209 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum. September 14, 2020”

  1. I am reading another good book. Just a couple of paragraphs. Bold mine:

    In most books that expose the horrors of our world, there is often a final chapter that states, ”if we can collectively pull ourselves together and do “Y,” we can save ourselves from ourselves and “X” will not happen.” But words drenched with hopium is only lulling us back to sleep. The implication is that somebody, somewhere, is somehow is somehow dealing with this monstrous mess and we need only make a few small adjustments in our personal lives to save our sinking ship. And of course, the worst stuff will never happen in our lifetime.

    The reality is that time has run out. We are well past global warming, climate change and even anthropogenic climate disruption. We are an irreversible state of runaway biosphere decay and no way back to what once was. And so I write this book with no hope-filled final chapter to lull anyone back to sleep. There is no to-do list filled with quick steps, painless fixes, and simple solutions. There is no strategic plan to perpetuate the belief in a happy ending anymore. The line in the sand has been drawn.

    It’s over.

    Deb Ozarko Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse, page 15

    1. “The reality is that time has run out.”

      Yes, as the UN warns, action is very far from stopping global temperature rise, with the world currently on track for 3C-4C. Their recent commentary lists nine tipping points that may have already been activated. Furthermore, a cascade of tipping points could occur because, for example, the melting of Arctic sea ice amplifies heating by exposing dark ocean that absorbs more sunlight. That, in turn, would/will increase the melting of Greenland ice and permafrost areas. So, multiple risks can/would interact, with one change reinforcing another, and with warming of just a degree (or two) sufficient to result in dramatic cascading effects. But let’s ignore this and pretend EVs will suddenly arrive in great numbers thus saving the planet!

      1. And if the massive wildfires don’t change conversation and promote change, then nothing will. Maybe economics will help do it for us.

        We can hardly see around here and are probably 500 miles from the nearest NW fire, and a thousand+ from most.

        1. I’ll be sending y’all prayers that the skies open up and the rains finally put an end to all these fires. Stay safe, brother.

        2. The massive wildfires have enabled Trump to double down on denial. When told yesterday that he needs to heed the science his response was something along the lines of “It’ll cool down. Science doesn’t know”.

          1. First of all, California created the mess it’s in by not doing controlled burns at regular times in order to cut down on air pollutants. Now their paying the price. And air pollutants are at highs now anyway because of the smoke, so they should’ve just did the controlled burns while they still had the chance.

            Second of all, I’d need to see see some actual footage of Trump denying climate change in order to believe he did. Only going by the clips being shown, he is telling the truth. A cool down always follows a heat wave. So if the media wants the criticism to be taken serious they need to show more than only a sound bite that can be manipulated out of context.

            2. Daybeer wrote: First of all, California created the mess it’s in by not doing controlled burns at regular times in order to cut down on air pollutants. Now their paying the price.

              Typical Trump supporter bullshit. Did anyone notice that nothing but bullshit ever comes out of a Trumpster’s mouth?

              California Forest Statistics Bold mine.

              There are 33 million acres of forest(ed) lands in California.
              Federal ownership is 19 million acres = 57%
              State and local agencies (including land trusts) own 3%
              Privately owned forest lands are 13.3 million acres = 40%

              Of that 40% of the total.

              Industrial private owners are 4.7 million acres = 14%
              Non-industrial privately owned forest lands are 9 million acres = 26%

              The state owns only 3% of the forest lands. The US Government owns 57%. It was Trump’s stupid ass that did not do the controlled burns. That is if controlled burns were possible.

        3. The wildfires almost certainly won’t change the conversation or change it enough.

          Reasons why:

          – Not enough people died.
          – Not new enough (there’s been forest fires since forever. This really isn’t anything sufficiently novel despite the actual novelty of it).
          – Not enough destruction

          We need a catastrophe that kills millions (tens? hundreds?) relatively quickly (say about 6 months) that’s unambiguously and obviously directly tied to climate change.

          Near planetwide crop failure for a growing season or two would likely do the trick.

          The failure of the Atlantic Conveyor Belt might do it.

          Short of that, I doubt anything will move the needle.

    2. “The reality is that time has run out. We are well past global warming, climate change and even anthropogenic climate disruption. We are an irreversible state of runaway biosphere decay and no way back to what once was. ”

      I see it that way too.

      But for the 65% of the world population less than 40 yrs old, most will choose to engage in a struggle to survive into the second half of this century.
      For them, here is what one study projects to be the potential non-fossil in-state energy generation for the lower 48 states-
      “If each U.S. state took full advantage of its renewable resources, how much electricity would it produce? How much of its own electricity consumption could renewable energy fulfill? Would in-state renewable generation be enough to charge electric vehicles and power electric heating, too? ”
      https://cdn.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/report-ESRS-2020-ilsr.pdf

      Call it hopium if you prefer. Others will call something to work on.

      1. That linked report is impressive if it’s accurate.

        Do you know if anyone else has done a similar analysis, and if they came up with the same kind of numbers? i tried to find some analysis generated by individual states but had no luck.

        20 years ago i looked at a small solar project, and i remember the price of solar panels was about $10/watt. Now I’m involved in a small project to move some equipment off-grid, and the quote i received from a supplier last week was less than $1/watt. (Can$285 for a 380 watt panel). I was very surprised.

      2. Funny that everyone assumes that renewables have to be domestic. Certainly that’s an attractive feature of wind and solar, but…it’s a double standard. We don’t expect every state or country to be able to produce all of it’s own oil or coal, and in fact very few can. Yet we seem to assume that if a country or state couldn’t do that, then renewables would have failed (most would be able to, but it’s likely that a few won’t).

        It should be considered a bonus, not a requirement.

        1. Certainly true Nick
          Best choice is your roof, or your county.
          But a thousand mile grid connection works too.

          Profiling five of the worlds longest transmission lines-

          ex-With an overhead length of 2,385 kilometres (km), the Rio Madeira transmission link is located in Brazil, and began commercial operations in November 2013.
          The 600kV HVDC bipolar line has a 7.1 gigawatt (GW) power transmission capacity, and supplies electricity generated from the Santo Antônio and Jirau hydropower plants to major load centres in southeastern Brazil.
          https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/worlds-longest-power-transmission-lines/

        2. BC has a huge amount of surplus electricity coming on stream. Hydro. Grid connected. Fully renewable.

        3. Nick,
          Renewables don’t have to be domestic, but renewable resources are much better distributed than fossil fuels. Energy trade and profit is based on a pattern of have and have-nots — for example, Western Europe doesn’t have a lot of oil, but the Mideast does, so a lot of oil flows from supply to demand. There isn’t much Europeans can do about it except cut consumption. And it’s a serious issue, as the search for oil was one of Germany’s major motivations for fighting WWI and WWII.

          The industrial economies of the US and East Asia are in similar situation, as both have been massive net importers of oil for decades.

          In a hypothetical scenario where Europe switches to EVs and renewables, this trade would stop, simply because it would no longer be profitable. You sometimes hear phrases like “Britain will be the Saudi Arabia of wind” and so on, but that is unlikely, because Britain has huge wind resources, but no real competitive advantage over its neighbors. Germany for example, probably can’t massively overbuild wind for export the way the UK and Ireland can, but it can build enough for its own needs at roughly the same cost.

          Trade only makes sense when one side has some competitive advantage for the goods to be traded. The vast trade and profit in fossil fuels that are the hallmark of the 20th century happened because the distribution of fossil resources is relatively clumpy. Renewables are less clumpy.

          For example every tropical and subtropical country is vastly oversupplied with solar resources. This should put a damper on trade in energy. But it wouldn’t necessarily kill it.

          1. Good points.
            There will be an increase in the already robust cross border and inter-regional trade in electricity.
            The seasonal and daily variability in renewables output makes this very likely.
            No oil refineries or tankers necessary for this energy trade.

    3. >hopium

      If insults are the best arguments you can muster, you don’t have any arguments worth listening to. Try again.

      1. I quoted Deb Ozarko from her book, Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse:

        In most books that expose the horrors of our world, there is often a final chapter that states, ”if we can collectively pull ourselves together and do “Y,” we can save ourselves from ourselves and “X” will not happen.” But words drenched with hopium is only lulling us back to sleep.

        Alimbiquated replied: If insults are the best arguments you can muster, you don’t have any arguments worth listening to. Try again.

        Alimbiquated, do you have any idea what an insult is? Exactly who was I insulting in that post? It is obviously you who are attempting an insult. And it is obvious you have no idea how to do it because you do not recognize there was no insult in that quote. Try again.

        Yes, I quoted Deb Ozarko from her book, Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse. And yes, Ozarko was criticizing other authors who offer false hope that all we have to do is X or Y and the world will be saved. Offering criticism is not an insult. If all criticism becomes an insult then this blog should just shut down because almost every other post offers criticism of someone else’s argument. And heaven knows we don’t want every other post to be an insult.

        1. Thinking up goofy names for other people’s arguments is an insult.

          1. It was not my quote. I did not “think it up”. I made that perfectly clear. I made a perfectly logical and clear statement about another person’s observation. It was a quote! Yet you called my post an insult. I really expected an apology, not a double down on your post accusing me of making an insulting comment.

            Let me try again. The author of the book, Deb Ozarko, was not making an argument, she was merely making an observation. That observation was that almost all books on the coming collapse end with instructions on what we must do to save the world. She, and I, and several others on this blog, believe it is too late. She offered the opinion that such instructions only offer hopium and tend to lull us back to sleep.

            Deb’s comment was an observation, not an argument and not an insult. So please do not ever accuse me of insulting anyone again when no insult can be gleaned from the post. It really pisses me off.

            Thank you and good day
            Ron Patterson

    4. I believe that someday (maybe in 60-150 years) oil, gas and coal will end. Or rather, all of this will be mined, but no more than 5-10% of today’s production. The same will happen with Uranium.235. Renewable sources can never replace all this, They will also have their “peak” associated with a deficiency of copper or other minerals.
      I will not dare to name the cataclysms that will lead to a reduction in the world’s population to 1-2 billion. There will be a qualitative transition of civilization, culture. The end of the game and a new deal of cards will take place.

      1. Ov+Ar.
        Most places in the world will be short on fossil fuel in the next couple decades, far before the 60-150 year timeframe you mention as the end of the oil age. By 60 years the world population will have peaked, maybe earlier. It is that near term time after peak oil (now) that I ponder.

        Some places will manage the energy downside better than others.
        I bet you could think of many ways that people could use less energy, yet maintain their economic output.
        10-20 % less fossil fuel over a decade could be absorbed without recession, in most sectors (no guarantee in some sectors, like tourism dependent on long distance travel) and in most countries.
        For example, the USA could use 10% less liquid fuel for transport by slowing the highway speed down to 50 mph with strict enforcement, without any loss of GDP. Hospitals may earn less money since crashes are less common and damaging at lower speeds.
        By 2030, another 10-20% of liquid fuel consumption could be easily offset by a shift to plug-in HEV and EV.

        1. Yes, of course, you are right, you can still optimize a lot, for example, there is no need for a wide variety of standards, well, there are chargers with the same parameters of connectors, wrenches, household appliances and so on. But this will not solve the problem in the long term. For example, in China, it will begin soon coal production will decline and the production schedule will be similar to a shark tail, let me remind you that about 70% of electricity in China is produced from coal.
          No matter how excessive hydrocarbon production is today, the time will come when it will be in short supply. I suppose there will be no smooth transition from oil and coal to a renewable source. I will have to change the way of life. There will be nothing to heat the cities located north of Spain, but of course a decrease in the thermal conductivity of the outer walls of dwellings will improve the situation But it will not solve it, there will not be enough firewood for the existing number of population. It will be necessary to reduce the population or move to the south. Electricity for air conditioners is also not enough.

  2. Ron,
    I have a question to ask you about the future. I live in Wisconsin and occasionally visit your site to get updates on our oil situation. We talked a few years ago and now I have another question for you.

    Since everyone is discussing decreasing oil supplies and decreasing human population in the coming decades and centuries, I want to ask you a question. My question, though, is about life on this planet 250 million years from now.

    We know what would happen if we traveled back in time 250 million years ago. Dinosaurs all over the place.

    What about 250 million years from now? The world will look different. There will be a supercontinent. Some are calling it Pangaea Proxima. The Moon will be further away. The Sun will be an old star, it’s red giant phase just beginning.

    What life will exist on this planet 250 million years from now? Will another animal dominate this planet? Did aliens from another world discover our planet and colonize it?

    1. “The Sun will be an old star, it’s red giant phase just beginning.”

      Not even close. It will take roughly 5 billion years for the sun to begin the helium-burning process, turning into a red giant star. When it expands, its outer layers will consume Mercury and Venus, and reach Earth.

      1. The Sun will be getting brighter possibly ending life on this planet 500 million years from now. That’s millions of years after the future supercontinent formed. The question is what life will exist on that supercontinent.

        1. Wrong again Larry. The most probable fate of Earth is absorption by the Sun in roughly 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded beyond the planet’s current orbit. BTW this may not be the best site to ask about aliens from another world having colonized Earth.

          1. Life on Earth would have ended long before that would occur. Doug, I’m waiting for your prediction of life on Pangaea Proxima, the supercontinent in our future.

          2. I disagree,

            Life requires an average temp of 30-40 C or photosythisis stops .

            As you rightly point out the Sun is getter warmer and has been since its furnace started.

            But before the Red Giant stage we have the min level of CO2 ( 150ppm) that is required and the Suns increased insolation.

            That would mean roughtly at 500-600 million years from now 150ppm will be too much CO2 to keep temprature low enough.

            Still a long time and as its been , what , approx 600millions year since the Pre-cambrian “explosion”, still time to do something 😉

            Forbin

            PS: please correct me if I’m wrong

    3. In the last 500m years there have been several mass extinction events, the biggest occurring about 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian. Since then there have been the Triassic-Jurassic extinction about 200m years ago and the KT event that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Before that there were two major extinction events spaced roughly 100m years apart.

      In that period there have been no known alien visitations.

      So in 250m years, we can expect to look back on 2-3 more major extinction events and no alien visitation.

      The new super continent will be mostly desert in its interior, but it will have a huge inland ocean, basically the Indian Ocean, so that will improve things a bit I guess.

      https://www.vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/NeoPangea.jpeg

      Despite all the destruction, there has been quite a bit of ecological continuity, so many of the same niches that were around 20,000 years ago will probably be filled by new plants and animals. For example, the ichthyosaurs and pleiosaurs started to dominate marine food chains in the early Triassic, and probably killed off out the big shelled swimmers. They died out at the KT event. Since then they have been replaced by the dolphins, orcas and large sharks.

  3. We are currently cloaked in smoke — hoping for wind (but not too much wind which would only fan the flames). Meanwhile, in Brazil, the ongoing disaster continues to unfold.

    DESPERATE RACE AGAINST FIRES IN WORLD’S BIGGEST TROPICAL WETLANDS

    “Amid the region’s worst drought in 47 years, many streams have run dry, and the fires often set this time of year on farms and ranches to clear land have spiralled out of control. This year, around 23,500 square kilometers (9,000 square miles) of the wetlands have gone up in smoke — nearly 12 percent of the Pantanal…

    There have been a record-shattering 14,764 fires in the Brazilian Pantanal this year, according to satellite data from Brazil’s National Space Research Institute. In less than nine months, 2020 has already broken the annual record for the number of fires, with an increase of 214 percent from the same period last year.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-09-desperate-world-biggest-tropical-wetlands.html

    1. Meanwhile,

      WORLD MISSING ALL TARGETS TO SAVE NATURE

      Countries are set to miss all the targets they set themselves a decade ago to preserve nature and save Earth’s vital biodiversity, the United Nations said Tuesday. Humanity’s impact on the natural world over the last five decades has been nothing short of cataclysmic: since 1970 close to 70 percent of wild animals, birds and fish have vanished, according to a WWF assessment this month.

      “We are currently, in a systematic manner, exterminating all non-human living beings.”

      https://phys.org/news/2020-09-world-nature.html

      1. It’s just business.
        It’s an ugly, evil, horrible business, but it’s the business we’re in.

        Ugh.

  4. There are four big reasons to attempt rapidly weaning the global population from fossil fuel.
    One is simply that the supplies are close to peak.
    Secondly is climate change. Literally playing with fire, in a flammable and fragile world.
    Third, there are 7.8 B people with every single one living out their lives as if there is a chance for stable conditions. No chance for that if we don’t deliberately begin to wind down this addiction to dense, easy to purchase energy.
    Fourth, we are fucking killing this planet with all this fossil fuel energy enabled industrial/commercial growth, agriculture, logging, mining and fishing.

    Any brilliant ideas how to deliberately wind it down please submit them to any government or policy making officials who you can find that care more than just about their personal job or re-election.
    And just how do you wind things down at a pace that doesn’t open the door wide to anarchy? Perhaps there just is no path safe for billions of humans, and the token families of animals that are left.

      1. That is very painful Doug, to use the word “your”
        ‘your self-proclaimed genius in the White House’

        Very painful.

        1. My US sister is certainly ashamed and full of angst. I phone her often and try and keep her spirits up. She’s worried about violence and collapse after Nov 3rd.

          1. As am I, unless its a landslide.

            The trump campaign has sued the State of Pennsylvania in attempt to prevent mail-in ballots from being deposited into official ballot drop-boxes.
            They are afraid of the unhindered democratic process, and rightfully so.
            Clearly, an enemy of democracy.

      2. This one is smaller but it’s a little bit more direct, but we have it under control,” he said. “We have it under watch very strongly.”
        Trump can sure make you laugh . 🙂

      3. Don’t worry Doug. He’s at the ready with his chart and Sharpie to direct the path of the storm as needed.

        Now if He’d just use the Defense Production Act to flood California with forest rakes and for-profit prison slave laborers, He could bring some law and order to these radical liberal socialist Democrat management disasters.

        1. 58% of California forests are federally owned. 12% owned by the state. The rest is privately held. So I’m blaming the administration for the fires. Trump probably fired the rakers.

  5. A comment was made recently that stationary grid battery energy storage is not at an ‘adequate’ state of pricing and technology to be currently ready for prime time deployment this decade.

    Well, that seems to not be case.

    Deployment at scale is happening this very year ( and last) in the USA and Australia for example-
    https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/broad-reach-power-starts-building-biggest-batteries-in-texas
    https://www.power-eng.com/2020/07/29/energy-storage-milestone-pge-tesla-begin-building-730mwh-battery-system/
    https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/australias-energy-storage-capacity-more-than-doubles-to-1.2-gwh-in-2020

    1. Am i missing something?

      From google, wind/solar generation in Australia was estimated to be 17000 GWh, with most of that wind.

      From the link above for Australia, “By 2025, we estimate Australia’s cumulative energy storage investment to hit $6 billion (USD). This translates to 12.9 gigawatt-hours of cumulative storage deployments.”

      Unless I’m missing something, storage is 0.1% of production or about 7 hours worth. ???

  6. Climate Change . Today mid September . Morning temp at 6 am was 21 centigrade . Now 5.30 pm it is 34 centigrade . Crazy .

  7. Some interesting projections in the following article:

    How long will the lithium supply last?

    Researchers have sounded the alarm. If no serious efforts are made on second-life battery use, recycling and vehicle-to-grid applications, decarbonization efforts may hit the buffers a lot sooner than expected. No one is entirely sure how much lithium the world has left.[snip]

    With around a billion light-duty vehicles on the roads, and the number set to rise to 3 billion by 2050, electrifying the global fleet could put a huge squeeze on lithium supply.[snip]

    Similarly, according to the LUT-Augsburg research, power consumption is set to rise in tandem with global population growth to 11 billion people by mid-century. The United Nations has estimated the world will require 40 MWh of primary energy per capita by that date, ensuring a need for 200 TWh of battery capacity this century. The 50 years after 2050 could see a fourfold spike in power consumption.

    So there might be limits on lithium but, they expect the amount of cars in the world to triple between now and 2050 and the world population is expected to double what it was in 1992 by mid century?

    1. L.O.L. Lithium supplies not included. Maybe I’m stupid but I doubt anyone has the faintest idea what the world will be like in 2050; given the (rapid) rate of change, 2030 has become a stretch — especially given today’s reality (i.e., ongoing megafires in Siberia, North America and the tropics, corona virus, etc.). When I walk outside, I face lung destroying smoke, lithium shortages in 2050 don’t seem to be a priority.

      15 WAYS THE WORLD WILL BE TERRIFYING IN 2050

      https://www.businessinsider.com/ways-the-world-will-be-terrifying-in-2050-2015-3

  8. He (the orange juvenile/adult) claims to have done
    ‘all we could do’.

    Lucky it was a war on a only moderately dangerous virus, and not a war on a more dangerous virus or a shooting war ( we would have lost 1/3 rd of the states).

    Update- USA 21% of world deaths with only 4% of the population.
    Deaths/million people-
    China- 3
    S Korea – 7
    Japan- 11
    Germany- 113
    Canada- 243
    USA- 601

    Massive failure of leadership/ policy/ decision making!
    Only a few countries have done worse.
    With better management the damage to the economy , and education, could have been much less.

    1. Lucky it was a war on a only moderately dangerous virus, and not a war on a more dangerous virus.

      Will we know how dangerous it is before we actually control it? It may have the perfect combination of stealth and lethality to exploit our short attention spans and overcome our dwindling vigilance.

      1. We do know its rate of contagion, demographic affects, and its mortality pretty well by now.
        I think a moderate characterization is reasonable on all these counts.
        It is much less contagious and lethal than some virus’s such as ebola and small pox.
        Also, those diseases are highly lethal right on down the age tree.
        Pray, or dance or something, that you don’t live through one of those episodes.

        1. But that’s the paradox, right? “Highly lethal viruses like SARS and Ebola tend to burn themselves out, leaving no one alive to spread them.” Covid has already killed a lot more people than either of those viruses, which are more lethal, so which is more ‘dangerous’?

          I’m not arguing against your points here. I don’t disagree. But can we have any idea what the body count is going to ultimately be when we can only guess at how people are going to behave?

          Like the meme says: “We’re going to have to retire the phrase “avoid it like the plague”, because it turns out, we don’t do that.” 😉

          Some stats from recent high profile viruses:
          Marburg:
          Avg. CFR: 80%, total deaths: 475

          Ebola:
          Avg. CFR: 50%, total deaths: 12,950

          MERS:
          Avg. CFR: 30-40%, total deaths: 858 (2012-2019)

          1. A strategy for success is often less lethality for viruses.
            This is of course coming from a human centric perspective.
            Viruses (which are not alive) have (or not) other goals.

      2. Bob, The point of my statement was not a debate about how exactly deadly or contagious this virus is compared to others.
        Rather, it is that pandemics can be a whole hell of lot worse, like small pox, and that this government failed miserably it the reaction – we are all very lucky the challenge wasn’t a much worse one.

        Just today in a town hall trump said that the virus will go away because of herd mentality.
        Yup, herd mentality!

        1. I have expectations that the president of the usa would be a person who
          -has the capability to read at greater than a 4th grade level
          -has an attention span longer than an 18 month old
          -cares for more people than just his immediate circle
          -values advisors based on intelligence and expertise, rather than simply loyalty
          -bases policy decisions on reality, rather than conspiracy theories
          -is a person that you could trust to be alone with your daughters and wife for more than 20 seconds
          -who has not flirted repeatably with bankruptcy (despite inheriting a vast sum)
          -who has a clean enough record of conduct to release a decade of tax and financial records, as well as medical records

          Apparently most republicans do not share these kind of expectations

    2. Canada’s rate is actually way down now compared to the first few months. In Ontario and Quebec it spread into adult care facilities and many of them were terribly run. One good thing that came out of this mess was a revamping of care facilities across the country. For example, today the country had 9 deaths total, population 38 million. Our curve is almost flat these days, and infection increases this past month in stage 3 are almost all a result of younger folks partying. My daughter is a teacher and our schools in BC are fully open for in person learning. although parents can opt out. Parents have to make a firm decision on their child’s attendance by the end of Sept. No changing after that date unless there is a pretty solid reason. They could pull their children out, but not place them in class if staffing is fixed.

      If the current Canadian fatality rate was extrapolated it would indicate the US had approx 72 fatalities today. Instead, there were what, 1,000(ish)?

  9. Hickory posted a link to a report made by ILSR a few posts above.

    It’s take is highly optimistic to say the least. Unfortunately it doesn’t go too much in details as how to achieve such results. There’s a link in the appendix but all it does is redirecting you on the ILSR main page, and gives no further explanations.

    Those guys probably got their promising results by using the best case scenario for each variable:
    -the sun will shine 12 hours a day all year long
    -the wind will blow constantly at XX mph
    -solar panels and wind mills of the latest generation deployed (maybe not even commercialised yet), etc.

    A bit like a car advertising that boasts that it can achieve a consumption of X mpg. We all know those figures are unattainable in real conditions.

    And of course it doesn’t include storage. It mentions that the base supply will be provided with gas power plants… SMH

    However I’m not an engineer so let’s assume it is possible.

    We have now to take a look at the situation we’re in.

    Finance is like a Jenga tower, overstretched to all-time highs and very fragile. Anyone following the stock market know that a massive crash is coming soon.
    Economy is in really bad shape . Unemployment figures are soaring everywhere, bankruptcies are breaking out, default payments will be cascading, putting strain on banking sector.
    Politically and socially, we are more polarized than we’ve ever been. Social unrest is gaining ground all across the globe, populist leaders are the norm now, not the exception.
    Wealth disparity is at an insane level. Even in rich countries the middle class is vanishing.

    We’re dealing with a virus that mutates fast, making vaccines unlikely. Social and economic interactions are taking a big hit because of all the measures needed. A lot of supply chains have been disrupted, the long and complex ones are probably already gone forever.
    Climate change is becoming serious, and whatever we do now the trend will worsen for at least 20 years.
    Top soil erosion. The soils are dead in so many places, without massive use of fertilizers there’s simply no food production.
    Oceans are dead zones. We’re getting closer to the point where there will be more plastics than fish.
    Water is becoming scarce almost everywhere.
    Resources are depleted.
    Biodiversity is collapsing at a rate similar to an extinction event.

    And on top of that we have an energy problem.

    Economy is like a thermodynamic engine, or a living organism if you prefer.
    It needs energy to grow. If energy input is stable, it’s in a steady state. If that input is declining, it have to shut down non-critical components to focus on surviving. Without energy, it dies. What is even more disturbing (or fascinating if you will), is that FIRST you have to use energy THEN it can generate growth. Not the other way around.

    UK started to use coal in the beginning of 19th century, then it generated economic growth. In a similar fashion you first have to eat, then you have energy to do stuff.

    This is why our economies are having problems to generate growth: energy is becoming scarce. To keep generating growth, we need cheap and abundant energy.

    US had peak oil 1970 (conventional). What followed in 1971 ? Nixon shock.
    2006 was peak conventional for the world. What came after ? GFC.
    2018 was world peak all methods. In 2019 global trade and industrial manufacturing were declining.

    Coincidences ? Certainly not. When energy becomes constrained, problems arise. French revolution is another good example of that. The biggest issue we’re facing now is energy, or the lack of it.

    Unfortunately I don’t see renewables as a solution. They require an insane amount of material to generate power, which means a lot of mining – yes, a lot! – and also rare earths which aren’t exactly environmental friendly.

    What is even more problematic is their lack of density. Density is also a factor to consider for economic growth. To use the living organism example once again, would you prefer to eat 2 oz. of steak or 40 oz. of green salad if you had to run a marathon ?

    Now to the famous “technology around the corner” argument. Two things to consider.

    First, the law of diminishing returns.
    Did anyone notice that since circa 1950 we had no major breakthrough in technology ? Yes, we improve things, but as time passes the increments are becoming smaller and smaller, despite the fact that now we have big teams of scientists working in labs. This phenomen is clearly highlighted by Joseph Tainter (I encourage anyone not familiar with his works to have a look at it, his theories are brilliant). Take the example of ICE engines: we made significant progress in the first part of 20th century at a low cost, now 100 years later we’re still improving but a lot of research need to be done for very little gain.

    Second, the fact that technology is tied to energy.
    It’s the use of a new form of energy that enables us to gain access to new technology. Railroads were invented because we started to use coal, Haber-Bosch was discovered because of gas, Plastics and Medicine because of oil. But it doesn’t really work the other way around.

    About the energy efficiency paradigm that is tossed as the “be all end all” miracle thing, refer to law of diminishing returns to understand that renewables will not improve their efficiency by a factor 2 in the next years, that is so unlikely it’s kinda risky to put blind faith in it. And don’t forget what W.S Jevons has taught us about “being efficient”. Energy efficiency is like a religion, FFS get real and quit using that delusional mantra.

    We’re in a very dire situation, and we don’t have much time to act. Will the economy recover ? I’m willing to bet my life it NEVER will (dead cat bounces desn’t count). Oil was our best energy source, it made our prosperity and now we’re looking at the downhill side of the curve. Simply put, unless we gain access to a highly abundant and dense energy source, economic growth is gone forever. That’s the part economists get wrong all the time, because they think energy as an externality while it’s clearly the driver of the economic engine.

    Time to live with our feet on the ground, we have screwed the planet to an unsane level. The ecological overshoot is severe, and it started in the early 70s. We’re entering an area of hazardous turbulence and it will be a very rough ride. Major problems arising everywhere, nobody will be spared. It’s important to understand that it’s happening NOW, not in 10 years. We’re running out of time, we can’t wait for technology around he corner to save us, we can’t wait for renewables to be deployed. Too late for that. Don’t deceives yourselves.

    Technology put us in this situation. We sure had a lot of benefits from it, but now the tide has reversed. Anyone thinking that we should pursue the goal of more technology to save our asses or even mitigate our inevitable demise is encouraging a snake to bite it’s own tail, literally. The crash can’t be avoided, and it’s closer to happen than most of you think. I think we’ll see serious shortages happening almost everywhere as soon as next year, and total collapse in only a few years. Not 30, not 20, not even 10. 2019 was the peak of industrial civilization, 2020-2021 will see the peak in population, peak in life expectancy, peak obesity (the latter is a good thing actually).

    It’s time to stop this madness. Instead of relentlessly conquering nature, we should try to live in harmony with it, or more accurately what’s left of it. Find a community of good people (20 or more adults), a remote place with access to fresh water, preserved nature if possible. Learn permaculture, get seeds and gardening tools. And prepare to defend yourself from hungry / angry people.

    1. Agree with many of your points.
      I do think its in your family/local/regional best interest to have as much non-fossil and non-imported energy production as you can muster. The places and people that do well in this regard this decade will be in better shape.
      Simple example, in about 2/3rds of the country you can now have enough solar on the roof to charge your own vehicle for your transport needs. And over time will spend much less $/mile, and the money you spend will be paying off your own asset, rather than to a series of oil supply companies. And your transport expenditures are protected from oil-depletion related inflation.
      That is resilience.
      That is feasible today.

      1. I don’t see that as resilience. Resilience is getting rid of superfluous, frail technology. Resilience is low technology. It’s something you can fix yourself if it breaks down. Solar installations have a lot of electronic components, not easy to fix yourself and almost impossible if you don’t have spare parts.

        Resilience also means local. If it depend of long, complex suppy chains (such as electronic components), then by no means it is resilient. Those chains are already starting to break everywhere, and the demise of FF will only accelerate the trend. Once FF will be out of the landscape, say goodbye to globalism and to cheap components made in a distant country. You’ll be stranded with what you have in a limited radius.

        A bike is resilient (provided you have spare tubes and tires). A wood stove is resilient. A longbow is resilient. Anything made before 19th century is resilient.

        You’ll see what is truly resilient when SHTF.

        1. If you want to define the conditions as complete breakdown, then there is no such thing as resilience, beyond a short term lonely struggle to steal food. If it comes to that, no discussion here is relevant.
          Short of that scenario, yes generating your own electricity is energy resilience.
          Skip the whole exercise if you just prefer to purchase you petrol from others, at prices that will be increasing over next decade as it depletes.
          Best luck.

          1. But we’re on the verge of complete breakdown, you just don’t want to admit it.

            Still, resilience is possible but you’re right, life will be a struggle. Come to think of it, life always has been a struggle in the past, until we started to use FF. We’ve been pampered by this massive boost of energy use, and now we take this comfort as granted. But it’s not.

            Our ancestors didn’t have electricity. The survivors of the collapse won’t either, bar a few odd exceptions. We were lucky enough to know such a comfortable era, sadly it has softened us to a point that makes our survival very unlikely. Most of us can’t grow food unless we use machines and fertilizers. We are pampered babies, totally dependant of technology that is killing us, and every other form of life. How ironic is that.

            As for petrol. Most people get this wrong, thinking that the price will go up as it depletes. That would be logical to think so, but high prices only come with high demand. Do we have high demand ? No we don’t. And it’s not just the virus that is killing demand, there are too many people who lost their jobs and can’t afford cars or travel anymore. You could buy a sack of potatoes for 25ct during the depression, but people still couldn’t afford it despite they were starving. It’s an affordability problem.

            Now that middle class is disappearing, you have the very rich and the others. The rich are obscenely rich, but there’s not many of them. The poor people can’t afford discretional expenses anymore, they are more than happy just to be able to feed themselves.

            High prices for energy and commodity are only possible when there is enough people to drive demand up. Now you just have the riches that can keep demand high, and there’s not enough of them to sustain high prices. And this is a real problem, because when prices for commodities is low, companies aren’t making a profit and they cut expenses. And as a result, supply is dwindling even faster.

            Do you see the problem now?

            I want to believe you are open minded enough to understand. But you’ll have to overcome your disappointment of a future that doesn’t exist besides in your imagination. Refer to the 5 stages of mourning by Kubler-Ross. I think you’re somewhere between denial and anger.

            Good luck to you too. It will be sorely needed it in the rough years to come.

            1. Look over the horizon. There are 7.8 B people consuming oil. Picture 80 million barrels- for just one day. At the end of this decade there will 8.5 B.
              I don’t think its rational to just sit on our hands while oil peaks.
              This is not a scenario that I am optimistic about, nonetheless I believe that the choices people make does have a chance of affecting the experience, at least regionally.

              By all means, feel free to focus on the lack of possibility.
              Not that world really needs any more lack of possibility specialists.
              Personally, I need no help (or lecturing) in that sector. I excel at it.

          2. But we’re already on the verge of complete breakdown. You know it but just refuse to fully aknowledge it. Not to me or others, but to yourself. Still, resilience is possible but you’re right, life will be a struggle. But hasn’t that been the case before in the past ? It was, until we started to use FF. We’ve been pampered by this massive boost of energy use, and now we take this comfort as granted. But it’s not.

            Our ancestors didn’t have electricity. The survivors of the collapse won’t either, bar a few odd exceptions. We were lucky enough to know such a comfortable era, sadly it has softened us to a point that makes our survival very unlikely. Most of us can’t grow food unless we use machines and fertilizers. We are pampered babies, totally dependant of technology that is killing us, and every other form of life with it. How ironic is that.

            As for petrol. Most people get this wrong, thinking that the price will go up as it depletes. That would be logic to think so, but high prices only come with high demand.

            Do we have high demand ? No we don’t. And it’s not just the virus that is killing demand. There are too many people who lost their jobs and can’t afford cars or travels anymore.

            You could buy a sack of potatoes for 25ct during the depression, yet most people couldn’t afford it despite they were starving. It’s an affordability problem. Now that middle class is disappearing, you have a restricted minority of rich people and the others are already struggling to make ends meet. The poor people can’t afford discretional expenses anymore, they are more than happy if they are able to feed themselves.

            High prices for energy and commodity are only possible when there is enough people to drive demand up. Now you just have the riches that can keep demand high, and there’s not enough of them to sustain high prices. And this is a real problem, because when prices for commodities is low, companies aren’t making a profit and they cut expenses. As a result, supply is dwindling even faster. We’ll stop extracting oil long before it’s depleted because we can’t afford expensive oil anymore, even if it’s the backbone of our industrial civilization.

            Do you get the picture now?

            I’m sure you can understand this. But you’ll have to overcome your disappointment of a future that doesn’t exist, besides in a dream that you collectively share with millions of people who want to believe in a not too grim future. If I had to take a guess, I’d say you’re probably somewhere between anger and denial (Kubler-Ross mourning curve). I know it’s not easy, I’ve been there before.

            Good luck to you too. It will be sorely needed it in the rough months and years to come.

            1. VFaralis your ignorance is over whelming

              Man has always lived on the edge of failure and resource limitations is not in the near future. For more than the last half decade the world has been over supplied with low costs resources . Ignorance of your nature in a country full of guns and disinformation is humanities biggest danger to chaos. Today’s standard of living is based on knowledge and science. Education is the key to moving forward. Ignorance is the ball and chain around it’s ankle.

              Be careful what you wish for

            2. Science and knowledge are double edged swords. Today’s standard of living is based on exploitation of resources, mostly energy resources. This is detrimental not only to us, but to our environment, and the signs that we are approaching (or past beyond, in many cases) dangerous limits are quite obvious. Don’t you “see” those limits ? Or are you denying them ?

              I was simply trying to make the point that technology often brings more problems than it can solve. I’m not advocating for a new stone age, but our civilization went on a technology binge and didn’t think of it’s consequences. The day of reckoning is coming, because we weren’t able to chose wisely.

              We’ve been living on the edge of failure for a very long time, you got that right. So you therefore deduct we can keep going on. Question: do you think you’re immortal because you wake up every morning ? That seems to be your line of thinking.

              Do you know what happened to St Matthews island’s reindeer ?

              Quite funny you think I’m an ignorant. Your comment is so vacuous, I can only conclude it’s reciprocal.

            3. “Don’t you see” it takes science and knowledge to extract resources.

              “Don’t you see” humanity can’t go back in time?

              “Don’t you see ” you haven’t stated an answer to humanities overshoot?

              “Don’t you see” religion is the biggest obstacle to addressing overshoot?

              “Don’t you see” without addressing overshoot the environment will continue to degrade?

              “Don’t you see” your part of the problem?

              “Don’t you see” when you assume, you make an ass of yourself?

              “Don’t you know” the fossil fuel industry has the Republican politicians balls in a vice?

              “Don’t you know” over the last decade technology has shown 95 percent of burning fossil fuels can become non essential?

              “Don’t you know” if Trump’s lips are moving, he’s lying?

              “Don’t you know” the regular posters in the non oil comment are more knowlegible than yourself?

              Do you know anything ?

            4. You are misunderstanding my point I think.

              I do not advocate the use of FF. Yet our lives and our comfort are highly depending on them.

              Mining, agriculture and transportation are mostly oil based activities. Those are absolutely essential to keep the show running.

              I’m fully aware that we can make EVs and create fertilizers without FF.

              But can we make it happen in a short time span and produce enough food to support 7.8 Bn humans and keep some level of civilization ?

              The answer is no. This is what you can’t understand as of now.

              Technology is not the silver bullet that will adress those problems. It’s an additional layer of complexity in a overly complex world. It’s only putting more pressure on a fragile system.

              Theorically it’s possible, yes. But there’s not enough time and not enough resources to transition to those alternatives on a scale big enough to avoid catastrophic outcomes.

              You’re probably angry because your hopes are relying on the idea that a “green” transition is feasible, and I’m simply telling you it will not work. That’s guaranteed.

              “Technology will save us” is just a delusional mantra. It’s a form of cult that has a lot of followers. I used to be one of them.

              Overshoot always corrects itself. Famine, diseases and wars are the 3 most common ways for massive die offs. This is the grim reality most of us will have to face very soon. We’re only a few years (not decades) from that moment. Possibly even closer than that.

              The fossil fuel industry is on its knees. The price of oil is too low for them to make profits, and evidence is building up that the prices will stay low. Wealth disparity is at a all-time high and we’re on the verge of bankruptcy. The video I linked at the bottom of this page gives you some cold hard facts, if you have one hour to spend I assure you it’s worth your time. But you probably want to maintain the illusion a bit longer and therefore choose not to see it.

              Low prices are accelerating the demise of FF. But the downside is it reduces the time to prepare for the collapse, and we’ll suffer a lot as a consequence.

              I don’t know why you’re bringing Trump in this discussion, because I probably hate that narcissist psychopath as much as Ron does, which should tell you something. But that’s not as big of a problem for me as it can be for you (assuming you’re in the US), since I live in Europe.

              You’re right, there are probably 95% of people more knowledgeable than me on these boards.

              However, I’m pretty sure I know more about our predicament and the coming collapse than most people do. I spent countless hours on relevant topics, just to have a good grip of what’s coming.

              But to be able to understand, you have to give up on false hopes. That’s not easy, we suffer a lot of cognitive biases.

              I know what is possible to do, and what is not. And some things are in between.

              Let me repeat it one more time: Technology will not save us.

              One day you will understand. You will see it with your own eyes.

              Enjoy your last moments of BAU. 2020 will be the most stable year of the rest of your life.

            5. >I do not advocate the use of FF. Yet our lives and our comfort are highly depending on them.

              You are contradicting yourself. You clearly advocate consumption of fossil fuel.

            6. Plain wrong.

              If we stop using FF tomorrow, billions of people die, because agriculture in its current state is highly relying on FF. Both machinery and fertilizers. Remove gas and oil from the agri sector, what’s exactly left on the table ? Not much I’m afraid. Behind every calorie of food produced, there’s between 7 and 10 calories used, and they’re mostly coming from FF.

              Transportation is 90 % based on oil, that’s a fact. What does happen if tomorrow trucks stop running ? It only takes a few days for severe problems to arise. The population in big cities is depending on a constant flow of delivered food and supplies brought by trucks to live. If the flow stops, people begin to starve very quickly. What is exactly the part of EV trucks ? Quite small, almost negligible. Personally, I’ve never seen one on the road.

              There’s a good read “When trucks stop running” by Alice Friedmann explaining what would be the consequences. You surely can find a pdf or a nice summary of it.

              So yes, fossil fuels are supporting our lives. I’m not denying there are alternatives, but those are poorly developed and in no way they can sustain our current level of population.

              If you fail to see that, then there’s no point in continuing this discussion.

              I initially thought people here would be open minded and have enough maturity to discuss serious issues, but I’m starting to think I was wrong.

              This place is obviously filled with people who firmly believe in a 100% electric future, fueled by renewables, believing that it will stop climate change (which at this point isn’t true anymore because the tipping points have been crossed anyway).

              They chose to completely ignore the colossal amounts of minerals and rare earths required to make such a transition, and the time needed to make it happen. It takes decades, we don’t have those.

              Huntington labelled me as an ignorant because a part of him is totally scared that some things I’ve said might come to reality. When a thermometer indicates you you have fever, break it and poof – the fever is gone ! That was his puerile reaction to keep his sanity.

              Now you say that I’m pro FF, that’s just silly. Fossil fuels are ingrained in every aspect of our civilization, are you blind for not seeing it ? Does it makes me pro FF for saying that ? Are you also trying to break the thermometer ?

              Most people here are not ready to hear the truth. I posted a link to a very informative video a few posts below, I bet next to no one has bothered to check it out which is sad because it’s very informative and above all it doesn’t have any bias. But even though you won’t admit it, you are scared, so better ignore it and carry on, right ?

              You attacked Ron for a quote from a book. That was totally out of place and undeserved. He stated very clearly what it was about yet you didn’t even bother to give an answer and apologize.

              Now you come at me with this nonsense. I can only come to the conclusion that you’re starting to lose your shit because your rosy dreams fueled by hopium are slowly falling apart with all those rumors of a collapsing world.

              That’s ok. Keep your head in the sand. While you’re at it buy a Tesla and a few solar panels, it will save the world, and all will be fine and dandy.

              And please, don’t waste your time answering me if you can’t offer something consistent.

            7. Well FVitalis,
              Whoever told you that “While you’re at it buy a Tesla and a few solar panels, it will save the world” is feeding you a false story.
              I am surprised you repeated it, since it is clearly a foolish message.

              note- you can replace the word Tesla with Nio, BYD, Ford, Nikola, Kia, VW, GM, Toyota, Chrysler, Lordstown, Hyundai, and a dozen more manufacturers who have EV or PHEV’s on the market now or in the next.

              I respond since I have solar, and a wife with a tesla.
              We purchased neither to ‘save the world’!

              Sure, having these goes a long way towards weaning ourselves from coal (we use none) and oil, and reducing our contribution to global pollution and carbon emission, and giving us resilience when comes to power grid failures (we live a high fire and occasional windstorm zone), and giving us protection from oil price inflation, but no- we have no assumption of saving the world.
              And yes, the money we spend on electricity/transportation miles goes to paying us for our energy producing asset rather than to oil producers in other states/countries or to the refiner or utility, and yes we do save time by not gong to the gas station, and yes we will save lots of money on car maintenance, and yes we enjoy a sense of security being a private power producer,
              But no, we have no crazy illusion of saving the world.
              Just one family doing their little part of adjusting to a world which is in the midst of a momentous transition.

            8. Well VFitalis,
              Whoever told you that “While you’re at it buy a Tesla and a few solar panels, it will save the world” is feeding you a false story.
              I am surprised you repeated it, since it is clearly a foolish message.

              note- you can replace the word Tesla with Nio, BYD, Ford, Nikola, Kia, VW, GM, Toyota, Chrysler, Lordstown, Hyundai, and a dozen more manufacturers who have EV or PHEV’s on the market now or in the next.

              I respond since I have solar, and a wife with a tesla.
              We purchased neither to ‘save the world’!

              Sure, having these goes a long way towards weaning ourselves from coal (we use none) and oil, and reducing our contribution to global pollution and carbon emission, and giving us resilience when comes to power grid failures (we live a high fire and occasional windstorm zone), and giving us protection from oil price inflation, but no- we have no assumption of saving the world.
              And yes, the money we spend on electricity/transportation miles goes to paying us for our energy producing asset rather than to oil producers in other states/countries or to the refiner or utility, and yes we do save time by not gong to the gas station, and yes we will save lots of money on car maintenance, and yes we enjoy a sense of security being a private power producer,
              But no, we have no crazy illusion of saving the world.
              Just one family doing their little part of adjusting to a world which is in the midst of a momentous transition.

            9. “The survivors of the collapse”

              “This is the grim reality most of us will have to face very soon. We’re only a few years (not decades) from that moment. Possibly even closer than that.”

              VFatalis, your being a drama queen. It took years to build the twin towers. They were used for decades and came down(collapsed) in 11 seconds.

              Collapse- (of an institution or undertaking) fail suddenly and completely.

              “This is why our economies are having problems to generate growth: energy is becoming scarce. To keep generating growth, we need cheap and abundant energy.”

              There has been over supply of cheap energy for the last 6 years. Within one month the United States has cut it’s oil consumption by 15 percent for the last 6 months with no collapse. If 2019 was peak oil it was not because of geographical constraint. Let me know if you need a fire extinguisher to put your hair out.

              “now we’re looking at the downhill side of the curve”

              Only if your a quitter. World liquid fuel production was growing so fast less than a year ago that it flooded the market and OPEC was trying to constrain production.

              “Economy is like a thermodynamic engine, or a living organism if you prefer.”

              If you pulled this out of your ass. It’s time to wipe.

              “As for petrol. Most people get this wrong, thinking that the price will go up as it depletes. That would be logic to think so, but high prices only come with high demand.”

              It’s time for VFatalis ignorance to enroll in continuing education in economics.

              The theory of price is an economic theory that states that the price for any specific good or service is based on the relationship between its supply and demand. The theory of price posits that the point at which the benefit gained from those who demand the entity meets the seller’s marginal costs is the most optimal market price for that good or service.

              KEY TAKEAWAYS
              1. The theory of price is an economic theory that states that the price for any specific good or service is based on the relationship between its supply and demand.
              2. The optimal market price, or equilibrium, is the point at which the total number of items available can be reasonably consumed by potential customers.
              3. Supply may be affected by the availability of raw materials; demand may fluctuate depending on competitor products, an item’s perceived value, or its affordability to the consumer market.

              The goal is to achieve the equilibrium where the quantity of the goods or services provided matches the demand of the corresponding market and its ability to acquire the good or service. The concept of price theory allows for price adjustments as market conditions change.

              https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/theory-of-price.asp

            10. Hickory

              That was sarcasm. No doubt you’re trying to ease the pressure with your approach, which is noble.

              But sadly, it’s not enough, because fossil fuels are still used for mining and assembling every components of your car and your solar equipment.

              Yes, your car can move without having any significantly harmful impact on the environment. But think of everything that has to be done to get the materials, refine them, assemble them, transport them. Once you figure all this out, you realize that it’s still impacting.

              Reducing consumption is the only way you can ease the pressure on the system. The only one. But it’s too late to save the world as we know it, so your decisions, my decisions, and other people decisions will not make a big difference anyway.

              Huntington

              I don’t get your analogy with the twin towers. Try again, or better yet, don’t.

              As for the theory of economy behaving like a living organism, that’s not mine.

              I heard it first from JM Jancovici, a brilliant french engineer. Then from Nate Hagens. Then from Gail Tverberg. Then from others.

              Economy is relying on energy to perform. Did you notice the strong correlation between GDP and energy use ? Use your favorite search engine and see for yourself, it will only take 10 seconds of your time to look at a graph.

              Most of the production is done by machines. Not only in industry, but also in tertiary sector. We use computers, vehicles, machinery because it greatly improve our productivity. And machines need energy.

              Substract energy to the equation, the machines are stopped and output dramatically falls. Remember what happened in 1973 and 1979 ?

              Economists think energy as an externality, while in reality it is the heart of the engine.

              That’s a huge problem, because we need a perpetual growth of GDP to run the show. This translates to a bigger energy use, year after year. Fossil fuels are 85% of total energy use, and we’re running out of them.

              Notice that despite our efforts to increase the part of renewable energy in the equation those last 10 years, fossil fuels are still taking 85% of the share.

              The inevitable conclusion is economy will have to shrink. It already started a long time ago, although we don’t see it. Most of the economic growth we had those last 20 years came from asset value inflation and financial tricks. We’re piling on huge amounts of debt, then we pretend it is economic growth. How sustainable is that ?

              We are indeed awash of cheap petrol these days. But the confusion comes from price and cost, those aren’t the same. The price is cheap. Not the cost. Price is tied to currency, cost is tied to EROEI. So don’t draw your conclusions from an oil barrel at 40$, because finance has distorted everything. The video I linked below has an interesting segment on that topic starting around 14:00 and ending at 23:00 iirc.

              But of course you’ll not watch it. I’m an ignorant to you.

              Stay warm under your blanket of denial.

              I have nothing more to add.

            11. V Fatalis
              Try to not confuse your personal prospects, or your local prospects, with those of the world in general.
              The global middle class, who can and will be energy consumers, has grown dramatically in the past 3-4 decades.
              I wonder how long the lower and middle classes will tolerate the extreme concentration of wealth at the top. The sequestered wealth of the the top 100 wealthy equals roughly the entire wealth of the poorer 1/2 of humanity.
              Nonetheless, your notion that demand for oil will continue to decline is one I do not subscribe to. Maybe in Toledo, but not in Chongqing (12th biggest city in the world).

              https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-unprecedented-expansion-of-the-global-middle-class-2/

            12. Yes the middle class has grown a lot, especially between late 40’s and early 70’s. But since then? It’s been slowly and steadily diminishing in OECD countries. The only real growth came from emerging markets.

              Now the emerging countries are also facing a decline of their middle class. It only started a few years ago, so the numbers might be misleading. But overall, the middle class is definitely declining, and the virus is accelerating the trend.

              I also wonder for how long the dwindling middle class and the poor people will tolerate such wealth concentration to a tiny minority. NASA published a study (2015 iirc) Human And Nature Dynamics. They came to the conclusion that wealth disparity by itself was sufficient to trigger a systemic collapse. I’m eager to believe it.

              Wealth disparity is a really bad can of worms indeed. This is one of the numerous reasons that lead me to think that we’re getting really close to a world of troubles.

              And this is also why I’m convinced that the price for commodities can’t go up, or at least not by significant margins. Of course I could be wrong, but this is what tea leaves are telling me.

            13. As I see it, the extreme concentration of wealth and power at the very top of wealth pyramid is the biggest threat to stability in the world of humans.
              People under economic duress are very susceptible to being manipulated into false paths by autocrats and institutions with ulterior motives (power to themselves).
              Look no further than the examples of Germany and the Nazis, USA and right wing, Christianity (the church). There are numerous other examples of this recurrent trend throughout history.
              These manipulations take the form of nationalism, patriotic fervor, and mob righteousness, but do nothing to improve the disparity in wealth between the very top, and everyone else.
              They are a form of crafted subversion and of the populace, distracting them from the base issue.
              Beware the autocrat, beware the theocrat, beware the mob.

            14. Wholeheartedly agreed. Social unrest is already manifesting in many places, and the rise of populism is disturbing.

              Beware the people who have nothing to lose.

    2. VFatalis:

      I can understand many of your points, but i’m not that pessimistic.

      “Did anyone notice that since circa 1950 we had no major breakthrough in technology ? ”

      I immediately thought of the transistor, integrated circuit, computers etc. I think they were major breakthroughs, and it’s only because of them that we know the ecological and developmental fix we’re in.

      “Anyone thinking that we should pursue the goal of more technology to save our asses or even mitigate our inevitable demise is encouraging a snake to bite it’s own tail, literally”

      I think it’s inevitable that there will be widespread attempts to develop more technology to mitigate our situation.

      Ron Patterson recommended the book, “The Alchemy of Air’, and it was indeed a great read. But it almost sounded like a comedy routine in parts ….
      Bad news – we don’t have enough fertilizer to feed the masses.
      Good news – we found these large guano deposits
      Bad news – we’re running out of guano.
      Good news – we found nitrate deposits in the Atacama.
      Bad news – we’re running out of nitrate deposits in the Atacama.
      Good news – Haber-Bosch.
      Bad news – nitrate poisoning of lakes and streams and oceans.

      I think there are a few more rounds to play in the technological circle. I’m not sure if any rounds will win out, but the literature shows that there are lots of different angles of attack ongoing.

      I’m somewhat pessimistic I think, but find myself still retaining a large chunk of ‘hopium’.

      1. Computers and transistors were invented before 1950. Integrated circuits are merely an upgraded version of transistors. Still, they were invented in 1958.

        Nowadays we have to put massive efforts for little gains, and the trend will not reverse. Technology has run its course, and we’re very obviously dealing with it’s downsides now. It’s a Faustian bargain.

        You’l have to find better examples to convince me otherwise, I’m afraid.

  10. The year 2024. Into the post Covid era. News comes through of a new form of flu, especially virulent , causing high mortality in young males especially, similar to the Spanish Flu of 1918. The world economy has not yet fully recovered from the adverse effects of the covid19 pandemic. Now, there being no effective vaccine against the new pandemic, the world once more goes into a lockdown, bringing about economic dislocation, high mortality, unemployment, collapse of consumer economy, banking crisis, shrinkage of levels of international trade, decline in agricultural productivity, severe social dislocation, cpolitical upheavals in states around the world and constiutional crises.

    Currently, in 2020, we are concentrating on the covid 19 crisis, assuming perhaps that it is a once in a century event. But is it? Around the globe, nature is under stress. There is accelerated extinction of species, ecosystems are being depleted and impoverished, forests felled, oceans plundered. A rich and diverse planetary ecosystem is a buffer to disease, a thick barrieren absorbing the worst and most damaging diseases before they infect human populations, ensuring that new bacterial and viral form sare absorbed into the system, protecting human populations against epidemic. But now, with the world gradualy becoming a thin worn out sheet rather than a thick blanketing layers, more new diseases can evolve and rage through humanity, disrupting the mechanisms of human society. We may be into the recovery period following covid 19, but more pandemics are likely, and they will come more frequently.

  11. Islandboy, news to help brighten your day. ?

    AUSTRALIA DOUBLES DOWN ON FOSSIL FUELS

    “With Australia plunged into its first recession in almost 30 years and a million jobs lost, conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison has touted a fossil-fuelled path to “re-establishing the strong economy”.

    His proposals, announced Tuesday, include a taxpayer-funded gas power plant near Sydney, new pipeline infrastructure and encouraging drilling and fracking of vast untapped gas deposits.

    The plan’s supporters say it will safeguard Australia’s position as the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas and ensure domestic electricity supplies as key coal plants shutter over the next decade. Coal- and gas-rich Australia has recently emerged as one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels, behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia by some estimates.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-09-australia-fossil-fuels-critics.html

    1. Back atcha Doug!

      I would interpret that as, “the leadership of the Australian federal government doubles down on fossil fuels” but, if you head on over to reneweconomy.com.au, that article does not give the entire story of what is happening in Australia despite the best efforts of the federal government to stymie it.

      Energy Insiders Podcast: Lynham – Our future is renewable energy

      Queensland energy minister Anthony Lynham joins the Energy Insides podcast to discuss his state’s progress to a 50 per cent renewable share by 2030.

      He says the future of Australia is in renewable energy. All the states understand this, the only party that doesn’t is the federal government.

      “I don’t think you would see more unison between political parties and states being together than on renewable energy. The federal government just simply doesn’t get it. I don’t know why they don’t get it .”

      Australia should be very afraid of Morrison’s sinister fossil fuel decree

      “Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you, it’s coal,” was the way the then Treasurer Scott Morrison taunted Australians when he waved around a lump of coal in the House of Representatives more than three years ago.

      Morrison, and the other Coalition ministers who fondled the lump of coal that day didn’t get their hands dirty because they were protected by a layer of lacquer thoughtfully added by the coal lobbyists who provided the mini carbon-bomb, and who now serve in the prime minister’s inner advisory team.

      But there’s no hiding the fingerprints of Morrison, energy minister Angus Taylor and their advisory teams over the latest atrocity – attempting to force-feed more of another dangerous fossil fuel into Australia’s transitioning energy system. And, as they did in February 2017, Australians have every right to be fearful of the consequences.

      Morrison has never had anything intelligent to say about Australia’s energy system. His mocking comparison of big batteries such as the enormously successful Hornsdale Power Reserve to the Big Banana and the Big Prawn was idiotic and ignorant, and his efforts to promote “fair dinkum power” were ridiculed by the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.

      But there is nothing accidental or haphazard about the Coalition’s latest threat to the energy industry; the attempt to force-feed more gas generation into Australia’s main grid and the massive government subsidies promised to extend its infrastructure and open up new gas basins. It may not make much sense, on any level, but that just makes it all the more sinister.

      South Australia solar power reaches 94 pct of state demand on Sunday

      The share of solar power in South Australia’s electricity grid reached a new record high on Sunday, supplying up to 93.7 per cent of state demand and more than 70 per cent of total production.

      The new milestone was reached at noon and the solar share was largely driven by the state’s rapidly growing rooftop solar resource, which accounted for 900MW at the time, or 70.4 per cent of local demand.

      The influence of rooftop solar also meant that the state also set a new minimum low for scheduled demand (the part of demand that comes from large generators on the grid) to just 315MW, according to Paul McArdle at Watt Clarity. This occurred about 10 minutes before the solar peak.

      However, on the more conventional “operational demand”, which includes smaller semi-scheduled wind and solar plants, the minimum fell to 367MW about an hour later, also a record low for the state.

      Around that time, the state’s large scale and rooftop generators were producing just over 1,700MW, but around one quarter of that was being exported to Victoria – which also had relatively low demand. The surplus of supply over demand meant that prices in South Australia were negative, and only around 293MW of gas generation was being used, and wind output was also being squeezed out by rooftop solar.

      Milestone: Australia’s main grid reaches 25 pct renewables over last year

      While 2020 has been, undoubtedly, a year to forget – for many different reasons – there have been some bright spots. And one particular achievement that is very much worth celebrating presents itself in today’s graph of the day, Tweeted by Simon Holmes à Court.

      Australia has reached a new milestone – a 25 per cent share of renewable energy on its main grid – despite all the carefully constructed political and regulatory road-blocks, a powerful and entrenched fossil fuel lobby, and a global pandemic.

      This 25 per cent share has built on the 21 per cent share of Australia’s electricity that came from renewable energy in 2019, which in turn rose from a 19 per cent share in 2018.

      Know Your NEM: Wind and solar take 22 pct market share in early Spring clean

      Wind and solar, or variable renewable energy (VRE) has taken off in what is still only early Spring, to push their share of total demand to around 22 per cent across the NEM in the last month.

      Figure 1 Source: NEM Review

      As the table above shows, and as everyone has been forecasting for years, because of the lack of a carbon price, it’s gas that is getting displaced with its share of the Victorian market having more than halved. Even in South Australia gas generation supply is down by one quarter.

      All this when the gas price is far lower than anyone, even energy minister Angus Taylor, could have imagined a year ago. Coal generation supply is actually up.

      Australia’s biggest solar farm sends first output to the grid

      What will be Australia’s biggest solar farm once commissioning is complete – the 275MW Darlington project in south-west NSW – has sent its first output to the grid as it begins the lengthy journey to full production.

      Darlington finally received its registration with the Australian Energy Market Operator, having installed not one, but two, large synchronous condensers too help it negotiate some of the problems facing that part of the network – system strength and grid congestion issues.

      The first output was captured by Paul McArdle from Global Roam, the providers of our popular NEW-Watch widget, with initial injections of around 5MW over the last few days

      1. Graphic for the story on 94% (93.7%) of demand met by solar in South Australia

  12. For those of you bold enough to talk about what the world will be like in 2050, or even 2030, I’ve got news for you – too late. Once tipping points arrive, things spin out of control and that’s where we are.

    A NEW ARCTIC IS EMERGING

    “The changes are so rapid and so large that the Arctic [has] warmed so significantly that its year-to-year variability is moving outside the bounds of past fluctuations, signaling a transition to a new climate.”

    Meanwhile, planning for disasters may be an increasingly difficult task. Community planners often design infrastructure, made to last a certain number of years or withstand a certain level of stress, by looking at past weather observations. But as the Arctic climate transforms, the past is no longer a good predictor of what to expect in the future. “We’re entering a period where the previous observations we have do not and cannot describe the time that we’re entering.”

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-arctic-is-emerging-thanks-to-climate-change/

    1. Meanwhile: As the World Turns — or burns.

      IT’S NOT JUST THE WEST.

      Extreme temperatures and more severe droughts, the result of human-caused climate change, have created a world that’s ready to burn: This summer, portions of the Arctic shattered wildfire records set just last year, which at the time was the worst fire season in 60 years. In July, Central Kalimantan Province on Borneo declared a state of emergency as fires burned out of control. Then, in June, Brazilian officials called the Amazon fires the worst in 13 years. Not to be forgotten, in Indonesia, deforestation for agriculture is a primary culprit. Here, farmers and ranchers cut down trees on the edge of the rainforest and set them on fire to clear the land for crops or grazing. But climate change is a force multiplier: During droughts like the current one in the country, those fires penetrate farther into forests, burning more trees and causing more damage. Fires are raging now across grasslands in the Paraná Delta and around farmland in central Argentina, where farmers and ranchers have been burning fields for a century to improve their soil. But this year, the fires got out of control. Now, as the Southern Hemisphere heads into spring, Australians are bracing themselves for a new season of blazes.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/climate/wildfires-globally.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

    2. Doug,

      So to be clear, you can predict the future, others cannot.

      I agree that nobody can predict the future, one can lay out a set of clear assumptions about a set of values that a set of variables might take over future years and then present a logically consistent model of what might result from that set of assumptions. This is often referred to as a scenario, these are never correct, whether tomorrow or 30 years in the future.

      I also agree climate change may be a serious problem, but a reduction in fossil fuel use is likely to be an improvement over a BAU scenario. Peak fossil fuel by 2035 will result in higher fossil fuel prices, that coupled with falling costs for EVs, wind, and solar power might lead to a rapid reduction in fossil fuel use. Any scenario presented about what levels of fossil fuel might be consumed and the impact on future climate change will of course be wrong.

      1. Dennis,

        “So to be clear, you can predict the future, others cannot.”

        That’s a disingenuous statement if I ever heard one. What I’m saying is that once a system passes a tipping point, things (may) spin out of control and NO ONE can predict the result(s). Not you, not me, not anyone. Doesn’t matter, you will continue to live in a world protected by your very own rose-coloured glasses, no matter what; meanwhile the crises affecting Earth will, in all probability, continue to expand and devastate ecosystems hosting the last remnants of our planet’s birds, animals and fish.

        And, “climate change may be a serious problem” you say. “May”? What planet do you live on Dennis?

        HOW THE WEST IS PRIMED TO BURN

        “We’ve seen fire and we’ve seen rain before. If there’s one thing science is clear about, it’s that we’re going to see much more of both in the future.”
        https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/AFsvRfNxi4TFX2IlAQ65iLme9IQ

        1. Nice car! ~ Dennis Coyne

          Doug, along with Dennis’ ostensible disineguousness, his recent comment about the apparent image of a car in the context of probably the worst Western North American fires in recent history ‘encapsulates’ our tragic detachments as a ‘lost’ species. (The reference image is attached.)

          Vast stretches of death, destruction and despair and from a lifestyle that warrants it but, ‘Nice car!’.

          Over here on the East Coast, we are witnessing ‘big red ball’ sunsets in the haziness of fires raging thousands of miles away.

          Let’s be honest:
          The continuation of an industrial business-as-usual, what with all the associated problems we should all know very well about, is what is implied behind the talk of greenwashed energy like solar panels and birdmills.
          Let’s not kid ourselves to the contrary or be swayed by their chronic rationalizations that often include logical fallacies.

          1. The full quote from the comment,

            Hickory,

            Nice car! Sorry for you guys, stay safe.

            Hickory had never mentioned he has a Model 3, maybe I missed it, I was surprised it was in his front yard.

            1. Its my wifes Y. Very impressive car, a leap into the future. She got it 3 months ago.
              Not for me, I would trash it quickly with hardware, landscape, and rough road use.

              Interesting system tesla has for purchase and transfer of the vehicle- She spent about 30 minutes total online for the order and purchase. A few months later got an email to come pick it up on a certain date (or they would release it to another customer on the list). When we a got about 1/4 mile from the headquarters, a message on her phone directed her to a specific parking space in the lot out front. She activated a code and the door unlocked. Five minutes later we were on the road. In the whole process, from purchase to pickup, never saw or talked to a person.

            3. Maybe there is a Cybertruck in your future, if you have a good experience with the Model Y. Is it the long range Dual motor, or performance version (I think that may be all that is on offer at the moment)? In any case, the important part of my comment (missed by some) was sorry about the mayhem and to stay safe, maybe head east?

            4. Regarding migration, all places have their issues.
              The discussion is a work in progress, outcome far from clear.
              Like for most people, the friends and family aspect is a big part of the equation.

              Cybertruck is not my style. Pretty much the opposite. I’m sure it will be a worthy vehicle for many.
              And yes, the Y is the long range dual motor. Best choice I believe.

              Speaking EV- The upcoming VW ID4 and Ford Mustang are going to be very close (specification) and successful competitors to the Y.
              And GM is on ‘the verge’ of a major electric remake-
              https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21439374/gm-unveils-ultium-drive-family-of-electric-motors

        2. Doug,

          You said:

          “Once tipping points arrive, things spin out of control and that’s where we are.”

          Note the lack of any qualifier.

          I agree things may spin out of control, it will depend on the future path many factors which are impossible to predict.

          For Future oil output my past predictions through my rose colored glasses were mostly too low. Of course you could claim I was being optimistic if they were too low or too high, but the focus of the posts was the problem of peak oil, some might claim that a future scenario that proves too low is on the pessimistic side of reality.

          http://oilpeakclimate.blogspot.com/2012/07/further-modeling-for-world-crude-plus.html

          I just make my best guess of how things might play out in the future, same as you. If all viewpoints were the same, there would be no need for conversation.

          My rose colored glasses as you call them are informed by reading Real Climate

          http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/07/climate-sensitivity-a-new-assessment/#more-23158

  13. Clearly, not enough raking being done.

    AS BRAZIL’S WETLANDS BURN, RAIN IS ‘ONLY HOPE’

    “Even when the fire looks to be out, embers continue burning underground, feeding on layers of dry leaves that have accumulated amid the region’s worst drought in nearly five decades.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-09-brazil-wetlands.html

    1. Hickory,

      They are gong to build a wall and the US will pay for it. 🙂

    2. Yes Hickory. I wonder what will happen? My sister and I (she lives in WA State) were talking about this just a few days ago. I don’t say much because she has 3 children and numerous grandchildren that she is beyond worried about. Right now, with everything going on she is psychologically barely hanging on so I just try and reassure her. We do have some property and could make room for a few more families and would do so. During the Viet Nam war scads of US folks moved up here, and my immediate family was part of the exodus, well I was anyway as my siblings went elsewhere. At the time (’68) Canada welcomed us with open arms. As a Canadian I would do the same in short order. Being interviewed by a judge before my swearing in ceremony is something I will never forget. It was wonderful. It was like an oral exam about Canada and current events.

      I really appreciate the commenters here and always read their posts. ( Where is OFM, anyway? I hope he is okay. I’ve been reading him from the Oil Drum Days as well as many of you folks, too.) This site and Wolf Street are the best around, imho. Anyway, the US system is in some serious need of a tune up. I have hope that people will start to rally around a cause greater than their interests and anger. Perhaps climate change could force more cooperation once the denials are untenable? My son is an oil patch worker in Alberta and I also do not believe we are yet at a place where renewables will replace FF, if ever. These are the two main reasons why I am not so anti oil and gas as some on this site. However, it’s pretty plain we could reduce consumption by a great great deal and salvage a decent life. I’m going to just keep plugging away and maintain optimism.

      Climate change means migration. I live on a tidal river. I pulled my dock out today before the fall rains hit. I suppose one day we could see floods, at least bigger floods than we have experienced. We’ll just deal with it if and when it happens.

      Collapse? Well, I cannot see how this debt infused nonsense can continue much longer. Nevertheless, I sincerely believe we can retool and regroup and find our humanity, again. My parents never had much as they came out of the Great Depression. I think they were happier than we are. If we go back to poorer times, I plan to still get by one way or another. My Father in Law was a child in Manchester during WW2. He was forced to live away when the bombing became too intense and dangerous. 10 years old and he had to leave home. He made it and ended up living a good life over here. A fine and full life.

      As for mass migration, a year or so ago I ordered a new copy of Grapes of Wrath to reread. California, the promised land. And here we are all over again. It’s the same thing, from inhuman detention centers to sanctuaries. I would like to think that most Canadians would be welcoming provided new arrivals were prepared to accept our ways, namely universal medical coverage and a proper safety net. Along with this are higher taxes and often putting others over personal ideology. If we don’t pull together we will be well and truly screwed. Well, I have had a few drinks this evening so pardon my lengthy ramble. My wife and I have not been sleeping well of late so I’ll try the Crown Royal and some tunes. Have a great evening

      regards

      1. Thanks for the perspective Paulo.
        I have this book on my list ready to read-

        The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move
        by Sonia Shah

        The interview with the author was compelling.

  15. Truth , in addition to the ability to read, does matter.

    And therefore Scientific American has seen fit to do something it has not done in its 175 yr history.
    Endorse a presidential candidate- Joe Biden.

    Trump has failed to seek truth, and to be truthful.
    ” the virus will go away because of herd mentality” [yes he said herd mentality]
    That is not policy, it is surrender to ignorance.

    https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/16/scientific-american-endorses-a-presidential-candidate-for-first-time-in-its-175-year-history/

  16. Btw, just to be clear and confirm my basic understanding of the world, we’re still all fucked right? To be clear, by fucked I mean civilizational collapse and human population collapse are likely in the next century or so ceteris paribus.

    The hoped for magical solution to all our environmental problems hasn’t magically manifested itself, right?

    The reason I ask this basic question here is that the folks around here seem like they would know and that I want to continue to know if my current thinking about the world continues to be more or less correct.

    Thank you very kindly for your help in answering this questions.

    Cheers!

    1. I think you know the answers to those questions, just like everyone else.

      Even Dennis the optimist and Nick the techno freak know this.

      Most people chose to bury that disturbing feeling deep down in themselves, they are just denying it.

      But they’re only doing so to protect themselves. Denial is a natural mechanism of self-defense. That’s why hopium is such a delightful substance, it’s a cure to forget your problems for a while. Sadly, it doesn’t make them go away.

      Yes, the collapse of our civilization is in the cards. It already started, as a matter of fact. It’s impossible to avoid it.

      Think of the Titanic. Once the iceberg was hit, it was already too late but the boat was still apparently doing fine for the first hours. Hardly anyone noticed. Even when the boat was beginning to tilt more severely, the majority of people still wouldn’t aknowledge it’s demise. However when approaching its last moments, abrupt changes could be seen and in a sudden it was all panic and chaos.

      This is how collapse plays out. Very slow at first, then suddenly it accelerates and you realize you don’t have much time left. It’s quite obvious to me that we are at this point. From now it will go exponential, but not in the direction we want.

      1. What will you do?

        Will you prepare for it somehow? Set up your home with mechanical appliances and a garden? Load up on guns and ammunition so you can take what you need?

        Do nothing?

        1. Gerry , a simple answer to a complex question . Live every moment as if it is your last . There is nothing that can be done because there is nothing much to do . As one who was at one time a prepper but abandoned it ,the reason is easy ,too many variables that are out of your personal control . Like Clint Eastwood(Dirty Harry) says ” Man’s got to know his limitations “.:-)

          1. Then what motivates you to post messages?

            Are you trying to change minds? Are you trying to convince others that there’s nothing to do, and they should abandon any attempt to mitigate problems or find solutions?

            Or is it more of a social endeavor? Looking for people who are like-minded?

            1. Gerry, ” No man is an island ” . Human beings are social animals . No , I am not trying to convince anyone and nor am I searching for like minded persons . Not interesting, because everyone has his own living circumstances and problems . Everyone is in charge of his own life . Anyway my answer was not do this and do that and you will be saved . It was verbatim ” Live every moment as it was your last ” . Period . How you interpret is your problem . Whether you or others make an effort to mitigate the problem or not is your choice because it is you who will benefit from the solution at a personal level and not me or any other members of the forum . Last thought , if you think that your cutting down on FF usage or going vegan are going to save the universe ,forget it . There are universal problems and global problems . Understand the difference . Again Dirty Harry ” Man’s gotta do ,what a man’s gotta do ” . Be well .

            2. ” Live every moment as it was your last ” applies in both good times and bad. I think most people would agree with it, and recognize that they don’t know with certainty what their life will be like an hour from now.

              I also agree that Humans are social animals, but they’re also problem-solvers, and many are altruistic, trying to fix things that don’t affect themselves personally.

              That seems worthy.

              You describe a couple of bouts with cholera, so that’s one of probably many ways you benefited personally from the efforts of problem-solvers. I’ve benefited as well.

              It seems good overall to encourage it.

            3. No man is an island,
              Entire of itself.
              Each is a piece of the continent,
              A part of the main.
              If a clod be washed away by the sea,
              Europe is the less.
              As well as if a promontory were.
              As well as if a manor of thine own
              Or of thine friend’s were.
              Each man’s death diminishes me,
              For I am involved in mankind.
              Therefore, send not to know
              For whom the bell tolls,
              It tolls for thee.

            4. Alimbiquated:

              Ha! Ha! That’s terrific!

              We should have some classic prose in every thread.

              Thanks!!

      2. VF ,you are correct . Several years ago I learnt a simple lesson ” A small hole can sink a big ship ” . I have been trying to hammer that in my several posts . Understand the Liebeg’s Law of the minimum . The human body is 80% water . Do you need to loose all 80 % to die ? Answer : No.Loose 20% and you will die because of organ failure . The kidneys will dry out . I have been in the situation twice because of cholera luckily immediate hospitalisation was possible and saved me . Collapse is not an event ,it is a journey . It is like a building that is being dismantled but ” one brick at a time ” . So while the facade may look good ,the internal of the building are unstable . Their will be cracks in the floor and leaking toilet pipes . Live-able ,yes but you never know when the removal of the next brick is going to bring the whole building down . you are correct ,we are already there but to time it by the day, hour and minute is impossible , a feat which Dennis and Nick want you to perform .

        1. hole in head,

          I have never suggested you predict anything, just pointing out the fact that the future is not knowable. Any claim that collapse is imminent seems specious at best. There are problems, no doubt, this has always been true. There will be economic downturns some of which will be severe. Can you define Worldwide collapse? Do you expect it will be permanent? Are you thinking human population falls to 10 million and roughly over what period of time does the collapse occur (no dates needed, just a rough idea of the length of time from start to finish (when human population reaches x or however you might define it).

    1. Meanwhile,

      TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FINALIZES DRILLING PLANS IN ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

      “THE TRUMP administration on Monday finalized plans for an oil and gas leasing program in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening a 1.5 million-acre section of land to drilling. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said his agency is meeting obligations set under a 2017 bill that approved oil and gas leasing on the refuge…

      Alaska Republicans cheered the move as a win for the state’s economy and American energy independence. “This is a capstone moment in our decades-long push to allow for the responsible development of a small part of Alaska’s 1002 Area,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement. The coastal plain, on Alaska’s north shore with the Beaufort Sea, is estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to hold about 10.4 billion barrels of oil.”

      https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-08-17/trump-administration-finalizes-oil-and-gas-leasing-program-for-alaskas-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge

      1. Estimable DougL,

        Well, we know that a USGS estimate would be in terms of “technically recoverable” barrels of oil, don’t we? No way of knowing how much could be extracted at a profit.

        Recent lease offerings in the Gulf of Mexico haven’t seen a whole lot of interest from the oil industry, if memory serves. I wonder how much there’ll be up north this time around.

        1. “how much could be extracted at a profit”
          I was under the impression that this (profitability) no longer mattered for oil and coal.

        2. Synapsid –

          Yes, back in the days when I was called upon to do oil reserve determinations the phrase “technically recoverable” was considered a joke. As one of my bosses used to say, gold in the ocean is “technically recoverable” too.

          BTW, memory informs me that there is about one gram of gold for every 100 million metric tons of ocean water.

          However, to be fair, oilfields respond differently to improvements in technology with respect to their recovery factor. Data from all of the different trends, combined by taking the average of the rates of increase, yields a technically recoverable resource annual rate of increase of 1.53% per year. This is according to my Niece who is working oil reservoir engineer in Norway.

          1. Thanks Doug,

            For Permian basin, TRR mean estimate is 75 Gb by USGS, when a reasonable projection of future oil prices is applied with other reasonable economic assumptions about well cost, LOE, royalty payments, taxes, transport costs, natural gas prices, natural gas output, NGL extracted from natural gas, price of NGL, and discount rate we can estimate the economically recoverable resources. My model (which has many embedded assumptions which are likely to prove incorrect) estimates about 53 Gb of Permian basin tight oil resources may be economically recoverable, in reality it might be somewhere between 40 and 65 Gb, depending on prices, technology development, and other stuff I don’t know about.

  18. It seems as if Trump prefers to play golf as the empire expires. Does this remind you of anyone? Hint, think third Roman emperor whose name started with C. ?

    CALIFORNIA BRACES FOR HIGH WINDS THAT COULD PROPEL DEADLY WILDFIRES

    Flames have devoured nearly 2.3 million acres — 1.5 million of them since mid-August—as opposed to 118,000 last year. “These numbers bear fruit to that assertion that this is historic.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-09-california-braces-high-propel-deadly.html

  19. How does a 40% lower cost of ownership sound-

    ‘Ford opened up with more details about its fully electric F-150 in an event streamed live this morning. The new F-150 will start rolling off the production lines in mid-2022, boasting more power and torque than its gasoline-powered counterparts. Ford is promising a breakthrough in cost with the new electric F-150, with a total cost of ownership that’s far lower than its combustion competition. “The all-electric F-150 is targeted at a total cost of operation that’s more than 40% less than the similar gas engine trucks over the life of the vehicle,” Ford COO and incoming CEO Jim Farley said.’

    https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f150-is-a-game-changer-for-fleets-with-a-40-lower-cost-of-ownership/

    And those cost savings can be greater if you own your generation [solar on the roof in a 1/2 sunny place]

    1. Is it accurate that 7% of US light transport will be electric by 2030? 18 million vehicles out of around 259 million?

      Or do you think that estimate is too high/too low?

      1. I have no real idea about how much EV/plug-in EV will be on the road in 2030.
        A big wildcard is the general prosperity of country-
        In tough times people keep their current vehicle much longer.
        In times of general prosperity people replace their vehicle quicker.

        What is certain is that the big manufacturers will primarily be oriented towards selling electric vehicles (or PHEV’s) by then.

        GM- Path to an All-Electric Future
        https://www.gm.com/electric-vehicles.html

        VW- coming this year ID 4 – this vehicle has specs very similar to the new tesla y, as does the new ford mustang. VW plans to sell 500,000 ID.4 electric cars per year
        https://www.caranddriver.com/volkswagen/id4

  21. Trust not a man who speaks with forked tongue…

    When he leans on the podium in his particular tilted way,
    he is settling in for telling a tale of false narrative.
    Not just a string of random thoughts and falsehoods as he is very prone to do,
    but the telling of a tale that begins with a false assertion or assumption and gradually leads the gullible tribe members along a path that can only be followed by taking one small leap of faith at time, each landing on a false stepping stone.

    His posture is an attempt to portray himself as non-threatening, someone who is deferential and whom you can trust. Of course, these portrayals could not be further from the truth. Not surprising considering the source.

    1. You keep telling yourself that and watch how the only thing it does is motivate us patriots even more to vote for our President.

      1. Trump’s going to loose by 10 million total votes and will end up behind bars soon enough.

        You can take that to the bank

        Lock him up

        1. We clearly define patriotism differently.
          To me it includes support and protection for the democratic process-
          One eligible voter = One vote

          The trump campaign has sued the State of Pennsylvania in attempt to prevent mail-in ballots from being deposited into official ballot drop-boxes.
          This is overtly anti-democratic, during a pandemic, no less. It is downright shameful.
          They are afraid of the unhindered democratic process, and rightfully so.

          Partisan gerrymandering is anti-democratic, from the right or the left.
          Changing the rules on supreme court justice replacement on the whim of your partisan position is anti-democratic.
          The list of such things runs long, and people are truly patriotic would be in strong support of straight-up democracy.

          1. Hickory, I think you made a mistake and wanted to add this to your 10:53 comment below. We are in tune on this subject.

            I am in belief Democrats biggest mistake is not voting every election being complacent and not blocking out the personal attack noise from the right. It’s party and policy that matters. The most recent example of this would be 2010 and 2016. Those two election losses will take the Dem’s 20 years or more to recover from.

        2. Prediction is risky, especially about the future.

          Trump may win or lose. The real question is : what will he and his supporters do if he loses? They have invested so much into discrediting the election that I fear that November 2020 may be the most dangerous month in American history since April of 1861.

          1. Beware Bill Barr.
            The attorney general of the US this week threatened to charge political adversaries with sedition.
            I’d bet they have a plan to nullify voting results from Pennsylvania ( the most likely swing state), and are not just waiting to see how the vote shakes out.
            Only taking the senate back will prevent the degree of fascism from becoming more dominant and entrenched.

          2. Your point is well taken jj, but sometimes Trump supporters need some push back of their own kind.

            “what will he and his supporters do if he loses?”

            There is an authoritarian take over of the American government by a foreign power in progress as we speak. American democracy and the values you were raised to believe in are at risk. Trump is more than some useful idiot. This is an organized destruction of the American government leading selfish curel insecure poorly educated masses. Most of the Republican leaders are in on it or are cowards.

            Our best hope is Trump loses badly and there is still enough brave constitutional law abiding Americans in government to remove him. It’s no accident this country is loaded with military guns.

            The most powerful military ever on earth could be taking commands from it enemies without firing a shot as it’s citizens watch sports, play on their dumb phones and pray to god.

            Who would have guessed, hopefully I’m wrong. If only peak oil and climate change were are biggest problem.

            1. HB:
              There are so many dangers staring at us now a fella hardly knows which way to turn. Speaking of the military we have two really ugly paths that we may go down. First, as you indicate, the military could stand by and watch our very existence disappear like a latter day USSR or, just as bad, some patriotic general could decide he’s had enough of this nonsense and stage a coup. We really have to solve this at the ballot box in November or there may be nothing left worth saving.

      2. Justin,
        I consider patriotism in a different way than you.
        This president is anti-democratic, never before seen in this country.
        Democracy is the best thing about this nation, complete with voting rights, civil rights, and a free press.
        The patriotic stance is to show him the exit. Straight-jacket if necessary.

    1. Big time loss.
      The Judiciary will get even further in the hands of madmen (few women).
      Late stage capitalism is less fun as this goes on.

      1. She is the only US Supreme Court Justice I have had the privilege of meeting. She spoke at my law school graduation. It was a huge deal.

        1. A sad day for her family, and a sad day for the country.

          Sometimes the cards fall for the bad guys.

          Hopefully the Democrats will mop the floor with trump and his Senate enablers and do something after coming to power to put some balance back into the federal judiciary.

          I can’t see any way they will be able to stop trump from putting another hard core right winger on the SC.

          1. I can’t see any way they will be able to stop trump from putting another hard core right winger on the SC.

            It won’t be that easy Mac. Justice died Feb 13, 2016. An election year and McConnell refused to bring Obama’s nominee to the floor until after Trump had been sworn in, eleven months later. If only four Republican senators have a conscience in the lame-duck session and, out of a sense of fairness, refuse to confirm Trump’s nominee, Biden will nominate his candidate for the court.

            It might happen but it will not be a cakewalk.

            1. “It won’t be that easy Mac”

              I’m afraid there aren’t four Republican Senators with a sense of honor and duty sufficient to do the right thing.

              So while it will cost some Republicans down ballot dearly, I’m of the opinion that the R Senate will do its damnedest to ram thru a new SC Justice.

              But I take some comfort from my rock solid belief that the country is gradually turning blue, and I have some hope of living to see the Democrats pretty much in control of the country, excepting rural areas in the old south.

              They own the educated vote, the young people’s vote, the women’s vote, and the lion’s share of the minority vote.

              The Republicans own fundamentalist/ Evangelical vote, but that demographic is on it’s way to the nursing homes and cemeteries.

              I grew up in and live today in a poorly educated mostly white working class community, and nobody here, and damned few people blogging or writing anywhere, knows these people better than I do, or even as well.

              They ones in my generation had about half as many kids as the previous generation, and their kids aren’t more than half as dedicated to Jesus as they are.

              And their kids aren’t having more than two kids apiece, as a rule. The kids they do have are playing dinosaur and space alien games on their pocket computers on the way to and from Sunday School.

              And in mythical MAYBERRY, the stereotypical small southern town, where I go to the supermarket, you can walk down main street any day, and see a young black guy with a young black girl.

              A few of the really old people wince or roll their eyes, but the vast majority of the people on the street pay such a couple zero attention.

              Of course we haven’t any white cops ( fingers crossed it stays this way!) shooting any unarmed black guys around here, at least not within my memory.

              The Blacks and Hispanics mostly stay to themselves socially, ditto the white folk, but we all get along just fine conducting our day to day business lives.

              And incidentally, NC would be a blue state NOW except for the worst gerrymander in the USA.

              Times are changing.

              The Republican Party as it exists today is a dead man walking. It might stagger along for another couple of election cycles, but after that……. it will either reinvent itself into something respectable, or split into two smaller parties.

              Even in the mid west, the cities are getting big enough to dominate state politics, and urban people are generally liberal compared to their rural counterparts.

  23. Ron , the repubs /dems do what their masters at Wall Street instruct them to do. Conscience be damned.

    1. No, you are just wrong HH. Wall Street does not dictate to either party. Both parties do what their constituents demand they do, or else they are out on their ass when the next election rolls around. And several of them will be out on their ass in January and it will be their constituents that kick them out, not Wall Street.

      It is a little strange to say that “Wall Street” instructs anyone. Who is “Wall Street”? Is it the CEOs of the corporations? Do they hold meetings to figure out what their “instructions” are to Congress? There are hundreds of them you know. Bottom line, “Wall Street” is not really an entity, other than a street in New York City. That is there is no group of people that can be called Wall Street.

      1. Of course, parties depend on the mood of the voters, but they also depend on money. Companies and large entrepreneurs donate money to parties in the hope that when parties come to power, they can somehow help companies in their business. The money that parties have goes to propaganda of voters. which for the most part are naive and remind children to whom an intelligent teacher instills truths, concepts, rules, thus forming the mood of voters.
        This is of course primitive
        , everything is much more complicated.

        1. O+A, I have been involved in politics for over sixty years. I know how it works. Yes, corporations and very wealthy individuals can donate to campaign advertising. What they cannot do is tell those candidates how to vote once they are elected.

          The NRA gives money to a candidate’s campaign if they know that said candidate will support unlimited gun rights. In other words, they support candidates who support their point of view. Bloomberg is donating 100 million to Biden’s Florida campaign. But Bloomberg knows full well that he can never call Biden, if he gets elected, and tell him what bill to sign and what bill to veto.

          Politicians hold a particular point of view. Wealthy people like Bloomberg also hold that point of view, or something very close to it. That is why they contribute to their campaign, not because they think they can dictate to that person, should he/she get elected, what bill to vote for or what bill to sign.

          Politicians are not dictated to by anyone other than their constituents. Even then they look at what the majority of their constituents want, not one or a few.***

          ***Okay, I admit there is an exception to that rule in the case of Donald Trump. He tells Republican Senators and Congressmen how to vote or else he will campaign against them in the Republican primary. But that is one asshole President telling Republican Senators and Congressmen how to vote, not a Wall Street Tycoon.

  24. Lots of new subway stations opened in Europe in the past month or so: Sofia, Bucharest, Warsaw, Athens, Budapest, Barcelona, Berlin, Nuremberg, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Lisbon, maybe more. The new line in London isn’t open yet.

    There are also huge ongoing upgrades in Moscow and Paris. Moscow has opened 145 new stations since 2011, including 35 in the last 3 years. Paris is planning to open 68 new station in the next few years.

  25. >> Can We Run AIR CONDITIONING On Our OFF-GRID SOLAR POWER System? <<

    This appeals to my inner techno-optimist 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YkGmroOjxc

    Collie Guy (aka Paul from Halifax to us old Oil Drum readers) will appreciate the use of mini-split air conditioners. I think 🙂

    1. Google it. Air conditioners use as much as 2.5kw, which means that the minimum power of your solar panel system would need to be 3kw (just to power the air conditioning).

      1. You can generally keep one room comfortable with a small window unit which uses less than one kilowatt. I have three such units. I use all three of them sometimes when it’s extremely hot and I have housework or company, but most of the time, I use only one.

        Sometime pretty soon I will get a heat pump, but for now, it’s good to have a fire, and good for me to cut and handle the firewood. It’s a twofer, getting some exercise and saving some money too.

        Plus you would have to be pretty inept managing your money to save more on electricity than you can earn investing five or six grand and up in a heat pump, lol, so long as you have free firewood and enjoy using it.

        Any retired but still able old country guy with a farm, some equipment, and five or six thousand or more in ready cash can usually leverage it into a tax free capital improvement worth twice or three times that, no problem, in a month or less. Sitting on your butt is sure recipe for an early death.

        Plus if I can delay the heat pump a few more years, the warranty on a new one will probably out last me, lol.

    2. We have solar and AC. We use AC about 20 days a year, and on those days are extremely thankful for it.
      Our solar is 20 panels (330w each =6.6kW system)
      No problem handling our AC load from the solar output, since that load comes during the sunny time of year.

      1. BTW, AIR CONDITIONING USE EMERGES AS ONE OF THE KEY DRIVERS OF GLOBAL ELECTRICITY-DEMAND GROWTH

        “Growing electricity demand for air conditioning is one of the most critical blind spots in today’s energy debate,” said Dr Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the IEA. “With rising incomes, air conditioner ownership will skyrocket, especially in the emerging world. While this will bring extra comfort and improve daily lives, it is essential that efficiency performance for ACs be prioritized. Standards for the bulk of these new ACs are much lower than where they should be.”

        https://www.iea.org/news/air-conditioning-use-emerges-as-one-of-the-key-drivers-of-global-electricity-demand-growth

      2. Modern evaporative coolers are really efficient and do a great job. If you live in a low humidity area like the SW or the Great Plains it is a really good alternative. I’m in Colorado. Lived with central air for most of my life. Moved into a house with a new whole house evaporative cooler about eight years ago and love it. You can keep windows open. It boosts the humidity in this dry climate. Costs almost nothing to run compared to AC. I think it is from a company called Breezeair. I’d never go back to central AC.

  26. Lots of oil action out here in Western Canada. Countless brand new F-250 and F-350 equivalent pickups on roads as well; yet to spot an EV but sure to see one eventually. 😉

    TRANS MOUNTAIN RACES TO THE FINISH LINE AS TWO OTHER PIPELINE PROJECTS NEAR COMPLETION

    “Currently, 5,000 people are working on the large-diameter pipeline project in Alberta and British Columbia, with work ramping up in the metro Vancouver area and other parts of B.C. next year. At the same time, rival Enbridge Inc. is trying to complete its Line 3 replacement pipeline this year and TC Energy Corp. is building the Keystone XL pipeline project to the U.S. Gulf Coast, which is expected to be complete in 2023…

    Meanwhile, this week, the International Energy Agency and British oil major BP Plc released bearish oil market outlooks. After posting its worst-ever quarterly results this summer, BP released an energy outlook Monday that, in the most bullish scenario, predicts oil demand peaking by 2030 at just over 100 million bpd — similar to where it was earlier this year before the pandemic crushed demand.”

    https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/trans-mountain-races-to-the-finish-line-as-two-other-pipeline-projects-near-completion

    1. All the more reason for voters to understand the importance of party and policy vs. personality and smear tactics.

  28. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/19/with-solid-state-energy-storage-oil-rich-texas-hits-clean-tech-trifecta/

    There’s a lot of really interesting information in this link.

    For what it’s worth, I continue to see some reason to believe that while there’s a very hard crash, economic, political, and environmental already baked in, some people can and will pull thru the crash while maintaining a viable industrial civilization.

    Being ready for the crash is one thing. Giving up is something else altogether.

    Knowing what I know now, I would be ready to sell out and establish new roots somewhere else, a higher elevation and farther north, maybe in the Pacific Northwest, if I were young again.

    But I can’t see any reason to move at my age, because the Grim Reaper will very likely get me before the coming troubles hit hard where I am now.

    ” In an interesting coincidence, the EnergyX news coincides with news that the departments of Energy, Commerce, Defense, and State have all joined forces in support of the domestic lithium battery industry. Interesting!”

    ”The new federal consortium is a clear declaration that decarbonization and electrification have are fundamental matters of national security and US economic growth as well.

    In other words, the US departments of Energy, Commerce, Defense, and State have all joined forces to pull the rug out from under White House policy in support of the oil and gas industry (again, coal left out in the cold).

    In its mission statement, the federal consortium emphasizes that “battery technology holds the key to ushering in an electric vehicle transformation and creating the grid of the future with integrated resiliency and flexibility.”

    1. BILLIONAIRE BOLTHOLES TO SURVIVE THE END OF THE WORLD

      “The co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, told The New Yorker in 2017: “Buying a house in New Zealand has become a sort of code for getting ‘apocalypse insurance’… Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more.” Plush boltholes are common in this part of the world – a property, near Wanaka on the South Island, has its own helipad, which could come in handy for making a great escape.”

      https://www.loveproperty.com/gallerylist/73268/billionaire-boltholes-to-survive-the-end-of-the-world

  29. Hey VFatalis-
    From above …”That was sarcasm….But sadly, it’s not enough, because fossil fuels are still used for mining and assembling every components of your car and your solar equipment. ”

    I understand and am fully aware of that issue, and agree that it is an important one- theoretically. But practically, say for the next 2 decades, perhaps not.
    There will be a long period of oil production after peak (now). It will not just disappear one day.
    By 2030 the world will still likely be capable of producing roughly 90% of its peak oil level and by 2040 probably something in the range 60-80%. Very rough guess- you can find educated projections above and below these levels.
    Point being that important uses for oil will continue- Things like petrochemical feedstock, fuel for hard to replace industrial equipment, agriculture sector, asphalt and heating oil in cold winters. This includes oil for heavy industrial manufacturing.
    As you can see from the chart (Oil use by sector 2018 OECD countries), industrial use is about 11%. Land transport is about 50%.
    The transport portion can be largely replaced by electrification over the next 10-20 years, if it was a chosen path.
    There are now electric vehicles ranging from electric cargo bikes all the way up to buses, semi trucks and trains. It is an explosive industry.

    Certainly we are in for a extremely tough position globally, as we stand around with our hands in our pockets. I think poverty, debt, idiotic leadership, and environmental degradation will be crushing. But a decline in crude oil, if gradual, can now be handled since the technological and cost barriers of solar/wind/electric vehicles have been reduced to the point were the whole transition path is viable,
    at least in the intermediate term-next 2 to 3 decades. That is a new reality, which was not in the cards ten years ago.

    In the longer term, I don’t know the path. The collective mind of the world better start focusing on intentional downsizing.

    1. Anyone can me why it is not feasible to offset 1/3rd of the current oil consumption over the next 2 decades (by 2040), if it was a goal?

      1. Hickory,

        The standard answer is that it will make cars, trucks, boats, planes and electricity cost to expensive for workers and people of low income to maintain their standard of living.

        The real reason is because it would mean a total shift of power from autocrats and oil rich countries to energy users.

        1. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday (9/23/20) that amounts to the most aggressive clean-car policy in the United States. Although it bans the sale of new gas cars and trucks after 2035 deadline, it will still allow such vehicles to be owned and sold on the used-car market.

  30. The EU parliament has agreed on a ban on single use plastic.

    This includes single-use plastic forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks, single-use plastic plates, plastic straws, cotton bud sticks made of plastic, plastic balloon sticks, oxo-degradable plastics and food containers and expanded polystyrene cups.

    Also they will charge net manufacturers for the cleanup costs of fishing nets, and I think cigarette manufacturers for the butts you see all over the place. Looks like there will finally be some attempt to rid the world, or at least Europe and the nearby waterways, of discarded cigarette filters.

    1. Can anyone recommend a good book on the coming collapse worth reading? Don’t recommend Jared Diamond, I have read it. I didn’t rate it but it would get about two stars if I had. Countries do not “choose” to collapse. That is bullshit.

      1. If I had to recommend one book, “Collapse of complex societies” by J.Tainter would be my pick.

        Although it’s mostly referring to ancient complex civilizations, the theories developed by Tainter are truly brilliant and are considered to be undisputable references.

        There’s one downside though, it’s rather dry and technical. Quite the opposite of Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”, which is a page turner more than anything else. So inconsistent I didn’t bother to finish it.

        If I can think of another book, I’ll get back at you. Most of my reads are from french authors, and I doubt those have been translated so I’ll have to check. “Black Gold” from Matthieu Auzanneau is focused on oil and doesn’t go much into collapse, but it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

        1. VTF , I also think Tainter is better than Diamond , have read both. I also like Dimitry Orlov ” Five stages of Collapse ” .

            1. Hi Ron,

              You might try Tverberg’s blog, 8 years ago she predicted collapse within 2 years. She has 6 plus years of experience. Who could know better ?

            2. Huntington Beach, I would be very much interested in hearing your prediction. Do you think civilization will EVER collapse? Or perhaps you think it will last a couple of thousand years from today?

      2. For your catastrophe enjoyment-
        https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/hothouse-earth-climate-change-709470/

        “In Lovelock’s view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. “The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia,” Lovelock says. “How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable.” With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions.”

        2. Phoenix will become uninhabitable

          It has been for quite a while.
          Lose the aircon, and it goes back to less that 25,000 people.

      3. Maybe not as specific as you are asking, and some are on my yet to red list, but:
        Heresies against progress and other illusions – John Gray
        Geodestinies –Waler Youngquist
        The Way – Edward Goldsmith
        Facing the Anthropocene – Angus, Ian
        Plato’s Revenge; Immoderate Greatness – W. Ophuls
        Overshoot; Bottleneck – W. Catton
        TechnoFix – Huesemann(s)
        The Myth of Progress – Wessels
        How Everything Can Collapse – Stevens and Servigne(?)
        Sustainability or Collapse
        Various books by John Michael Greer although he’ll never use one word if he expand it to four or more

        1. Thanks, George. I have read both Overshoot and Bottleneck by Catton. I found Overshoot a great read but was not so impressed by Bottleneck. John Gray, I read “Straw Dogs” by Gray but not Heresies against progress and other illusions. Giving how much I loved Straw Dogs, I will definitely put that one on my list. I once had a copy of Geodestinies by Waler Youngquist but misplaced it years ago. I read most of it. It was a thick and heavy read. I have read a lot of Greer’s stuff. I will wait a while before reading more.

          I will check out the others on Amazon to see if I think I might like them.

          Thanks again.

        2. George , my ” go to guy ” for offshore stuff . With the listing you have provided I better get my self a new pair of reading glasses ,but thanks, for me Christmas reading just arrived . Be well .

          1. I’ve got a new source for used books that I’ve been using since the pandemic. I hate to feed the giant, Amazon, and have been getting great oldies from Abe Books. They seem to be a clearing house for small private booksellers so if you order a book from them it could come from anywhere. I’ve seen books listed from the U.K. So I’ve downloaded the list from GK above (thanks!) and will start through the ones I haven’t read.

            I have a friend who is a librarian. She tells me Abe is the go-to place for expensive collector volumes. I’ve been getting crime novels, English history, but recently started on cold war history and all the books from Bob Woodward I’ve never read.

      4. It is difficult to foresee the future, it consists of many unrelated events, certain decisions of political leaders, heads of large corporations, or the media. I am 62 years old, I live in the city of Volgograd. In addition to changes in the technical environment and political systems, I notice changes in nature, which are more, than are obvious:
        -summer (or say the warm season) became warmer and 1 month longer.
        -the river (Volga), which in childhood froze every year until 1998 inclusive, since then has not frozen even once
        – About 15 years ago, domestic cockroaches disappeared (I don’t miss them)
        – In recent years, women have noticed a lot of problems with conceiving children, this is obvious and confirmed by familiar doctors.
        Changes sometimes happen quickly, for example, this year almost disappeared flies, noticeably less than a hundred different insects, not only in the place where I live, but also in different places at a distance of up to 200 kilometers from my house. This was noticed by everyone with whom I had to communicate and happened in a very short time.
        Of course, these are trifles, but I think that the consequences of this will be more serious ………..

    1. I can’t imagine a more sensible foreign policy priority than a country without fossil fuel resources to wean themselves from OPEC and associates.

    1. OFM —

      From your post:

      “… But in the long run, the arc of uncertainty bends toward catastrophe. It may be that this blowout at Thwaites was driven by wind or a shift in ocean temperature that, in the big picture, means little. Or it may be further evidence that the collapse of Thwaites is already underway, and it’s only a matter of time — perhaps even during the lifetimes of kids alive today — before virtually every coastal city from Miami to Jakarta is under six, seven, eight or more feet of water. If that’s the case, then big parts of the world we live in today may already be doomed. We just don’t know yet.”

      1. Meanwhile,

        STUDIES INVESTIGATE MARINE HEATWAVES, SHIFTING OCEAN CURRENTS

        “North America experienced a series of dangerous heatwaves during the summer of 2020, breaking records from coast to coast. In the ocean, extreme warming conditions are also becoming more frequent and intense. Two new studies from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) investigate marine heatwaves and currents at the edge of the continental shelf, which impact regional ocean circulation and marine life.”

        https://phys.org/news/2020-09-marine-heatwaves-shifting-ocean-currents.html

    2. “In the history of human civilization, we’ve never seen the rapid collapse of a glacier like Thwaites,” Larter points out. “So we don’t know how exactly it starts, or what it looks like while it’s happening.”

  34. Australia’s gas looking good. Best to ignore exported fossil fuels and concentrate on their solar developments for that feel good feeling. 😉

    AUSTRALIA’S UNTAPPED GAS RESERVES COULD UNLEASH THREE YEARS’ WORTH OF GLOBAL EMISSIONS

    “With the Morrison government proposing what it has described as a “gas-led recovery”, a report by the thinktank the Australia Institute has estimated the emissions that would be released if the fossil fuel industry were significantly expanded. Drawing on government data, it found there were 22 major gas production and export projects proposed across the country. There were also plans for unconventional gas production using fracking in the Canning basin in Western Australia and the Beetaloo basin in the Northern Territory. Together, the report said, these proposals could lead to about half a billion tonnes of emissions, roughly what Australia releases each year.”

    The Australian gas industry tripled in size over the past decade as the country became the world’s largest seller of liquefied natural gas. About three-quarters of the gas extracted is exported.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/10/australias-untapped-gas-reserves-could-unleash-three-years-worth-of-global-emissions

    1. One of my favorite finger foods is fried chicken . Wonder what fried human beings taste if we continue like this ? 😉

  36. Disclaimer : I am not a US citizen and nor am I based in USA , I have no voting rights. Independent observer . Joe Biden is pathetic . If he debates DT he will be FUBAR . The Dems are going to have to find a replacement at short notice or as JHK writes ” Joe will have a Covid issue and go into quarantine to avoid the debate ” . 300+million and are DT and JB all you can find ?

    1. holeinhead. its going to be an easy choice for most of us voters.
      A man who is decent and trustworthy, or one who is not. Who would we trust our family with.
      Do we lean towards fascism, or toward democracy.
      Do we trust the billionaire who has hidden his financial records, or a guy with working class roots.
      Do we choose a guy who would surround himself with loyalists, or competence.
      Enough said.

      2. Trump is bully with a 6th grade vocabulary and mentality. HH your comment says more about you than Biden. Sadly, it also says a lot about to many Americans.

        1. “Trump is bully with a 6th grade vocabulary and mentality.”

          That’s grossly unfair to the average 6th grade student. Shame on you!

    2. or as JHK writes …Mr. Head, James Howard Kunstler is a blooming idiot and a Trumpite. If that is where you are getting your information on Biden it is no wonder they are so idiotic and so far off base. Biden will blow Trump away in the debates. Trump is an idiot with no idea how to debate. Did you not see his debates with Hillary? He made a damn fool of himself. He said he did not pay taxes because he was smart.

      1. Ron,I am not defending DT . The world knows he is a show off ,a bully, and a bragger . My post is not about DT’s personality . He is an asshole of the first order . My post is about Biden . I have seen his latest videos and find him fatigued ,unenthusiastic and clueless . Seems like his heart and soul are not in it . In my view this election is an existential crisis for both Trump and Biden . Trump knows if he looses the Dems are going to audit all his accounts and transactions on the other hand Biden knows that if Trump wins he will open Ukrainegate ,Chinagate or let’s call it HunterBidengate ,Clintongate etc. Trump is calling Biden ” Sleepy Joe ” ,asking him to take drug tests and calling him senile , while Biden’s program is ” vote for me because I am not Trump ” . So irrespective Biden is a better person than DT in the debates it will not matter . What will matter is performance and who is better than the showman . I watched the Hillary / Trump debates . Trump did some actions usually not done ,like walking around the podium when Hillary was speaking and interrupting her by saying ” you are going to jail ” . I will not argue if it is fair or not but it had the effect which he wanted which was to unsettle her . If Hillary who is thick skinned like a crocodile can be unsettled Uncle Joe will be pushover . Trump will do all he can in the debate to buttress his claim that Biden is mentally unfit/weak or whatsoever word you choose to be POTUS . As I have said that I have no skin in the game , but also there are two big unknowns . First is the electoral college thing which is unique to the USA and the second is the large number of the public that does not vote ,unlike here in Belgium where 100% is required (except for medical or other emergency situations ) . Failure to vote is fined by Euro 100 or 150 .However, you know better as you are on the ground and have better sources than I have .

        1. HH, obviously you have not been following Biden or listening to any of his press conferences or speeches. No, he does not come across as fatigued, unenthusiastic, and clueless. He comes across as the exact opposite.

          As for the debates, it will be Trump who comes across as totally clueless. That is because he is clueless. He has not a fucking clue about anything. Biden will slaughter him. HH, you have been listening to Trumpites like JHK and others. They are the ones who are spreading this bullshit about Biden. The first debate is one week from tonight. We shall see.

          1. If not anything, will be interesting and hopefully funny also. :-).

  37. “Rooftop PV could determine the success of the energy transition in German cities” Not so sure about hope for cities. But PV energy dominance is really obvious. The average rooftop system size increases every year. If 14 GW is a good annual target for Germany. How about 200GW for the US for Distributed Rooftop for Starters. Florida, Alabama, Texas, Georgia could do 60GW / year each.
    https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/21/germany-could-add-140-gw-of-small-solar-by-2030/
    Your energy future is Distributed. It’s too important to rely on the Gubbers/Criminals.

    1. This is over my head, but believe it will be a step towards enabling what you suggest-

      ‘Game-Changer’ FERC Order Opens Up Wholesale Grid Markets to Distributed Energy Resources
      “A huge opportunity for solar, batteries, EVs and other DERs — and a huge challenge to integrate utility grid operations with bulk energy markets.”

      https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ferc-orders-grid-operators-to-open-wholesale-markets-to-distributed-energy-resources

      1. This is what was supposed to happen during energy deregulation.Think Enron and the Code-a-phone case. Can you imagine a service that is one way – a phone you can listen and not talk? Electrons transcend politics, they go where they are needed.

  38. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-dying-russians?utm_source=pocket-newtab
    There’s a ton of food for thought in this book review.

    And all of it applies to the question of economic and social collapse, which are effectively joined Siamese twin fashion to ecological collapse.

    This description of life in Russia for the last two or three generations is painful even reading it dispassionately, but it does support my argument, at least to some extent, that the baked in collapse resulting from overshoot may be regional rather than global to a far greater extent than most ” doomer ” thinking acknowledges.

    OR ……… it may be a preview of what’s lurking in the wings, waiting to emerge on the stage of life here in the USA.

  39. Reminder that your EV dreams will never materialize.

    “For just the United Kingdom alone to meet electric car targets for 2050 requires production of twice the global cobalt production, near all of the world’s neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production. Also, the UK grid would need to increase in size by 20% to charge electric cars. The UK comprises less than 1% of world population (0.87%) so clearly the entire world can’t migrate from gasoline to electric vehicles.”

    Herrington, R., et al. 2019.

    https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html?fbclid=IwAR3J94YKNBHWfI6_tt-4mWDLDIzzQ-iF5uAxv1l0fV6tJV1qVKXW0corjj8

    1. Let us know when we actually run into a limit on metals.
      Until then, not any other good constructive choices on how to adapt to peak oil.
      Sure there are plenty of non-constructive things to do.

      And just in case we run out of molydenum, better get your EV soon.

      1. A lot of demand has been wiped out, which translates to low prices on commodities which translates to lower activity in the mining sector. Only the most cost-effective sites are still being exploited.

        We all know there’s the hard physical limit and there’s the economically recoverable limit. The first might give us a decade or more (depending of the commodity), but the deadline on the second is getting really close – unless the economy recovers, which seems highly unlikely to me.

        Sure there’s no easy way to adapt to the consequences of peak oil, but is acquiring an EV a really constructive choice ? Wouldn’t it be better to adapt your lifestyle differently, by living closer to your workplace and to the place you do your grocery shopping, and learn to live with less ?

        At some point in the future, we’ll have less energy and less goods, that’s a certainty. We’ll be forced to scale down our appetite for consumption.

        When I became fully aware of our predicament, I stopped the superfluous expenses and took a rather minimalistic stance. No need for a car anymore, no need for useless junk that gives a false sense of security and clutters your mind. It changed my life in the best possible way, and I never looked back.

        Does that sound non-constructive to you ?

        1. From the last open thread,

          Peak aware
          Ignored
          says:
          09/21/2020 at 6:08 pm

          Reminder that your EV dreams will never materialize.

          “For just the United Kingdom alone to meet electric car targets for 2050 requires production of twice the global cobalt production, near all of the world’s neodymium, three quarters the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production. Also, the UK grid would need to increase in size by 20% to charge electric cars. The UK comprises less than 1% of world population (0.87%) so clearly the entire world can’t migrate from gasoline to electric vehicles.”

          Herrington, R., et al. 2019.

          https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html?fbclid=IwAR3J94YKNBHWfI6_tt-4mWDLDIzzQ-iF5uAxv1l0fV6tJV1qVKXW0corjj8

          When I became fully aware of our predicament, I stopped the superfluous expenses and took a rather minimalistic stance. No need for a car anymore, no need for useless junk that gives a false sense of security and clutters your mind. It changed my life in the best possible way, and I never looked back.

          Does that sound non-constructive to you ?

          I share your concerns. There’s very little doubt, none really, that we are going to be in a bad bind as some resources such as cobalt and lithium deplete.

          But there’s also reason to believe that there are substantial potential supplies, even enormous amounts, of these things that can be economically produced once the prices of them go up sharply.

          And there’s also plenty of reason to believe that we can use a hell of a lot less of each of these resources per vehicle as time passes, maybe down to the point of not using them at all.

          Let’s not forget that the survival of industrial civilization and the continuation of life as we know it is analogous to the situation of old time sailors at sea.

          You cannot defeat the sea. You can only fight it to a draw, one voyage at a time.

          Even if we can’t successfully transition to everybody having an electric car, we can have enough electric vehicles to keep the wheels of civilization, and life as we know it, turning for quite some time, maybe hundreds of years, barring such disasters as a possible WWIII.

          There’s ZERO doubt in my mind that a middle class employee or professional, given the choice of giving up her McMansion with the backyard, swimming pool or hot tub, extra bedrooms, etc, and moving down town or at least to a place she can use mass transportation……… OR driving a micro mini electric car with a range of only a hundred miles……
          will go for the micro mini in a FLASH…. once she realizes that’s her only realistic option.

          Oh, and so far as generating twenty percent more electricity…….. that would be cake with ice cream…… compared to the job of maintaining an adequate supply of diesel and gasoline, lol.The wind is free, and there’s a golden opportunity to make the best use of it when it’s blowing by charging up electric cars.

          And it blows quite steady especially off shore near the UK, lol.
          If it’s NOT blowing, well, the supply of gas used to complement wind power will last a lot longer…..Never forget you can’t defeat the sea, you can only fight it to a draw, one voyage at a time.

          Someday the sun is going to boil away the oceans.. not that it matters, we’ll be extinct long before that unless we master interstellar space travel, lol.

          Until then, we might as well live as well as we can, as long as we can. Electric cars are a politically workable partial solution to our single most formidable problem… economic and ecological/ environmental collapse. Overshoot.

          There’s no way in hell that people used to having cars and the freedom they represent will EVER even TALK about giving them up.

          Forget it, such ideas are absolute non starters in the real world.

          I spend a couple of thousand bucks a year to own and drive an old car. This expense enables me to live out in the ( used to be) boonies in a house with grounds that would cost well into the mid to high six figures at the nearest country club, which is only about ten miles away.

          I’m scientifically literate, and I’m a liberal in most respects.

          But I’m also a realist.

          If the “libtard” splinter faction of the liberal camp wants my guns, they can have them…….. by prying them out of my cold dead fingers, lol.

          Ditto my air conditioning,etc.

          There’s also a brain dead hard core environmental faction that insists on talking endlessly about real world impossibilities.

          If they want my car keys, they can have them the same way…….. by prying them out of my cold dead fingers, lol.

          If I were young, I would buy a second hand electric car as soon as I could find a good deal on one, and put in a ten kilowatt personal pv system too.

          But I don’t expect to live long enough to hit economic breakeven on either option.

          So I will continue to drive my old Buick, and my old Ford four by four pickup when I have to haul something.

        2. “At some point in the future, we’ll have less energy and less goods, that’s a certainty. We’ll be forced to scale down our appetite for consumption. ”

          Entirely appropriate. Agree.

  40. Today (September 21) was the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, the last day of summer for the northern hemisphere and the last day of “winter” for the southern hemisphere. For those who are not as informed as Doug Leighton, today and tonight will be the same length all over the world. As of tomorrow the nights start getting longer than the days in the northern hemisphere with the converse being true for the southern hemisphere.

    This has implications for all those interested in harnessing solar energy. For example the chart on the fourth row in the third column at the web page at the following URL shows the seasonal variability of solar power in the UK:

    http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

  41. hey Ron,
    I’m hoping gain some insight from your perspective on ‘collapse’.
    Seems to me the risks are very high, but will not be uniform in severity , time or location.
    Some places are much more vulnerable than others, whether it has to do with energy supply, water supply, flooding , famine or civil society breakdown.
    I think ‘failed state’ status is the common endstate, regardless of the particular trigger.

    To me, in the USA the biggest risk is civil society breakdown. Stability is very fragile, and people act as if was bedrock. I am more worried about that than energy shortage, for the coming decade or two anyway.
    Other countries have different risk profiles.
    Interconnectedness makes us all vulnerable to issues elsewhere, as this pandemic has shown very well.

    Do you have a sense of civil society breakdown coming to the USA or other places, before any physical constraint actually comes to bear? Any other comments on these issues is appreciated.

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