://imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_I_cod101601/Ballabrera_Diciembre_2011/Articulos/Hook.2010.pdf
Hi Political Economist,
That paper gets very different results compared to Shakun et al 2012 and Marcott et al 2013. The Temperature change from the LGM to pre-industrial Holocene is 2 times larger. Chart below.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature19798.html#extended-data
Supplementary excel file has data, same can be found for Shakun and Marcott.
Also Real Climate (Gavin Schmidt) says the ESS estimate by Snyder is incorrect.
Schmidt says ESS is 4.5 to 6 C, but Hansen’s most recent estimate is about 4.5C (I believe that may be too high, or should be the high end of the estimates for a Warm world (from a Glacial maximum we might expect about 4.7 C if the Shakun/Marcott estimates are correct), for a World with ice sheets that are 10 times smaller, probably 3.1 to 3.6 C for ESS is more reasonable.
Hi Political economist,
I miscalculated for ESS from LGM, it is about 4.86 C, so if the ECS is 3 C, the slow feedbacks from ice sheets would cause about 1.9 C additional warming in addition to the fast feedbacks (including sea ice and snow cover changes) contribution of 3 C.
So for a warm world with ice sheets 1/10th the size of ice sheets during the LGM we would expect the effect to be smaller by a factor of roughly 10. This implies an ESS of 3.2 C rather than 3.1 C as I estimated (mistakenly) earlier.
This follows from Hansen and Sato’s 2011 paper, but later papers suggest 4.5 C for an ESS.
On further investigation, the CO2 at the LGM was about 188 ppm, and the average CO2 from 6500 to 10,000 BP was about 261 ppm. The temperature change from the LGM to the HCO was about 3.6 C, which implies an ESS of 7.6 C when warming from a glacial maximum. We will assume 3 C is from fast feedbacks, suggesting 4.6 C from slow feedbacks. Most of this slower temperature change is likely from ice sheets becoming smaller, today with ice sheets 10 times smaller the effect may be 10 times smaller suggesting an ESS for warming of 3.46 C.
Hansen’s larger estimate is due to his assumed temperature change for the LGM to HCO of 4.5 C.
Hi Dennis, thanks for the information. My understanding is that the latest paper is based not just on the time from LGM to 10,000 years ago. The author provided new estimates of surface temperate over the past two million years. Their estimate of the relationship between surface temperate and deep water temperature is different from previous studies.
“Slow” feedback includes not only ice sheet but also vegetation changes. Say, if Amazon rain forest begins to die, would that not lead to 1-2C additional warming?
Dennis said
“Today ice sheets on Earth are about one tenth the size of the LGM”
I think you need to do some fact checking if you mean area. Current ice sheet and glacial area coverage is 1/3 of the last glacial maximum.
Gonefishing,
You are correct, I must have based that estimate on mass or volume, I can’t remember how I came up with it, your roughly 1/3 estimate is correct.
If we use 278 ppm as a 500 CE to 1800 CE atmospheric CO2 estimate and 188 ppm for LGM estimate and use the Shakun et al 2012 estimate for LGM global temperatures, we have about a 3.1 C delta T from LGM to pre-industrial Holocene for Global temperatures.
3.1/[ln(278/188)]=7.925
ESS=ln(2)*7.925=5.493 C for a CO2 doubling.
ECS= 3 C, so slow feedbacks (albedo from ice sheets and vegetation changes) would be 2.49 C of the ESS.
As ice sheets are one third the LGM size the ESS for current conditions would be about 3.83 C. Atmospheric CO2 would need to fall below 400 ppm within a few thousand years to remain at 2C above pre-industrial. It is unclear if complete loss of World ice sheets would happen that quickly, more research on glaciers would be needed to determine this.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice coverage and far less mass takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice coverage and far less mass takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
You really think it is that simple Dennis? In a few thousand years there will be at least 10 watts/m2 more insolation in the Arctic region due to orbital changes. That increase will guarantee further and continuing albedo changes. Our CO2 pulse will be fairly inconsequential in time and it’s remnant will only be a small portion of the radiation forcing. As the Greenland ice sheet melts, not only will more dark land be exposed but it will be at a much lower altitude, thus not chilled like the surface of the ice sheet it replaced. The ice sheet will be lower and thus exposed to warmer air.
Anyway, the past reduction of the ice sheets was caused primarily by a 65 w/m2 increase in Arctic insolation, less radiation further south but still very significant. CO2 rise was a result of the ice sheet reduction, exposure of land and rise in temperature of land and ocean surface. The CO2 itself would have added only a small percentage of the forcing. Forcing from albedo changes were also much larger than CO2 forcing.
Moderating all this was the quite large amount of ice which had to be warmed and melted (heat of fusion). Deep and surface ocean water had been chilled by the glaciation event and would play a role in slowing warming for a long time.
Let’s face it, a large part of the continental landscape fell by a mile or moe in altitude as the ice sheet melted, that in itself would warm things.
So I do not see how simple calculations can possibly encompass these complex changes.
To break up a major glaciation event takes a lot of energy. To warm a planet with 1/3 of the ice and that much further north takes a lot less.
We are now dealing with a few watts/m2 positive forcing that are making some changes. The real players are albedo changes, orbital changes and natural GHG emissions. The fossil fuel GHG event is a short lived pulse, enough to initiate and enhance natural forcings which will not be short lived. No simple math is going to capture what happened previously or what will happen in the future. It certainly had little to do with CO2.
Hi Gonefishing,
That is why we have very sophisticated AOGCMs with interactive atmospheric chemistry and carbon models, these include all the effects you are talking about. The sea ice and albedo changes from snow melt are included in the models, if the Milankocitch changes will increase Northern Hemisphere warming then it is likely that the much larger ice sheet in Antarctica will not be affected as much as the Greenland ice sheet. The Greenland ice sheet is roughly one tenth of the total glacial ice area on land at present. The thermal inertia of the ocean is quite large and it will take considerable time for the ocean to warm. Relative to the LGM, the ice sheet albedo effect for Greenland alone would be 0.1*0.33 or one thirtieth of the ice sheet albedo effect from LGM to pre-industrial (1200 BP to 200 BP). The Milankovitch changes are not that large on a global scale when ice sheets are small.
It’s not just the Greenland ice sheet, which will be the last to go, it’s the Arctic Ocean Ice and the snow cover over three continents. All that will be replaced by dark ground and dark water. Add the solar insolation effect to that. Add the natural GHG’s to that.
That warmer ocean is going to release a lot of carbon over many thousands of years too.
I really would like to see details on a model that captures all those variables.
Melting the Greenland Ice Sheet alone will be like removing a huge 2 mile high mountain plateau from the earth.
If the Himalayas cooled the earth imagine how much warming would happen when the high Greenland Ice sheet stops cooling the atmosphere.
Hi Gonefishing,
The ocean will not be releasing carbon according to the science, it will be sequestering carbon, see Archer 2005, Archer et al 2009, and Joos et al 2013.
A search with carbon and those names will pull up the relevant articles.
Read some work by Schmidt, Miller, and Naranzenko on GISS model to see that all of the albedo factors, carbon cycle and so forth (the only exception is the icesheets which are thought to act over 5000 to 15,000 years). The page below lists several papers describing the model, which is far more sophisticated tan you seem to believe.
No not perfect, but the argument that we have no clue what will happen is incorrect in my view. The models do a decent job of simulating past climate.
Of course there is uncertainty, but past climate as investigated by Hansen and Sato, constrains ESS to between 3 C (2011 paper)and 4.5C (2012 paper) for a World with small ice sheets (present day Earth).
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
See figure 6 with Pliocene temperatures relative to Holocene maximum, add about 0.5 C to compared to pre-industrial Holocene (500 CE to 1750 CE). This gives a 1.5 C higher temperature during mid Pliocene when atmospheric CO2 was between 380 ppm (Raymo, 1996) and 400 ppm (Lunt et al, 2010). This corresponds with an ESS of about 3.1 C.
Lunt estimates 1.4 times ECS which would be an ESS of 4.2 C. So the average would be 3.65 C.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
I think the claim that much of the real estate investment in China is driven by state planning is based on misinformation. I don’t have breakdown for the real estate investment. But for the overall investment, private investment is about 70%, government and SOE investment is about 30%. Until recently, SOE investment share has been falling.
It is true that China’s local governments have encouraged real estate boom in order to benefit from land sales. But this is more like a by-product of bubble rather than the source of bubble.
I am not arguing that planning can solve anything. Nevertheless, it should not be too difficult to see that massive housing bubble can happen in virtually every type of capitalist economy (US, Canada, Japan, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong).
The alternative hypothesis is that if there had been no government “planning” or encouragement, private sector can price the asset values (including housing values) correctly and therefore there would be no housing bubble or excess investment. This is clearly inconsistent with the actual historical experience of capitalism.
In any case, China does not have a “planned” economy now.
About “well regulated capitalism”, one could ask a few questions. First, if it was so good, why it did not last (I am not saying it was replaced by something better)? Secondly, even in the “golden age” when regulated capitalism prevailed, why was only a small part of the world that might be considered “well regulated”?
Given the current political environment, I suppose we are unlikely to return to the good old well regulated days any time soon.
First, if it was so good, why it did not last
It was a victim of it’s own success. If you go for a sufficiently long period without a crisis (because of regulation), people argue that you don’t need the regulations any more.
Hi Political Economist,
Yes there have been bubbles throughout capitalist history. I am most familiar with the US, possibly other places were just as well regulated. I agree with Nick that the prudent regulations put in place after the Great Depression were removed because nobody listens to economic historians (or not those in political power).
After the next Great Depression, perhaps prudent regulations will be re-established (this is mostly regulation of the financial industry). Maybe other wise policies which came out of the Great Depression such as a highly progressive tax system will also be re-instated to reduce income inequality.
The message of Bernie Sanders resonated with a lot of young people, so perhaps things will eventually change in the US.
It seems the real estate bubble in China may be particularly large relative to the US and European bubble of 2008/2009.
Would you agree with that assessment or has the Ghost city meme blown things out of proportion in China relative to the economic data.
Hi Ron,
I agree that a Chinese collapse is possible and maybe even very likely, but I am not so sure it is INEVITABLE.
The Chinese have made a hell of a lot of bad mistakes, no question, but whether they are fatal mistakes is still an open question in my mind.
Back to this point below.
If the Chinese economy does go belly up, you are dead on that it will pull down the rest of the world economy with it because we are all so entangled economically these days. Recognition of this fact is a basic reason I have never been a big fan of globalization, which has not been good to the people who matter the most to ME, namely the hard working underclass who have lost so many jobs as we exported them overseas.
(I come from that background, and although my own immediate family has done very well climbing the economic ladder in the last two or three generations, I have lots of relatives, friends, and neighbors who are in VERY tough circumstances due to globalization. )
Confidence and trust are the two key glues that hold the entire economic and cultural paradigms together. Lose either one or both, and the result is chaos, hell on earth, in proportion to the extent of the loss, at first. But then there will be positive feedback, and the initial loss of confidence and trust will grow exponentially, as your link points out, wiping out one industry after another, until the world economy seizes up like a truck engine run hard dry of oil. That sort of damage is nearly impossible to fix.
Surely anybody with any significant understanding of the way the world economy works in recent times must agree with you, as a PRACTICAL matter.
BUT I am not comfortable with the argument that bad past investment decisions NECESSARILY and inevitably must lead to a future economic collapse. Most people who write about economic collapse seem to believe that DEBT is the key, and will be the one factor that brings down the economic house of cards.
But others have pointed out, correctly, that there is no net debt in the world, that every debt is somebody’s asset. So now – if any given debt is not paid, then the owner of it loses to that extent.
Except for those two all important glues, trust and confidence, there would actually be no net loss to the world economy if most of the debt in the world were to be wiped out by way of political action.
The more important issue in at least theoretical terms in my opinion is resource depletion and environmental degradation and destruction.
Look at it this way. The Chinese have built some ghost cities, which may prove to be a dead loss, or a nearly dead loss. Money is only a TOOL we use to keep track of debt and ownership. Those cities were built BY MEN using ENERGY and MATERIALS.
Except maybe for the scale of the ghost cities, as I see it, they are no bigger loss to the world than the energy and materials we have used here in the USA to for instance build tens of millions of heavy duty pickup trucks used exclusively as commuter vehicles and beer transporters. We yankees may have actually pissed away more energy, skilled manpower, and materials over the last decade on such vehicles than the Chinese have sunk into bad real estate, etc.
Bottom line, my personal opinion is that while a Chinese collapse could result in extremely messy and tough problems for the rest of the world, there is also reason to believe that the rest of the world can at least in theory put splints, tourniquets, and bandages on the wounds and get over it.
I personally won’t have ANY problem at all getting by with American made consumer goods in the place of ones currently imported from China, lol, if it comes to that.
Maybe I am clueless, but I also believe it would be better and cheaper for us to bring back the industries we have exported, rather than to support the people who used to work in them on welfare, while providing twice the cops, jailers, judges, criminal lawyers, etc, because so many of them find themselves in a position where they see their best options as dealing a little dope, doing a little shoplifting, selling sex on a street corner, etc.
There is no way what so ever in my opinion that we can retrain all the older folks stuck flipping burgers, if they are lucky enough to find even that work.
And given our cultural mess, and the lock the public school teachers and D party have on secondary education in this country, we also have a for all practical matters a zero chance for more than half or maybe two thirds of today’s kids to get a sound basic education. The odds for the next couple of generations don’t look a hell of a lot better, and you are hearing this from a hand’s on realist who has been in the trenches.
Some real competition in any form would result in miraculous improvements within a few years, less than a decade, in our public schools, but the odds of that competition coming to be are high to astronomical against.
But there is SOME hope, lol.
It took a Nixon to go to China, and maybe we will get a D president and congress willing to stand up to the teachers lobby, but I am NOT holding my breath, lol.
I am at this time barring major new surprises predicting a Clinton victory, by a fair to decent and maybe even large majority of the popular vote, and an electoral college landslide. At least she ain’t TRUMP, lol. The old gut feeling is back about who will win and I have never been wrong once I get that gut feeling. 😉
By way of clarification, I DO NOT blame the state of our public schools solely on either the D party or the teachers or the pair together.
At least a third of the problem is cultural, arising in the home and community environment, in general terms, and the R party has not earned any gold star attaboys in terms of doing anything to help fix the problems with the schools in poor neighborhoods, except to grudgingly throw a little money at them occasionally.
Money is necessary and will help, but it is NOT sufficient to fix the problems, and will never be sufficient. Structural changes are NECESSARY.
I have heard all the arguments, partisan and otherwise, about maintaining the status quo and I can rip any and all of them up like a chicken on a dry cow turd, as my old country woman Momma used to say, if anybody wants to post them.
I know you taught a bit, Mac, but from your comment I realize you have not actually spent too much time in the career.
A few things to point out for non-teachers reading this:
1) Everyone went to school, so many people believe they are an expert on education and are perfectly willing to denigrate as opposed to help support classroom/school-wide efforts to support their children. (This attitude is commonly directed at doctors, as well….thanks internet).
2) Support from home is declining. I am 61. When I was a child my parents drilled me on spelling and math facts…particularly the times tables though 12X12. If my work wasn’t up to snuff, I did it again until parents were satisfied. Nowadays, it is very very common for parents to simply leave everything to the schools. Here is a sample conversation I have had too many times to count:
“Chelsea tells me she would like to one day become a nurse or work in accounting. I think it is wonderful for a grade six student to be excited about the future. I would like to support Chelsea and you folks in this dream, but there is a problem. Chelsea does not know her times tables and by grade 6 it must be automatic…without thought. There are 30 students in the classroom with a wide range of abilities. There are also 3 special needs students awaiting designation and additional support. There is not enough time or opportunity in the classroom for students to practice drills that should and could be learned at home. The curriculum is too vast, and other outcomes must be met”.
“I understand”, says mom. “We will make sure Chelsea does her work every night”.
“The reason why this is important, and I know this seems silly from a distance, is that if Chelsea does not learn her math facts she will not be able to do fractions starting right now. This increases with every grade. If she cannot understand fractions, she will not have success with algebra. If she cannot do algebra she will be removed from academic math and will be requiured to take math essentials. If she does not complete academic math, she will not be able to enter a science or math program which means she cannot become a nurse or an accountant.”
“I understand”, said mom. “We will fix this at home”.
Of course Chelsea did not learn her math facts and barely graduated highschool. Her diploma and course selection will take her nowhere. In fact, I drove by Chelsea’s house yesterday and noticed a baby buggy outside the front door. I also remember that Chelse (my nick name for her) was a whiz on her phone and very very social.
Chelsea’s parents are the first in our valley to say that school did not do anything for Chelsea, that teachers are lazy and overpaid, and it all needs to be fixed starting with the teacher union. Do you know I actually bought Chelsea some flash cards and provided her a list of web sites for doing fun math drills from home? It didn’t cost me very much, but I would hazard a guess I spent $300-$500 of my own money every year bringing stuff in for kids.
To cut this short, in my life I worked as a commercial pilot for 10,000 hours+. I also have red seal certification in carpentry, as well as C level in welding. I began teaching at age 40 after earning the required degrees, ending up with a Masters degree from Royal Roads University. Of all my jobs and careers, and I have been quite successful and lucky in life, teaching was by far the hardest. I loved working with the kids, but the rest……especially ‘the system’ and community attitudes, are the main reasons I left the profession and retired. My electrician son, earned 2X what our local superintendent earned, much much more than old teacher Dad.
Without our teacher Union we would have run out of vaseline decades ago.
Mac,
Please do some research on job losses due to automation. Automation is the primary reason for hard times for the working class.
For instance, the UAW would be on quarter the size it had in 1970, even if the rest of the world didn’t exist. Ditto for the UMW, textile workers, etc., etc.
Globalization has played a part, but even China’s manufacturing workforce is now shrinking…
And that automation is what makes the economy richer. We can produce more with fewer inputs.
I should add that U.S. workers also benefited from trade with China. It helped lower costs which is the same effect as raising wages. (Yes trade did help depress low skill wages as well.)
Hi Nick,
This will be a very long reply, as it is also working notes for my book. Any well written replies both pro and con may well be quoted therein.
All the folks who read my rants and scribbles and reply are my fact checkers and I really appreciate your help!
We have discussed this before.
I am very well informed about automation, from both a tradesman’s and a professional managers pov. I turned out two or three times as much work as a welder, using newer techniques and machines, in the oughties as I did in the sixties.
And as a farm manager, I went from using forty horsepower machines to three hundred horsepower machines utilizing different operating principles in our orchards, and cut the time needed for the major routine operation of applying pesticides by over eighty percent from the sixties to the oughties. I started hauling apples out of the field in sixty pound crates, hand loaded, and quit hauling them out in thousand pound bins, using a tractor mounted forklift. I sold our last few crops for well under half what we got fifty years ago in terms of purchasing power per bushel sold. I got roughly twice to four times the nominal money, but the prices of the things I bought with it went up from four or five times to twenty times, lol.
Yes, automation lowers the cost of living , except for the folks who lose a major portion of their income as a result of it.
Been there, seen it, done it, got the tee shirt. A drawer full of them actually, because lots of times one of the guys on a job would run some off with a company or crew logo, the dates of the job, and what we wanted to brag about or lie about, lol. So I have one that reads ” Schrader Machine and Welding. If it ain’t the crack of dawn or a broken heart we can fix it. ”
The last really close by furniture factory where I once worked as a maintenance tech has reduced the payroll by a quarter over the last ten years while increasing production, according to the production manager, who is a beer drinking friend and neighbor.
( I suppose everybody here knows I used to be a world class rolling stone when it comes to switching jobs and professions every few months to every couple of years, on average. I did eventually put in six years in the classroom, which is my record longest period except farming. You can slip in a few months trucking, welding, carpentering, etc, during the slow seasons on the farm. You make those months up by working six or seven days twelve hours or longer in the busy seasons. )
Yes, we have lost more manufacturing jobs to automation than we did to exporting, according to some people. Maybe we have. We have also lost a few million more jobs in construction and various other trades to immigrants both legal and illegal. But the losses to automation have been more gradual, and thus less disruptive.
MY first point is that the people who used to have these jobs have paid the price in entirely disproportionate fashion. They have essentially lost their ass because there are VERY few things they can do now, or will ever be able to do, to earn a decent wage or salary again.
These are my people, and I am their partisan spokesman in this case.
Now here is another entirely relevant point that can be made in terms of non linear change, which has been a hot topic here recently.
The price of labor is highly inelastic, just like the price of oil. If there’s excess supply, the price crashes.
If the local furniture plant needs only fifteen people to take the place of retirees or to expand operations in a certain part of the plant, and the HR lady, who used to be one of my sisters, and the production manager, who is my beer drinking friend and neighbor, can get them dirt cheap if over a hundred qualified applicants show up. This has been the case for the last couple of decades or so in that industry.
And incidentally, twenty years to twenty five years ago, all the screws, knobs, fasteners, drawer guides, finishes, etc, everything except the wood, came almost entirely out of American factories. Almost all of that stuff comes from Asia now.
What we have done, essentially, collectively, is to donate the former living standard of our working class to the newly emerging working class in the developing world.
(As an aside, Ocare is a similar deal, with folks making good money being forced to subsidize those who don’t. I know a guy who makes about sixty or seventy, with a girlfriend who makes less than fifteen. She gets good coverage for peanuts, he pays thru the nose for the basic plan, even though he is young, healthy, no high risk factors, etc.
They will be getting married as soon as she graduates, lol, so it’s ok in his case, he is willing to subsidize HER. But from then on BOTH of them will be young, healthy, low risk and paying thru the nose. They are very liberal personally, but they are going to vote their wallets in a few weeks.
It doesn’t take a huge surplus of qualified workers to force wages and benefits offered by employers down dramatically.
Now I am a Darwinist, intellectually, in the literal sense of the word, and I do realize and understand that such changes ARE inevitable, except if politically blocked, and that they can only be delayed or prevented only so long even then.
But we could have kept those jobs and industries home, via politics, rather than exporting them, the export thereof being ENABLED by politics.
Furthermore, there is a BIGGER picture than just the immediate boost to the larger economy, national and world, just as there is a huge difference it the real cost of burning coal and the nominal or purchase cost of burning it.
My second point is that we are paying that cost in substantial part because we moved millions of people from the purchasing power defined middle class to the underclass, where they are either partially or wholly supported on tax money, and it’s not just food stamps, or other direct welfare payments I am talking about. We have armies of social workers, jailers, cops, lawyers, and medical people , in substantial part, that were formerly unnecessary, as part of this downhill slide into poverty or near poverty of so many people.
Move people by the millions from the self supporting tax paying middle class, and put them into the tax consuming lower class, and add in a couple or three or four million more lawyers, cops, jailers, etc, who actually contribute NOTHING to our collective living standard, compared to what they would if employed as ahem, teachers, carpenters, engineers, etc,…………
Now lets look at an even BIGGER picture, namely our place and status in relation to the rest of the world. NOTE, I am a Darwinist, and since I DO believe that there are WINNERS AND LOSERS I personally consider it to be MUCH better to be on the winning side if possible, lol.
If there were no globalization on the grand scale, there would still be an enormous amount of international trade, especially in resources or goods that are obtainable in limited quantities from a limited number of sources.
But suppose we hadn’t enabled the fast rise of China, by allowing China to send junk here by the tens of millions of containers full, in a never ending stream. We wouldn’t be looking at a rising power quite capable, assuming no Chinese collapse, of taking our place as the predominant economic and military power of the world. Your opinion as to the value of this economic and military dominance may be different, of course.
We wouldn’t be looking at coal being burnt in China in mega quantities, at least not so soon. It might have taken them another twenty or thirty years to get where they are NOW, industrially, and the wind is blowing their CO2 here, so it makes virtually NO difference as to WHERE the coal is burnt, etc.
It is true that all the various sciences and technologies would be a little behind their current state of development, maybe a decade or more in some cases, without globalization, but science and technology continue to advance and we would still have just about everything we have today, without globalization in the usual sense of the word.
And we would have a LOT more time, maybe as much as a decade or two, to deal with the economic and ecological storm headed our way as the result of pollution and resource depletion.
Another decade or two of basic research and development would put us in an infinitely better position in relation to renewable energy, conservation, efficiency, and PUBLIC AWARENESS of the gravity of our problems.
I could go on but I am getting sleepy. Old men wake up a lot in the middle of the night, lol, but I will still get in a couple more hours sleep before good daylight.
I may not be able to PROVE my case, but I do have one, and I am more interested for now in honest discussion of it than otherwise. The time to catch errors is NOW , when only a few people will be laughing at me, lol.
I recognize that there ARE real benefits to globalization, with perhaps the greatest one of all being that globalization creates economic and maybe cultural ties that really and truly reduce the odds of major countries going to war with each other.
I will give these benefits due consideration in my book.
Much like the universe is expanding, the US economy expanded. Although the actual manufacturing capability did not fall, the number of manufacturing jobs did. Service and tech jobs filled in, often at lower pay than previously.
The fact is the US economy stretched, enough rich people to afford services, too many workers for the jobs available so pay fell, meanwhile inflation runs on.
A loaf of bread in 1950 cost 12 cents. A loaf of bread is now $4.
Price of a car has gone up 23 times, price of a home by 33 times since 1950.
Wages have risen by only 15 times.
Hi Gonefishing,
If we look at real median family income in 2015 dollars, in 1953 it was $33,000 and in 2015 it was $70,700. The average worker probably doesn’t make twice the income, most families now have two earners and in 1953 more families only had a single income.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA672N
Median personal income only increased from $23,000 in 1974 to $30,200 in 2015 (both in 2015$). We don’t have this data back to 1953.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
Interestingly real household income is only $56,500 in 2015 (in 2015$). So a household is defined differently from a family. A household includes unrelated individuals living at the same address and is wider in scope than a family.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
Wages in 1950 were $3210, probably represented a household since there was generally only one wage earner per family. The inflation from 1950 to now is at least 30:1.
Plus, the business world has thought of a larger number of ways to have people spend their money and add costs to buying things. So not only are people making less they are supporting more debts and fees.
At the same time a person (or their family and society) must spend a lot more time and money becoming educated just to qualify for many jobs.
The ratio from 1950 to 2016 is 10:1, according to the BLS.
E tu, Nick?
I am going from real values not government calculated numbers.
You really believe that houses cost $80,000. You think the average new car costs $15,000?
Keep believing. Mulder did.
You think the average new car costs $15,000?
A $15k modern car is infinitely better than a $1,500 car from 195o. Faster, more powerful, safer, much cheaper to drive, more reliable, etc, etc.
Similarly, homes have gotten much larger than they were in 1950, with a lot more extras.
Yes, houses two and a half times as big for 45 times the price. A lot of those houses were not built very well either.
Cars half the size or less for 23 times the price.
Food is so much better at 30 times the price.
All that automation and global trading, yet somehow prices didn’t fall, they rose and wages did not rise with them.
Hi Gonefishing,
Median wages are low due to income inequality. Progressive taxation and subsidized higher education would help to some degree. There has definitely been wage stagnation.
The median sales price for a home in the US increased from 20,000 to 300,000 from 1965 to 2016 (about a factor of 15). From 1973 to 2015 median home size increased by about 50%.
The consumer price index went up by about a factor of 8 from 1965 to 2016, so home prices went up faster. From 1973 to 2015 CPI went up by a factor of 5.4. From 1973 to 2015 median home prices went from 34,000 to 300,000. Adjusting for median home size, the 1973 home (if it were 50% larger as homes are today) would be $51,000, so the median home price has increased by a factor of 5.9, pretty close to the average rate of inflation. The problem is that median wages have been stagnant, with inflation adjusted median personal income only increasing by 30% from 1974 to 2015.
Yes, we have lost more manufacturing jobs to automation than we did to exporting, according to some people. Maybe we have.
Sounds like you’re not convinced.
Okay, think about farming. 100 years ago probably half the population lived on the farm. Now only 2% lives on the farm. What happened to all those people? They were forced off the farm, many of them very, very painfully in the Great Depression. Rising automation, mostly in the form of tractors, reduced the price of farm production. Roosevelt tried destroying crops, and putting a floor on farm prices, but nothing worked. Large farms laid off workers. Small farms went bankrupt. All those surplus people joined the “Okies” going to California, or to the big cities. Farm bankruptcies made rural banks go under, then bigger banks, leading to the credit and liquidity crunch of the Depression.
The US is still a food exporter, yet only 2% of the farmers remain on the farm.
The same thing is happening to manufacturing. The US is still a big manufacturer. Even if we had a net manufacturing surplus, it wouldn’t make much difference – most of those jobs would still be gone now, and the rest would be close behind.
Sad, but true.
Does that make sense?
It’s obvious to anyone involved in production, manufacturing or even services. Machines and computers run the show. Most manufacturers won’t build anything that can’t be machine made. It’s how they stay competitive, how they get the speed of production up and keep the problems and money down.
Even in China:
“The Changying Precision Technology Company factory in Dongguan has automated production lines that use robotic arms to produce parts for cell phones. The factory also has automated machining equipment, autonomous transport trucks, and other automated equipment in the warehouse.
There are still people working at the factory, though. Three workers check and monitor each production line and there are other employees who monitor a computer control system. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory. With the new robots, there’s now only 60. Luo Weiqiang, general manager of the company, told the People’s Daily that the number of employees could drop to 20 in the future. ”
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/chinese-factory-replaces-90-of-humans-with-robots-production-soars/
So one day when the machines are making the parts and building the products, when the robots and computers are monitoring the machines, when the autonomous vehicles are delivering the materials and goods, when the machines mine the materials, grow the food, and do everything else. That day the last human will be asked to leave —- by a computer.
What then?
Well,
ROBOT BROTHELS COMING TO UK IN BOOMING SEX TRADE REVOLUTION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4cvbqrFGE
There was a great comic discussion of these robots in PlayBoy iirc some years ago.
Once perfected, these robots will cook, clean, screw like rabbits, and park themselves in a closet, once you are satiated, until you hit the remote to turn them on again. Guys won’t have to listen anymore, and women won’t have to put up with male stupidity, lol.
The problem is that I will be dead before they are affordable. ;-(
There’s more to the economy than manufacturing and farming.
Farmers 300 years ago would have had a very hard time imagining what everyone would do in an economy where only 2% of the population lived on farms.
Manufacturing is already only about 10% of employment, IIRC.
What then?
Eventually there will be only one employee and a big dog on site. The employee’s job will be to keep an eye out for any unanticipated problems , and the dog’s job will be to make sure the man doesn’t actually touch anything.
So we will all work for the government. Sort of do that now.
Hi Nick,
Sometimes , I fail to mention the relevant time frame in posting remarks, assuming for instance in this case that everybody would understand I am or was talking about losing jobs to automation in ADDITION to outsourcing, since globalization and outsourcing is what I have been ranting about.
This is after all more of a CONVERSATION than a formal study, lol, and I MEANT my remark about how many jobs we have lost to automation to apply primarily to recent times, the last twenty years or so, since that is the time period wherein most of the OUTSOURCING of jobs has taken place.
You are correct of course in historical terms. Automation and specialization are the two key factors that have enabled us to progress from the hunter gatherer stage to agricultural societies to industrial societies.
When the book is finished, I will go thru it looking for such oversights and outright errors , and have somebody else check for such misleading statements as well.
China is not even remotely survivable.
If the US dollar were to lose it’s status as a reserve currency, something would have to replace it. What would that be??
Reserve currency status is a function of math. Nothing else.
There are more US dollars floating around out there, so there are more reserves in countries that have to convert them.
It is a matter of concvienance and the stability of the US dollar that things like oil are expressed in USA currency units.
If some other country had the largest capital markets and exported their currency more than the USA, Then their currency would be the biggest reserve due to math.
It sounds like you don’t think it’s reasonable to think that the rest of the world will flee from the dollar to other currencies.
China is hoping to raise the profile of the yuan, but if China “collapses”, then that would seem to rule out the yuan as a replacement of the dollar. The Euro isn’t looking so strong.
So…where does this author think that money will go to, if it leaves the dollar?
And from the conclusion of the book: The China Crisis
This link doesn’t work for me.
Nick, you haven’t written anything on your blog since last year have you?
If not, what’s up?
Last apparent entry:
“Do we need crude oil to make plastic?”
Do we need plastic though? Or, is it a good idea for people to make it in large qualities, given its pollution?
Nick, here’s maybe the actual book:
‘The China Crisis: How China’s Economic Collapse Will Lead to a Global Depression‘
Before opening the file, it is naturally recommended to do an anti-virus scan.
This is gibberish, unfortunately. It betrays a total lack of understanding of macroeconomics.
A Chinese collapse is a very, very different thing from the disapparance of the petrodollar or a default on bonds.
The disappearance of the petrodollar would actually be *good* for the US and would *boost* the US economy.
The default on Chinese bonds would cause a boom in China.
I know this is totally counterintuitive, but it’s correct.
The result is that this whole piece is gibberish. The risks to China are essentially political: can they retain a system where a small unelected aristocracy runs everything, over such a huge, sprawling, and quintessentially *modern* country? Can they reduce corruption — and a lot of people care a hell of a lot about corruption — without introducing democracy? Can they actually keep such a large country together in one piece, a country where there are actually six or seven major languages (even though they share the same writing system, they’re not mutually comprehensible)?
Renewable energy is growing up, new investment more than nullified increased demand for world electricity in 2015.
“World energy investment amounted to $1.8 trillon in 2015, the IEA says, equivalent to 2.4 percent of the global GDP. Around half went towards fossil fuel extraction and distribution, mainly for oil and gas.
Renewables accounted for 17 percent of the total, around $300 billon. The vast majority of which was in the electricity sector, where nearly 70 percent of investment in power stations went towards renewables.”
http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy-demand-2004797392.html
My new employer imports a lot of PV panels from China. Business is booming, prices are falling in spite of our right wing fossil-funded government slashing subsidies and Brexit vote triggered fall in the value of Sterling and general economic woe. We are benefiting for now from the Chinese import prices falling due to over-production, but this cannot last. Supply is going to dry up when the Chinese producers go broke. Chinese investment into our infrastructure (buying up real-estate, nuclear power stations etc.) is going to disappear. This will reduce demand for the panels we sell. Rising oil prices are going to sharply increase shipping costs. Our economy is so out of balance, that rising demand from the 1% who are doing well and use PV panels as an alternative to roof tiles on their McMansions, cannot offset the collapse that must come when the 99% hit their credit limit even with ZIRP (UK rate currently 0.25%. I bought my first house paying 15.9% interest). House prices now in London require the average young person to save for 20 years just to afford the deposit for a mortgage. Then face 40 years paying back the mortgage. (Do the maths).
Sorry for the rant. It is good whilst it lasts.
There are lots of places to build PV panels in the world and more wanting in. If China production slows down and prices go up a bit, production will run elsewhere. Asia-Pacific region would love the business.
And in other news, Hurricane Mathew looks ever more likely to be hitting south Florida where I am but it also looks like it might sweep almost the entire East Coast of the US all the way up to NYC and more… I might still just fizzle out or it could create havoc all up and down the East Coast. Could be almost as interesting as the complete collapse of the Chinese and world economies. As the Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times”.
Cheers!
Darn, some Japanese guy just invented a windmill to take advantage of hurricane energy. Now he just needs a way to store the power (hydrogen?). Of course Florida isn’t pro renewable energy is it?
http://gizmodo.com/new-wind-turbines-could-power-japan-for-50-years-after-1787191781
The Caribbean could use something like that.
Now he just needs a way to store the power (hydrogen?).
How about something like Ambri’s technology — the liquid metal battery — developed at MIT in the lab of Professor Donald Sadoway.
http://www.ambri.com/
Of course Florida isn’t pro renewable energy is it?
Nope! it sure ain’t.
What is the major source of energy for electric power in Florida?
Well, according to FPL’s own site, though I would take that with more than a few grains of salt…
https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/plant-projects.html
One of the cleanest utilities in the nation
FPL uses a diverse mix of fuels at our power plants to generate reliable electricity. Because of our fuel mix, FPL is recognized as a clean energy company, with one of the lowest emissions profiles among U.S. utilities. FPL’s carbon dioxide emissions rate, for example, is 35 percent better than the industry average. FPL currently obtains most of our electricity from clean-burning natural gas. Nuclear power, which produces no greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for another significant portion of power production. In addition, FPL has begun operation of three commercial-scale, emissions-free solar energy facilities in the Sunshine State.
Florida imports 99% + of energy consumed
Colombian coal here in the Panhandle.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/641
http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=FL
Read EIA state Florida site again Longtimber.
2.7 million short Tons coal imported from Colombia to Mobile Blender in 2014. Depending on Air quality, it can be blended with domestic coals to achieve clean air regs. Much of this is re-barged in shallow water barges for “coastal” consumption . May be less of this coming here now that a Scrubber is operational. 2015 Data not there yet. Reactor fuel is imported, but I guess it could be considered local. 99% is clearly high, When we say imported, I mean imported to FL, The $$ leaves the State. Surveys from the 80’s hint at Large NG deposits on the Shelf, not going to be touched anytime soon. Fla is increasing reliant on NG.
Ok, I am just not understanding your use of imported. Imported means from another country. If for some reason they are using a portion of imported coal, then that is a portion of roughly 10 percent of their energy.
I don’t know where the reactor fuel comes from, maybe some from Canada.
Very few states are energy independent. I am not sure why you worry about dollars leaving a state. Commerce between states is commonplace and even the dollars from a producing state do not stay there. Those tourist dollars sure come from outside the state. Those dollars buying all those oranges come from outside the state.
It’s a State/Local Chamber of Commence viewpoint. What $$ stays inside the state for Investment. Think I read where Russia just canceled the MUX fuel program, I thought that was burned up by now.
National Hurricane Center just pulled a fast right turn for Hurricane Matthew. Guess all that hot air coming off Washington was enough to turn the storm (at least on paper).
Looks like instead of a fast sweep up the East Coast, it will slow down and beat on the Carolinas before turning out to sea , at least it’s not headed inland.
That Japanese turbine likely suffers from the usual problems of vertical axis machines. First, it’s operating close to the ground, not high up above the surface boundary layer, thus it will not capture the greater energy available in the faster flows. Then too, the cross section of the air flowing thru/around it is rather small, compared with a bladed design, so the amount of energy available from the air stream is not very large. If they are built much wider and taller, the mass becomes a big problem. Finally, that quoted efficiency of 30% doesn’t say much without defining what it means. Is that a conversion relative to the Betz Limit, or an overall efficiency, excluding the effects which define in the Betz limit? And, what is the geometry used to define the cross sectional area?
In sum, the design appears to be another drag turbine, perhaps an improvement on Savonius or Darius designs, but with similar problems. Designing a system for the highest winds may result in a device which has degraded the overall efficiency. Ultimately, the cost per unit of delivered energy is the key question for such a concept.
Ultimately, having energy production when you can’t import energy anymore is the key concept here.
Since you seem to be analyzing the machine, do you have the specs on it?
Looks like the Major Hurricane Matthew is now headed even tighter to the coast. Batten the hatches Fred!
Yup, I am, trust me!
NHC Advisory 27 Out. Look like Evacuation Time for many East coastals.
Hundreds of Gitmo Personnel arrived here last night.
Like a fun little horizontal circular saw razing the coast all the way up. Zzz-zzt… chtchcshsh… [What was that!? Ahahahaaa!…]… zzzzzz-zzz…
Hypothetical Shirley Temple: “Hey there, little carpenter! Whatcha doin’?!” ^u^
(It looks like the circular saw gets wider as it tracks north.)
But I’m in Halifax Nova Scotia, so I’ll wait until Sunday or Monday and take the ferry across to Dartmouth– and back again!– if there are good waves and it’s still running.
Taking the ferry across in lots of big waves is fun! Kind of like a slow rollercoaster. Last time I did it, I got soaked. Maybe this time it will capsize! ^u^
I imagine the surfers will be licking their chops too.
On The Good Ship Lollipop
Here I thought a hurricane was a beverage like a Harvey Wallbanger. I was right!
Southern Hurricane
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 oz Southern Comfort
1 1/2 oz Sweet and Sour mix
1 1/2 oz orange juice
1 1/2 oz pineapple juice
Splash of grenadine
INSTRUCTIONS
Fill a hurricane glass with ice
Add all ingredients into glass and stir
Garnish with an orange wedge and cherry
http://www.southerncomfort.com/en-us/recipe/southern-hurricane/
If you want to wreak havoc, drink some Southern Comfort, guaranteed to work!
Now you know!
har
Hi Gone fishing,
Continuing our conversation from
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-sept-262016/#comment-582481
You said in one of your responses at link below,
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-sept-262016/#comment-582598
Actually Dennis, understanding of the role the ocean plays in absorbing CO2 changed dramatically in 2011.
Do you have a link to a peer reviewed paper that substantiates this?
One of the more famous authors on the carbon cycle (besides David Archer) is Joos (one of the creators of the Bern Carbon model).
In 2013 Joos et al published the paper at the link below:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/2793/2013/acp-13-2793-2013.html
There are many different models of the Carbon cycle evaluated in the Joos et al 2013 paper.
From section 4.1 of the Joos paper (p.2801):
The evolution of the IRFCO2 (Fig. 1a) shows a rapid decrease in the first few years after the emission pulse and then a continued but slow decline. It reaches a fraction of 0.60±0.14 (±two sdv) at year 20 and 0.41±0.13 at year hundred. In other words, while 40% of the initial atmospheric CO2 perturbation is on model-average removed from the atmosphere within 20yr, it takes additional 80yr to mitigate the next 19% of the perturbation. At year 1000, more than 25% (±9%) of the perturbation is still airborne. This evolution is consistent with earlier model results (Maier-Reimer and Hasselmann, 1987; Cao et al., 2009; Siegenthaler and Joos, 1992; Sarmiento et al., 1992; Enting et al., 1994; Archer et al., 2009; Eby et al., 2009).
Reality strikes again. Real data shows ocean uptake of CO2 is slowing rapidly.
“We are cautious about attributing this exclusively to human-caused climate change because this uptake has never been measured before, so we have no baseline to compare our results to. Perhaps the ocean uptake is subject to natural ups and downs and it will recover again.”
But the direction of the change was worrying, she added, and there were some grounds for believing that a ‘saturation’ of the ocean sink would start to occur.
“The speed and size of the change show that we cannot take for granted the ocean sink for the carbon dioxide. Perhaps this is partly a natural oscillation or perhaps it is a response to the recent rapid climate warming. In either case we now know that the sink can change quickly and we need to continue to monitor the ocean uptake,” said Prof Watson.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071022120224.htm
Hi Gone Fishing,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160202185459.htm
A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led study shows that the North Atlantic absorbed 50 percent more human-made carbon dioxide over the last decade, compared to the previous decade.
Reference:
Ryan J. Woosley, Frank J. Millero, Rik Wanninkhof. Rapid Anthropogenic Changes in CO2and pH in the Atlantic Ocean: 2003-2014. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/2015GB005248
It seems the slower uptake was temporary.
When we consider carbon emissions from 1850 to 2015 and use a Bern type model to model atmospheric CO2, it matches the data pretty well, especially from 1960 to 2015 where we have better data from Mauna Loa (earlier data is from the Law Dome ice core). At least through 2015 the model works pretty well at predicting how much of the carbon emissions get sequestered by land and ocean.
Dennis, you are confusing manmade CO2 with total CO2.
The article I presented not only had a large number of ship cruises (not just four a decade) but more importantly talked of the total carbon uptake of the ocean region, not just the portion that was anthropgenic (which is what the article you presented).
Here is the new data set
“The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) comprises 6.3 million global observations made from research vessels, commercial ships and moorings around the world since 1968. The dataset documents the changes in ocean carbon similar to the Mauna Loa record – or ‘Keeling curve’ – showing the rise in atmospheric CO2 over time. ”
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/member-states/single-view/news/new_dataset_provides_40_year_record_of_carbon_dioxide_accumulation_in_the_surface_ocean/#.V_RIPrdSP0w
Have fun with SOCAT. Constantly being updated too.
Meanwhile,
SCIENTISTS CONFIRM OCEANS ACIDIFYING AT UNPRECEDENTED SPEED
“The acidification of the world’s oceans, caused by the absorption of huge volumes of carbon dioxide, is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, threatening marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of tens of millions of people, concluded scientists attending the Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World held in Monaco from 6-9 October.”
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/member-states/single-view/news/scientists_confirm_oceans_acidifying_at_unprecedented_speed/#.V_RRFogrIok
Hi Doug,
Well the ocean is not absorbing as much carbon dioxide (at least according to Gonefishing), so ocean acidification should be less of a problem 🙂
This may happen at some point, but for now the models predict carbon uptake by land and oceans fairly well.
I agree ocean acidification is a big problem, fewer carbon emissions will help alleviate the problem, even though it is no doubt more complex, it seems it is one potential solution to the problem.
My understanding is ocean acidification is already a big (and growing) problem but will defer to the likes of FredM for an informed opinion.
Hi Doug,
I agree. The question is what do we do about it.
Reducing excess carbon emissions would reduce the rate that the ocean acidifies. Though Fred can correct me as he would know more.
Problem with pH decrease is that the carbonate ion becomes much more scarce. Dropping in half from 280 to 560 ppm atmospheric CO2. That is the building block for shells, so it can reduce the viability and growth of planktonic and coral species.
Hi Gonefishing,
There is a lot of carbon in the ocean relative to the atmosphere. Are you sure the relationship is linear between the level of atmospheric CO2 and the concentration of carbonate ions in the ocean? I would think the relationship would be more complex and likely to be non-linear.
An interesting article on the ocean at link below
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCarbon/
see especially the section linked below
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCarbon/page3.php
Dennis says : Are you sure the relationship is linear between the level of atmospheric CO2 and the concentration of carbonate ions in the ocean? ? I would think the relationship would be more complex and likely to be non-linear.
OK, it’s only 47 percent for a doubling. 3X initial CO2 gives 43 percent. So it is non-linear.
Just coincidence Dennis, not linearity.
Not that those numbers are that certain, just what NOAA PMEL came up with.
Look at the site you listed, then carbon uptake, and click on the carbon chemistry graphic to get the list of inorganic carbon compounds and their concentrations as atmospheric carbon builds up.
Yeah, the ocean acidification leading to loss of the carbonate ions is the thing which destroys the ocean food chain and causes the mass extinction. It is *the single biggest risk to the survival of the human species*.
Hi Gonefishing,
The ocean doesn’t care if the CO2 is anthropogenic or not, carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide. The two studies are looking at how much carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean.
Do you seriously think that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is selectively absorbed by the ocean in a different way from “natural” carbon dioxide?
Can you explain how the ocean does this? Does it do radiocarbon dating? 🙂
No Dennis, . they are two different studies, one total with massive amounts of sampling, one using C14 ratios to calculate the fossil content with small amount of sampling.
I think you are making a leap of logic.
Since the amount of fossil CO2 is rising in the atmosphere, how can you think they are the same? You would have to know the total absorption rate of CO2, the return rate and the sequestration rate as well as the proportions of each to start.
Al that study did was measure the C14 to C12 ratios of samples. Not the total concentration of CO2 in the ocean.
Read it again. ” A new study shows that the North Atlantic absorbed 50 percent more human-made carbon dioxide over the last decade, compared to the previous decade”
That expresses the differential in relative fossil CO2 concentration not total concentration change.
Fish, you beat me to it but: No Dennis, the ocean (surface ocean water) doesn’t care if the CO2 is anthropogenic or not but this can be, and is, determined by measuring 13C/12C ratios.
OCEANIC 13C/12C OBSERVATIONS: A NEW WINDOW ON OCEAN CO2 UPTAKE (AGU Journal article, with paywall)
Using C13 sounds very error prone. Sure there is a much higher abundance (1 percent) but C13 is stable so the fractional uptake changes due to mass difference would be the driving force. Not a large force and subject to variation dependent on plant type. The comparison would have to be made to inorganic carbon content in the ocean.
http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/jhayes/2005/9/IsoCalcs30Sept04_5183.pdf
Hi Gonefishing,
You are correct about the difference between the studies.
It would seem that the oceans are becoming more acidic, which seems to indicate that more CO2 has been sequestered over time.
Changes in the AMOC with variation in the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) is one hypothesis for why the CO2 level had changed over the period in the first study you mentioned.
The land and ocean sinks have continued to sequester carbon emissions as we know what the emissions are and we know the atmospheric CO2.
So the data shows that through 2015, the Bern carbon model represents reality pretty well.
Perhaps more carbon is being taken up by land in some years than others depending on weather, fires, etc and the ocean takes up different amounts as well depending upon several different ocean cycles and the SST as well as mixing from deep ocean to surface.
It is actually amazing that such a simple model (the Bern Model) matches the data so well from 1850 to 2015. The input to the model is simply carbon dioxide emissions from 1850 to 2015.
Are you trying to say that the rate of CO2 uptake is the same as ocean temperature rises?
Hi Gone fishing,
The Bern Model was covered by Euan Mearns.
I do not agree with his take, but he has a nice summary of the basic model.
http://euanmearns.com/the-carbon-cycle-a-geologists-view/
I prefer the geophysics and geochemistry view.
Euan Mearns ideas or models make no sense to me. 120 years to reduce carbon emissions? He is essentially saying that the carbon emissions are being reduced at the rate of emission. Ergo, we would never have seen a rise in CO2 to begin with.
Hi Gonefishing,
I agree Euan’s models don’t make sense to me either.
He needs to explain how atmospheric CO2 remained at 277 ppm for 3500 years from 350 BP to 3850 BP.
I suppose one could hypothesize that land use change and/or volcanoes created just the right amount of CO2 to keep atmospheric CO2 relatively stable.
The physical explanation of Archer seems more plausible, and the peer reviewed literature agrees, as far as I have read.
Hi Gonefishing,
NOAA has information as well on ocean uptake of CO2.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Surface+CO2+Flux+maps
From that website:
The Park et al. manuscript presents the interannual variability of net sea-air CO2 flux for the period 1982–2007 from a diagnostic model using empirical subannual relationships between climatological CO2 partial pressure in surface seawater (pCO2SW) and sea surface temperature (SST), along with interannual changes in SST and wind speed. These optimum subannual relationships show significantly better correlation between pCO2SW and SST than the previous relationships using fixed monthly boundaries. Our diagnostic model yields an interannual variability of ±0.14 Pg C/ yr (1σ) with a 26-year mean of -1.48 Pg C/ yr.
Nice site, thanks. As you can see nothing is homogeneous on this planet. I had heard -2 Pg C/yr, so their value is lower.
Hi Gonefishing,
Correct, there are different estimates from different researchers and the estimates change as knowledge improves. There have been several iterations of the Bern Carbon Model, and the models are far from perfect.
There is of course variation over time which tends to make analysis more difficult.
I have never argued that there is not uncertainty, there is a great deal of uncertainty. I am confident that the high emissions scenarios such as RCP6 and especially RCP8.5 are highly unlikely as they depend on very optimistic assessments of available fossil fuel resources (RCP8.5 has carbon emissions more than 4 times larger than my medium fossil fuel scenario and more than 3 times larger than my high scenario). RCP4.5 has carbon emissions from 1800-2200 similar to my high fossil fuel scenario.
I am not at liberty to mention his name in this context, but I correspond frequently with a man well known as a heavyweight by really well informed environmental observers, although he is not well known to the public.
This guy is the best informed and most intelligent person, taken all around, that I have ever had the privilege of getting to know, and coming from me, even if I say so myself, that is saying a hell of a lot.
He says privately that he is more worried about the long term consequences of ocean acidification by a country mile than he is about all the other consequences of forced climate change combined, because there is a real possibility rising acidity may disrupt the world ocean ecology enough to flip both the water and the land ecologies into states that will wipe out most larger life forms.
He is not actually predicting this will happen, but rather pointing out that it almost for sure COULD happen, depending on how much coal we continue to burn, etc.
People in his situation have to be careful about what they say in public about certain topics due to funding problems. Some organizations will sponsor certain research topics readily enough, but if you start talking publicly about OTHER topics, that support can dry up.
Hi Old Farmar Mac,
Your friend may believe that there is much more coal that is economically recoverable than is likely to be the case. My high fossil fuel scenarios result in total carbon emissions of roughly 1500 Pg of carbon, if there is no attempt to reduce emissions.
The likely increase in the price of fossil fuels as resources deplete and the likely decrease in the price of wind and solar as those industries ramp up to fill the void left by declining fossil fuels (an economy of scale argument) will likely lead to between 900 and 1200 Pg of carbon emissions, my best guess is about 1050 Pg of total emissions from fossil fuels, cement production, and land use change from 1800 to 2200.
Perhaps this might still result in catastrophic change in ocean ecology due to ocean acidification. Your friend may be envisioning 5000 Pg of carbon emissions (the RCP8.5 scenario aka BAU).
That scenario is highly unlikely.
if there is no attempt to reduce emissions.
Let me suggest different phrasing:
“Just based on current policies, with no further government policy improvements intended to reduce emissions.”.
Why add the words “current”, and “further government policy”? Because the current wind and solar industries exist only because of previous policy interventions, and because at least in theory they could be undone or greatly slowed down by people like Trump. I agree that EVs, wind and solar have a lot of momentum, but preventing the 8.5 scenario depends on their continued growth.
People like the Koch brothers know this very, very well. That’s why they’re so desperately supporting people like Trump (though, of course, they’re being more successful at the local level lately).
Hi Nick,
Even without government policy to push things, the reality is the fossil fuels will deplete and they will become more expensive as this occurs.
One would have to argue that technological progress will only occur in the fossil fuel industry and not in any other energy industry. If that seems like a plausible argument, then we would need to further assume that just in time technology in only the fossil fuel industry keeps costs low and fossil fuel production expanding until 2098 when a plateau is reached that is maintained until 2150 and then output starts to decline. The level of output at the 2100 to 2150 plateau results in about 3 times the carbon emissions per year as in 2015. This scenario is often referred to as business as usual, fossil fuel depletion will mean this scenario is very far from likely.
The RCP 6 scenario has somewhat realistic overall carbon emissions at 2240 Pg from 1800 to 2200 from all sources. Fossil fuel emissions peak in 2080 and decline to 2015 levels by 2115, also not very realistic.
The RCP4.5 scenario is somewhat realistic with only 1460 Pg of total carbon emissions from 1800 to 2200, this is close to my “high” fossil fuel scenario so still a bit optimistic. Fossil fuel emissions peak in 2040 and decline to 2015 levels in 2060.
Bottom line, only RCP2.6 and 4.5 are realistic, with RCP2.6 a little too low and RCP4.5 a little too high, reality may fall between these two scenarios.
Your friend is correct. I have studied this myself and ocean acidification, leading to the inability of plankton to form shells, leading to the collapse of all the ocean food chains, is the single most dangerous risk we are facing, more dangerous than ANYTHING else by a HUGE margin.
The Great Dying (P-Tr extinction) was largely caused by this effect.
This is THE single most dangerous possibility. All of humanity must be mobilized to stop it. Period.
We have a lot more time on everything else. That one, once the plankton stop forming their shells, the food chain collapses within weeks, mass starvation within the year, and then it gets worse.
‘Biggest bubble in HISTORY’ Chinese billionaire warns of CATASTROPHIC market collapse
CHINA’S housing market has been inflated to the point of being the “biggest bubble in history”, a billionaire real estate investor has warned.
The world’s second largest economy has seen a decade-long property boom.
But this could soon pop with devastating consequences, according to China’s richest man Wang Jianlin.
He believes China’s problem is the stark difference between booming cities like Shanghai, where house prices are still rising, compared to huge oversupply in thousands of smaller Chinese cities, where many properties are empty.
Mr Jianlin has amassed a fortune worth £22billion through property and as head of the Dalian Wanda Group.
Speaking about China’s two-sided market, he said: “I know of no good solution to this problem.”
He added that none of the governments measures to address the problem have worked.
The investor also stressed the high amount of property loans in China.
The banks have lent a staggering £2.7trillion to the sector at the end of June.
Yet, the economy has been cooling, which makes counter-controlling more difficult, said Mr Jianlin.
The debt can’t be cut until the economy is back on the up, he added.
The investor has now drastically reduced his exposure to the real estate markets.
Also check out:
Chinese Banks On Verge Of Collapse, Debt Unsustainable
Corporate debt in the world’s second largest economy is growing, increasing the likelihood of a banking crisis in the next few years, according to a new financial report.
China’s credit-to-GDP gap stands at 30.1 in the first quarter of 2016, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) revealed in a report on Sunday. BIS, an international banking watchdog, suggests that figures over 10 are clear causes for concern, and that the credit-to-GDP gap measure is a key indicator of banking stress and financial health.
Rapid increases in the credit-to-GDP gap indicate excessive credit growth, putting China in danger of a severe banking crisis, explained Bloomberg News.
Given China’s current credit-to-GDP situation, BIS says a Chinese banking crisis could happen sometime in the next three years.
Hi Ron,
That data on debt to gdp gap from BIS can be found at link below
https://www.bis.org/statistics/c_gaps.htm
There have been many countries with debt to GDP gaps above 29 such as Ireland, Hong Kong, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal. Many did poorly after the GFC, “total collapse” did not happen in any of these nations, just a recession. Concern over government debt led to a focus on balanced government budgets which has prolonged the recession in Europe.
Randomness and chaos are what makes everything work. Uncertainty is our limited perception of the two aforementioned conditions and the principles that shift them.
Uncertainty in Science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEkle7zh8Ys
Oil workers in Venezuela are selling their uniforms for money to get food.
http://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-oil-workers-idUSL2N1CA0ZA
Hopefully Fernando will check in soon, since he is the only person in this forum who has any direct contact with people inside the country, or at least the only one that comments to that effect.
Hello Oldfarmermac. As agreed, I post my comment here in the non-petroleum part. It was a reaction to what you wrote in the Eagle Ford thread:
“It seems inevitable that production in Venezuela must decline soon, and stay down, until that unfortunate country’s political problems are solved, and that is going to take a long time, even after they bottom out.
Getting rid of Maduro is taking longer than I expected, probably because he has the loyalty of all the people who ARE getting food and medicine, etc, by way of preferential handout and employment of supporters.”
My response was:
“The situation in Venezuela is constructed by low oil prices, certain government failures and the intention of the upper class to capitalize the actual crisis (with support of the US). While we can argue if Maduro does or does not implement the right politics, one must know that in Latin America doesn’t exist common ground between the political oppositions. This is not the US nor is it Europe. Rather than dividing Venezuela’s politicians in good and bad ones, you have to see the whole picture. And it’s very dire. A takeover of the right would probably lead to civil war – a situation which the land already had to face in the nineties (and brought Hugo Chavez into power). May nobody believe that the conservative class in Venezuela has any scruple to use violence or to be in any sense more humanitarian than the Chavist government. In economical terms they are probably more efficient – but at what price? Again: There are no good or bad ones, nor does any will exist to put the country on a functional base everybody could live with. And the US will do nothing but helping to push the country towards the failed state status – just like they did with Libya, although in a more covert style.”
https://robertscribbler.com/2016/10/05/dangerous-hurricane-matthew-strengthening-in-record-hot-environment-may-hit-florida-twice/
Matthew may actually circle and hit the coast twice.
I wonder if there is historical precedent for this happening.
A hurricane expert I am NOT, but I can’t remember hearing about two hurricanes hitting within less than a week on the east coast.
But prior to the air age, radio communications between ships and ships and shore, etc, a hurricane that circled around and hit twice might have been interpreted as two separate storms.
Anybody else find this chart for Arctic temperatures particularly worrying? I think there have been some studies indicating that temperatures there in the past have flipped 5 to 10 degrees C in a few years. Would not such an event likely look like what we have now. Even if it’s only “weather” for this year the number of freezing degree days is being cut by about 75% compared to the recent average shown (note freezing is to about -1.6 to -1.8 in the Arctic; not the blue line at 0 shown). Ice grows at about the square root of FDD so there might be a lot of thin stuff around when the thaw starts again.
The Arctic surface temperature is about 2.5C warmer than it was in 1900 (north of 60N). Albedo changes, lower rates of heat loss due to lower temperatures than equatorial regions, decrease of summer clouds and increase of winter clouds, as well as increased warming from larger expanses of open ocean late into the autumn season all are factors that increase the rate of warming in that region.
The Arctic has been ice free before.
The Arctic has been ice free before.
You make it sound like that is something that happens ever few hundred years or so. The last time the Arctic was ice free was 2.6 million years ago. Geological changes in the earths surface caused the area to become thermally isolated. An ice cap formed and the Arctic has never been ice free since.
It will become ice free again but this time it will be due to human activity.
The Last Time the Arctic Was Ice-Free in the Summer, Modern Humans Didn’t Exist
2.6 million years ago, geologic uplift forced the closure of Arctic Ocean gateways, like the Bering Strait, and thermally isolated the region. That restricted the Arctic’s circulation, causing a build-up of fresh water and conditions favorable for major ice sheets to form. From that point, there was runaway cooling as ice sheets grew as far south as present-day St. Louis and New York City. The most current cycle of ice ages began, and human ancestors were forced to adapt. This started the transition that would result in homo sapiens.
Hi Ron, nice Segway but I neither specified a time period or how much of a season it was ice free.
Look at the Eemian, with forests up into Baffin Island, hippos on the Thames , Greenland without most of it’s ice sheet (just low central remnants). Now tell me that the Arctic Ocean did not have ice free times back then. That’s ice free enough for me and only 120,000 years ago.
Not sure what your point is, mega-mammals were abundant as was life on the whole planet even back 5 million years ago when it was much warmer.
Rapid climate change happens too, for numerous reasons. This time is different, it is caused by an animal species oxidizing the remains of buried dead plants on a global scale. But as you say, we may not change our ways and just keep doing what we do, much as any natural forcing. So if we have no control over ourselves, then the process of warming will continue for a long time, which it will anyway, even if we slow down our carbon activities now. Also the extinction process will continue unless we dramatically cut back on other activities.
Maybe we should rename ourselves Calamitus Fossilium Incendium .
“So if we have no control over ourselves, then the process of warming will continue for a long time, which it will anyway, even if we slow down our carbon activities now.”
CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS RACE PAST TROUBLING MILESTONE
“Carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere passed a troubling milestone for good this summer and locked in levels of the heat-trapping gas not seen for millions of years…What’s more troubling, says Tans, is that the rate of CO2 increase is more than 100 times faster than anything observed in the ice core record that goes back 800,000 years. This will continue as long as fossil fuel consumption remains at its current high level worldwide.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161005155018.htm
Doug, Dennis says most of it will go away quickly, so don’t be so alarmist.
I mean the Great Plains will have warmer winters and the forests will grow northward, not all bad news. Canadians won’t have to travel as far south in the winter to get warm, ay. I could do with less snow to shovel too.
Although I must protest their building of 10,000 Empire State buildings per year to sequester all that extra CO2 . There certainly are better and cheaper way than that, as well as les CO2 intensive. 🙂
What, Me Worry? 🙂
Hi Gone fishing,
I just use the information found in Archer 2005.
Fate of fossil fuel CO2 in geologic time
See Table 1 on page 5, which shows about 20% of a 1000 Pg C emissions pulse remains in the atmosphere after 1,000 years, 10% after 10,000 years and 6.5% after 100,000 years.
So yes the scientific evidence suggests about 94% of the carbon emissions will be sequestered in 100,000 years.
https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.fate_co2.pdf
Meanwhile,
HURRICANE MATTHEW: FLORIDA WARNED OF ‘DIRECT HIT’
“Damage could be “catastrophic”, the state governor said. Evacuation orders have been issued along the coast. Matthew, with winds of 125mph (205km/h), is expected to strengthen and hit Florida as a Category Four storm.”
Hi Gone fishing,
Using a sum of 4 exponentials following the Carbon model mean from Joos et al 2013 from 2000 to 2200 and an earlier Bern model fit to the CO2 data from 1900 to 2000, I use carbon emissions from 1850 to 2015 and a scenario from 2016 to 2200 with total carbon emissions of 1080 Pg C. I get the chart below for 1950-2200 and when the model is run out to 3050 (assuming no fossil fuel emissions after 2110) about 77% of the 1080 Pg carbon pulse has been sequestered, similar to Joos et al 2013 model mean (23% vs 25%). See table 5 in paper linked below (I use the IRF).
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/2793/2013/acp-13-2793-2013.pdf
That’s ice free enough for me and only 120,000 years ago.
Please post the link that says the Arctic Ocean was ice free 120,000 years ago.
If you noticed, I always post links to support my position. I do wish everyone else would do likewise.
“Based on the paleoclimate record from ice and ocean cores, the last warm period in the Arctic peaked about 8,000 years ago, during the so-called Holocene Thermal Maximum. Some studies suggest that as recent as 5,500 years ago, the Arctic had less summertime sea ice than today. However, it is not clear that the Arctic was completely free of summertime sea ice during this time.
The next earliest era when the Arctic was quite possibly free of summertime ice was 125,000 years ago, during the height of the last major interglacial period, known as the Eemian. Temperatures in the Arctic were higher than now and sea level was also 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) higher than it is today because the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets had partly melted”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq/
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/arctic-sea-ice/
https://thinkprogress.org/major-analysis-finds-less-ice-covers-the-arctic-today-than-at-any-time-in-recent-geologic-history-73605b89cdf2#.3pxepxnlm
The Eemian climate is believed to have been about as stable as that of the Holocene. Changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters from today (greater obliquity and eccentricity, and perihelion), known as Milankovitch cycles, probably led to greater seasonal temperature variations in the Northern Hemisphere, although global annual mean temperatures were probably similar to those of the Holocene. The warmest peak of the Eemian was around 125,000 years ago, when forests reached as far north as North Cape, Norway (which is now tundra) well above the Arctic Circle at
71°10′21″N 25°47′40″E. Hardwood trees such as hazel and oak grew as far north as Oulu, Finland.
At the peak of the Eemian, the Northern Hemisphere winters were generally warmer and wetter than now, though some areas were actually slightly cooler than today. The hippopotamus was distributed as far north as the rivers Rhine and Thames.[3] Trees grew as far north as southern Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: currently, the northern limit is further south at Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec. Coastal Alaska was warm enough during the summer due to reduced sea ice in the Arctic Ocean to allow Saint Lawrence Island (now tundra) to have boreal forest, although inadequate precipitation caused a reduction in the forest cover in interior Alaska and Yukon Territory despite warmer conditions.[4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eemian
So far the ice cores can only provide us a glimpse into the Eemian warm period. But we can already tell that Eemian climate was significantly warmer than the climate of the current Holocene interglacial – probably about 5°C warmer.
http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/climatechange/glacial_interglacial/eemian/
Thanks. From you third link from the top:
I asked the lead author, Leonid Polyak, of Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, when was the last time the Arctic was ice free. He replied:
“The paleo data we have so far is very scant, so we can’t know for sure when the Arctic was ice free in the summer last time. To be conservative, the closest candidate is the early Holocene (roughly ~10 kyr ago), when the insolation in the Arctic was high due to the beneficial orbital configuration; however, the more data I see, the stronger is my impression that there was not that little ice at that time. The next best (actually, better) candidate is the Last Interglacial, about 125kyr ago, again due to orbitally-driven high insolation: the ice was likely very low, but we can’t say whether it was completely ice free in summer or not. There are also a few other major interglacials, which may have had a similar picture, in particular Marine Isotopic Stage 11, about 450 kyr ago. In any case we are talking about very rare events controlled by a forcing very different from today. If none of those intervals was really ice free, then a million year assessment would be correct.”
So we don’t really know. At any rate we know exactly why those earlier periods were warmer. This time we know also, human induced CO2 into the atmosphere.
And thanks again for the links.
Ron, GF,
I’m not sure if this is relevant to your discussion but based on bedrock core samples it seems Greenland was ice free at some point over the last 1.25 million years.
GREENLAND WAS ONCE ICE FREE
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/12/greenland-was-once-ice-free
Ice penetrating radar based on aircraft has allowed a detailed view of ice layers and their ages to be produced. Leftover Eemian ice is found in northern Greenland.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-data-peers-into-greenlands-ice-sheet
Doug,
I think they need a few more samples spread over a large area. Interesting technique though.
Right now we have a combined event, GHG forcing and we are moving into a rising period of insolation in the northern hemisphere. The Arctic regions will eventually see a peak increase of 25 watts/m2, but from now until 40,000 years from now the solar input to the Arctic will be higher than currently.
Not as big of a blast as the Eemian but still significant especially when one considers the added GHG factors which effect the whole globe.
Usually scientists never say definitely, in some of the articles I saw probably, which is a way of saying they are fairly sure.
Yes Ron lots of interesting findings out there, I looked further than I had before and found some other detailed presentations. Right now taking a break from a plumbing job, maybe put up some later.
Indeed, real scientists who are actually studying something of real scientific concern do not use terms like definitely for the simple reason that real science is never fully settled or determined merely by “consensus”. Take a look at gravity, for example. While the experts in the field presume to know just about all there is to know about gravity, general scientific understanding maintains gravity continues to be a theory and therefore not a completely proven concept. So as you can see, for these reasons, anyone who states anthropogenic global warming as a concept and worldview is completely proven beyond all doubt is (at best) ignorant of how science works or (at worst) probably some sort of huckster.
anyone who states anthropogenic global warming as a concept and worldview is completely proven beyond all doubt is…
Fortunately, very few if any people are stating that.
The general consensus in the scientific community is that there is a very serious risk. Preparing for it is like paying for fire insurance.
And, fortunately, eliminating fossil fuels is a good idea even if climate change weren’t a problem.
Hooo boy, that rubbish again.
In science ‘theory’ means that it is well proven and not that is just guess work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
NAOM
Lydia, it’s the Law of Gravity, not the theory.
I think we can get past gravity and electromagnetics.
Lydia, I think if you understood the interactions between infrared radiation and matter, you would not hold those views. That is all well known, proven science.
If it were not for GHG’s you would not exist, the earth would be a frozen snowball and just another dead world among many.
At times the earth is warmer, at times the earth is cooler. GHG’s are part of that change. They influence phase changes in water and cause further change.
Doesn’t matter what one calls the GHG’s they still have the same effect in the atmosphere.
Lydia, oh Lydia…
The reason that the current arctic air temperature is so far above the trend line is that the area of open ocean at summer ice minimum is far larger than it was a decade ago. This season in particular, the ice became much more broken and dispersed than ever before, leaving open water amongst the ice right up to the geographic pole.
This resulted in the surface rapidly freezing over a large area when the sun finally set, and freezing releases heat to the atmosphere, hence the warmer (but still below freezing) temperatures. This rapid freezing phase has been seen several times in the last few years. This is climate change in action. Once the entire ice cap melts each summer, the heat which is currently absorbed by the ice as it melts will have nowhere to go and will stay in the atmosphere, accelerating air temperature rises. We do not know how soon we will get to that point, it might be as little as 5 years if the current melting trend continues to follow exponential decline by volume.
Hi Ralph, the ice mass of the Arctic Ocean is about one third what it was back around 1970 and the open water period is advancing into the autumn, so the process is underway already. That is part of why temperatures have been rising in the Arctic.
Ice mass reduction per year has been fairly linear though it is starting to give some indication of increasing rates. Even when the Arctic Ocean starts to have ice free days or weeks ice will still form there in the winter.
I think the best measurement for Arctic Ice loss trend would be a 12 month running average of volume as this eliminates seasonal effects, but I have never seen this so maybe there is something in it that skews the trends(?). Anyway using Piomas I generated the curve below. I added a quadratic trend and also two cherry picked recent trends so deniers and doomers can choose their preference (average the two and you get a hiatus).
Looks pretty good George. Makes a nice comparison graph for future changes.
Those arrows remind me of rivers, at any given point they can flow in numerous compass directions, but there is a general flow direction to them.
Just looked (again) at the PIOMAS site. Winter/spring total volume has been hitting a max of 28,009 km3 while late summer amounts are running as low a 4000 km3. Not really a lot to go and with that much range, Arctic could hit it’s first ice free day around 2025.
Ralph – But that isn’t just ‘climate change’ it is ‘abrupt climate change’, is it not? And that sounds like a pretty good explanation of how things might have happened in the past on similar occasions. We may be 2.5 degrees above 1900 on average but we are 10 degrees above ERA40 average (which I think is ECMWF numbers from 1957 to 1980, but not certain). And we haven’t been this high before at this time of year, plus there appears to me to be a distinct trend from 2013 to this year going up during the freezing season.
(●̮̮̃•̃)|m/
Hey, look, man, just worry about your PV’s, EV’s and industries, ok? And forget about charts like these.
PV’s and EV’s will create the ‘cool factor’ that everybody longs for and that will help ‘cool’ the planet just fine.
The ones worried about PV,EV’s and wind turbines are the fossil fuel energy producers.
If they are ‘worried’, it may be for reasons one may not think.
I’ve already posted some months ago something about some– perhaps many– of them investing in pseudorenewable energy– with our stolen money.
I’ve also already posted this:
How do pseudogovernments control decentralized off-grid energy systems? That seems like one ‘worry’.
Inflight
Caelan, humanity is currently on a path to repeat the P-Tr extinction event, which will include humanity going extinct.
I believe the only workable way to manipulate the little monkey brains of average humans into NOT driving themselves extinct is, indeed, to make it “cool” to stop emitting CO2.
Don’t you agree?
Yes, we would do well to make it ‘cool’, even ‘awesome’, to have ‘the little monkey brains’ stop doing a whole host of things, with emitting vast amounts of C02 being a big one of them.
That’s in part why my nickname on TOD was ‘Tribe Of Pangaea- First Member’; Pangaea was apparently around or just before the time of the ‘Great Dying’.
We may all prove to be ill-fated members of the Tribe Of Pangaea.
Do you want to be Second Member? You can go first if you want and I’ll take ‘Tribe Of Pangaea- Second Member’. I doubt it will make any difference.
The Arctic temperature anomaly is increasing (i.e. it is cooling off slower than expected) – below is prediction for next week, note Greenland is about 20 degrees above average (note also the Antarctic anomaly figure). Ice extent expansion has stalled, so unless it’s getting much thicker, faster I don’t see how this is a latent heat of fusion effect – there has been an explanation that a) the sea water is much hotter than usual and b) with more open water the air is more humid so more precipitation and therefore a latent heat impact from condensation.
Good information. Thanks George.
Unless you’re trying to fool some of the readers, if you are going to post a map such as that you probably should mention the Arctic Oscillation (AO) has presently gone quite negative and is forecast to stay that way through the near term. This is why you see the temperature anomalies you see on that map.
New anarchism; New Planet
International Premier | No Borders – Web Series
(For larger image below, open in new window.)
Copied from the other thread:
Westexasfanclub says:
10/05/2016 at 8:42 am
“The situation in Venezuela is constructed by low oil prices, certain government failures and the intention of the upper class to capitalize the actual crisis (with support of the US). While we can argue if Maduro does or does not implement the right politics, one must know that in Latin America doesn’t exist common ground between the political oppositions. This is not the US nor is it Europe. Rather than dividing Venezuela’s politicians in good and bad ones, you have to see the whole picture. And it’s very dire. A takeover of the right would probably lead to civil war – a situation which the land already had to face in the nineties (and brought Hugo Chavez into power). May nobody believe that the conservative class in Venezuela has any scruple to use violence or to be in any sense more humanitarian than the Chavist government. In economical terms they are probably more efficient – but at what price? Again: There are no good or bad ones, nor does any will exist to put the country on a functional base everybody could live with. And the US will do nothing but helping to push the country towards the failed state status – just like they did with Libya, although in a more covert style.”
While I am not a scholar of South American history or culture, I do read very widely, and carefully, selecting books by credit worthy historians, etc.
So I know a few things, lol, and agree that there is not a great, deep, sound tradition of law before men in South America, and that for that reason, the countries there have a sorry record of revolutions one after another, repression, poverty, etc. There are other reasons as well, but South America is well endowed with resources, and could be as prosperous and peaceful as Western Europe, at least in theory.
But you paint a picture that in my opinion is worse than it is, actually, because there has been and there is progress being made in political, cultural and economic terms in South America, and things are not as bad there as they used to be.
There is a hard core right wing in Venezuela that, if it were to come to power (again) , would be worse that the Maduro regime, and I will not argue that the oil price collapse is not a primary factor, maybe THE primary factor, explaining the Venezuelan situation as it has unfolded over the last couple of years.
But Maduro and his cronies are hopelessly corrupt themselves, and above all else, in love with power.
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Venezuela as a country is now far enough along on the road to becoming a modern peaceful democratic society that when Maduro is gone, there is substantial hope that a middle of the road government will take its place.
I agree that the risk of civil war is high, but I personally lay that risk at the Maduro regime’s feet, because the regime is doing everything in it’s power to prevent a recall election, knowing it will lose.
If things were as bad as you paint them, there wouldn’t be a recall election issue, there would be a civil war already.
There ARE many many people in the country who do believe in law and democracy, on both sides.
So there IS, again in my opinion, substantial hope that when Maduro is gone, Venezuela will soon have, if not a great government, then at least one that is tolerably decent, and that the economy can be gotten onto its feet again, even with oil prices in the dumpster.
Now I have not been an especially big fan of the Obama administration, but taken all around, considering the state of the USA, and the state of the world, and the big picture, Obama has not done too badly, and I do believe his heart is in the right place.
One reason I will never be able to describe myself as a liberal is that I have been in intimate contact with too many well educated liberal idiot professors who for reasons of furthering their own agendas blame every thing that is wrong with the world on DWEM, or their descendants. That sort never has and never will admit that any DWEM did anything right or decent.
In order to get my mandatory passing grade of “A”, I had to play along and kiss their ignorant asses in class. Such is reality if you want to accumulate some grad credits, and even under grad credits, needed to pursue a masters degree in certain fields.
The LIMEYS had their empire, and they could be brutal in the running of it, but in places where they stuck around a good while, they laid the foundations that enabled their former colonies to advance from the rule of men to the rule of law.
Paint me a damned old redneck conservative if you please, but if the British Empire had included Venezeula for a century or two, that country might now be a well governed one.
Saying this is by no means the same thing as saying the Spanish displayed any redeeming qualities in terms of running things in South American colonies, lol.
Hello Oldfarmermac, I wished I could call you a damned old redneck to make this response easy, LOL. But I’m happy to meet a complex and open mind.
You certainly define very well the advantage of the mercantilistic Anglo-Saxon approach of colonialism compared to the feudalistic (and still medieval) one of the Spanish. That’s one of the biggest burden of Latin America till the present days. If the English had discovered America in 1492 and the Spanish had started their colonization with the advanced spirit of the 17th century, things might have come out the other way. But this is, of course, pure speculation.
It is precisely this lack of pragmatism mixed with static feudal hierarchy which preoccupies me. Not to mention all the sequels of the Monroe Doctrine which very efficiently attacked Latin America at its weakest points and succumbed it to the interests of the north for almost two centuries. But I won’t let this become an antiimperialistic rant – empires always work the same way and they always will (In this context I see Venezuela in line with what happened and is happening in Libya and Syria among others).
I rather want to ask myself what could be done within the limits of the possible. I hope very much you are right and there could emerge a new centrist government in Venezuela. It might be very healthy for the country if there were two strong political blocks close enough to each other to allow a change of government now and then. Not that I think a bipartisan system would be the political panacea. But in the case of Venezuela a Democrats/Republicans split of the actual powers would do some good.
Just let me get right one thing: The Venezuelan government isn’t precisely trying to avoid a “referendum revocatorio” – it’s all about the date: If the referendum is going to happen this year, the vote could kick out the whole government. But if the referendum is being held after the 31th of December, they can only vote out Maduro – the government would stay in charge under the guide of the vice president until 2019. The not very homogenous opposition apparently didn’t manage to start the whole process in time and gave Maduro a free kick. Yo can’t really blame him for taking the chance.
And, yes, by the way, I consider myself something like a politically incorrect liberal. So I probably would have had trouble with your professors, too ?
Back atcha W T FC,
You are certainly at least in the nine ring, and mostly in the bullseye, when you talk about Yankee manipulation of South American affairs to their detriment and the gain of our privileged class.
I believe we are pretty much on the same page except for one point. My opinion is that the Maduro regime is has pulled pulling every possible underhanded trick to delay the recall referendum. So I don’t see it as the opposition’s fault that it won’t likely happen in time to get rid of Maduro.
I shouldn’t have called my professors in the soft stuff overeducated idiots. I should have described them as cynical and hypocritical political partisans of the leftish persuasion.
And some of them, in classes such as psychology, etc absolutely insisted that animals ( other than humans, and they put humans in an entirely separate category, assigning us unique and extraordinary powers, while being utterly unable to comprehend the very basic fact of biological evolution, apparently ) have NO INTELLIGENCE.
Now they defended this extraordinary foolishness not because they had EVIDENCE it is so, but because they fucking refused to describe any behavior by any animal, excepting a naked ape, as being anything other than the result of instincts.
Some of them went so far as to say humans have NO instincts, etc.
Ah well, all of them are almost for sure dead by now, lol.
And the evolutionary biologists are almost finished their war with them, except for a few mopping up operations. The younger generation of psychologists, etc, are on board with evolution.
More we approach the past, closer we get to the Übermensch, LOL. It’s definitively better to see what we are than to project what we think we should be. We’re all full of instincts and they are the primary gates of advertising and propaganda. Especially if you think theses gates don’t exist …
Concerning Maduro: You’re probably right that he’s playing dirty. In the end he’s a politician. I sometimes tend to defend the chavism too much. I do so because in the media and between people I know, almost nobody else does. It’s all extremely one-sided and I tend to create a counterweight. In fact things didn’t look that bad, at least until the death of Hugo Chavez and the fall of oil: Poverty diminished, especially extreme poverty, unemployment came down to reasonable numbers and oil production was stable for several years (bitumen production outweighing the continuous decline of conventional production). Probably right now everything there is a mess.
The irony is, that almost all the Venezuelans I met were against Chavez and I had a good time with them. Most of them were educated middle class people and had chosen to leave their country because of the political situation. In Spain I also had encounters with the political branch of chavism and it stroke me as something very static and dogmatic – like you find in other “postrevolutionary” countries. On the other hand, a cuban friend told me his experiences when he worked with Venezuelan prostitutes which were sent to Cuba for some kind of reeducation program: These women were crying, because it was the first time in their life that they were treated like human beings. So, my feelings about Venezuela are very mixed.
Please keep posting anything you happen to know already or come across about Venezuela and Cuba.
I want to know more, and I want to hear it from people who have had or have first hand contact if possible.
And I AM aware, as in the old cop’s adage, that there are three stories in most domestic cases, HIS story, HER story, and THE story, lol.
There is no question that a substantial part of Maduro’s support is due to the improvements that were made earlier by the Chavistas. The folks who got houses, food, jobs, education, etc, earlier are mostly still around, this is not an OLD tale. It’s playing out during the lives of probably half or more of the people in the country today.
I spend a lot of time in Cuba. There life three, almost four generations who fought and/or lived under the revolution. Beautiful people. For me the most beautiful people of this planet (don’t confuse beautiful with perfect). They don’t buy in this propaganda stuff anymore, too many things went wrong, though many depend on the little benefits they can get out of conformity. But what is more important: They have conscience and they know what they have and they also know what they want. Do they know how to get it? That’s a different story maybe. They don’t buy in good/bad, black/white, communism/capitalism stories. They know to differentiate. They know that dollars can be poisoned. They have suffered a lot. Many things lacked and are still lacking in Cuba. But they never gave up. Beautiful people with brains and heart.
some of them, in classes such as psychology, etc absolutely insisted that animals … have NO INTELLIGENCE…Some of them went so far as to say humans have NO instincts, etc.
This is a pretty obvious result of an old and basic religious idea – dualism: humans have a soul, animals don’t.
It’s amazing how powerful this idea is. Even now, we keep seeing headlines about scientists being amazed and shocked to see signs that thinking and intelligence are based on visible and measurable mechanisms in the brain.
You telling me the Talking Snake doesn’t have a soul but the Rib Woman does?
Hello Oldfarmermac, I wished I could call you a damned old redneck to make this response easy, LOL. But I’m happy to meet a complex and open mind.
You certainly define very well the advantage of the mercantilistic Anglo-Saxon approach of colonialism compared to the feudalistic (and still medieval) one of the Spanish. That’s one of the biggest burden of Latin America till the present days. If the English had discovered America in 1492 and the Spanish had started their colonization with the advanced spirit of the 17th century, things might have come out the other way. But this is, of course, pure speculation.
It is precisely this lack of pragmatism mixed with static feudal hierarchy which preoccupies me. Not to mention all the sequels of the Monroe Doctrine which very efficiently attacked Latin America at its weakest points and succumbed it to the interests of the north for almost two centuries. But I won’t let this become an antiimperialistic rant – empires always work the same way and they always will (I see Venezuela in line with what happened and is happening in Libya and Syria for example).
I rather want to ask myself what could be done within the limits of the possible. I hope very much you are right and there could emerge a new centrist government in Venezuela. It might be very healthy for the country if there were two strong political blocks close enough to each others to allow a change of government now and then. Not that I think a bipartisan system would be the political panacea. But in the case of Venezuela a Democrats/Republicans split of the actual powers would do some good.
Just let me get right one thing: The Venezuelan government isn’t precisely trying to avoid a “referendum revocatorio” – it’s all about the date: If the referendum is going to happen this year, the vote could kick out the whole government. But if the referendum is being held after the 31th of December, they can only vote out Maduro – the government would stay in charge under the guide of the vice president until 2019. The not very homogenous opposition apparently didn’t manage to start the whole process in time and gave Maduro a free kick. Yo can’t really blame him for taking the chance.
And, yes, by the way, I consider myself something like a politically incorrect liberal. So I probably would have had trouble with your professors, too 😉
DANGER .. MATT, Now CAT FOUR, 140mph, 77.8W already, Tracking NW @ 14 mph. Black Swan # 10 ?
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT14/refresh/AL1416W5_NL+gif/120607W5_NL_sm.gif
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/10/06/black-swans-9-recent-events-that-changed-finance-forever/
From the second linked site:
Succinctly-writ, Aldous.
Latest infrared photo of the US, including hurricane Matthew off Florida
Citizens Property Insurance Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Will your homeowner insurance protect you if the Big One hits?
By Nancy Dahlbergndahlberg@miamiherald.com, August 21, 2016 4:00 PM
Resolving the climate paradox – speech by Mark Carney
Speech given by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, at the Arthur Burns Memorial Lecture, Berlin. 22 September 2016
Completely Surreal Photos Of America’s Abandoned Malls
Hi Caelan,
Things are almost for sure going to get a LOT worse, in my opinion at least, before they get better, long term,IF they ever get better.
The malls are great indirect indicators of wasted resources, no question. But we have wasted many times as many resources on three ton pickups and suv’s used as commuter vehicles and beer transporters.
Times change and the people who used to shop at the old dead malls have mostly just switched to shopping at newer, much more agreeable malls located near where they are living NOW.
For now the owners of such malls mostly still have hopes of getting a good price for them or finding a way to refurbish and repurpose them and make some money themselves. Some owners are writing off losses against taxes due on income from other investments.
Personally I don’t see these old buildings ever being worth much, unless changes in zoning laws are passed that enable them to become mini communities that supply cheap housing intermingled door to door with small businesses. I know several people already out in the boonies where I live that live upstairs or in the back and run their businesses downstairs or out front, including my personal physician.
There are people who live and work in many cities this same way, but to the best of my knowledge, just about all of them are able to do so only because they are grandfathered.
We are in serious need of a new generation of politicians who understand the new reality – a reality that calls for localization as opposed business only, and only certain kinds of business, and housing way way off someplace requiring freeways and automobiles by the tens of millions and oil by the millions of barrels a day.
But having said this much, I do NOT believe there is any danger, short term or medium term, meaning the next two or three decades at least, of our abandoning suburbia, except maybe for the very farthest corners of it. Even there, retirees who don’t need to drive much will be glad to rent or buy houses once rents and prices fall enough to suit them.
Consider a man or woman or couple who have a house in the burbs that they could sell now for two hundred k on up to five or maybe even more. Such people typically drive from five or six thousand to forty thousand miles a year, each, to get to work and shopping.
Almost every last one of them, given the choice, will in my firm opinion choose to drive a plug in car, or an ultra mini car, rather than give up their mcmansion for a non existent comparable apartment near work,or one near public transportation that could reliably get them to work.
People will move as their circumstances dictate. I have new neighbors from northern Virginia, who have sold out at huge profits, and moved here on the proceeds, where daily life as such is far superior to suburbia and the associated traffic jams, etc.
And I have an upwardly mobile young relative who is already well established as a career bureaucrat and is house shopping in Fairfax, lol.
In principle, she could swap the farm (fifty acres, very good land, but idle, nobody is working it, neverthe less a very nice place with a nice house on it) she has inherited for a mcmansion on a half acre up that way, but if she does, she will have to come up with some cash.
Some people think old malls can be converted into greenhouses run by urban farmers. This might work if somebody puts a few million into the conversion, each, but I doubt those millions will ever be repaid. The only real savings would be on transportation and transportation losses.
There is land suitable for greenhouses almost anywhere and every where, within an hour’s drive, that can be bought for a hell of a lot less than it would cost just to rip out the old parking lots and transport in topsoil, etc. Hauling veggies by the truck load for an hour adds only a trivial amount to the retail cost of veggies. Just using a pickup truck to deliver a ton on a daily basis would cost maybe a hundred bucks, that’s fifty bucks an hour for the pickup and driver. I would be ok with with that pay rate on a regular basis, personally, doing such easy work, lol.
Loading time and unloading time does not count, because even an urban farm must deliver to supermarkets, excepting what can be sold on premises, which is not much, compared to total production, for a viable greenhouse operation.
From what I have seen malls lose patronage and eventually close because other more modern malls are built nearby and are often in better locations. Older malls often do not attract the more popular stores and big ticket stores that newer better located ones have.
From what I have seen malls lose patronage and eventually close because other more modern malls are built nearby and are often in better locations.
Not to mention a generational paradigm shift where new technology allows people to eschew shopping in brick and mortar stores altogether. I can think of almost nothing that I couldn’t purchase with my smartphone and have it delivered to my doorstep almost overnight. Why would I want to go to a mall?
Perhaps some of those buildings can be repurposed as localised manufacturing centers in the new age of 3D printing and the products will be delivered by drones and driverless vehicles.
I have posted in the past about Biomimicry and The Circular Economy if any of those ideas can be implemented on a large scale then brick and mortar shopping malls no longer have a raison d’etre. Society and the economy will transition as it has always done or it will perish.
Posting picture of empty shopping malls is IMHO rather pointless in view of the fact one can find plenty of examples and photographs of empty and abandoned buildings from the early days of manufacturing i.e. steel mills and automobile factories in what we now call the rust belt. We can even find plenty sites of entire abandoned civilizations such as the Mayans or Incas. Times and circumstances change, either we adapt or we go extinct.
I must say that Caelan’s desire to go back to a world where we all live off the land without advanced technologies in harmony with nature and the wisdom of the ancient natives in anarchic states is rather quaint… but he totally misses the fact that we now have 7 plus billion humans on the planet. There is no way to go back without advocating for massive dieoff.
Case in point, whatever one thinks of governments, there is no way millions of people living in peaceful enligthened anarchy would have been able to organize a mass evacuation of the population on the Florida coast such as just happened because of Hurricane Mathew! How about dealing with the threat of some pandemic caused by a new virus, or a thousand other existential threats? As an example there would be no way to help the threatened Key Deer that are being infected by a recent infestation of screw worms down in the Florida Keys and we would be sure to lose that species despite all the work that went into preserving them.
Without advanced technology it is game over for most of us.
May I suggest that people attend the online Disruptive Innovation Festival in November as an antidote to the extreme ideas of Neo Luddites.
Because sticking one’s head in the sand isn’t going to help. We may indeed be doomed but going down without a fight just isn’t acceptable in my view.
https://www.thinkdif.co/
The themes for this festival are:
The Future of Work
Regenerative Cities
System Reset
Thank Thor your back Fred; thought you might’ve been lost to a salty surge.
More like a local internet service provider outage. I did have internet on my cellphone but it is a little harder to post on that. Today is a good day to go to the beach and see what has been washed up… 🙂
Hi Fred, none of that rain you had made it up the coast to my drought area. I think the hot air in Washington DC turned it around.
You said about closed malls “Perhaps some of those buildings can be repurposed as localised manufacturing centers in the new age of 3D printing and the products will be delivered by drones and driverless vehicles. ”
I had thought for years that those big parking lots and mall building should be converted to solar farms. That might work in a few areas but the cost of the land and the taxes would suck the profit out it. They mostly located in dense high cost/tax areas.
So your idea of industrializing them is probably better, and we will continue to cover rural ground with solar power for now. Got quite a number of them near me.
“I had thought for years that those big parking lots and mall building should be converted to solar farms. […] [Y]our idea of industrializing them is probably better.”
Those two purposes aren’t mutually exclusive.
True, quite true.
Maybe, before it’s too late– if it isn’t already– we are eventually going to realize what’s really important as things like malls; solar panels; roadway infrastructure; general land misuse that includes industrial agro; fracking platforms; tailings ponds; mining pits; removed mountaintops; parking lots; toxic waste dumps; cookie-cutter developer tracts; and assorted corporate squats, etc., all cover the land and soil that we need relatively pristine and intact, and what is left has been degraded and/or is needed for other species as well.
Maybe.
In the mean time, some of us will continue on with the remarkably-mindless discourse on technology, as if technology is going to save us from our glaringly-obvious myopia about the real world.
Well said , Fred.
But maybe people, women in particular, have an inborn itch that calls for scratching , and the only way to scratch it is to go out and HUNT AND GATHER.
Now if you accept the chauvinist hunting and gathering model where in the men bring in the meat, and the women the fruits, nuts, roots, seed grasses, etc, then the men are satisfied with just about anything they can kill, and knock off for the day, but the women have to pick and choose all day long in order to get a sack full to fill the men and kids empty bellies that night.
Plus going to the mall is somewhat of a social experience, even if the participants don’t know each other personally. Maybe we are wired in such a way that we need such experiences.
So maybe malls, or at least communal flea markets and traditional village and town markets will survive due to the way our minds are put together.
Given the opportunity, and money to work with, and the power to kick useless busy bodies off the premises, I could convert an old mall into a very nice little urban style mini community, well suited to housing a thousand or more folks, with a good many of them making their living without ever having to leave the premises. Others could be retirees or commuters.
Glen, if true community got involved cooperatively with ‘malls’ at the start, there wouldn’t likely be a problem with them now. They’d likely be built to last, and be places of soul as opposed to the abandoned monstrosities they have and are becoming. And I can say that about many things about the system. Much of it is as cheap as possible and relatively disposable because it has to be to keep the money/profit flowing and mass production machines running– you know– planned obsolescence and all that?
Communities generally are not asked if, how or where they want something. It’s just imposed on them.
I’ve written something along these lines before:
If you do nothing about the underlying lack of equable input, such as in individual and community empowerment and organization and planning, etc., then you will be extremely lucky if you get anything anywhere resembling a luddite community when the shit hits the fan.
Which is why there is limited point to discussing technology without stuff like equability. You are not going to have anything anywhere resembling a techno-utopia without it.
Besides, just take a look around you. The answer I am talking about is right in front of your eyes: ‘Industrial capitalism’ is wrecking the planet.
You already know this.
Technology is the outgrowth of what appears a human paradox (also so-called ‘lethal mutation’) that’s now killing us as much as it allowed us to survive and thrive all those aeons ago.
Indeed, as I’ve said before, we didn’t need peak oil to collapse previous civilizations.
And of course abandonments aren’t just old rust-belt infrastructures or malls, but entire cities, freshly manufactured.
And there are many good points to posting pictures of all of them, but I realize that some efforts will be lost on some people.
Speaking of which, and in case I forgot to tell you, your oft-repeated ‘neo luddite’ quip is, in context, a bit of a false-dichotomy, and something along the lines of which, for example, old mainstream media outlets can use to keep inquiry shallow and ineffective and perpetuate certain modes and levels of discourse.
Upthread:
“…[e]lite professional groups . . . have come to exert a ‘radical monopoly’ on such basic human activities as health, agriculture, home-building, and learning, leading to a ‘war on subsistence’ that robs peasant societies of their vital skills and know-how. The result of much economic development is very often not human flourishing but ‘modernized poverty,’ dependency, and an out-of-control system in which the humans become worn-down mechanical parts.” ~ Ivan Illich
Fermi’s Paradox, Solved?
“I think if we could get Earth in a living and stable state, not a constantly degrading and dying state, caused by our actions, then we have won some right to go to the stars. But, at present, I don’t think we’d be welcomed anywhere else in the universe. You wouldn’t welcome anybody who laid waste to their house and wanted to live in yours, I’m sure.” ~ Bill Mollison
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. ~ Aldous Huxley
I took a quick look at your link, Fred, (and a couple of others related) and aside from the corporate clusterfuck of sponsors in the footer, there was nothing that could be found so far resembling people making their own decisions and doing their own work for themselves.
Can you find me something like that please? Perhaps I overlooked it.
I got a sense that it was simply another way for the status-quo to wage slave people ‘sustainably’.
In fact, in looking up the definition of ‘circular economy’, it looks pretty much like an eco-wanna-be-BAU:
If you say so, Caelan.
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/overview/characteristics
Circular Economy Overview
Today’s linear ‘take, make, dispose’ economic model relies on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy, and is a model that is reaching its physical limits. A circular economy is an attractive and viable alternative that businesses have already started exploring today.
Yes, we have governments and corporations and an economic paradigm that no longer works. If you have a practical way of changing the system without killing off billions of people then I’d love to hear it.
Personally I see no way forward without advanced science and technology and a total system reset. The Circular Economy might, and I emphasize MIGHT, be a way to bring all of the above to work in a new paradigm. Then again it might not and we all die anyway.
In any case my bet is that your ideas for change are less workable because they exclude all of the aforementioned entities out of hand.
In the real world one must be pragmatic and willing to compromise. Good enough is the enemy of Perfect!
I can tell you that it won’t.
Prostitution at gunpoint is not a compromise, Fred.
Technology has to be with equity/equability or it will not ultimately work. Lack of that is what collapses civilizations and the ecosystem. Without it, it doesn’t matter how much tech you have. Like money. All the money in the world doesn’t matter on a dead/dying planet.
Outfits like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation need to get a clue. (I had read that passage by the way.)
As for your people-will-starve meme, that’s just plain bunk.
Once increasing numbers of people take their thumbs out of their mouths and start feeding themselves– like actually learning how to do it– and soon– the better-off they’ll be.
Newsflash: Food (and good soil) is a priority over cars and solar panels.
Mindless quips are the potential friends of logical fallacies.
How much reading have you done on permaculture and ecovillages/intentional communities/Transition towns, etc.?
If the system can’t or won’t change, if it’s non-negotiable, then you have to bail– like any bad relationship like that.
If a significant other, for example, is not going to change, to compromise, then you have to leave them, right?
I am not taking a position on this either pro or con, but I am posting it because it is a great illustration of how often the public reaches conclusions based on cherry picked evidence, and how often good science and good evidence is misinterpreted or outright misrepresented in the main stream and alternative news.
https://gmoanswers.com/studies/iarc%E2%80%99s-classification-glyphosate-%E2%80%93-what-does-it-mean-you?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc
There are some excellent links embedded within this article that put the question into context.
Autonomous cars: good video on Singapore’s self-driving taxi experiment. Watch the first 2 minutes if nothing else…
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/10/06/nutonomy-autonomous-cars-nervous-passengers-upshift/
This is yet more juvenile-sandbox-toys-level bullshit advertising for garbage from a software company and someone with myopia.
‘So why are we doing this? Oh well we have to be competitive.’ <– The crony-capitalist plutarchy mantra, hook, line and sinker. Eat it up, boys and girls, and watch your world continue to fall out from under you.
POB might as well have ad-revenue-generation from all the technofetishists' wet dreams along the left and right margins. Get your ad-blockers at the ready.
MIT is mentioned in the video…
“mer·i·toc·ra·cy
ˌmerəˈtäkrəsē/
noun
noun: meritocracy
government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.
a society governed by meritocracy.
plural noun: meritocracies
a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.” ~ Google dictionary
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4010559-tesla-giga-factory-among-others-may-cause-lithium-graphite-shortages
Confusion: 1 star to DB for making Legible charts. In Our Experience – LFP type – Li Iron Phosphate batteries from China are superior and cost effective to the “difficult” types from Japan and Korean firms. For Example LFP type is the only Li Chemistry allowed on Boats by the AYBC and Coast Guard.
If I had some money I could put into a speculative investment, a lithium mine would be high up on my list of possibilities, lol.
Here is a link to an excellent article comprehensible to laymen that has a great deal of information about battery recycling.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714000037
It goes into some detail. It will take a few minutes just to scan it.
My guess is that once worn out lithium batteries are available in really large quantities, recyclers will find ways to economically recover nearly all the lithium in them , and probably most of the rare earth elements as well. I base this speculative prediction on the premise that the prices of rare earth elements and lithium are likely to go up substantially due to limited supplies, and higher prices are excellent medicine for recycling problems. Scaling up the industry will also allow significant economies of scale and almost for sure new machinery and new techniques resulting in lower recycling costs.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714000037
Down here, Soriana and Oxxo both collect old batteries for recycling, consumer types not car. Most car parts places will swap out the battery and dispose of the old one for you or you can just take it to the junk yard for cash. AS lithium cells get more popular the recycling will come but manufacturers must take that into account when making them.
NAOM
EDIT, reminds me I have some to take in.
I am hoping somebody better informed can update me and anybody else interested in some recent new developments in space heating techologies.
I know such set ups as I am describing exist, but not much more. It appears that with electronic controls getting cheaper every year, and the potential market for this stuff growing, it ought to take off.
Consider a natural gas fueled internal combustion engine, a small one, built to last, and totally enclosed for noise control and so as to salvage all the otherwise wasted heat produced when running it.
Direct couple such an engine to a heat pump, and a smallish alternator as well, with electrically operated clutches, rather than gears.
Ok- Now you run this engine, which starts and stops automatically, to drive the heat pump, when heat is needed. You collect almost all the heat of combustion, and funnel it into the building, and use the heat pump as well.
So if the ice is forty percent efficient, you get sixty percent of the heat of combustion, minus minor losses, fed into the building. Then other forty percent is converted into electricity, driving the heat pump, and you get two or three times as much heat out as you put in due to the magic of heat pumps.
It appears that this would cut the consumption of gas for space heating and heating water to a substantial extent, and that it ought to be economical to install such a set up in hospitals and other places that require a lot of heat and hot water.
And if the alternator is sized to match the engine’s output, then anytime juice is at a premium, you could also run the system as electrical backup. It wouldn’t produce enough juice to everything, but it could cut into peak load demand quite a bit. This could save the owner quite a bit in peak demand charges.
I have read about such systems, but I am not finding much. Any comments from anybody working in the field, or any engineer, will be greatly appreciated.
Above comment at 12:24 am I said the engine power is converted to electricity to drive the heat pump, which is one way to build it, but the better way is to direct couple the engine to the heat pump,while dis connecting the alternator. The heat pump fan can be driven mechanically too, at least part of the time. Electronic controls and clutches are dirt cheap these days, and last indefinitely.
If there is substantial thermal mass in the building, engine heat can be stored that way by allowing the inside temperature to rise slightly, a couple of degrees, any time the unit can produce electricity needed to offset peak demand and demand charges. This means that sometimes the heating load could be met using just the alternator, rather than the heat pump.
The beauty of a ng fueled small engine is that it can be fueled directly from a gas main, eliminating the need for a fuel tank, space for the tank, periodic deliveries, etc. Such engines run clean, producing hardly any pollutants at all except CO2, and they could be built to last tens of thousands of operating hours at minimal cost, because they are very simple and could be built to a standard design with the few parts subject to wear easily replaced every decade or so. If the system is properly designed and installed, the engine could be swapped out for a factory refurbed engine in an hour or so.
Along these lines, a nat gas hybrid electric car would also be compelling.
If oil runs seriously short, meaning very expensive gasoline and diesel fuel, before the battery electric or plug in car comes down substantially in price, there is plenty of reason to believe that plenty of new cars will be built to run on natural gas.
Right now the holdup with natural gas cars is basically the same one as with pure electrics- energy storage. The tanks that are needed to hold natural gas enough to provide a couple of hundred miles or more of driving range are prohibitively expensive, just like big ev batteries, lol.
It also takes quite a while to fill such tanks, because they have to be filled to pretty high pressures, meaning special compressors, etc, would have to be installed at service stations and homes in order to get a fairly fast fillup.
It would take hours at least with any reasonably cheap home setup to fill a car from a residential gas line.
And then there is the problem of supply in the first place. Gas lines just don’t go every where the way electric transmission lines do already.
So my guess is that pure electric and plug in electric cars and light trucks will dominate, with relatively few natural gas powered personal vehicles on the road in the USA.
The numbers can play out differently for larger trucks and buses, etc. They run a lot of miles on a daily basis and consume LARGE amounts of fuel. If gas stays cheap compared to oil, then it will probably be practical and economical to run trucks on natural gas most of the time, with a tank of diesel on board to serve as backup fuel in the event there is no truck stop on the route with natural gas pumps.
It’s easy to build a diesel to run on either natural gas or diesel fuel, and there are some gas / diesel dual fuel trucks already in service. It costs only a few thousand bucks to so equip the engine itself. The big expense is the high pressure gas tanks. But it’s common place to put a couple of hundred gallons of diesel in an eighteen wheel over the road truck on a daily basis, with team drivers. The savings on fuel can add up to a substantial sum very quickly indeed.
I anticipate living (if I get REALLY old ) to see diesel fuel cost eight bucks or more here in the USA, and substantially more in countries with high fuel taxes.
I also believe it is rather likely that we will be paying high fuel taxes here in the USA within another decade or two.
So long as high fuel taxes are phased in very gradually, they will go a very long way towards solving some tough problems, without really hurting anybody.
Oldfarmermac: it works fine, but small combustion engines are inefficient. Also, small NG-powered generators are startlingly expensive upfront. In about 2 years, you’ll be able to get batteries for less.
So run your electrical heat pump for space heating and water heating, yes. But why power that from a local gas generator? For emergency backup, you put in batteries. For non-emergency, you have *loads* of options, including solar, solar/batteries, and of course the grid.
If the otherwise wasted heat of combustion thrown off by the engine is captured and diverted into living or working spaces, the efficiency of the engine is not a drawback. You get the same amount of heat from the same amount of gas whether you burn it in a furnace or an engine.
The portion of the heat that is converted into mechanical power, about forty percent, will be in effect multiplied by a factor of two to three by using it to drive the heat pump.
It’s true that small free standing ng generators are very expensive, but if this technology is widely adopted, the engines and generators can be mass produced, to a standardized design, in large quantities, and the price will come down dramatically.
Standardization and volume are the key factors so far as I can see.
Consumer equipment is a joke, and even commercial quality stuff is not a lot better when it comes to portable machinery, in terms of working on it easily and economically.
But stuff such as industrial electric motors, belts, pulleys, mounting frames, etc, is built to a standard set of specs. So when an industrial mechanic needs a new motor, he doesn’t have to specify it by the model number, but rather by the frame specs, rpm, voltage and horsepower, etc. There will be at least a dozen different makes of motor that will all interchange exactly, quickly, and easily. The customer can buy whichever one he wants, all of them will work as intended, without any hassles.
Batteries are good, but they are only capable of storing energy produced at a time when there is excess production capacity, and releasing it as needed. They cannot actually SAVE energy, in the way a heat pump does.
And batteries unfortunately go flat after a few hours. A ng powered heating and generating system will run as long as the gas supply holds up.
There are times when the gas is on but the electricity is off, because just about everything associated with the gas grid is buried. Storms don’t affect it much compared to the electrical grid.
“Consider a natural gas fueled internal combustion engine, a small one, built to last, and totally enclosed for noise control and so as to salvage all the otherwise wasted heat produced when running it.
Direct couple such an engine to a heat pump, and a smallish alternator as well, with electrically operated clutches, rather than gears. ”
For small building the price is the killer. You have to pay for 2 systems (the geneartor is more expensive than a NG burner, the HP too).
From a “macroeconomic” POV: You still use fossil fuel to generate most of the space heating:
with 35% electric efficiency you get 2 units of heat out for one units of fossil energy as input (4* 0.35 + 0.65 = 2.05), that is not impressive.
A gas heat pump which would be much cheaper is already at 1.6 and the combination of a CC power plant (50-60%) with a heat pump gives a better result for less money, too.
And the gorilla in the room is of course that this fossil fuel approach is not compatibel with high RE penetration.
I disagree about the gas consumption.
Most residences that have gas heat use burners that are about ninety percent efficient, on average, maybe a little less.
There is no reason the sixty percent of the heat thrown off by the engine cannot be captured just as efficiently, and used for space and water heating.
The OTHER forty percent would be effectively doubled to tripled, on average, by feeding it into the heat pump, when heat is called for. This effectively gives you from eighty to one hundred twenty from the forty percent converted to electricity PLUS the the sixty percent used directly. Sometimes heat pumps can “pay out” at even better rates than three to one, if the outside temperature is moderate, or the heat pump is a really efficient model.
Such a system should cut gas consumption on average by at least a quarter to maybe as much as half, depending on various factors.
I believe gas consumption would be comparable to and maybe even better than gas consumption using grid juice after delivery losses and power plant losses, even with combined cycle generation.
Cost IS the killer at the moment, for sure. Low volume manufacturing, distribution, installation, and maintenance combined are guaranteed to result in high purchase and maintenance cost.
But the costs need not be as high as you might think at first, because most of the components remain the same. The components of the heat pump will be all the same, with very minor variations, the duct work will be all the same, etc.
The chimney or exhaust vent would be about the same. Adding in a gas burner to this proposed system, to be used as necessary, wouldn’t cost much extra at all. This would enable it to run on gas alone, so long as there is electricity available, in the event the system is down due to heat pump or engine problems, etc. As you point out, gas burners in and of themselves aren’t all that expensive.
In really cold weather, the engine and gas burner could both run, so long as it is not so cold the heat pump fails to deliver some extra ” free ” heat.
Small ac generators are actually quite cheap already, and adding no more than a hundred bucks to the price of one that sells at the factory for three or four hundred would make it bullet proof. ( You can buy pretty good consumer model for a thousand ready to run as a portable power supply including engine,gas tank, starter, frame, 120 and 240 volt plugs, etc etc at a big box store. ).
A basic lawn mower engine in the ten to fifteen horsepower range leaves the factory for no more than a couple of hundred bucks. A small mass produced standardized natural gas engine, industrial quality, could easily sell as for not much more these days, since it would have fewer parts.
Computers and electronic controls etc are now cheap and getting cheaper every day in real terms.
It is true that such systems would at first sell mostly to the owners of larger buildings where there is a need for a lot more heat and a lot more hot water, etc, which would mean the system could be larger and would pay for itself sooner, you have a good point.
I know these things to be true.
What I don’t know, but hope to find out, is how much the cost of manufacturing and installing such systems could potentially fall if they were mass produced, to standard specifications, and widely adopted wherever mains gas is available.
That’s why I am hoping for comments from people who have relevant professional expertise, engineers or economists, etc.
Mass marketing works miracles in terms of prices. You can buy a complete automobile, with an excellent warranty, and a hundred horsepower engine that will last a hell of a long time, for only a little more than you can buy just an engine with a clutch on one end and a radiator on the other mounted in a skid frame from an industrial equipment dealer, rated at fifty horsepower, which is what the auto engine can actually deliver continuously without undue strain . Such engines cost so much mostly because they are sold in relatively small numbers.
Volume is the key to cheap.
As far as renewable energy goes, I am a big supporter, but I also believe that we are going to be depending on fossil fuels for at least another generation or two, to a very large extent, and we should be doing all we can to use them more efficiently, thereby at the same time getting two or three birds with one stone.
Less pollution, cheaper price, longer life of the diminishing fossil fuel supply.
It’s a dead sure thing in my opinion that there will come a time when we are getting substantial amounts of juice from wind and solar power, storing a good part of it via batteries, pumped hydro, etc, when both the wind and the sun will let us down, and let us down hard. When that time comes, every grid compatible generating system in the country will be worth its weight in gold,in the event there is not enough conventional grid capacity to carry the load.
It’s altogether possible that a couple of nukes, or some conventional gas or coal plants could go down unexpectedly, or that the utilities and utility regulators could fail to maintain enough conventional back up capacity.
Such miscalculations are common, witness the Fukushima mess. They underestimated the risk of tsunamis and earthquakes. Hundred year floods arrive oftener, etc.
My opinion is that demand pricing is coming, just about everywhere, although it will be a while arriving. When it does, the owners of their own generating systems will be able to save some money, maybe quite a bit of money, by getting credit for their home grown production fed into the grid, or save the same by reducing their purchased peak hour usage.
I may be wrong about any of this speculation of course. The intent is to get the opinions of other forum members, and thanks in advance.
Plugin hybrids could do that.
230M vehicles all putting out 10kW (only 13HP): that’s 2.3 terawatts, which is about 6 times the average grid demand.
They could easily power the grid for a week.
Hi Nick,
Thirty years from now, your scenario might be reality.
A stationary system of the sort I am talking about could be built and sold today using all off the shelf components, and start contributing to saving on gas and grid capacity immediately.
Maybe. If the costs pencil out. That’s the question, would such a system be economical if sold and installed by the millions of units?
What’s the cost of maintaining The Grid, especially vis-a-vis a declining EROEI fuel supply?
Hang on, let me do a quick search for fun… Not exactly what I’m looking for but here’s an interesting one just the same:
Treating the Power Grid as a Dumping Ground: Green Intermittency Costs
Green electricity drive leaves generating capacity in the red
UK subsidies for renewable power leave country paying more for less
CM, in your zeal to bash/discredit renewables you are repeating talking points of the big supporters of the system you claim to abhor. This is a classic piece of anti-renewable rubbish, claiming that renewables will increase costs and decrease reliability on the poor, already stressed grid. It just smells of Koch Industries PR bullshit to me.
In fact, evidence suggests that high penetration of renewable energy on grids may lead to more reliable, resilient grids. Supporters of the status quo however, don’t want people to even consider such thoughts since renewables jeopardize their current business models (extract, burn, sell). In the current situation, with the dominance of large centralized generation, renewables are an existential threat. Even 3MW wind turbines threaten the business model of GW plus central generating plants in that, they make the idea of smaller, distributed generating assets feasible in terms of the final cost of electricity, potentially opening the market to a multitude of smaller players, anarchy if you will!
I have a problem with you not acknowledging the anarchist aspect or renewables. Wind, micro-hydro and in particular solar PV take power away from the large monopolistic utilities and have potential to put production back in the hands of the users. What’s not to love about that?
You might find the following post over at Renewables International interesting Blockchain – Brave New Energy World for Prosumers? Blockchain technology can disrupt the energy system and boost energy democracy. A guest post by Holger Schneidewindt (@cutwindt), Energy Law & Policy Officer at the Consumer Association of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).
Your incessant denigration of renewable energy technology is making me suspicious that you may have a hidden agenda. As for me, I inherited a six acre homestead in the rural parts of my island home when my father died in 2014. My family bought the old, run down, wooden house in 1976, the wooden construction indicating that it was built before the more modern, concrete based construction methods became fashionable amongst the wealthy of the island. I figure it is at least 70 years old, possibly as much as 100, built before the days of public electricity and water supplies were available in rural parts of the island. As such the house was built with a rainwater catchment system, feeding an 8x8x8 ft. (~3800 gallon) concrete walled tank and had what appeared to have been a single piston diesel powered electricity generator, the remains of which sat rusting way out in the back yard until I sold it to the scrap metal scavengers a few years ago.
The public water supply in the area is so bad that my parents decided that the rainwater catchment was a better idea and refused to continue paying for water from the public supply. I see solar PV as a way to transition the house back to it’s pre-modern state, off-grid. Twenty years ago, it would have too costly but, the current prices make it much more affordable, especially if one is willing/able to remain connected to the grid (grid interconnected systems). It is a matter of time before off-grid systems with decent amounts of battery storage become cost competitive with grid electricity in Jamaica.
I grew up with electricity and it has formed the basis of my livelihood since I finished college. I am not about to abandon it’s use in my lifetime if I can help it and am tickled pink at the prospect of being able to generate all I need and maybe extra that I can sell. What about you? Do you plan to give up on electricity, computers, phones etc.? If not, how do plan to get yours if not from the system you so abhor?
P.S. I noticed that the Jamaican eco-village that you provided a link to the other day, under the section “Get Involved -> What does it cost”, has a line item for “Construction of Dwelling with Solar and Water Catchment”. Imagine that! Also I couldn’t help but notice the picture of the diesel powered tractor on the slideshow at their home page (picture 9 of 11).
Hi Alan,
My response here might seem organized a little differently because I decided to respond to your own in a different way…
I have already posted somewhere in these threads that much– 75% to 90%– of these fossil-fuel, or at least oil, industries or reserves are State-owned, and that many are getting into and supporting so-called renewables, including through subsidies– you know– through coercion via theft AKA, ‘taxes’.
I have also read– and previously quoted hereon– that it may be difficult for small players– anarchists or not– without pseudogovernment, to get into the pseudorenewables biz, such as in places like Canada even, never mind pseudo-developing nations.
I guess it depends what kind of business it is.
Small town PV manufacturing plant? That’s a complex and scaled operation AFAIK, as are most, if not all, forms of high-tech. And from there, there’s the issue of inbound and outbound shipping, materials, support, etc..
See my other comments in this thread/under this ‘article’ as well, such as with regard to food and potable water as being priorities, like the mango thing we’ve talked about before.
If you’ve read some or all of them, you should be able to get pretty clearly what my ‘hidden agenda’ is…
Any technology that is to exist and be successful must be equitably-derived and with care of Earth and care of people as paramount.
We cannot have solar panels and cars coming out of the kind of system that they currently do.
In fact, ‘off-grid’ PV is a bit of a misnomer, because it is tied to the system’s ‘commercial grid’.
So, in part, for example, you need the system’s money. And when you need and accept the system’s money, you are ‘grid-tied’.
It is not a denigration of ‘renewable’ tech per se, but, rather, a denigration of the system behind them, a system that denigrates me, you and everyone we know, including the planet and the species on it, species which, bizarrely, don’t need electricity.
The system doesn’t work, and won’t, no matter how promising the tech sounds.
In any case, large scale centralized anything seems to rely on larger energy scales and I can understand how large scale centralized pseudogovernments might feel between a rock and a hard place right now with declining energy scales, so who knows. Exciting times.
I have mentioned the problem of ecovillages in the context of the status-quo with jokuhl some years ago over at TOD. We cannot as easily bail from the status-quo if others are supporting it to a certain degree.
If you want to keep it at least in certain ways, you may just be making it harder for the people around you to get off of it. We are social creatures that need each’s support. Polluting the planet with PV, etc., manufacturing plants, etc., make it harder on populations that are trying to live truly outside of the technobubbles and in more harmony with nature.
There are many people who realize how wonderful their world is when they go off the system, including electricity. I know kind of what it’s like and it’s great. It’s a paradigm shift.
I indeed noticed some problems (and mentioned one or two) with the Jamaican ecovillage, and this dovetails into what I just said about truly getting off the system before it kicks us off unceremoniously.
Incidentally, congrats on your land but condolences for your father. Mine died last year.
I am working a little harder on Permaea, and if you might be interested in offering your piece of land as a ‘land node’ as a growing decentralized ‘country’, please let me know. I have some land here in Nova Scotia that I want to do this with and also to create a demonstration microecovillage with. It’s not as big (2.6 acres standard town block size) but it’s in a small town context. This means that it would be part of your country as well if you are part of Permaea.
I thought of this some years ago and mentioned it briefly on The Oil Drum. As a result, Fred Magyar mentioned a site that is actually doing something kind of like this (‘land nodes’) and I will be contacting them and seeing if they and their ‘land-members’ would like to be part of Permaea as well or vice-versa. Permaea is really just a ‘glue’ for ‘off-the-shelf’ parts that already exist around the world– disparate and systemically-divided-and-conquered groups on the same page that also disagree with the status-quo that would do well as a ‘forge’ with a similar attitude, direction and mutual support structure.
I will check your links out a little later, thanks.
In fact, ‘off-grid’ PV is a bit of a misnomer, because it is tied to the system’s ‘commercial grid’.
So, in part, for example, you need the system’s money. And when you need and accept the system’s money, you are ‘grid-tied’.
Good point! Let me think about that for a moment… Um, no, that is absolute bullshit!
Off grid by definition means, NOT tied to any grid. Solar PV provides the technology for actually creating a decentralized access to electricity that is free of corporate and government influence. You’d think that a fervent proponent of anarchism would prefer that to the current system.
“…that is free of corporate and government influence. ” ~ Fred Magyar
Well what produces those panels? If corporations as they’re generally currently structured produce those panels, and/or ‘government’, for example, coercively sales-taxes and/or subsidizes them, then there is no freedom from corporate or government influence.
I would add that producing a PV panel is a little more than mere influence.
Caelan,
Is everything a conspiracy to you?
Maybe sometimes a subsidy (tax break or low interest loan) is put in place to encourage a better path for society and/or provide jobs for people.
Caelan, as long as you continue posting here by using a corporate produced computer and using corporate provided electricity and corporate internet service while preaching anarchism and claiming you are against all things provided by the so called system you just come across as another deluded hypocrite.
You won’t change anything or anyone’s mind by your constant preaching against any and all technology.
Just curious do you pull your own teeth with string and a doorknob if you get a bad toothache? What happens if the resulting abscess get’s infected do you have some home remedy for that?
You are part and parcel of the very system you rail against.
The rest of us are quite aware of the shortcomings and problems we face and despite your comments we are not necessarily behind that system, but throwing out the baby of science and technology with the bath water is still pretty damn stupid!
It’s simply how the system currently operates, GoneFishing. You mentioned ‘conspiracy’, I didn’t.
Fred, you seem to be choosing to ignore, or pretending to ignore, that I am not against science and technology per se, but as it is currently configured. But I suspect that you enjoy doing so, perhaps rather like how Oldfarmermac had mentioned enjoying making a fool of himself where I was concerned. Hey, knock yourself out. ‘u^
As also mentioned previously, I’m fine with leveraging what already exists, what is already lying around, like those wooden palettes in my design of the treehouse, (which I posted a pic of and which you commented on, if you will recall, WRT the palettes as part of the industrial system), or in the spirit of the late wimbi’s subscription to the local ‘scrap yard’ and its technology there.
I think a lot of that’s called ‘recycling’.
Don’t forget, too, that Neo had to jack back into the matrix to free some people, their minds I guess… at least the minds that still wanted to be free and that were not already hopelessly inured and dependent on the system that they would fight to protect it… like some of you perhaps?
“Morpheus: ‘I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.’ ” ~ The Matrix, via the IMDB
OFM,
you got me wrong.
“There is no reason the sixty percent of the heat thrown off by the engine cannot be captured just as efficiently, and used for space and water heating. ”
In case of (car) engine + electric HP you use of course the 60% “waste” heat of the ICE for heating and you multiply the 40% electric output with a HP, this gives around 2 untis heat for one unit NG: 4*0.4 + 0.6 = 2.2
Or you use a gas HP, which converts 1 unit NG in 1.5 units heat. (Gas HP are only availabel for 15 kW or more, therefore, not useful for small houses).
However, in both cases you use in comparioson to a NG heater bloody expensive alternatives, for which you do not generate am appropriate financial gain.
In contrast, if you burn the NG in a central CC power plant with 50-60% efficiency and only use the electricity with a heat pump, you get a better result for less money.
My argument is that if this sort of system is scaled up, the price of it will come down to the point it is economic. Of course I might be wrong about that.
Consider this. If you need the electricity, and run such a system as a generator, when grid demand is high, you get very close to forty percent percent of the btu content of the gas as electricity on site, no transmission losses, with sixty percent as heat.
That ought to match the results of a combined cycle plant located some distance away, in terms of fuel efficiency, or come very close, plus this would be juice available at times when peak demand pricing is in effect.
I don’t KNOW that such systems will be economic. That’s why I am asking for other opinions. You may be right.
And for what it is worth, the best large diesel engines now get very close to fifty percent efficiency.
Natural gas is suited to high compression, and generator engines are optimized to run at steady speeds. There is reason to believe such engines could be designed to achieve close to fifty percent efficiency. It’s not size alone that makes those big diesels more efficient, it’s the design of them.
Engines designed to run at one constant speed don’t need balance shafts, complicated counterweights, to run smoothly, and the shape of the piston crown, combustion chamber, bore and stroke and rpm etc, can be optimized for the best possible fuel efficiency.
Another point is that larger buildings such as hospitals and super markets are well suited to having their own independent power supplies on premises. The last time a big storm hit in this area, some years ago, a local supermarket had to throw out the stores entire stock of frozen and refrigerated foods, the cost of which was enough to pay for having an in store system adequate to keep the coolers running. Management was unable to rent generators adequate to the job because none were available, and no electricians available to connect them, in time to save the inventory.
So there are considerations involved beyond just potential direct savings on natural gas.
The buyers of such systems may be able to negotiate some savings with their electrical utility on a regular basis by agreeing to disconnect from the grid in the event of a demand crisis, such as a bad storm, or a major generating plant going offline, etc, or they may be able to get a tax credit via the utility and government by allowing the utility to cut back on the construction and maintenance of back up capacity.
But as I said before, I am not expert in these matters. I am actively seeking out expert opinion, both pro and con.
“Natural gas is suited to high compression, and generator engines are optimized to run at steady speeds. There is reason to believe such engines could be designed to achieve close to fifty percent efficiency. It’s not size alone that makes those big diesels more efficient, it’s the design of them.
Engines designed to run at one constant speed don’t need balance shafts, complicated counterweights, to run smoothly, and the shape of the piston crown, combustion chamber, bore and stroke and rpm etc, can be optimized for the best possible fuel efficiency. ”
Yes, but for the small engines we are at 30-40% electric output.
A central CC power plant gives 50-60%, therefore, I as customer have only to buy the HP, no second system and no high O&M costs, which can only be covered by selling/substituting electricity. In Germany with high costs of electricity you need around 5000 FLHs (!) . This leads often to the situation that electrcity is generated when there is no demand for heat.
A game changer would be cheap fuel cells, with 60% electric efficiency and the ability you be used heat led with low FLH (~2000) during the heating season.
“Another point is that larger buildings such as hospitals and super markets are well suited to having their own independent power supplies on premises.”
You can add hotels and small industry. The disadvantage still is that many heat led system create a high must run capacity that hurts, look at Germany, we have sometimes negative prices with 15 GW fossils still producing, CHP is one culprit. 🙂
Free piston engine runs at 42 percent efficiency – direct electric generation.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185789-toyota-develops-high-efficiency-free-piston-no-crankshaft-combustion-engine-to-power-an-ev
The US is the third most populated nation at 320 million.
Far behind India and China, America should increase her population by at least another 350 million in the next 50 years to keep up.
Also, I have noticed that there are not enough cars and trucks, not enough roads, there definitely needs to more of both, it will increase the demand for oil, maybe thirty percent or so. An increase of another 50,000 flights of commercial airlines each day would help too. Another 100 million miles of airline traffic each day would increase demand for jet fuel.
If America wants to move forward, those goals need to be accomplished.
Why would America want to ‘move forward’? Haven’t we moved far too forward already?
Yep–
I’m for a “Great Leap Backward”
Clinton fans will really enjoy this little article from the Guardian.
I like it too, but I would like it even better if Sanders were the D nominee.
Trump IS a clown, which makes it a little hard to satirize him, but the picture alone is worth clicking the link, lol.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/08/clown-sighting-hysteria-explanation-donald-trump-election-2016
For Tesla fans and doubters
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2016/10/07/a-gigafactory-california-style-tesla-seeks-to-double-size-of-us-auto-plant/#7f19601a3bbd
I have said all along that barring surprises Clinton will win the election,meaning of course that surprises favorable to the R’s were still possible and still might derail her.
I am now ready, in view the short time frame remaining, and the last batch of Trump’s idiotic remarks about women coming to light, to bet twenty to one Clinton will win.
If I were the sort to believe in conspiracy theories, I would go for the one describing Trump as out to destroy the R party while putting Clinton in office.
Every once in a while nut cases do get into positions of great power and influence. Trump is not the first, nor will he be the last nut case to get to or near the top of the heap.
It looks like he will succeed in putting the R party in the dog house,especially with younger women, for a generation at least, maybe a lot longer.
I wonder how many House and Senate seats the R’s will lose.
I’m hoping for some coattails from Clinton and donated to local State Senate races. We have a really nasty bunch of crooks who have been controlling the State Senate for *decades* using dirty tricks, and they happen to be Republicans (plus a few bribed Democrats). If we knock out enough of them, the whole gang will lose power, and they’re *very close* to losing power.
There is corruption in anything.
R and D parties need to be declared illegal, members sent to a gulag for a few years or until they are gone for good, and good riddance to both their sorry worthless hides.
The only solution to the problem. har
True enough!
However the main problem seems to be that religious, political and economic ideologues on both the right and the left are not being adequately challenged because we have a scientifically illiterate electorate.
Let us not forget that both the Remocrat and Depublican parties, are by and large, put into power by the votes of the majority of this very same ignorant electorate.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-plan-to-defend-against-the-war-on-science/
A Plan To Defend Against the War on Science
The challenge of creating a public able to parse evidence-free “facts” rests with the press, educators and other thought leaders
Every Scientist Should Be An Anarchist
Anarchist Science Policy
Science, engineering, technology and capital, the four horsemen of our modern age are being implemented to wreck our world. They don’t have to be and in some cases are even being used otherwise. However, the overall picture is still one of destruction, of building anything and everything as well as doing mostly whatever we think is convenient for us.
Let us not forget the underpinnings of our society, education. Whether it be secular or religious, TV and other media, it sets the stage for future endeavors. So what kind of future is being taught right now?
As long as we continue to disrespect the natural world, acting as if it just resources, something to be owned and used for our purposes without extreme forethought, then we are destroying our own foundation.
Culture in Decline: A critical series about our system of civilization and culture, #4 is the war on nature. Series starts with democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbLslkIR2k
Amen RW.
I read you literally loud and clear this one time, lol.