Open Thread, Non Oil

Ron Patterson Uncategorized

Hi Folks, I had expected the Texas RRC data today but it did not happen. It will likely be here Monday or Tuesday at the latest. So I am continuing the experiment started by Dennis about a week or so ago.  I am opening two threads, one oil and gas, the other for other subjects including climate change or any other significant thing related to the general subjects covered by this blog.

82 thoughts to “Open Thread, Non Oil”

  1. Yair . . .
    Good one Ron!
    I for one like the two thread format.
    The oil stuff I’ll leave to the experts but it is nice to have a place to post real world results and experiences with alternative systems, engines, gadgets and so on with getting up the nose of folks who come here for the oily bits.
    I appreciate the time and effort you put into this site and trust all is going well with your shift to different climes.
    Cheers

  2. Welp. Because we often discuss overshoot and so on here, here’s some more evidence for you:

    https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/living-blue-planet-report-2015

    Just for the record, that’s fish, fowl, insects and land animals whose numbers have all declined by about 1/2 in the last 40 years or the length of time I’ve been alive.

    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0714/240714_invertebrate-numbers

    http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/

    It’s a great world isn’t it?

    Welp. On the upside, the number of plants in the world (trees anyways) is waaaay higher than our original estimates so that’s good. http://www.nature.com/news/global-count-reaches-3-trillion-trees-1.18287

    Sure there won’t be any animals, or birds or insects in them in short order, but at least we’ll have some greenery around. That’s not nothing!

  3. For the three most recent posts to Peak Oil Barrel, I haven’t received any email notices. And when I make a comment, like I am doing now, I am unable to indicate that I want email notices whenever there is a new comment.

    In other words, I seem to be unsubscribed to both comment and post notices. I don’t know what to do to get myself back into the system.

    Obviously I can still post, but my ability to subscribe seems to have disappeared.

  4. http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/93ecb137198df44baf1f45ebac0d55c1.htm

    This short video is about an apparently flameless gas kitchen range which uses gas much more efficiently and burns cleaner than a conventional open flame stove burner. The video claims up to fifty percent greater gas economy. Surely this is not from greater combustion efficiency, it couldn’t be .

    But the enclosed burner design might possibly transfer the heat of combustion to cooking pots far more effectively than an open flame and that might result in such an awesome gain in efficiency.

    One reason I personally prefer cooking with electricity is that gets the job done quite satisfactorily— if you have a quality electric range with GOOD burner controls– without heating up the kitchen so much.

    A lot of technological advances are good for society but bad for individuals such as myself. New washing machines are very water efficient for instance but water costs me next to nothing either to supply it or to dispose of it, so I am buying a couple of lightly used older washers and putting them in the barn anticipating the day the one in the house croaks.

    A hundred bucks now spent on a washer that will serve almost as well as a new one that will cost many times as much ten years from now is an EXCELLENT investment- if you live in the boonies and have a big barn.

    I can’t see any reason to pay six hundred bucks or more NOW for a computerized new washing machine that might not last. Six hundred bucks will buy a spare well pump or a nice solar panel.

    Anybody who has well water or gravity fed water might want to keep an eye out for OLD toilets as well. They use a lot of water, but you don’t have to use a brush on them every time you take a dump and they last indefinitely, maybe even for centuries.

    1. Good points OFM,

      I am a big fan of used appliances for their simplicity and sturdiness. Used energy efficient appliances are available as well. Our freezers are new and very efficient, but I plan to replace my newer range with a used one due to our power fluctuations. The new stuff with chips do not last, at all. Our fridge is a $200 special that is awesome, washer is also used as we are on a drilled well and have mucho water.

      I put in two grey water systems this past year. Shower/tubs/sinks go to the compost area and the kitchen sink and washer goes to a low area by two Italian prune plum trees so I don’t have to water them. Apparently this is illegal, but since we don’t have marauding health inpectors in the boonies we get away with it. The only water going to the septic system is via the toilet. Apparently the law is that all waste water must go through septic system. The guy who pumps tanks around here says that is just wrong and bad for systems as it flushes solids into the field, and remarked…”see you in five years, everything is fine”.

      1. Yair . . . .

        We still use an all fibreglass “Lightburn” concrete mixer style washing machine bought new in 1980.

        It has worked continuously apart from few weeks time out with a slipping clutch, which turned out to be adjustment.

        They were made for the military, commercial and available in 12volt, 32volt and of course our standard 240volt.

        It has two standard Crompton Parkinson 1440 RPM industrial motors and the clutch/brake combination uses standard friction material . . . if we ever need it.

        Cheers.

    1. Yeah, I saw her interviewed on CNN and had the same thoughts I had when she was running for VP. “Hot looking grandma” and “what a dumb bimbo”. (sorry)

      I guess because she is from Alaska this makes her an expert on energy. I almost choked when she said she would be interested in a Trump cabinet position. God help us all.

      “I can see Russia from my house”. (yar yar yup.)

      1. If she was average looking she would be working at McDonalds.

        She has that genetic twinkle in her eye that is fun to look at when she talks.

        I don’t know whether to laugh or cry…LOL!!!

        1. I’ve never taken her seriously. She’s a media celebrity.

          That being said, and although my politics aren’t anything like hers, I can relate to her. She reminds me of good ole girls I knew in some rural communities I’ve lived in. So I understand her type.

          No, you wouldn’t want her to run the country, but she might be fun to have at your barbecue.

  7. Just finishing off a book by Andrew Weaver titled: “Keeping our cool”….”Canada in a warming world”. It is a little dated, but very worthwhile. Furthermore, it is not just about Canada. It describes in detail the models used to understand and forecast climate change.

    Very worthwhile reading. On a positive note it looks likely that Harper will lose his majority and ability to muzzle our once highly respected climate scientists.

    A bit about Weaver:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Weaver

    A bit about the book: (From Google Books)
    The book covers climatic science on two levels: in terms of the contents themselves, such as you would find in textbooks and scientific papers, and in terms of the position of science within a broader societal debate. He accurately highlights the degree to which entrenched interests have seriously muddled the public debate, creating deep confusion about how certain we are about key aspects of how the climate works. Topics well covered by the book include electromagnetic radiation, time lags associated with climate change, the nature of radiative forcing, the nature and role of the IPCC, ocean acidification, the history of human emissions, the general history of the climate, climate modeling, aerosols, hurricanes, climate change impacts in general, permafrost, and the need for humanity to eventually become carbon neutral. One quibble has to do with the sequencing: while the narrative always flows well, the progression through climate science looks a bit convoluted in retrospect. That makes it a bit hard to find your way back to this or that piece of useful information. The book features some good numbers, graphs, and analysis that I have not seen elsewhere – such as a calculation of how much more carbon dioxide humanity can emit in total, given the desire to keep temperature change to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and various plausible values for climatic sensitivity. A second quibble is that the graphics are all black and white and printed at a fairly low quality. Sometimes, that makes them hard to interpret.
    On the matter of international and intergenerational equity, Weaver comes to appropriate conclusions (that we should be concerned about future generations and that the rich states that caused the problem need to act first in solving it), but he fails to examine the ethical and policy issues in great depth. That is a minor failing, given the major purpose of the book, but it would probably leave someone who read only this book with a somewhat mistaken impression about the scale of changes being advocated and the ease with which they might be achieved. The book exaggerates the difference between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system with 100% auctioning, and doesn’t pay sufficient attention to areas in which regulation have the potential to be more effective than taxes (building codes, transport standards, etc).
    In general, Weaver’s book is a strong and useful introduction to climatic science. When it comes to the big questions about climate ethics, and the policy and technological measures that will permit the emergence of a low-carbon society, other authors have done better.

    1. That is certainly a good one. Here’s something for your viewing pleasure — an oldie to be sure, but still valid today — remember being mesmerised when it aired on UK telly all those years ago.

      Film is called ‘The Greenhouse Conspiracy’

      When Europe still believed that everything was in order with our climate, anonymous scientists chasing the wealth were already very active. This UK documentary broadcast on Channel Four in 1990 recollects how certain con artists, disguised as scientists, changed attitude and face, when confronted with the truth on climate change. And yet as history has shown ultimately their ‘fascism-like’ tactics have so far prevailed. Add in the related movements, worth nearly £2 million per year in today’s currency, pushing for depopulation and ‘de-growth’ of local economies, and the world has a truly terrifying scenario indeed.

          1. It’s not peak oil that attracts them. It appears that whenever climate or global warming appears in this forum, some folks get an alert and then post comments. They don’t read the oil posts. They just try to rebut climate info.

            However, the folks who come out of the woodwork to post here don’t have a unified theory. They are all over the map in what they write. What they do seem to believe is that there is a conspiracy to fake data.

            1. There are EMPLOYMENT ADS on craigs list offering piece rate money for posting comments.

              I have been thinking about checking some of them out just to see precisely what sort of comments they pay for.

              It seems pretty obvious from the VOLUME of anti renewable comments made by rednecks and nit wits in a lot of forums that such comments are not genuine.

              People who say such things as a rule don’t read very much, except maybe the sports pages,and if they weren’t reading, then they wouldn’t be commenting- unless somebody is paying them.

  8. With 7.2 billion of us walking and crawling around the planet each day, all 7.2 billion souls will need to be nourished, everyone of us will be hungry before the end of the day. Each and everyone of those souls will need to eat.

    If four billion people decide to have two pieces of chicken, one billion chickens will be grilled and ready to eat by 7PM; salt and pepper will be added for more flavorful chicken. That means a propane grill or some charcoal or possibly some natural gas will be used to cook the Kung Pao chicken.

    It will be the same the next day, everybody will need something to eat. If it is some cod and two billion people decide to have some steamed codfish for some supper, then 100 million codfish need to be caught and processed so two billion people can dine on cod filets. With some salt and pepper required to make the cod taste better, you’ll need to make a trip to the subcontinent for some spices.

    You’ll need a ship or a railroad, some means, a way to get there. A team of horses, a donkey, you can walk. These days, you can drive to Beijing from Oslo. Might as well rent a car or a pickup and make the trip. Flying wouldn’t be as much fun, you can drive all the way to Katmandu.

    You’ll need something to eat along the way, so I would stop in Athens, have some black olives and a couple of gyros.

    No need to go hungry when there is something to eat every inch of the way.

    Charter a 777, invite 200 friends and neighbors and party across the Pacific, land in Honolulu for some more chicken and a day or two of sun surf and sand. From there, fly to Anchorage and take some fun buses to Beunas Aires. might become a little harrowing from time to time, might decide to leave the bus when you reach the border with the US and Mexico, when you leave the bus, you’ll probably go buy a burger and a beer.

    Planes, trains, and automobiles all need one thing to make it all happen, oil.

    7.2 billion people depending on it heavily all of the time to exist and survive here on earth.

    Can’t really blame them for wanting to live, to manufacture machines and devices to make their lives better, to have some chicken for lunch.

    Better than having it all fall down and end up with a mess, can’t really want or have that.

    You’ll need another 90 million barrels of oil by tomorrow so it can happen again, one more time for one more day.

    Doesn’t seem to stop, so that is how it goes.

    1. Considering food waste is on the order of 50% in the USA, I don’t think we are in any real danger of starving, just in danger of being stupid.

      1. People don’t starve because there is not enough total food to feed everyone. They starve because they don’t have enough of that food to feed themselves. So the real problem is abject poverty not total food supply.

        However that is not to say that total food supply is not a problem in many countries. Without imports perhaps half the population of many countries would starve.

        1. Ron, the major discussion is one where there is not enough food being produced.

          The artificial politically/legal induced starvation problem is a separate civil issue that should not be allowed in a land where food is abundant and often plowed back under if prices are too low.

          1. The artificial politically/legal induced starvation problem is a separate civil issue that should not be allowed in a land where food is abundant and often plowed back under if prices are too low.

            For all history, until the industrial revolution, the availability of food has been the primary controller of the population level. But then the industrial revolution, along with the more recent green revolution, has enabled the population to explode. And now you insinuate that we have an obligation to see that no one is hungry. And by doing so we insure that the population will continue to explode way, way beyond the earth’s long term carrying capacity.

            By what logic do you arrive at this conclusion?

            1. Ron, your logic is faulty, the human race cannot get way, way beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. By definition the population would have crashed under those conditions.

              My logic is the same logic by which I fed, clothed, housed and arranged medical help for my family. The same logic that I have rescued people and given first aid. The same logic by which I have given food to the destitute.
              I am not a god or a self chosen megalomaniac thinking I have the power to decide the fate of a world or of a group of defenseless people. I do not attempt in any way to believe I need to starve children or kill people so the planet will survive. I am alive and for all life. The course of future events is not known nor is it anything to fear now. Our current actions are the only thing under our control, if we wish it and place our efforts there.

              If and when the human race places itself beyond it’s survival point, natural laws will cause a crash in population. Until that time I will continue to assist humans and animals to live. It is not my place to judge who shall live or die.
              If feeding the poor causes a population rise, so be it. If it doesn’t, that is fine also. We have been doing agriculture, which is excess food, for thousands of years. Why not stop agriculture as it might grown so many of us? If you stop to think about it, population rise is very dependent upon the survival of the young. Modern cleanliness and medicine has multiplied the survival of the young. Why not get rid of medicine? Stop the vaccinations. That might get rid of the excess population.
              Or better yet, get rid of fossil fuels, since you think they are the source of the problem. Stop drilling, stop mining.

              I know we have a responsibility to feed people. I also do not believe we have the right to increase the industrial destruction by overproducing food just so it can rot in a dumpster and fill landfills. Food is for living creatures, not just for profit. It should be valued as should those people who are alive.

            2. Ron, your logic is faulty, the human race cannot get way, way beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. By definition the population would have crashed under those conditions.

              Total absolute nonsense. I said long term carrying capacity. I do hope you know what the term “long term” means. We are already well beyond the population that the earth can support for one century or more.

              Already, and I emphasize the term “already” well beyond the point that the earth can support for an extended length of time. We are living on next year’s seed corn.

              The ocean fisheries are already almost depleted. Rivers are running dry, rain forest are disappearing, deserts are expanding, the air in China is almost unbreathable, species are going extinct at a rate not seen in 65 million years, topsoil is half of what it was one hundred years ago, and I could go on and on for hours. But I do hope you get the gist of my point. We are way, way, way, way, past the long term carrying capacity of planet earth.

              There will be a collapse. That is, in my opinion, a foregone conclusion. And the greater the population at the point of collapse, the greater the suffering and misery we will suffer during the collapse.

              I do hope I have made my point clear.

            3. I still think purposeful civil starvation is not only unnecessary but only mimics a form of genocide.
              Let’s call it economicide.
              Excess food does not necessarily equate to population increase, if it did the US would have a tremendously larger population. As would Europe.

              “The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment.”
              So long term carrying capacity is the same as carrying capacity.

              Last I heard population was 1.5 times the carrying capacity for our species.
              Other values for carrying capacity range from 4 billion to 16 billion people.
              Paul Erlich estimated the optimum population of earth at 1.5 billion to 2 billion people.
              I have heard values as low as 0.5 billion people as optimum.

              Long term, the species will radiate if it still exists and homo sapiens will cease to exist as all species do. With developing genetic abilities, the species may radiate much more quickly.

      2. I spent some time with a missionary friend in an Indian village, and noticed a very big grain storage that seemed much too open to rats.

        He said that yes it was, and the rats got a big fraction of their hard won grain.

        So what do you do?

        Then he showed me a VERY big cobra that lived under the grain bin, and said it had a big appetite for rats – and liked a few cats, too, every now and then when they happened past.

        So I asked why he didn’t have several more cobras, given the rat population, and I have forgotten his answer.

  9. Here is a link that will be dear to the heart of GUNG HO anti GMO food types etc.

    http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2985309/monsantos_scientist_shill_exposed.html

    Theecologist.org is new to me but their reporting seems to be sound – as far as it goes.

    But like most such organizations, it is about as one sided as it can be in terms of pointing out only the problems while studiously ignoring the benefits of the things they write about.

    Personally I have no doubt that Roundup is dangerous- but otoh NOTHING is “safe” if define safety to the level of absurdity. Fire kills a lot of people, no question, but there is no question that it keeps probably a million times more people alive by preventing them from freezing to death on any given day, and a billion times more alive by making it possible for them to live on foods indigestible to naked apes without cooking it.

    Giving up herbicides means going back to the plow and the cultivator and losing top soil at a much accelerated rate, using more oil, more machinery, sometimes more pesticides used initially and certainly more pesticides and fertilizers running off the land and polluting ground water as well as downstream waters.

    Only a fool or a person exceptionally naive could possibly fail to understand that these problems in the aggregate also result in human and ecosphere health issues on the grand scale.

    There is virtually always two sides to every story.

    Of course I am personally all in favor of plenty of sunshine on every possible topic, especially one so critically important to EVERYBODY as GMO foods.

    The problem with GMO is not the technology in and of itself but rather a lack of transparency and honesty on the part of corporations- which are after all by definition alien immortal life forms without any scruples or morality whatsoever, with only one mandate coming from the frankenstein legal ecology that provides the “dna” of these monsters- perpetual growth. Forever. Until something finally kills the monster.

  10. This is just too good to allow it to go unread.

    I copied it from Fernando’s personal blog.

    German boat builder opens factory in Lybia
    Posted: 18 Sep 2015 07:21 AM PDT
    Deutsch VolksFloß (German Popular Raft) Corporation, whose rafts are very popular with “migration facilitators” operating in Northern Africa and Turkey, has announced the opening of a raft factory in Benghazi, Lybia.

    Deutsch VolksFloß (German Popular Raft)
    Corporation raft crossing the Mediterranean
    fully loaded with 70 immigrants.

    According to senior Vice President Angela Münchausen, the factory will have three production lines:

    Model S, a twin engine 20 seat model able to cross the Mediterranean in 24 hours.

    Model M, a triple engine 40 seat model designed to cross the Mediterranean in 30 hours. The Model M includes two portable toilets and a mast the passengers can use to hang flags asking for help.

    Model L, a four engine 70 seat model designed to cross the Mediterranean in 36 hours. The Model L includes three portable toilets, a larger mast, a radar transponder, and a small three meter skiff, which the crew can use to lead the raft to a safe European beach (this is Plan B, should European Union ships be too busy to pull them aboard before they reach Europe).

    Deutsch VolksFloß has also created an “easy finance” plan for travel agencies and inmigration facilitators, but this financing is limited to Albanian and Rumanian entities able to prove the financial strength to repay the loan. They also arranged for raft owners to ship the boat engines from Europe via UPS, to be credited and reused in future raft purchasers.

    Ms. Münchausen closed the announcement by reminding the audience:

    “The finance terms for migrant facilitators based in Albania and Rumania, and the recycle program for boat engines can’t be matched by others, this places Deutsch VolksFloß as the number one boat builder in this market, which we believe will grow exponentially as current EU policies encourage millions of Africans and Arabs to cross the ocean and seek a better life in Europe. Our Lybian Business Line has the potential to become a huge money maker, we are hoping Deutsch VolksFloß products will be known as the “Sea Bus of Immigrants””.

    The is a picture that did not copy and paste in his blog post.

    Notice that these humanitarians arranged for the reuse of the outboard motors but not for the rafts. Nevertheless I will bet that the rafts are of good German workmanship and that none of them will sink as the result of poor design or quality of materials or workmanship. At least not in just one trip. SARC light ON.

    The cheapest way by a mile to get the rafts and motors back would be to just gas them up and DRIVE them back but no doubt that would result in their being confiscated or sunk by the coast guards of targeted countries.

    This is NOT going to end well.

    MOST of the IMMEDIATE troubles in the countries people are fleeing seem to be political in nature, but all these countries are overpopulated and short on resources and are among the ones that are at high risk of collapse SOONER rather than later. If the fighting could be stopped, the flow of migrants could be slowed down substantially, but it is now probably too late to ever STOP it.

    Those who wish us to believe that there are a lot of poor people in for instance Germany already , German born German citizens, will be the FIRST to tell us that Germany can afford to absorb a large number of immigrants.

    These holier than thou moralizers will NEVER stop to consider the consequences of their advocacy in the event Germany ( as my example ) DOES admit a few million impoverished people who cannot speak German and know virtually nothing in most cases that will enable them to earn a living in the German industrial economy.

    Homework- a short essay on the political consequences , the prize as usual being inclusion with credit in my eventual book.

    1. Long ago – not long after the war, I did some work with German energy engineers. They were very effective and fast, but maybe a little more unethical than I would have hoped. After all, like me, they grew up at the same time but way nearer to Hitler than I.

      But, getting to the point, us R&D engineers can always think up solutions to problems, almost all of them politically impossible and most of them just no dam good after a little thought. But whatthehell, better than nothing.

      So, here’s my solution to the migration problem, starting with the premiss that open borders just won’t work, in fact, it makes the basic problem-too many people and too much global warming- worse, not better.

      Then, each threatened country takes in a goodly number of very smart and capable people from its paired country threatening mass migration, in USA, all of latin america, and gives them training in best mitigation methods.

      Then, send those highly trained and motivated people back, with lots of money and lots of hardware, to their several countries along with the iron rules that– no migration, gotta do it yourself, lots of help available when needed- DO IT.

      BTW, we are not talking about thousands or millions of people here, we have to face up to BILLIONS at the gate, each one of them more life-death desperate than the one before.

    2. OFM – That is Fernando being satirical. I hope you didn’t think it was real.

      1. HI Ron,

        Ya DON’T say, LOL

        My very first line is that it is too good to allow it to go unread.

        After that I joined in and played the game and tried my damned best to put it across as being real. I may be the only person in this forum who reads Fernando’s blog regularly and he posts such stuff occasionally. This is his best one so far by a mile and by a mile the most elaborate unless I missed some earlier ones.

        The opening line saying the factory is in Libya is the first giveaway.I doubt anybody is building anything except bomb shelters and bunkers in Libya these days. The mention of multiple toilet facilities comes a close second, then the choice of models with one two and three engines. If he had mentioned color schemes he would have gone a bit too far but the glowing description of the bright future of the enterprise is dead on sarcasm aimed at the ridiculous current policies of current western European governments.

        I threw in a pretty broad hint myself with the sarcastic remark about the company arranging for the reuse of the motors ( for reasons of economy of course) but not the rafts themselves to satirize these humanitarians preoccupation with their profits rather than actually saving the lives of refugees.

        If I can find it I am going to post Twain’s description of the fossilized man supposedly discovered during his life time.

        Once upon a time I fell for one of these gags , in a very public fashion, but fortunately using another handle in another forum.

        That effectively immunized me and lead me to the ONION satirical online paper. I have had it bookmarked ever since and read it quite often.

        I am surprised that nobody else commented on it sooner.

        Here’s hoping you and your wife are comfortably settled in.

        I am almost entirely stuck in the house these days looking after Daddy who will probably live to be over a hundred considering the ages reached by his parents and grandparents.

        It says a hell of a lot about you that you can do such a great job with this blog considering your age and your other obligations.

        I pray you will continue to enjoy publishing it for years to come and that you will include more comments based on your own personal experiences as a broker and an American in Sand Country.

        Here is the petrified man sketch.

        A news report that appeared in the Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada’s leading newspaper) on October 4, 1862 described the bizarre discovery of a petrified human body.:

        A petrified man was found some time ago in the mountains south of Gravelly Ford. Every limb and feature of the stony mummy was perfect, not even excepting the left leg, which has evidently been a wooden one during the lifetime of the owner – which lifetime, by the way, came to a close about a century ago, in the opinion of a savan who has examined the defunct. The body was in a sitting posture, and leaning against a huge mass of croppings; the attitude was pensive, the right thumb resting against the side of the nose; the left thumb partially supported the chin, the fore-finger pressing the inner corner of the left eye and drawing it partly open; the right eye was closed, and the fingers of the right hand spread apart. This strange freak of nature created a profound sensation in the vicinity, and our informant states that by request, Justice Sewell or Sowell, of Humboldt City, at once proceeded to the spot and held an inquest on the body. The verdict of the jury was that “deceased came to his death from protracted exposure,” etc. The people of the neighborhood volunteered to bury the poor unfortunate, and were even anxious to do so; but it was discovered, when they attempted to remove him, that the water which had dripped upon him for ages from the crag above, had coursed down his back and deposited a limestone sediment under him which had glued him to the bed rock upon which he sat, as with a cement of adamant, and Judge S. refused to allow the charitable citizens to blast him from his position. The opinion expressed by his Honor that such a course would be little less than sacrilege, was eminently just and proper. Everybody goes to see the stone man, as many as three hundred having visited the hardened creature during the past five or six weeks.

        Now here is a link that about Twain that includes a hilarious sketch about evolution being purposeful in preparing the world for MAN and includes some excellent Twain commentary by a serious scholar.

        Read it and weep tears of hilarity.

        http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/013429db-e7f2-99df-341402c912a40d31/

  11. I guess Mercedes must be giving at least some credence to the theory of peak oil. They say their Alabama factory is getting geared up eventually to build hybrid sub’s.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/18/mercedes-benz-alabama-plant-expansion/72421952/

    It is interesting to note that the salvation of the deep south , industrially speaking, has been the movement of high capital cost high tech industries from the northern states where unions kept wages excessively high considering the job qualifications.

    My DADDY was a part time (forty hours a week ) union man almost his entire working life, and I have gladly paid union dues myself- when I was able to get on a union job.

    As usual, the people who tell the stories tell only one side. Unions are DAMNED good things for the people who are IN them and in some ways a good thing for people who are not as well.

    But if you want a card with any major union with the members making good money, you might as well shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one gets full quickest – unless you have somebody on the inside to help you get in.

    When I was teaching I quit to do trade work- because the unions were powerful enough that trades people were making more money on some jobs-union jobs- about four times as much actually, including overtime. I was never paid for over time at school but I put in plenty.

    But I never succeeded in getting a permanent membership. I might have , had I really worked at it, but working all the time has never been an ambition of mine.

    It is patently unfair for an illiterate nit wit in Detroit to make sixty thousand doing a job no harder than that done by a nitwit down south who makes only twenty. Can we say income inequality, all together now?

    1. Old Farmer Mac said:

      It is interesting to note that the salvation of the deep south , industrially speaking, has been the movement of high capital cost high tech industries from the northern states where unions kept wages excessively high considering the job qualifications….

      It is patently unfair for an illiterate nit wit in Detroit to make sixty thousand doing a job no harder than that done by a nitwit down south who makes only twenty. Can we say income inequality, all together now?

      You hear that sucking sound, OFM?

      That’s those jobs that pay $20,000 a year down south being sucked into even lower wage countries, like Mexico, China, and India. And don’t fool yourself, there’s a lot of high-paying white collar jobs getting sucked along with them.

      To wit:

      In the past two years, eight automakers have opened or announced new plants or expansions in Mexico….

      Low labor costs and fewer tariffs are the swing factors. A worker in Mexico costs car companies an average of $8 an hour, including wages and benefits. That compares with $58 in the U.S. for General Motors and $38 at Volkswagen’s factory in Tennessee, the lowest hourly cost in the U.S.

      http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/21/us/ap-us-making-cars-in-mexico.html?_r=0

      Just where, or when, do you think the race to the bottom should end?

      Or are you like Dennis Coyne and still believe in fairytales like Say’s Law and some imagined “synthesis of Keynesian and neoclassical theory.”
      http://peakoilbarrel.com/bakken/comment-page-1/#comment-538811

      I mean really, a “synthesis of Keynesian and neoclassical theory.” Talk about an oxymoron!

      And “an illiterate nit wit in Detroit” and “a nitwit down south”?

      OFM, why do you hate working-class people so much?

      1. First off let me make it clear than in spite of the fact that I got lucky,being born with a brain that makes academics almost effortless for me, and have a degree from a good university and have read a few thousand serious books, I AM a working class guy. Born and bred, neither of my parents ever got into high school, and half of my kin as old as I am are no more than barely literate.

        Some of us born a little later are doing quite well of course, there are now doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, multimillion dollar farmers and even a couple of professors close enough kin they say hello at least on holidays.

        You may have noticed that it is considered perfectly acceptable for black folk to call each other Nxxxxr. I will be pissed at YOU if you refer to me and mine as idiots and nitwits of course but I can tell it as I see it- and I am actually quite fond of nitwits and idiots, they are much nicer people taken all around than the phonies I used to live with who were mostly university graduates. I know plenty of nitwits who made a lot of money welding or paving or operating a dozer or raising apples- and of course every last one of them thinks he is smarter than I am because he has more money than I do.

        Such people honestly hardly EVER have clue as to what is REALLY going on.

        Now as to where the race to the bottom stops, I am not sure, but I expect a political backlash to EVENTUALLY put a stop to it.When the truth finally sinks into the concrete encased brains of the people who get a living out of government, law, law enforcement, bookkeeping ,banking, hairdressing, playing ball and singing, etc etc etc – in short doing ANYTHING BUT MAKING NECESSARY STUFF- it will probably be TOO late to reverse course.

        The countries of the world that have real concrete goods to export are sooner or later refuse to sell to us on credit forever or in exchange for movies and soft drinks and a few high status brands of whiskey etc etc. We may be able to pay for a while by exporting our natural wealth such as soil fertility ( selling grain) and natural gas and coal- but not forever.

        As a matter of fact the Chinese have already played the “World Turned Upside Down” tune on us literally. We ARE THE FUCKING COLONY ALREADY, sending them raw materials in exchange for their manufactured goods.

        Incidentally I am quite able to blend in, and have done so for years at a time, into well educated liberal middle class society. So for what it is worth – while the liberal left has it right on civil rights and the environment- left liberals are generally IDIOTS when it comes to the real nature of survival as a country.Right wingers mostly at least KNOW better but don’t actually give a damn, so long as they get theirs NOW.

        The ones I encounter most often understand the nature of the problem but are content to believe that they can get THEIRS as individuals without endangering the country as a whole.

        Some popular author once pointed out that liberal environmentalists are folks who want to build just a A FEW MORE HOUSES IN THE WOODS- meaning one for each of them and his personal friends- whereas the contractors who build houses in the woods are right wingers and perfectly satisfied to build EVERY last LOCAL acre – on the assumption that they live a few miles down the road and will have money enough to move to Montana or Idaho or wherever.

        The right wingers who export industries are convinced they can get theirs individually without destroying the country collectively ,and don’t give a damn anyway, expecting that the country in any case will outlast THEM as individuals.

        You may not realize that I have long advocated economic and industrial policies that keep industry at home within our borders.

    3. I second what Glenn said to you.

      Funny how your comments failed to mention the egregious amounts of taxpayer money extorted from states and municipalities to entice manufacturing jobs to move into southern and western communities. Not only manufacturing such as automobile plants, but slaughterhouses, meat packing plants, fed lots, industrial chicken and hog operations. Not just robbing the taxpayer blind, sometimes to the tune if > $100K per job created, but capturing regulators to turn a blind eye to industrial safety, pollution released into the community, humane treatment of workers…

      And then some of these operations pull pitch when they cut a better deal and move to the next sucker locations.

      ‘…in some ways are good for those who are not in unions’?

      40-hour work weeks, no child labor, workplace safety standards, overtime and vacation days…yea, Unions helped lift everyone up by helping create these things we take for granted (and are slipping away now) today.

      Glenn is correct…Mexico is just ‘the deeper south’…might as well send all the rest of the factories down there, and to China, then to various counties in Africa, so we can get pennies on the hour wages and export the pollution and worker injuries…so we can have low, low prices. And then folks lucky enough to be on pensions and/or have their land/homes paid off because they lived their productive years back in the United States’ salad days can listen to Faux News and bitch and whine about all the slackers without jobs.

      I guess everyone forgot Henry Ford’s idea that in order for his products to have consumers, he had to pay his workers enough to buy his products.

      The 2007-2012 brush with Depression was a harbinger.

      1. Good points all Frank and I acknowledge them but I can’t type but so damned fast lol and have made them all myself at some point or another.

        The more things change the more they stay the same.

        Labor unions absolutely did play a truly pivotal and critical role in partially at least taming runaway capitalism.

    1. Small diesel trucks are not bad things in and of themselves and are not sent from the factory with vertical exhaust pipes. Nor do they ordinarily blow black smoke.

      The redneck owners of such trucks are modifying them so as to serve as status symbols and power displays in order to intimidate other similarly intellectually challenged males and to impress similarly intellectually challenged women.

      Don’t laugh, it works. Money and status are second as aphrodisiacs only to a handsome young athletic body in the minds of women.

      If I had a LOT of money , I might buy a Mercedes convertible myself on the chance it might attract the attention of a young nubile woman even at my age.Of course if I actually were to catch such a female , I would be in the position of the rhetorical dog that catches the car he chases. I wouldn’t actually have much use for her but she would at least get to drive the car . 🙁

  13. What Exxon Knew About Climate Change

    By 1977, an Exxon senior scientist named James Black was, according to his own notes, able to tell the company’s management committee that there was “general scientific agreement” that what was then called the greenhouse effect was most likely caused by man-made CO2; a year later, speaking to an even wider audience inside the company, he said that research indicated that if we doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere, we would increase temperatures two to three degrees Celsius. That’s just about where the scientific consensus lies to this day. “Present thinking,” Black wrote in summary, “holds that man has a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-exxon-knew-about-climate-change

    1. Wharf,

      I really don’t know if we have 5 years? and certainly accept I am part of the problem. Here is an example of blindness. I talked with my sister the other day who is retired and planning a trip to Spain with her husband. Last year they went to Turkey. The have gone to Hawaii several times. She said, “Yeah, this global warming is our biggest threat to the future for sure”, as we compared dry summer stories. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her new trip will release approx 2.5 tons of carbon into the air for air travel alone. (Her tickets have already been purchased and hotels booked)

      However, I will work up a worksheet and send it to her. Same thing with one of my best friends. He is now in Italy. Another friend just came back from Mauritius and Italy. They all know about Climate Change, but those pesky links simply don’t make any sense.

      I think it is going to take a major, or another major weather disaster to start waking people up. Californians get it, or if they don’t they are freaking stupid, but does it change lifestyles or aspirations? Advertising? I don’t see it happening. Where I live on Vancouver Island we still have some municipalities in stage 4 water restrictions.

      2. Paulo,

        Up thread, when you talked about your grey water recycling I had to marvel that on once wet Vancouver Island it is now prudent to maximize the usefulness of water.

        As for friends and family who haven’t grokked what the remaining emissions budget means to their lifestyle I know what your wrestling with. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who would consider themselves environmentalists who don’t think twice about hopping on a plane for some banal vacation.

        Those I know who fly off on some Eco-adventure are the ones that irritate me the most, really… you need to go see beluga whales in the arctic, and the ice is thinner up there these days… you don’t say.

        1. Ignorance of anything re energy is astounding in its depth and width. We get ourselves shunned if we say something about it that touches anything “IMPORTANT” in their lives like visiting the grandkids in California a couple of times a summer.

          I was talking with a friend, a social science prof, about shutting down a local filthy coal power plant and he said, memorably:

          “What’s coal got to do with electricity?”

      3. Hi Paulo,

        I have always been intrigued by your description of your low intensity life style and high degree of self sufficiency and finally got around to reading a bit about your home turf.

        Talking about proof of warming, I suspect that not one person out of a thousand has a clue you can grow lemons on Vancouver Island in some sheltered spots.

        http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/milder-winters-allow-growth-of-lemons-and-olives-on-vancouver-island/article11821575/

      4. I think most people just follow the lead of their government. Isn’t that what leaders are for? If the government hasn’t rationed energy or restricted travel then it must be OK.

      1. Still in Mendo County. I see Todd a few times a month. He’s lurking.

  15. I read a comment on a blog something I didn’t know what to do with. The commenter claimed that Colin Campbell was taken by the CIA outside his home. I hadn’t heard about this and guess it is just a rumor or a conspiracy theory but anyway, comments on this?

      1. Hehe, I googled like crazy, but only found non-geologist Colin Campbells, and kept looking. The guy I got it from had the wrong person.

  16. I just copied this from a pro renewables web site.

    “French investment bank Kepler Chevreux has produced a fascinating analysis that has dramatic implications for the global oil industry.

    It estimates that $100 billion invested in either wind energy or solar energy – and deployed as energy for light and commercial vehicles – will produce significantly more energy than that same $100 billion invested in oil.

    The implications, needless to say, are dramatic. It would signal the end of Big Oil, and the demise of an industry that has dominated the global economy and geo-politics, for the last few decades. And the need for it to reshape its business model around renewables, as we discuss here.

    “If we are right, the implications would be momentous,” writes Kepler Chevreux analyst Mark Lewis.

    “It would mean that the oil industry faces the risk of stranded assets not only under a scenario of falling oil prices brought about by the structurally lower demand entailed by a future tightening of climate policy, but also under a scenario of rising oil prices brought about by increasingly constrained supply. “

    The main argument from Lewis is that oil prices could stay so low that it is no longer economic to bring in high cost new oil fields. But even if the oil price does rise, it will not be able to compete with renewables such as solar and wind.

    The most striking conclusion is that by using wind or solar to charge electric vehicles, more energy is produced per dollar invested than with oil – in the case of onshore wind, it is four times as much energy for the same amount of money.”

    Personally I believe it is already obvious that battery powered cars are going to be more economical on a total cost basis than ice cars within the VERY near future and in actual fact might already be more economical if one computes the cost on a strictly dollars and cents basis comparing a new battery electric or plug in hybrid such as a VOLT to a similarly priced conventional car.

    The conventional car will be somewhat more stylish,larger, and maybe more comfortable dollar per dollar purchase cost but if you put a typical person in a Volt and a comparably sized conventional Ford, with a blindfold on and hauled him around in both cars for a while, he would probably be able to identify the Volt only because it is much quieter in battery mode but not for any other reason.

    Personally I can’t see demand destruction happening fast enough to keep oil prices low in the face of depletion for the next decade or two because it will take than long and longer for us to change our ways away from oil and towards other energy sources.It’s hard to imagine demand destruction outrunning depletion except in the case of economic collapse- which is altogether possible but imo not actually very likely in the near term at least.

    My gut feeling is that Old Man Business As Usual has another decade or two of life left in him- barring bad luck.

  17. I want to take this opportunity to update the data for China’s electric power sector.

    As of August 2015, China’s electricity generating capacity reached 1,370 GW (gigawatts, utility scale or generators of 6 MW or above). The total generating capacity includes 270 GW of hydro, 940 GW of conventional thermal, 24 GW of nuclear, and 108 GW of wind. Based on a separate report, China’s solar PV generating capacity reached 36 GW (including utility and non-utility-scale) as of June 2015.

    Hydro accounts for 20 percent of China’s total generating capacity, conventional thermal accounts for 69 percent, nuclear accounts for 2 percent, and wind accounts for 8 percent.

    From January to August 2015, China newly installed 61 GW of electricity generating capacity, including 8 GW of hydro, 31 GW of conventional thermal, 5 GW of nuclear, 10 GW of wind, and 6 GW of utility-scale solar. Hydro accounted for 13 percent of the total newly installed capacity, conventional thermal accounted for 51 percent, nuclear accounted for 8 percent, wind accounted for 16 percent, and utility-scale solar accounted for 10 percent.

    In August 2015, 181 GW of electricity generating capacity was under construction, including 42 GW of hydro, 88 GW of conventional thermal, 28 GW of nuclear, and 22 GW of wind. Hydro accounts for 23 percent of China’s electricity generating capacity currently under construction, conventional thermal accounts for 49 percent, nuclear accounts for 15 percent, and wind accounts for 12 percent.

    From January to August 2015, China’s main electric power generators completed 192 billion Yuan of investment on electricity generating capacity, including 38 billion Yuan on hydro, 62 billion Yuan on conventional thermal, 28 billion Yuan on nuclear, and 57 billion Yuan on wind. Hydro accounted for 20 percent of China’s new investment on generating capacity, conventional thermal accounted for 32 percent, nuclear accounted for 15 percent, and wind accounted for 30 percent.

    The implied new investment per GW of new generating capacity was 4.8 billion Yuan for hydro, 2 billion Yuan for conventional thermal, 5.6 billion Yuan for nuclear, and 5.7 billion Yuan for wind.

    2. Hi political economist,

      Can you break down the conventional thermal into coal and natural gas? Thanks.

      1. Dennis they usually do not provide separate data for coal and gas. But currently there are just a few dozen GW of gas power in China

  18. I have a confession to make. I search for and read old posts of peakoilbarrel. Not because I’m jonesin’ for more, but to re-read about oil production and other related topics. Now you know the awful truth.

    Something has happened to the sun, it no longer shines for sixteen hours a day like it did on like June 21st. Now, all you can get out of it is about twelve hours and if this keeps up, by late December, it will probably shine for less than nine hours or so and then disappear beyond the horizon way out west. Then after about 15 hours, it mysteriously rises over in the east. It’s like magic.

    Not only that, but the days are not as warm as they were here in the middle of July.

    This not looking too good. Everything seems to be dying back some and by the looks of it, it just might not be there in a few weeks. We’ll see what happens, but it has seen better days and the outlook is bleak, by January, I suspect it will be at its bleakest. Judging from past experience, of course.

    I am beginning to think that the Three Gorges Dam has impounded enough water to prevent Lake Powell from returning to its former higher levels. Seriously. The aquifers don’t recharge to almost saturated levels, the Colorado River doesn’t make it to the Baja anymore, dams all over the world retain water, water that is delayed from reaching its natural state, the cycle, impoundments are now probably affecting weather patterns, the water that was once in one place stays behind the dams, the place where it never was before. China has stolen water from the aquifers and is going to keep it behind that big dam, they steal the water right out of the atmosphere. There needs to be a fee schedule implemented by the UN. Something must be done. Build a pipeline to the Aral Sea and refill that body of water with Three Gorges Dam water with a new waterway, an aqueduct from Three Gorges to the Aral Sea. It can be done.

    Let’s go with that for now and weather that is fickle, always changes, always a new challenge, always something to look forward to, it never quits.

    A new word of the day for today, unfettered. Great word, works wonders.

    Pollyanna says to keep up the good work. The silver lining behind the darkest of clouds, Pollyanna is that and more.

    If Bill Gates has 73 billion dollars, donates, gifts everybody on the planet 10 dollars, he’ll be broke and so will the other 7,299,999,999 wretched poor, tired, and hungry inhabiting what’s left of the place. Warren could send all the people of the world five or six bucks and then he’d be broke.

    That won’t happen, don’t hold your breath.

    Give us this day our daily beer.

    And bread.

    Can’t live by bread alone, that’s why there’s beer.

    1. Back when I had long hair and a corn cob in my pocket I called money bread as did a lot of other young people.

      Now I do understand that having the ownership of the world mostly concentrated in a few hand is NOT GOOD for us.

      But if we were to take all the money that belongs to the one percent and distribute it equally to the ninety nine percent, it would not amount to a hill of beans. The bottom fifty percent would piss it away on beer and cigarettes or the equivalent thereof for the most part within a few weeks.

      The people who are actually starving would be able to buy food for a few days more with their share.

      Hardly any of such a gift would be used productively by those who received it.

    2. Hey Ronald, I’m down in the southern hemisphere and everyday there is a little bit more sunshine to go around, well to be fair we are still experiencing drought where I am, buy hey, otherwise things are generally looking up, by December it will probably be as hot as hell down here and I’ll be back in nice cool dry Florida… 🙂

  19. A lot of people have a low opinion of him and in my own opinion the overall quality of his work has declined over the years, some of it being less than stellar these days, but Ambrose Evans Pritchard has always been one of my favorite reporters and I have been following him since the Whitewater Days.

    In this long piece he lays out the case for the transition to renewables on both political and technological grounds.

    It is worth the time needed to read it. His finger is on the pulse of the future history.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11633745/Fossil-industry-faces-a-perfect-political-and-technological-storm.html

    The dug in fossil fuel interests will be able to fight off the renewables onslaught for some time so as to keep on raking in the profits- and in the short to medium term there is no way in hell renewables are going to replace fossil fuels to any substantial extent ANYWAY.

    But in the longer term- Well, whoever said history is going to go down in history as one of the biggest idiots ever.

    1. That A E Pritchard article is a bright fresh breeze for wind power and solar energy. Let’s see how the eggs hatch though before counting the changes. Coal and natural gas are already under stress in the power generation areas as wind power overwhelms them on occasion and causes low to negative real-time pricing.
      The 450 ppm CO2 max stated in the article is way to high. Possibly achievable if we completely discount the other greenhouse gases. At least for the short term.
      Since the northern hemisphere, where most people live, has already crossed the 2 degree rise limit, I don’t see how we can avoid crossing the planetary GW limit with the already baked in temperature rise that will occur despite any reductions we make. And be clear these are reductions, not stoppages.
      Still, a bright light on an otherwise twisted path beset by highwaymen in a dark and foggy landscape of change.

      The policy of slowing fossil fuel use makes a lot of sense as we approach their limits of production anyway. So we have two decades of change ahead of us, unless certain dark and sinister forces foment wars and economic upheavals to derail the efforts.

  21. Pollution,climate change,peak oil and total global credit market debt over 200 trillion. I’ll leave you ladies alone and find out where the men are hanging out.

  22. too little, too late? just too expensive?

    Beyond Sprawl: A New Vision of
    The Solar Suburbs of the Future
    The concept of the “solar suburb” includes a solar panel on every roof, an electric vehicle in every garage, ultra-efficient home batteries to store excess energy, and the easy transfer of electricity among house, car, and grid. But will the technological pieces fall in place to make this dream a reality?

    http://e360.yale.edu/feature/beyond_sprawl_a_new_vision_of_the_solar_suburbs_of_the_future/2912/

    Golf cart-like vehicles part of the plan at Rancho Mission Viejo

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rancho-683758-mission-viejo.html

    2. Neighborhood Electric Vehicles or NEV is a vehicle that is capable of traveling at a maximum speed of 25mph. They come with safety features like headlights, turn signals and seat belts. In most States and in some Canadian provinces they can be operated on the roads where the posted speed limit is 35mph or less and can cross streets posted at 45mph or less. They may also be referred to as Low Speed Vehicles or LSVs. Some states, such as Washington and Montana have also passed Medium Speed Vehicle legislation allowing some NEVs to be modified for speeds of 35mph and allow them to run on roads with a posted speed limit of 45mph or less – check with your State’s DMV to see if your state allows LSVs of MSVs in your state.

      http://www.evfinder.com/index.htm

  23. what does Greenpeace know anyway

    100% Renewable Energy for all

    Press release – 21 September, 2015

    Berlin, 21 September 2015 – The investment necessary to move toward 100% renewable energy by 2050 would be more than covered by future savings in fuel costs, according to a ground-breaking new report from Greenpeace, researched in collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).

    http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/100-Renewable-Energy-for-All1/

    http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Climate-Reports/Energy-Revolution-2015/

  26. Tesla’s Powerwall battery production requires ‘super-charged’ supply chain
    03 August 2015
    Phil Bulman

    With a ‘lithium gold rush’ expected over the next few years, Phil Bulman warns that the eagerly anticipated planned launch into the UK market of the Powerwall solar energy storage device by Tesla later this year could face some serious problems.

    http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/42710/tesla-s-powerwall-battery-production-requires-super-charged-supply-chain/

  27. New EPRI-NRDC Report Finds Widespread Adoption of Electric Transportation Could Curb Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improve Air Quality

    PALO ALTO, Calif. – Sept. 17, 2015 – The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released today an analysis that finds widespread adoption of electric transportation, including electrification in the off-road sector, could lead to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and could improve air quality.

    The report, “Environmental Assessment of a Full Electric Transportation Portfolio,” projects GHG emissions through 2050 and air quality impacts in 2030. It finds that greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles could drop as much as 64 percent below today’s levels. Widespread use of electric vehicles (EVs)—including lawn and garden equipment and heavy industrial equipment such as forklifts—could improve air quality, particularly in densely populated urban areas.

    Use of electric vehicles would achieve greater reductions in GHG emissions, corresponding to the rate that the electric grid becomes cleaner, through greater reliance on renewables and low- and non-emitting generation.

    “This research points to the importance of two fundamental and parallel trends in energy and the environment,” said Mike Howard, EPRI president and CEO. “First is the continuing decarbonization of the electricity sector and second is the electrification of energy use in transportation and industry. We expect to see continued interest and work in measuring and understanding these trends more fully in the years and decades ahead.”

    http://www.nrdc.org/media/2015/150917.asp

    Abstract

    The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) produced the Environmental Assessment of a Full Electric Transportation Portfolio to provide in-depth analysis of the environmental impact of electrifying a range of vehicles, including U.S. light-duty and medium-duty transportation and industrial equipment such as forklifts.

    The study simulates emissions and air quality impacts of a significant shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles and equipment.

    http://www.epri.com/abstracts/Pages/ProductAbstract.aspx?ProductId=3002006881

  28. I have been listening to archived old radio programs from the 50’s and 60’s. It is highly illuminating and entertaining to hear these old radio broadcasts, the talk shows. I also listen to current AM radio broadcasting and occasionally get ionospheric skip programs from thousands of mile away.
    The amazing changes in our culture and technology are made very evident by these shows. But I have noticed an even more disturbing juxtaposition, the talk shows of old are now almost all heavily conservative, the balance of discourse is gone from radio.
    Radio is still a powerful medium of communication and that now it has become a primary tool of the far right is quite evident.
    “The complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements, and the relaxation of ownership rules have tipped the scales against localism and allowed the few to indoctrinate the many.”

    https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/regulation/news/2007/07/10/3297/talk-radio-by-the-numbers/

    If open discourse is unbalanced and highly biased, the general public cannot be expected to have a realistic grasp of current events, modern science, or the political landscape. The unbalanced representation of ideas goes beyond the internet.

  29. Apple, Google, Tesla and the race to electric self-driving cars

    Well-heeled ridesharing startups, such as Uber and Lyft, have blown open the market first cracked by carsharing companies like Zipcar and Daimler-owned Car2Go. Their pitch: the convenience of a car, without actually having to buy (or park) a car.

    Add to that new breakthroughs in hardware, namely with electric vehicles and autonomous control features, and the cars of the future start to look and drive very differently.
    …
    Research completed to date by UC Berkeley’s Shaheen shows that overall, each shared vehicle in North America reduces the need for nine-13 personal cars, though the market continues to evolve quickly.
    …
    So far, 10 companies have been granted permission to test autonomous vehicles in California: Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Honda, upstart autonomous vehicle retrofitting company Cruise and auto suppliers Bosch and Delphi.

  30. I arrived back in the island on Saturday night having been in the USA since Monday. I arrived in LA just before nightfall on Monday and left LA at nightfall on Thursday. Some observations. All flights were full. Of the four flights I took, I might have seen one empty seat. In days gone by it was not unusual to see empty seats on flights. My island had a national carrier that was state owned and I remember once being able to take all four of the middle seats on a wide bodied aircraft for myself and make a quite comfortable bed on one long flight. That (loss making) airline was a considerable drain on the national budget and is no more, I suspect any airline that could not run an extremely tight shop and fill all their seats all the time is also no more. It will be interesting to watch what happens to the airline industry on the next step down. The”red eye” from LA to South Florida was interesting from the point of view that the seats were closer together for that ultra low cost airline, an obvious ploy to pack an extra row or two of seats into the aircraft!

    In terms of spotting any battery electric vehicles in the second place EV jurisdiction in the world (behind Norway), I guess the area around Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center is not a representative sample, as it is probably dominated by rental cars or people who have traveled considerable distances to visit Disneyland. I saw exactly zero battery electric cars in the resort area and on the trip that started along I5 towards LAX I saw two Teslas, one Nissan Leaf and a Kia Soul that may or may not have been the EV variant, all within about a five minutes stretch along I105. The only positive spin I can put on that is, at least I did spot an EV on my 72 hour stint in the Los Angeles area! If this represents the year 1900 picture in Tony Seba’s presentation when he says “Can you spot the car?”, lets see what happens over the next thirteen years ago when his question changed to “Can you spot the horse?”

    The trade show itself had the usual plethora of PV module manufacturers along with inverters, chargers, racking/mounting and Balance Of System components. What felt different was the battery displays. There were two main camps, the old school, flooded lead acid, deep cycle camp and the new camp dominated by lithium ion technology with a couple other chemistries represented as well. The old school camp was looking definitely dated while the more recent entrants boasting storage appliances, where the batteries are just part of an integrated storage solution. I can well imagine that in the next few years the flooded lead acid battery battery business is going to be seriously disrupted. It was apparent from the displays at this show that the stage is set for the disruption. Energy storage is obviously going to play a major role in our civilization’s energy future.

    One last interesting thing was something I experienced during a somewhat leisure part of my trip. I took a test drive in a Tesla. If I can find a fault in the car, it is that the air conditioning system is too loud and introduces vibrations into the car. Turn it off and the car is completely silent so much so that you are very aware of the sound it makes when it is switched on again. An interesting feature was the capabilities introduced by the sensors included to facilitate semi-autonomous driving. Warnings pop up on the dashboard when the car gets close to objects with actual distance measurements to the objects. Very handy for maneuvering in tight situations and an interesting peek into the future of cars.

    So from just casual observation, neither EVs or solar energy are making a significant impact in the US, from the standpoint that you really don’t see them much at all, YET. How soon that will change is anybody’s guess.

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