125 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 6, 2023”

  1. Never below 420 again in our lifetimes?

    NOAA

    Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2
    November 2023: 420.46 ppm
    November 2022: 417.47 ppm

    Last updated: Dec 05, 2023

    4. Please point out on the graphs where the world fossil fuels use drop dramatically for several months due to Covid and there was a corresponding reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

      1. Annual CO2 emissions chart. I think you can spot the financial crisis and the pandemic.

      2. Hi Ervin, there was no corresponding reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide. From noaa’s page “Can we see a change in the CO2 record because of COVID-19?” at https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/covid2.html

        We frequently are asked this question: CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are lower because of the pandemic, so why is atmospheric CO2 not also going down?

        There is no photochemical destruction of atmospheric CO2 like there is for many other gases

        and it has a long explanation about the bio phys chem cycle of CO2 and how emissions affect it

        1. Its actually very simple-
          Atmospheric concentration of CO2 reflects a very slow 1/2 life of clearance…approx 120 years.
          If we stopped all CO2 emission for 2024 (combustion and natural sources),
          by the end of the year the levels would be down less than 1%,
          more accurately it would be 99.42% of the level at the beginning of the year.

          And if we carried on the no CO2 emission experiment for second year,
          by the end of year 2 the levels would still be at 98.85% of the original level.
          Roughly.

          1. Hi Hickory, I assume your graph was to point out to Ervin the drop in world emissions wasn’t dramatic at all.
            I link to the NOAA’s explanation of the carbon cycle for people who get hung up on the atmospheric CO2 concentration dropping seasonally (left hand graph) and think it shows it responds to changes in less than 6 months. Cheers Phil

            1. Just trying to help him get the concept of accumulation, with slow clearance. It doesn’t seem that hard to digest.
              The implications are extremely hard to digest.

  2. PLANET TIPPING POINTS POSE ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ THREAT TO HUMANITY

    Humanity faces an “unprecedented” risk from tipping points that could unleash a domino effect of irreversible catastrophes across the planet. The most comprehensive assessment ever conducted of Earth’s invisible tripwires was released as leaders meet for UN climate talks in Dubai with 2023 set to smash all heat records. The Greenland ice sheet has been shrinking at such a rate that it might already be too late. “Is it past the tipping point or could it stop shrinking? No one’s quite sure,”

    https://phys.org/news/2023-12-planet-pose-unprecedented-threat-humanity.html

    1. Billy Gates says it’s fine that we missed the commitments to being below 1.5°C, because we’ll definitely not reach 4°C with our new commitments.

      1. More accurately-
        Bill Gates warns the world is likely to overshoot 2 degrees …
        “Fortunately, we’ve made enough progress [that] we’re not going to have the extreme cases like a 4 degrees [Celsius] warming, but we’ll sadly probably even miss the 2-degree goal.”

        He is very well schooled on climate issues. Here’s to hoping he right about the more extreme case.

        1. Likely? It’s scientifically a fact unless there is literally magic tech we’re not seeing about.

          The idea that we’re going to not hit 4 degrees is also predicated on the global system waking up. Which, bad news about that…

        2. Bill Gates has publicly bought in to Vaclav Smil’s baseless claims that it will take a century to change to a new method of producing energy.

          2. I just reviewed Wikipedia’s bio on Smil. I can’t find fault wth these quotes:
            -..skeptical that there will be a rapid transition to clean energy
            -Although renewable energy technologies have improved over time, the global share of energy produced from fossil fuels since 2000 has increased.
            -.. that replacing the use of fossil carbon in the production of primary iron, cement, ammonia, and plastics is a significant and ongoing challenge in the industrial sector.
            -.. the need for energy prices to reflect their true costs, including greenhouse gas emissions, and promotes a decrease in the demand for fossil fuels through energy-saving measures
            -believes economic growth has to end
            Given the inherent human tendency to ignore long term effects of short term decisions it seems that nothing will really change until the real holders of power in the world personally feel mortal pain from climate change and the other effects of human over population. Even then they will respond in a way that transfers the maximum amount of that pain to the least guilty of the causative excesses.
            Yikes, that reads even more pessimistic than I usually feel.

            1. Smil is simply getting collective panties in a twist by stating that replicating 200 years of infrastructure build out in a couple decades with far more complex replacements off the back of FFs is likely not easy nor quick. And this in an era of neoliberalism rot.

              This causes no end of consternation for the “But I have a Tesla” crowd, you can imagine. It’s the energy equivalent of “learn to code” as an answer to complex systems dynamics.

            2. In the short term, solar is much cheaper than any fossil fuel and is already sucking the profits out of the industry.

              The meme “humanity is too short term to worry about the environment” is an argument from the 1970s, when Jimmy Cart put solar panels on the White House. Since then the price has fallen about 99% and the argument no longer makes sense.

              Oddly, people claim in the same breath that solar will never be adopted because energy supply has to be available 24/7. Apparently people are too good at long term planning to adopt solar.

              Smil’s argument is that it took 100 years for coal to replace wood and horses. This argument is dumb because the pace of technical change has increased greatly since then. It’s a silly “big picture” argument, which is why i called it baseless, but his conclusion isn’t necessarily false.

              But Smil specifically claims that renewables won’t replace fossil fuel. That may or may not be true, but it ignores the looming question of whether solar will kill fossil fuels.

              Remember, the energy industry doesn’t exist to “keep the lights on” any more than the car industry exists to provide transportation. It exists to make money, and solar is a profit killer.

              If you believe the electricity grid could never just shrivel up and die, check out this animation:

              https://www.vox.com/2015/3/11/8192499/amtrak-passenger-train-decline

              Or admire the wholesale destruction of great American cities here:

              https://iqc.ou.edu/2014/12/12/60yrsmidwest/

          3. The big picture message here is simply that it is a huge job to replace some of the fossil fuel energy system humanity is reliant on, and it will take a very long time…the effort having started in the 1970’s roughly (Actually much earlier if you count big hydro such the Grand Coulee, Aswan Dam…)

            One way or another we will become reliant on much less fossil fuel use, some by choice and larger proportion by depletion and lack of affordability.

            1. I first found this blog (actually the old Oil Drum) because I had been considering the concept of depletion since the 1970s. Now it appears that overpopulation and various consequences of that will overwhelm depletion as the controlling cause of the coming social calamaties.

            2. the effort having started in the 1970’s roughly (Actually much earlier if you count big hydro such the Grand Coulee, Aswan Dam…)

              Well, really, hydro came first.
              https://www.niagarafrontier.com/power.html

              In the same way, EVs preceded ICEs, though the lines got blurred when the Model T added an electric starter, and eliminated one of the advantages of the early EVs. Electric starters are essential as are onboard electrical generators (alternators). The “ICE” has been hybrid-electric ever since.

              Install a more powerful starter motor, and you have a “mild hybrid”, which can stop the engine at a stoplight, and instantly restart it. Increase the battery size, and you can use that electric motor together with the ICE: a full hybrid. Add a plug, and you have a PHEV. Increase the battery and you have an extended range PHEV. Add some more battery capacity, and eliminate the ICE (and the transmission, radiator, fuel pump, etc., etc., etc), and you have a pure EV.

              Does that oversimplify things a bit? Of course, but the basic ideas are valid: ICEVs, HEV, PHEVs and EVs share a great deal, and the transitions between them are much greyer than you might think.

              Ideally, one would optimize things: in a hybrid one can use a slightly more efficient engine cycle if the ICE is no longer primary. One can add regenerative braking once one has a battery. Aerodynamics become more important with regen braking, vehicle weight becomes less important. And so on. But, this is fine tuning.

  3. This global trend is going to yield very surprising results to many of you by the time we get to 2030.

    US utility-scale solar deployments jumped 107% year over year in Q3: S&P Global”-
    4.1 GW of utility-scale solar connected to the grid in the third quarter of 2023, compared with 1.9 GW connected in the same quarter last year.
    https://www.utilitydive.com/news/utility-scale-solar-deployments-Q3-installations/701665/

    I’m, sure some of you will get all wet in the shorts if I don’t mention the shortcomings of PV- intermittency/storage, material recycling, hail damage, grid interconnection bottlenecks.
    But despite those issues…utilities across the world are ramping up the deployments because the overall deal is very good, in comparison to other options.

  4. What is the point of this post? If you don’t like him, go somewhere else.
    Or not, whatever, but it seems like a strange hobby you’ve taken up. Maybe you should hit the gym and work out some of those aggressions.

    1. Ahhhhh, gatekeepers ….

      Gatekeepers are those that try to clamp down on disagreement by fiat. I submitted a presentation to next spring’s US CliVar Workshop which they’re calling “Confronting Earth System Model Trends with Observations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.

      “Comparing historical trends in Earth system models with observations to identify and understand where models are performing well and poorly to focus the community on where more work is needed to ensure credible projections moving forward. What are we getting right? What are we getting wrong and why? What have we not yet paid enough attention to and where might surprises lie?

      Objectives
      For over 40 years, and through several rounds of IPCC reports, the climate science community has made projections of climate change under specific emissions scenarios. While assessments of the fidelity of Earth System Model simulations over the historical period have been performed for basic variables such as near surface air temperature, internal variability and a relatively small signal in a short observational record has made a comprehensive assessment challenging.”

      My submitted abstract addresses the internal variability part. I don’t know yet whether it was accepted for presentation. Wait and see

  5. Hey Hideaway,
    Here is a question/thought experiment for you to ponder. I’ll preface it by attempting to sum up your position on the issues discussed here, probably too simply and incorrectly, but this is how it comes across to me-
    ‘Population Overshoot is the big issue with economic/civilization collapse already baked in the cake. Therefore, all of these efforts related to some sort of transition people talk about are irrelevant and doomed to failure’.
    Of course, feel free to correct my briefest summary. I accept the premise of the first sentence, which should be no surprise considering that both of us learned a lot by studying the ‘Limits to Growth’ project in 1975.
    What I challenge you to ponder is the following- Going forward from here many of the big trends are not predetermined. For example, the downslope of population, the extent of global temperature rise, percentage of human caused species extinction, and specific factors like the future tonnage of coal burnt, are all aspects that can be put on a graph with wildly variable projections. I assert that the collective actions and decisions of humanity can and will alter the slope of these trends and that over the coming decades will have big impact on where and how things end up, whether for worse or for much more worse outcomes.
    We will get to less than 2 billion. But there are dozens of paths and severity of outcomes yet to be determined. And therefore choice of action matters, particularly for most of the world who younger. Choice of actions- as in where money is spent, what policies are enacted, who gets elected, and what gets taught.

    1. Well said

      I can also not say to have all the answers here, but I still stumble with some of the reasoning like “some sort of transition people talk about are irrelevant and doomed to failure”.

      A world where we do nothing means fighting for remaining resources in a bloody, uncoordinated way at some point most likely. Are there any real winners here, unless motives are very short term?

      The alternative would be to have a infrastructure set up including solar panels, wind mills, hydro power and more (for example geothermal power), to provide energy on a continuous basis in addition to your (hideaway) vision of only forest and charcoal resources let’s say 100 years from now. It is of course doable to some extent, even if it is not perfect.

      And that would be the best setup even further down the road, since a slow decline gives a lot more room to adapt to even further doomer scenarios for distant generations.

      I also have a problem with the EROEI calculations floating around; since in some settings solar and wind power have very high EROEI, but in other circumstances very low.The profitabiliy is on top of that a short term focus. In total this really does not give any guidance other than that there is a window of opportunity to max renewable build out to what is “feasible”.

      The demographic development in many industrial countries is also overlooked. It is really easy to extrapolate population decline many places based on UN published data.

    2. Hickory … ” I’ll preface it by attempting to sum up your position on the issues discussed here..”
      You could have just asked…

      My position is that we are very deep into overshoot, population, climate and biosphere wise, by a very long way.

      Picture the world 300-500 years ago. Europe was in deep overshoot, sending their population around the world into ‘new’ lands. Using European superior technology they were able to conquer the world. With around 500m-600m people world wide we were turning the rest of the planet into a mini Europe, harvesting trees, people, and (to Europeans) exotic plants and animals to the service of man. We were spreading the damage done to the European continent to the rest of the world and using resources from all over the world to maintain a ‘better’ living standard in Europe..

      We were over populated back then at 500-600M people!! Fast forward a couple of centuries, with the discovery and use of fossil fuels, that have allowed a great increase in what we call standard of living as well as 13-15 times the overall population (though most live well below the accepted standard of living expected in the west).

      Solar, wind, nuclear, EVs, batteries etc are all just tinkering around the edge of the problem. It’s all an excuse for further growth, using more fossil fuels to build it all, meaning the ‘base’ of fossil fuel use, and hence energy use, will just be higher in 5-10- 20 years whenever we are forced to stop by the rapid depletion of fossil fuels in general and oil in particular.

      We had much lower fossil fuel use 30 years ago when we knew we were sending the climate to a level unsuited for modern humans and our system of agriculture. We did nothing but promote green solutions to grow our way out of the problem, meaning we increased fossil fuel use by 70% in that 30 year period. Since we first learned about limits to growth we have increased fossil fuel use by more than double on a yearly basis.

      To think that a slow down of birth rates, bringing world population to 7B or 6B by 2080 or whatever is going to help a world that is in massive overshoot is a plain denial of the reality around us. Likewise for ‘green’ or ‘nuclear’ solutions that skate around the edge of the overall problem.

      The work I’ve done over the last couple of years on EROEI has shocked me. All the proposed solutions are so far removed from being a real answer, basically by magnitudes of what people ‘expect’ and the rubbery numbers pronounced by supposed experts.

      The largest solar farm in Australia is not going to be much different from large solar installations anywhere else, and it has a capacity factor of 5.5hrs/d on average throughout the year. This is just on a 23% CP, which is double the world average for solar panels actual performance, yet it has a lousy 1.74/1 return on energy invested. Meanwhile a small short term gas project (Walyering) will have a 37.8/1 EROEI using exactly the same formula.
      The gas project will provide energy 24/7 for the 5.5 years it’s operating, the continuous type of energy that industry needs to operate efficiently. The solar farm will need back-up and/or storage for both night time and winter when the sun is weaker, plus the times when the sky is clouded for a few days at a time. By the time that’s included there may not be any positive EROEI.

      Everyone here knows the modern world we live in has needs an average EROEI of 10/1 to 15/1, for most people to be engaged in activities of the modern world outside the energy gathering business. This ratio is likely higher in developed countries.
      Our modern world can’t operate on 1.74/1 EROEI. We would need most of the population involved in the energy gathering business, which mean we can’t operate the highly complex system we have. It’s a catch 22, in that being unable to operate a complex world means we will not be able to build solar, wind or nuclear. This is even before the minor detail that we build all of our energy gathering machines with fossil fuels!!

      Of course because we are in a total system, not just the energy part, we also need fossil fuels for plastics, fertilizers, explosives, asphalt etc, with no alternative ways of making any of it, that is close to being economically viable…

      Do I think we are going to continue on the path of building more solar, wind, EVs, batteries and nuclear?? Absolutely!! It guarantees that when we collide with rapid oil depletion the collapse will be much worse than if we had collectively decided to massively degrow decades ago. There is zero possibility of avoiding a major collapse in modern civilization, and knowing the quality of leaders we have around the world, they are likely to hide the collapse in nuclear war, so they can blame ‘others’….

      The world is awash with delusional thinking that we are only in a little bit of overshoot, or not quite there yet….

      1. Nicely put. I’m not sure if 15/1 EROI is proving to be enough to support the society developed countries now have, with university education extensively available (mostly as a long term career selection exercise), tertiary health care, status signalling based on consumerism, diversional entertainment above all else etc. It all seems to be fraying at the edges as the EORI declines.

        And it looks like climate change is impacting things so much faster than predicted that there’s no guarantee we will have an inhabital world in fifty or so years no matter what happens with resources, plus, what I think may be the biggest effect of all, we haven’t really yet seen what loss of bio diversity can do as food webs collapse, and that will only get worse as we destroy more and more habitat in trying to preserve BAU.

        1. George, it’s so hard to connect all the links in one post, it is a system after all. IMHO the EROEI has been falling since the early ’70’s and debt growth is one consequence of that. However a counter to EROEI, are efficiency gains within the system, again hiding the effect of falling energy availability.

          Now we are approaching the limits of easy efficiency gains, debt is close to uncontrollable levels and the EROEI is declining at an accelerating rate, plus we are in the process of royally screwing the climate and biosphere.

          Who knows the effect of biodiversity loss. It’s possible that one day we kill off some predatory species that has kept a small insect in check, with devastation awaiting our food crops just as fertilizers and pesticides availability are declining rapidly… One thing for certain, those under 10 today are going to inherit a much worse world by the time the survivors get to our age…

        2. “It all seems to be fraying at the edges as the EORI declines.”
          –George Kaplan (12/07/2023 at 2:21 am)

          Care to cite any specific examples or sources with which to back up this dubious claim? Have you seen how solid USA GDP growth has been this year? 5% 👀👀 Another sign is the huge numbers of people out shopping for Black Friday and the holiday season, in general, this year.

          1. GDP is just a bullshit number of transactions. It means nothing for anyone outside of gov’t or an economics think tank.

            As for Black Friday, the amount SPEND has gone up as consequence of inflation. The amount of GOODS shifted is lower, as consequence of so many shops massively dropping prices to try and shift it.

          2. I can’t speak for George, but this question of the low EROEI showing up in fraying around the edges is one I have been pondering so here are a few ways in which it might be manifesting:

            1) Declining life expectancy – multi-decade trend of people living longer seems to have clearly broken. Partly Covid, but more than that, trend was clear pre-Covid as well. More ‘deaths of despair’, more road deaths, more mass shootings, etc.
            2) Cost/Time to build things – it seems like we are losing our ability to execute big projects in a timely or cost effective manner. Things like railways and housing and nuclear plants and so on. They cost far more (way beyond official inflation) and take far longer than they used to. New Orleans still isn’t back how it once was, contrast with how we used to rebuild, eg Chicago after the great fire. People blame red tape, and that is probably part of it, but I think some of it is just EROEI showing up
            3) Crime – Violent crime rates were in a multi-year down trend, but have turned upwards since 2015. People in US cite US-specific reasons for this, people in Canada cite Canada-specific reasons, but the coincidental change in both countries suggests a deeper reason
            4) Spread of invasive species and disease across borders – every year seems to bring more and more problems on this front.
            5) Falling birth rates – more and more it seems like people simply can’t afford to have children
            6) Increasing homelessness
            7) Increasingly open political corruption and authoritarianism, abandonment of long held political norms, degeneration of the language used by politicians
            8) loss of trust in various institutions, reduction in social capital levels
            9) turn against immigration in many places. When times are tougher, people embrace zero-sum thinking, see immigrants as ‘another mouth to feed’ instead of as another pair of hands to do the work
            10) general ‘cost of living crisis’ This isn’t as pronounced in the US as it is in other places, I think in part because the USD is quite high right now, probably due to the big ramp up in oil/gas production, but it is a big issue in many places

            1. 11) The United Nations Secretary-General today presented the report, “A world of debt. A growing burden to global prosperity” and issued a grave warning as global public debt reached an all-time high of $92 trillion in 2022. This five-fold surge in public debt levels since 2000, demands immediate action to tackle the escalating crisis affecting developing countries in particular.

              https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2023/07/press-release-un-warns-of-soaring-global-public-debt-a-record-92-trillion-in-2022-3-3-billion-people-now-live-in-countries-where-debt-interest-payments-are-greater-than-expenditure-on-health-or-edu/

            3. A couple more that occurred to me looking at the headlines today.

              12) Decaying infrastructure – water mains breaking, lead in the water supply, outdated electrical grids, pipeline leaks, train derailments, etc.

              13) Shortages on store shelves – not as bad as a year or two ago, but still worse than I ever remember before. Medicines out of stock, baby food shortages, and just random scatterings of other less critical items just empty on the store shelves

            4. 14) Hundreds of millions spent pursuing multiple criminal indictments against politicians for whom adjectives like depraved, corrupt, idiotic, amoral barely begin to describe them, let alone the tens of millions of their followers.

      2. So, Hideaway, in short form you conclude that the scenario outcome is simply collapse,
        and therefore nothing that anyone does has any affect to the outcome path….might as well just get on with abrupt contraction.

        I conclude differently.
        I think that attempts to contract gradually are worth the efforts.

        1. Hickory …. “I think that attempts to contract gradually are worth the efforts.”

          What effort to contract gradually?? There is none at all. Every word out of every politician’s mouth is about growth, usually green growth..

          All that has happened over decades is more growth and more fossil fuel use, why expect anything to change? Where are there any examples of running a modern civilization, including the mining, processing of raw concentrates and manufacturing, being done on a sustainable basis??

          All that’s happening is the level we fall from is guaranteed to be higher, making the fall/collapse a lot further and worse when it comes.

          Having a belief that everything will be better because of XYZ, even though the facts don’t line up, is comforting. It’s like believing in life after death. Most humans need a comforting delusion to get them through life, because they are unhappy with the one and only life they will ever have.

          1. Hickory …. “I think that attempts to contract gradually are worth the efforts.”
            I’m not referring to the talk of politicians.

            Practical Example- enact a significant and gradually escalating carbon tax, with the proceeds going to low carbon energy production and energy efficiency measures.

            Practical Example- halting the permitting of building/renovation and insurance of properties that are in coastal and riverine floodplains.

            Practical Example- rapid phase down of thermal coal as the US and UK have accomplished over the past 2 decades. The carbon tax on coal should be higher than other fossils, and should be instituted at both the production and consumption ends.

            1. Hickory …. “rapid phase down of thermal coal as the US and UK have accomplished over the past 2 decades.”

              Always possible when you offshore so much of your mineral processing and manufacturing businesses. The world as a whole can just off world all those businesses..
              Oh wait, maybe there is a problem here….

              The world does need a comprehensive world wide carbon tax, as only then people will see how useless such things are in getting us out of our predicament. However even this slight tinkering at the edge of the problem is simply not happening.

              What you don’t seem to want to understand is that the EROEI of solar, wind and nuclear are so pitiful, they can’t save even a small bit of modern civilization. They rely totally for their build and operation on fossil fuels. No fossil fuels and renewables and nuclear end fairly quickly. The only saving grace for renewables is they wont leave deadly pools of radiation like the nuclear power plants will..

          2. Good comments, Hideaway.
            “What effort to contract gradually ? ” I had the same thought. I don’t comment much these
            days , here or elsewhere. Nothing much to add. I think you said somewhere that you are from Australia, so this won’t be any news to you. It is just an example of the difficulty of ever overcoming the economic system,well entrenched throughout the world. When the Howard government here was in power, the Australian fertility rate was below replacement level.
            An increasing population is by far the easiest way to sustain economic growth,so the then treasurer introduced a “baby bonus ” to increase the fertility rate, and increased the immigration rate. The business lobby and the property development lobby were happy.
            The natural world and most Australians weren’t, due to the many negative effects of an increasing population. The immigration rate here has remained high. The twelve months to
            Sep 2023 were the highest ever, with a net immigration increase of over 500,000.
            Global CO2 emissions in 2022 were a record high, and 2023 is on track to be higher again.

  6. Las Vegas Nevada is actually a city to look to for future sustainability. It’s often used as a model by reality driven science folks on how to build sustainable cities. The main talking point is huge levels of water reuse with the city’s water being recycled into Lake Mead causing an infinite water loop. Also, nearly 100% of power comes in by hydroelectric or solar, and building designs and regulations make buildings much more energy efficient than in other cities it’s size.

      1. Mead is bad enough.
        Powell is a nightmare with current conditions.
        Maybe part of the destruction can reamerge.
        Read Desert Solitaire to get a glimpse what was destroyed.

      1. A little reality…Las Vegas averages 4.2 inches of rain per year. The little bit that does not evaporate from hot rock or concrete, and that does not percolate into the ground (water reservoirs),
        ends up running down the 12mile ‘Las Vegas River’ into Lake Mead. Lake Mead is the water storage for the area, and none of the water in the system makes it to the ocean.

        1. Some could make it to the Gulf of California.
          But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

          1. From Wikipedia:
            Below Imperial Dam, only a small portion of the Colorado River makes it beyond Yuma, Arizona, and the confluence with the intermittent Gila River—which carries runoff from western New Mexico and most of Arizona–before defining about 24 miles (39 km) of the Mexico–United States border. At Morelos Dam, the entire remaining flow of the Colorado is diverted to irrigate the Mexicali Valley, among Mexico’s most fertile agricultural lands.[36] Below San Luis Río Colorado, the Colorado passes entirely into Mexico, defining the Baja California–Sonora border. Since 1960, the stretch of the Colorado between here and the Gulf of California has been dry or a trickle formed by irrigation return flows.

        2. Hickory
          4.2 inches is about 11 cm. Let’s call it 10 cm. 1000 liters is a cubic meter, so 10 cm is 100 liters of water per square meter. That’s about 100 million liters per square kilometer.

          Las Vegas has an area of about 350 square kilometers. So about 35 billion liters of rain falls each year on the city.
          The population is about 650 thousand. Call it 700 K to make the math easier. That’s about 50 000 liters of water per annum per capita.

          According to the city, it consumes about 220 gallons per person per day. That’s about 20 000 liters a year.

          The reality is that the American Southwest is plagued by water shortages mostly out of bad planning and inappropriate infrastructure.

          This is probably built into American culture, which is based on the culture of damp heavy soiled Northern Europe. We plant lawns in the desert because we haven’t freed ourselves mentally from our ancestors. Grasping the reality of heavy seasonal rainfall as a blessing rather than a curse is simply beyond us.

          Most deserts aren’t deserts because it doesn’t rain enough. The real problem is usually that the soil isn’t able to capture the seasonal rainfall. It’s is notable that flash flooding is a common problem in deserts, even places like Saudi Arabia.

          The problem has gotten much worse in America because Americans worship parking lots. By covering vast areas with impermeable surfaces, cities cause there own water shortages.

          1. Good example of the kind of thinking where someone who pencils things out on a napkin (like Hideaway with EROI) doesn’t align with the real world situation of things (generally due to faulty base assumptions).

            If Las Vegas was to subsist just on the water falling within its direct watershed it would be medium size town without grass or golf. It would still have to import 99% of food.

            Note- I have actually spent time in the American SW. When you live with just the water you can carry on your back things come into perspective. You hike 10 miles hoping that the next potential water source has a couple inches of water. Have a good filter.

            1. Hickory,

              Could you expand on your comment? It would be interesting to hear the specifics of your argument that Alimbiquated’s approach doesn’t really work.

  7. Re Solar and EROI I recommend this paper:

    Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response

    • A recent [2016] paper by Ferroni and Hopkirk estimated an EROI=0.8 for PV in Switzerland.

    • We identify several critical methodological and calculation flaws in that paper.

    • We discuss such flaws in detail and rebut Ferroni and Hopkirk’s conclusions.

    • We provide revised EROI calculations with both conventional and extended boundaries.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516307066

    The EROI is revised upwards from 0.8 to 6.9 – 8.1, an order of magnitude. And this is in sun-challenged Switzerland!

  8. A NEW 66 MILLION-YEAR HISTORY OF CARBON DIOXIDE OFFERS LITTLE COMFORT FOR TODAY

    A massive new review of ancient atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and corresponding temperatures lays out a daunting picture of where the Earth’s climate may be headed. The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among other things, it indicates that the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently reached today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago—much longer ago than some existing assessments indicate. It asserts that long-term climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse gas, with cascading effects that may evolve over many millennia.

    Mainstream estimates indicate that on scales of decades to centuries, every doubling of atmospheric CO2 will drive average global temperatures 1.5 to 4.5° Celsius (2.7 to 8.1° Fahrenheit) higher. However, at least one recent widely read study argues that the current consensus underestimates planetary sensitivity, putting it at 3.6 to 6°C of warming per doubling. In any case, given current trends, all estimates put the planet perilously close to or beyond the 2° warming that could be reached this century, and which many scientists agree we must avoid if at all possible.

    The new assessment says that about 16 million years ago was the last time CO2 was consistently higher than now, at about 480 ppm; and by 14 million years ago it had sunk to today’s human-induced level of 420 ppm. The decline continued, and by about 2.5 million years ago, CO2 reached about 270 or 280 ppm, kicking off a series of ice ages. It was at or below that when modern humans came into being about 400,000 years ago, and persisted there until we started messing with the atmosphere on a grand scale about 250 years ago.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-12-million-year-history-carbon-dioxide-comfort.html

  9. Farmer- you have misread my statement- ““…nothing that anyone does has any affect to the outcome path…”
    is what I see as the position of Hideaway. He has tried to make that point over and over.
    I disagree with it. Re-read my statement that you responded to if you didn’t catch that point.

    1. Thanks for posting this, it is a very important metric to track, hopefully the curve is not turning back upwards…

  11. The collapse of the energy-intensive industry in Germany deepens, with Sept 2023 setting a new low, according to official data released today. Energy-intensive industrial production in Germany is now ~20% below where it was in 2015. And it’s isn’t just chemicals; the sector includes the likes of metallurgical companies, glass, ceramics, fertilisers, paper…

    per Javier Blas (Bloomberg) Twitter/X

    2. Really weird the economy of the biggest heavy industry in Europe with the largest proponents for green energy are having issues. Why didn’t they just replace their infrastructure with a shitload of wind turbines and PV and avoid all this? It was cheaper and produces more energy.

  12. Latest from James Hansen:

    “A Miracle Will Occur” Is Not Sensible Climate Policy

    http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2023/Miracle.2023.12.07.pdf

    The COP28 Chairman and the United Nations Secretary General say that the goal to keep global warming below 1.5°C is alive, albeit barely, implying that the looser goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement (to keep warming well below 2°C) is still viable. We find that even the 2°C goal is dead if policy is limited to emission reductions and plausible CO2 removal.

  13. Too Much? Too Little? Too Late?
    Where humanity is headed in an overcrowded, over-consuming world – Prof. Rees. and others in discussion.

    https://medium.com/@alysion42/too-much-too-little-too-late-7c3a3be443bc

    Are we on a death path? Well, yeah, we are obviously I think if current trends continue, there’s very little contradiction to that fact, we’re in a state of overshoot. Overshoot means that human beings are using even renewable resources faster than natural systems can regenerate. And we’re dumping wastes far in excess of the capacity of the natural systems to assimilate and circulate that waste. And if you think about it, we’re essentially turning the ecosphere, the living film, on the surface of this earth into more human bodies, and human infrastructure, our artifacts of civilization. This is frankly, a terminal process if it continues indefinitely. So that’s the technical answer to your simple question.
    …
    Well, I, think the simplest answer is that humans don’t think broadly at all, we tend to forget that we are an evolved species, that in fact, the human brain evolved in a period of relative simplicity. We lived in very simple societies, you met relatively few people, you lived in a restricted home range, which could become very familiar, and over the course of an individual lifetime, not much changed. So you could argue that, in effect, the environment poses relatively few real challenges to the developing human brain. Yeah, we’ve got a big brain. Yeah, we can think in analytic terms, and so on and so forth. But we do not think in systems terms, we tend to think simplistically, we looked at one problem at a time, we tend to look at simple cause effect relationships. So when you put us in that context of global change, climate change is an obvious symptom of overshoot, but it’s one of many problems. It’s what I call a co-symptom of a meta problem, the meta problem being overshoot, but there’s something that’s manageable to the average human being. So that we think we can deal with this problem, the symptoms are obvious, perhaps the causes are equally obvious. So we jump on to a simplistic solution to a very complex problem. And the problem is that if we succeeded in doing a green energy transition, nothing else would change. You see, energy is the means by which humans have appropriated all of the other resources needed to explode the human enterprise in just the past 200 years. So if we shift energy sources without changing our habits, or values, that will simply continue down this path of devouring the planet and converting it to human artifacts and human bodies. So it’s no solution at all. Besides which is biophysically impossible. So that’s a whole other answer to your question.

    1. Meanwhile, according to the UN, the world’s population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from the current 8 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050.

      1. I’ve been entertaining the rough guess that population will peak earlier than most prior predictions, something like 20 years max after Peak Global Combustion Day [July 27th, 2033], and that the peak will be come in under 10 billion. Hot planet. More episodes of withering fields.

        Practical Policy change- make euthanasia legal and easy, and make suicide legal and mechanisms easy.
        Its a basic human right- The right to die whenever you want to.

        1. Hickory

          What is your rough guess based upon, apart from your Peak Global Combustion day. How did you come to this date?

          You may well be correct ref the right to euthanasia.Tough one to get past the religious mob but in princiiplal I agree.. I am 67 and past my best. I do not want to live in a retirement home.

          1. Based on my outlook of the trajectory of the world….highly biased and tunnel viewed just like everyone else.
            I think the world population will peak sooner because of things like energy getting less affordable, crop failures due to climate change, poor economic prospects result in lower reproduction rates. Stuff like that.
            The big wild card is the decline rate, and exactly what the details of decline are.
            I don’t want to know the answer. Sorry for those who will find out.

          2. The elderly, and anyone else with poor prospects for health or food or security or love,
            should be able leave whenever they want to.
            No form filing or approval necessary.
            Simple mechanisms universally available.

            Those who have religious afflictions can stick with what their leaders have decided for them. Their choice, just like everyone else should have for themselves.

            2. Canada really paying homage to that SS guy they applauded in parliament by taking his ideas of curbing troublesome populations in the country to heart.

            3. Kleiber that is wrong.
              The key to euthanasia, and suicide for that matter,
              is the voluntary aspect.
              The SS/German method was not voluntary!

        2. I think you are right the population will undershoot predictions. In the same way that climate news seems to almost always come in as worse/sooner than expected, population news also seems to always come in as slowing/declining faster than expected.

          I support legal euthanasia but don’t think it will make a big difference in the trend. It seems like other trends such as ongoing urbanization, pollution (declining sperm counts). housing shortages, spread of contraception, economic weakness, etc. are what are making the rate of new births plunge the world over.

      3. Farmer, yeast will grow in a bucket of sugar water, polluting the water by turning the sugar into alcohol, then they all die, due to lack of food and polluted water.

        Humans are way smarter, we will pollute the water and all die, but make sure we destroy the bucket, and make the water unusable for any other species…

        2. “Active acceptance, maybe? Feed chickens, dig potatoes, watch stars.”

          Well put! 100% agree! Don’t worry about “human nature”. Focus instead on your own nature! Without diving too deep into to rabbit hole of sectarian religion, I would add that some concrete practice of “non-dualistic” engagement with your daily life can be greatly beneficial as will. I sit zazen for that engagement, and to quiet my monkey mind somewhat so I can focus better when I’m feeding, digging and watching. Your mileage may vary!

        3. Should have said:

          Without diving too deep into the rabbit hole…

          and,

          …with your daily life can be greatly beneficial as well…

    2. Thanks for this. I’m looking forward to viewing it. Rees’s candor is always bracing.

    1. Yes, however, have you considered that the stock market has never been higher?

      1. For a brief moment in time a lot of shareholder value is getting created, no doubt about that…

      2. Well I am an investor and in all seriousness the stock market has been on a good rally since the CPI inflation report from late October. S&P 500 is up over 21% on the year for example. Inflation dropped to 3.2%, and oil prices have finally settled down. I filled up my pickup truck’s tank yesterday at $2.87 a gallon. Economists are sold on the elusive “soft landing” with the upbeat jobs report out Friday. The economic indicators are definitely getting better and better. With continued positive numbers, I do believe it is only going to help Biden.

  15. Sound Advice?

    Dear GOP: You’ll Never Wash the Stink of Trump Off You or Your Party. Never.

    In the USA, we are not the brightest porch lights on the block.
    While challenging, we can find some worse than Trump (possibly).
    It will be hard, but possible.

    1. Gonna say Genocide Joe is certainly up there, what with his enabling genocide and getting economist influencers to draw charts and show them to poor people to dispel the myth that they’re having a hard time.

        1. Trump is not a capitalist. He’s a narcissist conman. Could care less what the economic system is as long as his ego is stroked, in control with comfort to his advantage. The animal within him doesn’t have an ounce of empathy about who lives, dies or prospers other than himself.

          Gaza is a war crime scene, along with Ukraine.

          “Article I carries into the Convention the concept, unanimously affirmed by the General Assembly in its 1946 resolution, that genocide is a crime under international law. In this article the Parties undertake to prevent and to punish the crime.

          Article II specifies that any of the following five acts, if accompanied by the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, constitutes the crime of genocide:

          (a)
          Killing members of the group;
          (b)
          Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
          (c)
          Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
          (d)
          Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
          (e)
          Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

          https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v02/d251

          Trump, Putin and Israel are all on the wrong side of history.

          Now, most of you can go back to your Doomer love fest and bump peeps. While complaining you didn’t get your flying car promised to 60 years ago. Yet can’t afford a new used car.

          3, 2, 1 ….. next up comes the hardware engineer. King of the Doomers in his overalls.

          1. If you look at user value VS exchange value (capitalism) his theft is sort of on that tract.
            Marx would not take him seriously, I think.
            Its hard to place ignorant criminals like Trump.

            1. As you already stated, Blue Team and Red Team are actually all part of Team Neoliberalism and so we all get dunked on.

              Do you want funny Orange Man who “tells it how it is” in the reality show he is the star of globally, or do you want the mummified corpse animated by the DNC’s combined ire for any vaguely left-wing candidate?

              You could vote for a third party, but lol The Simpsons covered this in the mid-’90s with Kodos and Kang.

          2. “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”
            This includes not only Gaza but the west bank too.

      2. I’m a little offended by the cheap shot at Biden. There is more to him than that.
        Yesterday I wrote a long complaint to the White House about the foolishness of his seemingly one-sided support to Israel but I understand that it is consistent with general attitudes in the US. You can see that in the pressure put on the ivy league school leadership by donors. Most of the world, like me, seems to see the horrible disproportion of Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocity and the US will suffer for our apparent one sided response.
        But has probably done more for working Americans including ethnic and religious minorities than any president since Roosevelt. He has put his neck out for Ukraine even though there is only lukewarm support by the population. Ukraine is a much more important struggle than Gaza.

        1. https://x.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1729518490527080573?s=20

          But also the “there’s been a decrease in the rate of price rises, so everything’s going swell” line is probably not winning many swing voters or people with functioning brainstems.

          EDIT: lol, forgot abortion is illegal in a lot of US states now and union busting is ramping up. Progress, my friends.

          1. So you are blaming Biden for abortion restrictions and union butsting too? Now I get it.

  16. Don’t worry lads, EVs will soon fix this small problem.

    CURRENT CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS LAST SEEN 14 MILLION YEARS AGO

    The last time carbon dioxide in the atmosphere consistently matched today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago. Published in the journal Science, the paper covers the period from 66 million years ago until the present, analyzing biological and geochemical signatures from the deep past to reconstruct the historic CO2 record with greater precision than ever before. Among other things, the new analysis finds the last time the air contained 420 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide was between 14-16 million years ago, when there was no ice in Greenland and the ancestors of humans were just transitioning from forests to grasslands.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-12-current-carbon-dioxide-million-years.html

    1. I am confident Musk will fix this by moving us all to Mars which does not have the climate change.

  17. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/26/electric-heat-costs-way-less-than-reports-say-new-data-suggests

    Each year, the federal Energy Information Agency publishes a winter fuels outlook, forecasting how much households using different fuels will pay for heat from November through March. This year, it says heating-oil customers will face the steepest costs, at $1,856; followed by propane users, at $1,337; electricity users, at $1,063; and finally gas users, at just $605.

    But that number doesn’t distinguish between older electric-resistance appliances, such as electric baseboard heaters and electric space heaters – which are much more expensive to run – and highly efficient electric heat pumps.

    Another issue, Rewiring America says, is that the agency includes all uses of each fuel in its cost estimates, meaning cost projections for electricity customers include energy used to power other electric appliances such as refrigerators and electronics.

    …

    It found that heat pump users can expect to pay just $639 for electricity from October to March – more than 60% less than homes with electric resistance heaters.

    Nothing new to us, but pretty funny how badly skewed the report was.

    1. Heat pumps can be very efficient, but they need to be installed correctly. We had 2 heat pumps but the line length between the compressor and condenser was over 70ft and the run had tons of turns in it. The designers of the system were probably drunk when they designed it. Needless to see it was a shitshow and the whole system didn’t work well at all. Because of the layout of the house / land it was impossible to fix.

  19. Farmer,

    No not a climate change denier. Future temperatures depend on future emissions, those cannot be predicted.

    1. The future is not black and white

      “These transitions will proceed at different speeds, depending on individual markets’ motivations and resources, but all will now move ahead at pace. We’re entering a decade of disruption, shaped by new technology and underpinned by government policy. The buildout of renewables to date has been relatively simple comparedwith what comes next. Decarbonizing a largely hydrocarbonpowered industrial sector is the far more difficult challenge — and our ability to tackle it will determine the ultimate success of the world’s transition to clean energy. Making it happen will involve governments facing tough choices, balancing economic and environmental priorities to set policy that sends the right signals to the market and, ultimately, all of us. Energy transitions in every country will only succeed if they deliver more value to industrial consumers and end users — you and me — and this requires clean energy solutions that are genuinely better and cheaper.

      Accelerating change will have eight major implications for our energy system, and for the energy and resources companies at its heart. These implications indicate a volatile transition. Technologies will reach tipping points and be adopted in overlapping waves. Capital portfolios must shift to both sustain legacy assets and incentivize investment in the new. Supply chains will evolve to meet demand for different minerals and materials. For power and utilities, mining and metals, and oil and gas companies, the road ahead will be challenging and often uncertain. Reshaping operations, culture and customer relationships will be complex, requiring huge investment, new capabilities and different skills. The sectors will need to make various trade-offs, keeping energy security, sustainability and supply in balance. And each company will face its own dilemmas — determining which changes to make and when, amid ongoing uncertainty and, for multinationals, inconsistency across different markets.”

      https://assets.ey.com/content/dam/ey-sites/ey-com/en_gl/topics/energy/ey-energy-and-resources-transition-acceleration.pdf

      Be a man and just apologize to Dennis

    2. Farmer,

      The climate science is evolving and is imperfect so it is doubtful that even if we could predict future greenhouse gas emissions (which we cannot and even any probabilities proposed are entirely subjective) there are a range of answers that are given by the many climate models that exist. We could take an ensemble average and give the 95% confidence intervals of the many scenario runs, based on arbitrarily chosen emissions scenarios and an arbitrary set of models. An easy test of these models would be to run these models through history without any artificial tuning to fit past data.

      Some of the challenges of such a paleoclimate model intercomparison project are discussed in the paper linked below.

      https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/11/1033/2018/gmd-11-1033-2018.pdf

      Knowing that the Earth is very likely to continue its orbit around Sol in the future, is different from knowing the future. To most this is obvious, but perhaps not to all.

    3. I also found that to be interesting from EY.

      Primarily read the HuntingtonBeach extract far above in the thread where he comments “The future is not black and white”.

      To the core of what is most problematic:
      “Decarbonizing a largely hydrocarbonpowered industrial sector is the far more difficult challenge — and our ability to tackle it will determine the ultimate success of the world’s transition to clean energy”

      Most other aspects of the transition have an easier solution, like energy efficient housing or urban transportation, based on renewable electricity. Industrial capacity is linked to fossil fuels, but not completely. The arc furnances for steel, reusing shards of glass, to use electricity as much as possible to move objects and to provide heating using heat pumps can be ways to reduce dependency. Ultimately a good trajectory depends on a long tail of fossil fuels. I know some commentators here dont’t think that is realistic. We would probably get an influx of new resources to some extent make that true anyway, and that the whole decline scenario would be protracted (the global one).

      1. “Ultimately a good trajectory depends on a long tail of fossil fuels.”
        It sure looks like there will be a big fat long tail of fossil fuels.
        Maybe not available or affordable everywhere…whats new,

  21. Well I have read both the Cleantechnica and the EY links and would comment as follows.

    The crude oil and gasoline demand does not support the claim of 1.8 m/b oil saved as the oil demand has actually grown in 2023 in spite of economic headwinds. Clearly the EV fleet will have reduced some demand but the actual quantity is open to question. Once again would you trust a source like Bloomberg. Not on its own.

    EY. Oh boy what a puff piece this is . The good old LCOE, with ever decreasing cost of generation (not true) and no account for the cost of distribution or backup to provide disptachable power. I wish EY would not write drivel like this and stick to what they know. (which is not a lot).

    Ten years ago EY were advising on a M&A deal. I was on the due diligence team thank goodness. After two days we went home. It was an absolute con and if EY and the company I worked for had only done some Googling they would have found a sorry taie of deceit – you could not make it up. Two months later ihe target went bust and investors lost ALL their money. This was a a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sound familiar.

    1. > Clearly the EV fleet will have reduced some demand but the actual quantity is open to question.

      Is that all you’ve got? That’s some pretty weak beer. It’s not open to question at all, if you can do math. The way you calculate it is by estimating how far the vehicles in question traveled, and how much equivalent ICE vehicles would have consumed to travel that far. If you have better numbers, let’s see them.

      You talk like the proverbial drunk uncle intimidating his vegan niece at the Thanksgiving table. But we’re all grownups here, tough talk doesn’t scare anyone. Put up or shut up.

      1. Thanks for that pearl of wisdom.
        If you are so clever why not do the math yourself and show us the methodology and the answer. The fact is its a moving target and distance traveled is not constant per month. Moreover the anecdotal evidence suggests that EV’s are not being driven the same distances as ICE’ s for obvious reasons.

        Play with the numbers and you can get a range of answers.

        I work on facts, not fiction and I would always validate the data. Sometimes it is quite easy.
        Assuming the that all the oil saved is as gasoline this would work out as follows:

        1.8 /8.45 = 210 k-tonnes per day or 77 million tonnes per year.

        1.8 = gasoline volume per day
        8.45 = barrels per mt

        Global gasoline demand is about 1.1 million tonnes ( around 25% of the crude flow). The reduction in gasoline demand would therefore be about 7%. Is that plausible. Probably not because the global vehicle parc does not contain 7% EV’s yet. So would you trust Bloomberg?
        Over to you to come up with a plausible alternative answer, if you can.

        1. You’re still stuck in the “Tesla bad” mindset and the arguments to “refudiate” EVs. Hence you sly references to flyover state folk wisdom on market share and range anxiety.

          If you’d have clicked the link, you would have noticed that most of the savings come from modes of transportation beyond the ken of American culture wars, which is urban transportation on small vehicles in South and East Asia.

          Your comment about demand elasticity make sense. IT suggests that EVs are used more as Jevon’s Law suggests. EV operating costs are lower, a key reason why they’re attractive.

          Also EVs are new arrivals to the market, meaning the average EV is newer than the average vehicle, and new vehicles get more use. Grandpa’s car is still registered, but it mostly gathers dust. Most light vehicles don’t move at all 90% of the time, but industries like taxis, where vehicles are heavily used, have high percentage of hybrid and electric vehicles.

          I definitely trust Bloomberg more than random anonymous commenters who provide no citations for their claims.

          1. I hate to prick your bubble but you are wrong on many counts.

            In the US and the EU( though data is less clear right now until the ACEA catch up) BEV’s are driven less than CV’s (conventional vehicles). There is no evidence published that I can find that confirms that your claim of EV’s being driven more than CV’s. If you have a source please provide it.

            Here are two sources, essentially the same:

            https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(23)00404-X.pdf
            https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/13/new-study-finds-electric-vehicles-are-driven-less-than-gas-cars/

            The latter is a source that you cite, so it must be true.

            The only number that you need to validate in my calculation is the global gasoline demand which can be obtained from the IEA reports, OPEC reports and JODI. Take your pick.

            I await you calculation on the amount of fossil fuels saved ( gasoline) as in your own words by estimating the amount of miles driven by EV’s – you now have a figure to use. Remember that the US is the biggest consumer of gasoline roughly 8+ million b/d.or about 340 million tonnes/ year. 1/3 of the global total. South and East Asia have modest gasoline demand so I would struggle with you argument.

            There is no Jevon’s law – it is Jevon’s paradox

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

            You also seem to struggle with the English language. There is no word refudiate, but there is a word repudiate. I will give you the benefit of doubt that this was a typo.

            I do not mind being challenged. That is good science. I am not against EV’s in principle but as with anything new, the technology takes time to mature. But the real kicker is that EV’s require massive fossil fuel inputs to manufacture and the myth that they can be powered by unreliables (wind/solar) is a long way off happening, if at all. Show me a way to produce and EV without fossil fuels?

            Last but not least I note that you too prefer to remain anonymous. I have good reason to conceal my details but if you looked hard you could find me.

  22. In case you were wondering.

    GLOBAL CO2 EMISSIONS FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO HIT RECORD HIGH IN 2023

    “Countries are expected to emit a total 36.8 billion metric tons of CO2 from fossil fuels in 2023, a 1.1% increase from last year, the report by scientists from more than 90 institutions including the University of Exeter concluded. When land use emissions are included, global CO2 emissions are set to total 40.9 billion tons this year. Emissions from coal, oil and gas all rose, driven by India and China. The Chinese rise was caused by its economy reopening after COVID-19 lockdowns, while India’s was a result of power demand growing faster than the country’s renewable energy capacity, leaving fossil fuels to make up the shortfall.”

    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/global-co2-emissions-fossil-fuels-hit-record-high-2023-report-2023-12-05/#:~:text=Countries%20are%20expected%20to%20emit,the%20University%20of%20Exeter%20concluded.

  24. Maybe COP29 then?

    COP28 HEADED FOR ‘COMPLETE FAILURE’ AS FOSSIL FUEL DEBATE RAGES

    Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said that “COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure.” “The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word,” Gore added in an X post.

    1. Meanwhile,
      Nov. CO2
      Nov. 2023 = 420.46 ppm
      Nov. 2022 = 417.47 ppm

    2. The wording in COP resolutions has made minimal difference in the past and this one will be no different, especially as the world moves towards continual economic contraction and more countries turn to autocratic demagogues over the next few years. A two degrees rise is inevitable, probably earlier than predicted. The latest research on tipping points (e.g. Lenton, Hansen, Schellenhuber) suggests there is no safe equilibrium point between two and four. Schellenhuber has said that the rise after two degrees would be quite fast. Four degrees is not compatible with any kind of agriculture that could support organised societies.

      2. What is the track record of those guy’s predictions? I’ll note that your response is based on an Al Gore prediction, and Gore’s work in the climate sciences has not had good predictive value, historically.

        1. Climate science is not an accurate or precise predictive science as long as annual predictions can’t be made. Apparently there is a distinction between climate change and climate variability — the former is caused by humans and the latter is natural and related to El Nino events that can cause year over year changes on top of the seasonal cycle.

          1. Since the issue of the accuracy of climate models frequently comes up in this forum, interested parties can find a review of accuracy of published models from the 1970s onward published in the journal, Geophysical Research Letters:

            https://eps.harvard.edu/files/eps/files/hausfather_2020_evaluating_historical_gmst_projections.pdf

            As Dennis points out, all predictions about the future are wrong. However the performance of peer-reviewed models making multi-decade predictions of temperature and other outcomes is pretty good, especially considering the many unknowns (for example, the total amount of greenhouse gases produced in a given time period in the future).

            I’m unsure of the value of this debate, since no amount of data will induce people or societies to radically alter their behavior and lifestyles in terms of energy consumption, and we’ve probably crossed irreversible tipping points that are outside human control.

            Many thanks to Ron, Ovi, Dennis and others who make this one of the most interesting sites on the web for energy related information and discussion.

          2. Paul
            You have touched on one of my frustrations with the climate debate, and that is the dependence on air based temperatures to measure climate change. Sea temperatures are much more stable because of their thermal inertia, and a few sensors for land temperatures could be easily installed with a similar thermal inertia and be defined as global temperature, generating a plot with as much credibility as the Mauna Loa plot for CO2.
            Leave the chaotic air temperature data to the weather forecasters.

            1. OLD CHEMIST —

              Climate scientists use air and ocean temperatures appropriately. Why would you think otherwise?

            2. The problem is not the measurements. One measurement of atmospheric pressure in Darwin, Australia will essentially describe the El Nino activity over decades. The problem is in modeling El Nino, which requires knowledge of fluid dynamics and the orbital forcing that drives the subsurface tides. They haven’t a clue how to analyze that behavior as well as they can conventional tides. It will eventually be done though,

              Every ocean has one erratic cyclic of sea surface temperature that contributes to the global variation. For the Atlantic it’s the AMO
              https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GBUwH2aXwAALJXm.jpg

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