159 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum May 4, 2023”

  1. Meanwhile in the tropics:

    Jamaica Records Best Summer Tourism Outturns Ever This Year

    Tallest building hits the market
    This building is going up on the street where I live and has been hailed as a mark of the progress the island is supposedly making since the maximum habitable rooms per acre has been increased in many areas of the capital city. This has resulted in the construction of a significant numbers of multi-story apartment buildings on plots that formerly housed single family dwellings, many of these in upscale communities. The government is delighted with the contribution this boom in the construction sector is making to the growth in gdp.

    Gov’t drops duties on electric vehicles to 10 per cent
    This only applies to vehicles that are less than three years old at the time of importation. Four out of five vehicles imported into Jamaica are actually used Japanese Domestic Market vehicles with the majority costing less than US$10,000 before the addition of customs duties, retail sales tax and dealer margins. As a result this move by the government will not have any meaningful impact on petroleum consumption. In addition, those with the most disposable income like to show off with vehicles that demonstrate their ability to spend more than the average person. EVs are not popular with most of this group, not even Teslas.

    EV buses to ‘energise’ JUTC
    This bus arrived in the island and has apparently been in operation for some time. I first set eyes on it last week and was able to take a ride on it down to the old city center referred to as Downtown. The government owned municipal bus service is starved of funds and maintains it’s existing fleet by scavenging parts from units that are out of service (the number out of service outnumber the ones in service) but, the government is going to buy new electric buses?

    The traveling public gets around largely through the use of “route taxis” which are 5 and 7 seater cars or mini vans. Some routes are serviced by 15 seater mini buses and others by 25 or 30 seater small buses (Toyota Coasters).

    The private sector continues to invest in solar PV technology with the latest, conspicuous addition being a 2 MW facility adjoining the access road to the international airport serving the capital and the southeastern end of the island. Both major international airports are now operated by a Mexican company that has invested heavily in solar PV to offset their electricity costs.

    The last utility scale solar facility was commissioned in the middle of 2019 and no RFPs have been issued since so there is no prospect of any new utility scale solar PV for at least another 12 to 18 months. The local electric utility is planning a LNG fueled combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant in addition to the 190 MW CCGT plant commissioned in 2019. They apparently do not subscribe to the Lazard Levelized Cost Of Electricity reports.

    Maybe the reason I post all the optimistic stuff I find from around the world is that there is nothing to crow about from my neck of the woods. Reminds me of the picture below.

    1. I think I’d probably be too busy enjoying Jamaica to worry about the collapse going on around me. Sounds like a good compromise.

    1. Well posted. This is actually fairly important. Along with the brief but significant oil price spike back into the 80’s, and the ongoing resilience in the labor market, this food price spike is going to “feed” into inflation and prevent the Fed from changing course. They may not need to raise again, but they aren’t going to be able to cut rates until inflation is back towards 2% (ignore anything Dennis posts on this). And this will not be a positive for the economy, though it will take some pressure off the “peak everything” long emergency.

      1. Two cats,

        I agree the Fed will wait for inflation to reach 2%, before cutting rates. I have never said anything different. I agree with HHH that deflation will be the problem in short order, perhaps by 2023 Q4. At that point central banks cut rates, it might not be enough to avoid recession, on this point HHH and I part ways. He expects a financial crisis, I think the odds are low maybe 30%, that that happens.

        1. I thought you were sticking with your weird calculus where you could find a way to get actual inflation down to -5% if you take the average of 10 years, divide by trailing average, half housing, but double energy, then launch it into space and look at it through a telescope. I mean you did make an argument along those lines. I guess you were just being difficult for the sake of pedantry? 🙂

            1. Dennis,

              We’ll see. Lets hope its not like your transitory peddling.

            2. Dennis , inflation is not coming down , ” the increase rate of inflation ” is coming down , which means prices are rising but at a slower rate (pace ) comparatively .

            3. Hole in head,

              Correct, the rate of inflation (which by definition is the rate that prices increase) is becoming smaller. When prices decrease, we call that deflation, generally that happens during a depression and indicates a lot of suffering.

              If the US defaults onits debt because the Republican legislators want to blow up the economy, we might see the Depression HHH and you have been predicting.

              I often underestimate the stupidity of humans.

              Around June 1 when the US defaults or at least has a breach were bills are no longer paid on time the Fed reduces the discount rate to zero, and the rate of inflation will quickly fall to 1% or less, at that point inflation will be the least of economic problems around the World. It will make the GFC look ike a picnic.

              Unfortunately many in the US confuse a Government shutdown (when Congress cannot agree on a budget) with Government default on the Debt. Government shutdowns have been caused by Republicans on several occasions, but a US default on its credit obligations has never occurred, though we came pretty close in 2011 and 2013 when Republican crazies would not agree with the Republican leadership on a deal to raise the debt limit. Biden was intimately involved in those negotiations and has decided that the US should not be held hostage by 10 far right Republicans in the House of Representatives.

              https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/economy/yellen-us-debt-ceiling-default-warning-intl-hnk/index.html

        2. Actually I now think we may see deflation by June or July 2023 due to a likely default by the US Government.

          1. Comments on OFW .
            Inflation/deflation?

            I am leaning deflation.

            E.g. local pub, after 10:00PM glass of wine half price from menu. That is the end of my day, easy walk, buck up the tip a bit and everyone is happy but the owner.

            GM and others are financing their trucks at vary favorable terms, Tesla has cut prices considerably. Office buildings are obvious and this will be made worse with AI.

            Banks seem to be under stress. Increasing interest rates actually deflates the cost of their capital, less capital makes more money, sunk capital less. It is a flip side of the purchasing side. Working on this idea, cut me some slack.
            ————————————————————————————————————————————-
            I work for a big color company, so a lot of our products go into things like packaging, inks, paints, coatings and almost everything that gets manufactured and sold. So our business tends to be to a bit ahead of the rest of the economy. This year is becoming increasingly bad. Like 25-35% down from last year and seems to be getting worse.

            A big storm is coming.

            1. Hole in head,

              The US government has become even more dysfunctional than usual. I would put the odds of US default at 5:8, this will crater the World financial system and result in Great Depression 2. Many will think I am being too pessimistic, but consider by typical viewpoint.

              This will be bad, expected date around June 1 to June 15, the precise X-date when the Treasury exhausts the extraordinary measures it has been using since Jan 2023 and can no longer pay the bills is unknown, Yellen says it will be roughly June 1.

              https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/small-businesses-brace-catastrophic-scenario-looming-debt-ceiling-cris-rcna83553

    2. Food prices worldwide are down some -20% year-on-year according to the widely tracked UN FAO Food Price Index, to the relief of consumers. But there is one important outlier: the price of rice is up 16% YoY. The bigger problem is that India will not export broken rice ( cheap quality ) but only high end Basmati . Pakistan and Thailand the number 2 and 3 exporter will export nothing because their entire crop is destroyed due to flood or heat waves .
      https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/global-rice-shortage-looms-set-be-biggest-decades

  3. Chart of the day: Germany produces 40GW of solar for first time

    Germany has passed through the 40GW mark for solar production for the first time. The new benchmark was reached at 12.30pm local time on May 4.

    It shows that solar output was more than six times bigger than any other source at the time, and accounted for nearly two thirds of the total 64.6GW, of which around 1.3GW was being exported to other countries. Brown coal generation was the second biggest at that time, followed by biomass and onshore wind.

    The pie chart below shows more than 55% of the electricity produced in Germany for the entire day yesterday (May 4, 2023) was produced without burning anything! Germany is a highly industrialized country and the lights did not go out.

    1. Below is a screenshot from the Global Solar Atlas web site showing the solar resources for the globe. The only places in the USA with worse solar resources than the best available in Germany are the north western quarter of Washington state and Alaska. Imagine what the US could do if it implemented solar projects with the same conviction that Germany has shown,

      1. Once you begin to imagine a world in which the United States didn’t control almost every facet of global development for the past 75 years… oh well, it was a nice planet while it lasted.

        1. Ecological destruction and resource waste was much worse in the Soviet Bloc.

      2. With the limitation of local climates (with clouds, it is not very effective) and the limitation of the mono or poly cristalline panels with the temperature. Solar panels in the south west Algerian Sahara reach a capacity factor of 20% which was a bit disappointing for the authors of the technical article talking about the experiment.

        1. -Average utility scale US capacity factor is 24.7%
          -Over 80% of the worlds population lives where the solar energy input is strong enough for heavy reliance on PV as a major/primary component energy source.
          -30 yr energy cost with PV is excellent

          1. Hickory, no it’s not 24.7%!!
            You missed the important bit of what you linked to last week..

            “This measurement, known as a plant’s capacity factor, is based on the plant’s electricity generation as a percentage of its summer capacity value”.

            The 24.7% is the SUMMER capacity factor, not total yearly capacity.

            My faulty data, that you stated last week, was based on recorded solar output over the last 12 years for my location, close to Latrobe Valley, being 2.76hrs/day, or 11.5%. Of course it’s much higher in summer, just like the utility generators.

            1. Sorry to inform you, but you don’t have this right.
              “Capacity Factor- Definition: The capacity factor represents the expected annual average energy production divided by the annual energy production, assuming the plant operates at rated capacity for every hour of the year.” Note- annual average!!
              If a plant operated at 100% max of its name plate capacity for 24/7/365 it would have a CF of 100%.

              If you want to look at the data closely…here you go.
              https://emp.lbl.gov/pv-capacity-factors
              This summary page includes data on over 1000 projects representing 92% of all US utility scale PV projects operating as of 2021- with an average nationwide CF of 26%

              Regardless, the dozens of big utilities look at all of the data… cost and performance related, and make their long term deployment decisions.
              And they are leaning hard towards solar where it is sunny and wind were it it is windy.
              And not just in the US…but globally. In fact the US is moving slowly compared to some other places, considering its enormous reserve of both solar and wind energy.
              There are two very big reasons for this slow motion reaction.
              – the US has lots of fossil fuel for the time being, and so does not have the great imperative that most other countries do. Very shortsighted.
              – a big segment of the population has taken an opposition stance to domestic energy from solar and wind simply for numbskull partisan reasons. Just say no. What an embarrassment for the country. I will note that there are republicans who have eventually come around to being favorable to wind and solar deployment…when it benefits them personally in the pocket wallet. To hell with the common good.

            2. Hickory, allow me to give the link to the EIA document and again quote, from the first paragraph exactly what they state….
              https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39832

              “This measurement, known as a plant’s capacity factor, is based on the plant’s electricity generation as a percentage of its SUMMER capacity value for plants with a full-year of operation”

              Please go back and read it for yourself. Yes they seem to infer it’s for the year, but clearly state it’s the summer value!!

            3. Is this a comprehension issue for you, or just a strong example of willful ignorance.
              Maybe try to start over and take a couple minutes to understand the terminology.
              Just by digesting the information on that one page, as if you are studying for a quiz, will help you get it.
              If you want to get it.
              But that brings up a big point- you have some sort of preconceived notions, perhaps politically based or due to strong fossil fuel industry vested interest,
              that seems to mold your whole idea on PV’s. Maybe a combination of the two.
              Its somewhere between sad and funny.

            4. Hideaway,

              Some places have a very low capacity factor for solar, most solar is not built in areas with low output.

              See https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57582.pdf

              From that document:

              Capacity factor is a measure of how much energy is produced by a plant compared with its maximum output. It is measured as a percentage, generally by dividing the total energy produced during some period of time by the amount of energy the plant would have produced if it ran at full output during that time.

              Also see https://www.eia.gov/tools/glossary/index.php?id=C

              Capacity factor: The ratio of the electrical energy produced by a generating unit for the period of time considered to the electrical energy that could have been produced at continuous full power operation during the same period.

            5. Dennis, like Hickory, you didn’t read the first paragraph and understand what it actually states…

              ““This measurement, known as a plant’s capacity factor, is based on the plant’s electricity generation as a percentage of its SUMMER capacity value for plants with a full-year of operation”

              https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39832

              If you think they are talking about the average yearly capacity factor, please explain why they specifically state “it’s SUMMER capacity value”..

              It is summer within those years, 2014-2017 they are talking about….
              Just go and read the first paragraph and try to understand what they are actually stating!!

              No wonder so many people think renewables are the answer when they don’t try to fully comprehend what the documentation states. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the industry. For example the rated solar for my area is an average of 4.05 hours/day, but actual performance of solar panels in full sun over the last 12 years is 2.76hours/day.

              Why the variance, easy, lower output in very hot weather, bird poo, leaves and dust (we clean them about twice per year in summer as that’s when the dust collects). Summer output is about 4 times winter output for our fixed panels.

            6. Hideaway,

              Yes that particular line of that EIA post was poorly written, you can find the definition of capacity factor in thousands of other places on the web that say the capacity factor over some period is actual output over that period (say one year) divided by the maximum capacity of that plant assuming 100% output for every point in time for the period in question.

              Try a search on

              what is the capacity factor for solar power in the US

              and you get:

              The average capacity factor of U.S. solar projects operating all 12 months in 2021 was 24.4% nationally, in line with 2020 levels.

              Perhaps the page below will clarify things for you

              https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity

            7. Dennis, read the link you sent me to… It was not poorly written because this new link of yours repeats it!!!

              “Net summer generation capacity – Determined by performance tests during peak demand between June 1 – September 30”

              https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity

              In other words the high peak you are referring to was the SUMMER generation capacity!!

              Are your ‘beliefs’ in solar so strong you don’t even read the or believe the links you post??
              The EIA in the Hickory link clearly refers to SUMMER capacity value, and SUMMER generation happens to be one of the types of capacity according to the EIA, unless you think June 1 to September 30 is some other time of year in the US!!

            8. Hideaway,

              Perhaps you don’t know how to read and comprehend. I will try a picture from the page I linked.

              The US Capacity factor for solar was 24.6% in 2021, see chart which compares capacity factors for different types of power plants.

              Click on picture to enlarge.

        2. WTF? What experiment? I’m sorry but, I find this comment very “bot like”. It doesn’t address anything I have posted? It’s as if some software (bot) was scanning this site and posting a response to anything that appears to mention anything remotely positive about solar. If we are dealing with a real human please compose posts that actually respond to the comment you are replying to and that add value to the discussion by making some sort of sense. Don’t rush it. Take your time.

          1. Perhaps, I was indeed too quick to give an answer. I am very sceptical about solar energy. It is extremely variable (night and day). And even in environments which could be, in first view, extremely favorable to production such as the Sahara, the temperature interferes with the operation of the solar panels. That’s why irradiation mapp is not enough to assess corectly the efficiency of solar power. PS : I have not been able to find the publication I was speaking about, sorry, but I found an other one. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038092X2101104X

            1. JFF,
              The cost savings ALONE in fuel needed to generate electricity over the cost of building it are adequate, on a society wide basis, over the years, that going solar is a NO BRAINER.

              Fossil fuels not only deplete…… as they deplete, mining and drilling for them, transporting and processing them, and then finally burning them, costs more and more, year after year, in terms of real or constant money, meaning no inflation.

              And of course as the supply shrinks, the price goes up, in terms of REAL money, as demand grows… and unless the world goes entirely to hell, demand WILL grow for at least another couple of generations, unless we go renewable on the grand scale.

              Solar farms are typically built with borrowed money locked in for twenty years or so. Inflation alone is SURE to wipe out at least half of the actual debt in terms of purchasing power of the money needed to repay the debt.

              But the REAL nine hundred pound gorilla in the fossil fuel cafeteria is sleeping quietly in a corner, because the GENERAL PUBLIC isn’t well enough educated to realize the gorilla even EXISTS.

              The gorilla is DEMAND DESTRUCTION for the coal, natural gas and oil industries.

              The MORE solar and wind power we use, the LESS fossil fuel we have to buy, and PAY FOR.

              I’m having a hard time coming up with good numbers, but anybody who knows doo doo from apple butter knows that, everything else held equal, the less oil we buy, the less gas we buy, the less coal we buy, the LOWER THE PRICE of each.

              We’re getting around thirteen percent of our electricity in the USA already from wind and solar.

              And that means we have cut our use of fossil fuels for generation by roughly that same amount.

              I’m hoping somebody here can find links to numbers published (by reputable economists )about the price elasticity of fossil fuels short medium and long term.

              Plus of course a billion spent on solar farms means depriving our enemies ( for the most part) of several times this much in revenue over the coming decades….. revenue they tend to use to start wars, treat women like livestock, etc.

              Russia wouldn’t amount to a pimple on the world’s ass if it weren’t for the unfortunate fact that we’re hooked on oil and gas .

              But Russia is one of only three or four places in the world with truly substantial remaining amounts of oil and gas.

              Starving an enemy of money is a far better way of doing away with the threat than resorting to guns and bombs.

            2. OFM-
              “Plus of course a billion spent on solar farms means depriving our enemies ( for the most part) of several times this much in revenue over the coming decades….. revenue they tend to use to…”

              This brings up a point. Some of the guys here like Hideaway, JT, or Jean-François Fleury, for example, are not nay-sayers on PV or Wind simply because of theoretical or practical concerns.
              It is because they have a personal vested interest that is threatened by energy source development such as solar or wind. Fleury is a nuclear industry club member.

              So in a sense, when we talk about solar investment depriving other countries or sectors of energy revenues…they feel like the ‘enemy’ who is being threatened.

              I have different motivation. I don’t have any permanent regional, investment or occupational vested interest in any particular energy source (although we do have lots of hydroelectric where I live). I try to lean hard toward the issues of energy stability/security, the common good, and the survival of a small fractional semblance of the natural world.

            3. Skepticism about solar PV is a little misplaced when it comes to temperature effects on performance. Internet sources state that the temperature of solar modules can exceed the ambient temperature by as much as 40°C. I have measured modules at around 70°C when the ambient temperature was in the low 30s. If we take the highest temperature recorded in one of the notoriously hottest places on the planet, Death Valley, California and add 40°C to it we get 96.7°C.

              Solar module ratings are given at Standard Test Conditions which include a cell temperature of 25°C. One of the ratings of a module is it’s temperature coefficient of performance in percent per degree Celsius so to get the actual power rating at a particular temperature you have to subtract 25 from the module surface temperature and multiply it by the temperature coefficient, usually in a range between -0.3 and -0.5 %/°C. Using 0.5%/°C a module operating in the maximum temperature environment in Death Valley would experience a roughly 35% decrease in output. When temperature get that high the inverters will also struggle to operate at maximum power so the reduction in output of the modules is probably a good thing.

              What happens to thermal plants when ambient temperatures get too high? If I remember correctly there have been severe problems with thermal plants in the middle of heatwaves because they had to be shut down completely. I remember reading about Australian coal plants failing in the middle of heatwaves while solar PV kept right on producing albeit at slightly reduced output. I would rather experience a 35% (absolute worse case) drop in power availability than a 100% drop.

        3. Capacity factor doesn’t really matter per se. What matters is price.

          The price of solar when the sun is shining makes it impossible to run a fuel burning power plant for a profit at that time.

    2. The problem of renevable energy is as you exposed it : ”Germany has passed through the 40GW mark for solar production for the first time. The new benchmark was reached at 12.30pm local time on May 4.” The story would say that at 13.00 pm local time on May 4, this was no more the case. But antinuclears will say that now the solar panels in Germany produce 40 GW of electricity production, implying that it is on a permanent base and confusing the minds of uninformed people.

      1. I am not aware of anyone implying that solar production is anywhere near “permanent” if by that you mean constant throughout the day. Anybody that has explored solar energy even briefly will know that it follows a bell curve, starting at dawn and ending at dusk, with a peak around solar noon. The area under the curve represents the total energy available and the situation is that unless there is some sort of energy storage available you either use it when it is available or lose it. That explains all the interest in batteries, pumped hydro, compressed air, gravity, hydrogen and synthetic fuels as a way to store solar energy for use during times when the sun isn’t shinning.

        There are numerous examples of charts, available on the Internet,that show exactly how electricity is produced throughout the day in various regions. Nobody should be under any illusions about the variability of wind and solar. The graphic below is a montage of four web pages that display graphs showing electricity production over a period. The Chart of the Day from the article I posted was actually from the web page in the upper left corner of the montage (energy-charts.info). In the upper right is a web page for Australia while the lower left is the UK and the lower right is California.

      2. JEAN-FRANÇOIS FLEURY
        Rooftop solar panels are widespread in Germany, and the country has more experience with solar than just about any other country, having kicked off the movement 20 years ago. How much experience have you had with the technology?

        Your implication that you are smarter than the Germans says more about you than it does about them. You call yourself skeptical but your remarks show that you have made no attempt to inform yourself. A skeptic asks questions. You are in denial.

      3. JFF
        Isn’t it interesting that depletion only affects fossil fuels and not the minerals needed for PV EV and windmills? Isn’t interesting that the only restraint to a full buildout of a bright new renewable future is a political one? Isn’t it interesting that the renewable promoters here know our motivations are a financial embedded interest. That’s a lot of assumptions and rather shallow reasoning. Built on urban myth rather than real facts. Years ago I was running financial grade audits for ESCOs when we got our lunch handed back to us by an accountant firm who showed that simply investing in the market was a better ROI. So basically without rebates and tax incentives most energy saving technologies can’t compete. Smoke and mirrors that has grown in time to this present complete disconnect from rational geological realities.

        1. JT,

          Have you seen a lot of fossil fuel recycling? The materials used for wind, solar, and batteries can be recycled.

          1. I meant to comment upthread on this subject but the “reply” tag was gone.
            All of this discussion about the relative costs of alternative energy sources compared to fossil fuels have left out the most important costs of fossil fuels (unless you are in the business): the collateral costs. Not that they should be of concern to BAU supporters who have skin in the game.
            FF externals:
            1. Coal ash, airborne and landfull causes respiratory problems for every life form that breathes, including particulates, carcinogens and other irritants.
            2. Landfill issues. Latest data I could find says that in the US alone 130 million tons of coal ash containing cadmium, arsenic and mercury. Of course is can also become airborne.
            3. Wealth concentration, particularly in rather less civilized areas such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and west Texas.
            4. Regional conflicts and big power interventions as we have seen in the middle east.
            5. Destruction of the biosphere by CO2
            Then there’s the collateral costs of nuclear power.
            1. Nuclear proliferation.
            2. Catstrophic accidents such as Three MIle Island, Fukushima, Windscale, Chernobyl and Kyshtym, plus the countless ones in military facilities that you have never heard of. Today only about 10% of power generation in the world is nuclear and yet any one of these accidents could have been hundreds of times worse.
            3. Waste disposal of both highly radioactive and low level waste. The low level waste while not likely to go critical still has large potential carcinogenic, chemical and other health risks. When I worked in the nuclear industry in the 1970s the standard was to put low level waste in drums and dump them in the ocean. Do we have any reason to think that Russia or Iran or China is being more careful today?
            4. Radiation exposure to workers including miners, plant operators and material movement.
            Not one of these “cost” issues is significant for wind, solar or geothermal power generation.

          2. Dennis
            No they can’t unless you have an abundant form of energy that is cheaper than oil and gas. Do the math please don’t get suckered by mainstream media propaganda. For example there is more uranium in the oceans than have ever been harvested and enriched. Maybe you think that’s possible do you possibly understand the amazing planet we live on that does all the work for us . Creating ore deposits within our limited reach. Our planet is more wonderful than we could possibly conceive. To believe we can live beyond its limits is very foolish.

            1. With breeder technology you don’t even need that much Uranium. There’s more Thorium available than Uranium and breeding it doesn’t create Plutonium as breeding Uranium does.
              So what?
              Nuclear has more first costs than any of the “renewables” by a mile. When I worked on breeder reactors we used to talk about assessing accidents in “tons of tnt”.

              About 50 years ago even dingbat Ralph Nader knew the score. He said “Nuclear power can provide all the power humanity will ever need and the closest we ever need approach the reaction is 93 million miles” (I paraphrase).

            1. JT,

              Yes materials can be recycled, it is done all the time and is a way to reduce mining. Fossil fuels also require mining. Nobody is suggesting we can live beyond limits, the plan is to reduce impacts on the environment. The EROI of wind and solar is better than fossil fuel at point of use and has less impact on the environment.

              Wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuel, they can be used to replace fossil fuel.

      4. I used to work in nukes back in my younger days, during maintenance and refueling operations, and believed in them.
        Now I’m older and wiser and understand that nukes are the most dangerous by far of any and all possible infrastructure excepting possibly an atom bomb factory, lol.
        They cost too much by a factor of ten, they take too long to build by a factor of ten.
        But I’m still in favor of research into new reactor designs.

        1. OFM:
          I, too, spent some years in the nuclear industry working in several areas; fuel production, reactor design and something we called “new concepts”. There I worked on fusion, gas-cooled breeder designs , underwater electical power and (surprise) solar energy. The latter was mostly a PR scheme to make the company look objective but I had a good time there. I left the industry because the more I understood the larger picture the less viable it seemed to me. I left in 1979 and it was clear that costs were through the roof, safety planning was not credible, waste problems were ignored and the adoration of technology and profit over the results was blinding every decision.
          I have only slightly followed the fusion and next-generation fission plants because I have been too close to the notion that a new idea seems better than an old one only because you haven’t yet learned about the problems that are going to take up all of your time when you finally confront them.
          Continuing research? Yeah, maybe. But if you are spending billions there when a few millions will get you a lot of solar and wind I think you are wasting precious time and money.

  4. Depending on how the cards fall, we Yankees may actually build wind and solar farms, as well as HVDC power lines out the ying yang over the next two or three decades.

    This will depend on dozens of factors, one of the most important being which overall faction controls our abc level governmental and social policies.

    I’m actually HOPING we will have a few small scale hot wars that result in SERIOUS economic troubles in Yankee land. Nothing would be better for us than a lick upside the head that REALLY gets our attention in respect to fossil fuel depletion and wars over access to fossil fuels…… during the same year we would have a Dust Bowl level drought and a couple of Katrina level hurricanes.

    Of course this is a very dangerous idea because little wars are potentially like little acorns, which are capable of growing into mighty oaks.

    But it may well be that nothing less will focus our attention to the point we get off our asses and get on with solving the energy problem the same way we have solved our physical security problem for the last three generations or so…… spending megabucks on our military.

    There’s zero doubt in my mind that we CAN do it….. the question is whether we will, before it’s too late.

    Now as far as the climate in concerned, it may well be that all we can do is prepare for trouble as best we can. It’s not altogether too late to clean up the energy industry, but catastrophic level troubles are likely already baked in.

  6. Oops, it wasn’t supposed to go like this.

    AUSTRALIA’S COAL EXPORTS TO CHINA HIT RECORD HIGHS

    Australia’s exports to China surged to record highs in March as the Asian giant sucked in more iron for its steel industry and lowered barriers to thermal coal shipments amid thawing diplomatic relations. Data out on Thursday showed exports of Australian goods to China hit A$19 billion ($12.71 billion) in March, a rise of 31% from a year earlier and pipping the previous peak from mid-2021. The jump helped lift Australia’s total trade surplus to its second-highest on record at A$15.3 billion, a boon to mining profits and tax receipts.

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/australias-exports-china-hit-record-highs-barriers-ease-2023-05-04/

    1. Yep. No one could have predicted this outcome. I’m sure EVs will somehow fix this.

      1. “I’m sure EVs will somehow fix this.”

        Kindergarten level basics- EV’s don’t fix Global Overshoot.
        Neither does Insulation, seat belts, or lead-free gasoline.

      2. Two cats,

        Wind and solar fix that problem, though not in a day, perhaps in 10 to 15 years.

  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaw6c6PeqnA

    I personally have found the response to the announcement of the US and UK giving Australia nuclear submarines underwhelming.

    If that isn’t a “canary in the coal mine”, I don’t know what is ( I personally think Russia’s invasion of Crimea is the canary or close to it. )

    In Presidents Biden’s speech he says “We need to get Australia Nuclear Subs on the fastest – fastest timeline possible”

    Why exactly do we need to do that so fast?????

    Because military strategists think Australia is being targeted for invasion?

    USA and UK need access to Australia’s hydrocarbons and Rare Earths?

    The US wants more submarines ( 80 isn’t enough ) ?

    This move is “quid pro quo” not pure altruism.

    1. Keep it simple… the US and Australia, among others, are concerned that China will be no longer be satisfied to be boxed in.
      “USA and UK need access to Australia’s hydrocarbons and Rare Earths”…
      as does China, and Japan, and Korea, and everyone else in the global market.

      Peoples whose name isn’t China ought to think long and hard just how willing they are to keep a tight box imposed on China, before they run out of time to think about it.

      1. Good response Hickory.

        https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-03/nt-government-fracking-decision-beetaloo-basin-gas/102295762

        Fracking in the Northern Territory gets go ahead – 3 days ago

        Look at a map of Australia. We all know about the Coal, Natural Gas, Shale Oil and Oil Shale, Coober Pedy, Beetaloo Basin

        1) Surrounded by Ocean, perhaps unexplored for hydrocarbons.
        2) Seafood and Fish
        3) Farmland
        4) Uranium
        5) Shit tons of Mining

        6) New Zealand and their 1 diesel submarine

        7) Antarctica

        8) Indonesia who is a small oil exporter

        The taking of Australia can not be overstated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      2. I don’t buy the “boxed in” line.
        Richard Nixon went to significant political risk to go to China in 1972. His purpose was to bring China into the rest of the economic world under the assumption that it would be better for the whole world if China were to become economically engaged. He won politically but since that time China has not become a good citizen of the world. It has used every underhanded trick in the book to suck in financial resources from the rest of the world and, in spite of the advantages that has brought to them, has nursed ancient grudges and made every effort to claw back what it perceives as its right to dominate at least the entire western Pacific and every square inch of waterway in the hemisphere.
        The purpose of the submarines to support Australia’s fear of being overwhelmed by China’s now strong and growing military might combined with it’s ambitious territorial moves.

        1. I think that China would like to have military control over its region, including all of the shipping lanes. Having the US navy with aircraft carriers and subs in their front yard is very uncomfortable for them.

          1. I agree and their history with the US, before 1972 is good cause for caution. But that was a long time ago and the west, including the US has gone a long way towards trying to be a better neighbor. I think that negotiation is a better path than just seizing real estate and threatening your neighbors. That is not a good long term plan and that is how I see China’s behavior.

    2. “I personally think Russia’s invasion of Crimea is the canary or close to it.”
      Hint:
      The territory of Crimea, previously controlled by the Crimean Khanate, was annexed by the Russian Empire on 19 April [O.S. 8 April] 1783.
      Crimea has been Russian about as long as the USA has been a country.

      —– to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s union with Russia, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence the majority ethnic Russian Crimean peninsula was reorganized as the Republic of Crimea.

      1. Thanks for that info and the correction. My Ukranian history skills are rusty.

        The Russians drove thru the Ukraine with their military to get there. That is an invasion of the Ukraine’s sovereignty.

        I should have said the first invasion of Ukraine where the Ukraine laid down and let it happen.

        However, it is a canary because it shows Russia was scared NATO was going to take out their only year round sea port and where some of their nuclear submarines disembark from.

        1. “Russia doesn’t want to end the war. It is serving them very well; the “west” is mired in economic decline, NATO is hemoraging ammunition and gear, the RoW is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of US hegemony …”

          One view

          1. Your digesting to much Russian right wing propaganda. Record low unemployment. The Fed is trying to calm the economy and if NATO is hemorrhaging ammunition. Then they needed the wake up call. We fought a cold war for forty years and became more advanced and richer. They don’t want to end the war because war is Putin’s best and only option to continue to be relevant. Don’t kid yourself. Putin is a blacksmith with nukes. Americans do have more to loose.

          2. Even those trying to honestly analyze the war from the Russian perspective do not necessarily believe the “serving them well” line. that is pretty fringe.

            https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/09/19/putting-ukrainian-battle-successes-into-cold-hard-perspective/

            the main disinformation coming from both sides of the fighting is mostly to do with casualties: hint, each side is underreporting their own casualties, and over reporting the other sides’ casualties.

            https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-with-up-354000-casualties-likely-drag-us-documents-2023-04-12/

            the answer is stalemate. whether it is “good” for Russia, I don’t think Russia will have a problem with yet one more “bad” thing on their plate. Life in Russia has been pretty shitty for hundreds of years now. For Ukraine – whoops, welcome to life as a Western proxy asset. (what do you think Taiwan? want to be the next front line in a proxy war?) And for the US? all that defense spending had to go somewhere after Afghanistan stores were closed.

          3. “Russia doesn’t want to end the war. It is serving them very well;…

            That is the biggest line of bullshit I have heard in years. A fifth grader should know better. The war is killing Russia but Putin has no honorable way to get out. So he keeps plugging along, hoping for a breakthrough. It ain’t coming.

            Men are fleeing Russia in droves. The Russian Ruble is falling like a rock. The Russian economy is crumbling, stores are empty. Their income from oil and gas is crashing. Their tax revenue is crashing while their war expenses are rising.

            Anyone who thinks the war is serving Russia well has been living under a rock!

            1. The Russian Ruble is falling like a rock.

              Really? It’s the same as it was just before the invasion.

          4. ” NATO is hemoraging ammunition and gear,”

            This expenditure of military hardware on the part of the West is one of the greatest bargains in the history of war, lol.

            The people who are making a big deal out of it have their collective head entirely up their collective ass for an extraordinarily simple reason.

            This ammo and gear EXISTS for only one serious reason……… to defend against possible Russian aggressive war, lol.

            Using it up, at zero costs in our own blood, excepting Ukrainian blood, while bleeding the Russians dry is one of the greatest bargains in the history of war.

            But I do have to agree that the days of Yankee dominance of the world stage are growing shorter.

            On the other hand, economic troubles in the West are our best hope, in a very real sense of the word, in terms of forcing us to correct our structural economic problems.

            Putin has done more all by his lonesome than any other living man to put us on the path towards a sustainable economy, depending less on one time thru burnt and gone fossil fuels and more on renewable energy, conservation, and recycling.

            I should mention that one reason Putin was emboldened to start a war is that we have tons of idiots in this country who supported and still support trump, who did all he could to reduce our credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world.

            1. Trump wanted to dismantle NATO and destroy democracy in the USA.

              A Russian Kompromat.

              A former Prime Minister in Britain ( I think Gordon Brown…I can’t be bothered to look this up ) said in his first meeting with Putin

              Putin produced a dossier on him the showed everything that he had done in his LIFE!!!!!

              Imagine what they did to TRUMP!!!! Its called the Honey Trap!!

            2. Man, the media in America has truly done a number on you guys. You still buy into the WMDs in Iraq story as much as the “Russia made Trump win” bullshit?

              And no, Russia is not going anywhere. It would be a horrible misreading of the situation to think Russia is collapsing or something. They’ve not exactly done gangbusters on their supposed offensive, especially with Bakhmut. Still, to say they’re out of the game is a tad premature. What the Western media doesn’t seem to like reporting too much is how bad Ukrainian casualties are as well. It’s typically bad form to underestimate your opponent and assume they won’t learn from mistakes.

              Also, throwing Cold War surplus weaponry at Ukraine is fine. It was only ever going to be either in a storage hangar or scrapped without having seen a single day of combat. At least this is something less of a waste and the MIC needs a new money printing operation now Afghanistan is done with.

      2. Keep in mind that Hightrekker base stance on history and geopolitics is that of a
        Russian Nationalist.
        It is what it is.

        The Ottoman Empire held Crimea longer than the Russians have.

        Go back further and neanderthals had the longest settlements there of all humans.
        Before that, the only weapons were teeth of various vertebrae for a couple hundred million years.

          1. OFM-
            You are younger than I am–
            When you grow up, maybe you will have a bit more knowledge.
            But this is about resources– I’ll keep to the subject.

            1. “But this is about resources–”

              Sure, it a grab by Putin for resources…and control of the southern belly and port access.
              Its about the Russian nationalist and supremacist interests above any respect for others sense of self determination or sovereignty.
              The right of conquest based on Putins historical claim of greater Russia is simply the public rationale for the invasion of Ukraine. On that basis they could claim the right to take any of the former Soviet states.
              In your scheme, who gets Poland…Germany or Russia?
              Maybe Lithuania would be entitled to most of the ‘Russian’ lands west of Moscow based their extent in the 13-15th century.
              I suppose in the end its just take what you can,
              and fight back if you can.

              Ukraine will make a solid addition to NATO. That would have never come about if not for Putins invasion.

            2. Kleiber , “Russia is not going anywhere.” The Vietcong was asked the question ” Why don’t you quit ? USA is the biggest military power . ” . Their reply was ” Quit and go where ? The US can withdraw and go back to USA but we have the sea on our East and West , China above , where do we withdraw ? ” . A weakness of empires has been hubris . A copy of ” The Collapse of the Roman Empire ” should be sent to all the members of the Congress and Senate . Of course the advice given from Napoleon to Hitler ” never go to a land war against Russia ” and then Hitler’s advice to the future generations ” never go to a land war against Russia ” . They will never learn .

            3. Hightrekker,

              You’re a Russian nationalist at heart, without even the least shadow of doubt on my part.

              How anybody with even two working brain cells could support Putin and Russia at this time is either a moron or a fucking cynic and shill.

              I’m sure Putin would be glad to issue a visa. Why don’t you extend your travels a bit more and go there for a few months and come back with lots of pictures?

            4. good for you HighTrek – don’t let these jingoists push you around. If you end up wanting to do a reverse-Red Dawn in Bend let me know, I’m pretty scrappy! 🙂

    3. Why exactly do we need to do that so fast?????
      There’s always a need to grab the cash before the mark comes to his senses.

      1. If you think the UK and USA investing in the military defense of Australia is about ripping off Australians.

        Its “quid pro quo”….and there is a long relationship there..the HMAS Sydney and HMAS Melbourne are part of the US Navy 7th fleet.

        Military for access to resources….This benefits Australians the most!!!!

        The “Lucky Country” is unlucky in Military and Supply Chains….that’s about it.

        20 million perfect blokes and sheilas with Super Power Resources.

        And don’t forget Aussies celebrate/acknowledge the King’s Birthday ( formerly the Queen’s ) and the sacrifices they made in Vietnam, Iraq and WWII (ANZAC day) annually………..

    4. I have a couple of close relatives, retired military, who voted R for most of their lives, including ‘sixteen, and maybe even twenty.

      They won’t say about ‘twenty. Embarrassed, in my opinion.

      But they’re sure as shit perfectly well aware that our right wing politicians are selling us down the river in terms of global security issues, for no other reason than that the right wing base is stupid enough to believe that trump had and has our country’s interests at heart.

      1. Mac, adding up all your opinions about the world, as well as current political events, you are obviously a very smart guy. 😁

        1. Hi Ron,
          Maybe not any smarter than the average bear, but at least well informed, lol.

          I probably spend as much or more time as you do reading the news and trying to understand the BIG PICTURE.
          There’s no doubt at all in my mind that you’re a two percenter, in terms of knowing the score.

          People like Hightrekker tend to forget who built mine fields, barbed wire electrified fences, and machine gun towers to keep people IN, rather than OUT, lol.

  8. HHH, I recently came across this phrase on Daily Kos and I thought of you:

    Waiting for Godot’s recession

    You may be right of course. Like $25 WTI by March… Didn’t you later say the number was right but the timing was wrong? Interestingly, buying WTI futures (not options) on your prediction would have resulted in major gains…

    1. yeah, the idea of buying an options contract 5 or 7 months out and then just sitting back and watching time deacy erode any potential gain was really a strange exercise (was that you that did the simulated trade?). But even still, HHH was off on the timing, and he’s admitted it wasn’t meant to be an exact guess. But still, idiots and Dennises alike have spent countless posts trying to discount his arguments because that specific guess was off. His overall thesis was played out pretty well and bears have been feeding regularly at the energy and commodity troughs.

      that conversation was in mid-august i believe of last year. xop is down 13%, USO is down 16%, and even xle is only up 3% despite massive earnings. gold is up 12% from that time. and no one can seem to remember we have been average a bank failure once every two weeks for two months. in three years everyone on this forum will be saying “Oh I definitely saw the crash of 2022-23 happening.” even though we are literally in the middle of the bubble pop and most people are like, “I think we’re going to be okay – mild recession if at all.” Or Dennis’ favorite, “If you keep predicting doom eventually it will happen” as a reminder – from the cycle high in November 2021 (18 months ago!!) Nasdaq is down 16%, Russell is down 24%. Those are big drops, and that’s a very long time. It’s not a prediction, it literally happened yet its still being treated as if it didn’t happen. and more importantly, it’s not over. but, as usual, I guess we’ll have to see. I mean, Dennis won’t give up the ghost until there are literally people shooting each other in the street… oh, too soon?

      1. Two cats,

        HHH is predicting a Depression in the future, perhaps he will be right eventually, I do not discount that we could see that occur, we did have very serious economists claiming that the right response to the GFC was to tighten our belts, much like Hoover in 1929. So it could happen if people are really stupid.

        I am hopeful that someone will point out that Keynes was brilliant. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money should be required reading for all legislators.

        See

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_Theory_of_Employment,_Interest_and_Money

        1. Dennis,

          So your solution busts is to pump more debt and keep pumping and keep pumping. Tax payer funded bailouts for wallstreet gamblers.

          Then you are surprised at why the inequality gap keeps increasing.

          What a ridiculous disgusting world view to have.

          1. I-Mike,

            I think your disgust is misdirected. I think the focus should be on how the money is spent. Also, investing is a lot like(educated) gambling. They like to call it risk in finance. No better example than the oil industry drilling an oil well. Debt can enables an individual or organization to supply or produce a product that is beneficial for the marketplace. That otherwise could not have happened. Debt can be the tool for those with ideas and insufficient fund to be successful. You seem to be focused on the misuse of the system. It doesn’t matter what the system is, there will always be misuses.

            1. HB,

              Why should the system (government) allocate capital via the middle class, who don’t have a say and who are pulling the most weight and put it into zombie institutions that deserve to fail ? If they are too big to fail, why are they too big to fail ? If they are, there is something rotten about the system.

              If you can’t see that it’s because you are part of the system. A system who creates selfish opportunists who bashes fossil fuel companies and meanwhile profits from their very exploits.

              The line about all systems will be misused doesn’t justify shit for me. Let me tell you.

            2. The system are the laws government lays down to work by. The middle class in a democracy vote for their leaders to allocate government investments.

              “why are they too big to fail ?” My opinion, special interests are buying our elected representatives(you can thank the supreme court here in part) and the public aren’t educated or care enough to solve the problem. It’s easier to be distracted by watching a football, play with your dumb phone, do drugs and let FoxNoise anger ones self(abortion, debt, guns or taxes for example).

              Special interest are the wealthy(to large to fail included), foreign governments and religion pouring disinformation into the American public atmosphere.

              America has voted for the system it has. Your appeared anger doesn’t solve anything. It just plays to the special interest and you lose.

            3. HB,

              We are essentially in agreement I agree with everything you said. We just don’t see eye to eye on the political system. I believe the working middle class has no representation politically. It isn’t just the U.S, the middle class has been getting crushed as the gap between rich and poor increases, it increased exponentially during the pandemic, one factor being low rates by central banks. For me the whole system is absolutely rotten to the core.

              Here in Australia the system just continuously gives more to people who already have obscene wealth. Young people never catch a break, the countries god is property. It is just disgusting. Pure greed.

              If history has shown us anything, as the gap widens eventually there will be a breaking point were there will be civil unrest. But who knows you are right about the pacification and dumbing down of the masses, and just manufacturing consent through digital propaganda and brainwashing.

              I apologise if i come across angry. Everytime i think about this topic, it pisses me off.

          2. Iron Mike,

            Nope. The prescription is for the government to spend when private investors will not (during a recession) and then raise taxes and reduce spending when the economy is doing well. It does not always work that way in practice. As to the wealth gap, that is in part due to reduced taxes on the wealthy, for the US this policy gained traction in 1981 with the Reagan revolution. Reversing the policy is simply a matter of passing legislation to increase tax rates on the wealthy, including no special treatment of capital gains and dividends, these should be taxed at the same rate as wage income.

            Have you read the General Theory?

            It costs 39 cents at Amazon, a short read only 168 pages, probably the most important book on economics ever written.

            https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Employment-Interest-Money/dp/1774642050/ref=asc_df_1774642050/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=507975958237&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16731973273433044987&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1018984&hvtargid=pla-1237622981479&psc=1

  10. In spite of the never ending stream of bad environmental news, I for one do NOT believe in giving up, nor in talking gloom and doom as if there’s no possible hope for our kids and grandchildren.

    Giving up is for pussies.

    At worst even an unsuccessful ( over the long term) rear guard action can enable the next generation or two of people in many parts of the world have an opportunity to find ways to live, ways to keep their kids alive… and of course to refrain from having kids .

    One thing we need to get across to the public IMMEDIATELY is that no matter the environmental costs of going renewable, such costs are trivial compared to the costs of sticking with fossil fuels.

    But the fossil fuel propaganda industry, along with the R party political propaganda assault, is still winning the political war.

    There’s not a day I don’t see more articles, in publications with larger audiences, about problems such as wind turbine blade disposal, birds killed, etc, that are bullshit than ones that are truthful.

    All the wind turbine blades that will ever exist in the world will never equal the quantity of coal ash created by continuing to burn coal to generate electricity. They CAN BE safely land filled, especially compared to coal ashes.

    Furthermore , they CAN BE put to good use for various purposes, such as using them on farms to help create terraced fields, thereby almost totally eliminating soil erosion, and saving huge amounts of water by way of using less for irrigation.

    I would love to have a couple of eighteen wheeler loads cut to truck length dropped off at my farm. I would be glad to pay the shipping costs for up to maybe three or four hundred miles.

    This means less runoff of fertilizers and pesticides…….. both SERIOUS problems.

    And they CAN BE recycled.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Solving-The-Biggest-Problem-With-Wind-Energy.html

    1. Mac, I am not giving up either. However, there is a big difference between recognizing the inevitable and giving up. We will always fight to the very end regardless of our chances.

    2. OFM,

      Giving up is for pussies. Giving up on what being a virus ?

      Humans were meant to live in an ecosystem like all of the earths complex biosphere since the the Cambrian explosion.

      We have been modelling our ways on viruses since agriculture, (agent smith mentions this in the matrix) but the industrial revolution gave us an incredible boost.

      So yes your argument is coming from an anthropocentric view, which is we should maintain our living standards by somehow continuing to live like viruses. It is understandable, but not sure if its sustainable.

      1. “Giving up is for pussies”

        No, giving up is for losers

        “not sure if its sustainable”

        Father time doesn’t lose. Your actions only determine how long you play the game. Make the best of the time you have and play it forward as did those before you.

      2. yeah, but the soviets would have won if we hadn’t destroyed the planet, so you’re owned. alimbicunted can’t respond to everything so I’m chipping in for him 😉

      3. Hi Iron Mike,

        My comment is or was intended to get the point across to hard core doomers that going around preaching that we’re doomed to regressing to a preindustrial life style, assuming we even SURVIVE, is a HIGHLY counterproductive thing to do.

        This sort of talk discourages people from taking action personally, or supporting action at the government level, that will soften our built in crash and burn overshoot landing.

        I have personally had a couple of guys I’ve known all my life tell me I’m pissing my time away even thinking about the future. They’re determined to continue to drive their giant pickups, and to support trump type politicians…… although they actually do believe in ” the end of the world” as we know it.

        Most people in this country generally don’t even know the name of their Congress Critter, or even five percent as much about the environment as they do about football or auto racing or stylish clothing or some other such foolishness.

        When they hear from a fossil fuel shill that green energy is a libtard plot to take away their freedom and their lifestyle, and they run across somebody like Ron insisting that we’re fucking going down, back to the Stone Age, they believe what they WANT to believe …….. and from that day forward….. they believe people like you, like Ron, like me………. are all idiots.

        There’s such a thing as BASIC PSYCHOLOGY, basic abc level public relations.

        We need to be talking about solutions rather than insisting that solutions just don’t fucking MATTER.

        But if you talk doom and gloom all the time…….. hardly anybody is going to listen. Those that do listen, and who do take action, are mostly trying to organize their own lives in a sustainable fashion. Nine times out of ten, they would be doing themselves a bigger favor by devoting their time and energy to encouraging people to vote Blue.
        ( Note I live on a farm, know how to farm, etc, and even have a plan in place involving forting up if necessary. I could actually grow all my own food, etc, except that I’m too old now to be out there all day so many days. )

        Don’t forget that we need move only three or four voters out of each hundred from the Red side to the Blue side, nationally, to have sensible proactive public policies.

        As far as our current lifestyle is concerned, I’m totally in agreement that it’s not sustainable.

        But that does NOT mean that it’s impossible to reorganize things, given time, and the will to do so, in such a way that we can’t preserve some of the best parts of industrial civilization on a sustainable basis, for SOME of us.

        I frequently point out my belief that a very substantial portion of us WILL die hard sometime before this century is out.

    3. Did you check out the Apple TV series Extrapolations? It was… a fascinating mess. There’s at least one genuinely good episode which takes place mid-century in India where everyone is basically nocturnal and sleeps in the day in foldaway pods with A/C and air filtration due to the wetbulb heatwaves. The rest of the episodes devolve into mixed messaging about tech saves and “we just need to hope or find meaning”.

      As someone on another forum put it, a good part of the problem in articulating the true plight of the planet is because no mainstream media is going to touch it and do it justice given the monetisation of “you’re all screwed by the system, enjoy the apocalypse” don’t work with advertisers, and the rest of the media landscape adds the typical “write your congressmen” or some other cope about tech saving us or humans suddenly acting totally rationally.

      I find the whole period fascinating in how these subjects are just so hard for most people to digest, that it’s literally a blind spot in our cultural thinking. We can’t dare look at it critically, because without that last word saying salvation is just one letter/screen tap/purchase away, we tune out because reality sucks.

      So I’m just going to enjoy that I can read about such matters with you guys and not lose my mind with everyone else gaslighting over the predicament of our species.

        1. Oh great. Another blog I have to add to my list to check weekly. 😛

          Good article. Nice find. Bookmarked.

  11. If you haven’t caught up on what’s going on with the new chat bots then it’s time to watch this amazing video that cogently summarizes the potential threats and abuses. As one example, with a snippet of three seconds of your voice, anyone with access to chatgpt 4.0 can create a filter than sounds exactly like you and make it say anything they want. Imagine how your children or elderly parents could be manipulated by such a device.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoVJKj8lcNQ&t=4s

  12. Thwaites Glaicer RIP in 3-5 years. Places that are likely to become uninhabitable in the next 5-10 years because of this: Miami, much of Boston, much of Washington DC, the coast of NC etc

    https://youtu.be/aogMKvzN2x4

    1. Thanks Stephen for the reminder . I had forgotten about this , must catch up . Also must visit Paul Beckwith more often to know what is happening in the Arctic . Merci Beaucoup .

    1. When the sanctions were applied in Feb 2022 it was $ 1= 131.8 roubles . It was $ 1= 85 roubles prior to sanctions . Still in positive territory . Creating a storm in a teacup .

  15. Mac,

    Late for the Sky 1974
    Before the Deluge
    Song by Jackson Browne

    Some of them were dreamers
    And some of them were fools
    Who were making plans and thinking of the future
    With the energy of the innocent
    They were gathering the tools
    They would need to make their journey back to nature
    While the sand slipped through the opening
    And their hands reached for the golden ring
    With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge
    In the troubled years that came before the deluge

    Some of them knew pleasure
    And some of them knew pain
    And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
    And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
    They went flying around in the rain
    And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
    And in the end they traded their tired wings
    For the resignation that living brings
    And exchanged love’s bright and fragile glow
    For the glitter and the rouge
    And in a moment they were swept before the deluge

    Let the music keep our spirits high
    Let the buildings keep our children dry
    Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
    When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

    Some of them were angry
    At the way the earth was abused
    By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
    And they struggled to protect her from them
    Only to be confused
    By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
    And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
    In the naked dawn only a few survived
    And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
    Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge

    Let the music keep our spirits high
    Let the buildings keep our children dry
    Let creation reveal it’s secrets by and by, by and by
    When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfF0x8e38Kg

        1. Mike, I think they’re serious. I was moved too. Thanks for sharing…

  17. I was skeptical last year but I can’t ignore the low cost Chinese EVs ramping up.
    I guess the other factors :
    Enough rare battery material.
    Upgrading the grid.
    Transitioning from a drilling process to mining also seems prohibitive.

    https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/dnv-oil-demand-will-halve-by-2050

    Thanks to the ultra-high efficiency of battery-electric technology, plummeting demand for carbon-based fuels in road transport will lead to a 50 percent drop in the use of oil in the sector by 2050, predicts DNV.

    1. 2050 ?? These guys don’t visit POB otherwise they would never make such forecasts . Obviously they have no knowledge about ELM or any associated matter . Place it in file 13 .
      P.S : The trash can in a lawyer’s office is called file 13 .

      1. Hole in head,

        The ELM (Export Land Model) makes a number of assumptions that may prove false. There is likely to be plenty of fossil fuel available, lack of demand and falling fossil fuel prices will lead to much of it remaining in the ground. ELM implies a shortage of fossil fuels and high fossil fuel prices.

    2. Agamemnon,

      There is a tendency to portrait the energy transition as a form of “winning” and staying positive. I would have to say that if winning means demand out of control for not only neccessary consumption… but all kinds of luxury, just to try get a “place in the sun” as in the “scramble for Africa” in the 1870s; then nothing noteworthy has been gained. It is the combination of new technology, especially if it is relevant for the energy sector, combined with real demand destruction (the parts that do not hurt as much) that makes room for improvement. To think of a shrinking pie is deeply unpopular.

  18. RESEARCHERS DISCOVER A CAUSE OF RAPID ICE MELTING IN GREENLAND

    While conducting a study of Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory uncovered a previously unseen way in which the ice and ocean interact. The glaciologists said their findings could mean that the climate community has been vastly underestimating the magnitude of future sea level rise caused by polar ice deterioration.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-05-rapid-ice-greenland.html

    1. This is some seriously scary new data.
      With the ice lifting up and down this way, water will be sucked under and then pushed out every time the tide changes. The amount of contact area between sea water and ice is probably at least ten times greater than previously estimated……. maybe twenty or fifty times greater.

      The rate of melt will therefore accelerate as predicted.

      Oh well, I live in the mountains, far from the sea, and far enough north that it probably won’t get so hot it will be necessary to move up to the Dakotas or some such place to escape the heat.

      1. It isn’t just the increase in contact. The movement changes the heat transfer confficients dramatically. think of the difference between your engine running with or without the fan belt connected to the waterpump. Same amount of water but big difference in heat transfer.

        1. Totally correct.

          I just overlooked this factor.

          I didn’t put it in so many words.

          I should have but I pointed out that with the ice rising and falling with the tide, this results in a pumping action moving sea water into the new space under the ice, as the tide rises, and squeezing it out again as the tide falls.

    2. More and more evidence seems to supporting the Hansen proposition that we’ve already put enough GHG into the atmosphere to give an equilibrium temperature rise of ten degrees, and now it is just a question of how quickly earth catches up with the heating lag (apparently quite quickly given the recent loss of Antarctic sea ice and rapid rise in EEI, and given some help from us, for example, in reducing aerosol cooling by switching to low sulphur marine fuels or continued deforestation in the Amazon, which will lower the tipping point for transition to Savannah from that given in AR6). The violation of all the various climate tipping points, and the cascading consequences, sets the route we might take, but the only destination is a hot house earth with no mammals. How much of it is going to be seen from the viewpoint of any kind of civilisation is an open question. The IPCC has done the world no favours by specifically excluding long(ish) term feedbacks and only looking at the equilibrium climate sensitivity rather than the whole earth system sensitivity. No matter how doomerish I think I am being, whenever new data comes in it usually turns out not to have been enough.

        1. Thanks, I usually consider I’ve done quite well if I get approximately the right number of commas and apostrophes, have “you’re” rather than “your” where wanted and manage not to say the complete opposite of what I intended.

      2. Meanwhile, greenhouse gasses continue their unabated climb.
        CO2.
        April 2023 = 422.73 ppm
        April 2022 = 420.02 ppm

      3. George, your “doomerism” on this seems perfectly justified from all the newer information that keeps popping up. The only way forward by every organization world wide seems to be build more renewables, or nuclear or both, which leads to more fossil fuel use to build it all, because that’s how we do it.

        IMHO the world as a whole will go down the path of coal to liquids as/when oil production is clearly past peak and the price skyrockets of all oil products. The excuse will be it’s a short term measure while we build out renewables, but the effect will be passing multiple tipping points towards much higher global temperatures.

        Every time someone from any field states that we need to build more of whatever, they are really stating we need to burn more fossil fuels, because all the mining, heat processing and heavy transport are done with fossil fuels. We need to mine less, process less, transport less and reduce population, but no-one wants to consider that, as it means less growth, which is totally against all economic principles.

        1. We either burn more fossil fuels now, short term, to build more renewable infrastructure, or burn them later NO MATTER WHAT, so they’re going to be burnt…… period.

          But a million tons of coal and a ten million barrels of oil burnt now means leaving ten times as much coal and oil in the ground over the next couple of generations of kids and grandkids.

          It’s not a question of being able to afford burning ff to build renewable infrastructure

          We can’t afford NOT to.

      4. The only way to confront the threat is to have an empowered executive that can act swiftly to contain the spread of ideas from dangerous ideologues like Hansen.

        1. Just say it clearly…you want a panultimate dictator who will control the media, education, and freedom of thought/speech.
          Sounds like you’d do well with 30 years living in North Korea.
          Let us know how you feel ..write some letters, if they let you.

          1. It’s absolutely right and going to happen, though. More and more people awaking to the actual calamity that’s unfolding faster and stronger than anyone predicted will lead to… consequences.

            The people want to have their treats, otherwise shit goes down. Wait until Europe gets turbofucked by mass climate migration.

            Going to be incredible seeing the hand wringing from those currently happy to take migrants when they find the literal waves of devastated humanity are unable to be supported or integrated, and everyone sees their own quality of life continually decline.

            Many fun years ahead.

      5. Hi George,

        I’m trying to confine my thinking and comments to a time frame roughly extending out twenty years or so, on up to maybe the end of this century.

        A hot house world probably won’t mean the end of our species, but it sure as hell could mean the end of industrial civilization and life as we know it.

        Maybe a few million of us could live mostly underground and come out mostly at night in far northern or far southern areas, and figure out how to farm current day tropical species well enough to survive.

        If I were a young man, I would be thinking about putting my hands on some high elevation property up Canada way. Maybe well up into Canada.

        It’s hard to come up with any realistic estimate of how long such a hot house climate would last.

        With men pretty much out of the picture, I can envision fossil fuels being laid down again, as for instance in the form of dead algae sinking in sea water, thereby pulling CO2 out of the air pretty fast, in terms of geological time.

        But in terms of human time frames….. thousands of years would likely pass before the average temperature would start dropping again.

        1. Regarding growing things in a really hot climate, don´t underestimate the potential of 400 meltdowns to release enough radiative material to create some very, very funky mutations, so no problem! /s
          For reference example, search: France, rivers, temperature.

    1. Yep – definitely pumped up in that one. It would definitely be nice to see people getting excited about a project, even if the chances of success were not the greatest.

  21. Sometimes well meaning people in the green and blue camps really do need to stop and think things over.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/hunting-ban-caused-catastrophic-decline-071257592.html

    One reason I maintain my farm, and that millions of other rural landowners maintain their property in such a way as to support wildlife, is that we enjoy hunting.

    If I couldn’t hunt whitetails, or allow my friends to hunt them, it would be very much to my own personal advantage to simply ELIMINATE them as pests. They are after all pretty much just giant rats, in terms of their destruction of fruit trees and field crops.

    My sister spent two hundred bucks a couple of days ago on new flowers she transplanted into her back yard. They’re all gnawed down to nubs today.

    One of my first cousins spent twenty grand on a fence to keep deer out of his orchard. That’s probably more than he nets annually on this small operation on average.

    We have met the enemy, and they is us.

  23. Let us pray that trump somehow manages to win the Republican nomination.

    His core support is rock solid, but the general public is thoroughly sick of him, and the dirty laundry will be coming faster and faster over the next year or so.

    Maybe I’m all wrong but it’s my position that the worst possible thing a political party can do, in terms of winning elections, is to run candidates that are in deep shit with the voting public even before the campaign season is well underway.

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1Uv-UDXaNg4

  24. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/david-shafer-donald-trump-fulton-county

    So this ranking R party official is dumb enough to do what trumps lawyers told him to do? Even a typical high school dropout would have known this involved breaking numerous laws.

    He knew better.

    This explanation might work for him in terms of hard core trump fans, but judges don’t buy this kind of bullshit….. unless maybe they’re trump judges on the take.

    Ignorance of the law is never an acceptable out in criminal court.

    1. Just following advice/orders didn’t end too well for a lot of German war criminals at Nuremburg, so why do these people think that excuse will work now?

  25. just when you think you’re being overly cynical about politics. the democrats don’t have a party so much as a cluster of electoral entrepreneurs.

    “The resulting map, finalized in January 2022, made Clyburn’s lock on power stronger than it might have been otherwise. A House of Representatives seat that Democrats held as recently as 2018 would become even more solid for the incumbent Republican. This came at a cost: Democrats now have virtually no shot of winning any congressional seat in South Carolina other than Clyburn’s, state political leaders on both sides of the aisle say.”

    https://www.propublica.org/article/how-rep-james-clyburn-protected-his-district-at-a-cost-to-black-democrats

    1. George Santos, R-N.Y., surrendered to federal authorities on Wednesday after being indicted on 13 charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements to the House of Representatives.

      https://news.yahoo.com/george-santos-arrested-indictment-charges-new-york-142812799.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIGFOfF6XCC5gA6n-KOJZ-bJbYVz-1Hfmho4ZaXzjNl7rnbt5xrnQQfyfYD6SL-FsDzSvCS_mrDkUoR02u7S3em9_9ab-PqDec8bVulbEa_vK0eF2_vu2LHkICgWSfW5Ox6Nov05iGeOUBUY5vpiCfxrcGlkmJFcBbXNnGPrvlKz

      ‘Sex Abuser’ Trump Ripped On The Front Pages Of His Hometown Newspapers

      The New York Daily News put “SEX ABUSER” right on its front page along with a picture of the former president:

      https://nypost.com/2023/05/10/e-jean-carroll-trump-victory-happiest-day-of-my-life/

  26. Potatoes, and all other plants harvested for food and fiber, prove a point made above by Alimb…
    In the final analysis, it is the price if energy that matters when it comes to being a viable source, and not other particular measures such as CF (capacity factor) , depletion rate, or EROI, as examples.
    The capacity factor of plants that we utilize varies from at most 2% down to about1/10th of that depending on climate, soil, insects, fungus, shade,etc
    Despite that poor capacity factor, plant life is extremely valuable including the plant energy storage forms of wood, coal, oil and gas.
    The photovoltaic capacity factor of 24.7% US utility scale
    is robust…if the price is affordable.
    And this decade it certainly is.

    1. Hickory, SUMMER capacity factor according to EIA, not yearly capacity factor. I wish you would look at the facts instead of your beliefs…
      “This measurement, known as a plant’s capacity factor, is based on the plant’s electricity generation as a percentage of its summer capacity value for plants with a full-year of operation, as expressed in terms of alternating current (AC) power.”

      https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39832

      If you go to IRENA for the 2020 numbers of all PV installations in the USA, total installed PV was 74.693 Gw
      Total produced electricity from PV = 115,902 Gwh. Over the 366 days in 2020 that works out at a capacity factor for all PV in the USA of 4.24hr/d or 17.66%
      https://www.irena.org/Data/View-data-by-topic/Capacity-and-Generation/Country-Rankings

      Assuming that summer capacity factor is around the EIA average for utility scale of 24.7%, then Winter is going to be around 10% or less.
      There are no plans, nor the energy and material cost of building out any type of storage from hydrogen and/or synthetic fuels for averaging out solar power from summer to winter…

      1. Wrong. Annual.
        Capacity Factor is determined on annual basis fir all forms of energy production. Day and night.
        24/7/365

        Regardless,
        It all washes out in the price contract for delivered energy.

        1. Hickory,

          Hideaway doesn’t seem to understand the english language.

          Maybe he can read a chart?

  27. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-wind-power-overtakes-gas-first-time-q1-2023-report-2023-05-10/

    Climate issues aside, it should be obvious that IF we get with it in terms of renewable energy, the way we get with it when we go to war, there’s resources enough, and time enough, to manage the transition.

    We don’t HAVE to give up oil or gas, in economic terms, any particular year, or even any particular decade.
    What we DO have to do, is to make sure that we use our remaining reserves of both in such a way that they remain affordable long enough to get the renewables industries built up to the point they can shoulder the load.

    Maybe it’ll take twenty years.

    The question is not how long, but rather whether it’s even possible. I believe it is.

    1. OFM —

      “We can all pretend to be fantastic until the floor collapses beneath us. At that point, complacency / denial gives way to panic, but it’s too late to effect any realistic reversal of fortune.”

      1. Indeed, Erwin Schlesinger said, “human beings have only two modes of operation: complacency and panic.”

  28. Don’t forget our old friend methane.

    METHANE BIG PART OF ‘ALARMING’ RISE IN PLANET-WARMING GASES

    Methane, a gas emitted from sources including landfills, oil and natural gas systems and livestock, has increased particularly quickly since 2020. Scientists say it shows no sign of slowing despite urgent calls from scientists and policymakers who say time is running out to meet warming limits in the Paris Agreement and avoid the most destructive impacts of climate change.

    https://apnews.com/article/methane-emissions-climate-change-noaa-fe5f29a93e5407f1f80d383eb829b41e

  29. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Americas-Largest-Wind-Farm-Is-Finally-Moving-Forward.html

    It can be done, folks.
    The billions this giant wind farm and the necessary transmission lines cost us will come back seven fold by way of savings on natural gas alone over the next fifty years.

    The right wing idiots who oppose renewable electricity just need a little LARNIN’ ‘ bout how when some libtard buys ah ‘lecterk car it leaves more gas(oline) for his F250 an more gas to heat his own house.

    And yes, it will last not just fifty years, but hundreds of years, as long as Old Man Business as Usual stays on his feet, because it can be and will be rebuilt piecemeal as necessary without ever going down all at once for maintenance and upgrades.

  30. https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-accelerates-ev-revamp-with-extra-7-billion-investment-b323eb1c

    Toyota is on board.
    I’ve always thought Toyota would go electric on the grand scale, one way or another, either by way of fuel cells and hydrogen, or batteries.

    Toyota’s still spending big money on hydrogen and fuel cells.
    But for what it’s worth, it’s my opinion that given the lack of hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure, batteries will rule for at least ten years and probably a lot longer, and maybe indefinitely.

    Let’s not forget that batteries are getting both cheaper and more powerful, in constant money terms, year after year.

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