A Guest Post by Islandboy
The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on June 25th, with data for April 2019. The table above shows the percentage contribution of the main fuel sources to two decimal places for the last two months and the year 2019 to date. As was projected by the EIA in their Short-Term Energy Outlook in April (reported here), the contribution from All Renewables exceeded that from Coal for the first time ever. The EIA featured this news on their Today in Energy page on June 26th, the day after the data was published.
The Table immediately above shows the absolute amounts of electricity generated in gigawatt-hours by the main sources for the last two months and the year to date. In April, the absolute amount of electricity generated declined, as is usual for the month of April when compared to March for the period covered by the charts, January 2013 to date. Coal and Natural Gas between them, fueled 55.24% of US electricity generation in April. The contribution of zero carbon or carbon neutral sources rose from 39.91% in March to 43.73% in April.
The 30,217 GWh generated by Wind in April, is a record, easily surpassing the previous record of 27,287 GWh set in March 2018. It is also worthy of note that Wind generated more than Converntional Hydroelectric for five of the past six months. However April is usually the peak month for wind generation while hydroelectric output usually peaks a little later. It remains to be seen whether Wind will generate more than Conventional Hydroelectric for the year 2019
The graph below shows the absolute monthly production from the various sources since January 2013, as well as the total amount generated (right axis).
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the contribution from solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the solar output as a means of assessing it’s potential to make a meaningful contribution to the midsummer peak. In April 2019 the estimated total output from solar at 10,257 GWh, was 2.82 times what it was four years ago in April 2015
The chart below shows the total monthly generation at utility scale facilities by year versus the combined contribution from wind and solar. The left hand scale is for the total generation, while the right hand scale is for combined wind and solar output and has been deliberately set to exaggerate the combined output of solar and wind as a means of assessing the potential of the combination to make a meaningful contribution to the year round total.
The chart below shows the percentage contributions of the various sources to the capacity additions up to April 2019. In March Natural Gas contributed 88.94% of new capacity, with 5.94% of new capacity coming from Solar and Wind contributing just 0.35%. Batteries contributed 3.01% with Petroleum Liquids contributing the remaining 1.69% of new capacity. Natural Gas, Solar and Wind made up 95.23% of new capacity in March. Natural gas and renewables have made up more than 95% of capacity added each month since at least January 2017.
All of the 8.8 MW Petroleum Liquids fueled capacity added was in Alaska while the capacity added that was fueled by Natural Gas comprised of four 104.7 MW combustion turbines added in Arizona and two 21.8 MW combustion turbines at at CHP plant in Mobile, Alabama. All of the 16 MW of battery capacity was added in California. The 30.9 MW of added Solar capacity was made up of twelve relatively small installations across seven states. The only Wind capacity added was a single 1.8 MW installation in California that may have been a single turbine. In April 2019 the total added capacity reported was only 519.9 MW, compared to the 5009 MW, almost ten times as much, added in April 2018.
The chart below shows the monthly capacity retirements up to April 2019. In April among the retirements reported were 1062.7 MW of coal fired capacity in Alabama, owned by the Alabama Power Co, consisting of three steam turbines. There was also a single plant in New Jersey that retired two 146 MW steam turbines, one fueled with coal and one with Petroleum Liquids. Of the remaining retired capacity, 2.4 MW consisted of four diesel fueled generators retired by the same Alaska Village Elec Coop, Inc. that reported new capacity consisting of four diesel fueled generators amounting to 2.8 MW. The only other capacity retired was a 12.4 MW Wood/Wood Waste Biomass fueled industrial plant owned by Georgia Pacific in Alabama.
Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements showing the data up to April 2019, followed by a chart showing the net additions/retirements year to date.
The first two months of 2019 have been somewhat similar to the first two months of 2018. In March 2019 more than three times more capacity was added than in March 2018. In April 2019 almost ten times less capacity was added than in April 2018.
In the April edition of this report, it was reported that the EIA is projecting that the output from all renewable sources would exceed that powered by coal for the first time in April and possibly again in May, before the peak summer demand period kicks in. While the data for April supports the projection, it will be more than three weeks before it is known whether the output from all renewable sources will exceed that powered by coal again in May so, we look forward to seeing if this turns out to be the case.
Below is a table of the top ten states in order of coal consumption for electricity production for April 2019 and the year before for comparison
Amusing that oily Texas is #1 in coal. I recall being shocked years ago the first time I saw a coal train passing through Amarillo. Will coal make a comeback after oil and gas are depleted? Or will renewables keep us from freezing in the dark?
Coal and nuclear will serve as a base load for many years to come. Renewable will grow steadily and gas will regulate their intermittency. If storage and intermittency problems are solved, renewables could replace coal and nuclear in incremental steps. Germany already has over 40% renewable but still depends heavily on coal. But significant reduction should begin in the coming decade.
agree, coal will be used heavily, and the forests will be cut. and maybe nuc’s will be built. especially in europe.
we are still a thousand miles from having enough renewables deployed.
World wind and solar output has grown by 20.6% per year on average from 2008 to 2018. If we have 20% growth until 2033, then wind and solar produce more than 2018 electricity output in 2033, (28,574 TWh vs 26,614 TWh in 2018).
So rather than 1000 miles, perhaps 14 years.
That’s actually a bit too pessimistic. The solar growth rate is incredibly consistent; the doubling time is about two years. It’s starting from an obnoxiously low base (2.3% of electricity production), but exponentials catch up fast.
If we pessimistically assume that wind growth has gone linear and that hydro will remain flat, the solar exponential growth still gets us to 100% renewables by 2028. Growth of electricity demand from electric vehicles might mean it takes an extra year.
Adoption might slow down after 100% of daytime power is supplied by renewables, due to the potential “battery bottleneck”, but by then coal will be off the market entirely. Nukes will probably be closed too; they’re far too expensive to run. Residual nighttime fossil fuel use will be 100% natural gas by 2030.
Growth of electricity demand from electric vehicles might mean it takes an extra year.
If you provide for the means to incorporate EV’s batteries into the grid you have access to massive storage capabilities as the fleet of EVs increases.
Nathaneal,
Solar growth will likely slow down, for the US in 2018 solar output grew by about 24% (BP data), from 2014 to 2018 the average rate of growth in US solar output was 30%. If the solar rate of growth continues at 24%, wind power growth is linear, and nuclear and hydro are flat, then US electricity output becomes 100% non-fossil fuel in 2034.
Based on trends in BP stats data.
If
…and even then…
Predictions by their nature involve if … then statements. Nobody knows which “if” will be correct. Oil and gas use was limited by demand and grew at about 7% per year from 1930 to 1973 on average. As solar and wind become cheaper than the fossil fuel powered electricity they will replace, demand will only be limited by current electricity use (which is growing slowly and hopefully will be reduced). So the rate of growth will be limited to the speed that PV and solar an be manufactured and installed. It is possible that 24% solar growth will not be physically possible and the rate will slow to linear, possibly the basis of the SEIA forecast which looks linear after 2021.
Hard to guess how quickly it will go.
Hi Dennis,
There’ little reason to believe that wind & solar will be supply constrained. It’s happened only rarely, due to temporary planning problems (polysilicon was expensive for a while, then as usual with commodities there was a boom and bust as they over-expanded). My personal estimate, based on observation of other industries, is that they could grow at about 40% per year indefinitely (a roughly 2 year doubling).
No, wind, solar and EVs are demand constrained right now, and that’s very likely to continue.
Unfortunately.
Nick,
Currently yes demand is the constraint. When solar and wind fall in cost so they are less expensive than the fuel cost for fossil fuel power generation, demand will not be constrained until fossile fuel power has been eliminated. The 40% growth rates mught quickly run up against the size of existing manufacturing facilities and how quickly they can be built. Also after reaching 50% of total electric generation it is likely growth becomes linear and gradually slows as solar and wind move to 100% of electric power generation.
The 40% growth rates mught quickly run up against the size of existing manufacturing facilities and how quickly they can be built.
There’s a great deal of under-utilized PV manufacturing capacity at the moment, so short run growth rates could be higher. The 40% rate is my estimate for the longer-term maximum rate. We can see such a rate with Tesla.
Nick G,
How much underutilized capacity exists?
Let’s say it is at 50% utilization rate (I doubt it is this low), in 3 years at 40% growth the plants would be at 98% of capacity and in 4 years at 137% if a 40% growth rate continues for 4 years.
So you will say we just build more factories. My response is that these cannot be built overnight and often we run into other bottlenecks. Lately World solar output has been growing at about 30%, perhaps that can continue for a couple of years, but a more realistic model has a growth rate that gradually slows 30%, 25%, 20%, 15%, 12.5%, 10%, with some lower sustainable rate (10 to 15% would be my guess) sustained until manufacturers slow down so they do not overbuild capacity, then some sustainable linear rate of growth is followed until we approach 100% solar and wind. That is just how I see it playing out, the trajectory is an s curve.
That growth path seems perfectly reasonable, just not as a description of maximum production growth limits.
Really, PV is a relatively simple item. Sure it’s a semiconductor, but there are no circuits. It has no moving parts, and relatively few ingredients.
Tesla’s manufacturing is infinitely more complex, with a far more fragile supply chain and far more points for Liebig minima to occur.
So, what’s Tesla’s CAGR?
Here we go, 92% CAGR from 2010 to 2018, with no sign of slowing down:
Tesla Annual Revenue
(Millions of US $)
Year Revenue CAGR from 2010
2018 $21,461 92%
2017 $11,759 93%
2016 $7,000 98%
2015 $4,046 103%
2014 $3,198 129%
2013 $2,013 158%
2012 $413 88%
2011 $204 74%
2010 $117
2009 $112
2008 $15
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/revenue
NickG,
Revenue is not the proper measure, it would be vehicles produced. In 2017 vehicle production increased by 35% over 2016. With the introduction of the model 3 the growth rate increased to 138% in 2018 and if Tesla hits its goal of 380k cars produced in 2019, the annual growth rate will be 55%. The cumulative growth rate has been higher at about 70% (for vehicle sales) for the past 4 years.
As far as World solar power output we have the fact that the output in TWh has grown by about 27% from 2014 to 2018(BP data). The 2010 to 2014 period saw 43% growth in solar output, so historically the hypothesis that the growth rate in solar output will slow down might be correct. Note also that solar output growth rate in TWh was 49.6% per year on average from 2008 to 2013. If one had assumed that growth rate would continue from 2014 to 2018, we would have expected 1042 TWh of solar output in 2018, solar output was actually 585 TWh. Likewise, an assumption that the solar growth rate will continue at 27.2% from 2019 to 2023 is likely to be an erroneous assumption.
I think we will simply need to disagree here as neither of us knows what the future will bring. Each of us obviously thinks our personal view is more realistic.
I hope you are correct, but it seems to me that an overly optimistic view can be just as counterproductive as an overly pessimistic view. Getting it “right”, seems the best way forward, though we only know this in hindsight.
Well, a few thoughts. First, this is a theoretical discussion: I imagine that the growth curve you projected is reasonable.
2nd, regarding “Revenue is not the proper measure, it would be vehicles produced. ”
I know what you mean, but if we’re trying to develop an overall measure of “output” then you have to account for the size and complexity of the vehicles. The cost of production might be a better measure than unit production volume, and revenues are closely related to costs. It’s probably not important.
In any case, it’s clear that Tesla has been able to do substantially better than my proposed 40% CAGR growth rate. And, Tesla is probably our best example of a large production process that is constrained by supply and not demand. It’s quite hard to find such examples.
That’s the problem with looking at current or even historical solar growth: Would you agree that it’s been constrained by demand, not by production or supply limits?
Finally, I absolutely agree that we want to be realistic. That, in fact, is the only reason I’m discussing this: the idea the PV production might be inadequate to fulfill demand seems to me very unlikely.
Nick,
I would agree demand has been a constraint.
Probably this will be the case for Tesla eventually. There is eventually a demand constraint in almost every case as more of a product is produced.
With solar there were areas where it was well suited at higher cost and as costs fell there were more of these areas.
There are a lot of moving parts to uptake of solar, much will depend on future natural gas prices.
What we do know is 40% is too high a guess as currently we see 27% growth rates for solar.
For Tesla I doubt the current rate of growth will be maintained, but perhaps 40% is a reasonable long term guess for BEVs at least until TaaS arrives with AVs. At that point demand for personal vehicles falls by a factor of 5 or more.
Dennis,
That sounds reasonable.
Now…are we clear that the 40% growth number was my estimate for the growth rate that would start to hit supply constraints, and NOT my projection of what’s actually likely to happen?
(although, as I look at Tesla’s numbers, I’m starting to think 40% was actually a bit too low. )
At the moment we’re in an odd transitional situation, where OECD countries don’t really need much more capacity, so solar and wind growth are held back by the need to formally recognize that some existing generation plants are really stranded assets. Companies hate to recognize such losses, and corporate cultural inertia can make it hard to stop building what’s familiar.
Solar (and wind) will only be unleashed when we as a society recognize the enormous external costs of FF pollution and supply security – who knows when that will happen fully.
Nick yes I am clear on your position and agree that if there was no demand constraint, perhaps 40% long term growth rates might be possible, typically these are short term because we quickly hit demand limitations at 40% growth rates.
My hope is that we get to a point where the cost of solar is less than the cost of fossil fuel or nuclear for thermal electric power for existing plants. In that case companies will build the utility scale solar and drive the fossil fuel producers out of business.
In the US most supply is independent of transmission and distribution so it is a very competitive environment. Soon it will be the case that fossil fuels will no longer be competitive and demand for solar power may be robust. Give it 5 years or so and even natural gas will no longer be able to compete. Also as oil demand falls with the EV transition there will be less associated gas produced (because oil prices will fall to a level that tight oil and deepwater offshore are no longer profitable and oil production will fall due to low oil prices and low profits) and natural gas will be short in supply and natural gas prices will rise to the point that natural gas power cannot compete. Then natural gas prices fall and shale gas is no longer profitable and natural gas supply starts to fall as well.
Dennis, in my comment further down, I linked to a Utility Dive story on a plant in New Mexico. A section I did not quote reads:
It would appear that it is already the case in some instances that, “the cost of solar is less than the cost of fossil fuel or nuclear for thermal electric power for existing plants.”
Islandboy,
Yes that is true in many cases already, and will become the case everywhere by 2025 or so.
See
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/
click on chart for larger view.
Thanks for the elaboration, Dennis.
Global energy consumption as of 2016 = 154 TWh
Coal, Oil, Nat gas contribution to that was 132 TWh
Solar and Wind was less than 2 TWh
Prove it to me, that we can make up the coming shortfall, in time.
I’d love to be wrong.
Don’t believe your lying eyes?
Well, first, did you mean global energy was 154,000 TWh?
2nd, have you adjusted for the difference between thermal primary energy and electricity?
Yes add those zeros. i guess that is important.
And these numbers are simply Global Primary Energy Consumption. burn it smoke it either way.
The point is clear.
The point is clear.
I thought you were asking a question. Would you like to learn something new, or just make a point?
If you want to explore new information, then a starting point is the difference between electrical energy and primary energy.
If was asking a question, you’d know it when I put a question mark.
Prove it to me, that we can make up the coming shortfall, in time.
Sounds like a request for information. Which is a good thing.
Hickory,
The current system is very inefficient. We get about 38% of the primary energy as work (rather than waste heat) from the coal and natural gas used to produce electricity. Most of the liquid fuel used for transportation in ICEVs we get about 25% of the primary energy as work with 75% of the primary energy wasted.
As we transition the system to EVs, wind and solar far less primary energy is needed because there is far less energy wasted.
For natural gas and propane used to heat buildings and water, their is far less wasted heat (modern systems can be 90 to 95% efficiency if properly sized). Even those systems are less efficient than ground source (in colder climate) or air source (moderate climate) heat pumps. Where we can get 2.5 (air source) to 5 (ground source) units of heat per unit of electrical energy consumed.
The energy cliff that many worry about is likely to be a demand cliff as the cost of batteries, solar and wind power all continue to fall and the transition to alternatives to fossil fuel accelerates.
It may be that in 2035 we will be wondering what all the fuss was about as far as shortages of energy and we can focus on other constraints and getting more education for more people, better health care, and more equal rights for women throughout the world, this might reduce total fertility levels to the point that population begins to fall and reduces the destruction of the ecosystem by humans.
One way to summarize what is happening in rich country electricity markets is that boiling water is going out of style.
Coal and nuclear a massive water boilers. Gas is too, but by shutting down older plants and building combined cycle plants, the amount of boiled water decreases dramatically. Meanwhile wind and PV solar are ramping up, and they don’t boil water at all.
Why avoid boiling water? Because it wastes a lot of primary energy by converting into waste heat.
Meanwhile transportation is starting to electrify. From an energy standpoint, cars are heaters on wheels, because the mechanical energy the engines produce are a small proportion of the primary energy consumed. And that heat is dissipated using hot water. So EVs can be viewed as another step towards getting hot water out of the picture.
Going to low temperature sources that don’t involve combustion does drop pollution and increase efficiency dramatically.
One also saves all that energy used on the mining, refining, distributing end as well as all the pollution created there.
Coal is dead in US. Solar and Onshore wind is going to keep it in ICU till 2025. Offshore wind and batteries will join in and kill it by 2030.
I hope you are right, but at this rate of deployment- not a chance.
Take a look at the map below. Full size maps are available from :
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html
Looking at Texas, West Texas has solar resources that are “up there with the best of them”, the best of them being the desert southwest. Recently there was the following installment at the EIA’s Today in Energy page:
Southwestern states have better solar resources and higher solar PV capacity factors
That article had the capacity factor for Texas very close to the US average of 24.7% at 24.6%. That is probably for Texas as a whole but, I suspect West Texas is closer to 30% like the states in the desert southwest.
All the states on the southern border of the US will probably never have to worry about freezing in the dark, since they get more than ten hours of daylight in the middle of winter and have average temperatures above freezing in the middle of winter as well. I suspect it will be possible for Texas to survive with primarily solar and wind once they get their act together. Lower prices for solar are spurring a big boom in solar in Texas and it is likely that even lower prices in the future will spell the demise of coal in the long run.
I sense that folks enduring the current heatwave in Europe will be getting fed up with all the global warming denying BS. It would be interesting to see what would happen in the US if there were say five years running with very high summer temperatures and the associated problems (crop failures, water scarcity etc.). On the other hand, maybe I should be more careful what I wish for!
I have seen periods ranging from 2 to 7 days in the Dallas area with temperatures as low as -5 degrees C, cloudy, with sleet, snow, ice storms, and short days when we covered up all the shrubs with sheets. The day is 10 hours long in early January, but I doubt solar panels will work more than say 8 hours. The probability of getting a very cold front with freezing rain and snow is very high about 100 miles north of Houston, and Houston gets a fairly hard freeze at least once per winter. The same applies to San Antonio and Austin.
Solar panels are still being installed, but their main utility is from March to September, and especially in June, July in August.
The heat wave we got in Europe happens once in a while, when hot air gets sucked north from the Sahara. Sunday we will see 32 C (90 F) but temperatures will go down and by July 10 we are supposed to have a máximum of 30 C. Sahara air is dry, to we still get nighttime temperature dropping into the low 20s C. This June was the coldest we have seen since 2014 until the heat wave came a couple of days ago.
The main problem we face is the socialist government, which is run by a combination of populist idiots, marxists, feminists, and an assorted lot of pseudo intellectuals. So they are proposing closing nuclear plants and coal, without having any idea of what they’re going to use to replace them. Bottom line: the economy is going to tank, and I’m not about to wait for everything to go to hell, so I’m considering a move to Hungary.
I think you’d fit in better in Saudi Arabia.
No elections to worry about. True Authoritarianism.
And with heat being irrelevant, as you say…
Have you considered?
You may find this infuriating Fernando. Sorry for the good solar news.
“25-year power purchase agreement for 400 MW AC/530 MW DC of solar electricity at a price of 1.997 cents per kWh — the lowest price yet for solar power in the US.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/30/los-angeles-8minute-solar-announce-25-year-ppa-at-under-2-cents-per-kwh/
Bottom line: the economy is going to tank, and I’m not about to wait for everything to go to hell, so I’m considering a move to Hungary.
Ez nevetséges! Mit gondol, hogy a magyar gazdaság nem fog összeomlani ?! Egyébként Magyarország is túl liberális neked, talán meg kellene próbálnod Lengyelországot!
Why solar power can’t save us from the coming energy crisis
http://energyskeptic.com/2019/why-solar-power-cant-save-us-from-the-coming-energy-crisis/
Cue the histrionics
Cue the histrionics
” Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal logical fallacy where irrelevant adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
Survivalist,
Solar can work just fine. All of the problems raised in that piece have solutions. I will not go through the gishgollup one by one.
A couple of simple examples. long haul freight can be moved by electrified rail and from rail terminal to end use can be done by electrified trucks. Many mining trucks are already electric, more can be converted. electric arc furnaces can replace blast furnaces.
Always with you it cannot be done. Do or do not, there is no try.
Photovotaic Panels and Electric Cars For Everyone!
Dennis, lots of things ‘can’ be done (sorta kinda maybe), like traveling to and living on Mars or maybe even traveling to the stars or blimping Jupiter’s high-altitude clouds (what the hell, ay?), but we have to be realistic too, and fair/ethical. A little understanding of history and/or human psychology can help in that regard too.
Let’s have everyone on the planet who wishes, fly on ski trips whenever and to wherever they please and let’s make that kind of declaration from our armchairs and positions of privilege.
Why solar power can’t save us from the coming energy crisis
The reason solar probably can’t save us from the coming energy crisis has absolutely nothing to do with any of the things mentioned in that misinformation piece. As Dennis correctly called it a gishgallop! All of the points mentioned have known technical solutions.
Trouble is we don’t have any technical solutions for the current ecological crisis and human population overshoot dilemma without somehow creating the political will to find a way to cooperate to overcome our systemic global issues!
We don’t have an energy or technological crisis, the problem is the system itself and there is absolutely nothing that I have seen that leads me to believe that humanity will do what needs to be done it the very short window of opportunity that still remains! Most countries are heading in the exact opposite direction of where we need to be going with stupid backward attempts at resurrecting nationalist memes!
The earth systems and life have done quite well on solar power alone for most of the last 3.8 billion years. Our current fossil fuel based civilization is apparently a relatively short lived aberration which has allowed humans to go into deep ecological and population overshoot and that will only be fixed with a major system reset!
Recommended reading:
https://questioneverything.typepad.com/
A Theory of Sapience: Using Systems Science to Understand the Nature of Wisdom and the Human Mind”, has been published through the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB). You can access a free download at their library website: https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/theory-sapience-using-systems-science-understand-nature-wisdom-human-mind/ .
George Mobus
Ho Hum! On the one hand we have this desperate pathetic attempt to hang on to BAU at all costs.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Prices-Hinge-On-These-Two-Major-Events.html
Oil Prices Hinge On These Two Major Events
We are just days away from two major events that could influence not just oil markets over the next few months, but also trajectory for the entire global economy.
Yada, yada, yada! For the record, BAU is dead folks, time to bury it and move on!
On the other hand we seem to have a new found sense of urgency with both national and local governments around the world at least paying lip service to ‘The Climate Emergency’ and ‘The Sixth Mass Exctinction’ both being recognized as an existential threat to humanity, the entire biosphere and of course our global industrialized civilization, namely, BAU!
Probably way too little, way too late to save us, but who the hell knows, right? In any case not much of what any of us have discussed on this and other forums will matter at all in a decade or two. Either our current descendants will grab power and drastically change course in the next 5 to 10 years or it is game over regardless!
I just read this article on Cleantechnica and I think the excerpted quote below underscore the essence of why it is so difficult to make any real progress on drawing the curtain on BAU to a final close.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/26/did-douglas-adams-explain-the-roots-of-climate-change-denial-cleantech-backlash/
Did Douglas Adams Explain The Roots Of Climate Change Denial & Cleantech Backlash?
I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
—Douglas Adams
Cheers!
“In any case not much of what any of us have discussed on this and other forums will matter at all in a decade or two. Either our current descendants will grab power and drastically change course in the next 5 to 10 years or it is game over regardless!”
Too true. We might as well be blabbing about black holes, or ideally, neutron stars, for all the difference it will make. But if talking about EVs or recycling tin cans or drinking beer makes people feel better people…. After all, the Romans had their “games” so why shouldn’t we have our personal feel-good escape bubbles? The only significant dialogue I see at the moment is the ff crowd arguing with the “greens” and nothing changing much. Meanwhile Mother Earth faces new tipping points and crises in every direction: with growing population, increasing ff production/consumption, extinction of beloved fellow creatures, etc. I fear Greta and her friends have come on the scene too late. Sigh!
Cheers,
I hear you Doug, it looks really bad now. As far as the life on the planet goes it’s a temperature rate problem. So anything we do to cut back or eliminate GHG’s is a positive step. We are not going to stop climate change and we have little chance of changing the end point of a warm world. However, we can slow down the rate of change which is critical to survival of many species.
We can also start discussing the consumption problem and the limits to growth on this planet, topics which in general are avoided at anything but a low level.
It seems like a lot, but massive change is getting started anyway. We can slow it or we can go along with Kochs and enhance it.
Many people are already on the path of positive change, so to denigrate their efforts by saying it is meaningless and completely ineffective sounds like blackwashing.
As far as the oil people not listening, how else could it be?
The answer to the ultimate mystery is FORTY TWO.
At the time I first read Douglas Adams, who will always be remembered as one of the great writers of his time, I didn’t know that an oil barrel is forty two gallons.
I envy anybody who has not yet read his books the joy of reading them the FIRST time!
Some of us will survive no matter what, short of a BIG asteroid hit, or maybe WWIII flat out NBC.
And maybe the technology ambulance, after a manner of speaking, won’t run out of gas until it’s transported SOME of us to the future figurative emergency room where in everything runs on wind and solar power, and everything is recycled.
I’ve come to accept that the climate, world wide, is going to hell, as compared to recent times on the human scale, and that most of the BAU economic house of cards is doomed to collapse.
But this does not necessarily mean that the entire world economy must collapse, or that the entire world’s climate will turn so nasty some of us can’t still live quite well.
Consider that you can drink yourself to death, or that you can drink yourself into a very poor state of health, and still recover, to some extent, if you quit drinking.
Some countries, especially one such as the USA, might pull thru more or less ok, without really major loss of life, without really serious civil disruption, without losing the electrical grid, without losing the water and sewer utilities that make city life possible. There could still be food in stores……… although chicken legs might be as expensive as rib eye is today, and tightly rationed.
Some of the little kids in the world today might still grow up to lead happy lives. Giving up is not an option.
I’m doing everything I can on my little place to make sure a family, or several families, will be able to live happy lives on it a century down the road. I just hope it doesn’t get any hotter here than Florida today!
Some of us will survive no matter what
Ah, the delusions that make us feel well————
“Some countries, especially one such as the USA, might pull thru more or less ok, without really major loss of life, without really serious civil disruption, without losing the electrical grid, without losing the water and sewer utilities that make city life possible.”
You’re kidding, right? A country prone to violence, dependent on “easy living” with toys galore, and almost all wealth in the hands of one percent of the population.
Places that MIGHT do OK, in my opinion, would be New Zealand, Scandinavian countries or perhaps Viet Nam. These countries are occupied by people raised with a high degree of self reliance, internal food sources and, a history of social stability. I lived in NZ for two years, worked in Viet Nam a lot over seven years and have been steeped in Scandinavia “culture” all my life. My reply is based on these experiences and subjective.
Hi Doug,
Doing OK is a relative term, and can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.
New Zealand hasn’t a snowball’s chance on a red hot stove of surviving a major war, without being turned into a colony of which ever country wins in that part of the world.
If WWIII comes, and a coalition of countries such the USA plus the major Western European countries and Australia win that war, whatever WIN means, New Zealand might continue to exist as a country.
If the shit hits the fan really hard and fast, a few million people may die hard, some fast, some slow, in the USA. But compared to what’s been going on for decades to centuries in many parts of the world, that would be OK, in relative terms.
Don’t underestimate the power of a police state, especially a MODERN police state, one that would at least in its early days have the strong support of the people themselves.
Compared to what will happen in a place such as Pakistan, or India, where lack of food, water, fuel, etc, will result in tens of millions of people to hundreds of millions dying, a couple of million, even ten million, dying of violence here in the USA would still be a GOOD outcome, relatively speaking.
Not even Sky Daddy could say what the long term result would be, if the USA were to declare martial law, but one things for sure. All the wild people in LA or Detroit or Miami aren’t going any place very far unless they have gasoline, and there’s zero question in my mind that UNCLE SAM has and will have the power to control such things as the availability of gasoline.
We hear about civilians driving out occupying troops in various countries over the centuries . But that only happens when the troops are told to play by semi civilized rules.
Nobody drove Stalin’s troops out of the territories they occupied, because they killed as often as they pleased, and forced as many people into slave labor as they pleased, and starved out as many as they pleased.
When the shit is well and truly in the fan, nobody is going to fuck with the armed forces operating domestically within the borders of the USA, or the armed forces of any modern country operating within that country’s own borders…… NOT when the chips are ALL on the table.
Sure a few of my neighbors THINK they are going to fight. A couple of them might actually fire on regular troops, if it gets to that point.
But when they see an armored car with a couple of machine guns pointed their way, they will shit their pants and throw their guns in a well, and play nice.
What Europeans do not realize about my country and guns is that the VAST majority, probably ninety eight percent of all the people who own guns here are law abiding and responsible people.( This is not to say a burglar or man who beats his wife doesn’t own a gun. But burglars and wife beaters seldom actually USE their guns for illegal purposes. ) I know fifty people well who own guns, and know how to use them, and WILL use them, if necessary, to protect their homes, their friends and family, and their community. I know maybe two or three lowlifes who would like to rape rob and pillage, if the opportunity to get away with that sort of thing comes their way. They won’t last a week if the shit ever REALLY hits the fan. The other forty seven or forty eight of us know who they are.
So long as the government can keep the electricity on, and the water on in town, and food in the stores, the people of this country will support the government, ninety nine to one, in a REAL emergency.
Of course things could get so bad that maintaining basic services such as electricity, water and sewer and food distribution will be impossible.
If that happens, whether it’s guns or homemade spears and machetes won’t really matter all that much anyway. People who are starving and watching their kids starve will do what they have to do to eat and feed their kids, proactively or reactively.
For some reason when the subject is human overshoot, it seldom occurs to people who understand basic biology, as the regulars here do, that population collapses, and ecological disruptions, are almost always local or regional.
There’s PLENTY of reason to believe the climate is going to hell, and that hundreds of millions or even billions of people are going to starve or die hard and violent deaths.
But there’s no real reason to believe that if all the people in Africa or Indonesia or Pakistan starve that we will necessarily be short of food, water, fuel or anything else ESSENTIAL to our survival here in the USA, or in Canada, or Germany, or Norway or Denmark.
There’s nothing at ALL that we Yankees HAVE to import to survive and maintain a working industrial civilization more or less indefinitely here within our own borders, if we are forced to do so.
If the climate doesn’t get so bad we can’t produce enough food to make it, we MIGHT survive. This country is HUGE and we have land enough that it’s likely we could, even if Iowa bakes like Texas, and Virginia fries like Louisiana.
If we can still feed ourselves, we have more than enough of everything else we MUST have to make a go of it.
But making it, when things get really bad, will mean that we have to change our ways radically. If we don’t do so voluntarily, we will do so at gunpoint, as necessary, under martial law.
Ninety five percent of the people will support the government when that time comes, just as my parents and grandparents supported the government in the days after Pearl Harbor.
The other five percent will find that unless they stay VERY quiet indeed, they will wind up on a chain gang hoeing corn or patching potholes in the highways. Or just dead.
I’m NOT arguing that the USA, or any other country, WILL survive human overshoot without major problems. I’m simply arguing that a universal collapse of modern civilization is NOT a given.
“New Zealand hasn’t a snowball’s chance on a red hot stove of surviving a major war, without being turned into a colony of which ever country wins in that part of the world.”
So Mac, which countries will survive, much less win, a major (nuclear) war? Or, put another way, how many nuclear weapons are aimed at US versus New Zealand or say, New Caledonia? My guess is that NOTHING survives WW III in Northern Hemisphere with POSSIBLY a few South Sea islands hanging on; Madagascar might be OK. However, if you want to believe the US will win WW III, be my guest. Pick up your radiation resistant glasses at your closest optomistrist’s outlet. 😉
Pick up your radiation resistant glasses at your closest optomistrist’s outlet. ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIoBrob3bjI
Tom Lehrer – We Will All Go Together When We Go – with intro
Whether for your hospital, dental practice, X-ray lab, of fox hole, protect your eyes with a comfortable pair of our lead glasses. 😉
Only 2kg a pair
As one who worked with x-rays, nuclear medicine, and some radium beginning in 1948 and ending in 1969 (and was once a prepper), I was not overly concerned about fallout. It tended to decrease exponentially. Distance and material offered protection—-WIFE wants computer – to be continued
–I had various plans to shelter in place for a few days if necessary. Basements, culverts, between x-ray files etc. 100 Rads (1 Gy) did not worry me. One prep suggestion started as a joke. “Carry a shovel in your car trunk and park for a week over a fox hole” This joke was probably the genesis of the anti-war book With Enough Shovels. Dirty bombs are especially overrated – except for the panic
I think a nuclear war between China, Russia and USA is unlikely.
Nobody wants to obliterate themselves (excluding religious fanatics).
New Zealand military are admirable people, who have contributed positively to the world. IMO, kiwis are the nicest and most generous blokes on the planet.
But they don’t have the ability to compete with China unless the British Empire is reformed.
The State of California could beat New Zealand in a war.
New Zealands best hope is that the US Navy continues driving carrier fleets around that are armed to the teeth!
The US 7th fleet carrier group has the HMAS Sydney and HMAS Melbourne as part of the group.
no coincidence.
Hi Doug
“If WWIII comes, and a coalition of countries such the USA plus the major Western European countries and Australia win that war, whatever WIN means, New Zealand might continue to exist as a country. ”
“WHATEVER WIN MEANS”
We don’t really know what WWIII will be like, or if it will involve the entire world. South and Central America, and a hell of a lot of rural Asia, were barely touched by either WWI or WWII.
It’s quite possible that the countries that are on top of the military heap at this time, namely the USA, Russia, and China will destroy each other and everybody else.
It’s altogether possible that nobody at ALL will survive WWIII.
But on the other hand, it’s possible that the three or four countries with nukes enough to wipe out humanity may hold each other hostage and tell everybody else, the smaller nuclear powers, in no uncertain terms that if THEY shoot off more than a couple, THEY will be targeted for absolute destruction themselves.
MAD has held for three quarters of a century now. It may hold for another few decades, in which case the population will have peaked and started down, and WWIII might be avoided, since the potential causes thereof will be shrinking as the population shrinks.
There is a typo in my last post. 1969 should be 1999.
For OFM
Who Will Die First when SHTF: A WARNING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J42CLa5iATM
BTW: much more dangerous for old folk is throw rugs, toss them
I plan to follow this medical professional.
The US military is a fraud, a Potemkin military which can’t win anything.
That said, after removing the global warming deniers, the US could probably rustle up a militia to keep order pretty fast.
“Places that MIGHT do OK, in my opinion, would be New Zealand, Scandinavian countries or perhaps Viet Nam.”
New Zealand could do great as long as China, India, Japan or Indonesia don’t decide to confront them militarily.
Vietnam is scared to death of a Chinese invasion. China is already trying to absorb their fishing waters.
You may be right about Scandanavian countries.
Personally, I think Canada is the best place to be.
You get the benefits of the USA military without the cost.
Lots of natural resources, small population and may benefit from Climate Change.
New Zealand and Australia need to build submarines that can stave off the larger countries that will no doubt look at these resource rich areas.
I’m another who doesn’t think Homo sapiens will become extinct even if civilization goes to hell. Homo sapiens managed to survive when they didn’t even have fire.
Billions could die, but the resources left behind should keep groups of people alive.
I’m another who doesn’t think Homo sapiens will become extinct even if civilization goes to hell. Homo sapiens managed to survive when they didn’t even have fire.
Yes, but what they did have was tiny populations and immense healthy intact ecosystems. We now have almost 8 billion humans and we no longer have viable ecosystems and without out that, it is game over.
Hi Fred,
I believe you are underestimating the incredible resilience of life in all it’s various incarnations.
Suppose the climate goes to hell, and the commies hit the USA with five hundred nukes, well distributed.
There will still be trees putting out new shoots from the roots, and some trees will likely live right thru. Grasses and other small plants will escape, here and there. The land will quickly be recovered with green , and some insects and other small animals will pull thru, cockroaches for sure!
Sure in such an apocalypse only a few humans would survive short term…. but it takes only a few to repopulate the earth.
It’s rather likely imo that some people in some places will be able to find something to eat, and water clean enough to drink.
There won’t be a STABLE environment for them, things will be changing very fast as a new local equilibrium is established in each area, and over larger areas. This will take decades to thousands and millions of years for stability to be the norm again, but the one thing that separates us naked apes from all the other animals is our awesome adaptability, our behavioral flexibility.
If I thought I would need to fort up for ten years, I could easily manage it, except it would put a strain on my monetary resources. I already have a deep well, accessing fossil water eight hundred feet down, and a big masonry barn half underground, easily converted to a fall out shelter. Lots of different foods can be stored indefinitely, if you take the right precautions.
It’s hard to guess what might be living outside ten years after a flat out hot nuclear war, but I’m pretty sure I could eat some of whatever is to be found. All the larger animals would be gone, but that would mean the rats that survive would be free to take over….. and I can eat a rat if I must. I hear some people consider them to be quite a tasty treat.
I believe you are underestimating the incredible resilience of life in all it’s various incarnations.
I hope that I do not come across as being too pretentious if I claim that I have a rather deep appreciation for the tenacity of life on this planet. I do not for a moment beleive that humanity will be able to extinguish all life! All we need do is look at the geological record to see that life is extraordinarily resilient and has come back to flourish time and again even after multiple mass extinctions.
However the resilience of life in general, is in no way a guarantee that if we manage to push the biosphere past certain tipping points and therefore manage to initiate a sixth mass extinction, that the human species will survive. Personally I would estimate the odds of that happening to be infinitesimally small.
But if I were to bet on any group of modern humans coming through a global economic collapse, assuming some remaining pockets of ecologically viable areas, with some form of civilization relatively intact, my money would be on the Chinese and not the Americans or the Europeans!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc7RNrh8i-A
Is Climate Change the End? And if so, the End of What?
8,270 views
case
Published on Mar 28, 2019
Naomi Oreskes
March 22, 2019
Presented by: The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities
Eliminating many humans would leave more resources for those who are left.
If humans can survive drought, an ice age, the plague, etc., there will be survivors even if the majority die off.
While climate change and human encroachment will alter many areas and eliminate many species, I don’t anticipate a sterile world. I think Homo sapiens as
a species will continue.
The biggest problem will be that, when the trucks stop delivering, people will strip the land bare. There may be some groups left but, for the majority, it will be a trip over the cliff to war and destruction as they fight over the last meal. Will those pockets still be able to hold out against the masses?
NAOM
I don’t foresee the trucks stopping suddenly. I think it will be more gradual, so there will be some adjustment.
Already we have environments being affected, but not a massive human die-off yet.
Some people think war will level some areas. But for what? What would those countries have to offer invading countries? Why drop expensive bombs and send out expensive war fighting units to capture a country that doesn’t have anything to offer you?
If it comes down to gas and oil, there are only a few countries whose resources are worth capturing.
I think a dramatic end to business as usual is quite possible. And I think the poor in the world will likely not have access to the necessary resources to sustain themselves. But I think there will be people who capture enough land and water and enough security to survive and protect themselves from being overrun.
That’s funny.
Of course, many of the things involved in “climate denial” ( the greenhouse effect, wind and solar power, electric vehicles, etc) were invented long before we were born. And a lot of things that were invented very recently are eagerly accepted by older people, like smart phones. No, the answer mostly lies elsewhere.
Climate denial isn’t an individual phenomenon: it’s a group thing, based on leadership. It’s the group that listens to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell, etc. These leaders, in turn, are led by a small group of billionaires, especially the Kochs and Rupert Murdoch.
I think the key question of our age is how to fight the influence of these psychopathic plutocrats. I suppose one answer is simply reducing the influence of leaders in general: people with more education and intellectual independence will think more for themselves. Another is more participation? Alternative media?
Let me say it again, in other words: the Powers That Be want us to believe that things like Climate Change are individual problems, to be dealt with on an individual level. They want us to be isolated, and not organize and fight for things. There’s an old slogan that applies here: the personal is political.
RW, sure coal might be used way into the future. Then again there might not be many left to use it, so no problem.
As far as freezing in the dark, easily remedied with some good blankets or a good sleeping bag. Have slept outside on the snow at -20F with no problem. Invest in some good clothes and blankets.
No need to be in the dark either, a small PV panel will charge up headlamp batteries. Or you can have candles.
Just finished reading Backlash, the latest thriller from Brad Thor. The hero, Scot Harvath, spent most of the book north of the Arctic Circle, escaping evil Russians. Fortunately he was an ex-navy Seal with special cold weather training.
Welcome to the future kids, where the new religion is praying utility companies keep enough juice flowing to power your spiffy new air conditioner(s).
FRANCE HITS RECORD TEMPERATURE OF 45.9C
The new record was measured in the southern town of Gallargues-le-Montueux. Before this year the previous record was 44.1C during a heatwave in 2003 that killed thousands. Health Minister Agnès Buzyn has said “everyone is at risk”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48795264
It was so hot in Europe today…
(How hot was it?)
It was so hot in Europe today that Dumb Dora’s ______ melted.
1:33 pm 6/28/2019. PJM system load 131,364 MW. Contribution from wind 964 MW.
Hundreds of turbine motionless.
Fred —
RED TIDE STILL KILLING DOLPHINS OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA
It’s been six months since Florida was officially red tide free, but the effects of the last breakout can still be seen in an increased dolphin mortality rate, according to a report by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA reported 174 dolphins have died between July 2018 and June 20, 2019, in Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Manatee, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The NOAA declared the increased deaths an “unusual mortality event.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-red-tide-dolphins-coast-florida.html
Yep, unfortunately the toxins produced by red tides ends up in the food chain and the environment…
Tesla Will Have To Raise Money In Q3 With “Back Against A Wall”
“To put these quarterly delivery numbers in perspective, Tesla is valued similarly to Ford and yet Ford sells approximately 1,500,000 vehicles per quarter. Does anyone really care if in Q2 Ford delivers 1,485,000 cars or 1,515,000? In other words, at this point a 15,000-unit quarterly variance for Tesla should be considered meaningless. The party’s over, folks. With no profitable growth, massive ongoing losses and tens of billions of dollars in debt and purchase obligations, the equity in Tesla will prove worthless, either quickly or—following a series of increasingly ugly capital raises—slowly.”
https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/05/tesla-will-have-to-raise-money-in-q3-with-back-against-a-wall/
TESLA’s on deathwatch. USA LTO too. We’re gonna have to look for new ways to lose money soon. Should be interesting.
At least they admit they are short Tesla. Ford just laid off 12K workers in Europe and have declared their future is electric.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/industrials/ford-overhauls-european-operations-new-vehicle-line-up
Tesla’s overvalued but not on a deathwatch. If Wall Street is too dumb to finance the company, the Chinese will.
Tesla has enough cash to coast until late 2020 even if they continue to have the same problems they do now — so that article was written by an idiot.
And yes, China will fund Tesla if Wall Street won’t. They’ve made it very clear.
Islandboy, what is up with PV installation in the US? Looks like it’s rate of rise has severely faltered over the last five years. Was quadrupling in five years now has risen by about 1.5X in five years.
Wind installations have gone linear, if PV does it will be quite a blow to the “green” movement.
Short answer, I don’t know. I tend to look to the Solar Energy Industries Association for information. Their last four quarterly press releases are linked to below:
U.S. Solar Market Sees Best Q1 in History
U.S. Solar Market Adds 10.6 GW of PV in 2018, Residential Market Rebounds
Solar Tariffs Hold Back Q3 Installations, Scramble Project Timelines As Procurement Pipeline Booms
Utility Solar Procurement Booms as Residential Market Stabilizes in Q2 2018
The executive summary of the most recent report is at the following link:
Solar Market Insight Report 2019 Q2
Their Research data page is at the link below:
Solar Industry Research Data
For Wind there is the American Wind Energy Association web site news page:
https://www.awea.org/resources/news
The latest AWEA press release is here:
Consumer demand drives record year for wind energy purchases
I find the industry pages significantly different from the EIA. The SEIA for example reports, cover industrial, commercial and residential installations in addition to utility scale while the EIA only reports on utility scale installations. In addition if you look at the graph titled “US 2018 Monthly Net Capacity Changes by Fuel Source” in EIA’s Electric Power Monthly – February 2019 Edition with data for December 2018 and the complete year results for 2018 you will see that there was more capacity reported as installed in the month of December than any other month by far. For Wind, 3834.1
GW was reported as installed in December and almost 1539.7 GW of Solar. The highest figures for any other month were 810 MW for wind and 744 MW for solar.
I don’t have access to the quarterly or monthly installation data from the industry sources so, I cannot identify whether this data from December is just an aggregation of all the installlations that were known to have happened in 2018, not being sure about the exact data, or whether there is some other explanation. Below is a chart from the SEIA showing solar installations, including forecasts up to 2024
Wow, I had looked at the SEIA data up to 2019e, but the graph you presented shows a projection that really flattens out in the future (2020 to 2024). At that rate it would take forever to replace fossil fuels if the grid grows by 1 percent a year.
Maybe limits to growth will kick in early and panic will set in to get the transistion back on track. Or maybe it will never happen.
The rate went from doubling in a year to doubling every 5 years to a nearly flat growth in installations in the projection (doubling every 20 to 30 years).
It is very surprising that just about when PV got extremely cost competitive, the growth has flattened out.
I’d have expected [hoped for] doubling or tripling.
And we are not even in a spending rut yet.
I suppose the cheap nat gas from fracking is keeping a lid on source replacement efforts.
You are both forgetting Trump’s anti-solar moves damping the market.
NAOM
Oh I haven’t forgotten for even one day.
I sure as hell hope that chart ends up being extremely inaccurate in the estimates out to 2024.
I see pullforward from 2017/2018 to 2016, probably due to tax & tariff effects.
The projections to the future are of course garbage. The 50% growth rate globally will continue; it is possible that the US will fall behind other countries due to Trump-related idiocy, but it’ll catch up when said idiocy is removed.
Everyone thought tax credits were going to run out at then end of 2016 and front loaded. Then they got extended but tariffs kicked in.
Been thinking about batteries in your charts. They are not really generation sources, just stores for electricity that is generated elsewhere. Should they really be in those generation charts as it is double counting the generation?
NAOM
Batteries are replacing natural gas peaker plants.
Batteries provide megawatts, which are more important than megawatt-hours.
True but they are not generators, they still require a generator to charge them so you end up counting generation twice. It would be better to give them their own category which would make it easier to see the growth of battery storage.
NAOM
They don’t include battery output under generation, so we don’t have to worry about double counting.
If you look at the EIA tables, you’ll see that they are counting “summer capacity”. In other words, they’re looking at the capacity to handle peak demand. And, batteries contribute to that peak capacity.
The cart above and the 2 below the following line are what I am referring to. They count battery as generating.
“Below is a chart for monthly net additions/retirements showing the data up to April 2019, followed by a chart showing the net additions/retirements year to date.”
NAOM
My mistake: when I said “generation”, I meant MWh generation, not MW generator capacity (energy, not power). The EIA has tables showing the total energy produced by various forms of generators – they don’t include batteries in those tables.
When you talk about capacity, you are talking about maximum theoretical output. Batteries increase maximum theoretical output.
Interesting, no?
TRUMP TO UNLEASH HELL ON EUROPE: EU ANNOUNCES CHANNEL TO CIRCUMVENT SWIFT AND IRAN SANCTIONS IS NOW OPERATIONAL
“With the world waiting for the first headlines from the Trump-Xi meeting, the most important and unexpected news of the day hit moments ago, when Europe announced that the special trade channel, Instex, that will allow European firms to avoid SWIFT and bypass American sanctions on Iran, is now operational.
The announcement sent oil sharply lower, with crude futures falling about $1/bbl in closing minutes before settlement, extending daily loss, as it means Iran now has a fully functioning pathway to receive payment for oil it exports to anyone it chooses.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-28/trump-unleash-hell-europe-after-eu-says-spv-circumvent-swift-and-iran-sanctions-now
Meanwhile,
EU AND MERCOSUR AGREE HUGE TRADE DEAL AFTER 20-YEAR TALKS
“The deal aims to cut or remove trade tariffs, making imported products cheaper for consumers while also boosting exports for companies on both sides. It is set to create a market for goods and services covering nearly 800 million consumers, making it the largest in the world in terms of population.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48807161
So where does that leave Great Britain?
If they Brexit – fucked. If Johnson does it his way and does a no-deal and not paying the exit bill Britain will find trade with EU countries very, very difficult.
NAOM
Trump, by trying to force other countries to embargo Iran (when there is no reason under international law to do so, when Iran is following the international rules and the US isn’t) — Trump caused the rest of the world to decide that the US was a rogue state, and route all its transactions away from the US.
What an effect. It destroys US influence and power abroad. Quite spectacularly. I’m glad it happened. It’s a very big deal.
The rest of the world must consider Trump an easily manipulated fool.
At least he isn’t dropping bombs.
If playing to his ego keeps us out of war, that’s at least something.
Florida man rants about scorching heat ?
https://www.facebook.com/FOX7austin/videos/412219146044007/
He couldn’t even look Putin in the eyes when he mumbled it.
What an embarrassment.
You who voted for him, you proud now?
Very proud ?? like the pledge of allegiance says we are “One nation of states united under God Almighty, indivisible with liberty and justice for all” ????✝️❤️
If I were you Lasha (do Russians vote in US elections), I’d be embarrassed to have voted for a rapist. Maybe that’s ok in Russia?
The big canaries in the coal mine- watch Germany, and Japan and Korea.
Big industrial economies with very poor domestic energy resources.
If oil and gas become hard to afford/import, then what do they do?
Downsize the industrial economies, and face massive unemployment?
Take oil from elsewhere?
They do not have the time to deploy renewables or nuclear fast enough to cover the looming shortfall.
They will try hard to get and burn coal, and their forests.
How do you downsize your population , and your economic expectations, fast?
The best current data I could find shows Germany currently importing more than 60% of net energy use.
From Wikipedia-
Germany is the fifth-largest consumer of oil in the world.
Germany is the world’s largest importer of natural gas.
It is the fourth-largest consumer of coal in the world. Domestic coal mining has been almost completely phased out. This is because German coal is a lot more expensive to mine than importing coal from China or Australia….
The domestic energy situation in Korea and Japan is considerably worse.
“The best current data I could find shows Germany currently importing more than 60% of net energy use.”
That is correct, but does not disprove the plan to reduce this to less than 20% in 2050…
60% seems to be a lot – but on the other hand, 40% of net energy produced within a country so poor in resources while at the same time being one of the top energy consumers is not THAT bad.
Germans are ahead of virtually everybody else in terms of going renewable and improving their overall energy efficiency, considering that their solar resource is marginal and that they started with one leg in a bear trap already.
They don’t HAVE to outrun the fossil fuel energy depletion bear, short term. They only have to outrun other countries that are big energy importers, and hang tight with countries that will hopefully be both their sources of imported energy as well as customers for their manufactured goods.
In the long run, Germany can do just fine, domestically, once the population there peaks and declines significantly. Getting from NOW until then is obviously a very tough and dangerous problem for them….. and for everybody else as well, so far as that goes.
I can see Germany in a decade or two getting enough gas to survive if not thrive from the USA and Canada, etc, in exchange for manufactured goods we need here.
OFM- ‘I can see Germany in a decade or two getting enough gas to survive if not thrive from the USA and Canada, etc, in exchange for manufactured goods we need here.”
I think you are being very optimistic. In a decade or two the fracking tsunami of petrol and nat gas here in the states will have largely run its course, and americans will be consuming all of the FF they produce.
Germany will be increasingly reliant on Russia as the years unfold. Along with China, and the rest of Europe and Asia.
Germany will be increasingly reliant on Russia as the years unfold. Along with China, and the rest of Europe and Asia.
May I suggest you use this site’s search engine and enter the terms: ‘Russia Peaked’
If Germany, China and the rest of Europe are going to be reliant on Russia as the years unfold, it might be for Vodka but it probably won’t be for their oil and natural gas… 😉
Also see:
Daniel Kahneman: Beware the ‘inside view’
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/daniel-kahneman-beware-the-inside-view
Cheers!
Hi Hickory,
No doubt you are right about our own Yankee domestic economy consuming all we have available within a decade or two….. unless we cut back some ourselves so as to supply enough to keep our allies heads above water. Everybody’s going to be short.
The question is whether a country such as Germany has to actually do without, or get by with whatever can be had from friends and allies. The Russians have NOT forgotten WWII. Nor has Germany, as a nation. The Germans are doing everything they can, within the limits of practical politics, to lower their dependence on imported energy.
There are reasons to think we might make some domestic sacrifices to support Germany and some other countries. We do that already, via military spending, etc.
Renewable energy is going to be ever more affordable, compared to fossil fuel energy, as time passes, and hopefully we still have time to go flat out for renewable energy, purely as a bottom line proposition, before it’s too late.
It’s already cheaper in some places than fossil fuel.
If we get the right wake up bricks upside our collective head, we Yankees will be building wind and solar farms and long distance transmission lines and other such infrastructure the way we did ships and guns after Pearl Harbor.
People in the doomer camp just don’t seem to realize what LEVIATHAN, the nation state, is capable of, once aroused and scared for its own continued safety and existence.
Germany is showing us the way. Last time I saw figures, a German homeowner could put in a turnkey solar system for half what a comparable system would cost me here in the states. HALF.
To keep their industrial economy rolling when fossil fuel is no longer and available/affordable option, I believe Germany (for example) will need solar transmitted from the Med and Sahara zone in a major way. And perhaps nucs,
If they don’t want to be an industrial exporter, the challenge will be somewhat less daunting.
“I believe Germany (for example) will need solar transmitted from the Med and Sahara zone in a major way.”
Strictly speaking not. All official scenarios work with the quite limited domestic German RE potential.
For me the interesting question, however, is: If we allow 20% of the RE imported (e.g. from MENA), what would the cost reduction be.
It is a good question. By allowing 20% from the south, the savings could be over 30%, I suspect (or something like that).
Has the scenario you suggested [All official scenarios work with the quite limited domestic German RE potential] been validated as feasible by serious, non-partisan analysts. I your opinion?
Would Germany need North Africa? I would question stability. How about investing in Spain/Portugal/South of France, don’t even have to worry about crossing the Med and less transmission costs overall. Pay for the land with a portion of production.
NAOM
NAOM
yes south of the alps is much better for PV, but those countries you named have an energy scenario worse than Germany in regard to domestic energy supply, so they may be hesitant to give up electricity that is home spun.
[france does have its nuc’s, which provides about 42% of total energy consumption.]
@Hickory
Not quite my thinking. I am not suggesting Germany buys electricity from those countries. Germany leases land in, say, Spain then Germany installs the solar and sends the electrons home. Spain benefits from the German lease which could be paid in electricity. Spain would be benefiting from rather than paying for the solar.
NAOM
[france does have its nuc’s, which provides about 42% of total energy consumption.]
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/30/heatwave-may-force-nuclear-power-shutdown-france-cooling-water/
Heatwave may force nuclear power shutdown in France as cooling water runs out
What is the energy loss from a cable going from say Tunisia to Germany? That cable would be stretched from approximately 35 degrees to 55 degrees latitude or about 1,400 miles. It has to go underwater which may impose some problems with shielding as the cable ages.
Significant, but not deal breaking.
HVDC= high voltage Direct Current
‘As of 1980, the longest cost-effective distance for direct-current transmission was determined to be 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles).’
‘The advantages of HVDC then became readily apparent. Compared to AC, HVDC is more efficient—a thousand-mile HVDC line carrying thousands of megawatts might lose 6 to 8 percent of its power, ‘
‘And the longest electric transmission line in the world, some 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles), is under construction by ABB now in Brazil’
etc
Ideally, there would be a Mediterranean grid that would both supply and receive solar and wind energy from the surrounding countries- from Spain to Egpyt and all points in between,
and then have redundant trunk lines heading north of the Alps.
1500 miles get you from Libya desert to the Hamburg in the N of Germany.
Win-Win.
Same kind of deal in N. America.
1500 miles gets you from AmarilloTx to NY,NY
And in east Asia, 1500 miles gets you from the Gobi desert to Hong Kong, Seoul, Kyoto, and Hanoi
That is one of the reasons I have suggested it would be better for Germany to put panels into and pay Spain rather than N. Africa. The other is security.
NAOM
If i get time i’ll do the calculations for you.
But i can tell you now, during the summer the losses would probably be huge.
“60% seems to be a lot”
10 years ago we were at 70% IIRC…
Gas is mostly used for heating in Germany, and considering the sharp increase in temperature in recent years, demand should decline. Also Germans are increasingly adopting the “passive house” idea, which eliminates the need for heating altogether.
Oil is mostly wasted on oversized gas guzzlers. The situation isn’t as bad as in the US, but it is pretty bad. The big car makers are going heavily into EVs now though.
Meanwhile renewables now make up about half of electricity production.
It would be interesting to see the full report. who has an account?
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/transitioning-us-to-100-renewables-by-2030-will-cost-rate-payers-45t-wo/557832/
To backstop intermittency, the report assumed approximately 900 GW of storage investments would ensure reliability over the wind and solar resources needed to power the country, more than doubling the $1.5 trillion to build out wind and solar to $4 trillion.
That’s $3,000 per kW of storage. That appears highly unrealistic. Did they even look at Germany’s plan, which uses “wind-gas”, something that would be far cheaper?
‘ That appears highly unrealistic’
On the other hand, maybe they are being very realistic.
You have a link to the wind gas system that you say germany has deployed?
Here’s some information. The key thing: it uses current technology. There’s nothing new. It’s standard engineering, which involves doing something in a slightly new combination, at a larger scale.
If you overbuild wind and solar by 2:1 that means that you have a vast amount of surplus power to use for storage. That means you don’t need high efficiency. On the other hand, you do want to minimize capex – capex is the problem with batteries. So, convert surplus power to H2 (67% efficiency)*, store it cheaply underground, and burn it cheaply in ICEs or turbines (not expensive fuel cells) for a round trip efficiency of perhaps 25%, and low capex. That would give enough backup to cover supply deficiencies of very roughly 25%, which is far higher than we would see from a 50% deficit for 5 days – that’s a supply deficiency of about 1% of annual demand. Alternatively, overbuilding of just 1.25:1 would still give you a lot of surpluse power, likely more than enough to handle seasonal shortages.
* https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/08/30/future-pv-the-feasibility-of-solar-powered-hydrogen-production/
“So, convert surplus power to H2 (67% efficiency)*, store it cheaply underground, and burn it cheaply in ICEs or turbines (not expensive fuel cells) for a round trip efficiency of perhaps 25%, and low capex. ”
Look, a catalyst increases both, the rate of an chemical reaction and the rate of the back reaction, to the same extend.
Therefore, your electrolysis stack can also be used as fuel cell, such constructions are already used in Germany for net services.
Therefore, the cheapest solution may NOT include a heat machine. 🙂
Well, this is an inexpensive asymmetric solution: the electrolysis would take place during the majority of the year (whenever there was a surplus of renewable power – the percentage of time would increase along with the relative amount of over-building – if we overbuilt as much as 3x then the surplus would exist for 90% of the time, and there would be a deficit only perhaps 1% of the time).
So…if your electrolysis is happening 90% of the time, and your backup generation is only happening 1% of the time, the ratio of electrolysis equipment to generation equipment would be 90:1. That means that you don’t need much of the expensive equipment. If, say, your grid generation averages 450GW and you need 300GW for 10 days for backup, you can build 10 GW of electrolysis which will operate for 300 days, and 300GW of less expensive turbines (or even ICEs) that will only operate for 10 days. Or 290GW of turbines in combination with the 10GW of fuel cells (electrolysis in reverse).
However, you would pay 100% backup capacity that has a very low capacity factor.
The electrolysis has to be overbuild in case of PV (the natural generator) anyway: You want hydrogen for industrial processes, biogas,… The additional TWhs as long term storage do not determine the electrolysis capacity. See the Fraunhofer studies in case of Germany, they work with more than 50 GW electrolysis capacity.
Think about it more carefully, as long as you have to overbuild electrolysis then you have enough spare fuel cell capacity….
Interesting. I would think that batteries would be the low-cost primary solution to handling daily (diurnal) variation, including the variation in solar output.
I wonder if the Fraunhofer plan takes a very conservative central utility approach to this problem. In particular, if the 47M cars in Germany each had 100kWh batteries that would be 4.7 terawatt-hours, which would about 100 hours of average German grid output. So, car batteries alone would be enough to take care of daily load balancing, and they would be very, very low cost to the grid.
Which Fraunhofer report on a 100% renewable grid would you recommend to an English speaking non-technical audience?
Nick G-
I guess you know better than Wood MacKenzie on this. Maybe offer them your services.
But your information says nothing about it getting done cheaper. Or that it is even being done.
ENERGY TRANSITION
Deep Decarbonisation: the multi-trillion-dollar question-
Calculating the cost of upending the fossil fuel industries and redesigning the power grid
https://www.woodmac.com/news/feature/deep-decarbonisation-the-multi-trillion-dollar-question/
Regardless of that particular issue (storage cost), their major point is valid and well researched- its going to take a boat load of money, [and intention] to get this transition underway. Many trillions.
If we spent no money on weapons and war, sports, and fashion throughout the world, we might get some of it done.
One should consider the typical cost of replacement for the current grid system. In the US much of it needs to be replaced and upgraded anyway.
Just the cost of fuel to run the grid and cars, which will be eliminated, could pay for much of the transistion.
Just the global fossil fuel subsidy cost could easily pay for the transistion and put an EV in every garage.
Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Hit $5.2 Trillion
The world spent a staggering $4.7 trillion and $5.2 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2015 and 2017, respectively, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund. That means that in 2017 the world spent a whopping 6.5 percent of global GDP just to subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Hit-52-Trillion.html#
And as Hickory points out, we spend a lot of money just defending oil fields in far away countries. That would be freed up and the potential for further wars reduced.
Yep, going all renewable energy is not only a no-brainer it is cheaper than continuing the current system.
Gonefishing,
It might be too little too late, but I agree it is the most sensible path forward and should have started in 1974 or 1979 at the latest. Unfortunately humans seem to like to take one step forward (Carter) and three steps back (Reagan). At the time I thought Reagan was a disaster, from where we are now, Reagan looks like a liberal compared to the current President, we seem to have taken about 10 steps back in 2016.
Nick G knows a lot more than WoodMac is allowed to say.
WoodMac has a conflict of interest. WoodMac are basically paid to create “fossil-fuel-friendly” reports — if they make honest reports, they don’t get paid. Their reports have been absolutely ridiculous for years, consistently overestimating the costs of renewables and underestimating the adoption rates. They’re telling their fossil-fuel-company clients what the clients want to hear — NOT telling them the truth.
You got any credibility?
“Wood Mackenzie published their Europe Solar PV Market Outlook 2019 towards the end of June, revealing its analysis that new solar installations across Europe will double over the next three years to reach a level of approximately 20 GW per year.”
Would it make sense to store both the hydrogen and oxygen from electrolysis to drive those turbines? Burning the hydrogen with air risks the generation of oxides of nitrogen that would still be a pollution hazard.
NAOM
“Burning the hydrogen with air risks the generation of oxides of nitrogen that would still be a pollution hazard.”
How is that prevented in NG turbines? Could it be that the cooling of exhaust is slow enough to allow degredation of thermodynamically unstable NOx? What would be the difference in hydrogen fed turbines?
There may be low NOx turbines but they still generate some NOx. Using the oxygen produced by electrolysis would eliminate this completely.
NAOM
Cost per kW of storage right now is $300 — that’s the “I can order it right now and have it shipped to me” price — so yes, this “report” has the costs at least 10 times too high. What coal company paid for this report?
By the time national scale roll out takes place that price should be down to $100 especially with new technologies such as dry process and sodium ion batteries. The numbers that turn up in these reports are totally crazy!
NAOM
are you sure you are not getting mixed up between capital cost of installation (in $/kW), and cost of delivered energy (in $/mWhr).
looks like it to me.
They said: “…To backstop intermittency, the report assumed approximately 900 GW of storage investments would ensure reliability over the wind and solar resources needed to power the country, more than doubling the $1.5 trillion to build out wind and solar to $4 trillion.”
So, they’re saying it would cost more to handle intermittency than it costs to install the wind/solar in the first place. This is quite extraordinary. They clearly have not looked at the existing literature or the planning process in place in places like Germany.
They’re using a simplistic approach with utility-scale batteries. Meh.
Cost/kg not a key Metric for Stationary Storage. It’s cost/kWh over the Lifespan of the Battery. The Best Batteries with careful Load/Capacity design cost is about .25USD/kWh. Typical is many times that due to lack of competence. So it’s key to use eChem Storage primarily for Lighting, entertainment, etc and Store Energy in Thermal mass/phase change. PV Power is .05 USD. So storage greatly multiplies energy cost. It’s not difficult to design a House using 10% power from eChem Storage. Energy is Power * Time. 24×7 Loads must be converted to super efficiency.
How many charge cycles are you using in your cost calculation?
I believe that there are li-ion chemistries that can do 5,000 cycles with only a 10% loss of capacity. I’d guess that their cost is down to the range of $150/kWh (and still falling), so that’s $150/5,000 = 3 cents per kWh cycle.
It looks like Tesla is heading for around 2,000 cycles, and their cost per kWh for cells is probably less than $100, so $100/2,000 = 5 cents per kWh cycle.
” Projecting forward from the real world data available, a Tesla battery should still have 80% battery capacity after 500,000 miles of driving, the group claims.” https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/16/tesla-batteries-have-90-capacity-after-160000-miles-may-last-for-500000-miles/
“I believe that there are li-ion chemistries that can do 5,000 cycles with only a 10% loss of capacity”
We need some categories of ‘belief’-
Is this belief based on what you hope, or want?
Or is it based on a religions system?
Or based on a review of the technical literature? More of an educated projection.
Or more just off the cuff?
I admit, I believe I fail to specify my beliefs often.
Here you go: one study found 8,000 cycles with end capacity at 74%, roughly within the standard for a reasonable end capacity (these are very rough tests: 100% Depth Of Discharge is usually not the optimum way to maximize the overall number for kWh-cycle).
Here’s a reference for $176/kWH-cycle at the battery pack level: https://about.bnef.com/blog/behind-scenes-take-lithium-ion-battery-prices/
So, 8,000 cycles for $176 gives about 2 cents per kWh-cycle.
“3. DOD cycle life
100% DOD cycle life (number of cycles to 80% of original capacity) = 2,000–7,000
10% DOD cycle life (number of cycles to 80% of original capacity) > 10,000
Sony Fortelion: 74% capacity after 8,000 cycles with 100% DOD”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery
http://www.smart-solar-lights.com/info/specification-of-the-lithium-iron-phosphate-l-20037899.html
Regardless of all the old lady quibbling as an attempt at distraction,
the point is valid for those who are willing to look with a clear eye.
Simply- To get this all done is going to take a hell of a lot of money, and intention.
Thats going to be hard to come by in world that in deep debt, and run by humans, considering the track record. I’m not a cheerleader by nature, you may have noticed. Just being straightforward when I say the chances of success are a bit iffy. Is that gentle enough?
Sure, things are iffy. But let’s be clear on where the risks are.
We have all the resources we need to build new energy sources, and for all the flaky things Watcher says, he’s right on one thing: money is an intangible, and we can print all we need. It’s hard physical resources, and human resources and institutional capacity that actually limits things, and those don’t limit wind and solar and the electrical things they power.
Now, you can think in terms of human political institutions as the limiting factor, and yes, that’s a serious problem: energy workers and investors don’t want to lose their jobs and investments. It’s their politics of resistance to change and the related things like propaganda that are the problems, and that’s the part we should face directly.
But human societies have made enormous changes many times before, sometimes very quickly.
And yes, political and social change are iffy, but that’s no excuse for doing nothing.
Hickory,
Everything about the future is iffy by definition. We do not know. One can say it cannot be done, others can dream of things that have never been and say why not?
When I look back at things that have happened in the past 50 years and consider what I thought would occur in the future, generally things changed in ways that I would have thought was a fantasy (things I would have put odds on of 1 in 100 or less).
Doesn’t the past look like that to you?
That is no guarantee that the future might look anything like I guess it will. The point is that technological progress has been far swifter over my lifetime than I would have guessed at the age of 12 or 20, my guesses have tended to be far too conservative. My current guesses may suffer from the same shortcoming.
When I look back at things that have happened in the past 50 years and consider what I thought would occur in the future, generally things changed in ways that I would have thought was a fantasy (things I would have put odds on of 1 in 100 or less).
You mean things like almost 8 billion humans trying to survive on a planet experiencing things like an ice free Arctic, accelerating climate change, sea level rise, intensifying heat waves, storms, droughts, floods, crop failures and last but not least being in the midst of a sixth biological extinction?
Yep, 50 years ago I would have put the odds on all of that being 1 in 100 or less!
Oh, maybe you were talking about the incredible technological advancements such as fracking which have now made the US completely energy independent and ushered in an age of peace and prosperity under the wise leadership of President Trump, who will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the best presidents ever to have held the office…
Cheers! 😉
Hi Fred,
Yes exactly what I was thinking.
Was not considering any technological or social progress, as I definitely take the glass half empty, point of view. 🙂 There have been changes both bad and good, same as it ever was.
Fred some demographers such a Wolfgang Lutz expect human population to peak in 2070 and then decline.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/WorldPopulation/Projections_2014.html
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/190611-education-demographic-dividend.html
Some research indicates that education is key.
So everything proceeded exactly as you expected then?
I know there are some who would discount information from this source (because they don’t like the news?), but here is more from the same.
Maybe they like it now?
“New European solar installations are expected to double over the next three years, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables,..Wood Mackenzie published their Europe Solar PV Market Outlook 2019 towards the end of June, revealing its analysis that new solar installations across Europe will double over the next three years to reach a level of approximately 20 GW per year.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/03/new-european-solar-installations-to-double-over-next-3-years-surpass-250-gigawatts/
There is a typo in my interrupted nuclear post above. Too late to correct. I practiced Radiology until 1999. (My age was 69). Have followed much of the data and controversy on the linear no-threshold and hormesis models since that time. Some of the evidence is buried in a sea of noise. TD Luckey and others suggest that the preponderance of the evidence favors hormesis.
Oregon truckers make themselves heard against climate bill in Salem
By Rob Davis
https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/06/oregon-truckers-make-themselves-heard-against-climate-bill-in-salem.html
Hundreds of truckers rolled into the streets around the Oregon Capitol on Thursday morning to protest the climate bill that has divided the Oregon Legislature largely along party lines. The workers, mostly from rural Oregon, shared their concerns about how the legislation designed to cut carbon emissions could hurt their livelihoods and encouraged Republican senators to continue the walkout that has halted work in the state Senate since June 19.
Members of the Oregon Trucking Association, which had opposed earlier versions of a clean diesel bill awaiting a Senate vote but was ultimately neutral on it, passed out free donuts and bottled water. Log truck after log truck passed the Capitol building, where hundreds stood in the rain to protest. They unleashed clouds of diesel soot while blasting airhorns so loud the honks could be heard on the floor of the state Senate and throughout Senate offices.
Jess Choat, 65, a log truck driver from Newport, said he took the day off work to protest the climate bill because he worried about the damage that an increase in fuel prices would cause the timber industry.
“I just don’t want Oregon to become like California. And that’s where we’re headed,” he said. “I don’t mind passing bills that help the environment, but we’re not getting a vote in this. That’s not how democracy works.”
I wonder if the truckers have a plan to combat autonomous driving trucks that will put them all out of work regardless.
.
The trucker thinks he is living in a democracy. Talk about delusion.
Yes, I did notice that.
Someone might ask Ol Jess how much damage burning down the forest will cause the timber industry.
Being from Oregon–suffice to say the majority of the elected officials feel the answer to just about anything is more control by government, and that taxes (in this case adding 20 cents a gallon to the price at the pump, unreasonable) will grow the economy.
UN CLIMATE TALKS: DELEGATES BACK IPCC REPORT WITHOUT TARGETS
“It’s a battle that was lost but not the war,” said Yamide Dagnet, a former UK climate negotiator now with the World Resources Institute. We just have keep being creative. Our children are giving us lessons about that.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48786296
Sure, the addicted will always go along with the drug suppliers. It’s way too painful to get off the drugs.
But we’ve got 11 whole years to get off our ff addiction, don’t we?
NATIONALISM COULD SINK PARIS AGREEMENT
“The G20 summit, attended by Guterres, marked the end of a fortnight of high-level meetings in which momentum for climate action was waylaid by nationalist leaders and interests. Climate talks concluded Thursday in Bonn with a milestone report on the science of 1.5C of warming being excluded from formal negotiations after obstruction from SA, Iran and other large oil and gas producing countries. At the same meeting, Brazil demanded a loophole in carbon trading rules that diplomats said would “kill” the Paris deal. President Jair Bolsonaro has said the accord is part of a UN conspiracy to steal sovereignty of the Amazon.”
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/06/28/antonio-guterres-fights-climate-un/
Inhale, Exhale, Fuck it!
With my condolences to Greta’s generation!
Hey Bolsanegra, enjoy your crash when it comes because it will with that attitude.
NAOM
Crash?! What Crash?! Brazilian Evangelicals Support Bolsonaro and the Rapture! Daddy’O beam us up!
https://www.christianpost.com/news/3-million-christians-rally-brazil-proclaim-gospel-pray-end-corruption.html
3 million Christians rally in streets of São Paulo to proclaim Gospel, pray to end corruption
“3 million Christians rally in streets of São Paulo to proclaim Gospel, pray to end corruption”
They ain’t got a prayer!
NAOM
When, dear god, will Donald Trump end his merciless war on coal?
“When, dear god, will Donald Trump end…”
Jan 20, 2021. 9:00am
Inauguration of the 1 st Women President of the USA
1st generation American- immigrant mother from India.
Former Attorney General of the largest state in the Union, and current Senator.
President Harris.
Get use to saying it.
She grew up in this house, upstairs above the Montessori school.
Hickory, I would love to able to say President Harris. I so hope you’re right!
I just came across this article on the effect of high CO2 levels on rice. One of the frequent talking points of AGW deniers is that CO2 is ‘good for us’ because it makes the planet greener. Perhaps in some ways greener, but much less nutritious.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GH000188?af=R&
Global Health Implications of Nutrient Changes in Rice under High Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
M.R. Smith S.S. Myers
First published: 20 June 2019 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000188
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1029/2019GH000188
Abstract
A growing literature has documented that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere threaten to reduce the iron, zinc, and protein content of staple food crops including rice, wheat, barley, legumes, maize, and potatoes, potentially creating or worsening global nutritional deficiencies for over a billion people worldwide. A recent study extended these previous nutrient analyses to include B vitamins and showed that, in rice alone, the average loss of major B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, folate) was shown to be 17–30% when grown under higher CO2. Here, we employ the EAR cut‐point method, using estimates of national‐level nutrient supplies and requirements, to estimate how B‐vitamin dietary adequacy may be affected by the CO2‐induced loss of nutrients from rice only. Furthermore, we use the global burden of disease comparative risk assessment framework to quantify one small portion of the health burden related to rising deficiency: a higher likelihood of neural tube defects for folate‐deficient mothers. We find that, as a result of this effect alone, risk of folate deficiency could rise by 1.5 percentage points (95% confidence interval: 0.6‐2.6), corresponding to 132 million (57‐239 million) people. Risk of thiamin deficiency could rise by 0.7 points (0.3‐1.1) or 67 million people (30‐110 million), and riboflavin deficiency by 0.4 points (0.2‐0.6) or 40 million people (22‐59 million). Because elevated CO2 concentrations are likely to reduce B vitamins in other crops beyond rice, our findings likely represent an underestimate of the impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on sufficiency of B vitamin intake.
Key Points:
Global CO2 levels that may be reached as soon as 2050 have been shown to lower the B vitamin content of rice by 17‐30%
These losses may cause 132 million people globally to become at risk of deficiency in folate, 67 million in thiamin, and 40 million in riboflavin
Highly affected regions are those that are mostly nutritionally reliant on rice: Africa (West, East) and Asia (Southeast, East, South)
Yes, there is quite a bit of research with similar results for most of the other major basic food crops on which most of the world depends. If you haven’t seen it I posted this video a couple threads back.
It underscores a number of other issues related to increases of atmospheric CO2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emFGiIJvce8
Climate Change, Insect Biology, and the Challenges Ahead
Cheers!
The other issue is that CO2 may increase plant growth but not the crop or even reduce it eg bigger, bushier wheat but smaller seed heads. This growth needs nutrients so more fertilizer is needed to get the same crop. I would love to give a link but Google is flooded with ‘CO2 is plant food’ crap.
NAOM
Food for thought,
FOLLOWING IN ROME’S FOOTSTEPS: MORAL DECAY, RISING INEQUALITY
“There are many reasons why Imperial Rome declined, but two primary causes that get relatively little attention are moral decay and soaring wealth inequality. The two are of course intimately connected: once the morals of the ruling Elites degrade, what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, too.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-29/following-romes-footsteps-moral-decay-rising-inequality
Don’t bother inhaling, don’t bother exhaling! Just Fuck it! Let’s ban spinach!
On second thought let’s ban all fruits and vegetables… If you are a professional athlete or just your average Joe, henceforth you may only eat government approved, industrially farmed, hormone laced, antibiotic infused, GMO, chicken McNuggets! Why? Because!!
A study released by Freie Universitat Berlin suggests that ecdysterone, a chemical found in the leafy green vegetable, has a similar effect to steroids and should be added to the list of substances banned in sport, CNN affiliate RTL reported.
The researchers ran a study involving 46 athletes who trained three times per week for 10 weeks. Some were given ecdysterone and others a placebo. Those who took ecdysterone saw their performance improve by three times as much as those who did not…
Co-author Francesco Botre, director of the Italian anti-doping agency (FMSI), told CNN that the team are now investigating ways to test for ecdysterone. Anti-doping agencies are currently not allowed to test for ecdysterone because it isn’t on the list of banned substances, he explained. This, combined with its greater than expected effect on performance, is a worry. “It’s very powerful because it’s invisible,” said Botre. “It’s not on the list.”
I have a better idea, let’s ban corporate and nationally sponsored sports instead and while we are at it let’s put Francesco Botre, director of the Italian anti-doping agency in a straight jacket and a padded room for his own safety!
Oh, any chance we will also ban that naturally occurring white cystaline alkaloid stimulant that most of us ingest through our cafe lattes, espressos and double mochas?!!
Popeye had it right!
And, of course, we now know Olive Oyl is good for you…
The sport doping rules for many, normally occurring, natural stimulants set limits rather than bans. There are a lot of them! Caffeine has a limit in the blood sample, I don’t remember the number but it can be Googled. That caused a stir, some years ago, as the Colombian cycling team were drinking lots of cups of strong black coffee and they were accused of doping with caffeine! Oh, that is just how Colombians drink their coffee normally 😉
Now, I need to go and top up my mug of locally grown, Mexican coffee.
NAOM
Heck. Everyone is uniformly giddy and optimistic today.
It sounds like things are just swell, problems on the way to all being solved.
I think maybe I’ll shop around for a pickup.
[although I do get the sense of desperation underlying so many comments made today. as if just saying things are good, will make them so. its like prayer, I suppose.]
A very good visual representation of energy data was put together at this site-
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-and-changing-energy-sources
Interesting, unfortunately the last few years arn’t available.
Insect apocalypse: German bug watchers sound alarm
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-insect-apocalypse-german-bug-watchers.html
Yes, I have been posting about this topic for a while now. Anyone who doubts that we are well into the sixth mass extinction either doesn’t understand how ecosystems work or is ignorant of the studies and the data.
‘Path of extinction’
The Krefeld research played a central role in a meta-study published by Francisco Sanchez-Bayo and Kris Wyckhuys from the Australian universities of Sydney and Queensland.
Martin Sorg, head of the volunteer-run Entomology Society Krefeld says: “in western Europe our nature is getting smaller, the agriculture fields are very hostile to insects
In February, they published the first synthesis of 73 studies on entomological fauna around the world over the past 40 years, listing places from Costa Rica to southern France.
They calculated that over 40 percent of insect species are threatened with extinction, and each year about one percent is added to the list.
This is equivalent, they noted, to “the most massive extinction episode” since the dinosaurs disappeared.
From your link:
To demonstrate the rapid decline, a lab technician holds up two bottles: one from 1994 contains 1,400 grammes of trapped insects, the newest one just 300 grammes.
And of course, the birds that feed on these insects are suffering a similar decline.
And still, there are those who doubt that we are in the midst of ecological collapse… at a time when it could not be clearer than the nose on your face.
We might be able to witness whether the following quote plays out.
“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.” -Jonas Salk-
There appears a fundamental disconnect with those who peddle pseudorenewable buildout and assorted industrial greenwashed BAU responses, while omitting fossil fuel dial-down and how to actually live integrally with nature/the living planet, how to nurture it, and at the same time lamenting the destruction of it. And often from those who, one would think, should know better.
Jonas Salk is or was infinitely better trained than I am or ever will be in the life sciences, but like a hell of a lot of other people, he evidently had or has a tendency to shoot off his mouth before putting his brain in gear once in a while.
The extinction of insect life would in no way whatsoever mean the end of all life on earth.
I can’t imagine anybody who knows even elementary biology well saying this, except in a careless moment.
It’s true that the loss of all insect life would sure as hell mean that most of the animals and plants would go extinct as well but I just can’t see all of them going extinct. Nor can I see all the millions of species of microbes disappearing. Or all the smaller animals that live in the seas, etc.
I assume he meant complex life (maybe).
What Would Happen If All Earth’s Insects Vanished?
Spoiler alert: It’s not good.
A common reaction when people see a bug is, “Eww… gross,” or “Kill it with fire!” But have you ever thought about how important these little creatures are to the Earth, and the survival of the human race?
As it turns out, humans would be in big trouble if insects disappeared. Within 50 years, all life on Earth would end.
“If insects were to disappear, the world would fall apart — there’s no two ways about it,” said Goggy Davidowitz, a professor in the departments of entomology and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, in conversation with Live Science. Yes, there would no longer be those pesky mosquito bites, no flies constantly buzzing around your head, no wasp stings, and no more insect-spread diseases such as malaria, west nile, or dengue fever — which kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Farmers would no longer need to use harsh pesticides to protect against insects. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 500 million pounds of chemicals are used annually to fight against bug infestations.
That sounds pretty good right? Too bad most of us wouldn’t be able to reap the benefits… most of us would starve to death. Approximately 80 percent of all Earth plants are angiosperms, or flowering plants, that require pollination from either bees, butterflies or other pollinating insects. Sometimes the wind and animals are able to assist with pollination, but the majority is done by insects. Without these pollinators, most plant life on Earth would disappear.
Between 50 and 90 percent of the human diet comes from flowering plants, since angiosperms include the grains wheat and rice, as well as fruits and vegetables. These food staples also make up the diets of the animals that people eat, including chickens, cows, pigs and most freshwater fish. “Most of our food is insect-dependent,” said Davidowitz. “If insects disappear, a lot of mammals and birds disappear, too, because if you don’t have insects pollinating, even those animals that don’t eat insects won’t have fruit and foliage to eat. It does have a domino effect.”
It gets worse.
Have you ever thought it would be a good thing if dead trees, animal carcasses and human bodies did not decay as fast as they do now? Well that is exactly what would happen. Although there would still be bacteria and fungi, insects are also a huge part of the decomposing process; therefore, decomposition would take much longer. Just imagine piles and piles of dead things.
What else could go wrong?
There would no longer be silk or honey. If you have been following the news, we are seeing a massive decline in honeybees today — mainly because of pesticide exposure, climate change and habitat loss. It may not be that much of a stretch to imagine a world without these dedicated pollinators.
So the next time you feel the need to kill a bug hiding in one of the corners of your house, maybe do what I do — grab a cup and a piece of paper and take it outside. Not only are you saving the life of a fellow species we share this planet with, you are doing all of humankind an enormous favor.
I agree with The Science Explorer, and Jonas Salk, 100%. Okay, perhaps microbial life would survive. Whoopee!
I didn’t put my real point into so many words, wondering if anybody would GET IT.
When somebody like Salk, or any OTHER scientist says something such as the above quote, which is OBVIOUSLY FACTUALLY INCORRECT, they set us ALL up for being painted as idiots by hard core bau types who know how to push the buttons of ignorant guys like the trucker who seems to think leaving town to prevent a vote on a new law is DEMOCRACY in action.
As dumb as this trucker is, he is still eligible to VOTE.
The regulars here know hyperbole when they see it, no problem.
The vast majority of people do not.
Mac, the German bug article quoted scientist whose tests showed that almost 80% of all insects in Germany had disappeared. That was followed by a quote that implied that at least all human life depends on insect life.
That was followed by you implying it was all hyperbole. And you stated “As dumb as this trucker is, he is still eligible to VOTE.”
You are eligible to vote? What the hell does that mean?
Between 50 and 90 percent of the human diet comes from flowering plants, since angiosperms include the grains wheat and rice, as well as fruits and vegetables. These food staples also make up the diets of the animals that people eat, including chickens, cows, pigs and most freshwater fish. “Most of our food is insect-dependent,” said Davidowitz.
That seems to conflict with the following:
“The most essential staple food crops on the planet, like corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and sorghum, need no insect help at all; they are wind pollinated or self pollinating. Other staple food crops, like bananas and plantains, are sterile and propagated from cuttings, requiring no pollination of any form, ever. Further, foods such as root vegetables and salad crops will produce a useful food crop without pollination, though they may not set seed; and hybrids do not even require insect pollination to produce seeds for the next generation, because hybrid production is always human pollinated. Many of the most desirable and common non-hybrid crops, like heirloom tomatoes, are self pollinated, which is what makes their cultivars stable.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees
And still, there are those who doubt that we are in the midst of ecological collapse… at a time when it could not be clearer than the nose on your face.
It has to be due either to deliberate and cultivated ignorance, an inability to comprehend the implications of the available data and analysis, or simply an ideological denial of reality due to it being incompatible with their world view!
Whatever the case may be, it does not bode well for the theory that we will somehow be able to stop this rapidly developing global train wreck!
Of course everyone can still follow Fernando Leanme’s lead and avoid the consequences of the impending economic collapse in most of the world, and apply for residence in Hungary!
Good Luck with that! 😉
I have been observing a pair of fly catchers trying to raise some young from the small gnat and fly population. They are excellent at catching bugs (the swallows gave up and left) but had to work very hard at it. I was wondering if they would have enough food, but apparently two chicks just fledged and left the nest yesterday.
A local cat got both, I found the bodies (one in the mouth of the cat).
The remaining parent was quite upset (it got one of the adults too).
We set traps for everything, including ourselves.
“the swallows gave up and left”
My (diminished) beloved swallows are really struggling right now. Reason, lack of bugs. I’ve become depressed about the situation partly because my neighbors shrug their shoulders as if to say: so what, I’m more worried about rising gas prices than I am about a few bloody birds.
In my neck of the woods, the neighbors kill the swallows and tear their nests from under their eaves, then go back to dousing their properties with herbicide and insecticide.
Several years ago I was talking to a farmer in Italy who I asked about swallows. He told me there used to be dozens of swallow nests in his barn, no bugs. Now, no swallows, no bugs. Why, because they spray with insecticides. I think it’s required under (new) EU rules. Who need swallows, and bugs, when you have all those fancy insecticides to chose from? And people wonder why I’ve become depressed lately.
At least I saw a few swallows early in the season. I have not seen one bat this year so far. I am out walking just about every night.
A local cat got both, I found the bodies (one in the mouth of the cat).
The remaining parent was quite upset (it got one of the adults too).
Blame it on the wind turbines!
What are the chances that we pass legislation that makes it illegal to have a domestic cat that is allowed outdoors, except for chip monitored licensed rodent hunting cats near grain silos? Then we start a massive extermination campaign against all feral cats!
I actually like cats but I like wild birds more.
Fred, I know where you are coming from but massive control and massive extermination of cats is not the solution. BTW, it was not a feral cat.
We need to think these things out and solve the big problems instead of reacting to the side effects and smaller problems.
The fact that there are so few birds is mostly due to other causes. If most of the bugs go, as in my area, the number of cats will not effect the flycatchers at all. But first let’s make windows more visible to birds, eliminate cars and stop poisoning birds that eat our grains before we mass slaughter the cats. That just emulates what killed so many creatures already, our penchant for mass slaughter.
The penchant for people to give more value to that which is rare or becoming rate may be one of our erroneous zones.
I think if we learn one thing from all that is happening it should be that everything is precious, whether it be biting us or irritating us or overwhelming us in numbers, all life is precious.
Thoughtful ways to protect ourselves without damaging the world and also being reasonable and not trashing whole populations just because they hurt or kill a few of us or kill a few of the “rare” species should become a way of life.
There are no pest species, no invasive species, just species. If you want to eliminate pest and invasive species, we have to start with ourselves, the number one on the list.
We need to control ourselves first and learn to live with the planet. If we can’t learn to live with the planet and all of it’s various living creatures, we should set aside large people free zones and try to minimize the destruction in the peopled zones too.
I am sure many will disagree, but we are living the results of that disagreement and are about to live it’s conclusions.
We need to control ourselves first and learn to live with the planet. If we can’t learn to live with the planet and all of it’s various living creatures, we should set aside large people free zones and try to minimize the destruction in the peopled zones too.
I believe that is the vision put forth in E.O. Wilson’s book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Earth
Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life is a 2016 book by the biologist E. O. Wilson, in which the author proposes that half of the Earth’s land should be designated a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity.[1] Wilson noted that the term “Half-Earth” was coined for this concept by Tony Hiss in his Smithsonian article “Can the World Really Set Aside Half the Planet for Wildlife?”
And also his Half Earth project
https://www.half-earthproject.org/
“Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.”
– E.O. Wilson
All life is precious, but you can’t even begin to have the conversation you want as long as there’s still people in the world not defending or protecting the sanctity of the life of the precious unborn human child. When we have people defending murdering our own unborn we will never achieve respect for other species having a right to live as they should.
The conversation has started long ago, so has action, now is the time for major action by those without pre-set rules against even starting the conversation.
Either mankind learns or the lesson will be fatal. Incompatible action on a planetary scale has severe ramifications to all life.
A 2013 study by Scott R. Loss and others of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service suggested that free-ranging domestic cats (mostly unowned) are the top human-caused threat to wildlife in the United States, killing an estimated 1.3 to 3.7 billion birds.
Whats a billion or two?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife
I like cats, but I like birds even more.
Who is behind the domestication of cats? Go to the root of problem
Global bird population was estimated to be between 200 and 400 billion birds about 10 years ago.
I would say that the loss of insect life, windows, cars, loss of habitat, deliberate and non-deliberate poisoning, hunting, toxic chemicals, loss of food sources etc. generally all pointing back to the one cause, humans, are all factors to be considered.
Loss of insect life and all of it’s ramifications may become the largest cause but then again, it may also reduce the human population.
Loss of ocean and fresh water fish is a large problem for some bird species, as is climate change.
We have a huge amount to work on, better get started on us first. The rest falls in line once we change our ways.
free-ranging domestic cats (mostly unowned) are the top human-caused threat to wildlife in the United States
Unfortunately, they survive quite well by themselves. I lived on 20 acres in Sonoma, and they were by far the largest bird predator, and none were domestic pets.
I did have a mountain lion kill two goats, and various other predators.
One does have to confront reality sometimes.
Yes, the reality that if they are surviving on their own that is nature. What would be the effect if cats were allowed to roam free as wild animals? Once one understands that, then one can see the differential caused by their domestication.
The reality is that predators reach a balance or die back.
Owls, hawks, snakes etc. eat birds. If we had not heavily skewed their populations what would that effect be on the population.
A balanced system would have a lot of things eating the cats. So again it comes back to humans.
Here I have a pack of coywolves wandering the area to balance things out. The cats either learn to hide at night or end of story. Last mountain lion I saw was 10 years ago. Bears are rare now, due to hunting and deliberate state removal. City folk move into the area, yet fear the dark and the wildlife, so they call and complain about everything.
Between cats, and crows, many areas have experienced a severe degradation in bird diversity, thanks indirectly to the disruption of things by humans.
Strangely quiet, except for the hum of motors.
What is your problem with crows?
Crows destroy the nests of any other bird in their territory. I’ve watched them destroy bluebird nests as soon as they were built, or when the eggs were just laid, in my backyard.
And around here I see them constantly harassing any hawk who comes around- they gang up and hound them until they make it very far away. They have become the rats of the sky in many parts of the country.
The basically sterilize their territory of most species of other birds.
As do cats.
We don’t need to exterminate the cats, sterilization would work.
And maybe we could sterilize the humans while we are at it.
btw- personally I have no lost love for cats.
I do find crows admirable. They will be big winners in the post-anthropocene evolutionary scramble I suspect.
Hawks eat crows and their young. Crows eat smaller birds and their young. Smaller birds eat smaller living things.
Small birds harass the hawks and vultures as a defense. Crows harass hawks and other large predators as a defense.
It’s simply the way things work. Exception is humans, their brains don’t usually work well.
Sure, but in many of the zones in the west, the crows are winning big time. Huge areas have become ‘their’ territory. They do great in areas that humans have disturbed.
I don’t know about other parts of the country, but its likely similar.
Crows are quite intelligent, have strong communication and learning capacity as well as ability to cooperate.
“They hound all sorts of raptors as well.”
Of course, better than being eaten.
Crows and bluebirds lived together for a long time. The crash in bluebird population is more attributable to the invasive house sparrow and starling.
“The population status of the Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) has been
the subject of considerable public concern. Zeleny (1977) indicated that
“During the past forty years, the population . . . may have plummeted
by as much as 90 percent” and attributed the decline to competition with
House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) and European Starlings (Sturnus
vulgaris) for nest sites, to a decline in winter food supply, human-caused
decreases in nest cavities, severe winter weather, and use of pesticides
(Zeleny 1976, 1977).”
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/wilson/v102n02/p0239-p0252.pdf
How do crows destroy bluebird nests since they are cavity nesters? It’s not physically possible unless the bluebirds chose an exposed site due to poor choice or lack of cavities (a whole nother topic). Heck, this year I had crows, red shouldered hawks, and barred owls all nesting within 200m on my property and they all got along. Crows annoy the barred owls during the day if they find their sleep spots but don’t drive them from their territory. I’ve also have had two broods of bluebirds so far this year, they aren’t even on the crows radar.
We watched them pick the nests apart. it took about 1 minute to completely destroy it.
Same thing happened the next year at the same spot.
They hound all sorts of raptors as well. The bald eagle chicks near our place in Seattle had a hell of time learning to fly.
Good for them. Bad for the others.
Like humans.
btw- their bane is the great horned owl
Just google bluebird house plans so they have a protected nest instead of ones open to predators.
Bugguy, bluebirds are generally cavity nesters therefor the young should be protected from larger birds such as crows by the small hole. Humans have removed much of their natural cavity locations so it’s best for us to build protective nest boxes for them.
A program of nest boxes for sparrow hawks (kestrels) has been in place near here for several decades and was quite successful. I have not kept up with the program lately so don’t know the effect of loss of insects on this small but colorful falcon.
I guess you guys are right.
Cats and crows. Whatever.
Bird diversity is not a big deal.
Its like insects.
I’ll stick with soil. I know much more about that.
“Today we have more soil scientists than at any other time in history. If you plot the rise of soil scientists against the loss of soil, you see that the more of them you have, the more soil you lose.” ~ Bill Mollison
An object lesson in greenwashing
“Utilities love EVs.” ~ Nick G
See also the sequel.
Vow, by Garbage, from the album, Absolute Garbage
Call it greenwashing if you want but, as highlighted in my comment below the alternative is just plain old BAU, in other words doing diddly squat! As a matter of fact, my comment below shows the alternative is actually worse than doing nothing, it’s adding fuel to the fire, so to speak,
Without following your link, it smacks of a desperate attempt by vested interests to convince the public that adopting EVs and renewable energy technology is futile. My question is , what is the alternative? Continuing BAU? You know what? Maybe I should follow your advice about running around and eating mangoes all day or as Fred has said “Inhale, exhale ……..”. I don’t see any body else that gives a damn, apart from some of the folks who post comments here. Ideas like permaculture etc. are even less likely than a future with renewables featuring what you describe as the global industrial crony-capistalist plutocracy. Have you really thought about what 99.999% of the people around you (us) are worried about? Hint: it ain’t global warming or Peak Oil.
While utilities might love EVs, they are not going to love PVs when they give the average Joe the ability to generate more electricity than they will ever need!
Islandboy’s Drama-Queen-Comment’s Response:
Conclusion – the renewable sector is a vested interest too and have a PR narrative
Oh and, again, the sequel. Quote-in-question from it, with the main point highlighted for your (in)convenience:
Stupid Girl
And just how do you suppose degrowth might be achieved on this planet full of 7 plus billion humans in any meaningful way, in the context of Peak Oil, Global Warming and the sixth mass extinction? How do you think we could demonstrate to the 7 plus billion population of Spaceship Earth that, there are not enough natural resources or waste sinks on the planet for growth to continue indefinitely? You guys are almost as crazy as I am!
Do ants do it with about as much mass than we? How? How much mass were the dinosaurs just before the KT extinction event? Did they use industrial agro and solar panels to feed themselves or drive around in electric cars to thrive? What about the ants?
Rather than ‘playing a sad violin’, going ‘ape-shit’ or doing a ‘drama-queen’, Alan, leave that to Fred and consider using your own imagination and attempting to calmly and/or rationally answer your own questions. I have limited time to spoon-feed folks like you. That is assuming you actually want to do so, given their potential inconveniences to your dream narratives.
Be your own devil’s advocate.
Then, grab some mangoes or whatever local produce have you, even some ganja if you feel it might help, and head to the beach.
Sour Times
And just how do you suppose degrowth might be achieved on this planet full of 7 plus billion humans in any meaningful way, in the context of Peak Oil, Global Warming and the sixth mass extinction?
Easy!
Just continue with BAU and you will practically guarantee a collapse of global industrial civilization, and consequently a massive population crash and die off in the not too distant future.
Sometimes I wonder if that might actually be the plan?!
Cheers!
Yep, always looks the greatest just before it gets bad.
“Their just magnificent”
” Oh yeah, ooooh, aaawwww. That’s how it always starts”
“Later there’s running, and screaming”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd30dz17Zx8
I think Fred has nailed it, more so than some other people. Though to honest, if I understand Ron correctly the outcome is likely to be the same but, there is no plan. That’s just the way it is.
Sometimes I wonder if that might actually be the plan?!
Hint: We are not dealing with the brightest porch lights on the block.
for the record islandboy, we are at 7.7B now, an expected to reach 8B in 2023.
India will be passing China soon.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
I was out most of yesterday and spent some time at a high school graduation where the Minister of Science, Energy and Technology gave a brief address, in which she noted that Kingston, Jamaica experienced a record high temperature of 39.1 °C /102 °F< and that the country and the world would be expecting the graduates to use their intellect and creativity to come up with solutions to the climate change dilemma. The event was held in the school’s auditorium, a steel framed building with open sides at the floor level and corrugated metal siding around the elevated inside balcony and a corrugated metal roof. The school’s response to the heat was to hire two mobile air conditioning powered by two diesel generators, one of which was a 125 kVA. I was struck by the futility of trying to reduce the temperature of an open sided building while causing more emissions of the type that caused the heat in the first place.
It is even worse at the oldest local university, the Jamaica campus of the University of the West Indies (colloquially referred to as UWI, pronounced “you wi”). They have a large tent, probably about 100 ft. x 50 ft. (30×15 metre) that they use as a temporary building for various events and as an examination hall. I have counted 12 mobile air conditioners (3 ton?) clustered around it to cool the interior, all being powered by one or more diesel generators. This is a university that has among it’s staff a Nobel laureate, Professor Emeritus Anthony Chen. Chen is an Atmospheric Physicist who was a member of the Team which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for efforts made to increase and disseminate greater knowledge of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change. This same university is heralding as one of it’s achievements, the recent building of a co-generation plant, fueled by “freedom gas” (LNG), as an effort to reduce the university’s electricity costs. This in an environment where most of the electricity is used for air conditioning and lighting, a significant amount of which is used during the day time, at the same time that the average solar resource varies from 4.25 kWh/m²/day in December to 6.64 kWh/m²/day in June and July. For comparison, Barstow, California receives between 2.6 and 7.96 kWh/m²/day while Freiburg, Germany receives between 0.81 and 5.28 kWh/m²/day.
Am I wrong in thinking that I live in a crazy world?
“Am I wrong in thinking that I live in a crazy world?”
I have known human society was insane since I was in grade school. Nothing has changed that determination.
Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein (2019 Remix)
You Tube video, 12:27 duration
Specifically, it was this part (5:00 to 5:25) that your comment made me recall.
Here’s a pic of the 200 ft. by 100 ft. tent with the twelve air-conditioning units clustered around it, mentioned in my comment above.
And here’s the co-gen plant with the five NG fueled engines to the south west of the roof in the center. Under the roof of that structure is a tank with the name “New Fortress Energy” on it. Freedom Gas at work! 😉
solar pairs up with heat pumps very well.
On the island you could use the morning electricity to charge a battery, heat water, make ice, cool the frig,
and switch to air cooling in the afternoon.
Takes a money investment, and a good local heat pump supplier shop, but its a pretty stable scenario.
I know this! It’s the lazy thinking of the administration at the UWI that bothers me!
The Natural Hammer of Natural Cooling Microclimates and Rational Design
Even with the open sides, how appropriate are those kinds of buildings for that kind of climate and locale? Metal has a fair bit of embedded energy in it and I wonder how it and the building generally fares in the sun and if the effect might be close to an oven in some cases. Any concrete?
What do you think of the examples below/attached?
WRT the Google/satellite images, they seem to suggest the kind of (car-centric) urban environments that, for example, James Howard Kunstler might suggest are, to paraphrase, ‘not worth caring about’.
Trees and foliage help create cooling microclimates, among other perks, naturally, such as helping to reduce the, to be charitable, ‘need’, for industrial cruft like photovoltaic solar panels and heat pumps.
It is said that, if one has a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Ok, so then make nature the ‘hammer’.
I hope you have contacted her to point out the dichotomy and suggested that this may be resolved by putting solar panels over the roof, which would also cool the roof, and using that electricity to run a series of a/c units, mounted near the roof, to rain cool air down onto the audience at no further cost after the installation, oh, other than maintenance. Also pointing out the savings in rental of large a/c units and the supply of fuel.
NAOM
MELTED ALASKA SEA ICE ALARMS COAST RESIDENTS
“The warmth is weeks ahead of schedule and part of a “positive feedback loop” compounded by climate change. Rising ocean temperatures have led to less sea ice, which leads to warmer ocean temperatures. The last five years have produced the warmest sea-surface temperatures on record in the region, contributing to record low sea-ice levels. The waters are warmer than last year at this time, and that was an extremely warm year.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-alaska-sea-ice-alarms-coast.html
Meanwhile,
EU-MERCOSUR TRADE DEAL WILL DRIVE AMAZON DEFORESTATION
Deforestation of the Amazon has surged since Bolsonaro took office, with his pro-business stance emboldening loggers, farmers and miners to clear land. Official data shows the Brazilian Amazon lost 739 square kilometres of tree cover in May – a record high for that month.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/07/01/eu-mercosur-trade-deal-will-drive-amazon-deforestation-warns-ex-minister/
MELTED ALASKA SEA ICE ALARMS COAST RESIDENTS
https://kaichun.artstation.com/projects/JLAya
.
What a difference a century can make, even less than a century.
The 1920’s and 30’s the world was a real mix of transport and technology. Some of the world was highly industrialized, some was very natural and still very wild.
Transportation Here and There (1930s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3dIDX7no4c
Sulzer in the 1930s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhzOYzvrq0&t=4s
But always there were people running things, doing the work or using machines to do the job.
Where are the people?
China Innovation! Watch How China’s Biggest Automated Container Terminals Operate Automatically
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtGDRhXWvng
If you think that renewable energy has a chance and won’t just get sucked into the every rising storm of 21st century development and more fossil burning, well think again. Where will the vast amount of energy come from to build, maintain and use all this infrastructure?
The Rise of China’s High-Speed Railway Mega Projects Expanding Worldwide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBAeeUJFuN0
One Belt One Road – Xi Jinping’s Green Vision?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnCtjagr3Cc
The World’s Future MEGAPROJECTS: 2019-2040’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQ874ZuIno
Current pledges to phase out coal power are critically insufficient to slow climate change
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/cuot-cpt062719.php
From your link:
“Analysis led by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in Nature Climate Change, shows that members mainly pledge to close older plants near the end of their lifetimes, resulting in limited emissions reductions.”
Today the local daily paper here has an article about how the Chinese companies are building hundreds of new coal plants in developing countries; they are said to be more polluting than the plants that are built in China. There is certainly a need in Africa to have electricity but at the same time the countries are locking themselves to using lots of coal for 50 years or more. Chinese have this pollution problem so they are trying to reduce that – probably would be bad for the Party if more and more people would get sick or die from the pollution…. and seems that it does not matter in Africa.
For example a chinese company won a contract to build a 6,600 MW coal power plant in Egypt. China is funding the project…
Indeed. that Egyptian plant will be huge.
Here is global mapping display on coal capacity that is very informative-
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
I guess its not sunny enough in Egypt for solar.
That, or maybe not enough vacant land.
Sad to see how far the once mighty Egyptian civilization has fallen…
They used to worship the Sun God, RA! 😉
.
“They used to worship the Sun God, RA!”
Not many people know this, but his full name was RAT.
Frank Shuman’s Solar Arabian Dream
On a clear, blazing hot day in June of 1913, the cream of British colonial society in Egypt—including journalists, ranking civil servants, and diplomats—gathered in Maadi, a small farming village on the banks of the Nile several miles south of Cairo, for the grand opening of a most unusual irrigation plant. Sipping champagne and snacking on cheese and caviar, mustachioed men in Panama hats and pith helmets and elegant ladies carrying parasols strolled the grounds, marveling at the long, gleaming rows of trough-shaped mirrors concentrating sunlight onto cast-iron boilers running the length of each trough. Heated to just more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit, water in the boilers turned to low-pressure steam to drive a specially designed, 75 horsepower engine. As if by magic, running on nothing more than sunlight, the engine pumped thousands of gallons of water from the Nile, saturating the arid landscape.
https://renewablebook.wordpress.com/chapter-excerpts/350-2/
All life on Earth, in one staggering chart
Scientists estimated the mass of all life. It’s mind boggling.
And why would that be? Technofootprint perhaps? A certain, say, procedural non-integrative detachment from nature? Working against it, rather than with?
How are electric cars and photovolataic panels integrative/holistic with nature? Or are they antagonistic? Are some of us approaching them from a kind of ‘monocultural’ and/or detached standpoint? I think so. It is not that we need electric cars or an electricity-powered notion of ‘civilization’ to survive/thrive, but that we need to be integrative to/supportive of nature to survive/thrive:
That’s priority number one.
So too many of us are completely missing the point.
I found this interesting:
It’s Crazy The Lengths Some Will Go To Disparage EVs
Some see EV’s as just a continuation of BAU which, global warming aside, was already destroying the environment and many species. Their point is valid. I see EV’s and renewables as merely a first step toward a better society that goes beyond them. A first step toward a society that actually works.
Sadly, we humans may not ever get the chance to take those next steps since we did not put on the brake when the warnings about carbon burn first came out, we accelerated.
Some mutations just don’t work out in the long run.
There is no definition of ‘a better society’ that I’m aware of that necessarily has to include electric cars and panels. That just sounds like so much indoctrination.
Electric cars and panels seem mostly only about ‘treating’ the disasters on the planet inflicted by other forms of technology, and as such, miss the point.
‘A better society’ is one that actually works on and with the living planet, rather than for the purpose of throwing up techno-fixes; techno-fixes to problems from other techno-fixes; and techno-fixes to problems that don’t exist.
Natural Detractors
Road Kill
Another of both EV’s and ICEV’s detractors is road kill. Some species of road kill are endangered or close.
Attached image is of black panther road kill. For other examples, please select Road Kill link above.
CALIFORNIA WAS WARNED ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE 30 YEARS AGO—NOW IT’S FEELING THE EFFECTS
If anything, the report underestimated the degree to which climate impacts are interrelated. For instance, in 1989, few foresaw that wildfire risk would cause utilities to consider cutting power to thousands of residents, jeopardizing the reliability of electricity.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-california-climate-years-agonow-effects.html
Other than the EV crowd, is anyone surprised?
‘COMMITTED’ CO2 EMISSIONS JEOPARDIZE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE GOALS
“The number of fossil fuel-burning power plants and vehicles in the world has increased dramatically in the past decade, spurred by rapid economic and industrial development in places such as China and India. Meanwhile, the average age of infrastructure in developed countries has decreased. For example, old coal power plants in the U.S. have been supplanted by new natural gas ones. According to the study, emissions from existing energy infrastructure take up the entire carbon budget to limit mean warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and close to two-thirds of the budget to keep warming to under 2 C over the next three decades.”
Meanwhile, global human population growth currently amounts to around 83 million annually. But that’s OK. God told us: “Be ye fruitful, and multiply.” So we’re only doing our duty, pure and simple.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-committed-co2-emissions-jeopardize-international.html
2C limit? Carbon budget? Wow, people still selling that snake oil?
We passed our carbon budget over 40 years ago. Only thing that was holding back the fast heating was all the aerosol pollution and now it is being held back too but the heating is even greater.
Maybe people will get this picture. It’s symbolic with potential reality thrown in.
Enjoy the warmth and the delusions.
Related to Image: In the Putin Interviews, a new series beginning soon on Showtime, Oliver Stone asks Vladimir Putin if he’s ever seen Dr. Strangelove. Putin hasn’t. So, Stone sits him down and shows it to him.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/06/09/watching-putin-watch-dr-strangelove/
Dr. Strangelove is one of the all time classics, and unfortunately becoming even more relevant.
Central planning FAIL Soviet-scale or just plain malice? Harvest Solar Power to remove solar gain in remote buildings due to failure to design the roofs for shade or provide distributed onsite PV power. Mega Death when the poles are knocked down in the next conflict. The Grid is Target #1 in any conflict. How would you like your mammals toasted?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-01/uae-switches-worlds-largest-solar-farm
Sunfarts: IIRC – The Grid Doomsday report should have hit POTUS Desk Today. Who U going to call anyway?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-coordinating-national-resilience-electromagnetic-pulses/
BackStep: Utility owned Centralized PV will be priority dispatched before Future Grid Tied Distributed Rooftop PV, So the Brains in Washington make sure the Grid can’t handle more Distributed PV.
Can you imagine an Internet where you can receive but not send an email?
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/senate-passes-cybersecurity-bill-to-decrease-grid-digitization-move-toward/557959/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202019-07-01%20Utility%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:21682%5D&utm_term=Utility%20Dive
OMG: F#cking Dumber than Dog Squeeze: “The increase in distributed energy resources can serve load more efficiently, but also offers potential attackers more potential entry points.”
This explains Huawei’s (#1 in PV Inverters on the Planet) Exit from the US Solar Market.
A small dose of reality to go with your morning coffee.
GLOBAL BOOM IN NATURAL GAS UNDERMINING CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION
“There are projects in development globally that by 2030 would increase natural gas supply to 806 million tonnes above what they are now. Over one-third of that development, 35 per cent, is in Canada. Only the US, at 39 per cent, has more new natural gas exports in the works…
Natural gas, which emits about half the greenhouse gases as coal when burned, has been put up as an alternative to produce electricity with fewer emissions. But the fugitive release of methane — such as small leaks — at all stages of gas extraction and delivery contradicts that idea. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, with about 30 times the warming effect; it is also the main component of natural gas and is responsible for one-quarter of the global warming the world has seen to date.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/global-boom-in-natural-gas-is-undermining-climate-change-action-report-1.4490151
Meanwhile,
‘PRECIPITOUS’ FALL IN ANTARCTIC SEA ICE SINCE 2014 REVEALED
“The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic. The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years. The cause of the sharp Antarctic losses is unknown and only time will tell whether the ice recovers or continues to decline.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/precipitous-fall-in-antarctic-sea-ice-revealed
Doug, in reply to both of your above posts…
Inhale, Exhale and have a double espresso!
Cheers!
A report supporting that information Doug is here on Carbon Brief (looks to be a great source of info)-
https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-bp-data-reveals-record-co2-emissions-in-2018-driven-by-surging-use-of-gas
Thanks for the link. Nice transparency coming from a major FF company, it has to be said.
If that Antarctica trend continues, it is pretty frightening to put it lightly.
Man reading those two articles I have a hypothesis.
The human species will be solely responsible for putting the earth into the hothouse climate again.
Oddly enough possibly eventually putting the earth into a fossil fuel producing period.
Maybe that’s why Gaia evolved us ehh!
Once the task is the done our species will most likely be extinct.
If it’s because of the human species, then why are temperatures rising on the other planets as well? Especially look to Mars. I doubt it’s to many Martians using fossil fuel resources.
You are right according to NASA, mars seems to be going through an integracial period, not sure about the other planets as data from their climate system is very poor at best, (note i said climate which would entail a minimum of 30 years of consistent data which we don’t really have).
The reasons for Mars warming are largely unknown and much more data is needed to find the actual cause(s). It could be a mixture of things, such as the change in the planets albedo or extreme Milankovitch cycles, a lot of unknowns here to warrant a direct correlation between us and mars in my opinion.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/marswarming.html
What is your answer? I suppose if one was to correlate these events, the common factor would be the sun, is that the position you hold ? That the sun is directly responsible of the warming observed?
Yup, that’s the fundamental difference between the true scientists and the meteorologists. True scientists understand what the solar system is all about to see the real cause of everything, the sun. Meteorologists try to guess with climate charts and hypothesis and use to much tax money.
I am sorry i don’t quite agree.
Meteorologists aren’t climate scientists. Meteorologists give weather forecasts and near term predictions relating to weather. The science is quite robust as weather predictions with all the non-linear components are more often than not accurate.
Climate science is another ballgame. The science is much more in depth and the complexity is of a much higher degree, where you are looking at long-term trends and involving other large multi-disciplinary branches of science such is geology, paleontology, astronomy, and of course deducing a paleoclimate based on all the fields of evidence and how it compares and relates to the Anthropocene.
Also the solar irradiance charts would disagree with your correlation. See below, not to mention the extremely important factor of global dimming, relating to the earth directly.
Both astrophysicists (specifically planetary scientists) and the majority of meteorologists get their funding from tax payer money (either directly or indirectly) and private corps to a lesser extent. So your attempt of making climate change a political ideologue is utterly wrong and dangerous.
As I’ve said before, vanity branches of science. That’s the difference you’re describing.
Did your parents drop you on your head accidentally when you were little or did they do it on purpose?!
Judging from the name, it may be fetal alcohol syndrome.
On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 F (minus 60 C). In winter, near the poles it gets down to minus 195 F (minus 125 C). The average temperature on Venus is 864 F (462 degrees C). Martians used up their fossil fuels a long time ago and live in caves now. Venus is inhabited by savage creatures. Does that answer your question Earthling?
Is this an audition for a stand up routine?
Why do we think oil companies run so many “green” advertisements touting all the benefits of natural gas over traditional sources like coal? They want to monopolize the market for natural gas because they know the oil business is probably going to go away sooner or later. If they can start replacing that with a more lucrative natural gas business, the situation will be alright. Meanwhile, the oil companies can let the public know they will still have an essential role to play in energy because the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. There’s also money to make by selling natural gas “electric peaking units” to electric companies.
How the UK has dramatically changed its electricity source mix in one decade-
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/how-uk-transformed-electricity-supply-decade/#
example- coal contribution 34% in 2008, 11% in 2018
-solar up to 11%, despite the clouds
A recent follow up on Ron post.
‘A man-made crisis’: As a major Indian city runs out of water, 9 million people pray for rain
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/a-man-made-crisis-as-a-major-indian-city-runs-out-of-water-9-million-people-pray-for-rain-20190702-p523ig.html
Why India’s Chennai has run out of water
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/07/why-indias-chennai-has-run-out-of-water.html
The Manali marshlands were drained in the 1960s for Tamil Nadu’s largest petrochemical refinery. Electricity for the city comes from a cluster of power plants built on the Ennore Creek, a tidal wetland that has been converted into a dump for coal-ash
Fascinating that they refuse to recycle waste water. Cities like Las Vegas are willing to do it, but so many places refuse to even consider it…
Unless properly treated, recycled waste water is deadly to plants. See that youtube video I posted recently.
Yes, recycled waste water has to be properly treated. That’s what Las Vegas does. Just to be clear, I’m talking about water that has been treated to the point that it’s potable, not just grey water for agricultural or industrial uses.
Chennai is considering desalination, which is likely to be substantially more expensive. So odd.
Finalliy, of course, we can be sure than ag and industrial consumers get vast amounts of free water, which is mostly wasted…
Its not just Spain:
CZECH REPUBLIC, LITHUANIA SEE HOTTEST JUNE ON RECORD
“Last week much of Europe sweltered in an early summer blast of scorching temperatures, as scientists warn that global warming linked to human fossil fuel use could make such heatwaves more frequent.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-czech-republic-lithuania-hottest-june.html
This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
BONN CLIMATE TALKS END WITH SAUDIS AND BRAZIL DEFIANT
“Talks wrapped up on Thursday evening in Bonn, with diplomats defiantly standing up for the scientific community against Saudi Arabia – but the petrostate won the day…Meanwhile Germany shattered its all-time heat record for June as parties sat in air-conditioned rooms debating how to receive the best available science on climate change.”
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/06/27/bonn-climate-talks-end-saudis-brazil-defiant/
I’m Brazilian by birth so I can say this. Brazil under Bolsonaro has turned into a rogue state!
Late stage capitalism was always going to be messy.
But this idiot is taking a big chunk of the planet to the trash.
Bolsonaro and Brazil’s Struggle for Truth and Memory
https://youtu.be/TrUXs-5Ins4
Yeah! I lived through all that shit. Bolsonaro wants to bring that repressive regime back with the help of people like Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and fascists like Steve Bannon. Fuck all of them and anyone who supports them!
Lots of talk about the fate of the Amazon, one report talks about a football field a minute being lost. Same for forests all over the world. Trees supply our atmosphere with oxygen. Have there been any studies as to the effect of all this forest loss on atmospheric oxygen levels and projections into the future?
NAOM
Have there been any studies as to the effect of all this forest loss on atmospheric oxygen levels and projections into the future?
The rain forests do produce a significant portion of our O2 but they are much more important as providers of ecosystem services and wild life habitat. The largest percentage of O2 is probably produced in the oceans by marine phytoplankton. In any case there have been studies but it is a difficult number to pin down.
https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-oxygen
Scientists believe that phytoplankton contribute between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. They aren’t sure because it’s a tough thing to calculate. In the lab, scientists can determine how much oxygen is produced by a single phytoplankton cell. The hard part is figuring out the total number of these microscopic plants throughout Earth’s oceans. Phytoplankton wax and wane with the seasons. Phytoplankton blooms happen in spring when there’s more available light and nutrients.
In any case we need to do everything in our power to protect rain forests and marine ecosystems as well! BTW, the bad news is ocean acidification negatively impacts Phytoplankton in a number of ways.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160712094119.htm
Thanks for those. Let’s kill off all the plankton and all the trees then we won’t need to worry about the insects or anything else for that matter, we’ll have suffocated. Oh, no retreating to cooler, higher altitudes as the reduction in O2 will be felt more as you go higher.
NAOM
Global boom in natural gas is undermining climate change action: report
…states there are projects in development globally that by 2030 would increase natural gas supply to 806 million tonnes above what they are now.
https://globalenergymonitor.org/new-gas-boom/
Gas is the new Coal
https://theduran.com/killing-nuclear-will-kill-your-green-economy/
My Comment:
NUCLEAR decommissioning of power reactors will not happen. GOODBYE carbon basted units The political apes will rad the planet to run their hot tubs. Adm Rickover: ‘Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible’
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/30/us/excerpts-from-farewell-testimony-by-rickover-to-congress.html
Tesla results at link below
https://ir.tesla.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tesla-q2-2019-vehicle-production-deliveries
For 2019Q2 87k cars produced, and 95,200 cars delivered (for Model 3 72.5k produced and 77.5k delivered), in Q1 it was 59k M3 deliveries so 136.5k M3 deliveries Worldwide in 2019, for US Model 3 sales Inside EVs estimates 66,975 Model 3 cars were delivered to customers in 2019. If we look at sales in the US from Jan to May 2019 for cars in the same class as the Tesla Model 3 (small and Medium Luxury cars), the Model 3 outsells all other cars from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, and Volvo. It also beats all the subcompact, compact, and medium size luxury SUVs. Though the Lexus RX is close at 40k vs 46k for the Tesla Model 3. When the Model Y starts being produced (a small SUV for about 40k), it may be a big problem for many car manufacturers. The federal tax rebate decreases to 1875 on July 1 and goes to zero on Jan 1 for Tesla. This may affect sales going forward.
The guidance for 2019 deliveries is 360k to 400k.
To hit the low end of this range Tesla would need to deliver 101k on average each quarter in Q3 and Q4. It will continue to be a challenge to hit these goals unless the Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai starts to produce cars in Q4, no doubt that will be a challenge as well.
Nice! EPS is creeping up on zero. Gotta love American stick-to-it-ness!
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/pe-ratio
How long was that the case for Amazon? How long did Toyota lose money on the Prius?
How balls deep are you in TESLA stock?
“Ad hominem (Latin for “to the person”[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
What the Ad Hominem Fallacy Isn’t
https://youtu.be/eyBBMLPnNcQ
How many shares are you short on Tesla? You seem to have a focus on weaving them into most of your comments. Is there a particular reason for this?
I believe it’s note worthy.
“Gotta love American stick-to-it-ness!”, as probably best exemplified by the current ongoing efforts to extract LTO using fracking! At least with Tesla the money is not going up in smoke or down a deep “rabbit hole”. Tesla doesn’t even spend money on advertising so, all the money is going into expanding the charging network and manufacturing capabilities with some going into battery cell and product R&D.
‘FOOTBALL PITCH’ OF AMAZON FOREST LOST EVERY MINUTE
The rate of loss has accelerated as Brazil’s new right-wing president favors development over conservation. The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming. A senior Brazilian official, speaking anonymously, told us his government was encouraging deforestation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48827490
Gone by 2040.
Why don’t they want our garbage anymore? Sorry, our waste.
US TOP OF THE GARBAGE PILE IN GLOBAL WASTE CRISIS
“The world produces 2.1bn tonnes of this rubbish every year, only 16% is recycled while 46% is disposed of unsustainably.”
“A lot of US waste – now that it can’t get shipped to China – is just getting burnt, there just isn’t the investment in place in infrastructure to deal with this problem.”
The banning of waste imports in China, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia is changing the global dynamic. There have been tensions between the government of the Philippines which sent back 69 shipping containers containing waste to Canada.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48838699
Yeah, its just weather but……..
BAKED ALASKA: RECORD HEAT FUELS WILDFIRES
Capital Anchorage sees 80F weather with nearly 120 fires blazing across the state. The weather is forecasted to heat up further through and after the Fourth of July, with temperatures expected to climb to nearly 90F in Fairbanks and Anchorage over the weekend. If the forecasts are correct, the state could set several new local heat records before the week is out. Alaska’s heating has a cascading effect. As ocean temperatures rise, the coasts heat up, with potentially catastrophic consequences on land and in the water. And all that local heat contributes to faster planet-wide warming.
Alaska is trapped in a kind of hot feedback loop, as the arctic is heating up much faster than the rest of the planet. Ocean surface temperatures upwards of 10F hotter than average have helped to warm up the state’s coasts. When Bering and Chukchi sea ice collapsed and melted months earlier than normal this spring, the University of Alaska climate specialist Rick Thoman characterized the water as “baking”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/02/alaska-heat-wildfires-climate-change
Meanwhile,
CARBON FROM THAWING PERMAFROST IS RELEASED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE AT HIGHER RATES THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
“Not only is carbon being lost through greenhouse gases directly to the atmosphere but also dissolved in waters that flow through the soil and likely carried carbon into streams, leaves and rivers.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-scientists-carbon-permafrost-atmosphere-higher.html
E DougL,
“Capital Anchorage”?
—
I saw a note yesterday that there’s been more acreage burned in Alaska so far this year than was burned in 2018.
“Capital Anchorage”? LOL Take it up with the author(s) if you disagree. 😉
A lot of people seem to believe that Tesla is on the verge of bankruptcy.
I haven’t seen any thing to that effect that seems convincing to me.
Perhaps somebody who is more into the stock market can explain to me how a company in trouble that’s worth eighty percent or more of what Ford is worth, while producing a very minor fraction of what Ford produces, is in danger of going broke in the near term.
I can see that a merger might be good with a company with lots of cash, or that Tesla for some reason would not be able to raise enough money to both pay debts and continue to expand, but it in that case, I think that there are LOTS of people out there, with LOTS of money, who would rush in to buy Tesla stock, and put money into the company, if the price of Tesla stock drops way off from current levels.
What I’m saying is that I can’t see anything basically wrong at Tesla, except the need for lots more cash to continue expansion. I believe that cash will be available, when and if it’s really needed, because the return on it may be quite substantial, if it gets to the point somebody can buy into Tesla as a business partner, or even pull off a hostile takeover.
And while Elon Musk has said some things, and maybe done some things, recently, that he should have thought thru more carefully, I can’t see that anybody else in the entire world could hope to lead the company better than he has, and is and will very likely to continue to do.
He is in my estimation worth billions, and I mean BILLIONS, in and of himself, as the very personification of the company and of the future of the automobile and energy industry. My take is that Musk IS Tesla, and Tesla is Musk.
OFM,
The Model 3 is a very nice car. Our nice car before we got th m3 last Oct was a 2013 camry hybrid xle. Now when I drive the camry it seems like a pos. Maybe it is just the difference of a new car. I did get the Camry new, it has about 80k, but I am sure it was never as nice as the Tesla. It was also quite a bit cheaper, about 22.5k cheaper.
Here’s a harbinger of what is probably in store for coal fired electricity plants in the US, at least in the desert southwest:
PNM proposes gas, solar+storage mix as cheapest option to replace San Juan coal plant
Dive Brief:
One wonders if Public Service Company of New Mexico has not heard about the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) deal with 8Minute Energy that Hickory brought to our attention further up. Here’s Utility Dive’s take on that story:
Los Angeles solicits record solar + storage deal at 1.997/1.3-cents kWh
Dive Brief:
Tony Seba has said in at least one of his more recent presentations that a power company executive had opined that there was a possibility that no new gas peakers of the type that PNM is contemplating will ever be built. With battery costs continuing to fall, it will be interesting to see what the least cost options will be as we get closer to 2023.
Anybody and Everybody,
What’s your opinion?
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/30/737476633/what-just-happened-also-occurred-before-the-last-7-u-s-recessions-reason-to-worr?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Personally I think we are past due for a serious stock market correction, etc.
I also think that we are now far enough along in the wind and solar energy industries that an economic down turn won’t do much harm, long term, to these industries. They’re competing now on actual prices head to head, with the fossil fuel boys, and winning some rounds, if not the fight, just yet.
I agree OFM.
We are long overdue for a recession, and market correction. These things happen, but haven’t for a long time.
I hope it starts in time to sink trump deep. Such a disgrace for this country.
Regarding solar and wind, yes one could argue the time for subsidies is over. But I’d like to see them renewed for 5 years (equal to the 1st term of President Harris), at least.
I think the government could do a lot more to encourage the transition process, and it will be even more important in a recession. Especially along the lines of supportive infrastructure.
If a downturn is severe, all new projects can grind to a halt.
That would be bad news.
The stock market has been soaring, but during and since the last recession people have not been doing that well. Lower pay in many areas and lack of increases in other has made for a population that is right on the edge, ready to tumble into the economic abyss.
This is only a survey but if it is near the reality a recession will agains be devastating to many.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/58-americans-less-1-000-090000503.html
June 2019 hottest ever recorded on Earth – “Temperature records haven’t just been broken. They have been obliterated.”
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/07/june-2019-hottest-ever-recorded-on-earth-temperature-records-havent-just-been-broken-they-have-been-obliterated.html
Meanwhile,
AIR CONDITIONING EMERGES AS ONE OF THE KEY DRIVERS OF GLOBAL ELECTRICITY-DEMAND GROWTH
“The growing use of air conditioners in homes and offices around the world will be one of the top drivers of global electricity demand over the next three decades, according to new analysis by the International Global energy demand from air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050, requiring new electricity capacity the equivalent to the combined electricity capacity of the United States, the EU and Japan today. The global stock of air conditioners in buildings will grow to 5.6 billion by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today – which amounts to 10 new ACs sold every second for the next 30 years, according to the report.”
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/may/air-conditioning-use-emerges-as-one-of-the-key-drivers-of-global-electricity-dema.html
AIR CONDITIONING EMERGES AS ONE OF THE KEY DRIVERS OF GLOBAL ELECTRICITY-DEMAND GROWTH
Decentralized solar PV and the evolution of HVAC and heat pump technology are a big part of the solution to the electricity demand growth part of the equation with regards AC. Having said that, as we all know that is but a tiny part of a much bigger problem…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=zWt67OStkXk
Solar Hybrid Air Conditioner Energy Monitoring (HD)
Note: Generally speaking AC is most needed and used when the sun is shining.
The electricity demand component should be a non issue if we disconnect it from centralized grids!
Of course that doesn’t help with this:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/03/asia/india-heat-wave-survival-hnk-intl/index.html
In June, Delhi hit temperatures of 48 degrees Celsius (118 Fahrenheit), the highest ever recorded in that month. West of the capital, Churu in Rajasthan nearly broke the country’s heat record with a high of 50.6 Celsius (123 Fahrenheit).
India’s poorest state, Bihar, closed all schools, colleges and coaching centers for five days after severe heat killed more than 100 people. The closures were accompanied by warnings to stay indoors during the hottest part of the day, an unrealistic order for millions of people who needed to work outdoors to earn money.
And forecasters believe it’s only going to get worse.
“In a nutshell, future heatwaves are likely to engulf in the whole of India,” said AK Sahai and Sushmita Joseph, of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, in Pune in an email.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/8/e1603322.full.pdf
Deadly heat waves projected in the densely populated agricultural regions of South Asia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4nud3-ncRI
Fatal Wetbulb Temperatures Reached at Pakistan-India Border
Paul Beckwith
Cheers!
Just what is wet bulb temp?-
“A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it”
Its actually a somewhat complicated/specific data derivation. Here is the NOAA prototype page-
WetBulb Globe Temperature (Prototype-Under Development. Not to be used for operational use)
https://www.weather.gov/tsa/wbgt
“Just what is wet bulb temp?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature
My current use of electricity precludes solar, I just don’t use enough to get payback unless CFE switches to net billing. I can see that things will get warmer, in a few years, and I will need air conditioning. At that point I will be installing both.
NAOM
Amazing Crash Tests for the M III speak for themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMiZa3HgRVE
Happy Aphelion Day! Earth is farther from the sun today (July 4) than at any other time of the year. The exact moment of aphelion happens at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT), when Earth will be 94,511,180 miles (152.1 million kilometers) away from the sun. That’s more than 1.5 million miles (2.5 million km) farther than the planet’s average distance of about 93 million miles (150 million km) — and 3 million miles (5 million km) farther away than it is at perihelion, or the shortest distance from the sun, which happened on Jan. 3.
Doug, do those dates wander much or are they relatively fixed.
NAOM
So today we get aphelion,burgers,BBQ,hot dog contests,M1 Abrams and a F-35 flyover. The best day ever! 😀 ?? God Bless America.
Did you watch the flyovers? So very cool, especially the Osprays and Blue Angels. You could smell the smoke, AKA freedom, throughout the district!
Yeah they were taking off and landing on those airports built before the Revolutionary War! Truly amazing!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/05/flight-of-fancy-trump-claims-1775-revolutionary-army-took-over-airports
Flight of fancy: Trump claims 1775 revolutionary army ‘took over airports’
Historical blunder in July 4th speech compounded by mixing up war of 1812 with war of independence
“Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory.”
Donald J. Trump
The stupidest US President ever to have held office!
Not that Trump supporters are smart enough to know that none of that happened…
Just to remind you all, that humanity hasn’t even started to reduce it’s dependence on fossil fuels. Last year humanity burned more FFs than in any year before. Your talk is pure theory not backed by reality. Reality is that we burn more every year, just like before. It will not change untill economic collapse. Anyone who says otherwise is delusional.
It will not change until the Fossil Fuel industries collapse.
There, fixed that.
Rate of growth has slowed. It will continue as we approach peak fossil fuel.
We have a problem. A 10X problem.
Gas 2018 Analysis and forecasts to 2023
https://www.iea.org/gas2018/
On a good note
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions
NAOM
Yeah, I almost can’t stand it there is so much good news!
https://www.newscientist.com/article/9000-9000-km-belt-of-seaweed-spanning-the-atlantic-threatens-marine-life/
9000 km belt of seaweed spanning the Atlantic threatens marine life
Wang found that the annual blooms seen almost every year from 2011 aligned with nutrient-rich discharge flowing out from the Amazon River during summer and spring, and winter upwelling near the West African coast that brings nutrient-rich deeper water into shallower depths.
Increasing deforestation and fertiliser use in Brazil over recent years has enriched the nutrients flowing from the Amazon and helped the algae bloom, wrote Wang.
With few signs that is slowing, these algal blooms are likely to be the new normal, says Wang.
Thank you President Bolsonaro for being such a wonderful steward of the Amazonian environment!
What we need to do is find a use for that stuff and harvest it before it reaches the beaches and reefs. Try and make the best of a bad deal.
On thing I have been thinking about is rising sea temperatures in our bay. It’s a major Humpback whale breeding ground. Lots of safe feeding to mate and give birth (provided the Orcas haven’t followed them), plenty of Anchovies and Tuna. The whales wait outside the bay until the waters cool before moving in. What will happen if the waters do not get cold enough?
NAOM
What we need to do is find a use for that stuff and harvest it before it reaches the beaches and reefs. Try and make the best of a bad deal.
What we need to do is stop cutting down the Amazonian rain forest to create soy plantations and cattle ranches! Plus we need to try and convict a bunch of people for crimes against humanity!
No, I’m not holding my breath!
Yeah, that as well but if the stuff is there we need to catch it and make use of it before it reaches the coast.
NAOM
Tomorrow belongs to me?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tUctFu46_c