This is a non oil and gas thread. Please post all EV, alternative energy or political comments here. This includes comments on economic collapse or other possible catastrophes.
173 thoughts to “Open Thread, Non Oil and Gas”
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This is a non oil and gas thread. Please post all EV, alternative energy or political comments here. This includes comments on economic collapse or other possible catastrophes.
Comments are closed.
The deal is that the majority of the earth’s warming trend is caused by CO2 from combustion of fossil fuels.
But the majority of the year-to-year variability is caused by the effects of El Nino activity in the equatorial Pacific. No one has developed a good model for the El Nino Southern Oscillation because it appears to be erratic and no one has found the pattern yet.
I think I have a good one here because I can fit a model from the past century and then back-extrapolate for a good fit back to 1650
http://contextearth.com/2015/10/03/raising-the-bar-on-enso-model-validation
This is a fun project because many people think that El Ninos are chaotic or random and therefore impossible to analyze.
http://contextearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/uep_validation.png
One thing needs to be pointed out about your initial statement of a possible warming trend being caused by CO2. That is actually a rather deceptive notion because the reality of the matter is that water vapor (H2O) is scientifically known to be 1292 times more significant of a warming gas than CO2. H20 can easily be held accountable for 99.9% of all atmospheric heating observed in the last 17 years (the time since the beginning of the global surface temperature plateau), but H20 is never implicated in any scientific article, textbook or film produced by the publishers selling to public schools, in the mainstream media, or by the federal grant supported scientists because H2O is ubiquitous, necessary for life, and cannot be regulated in the way CO2 could potentially be. And that right there is the cause of the bind the scientists and democrats currently find themselves in regarding how to get the public to do something to try and “fix” the planet’s climate.
This is an absurd post. Water is not responsible for 99.9% of all atmospheric heating observed and the effect of H2O is fully included in all of the models. Water does have the effect of modestly magnifying the effects of other global warming gases.
Agenda-troll alert.
Ashley,
You need to understand that water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing as far as the greenhouse effect is concerned.
While water vapour is indeed the most important greenhouse gas, the issue that makes it a feedback (rather than a forcing) is the relatively short residence time for water in the atmosphere (around 10 days).
– See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/#sthash.7UkmDsdE.dpuf/
Notice the way that Ashley Alloway does not address the context of my comment, which has to do with variability, and instead goes after the AGW issue.
That is why it is so difficult to do science on blogs, as the political agendas quickly take over.
Yep, I think you are right WHT, and now that I think about it I even wonder if this Ashley Alloway is even the name of a real person.
BTW as a side note I was just reading your post where you were able to use the study by Cobb et al on Coral O2 levels as a proxy for the SOI all the way back to the 12th century and found that to be a pretty impressive piece of work.
I know that the internal wheels of science can grind exceedingly slow at times but I think you way are over due for some recognition of your original work and thinking together with the application of your mathematical models. I take my hat off to you!
Thanks Fred. There is definitely an invariant mechanism underlying El Nino and the basic pattern hasn’t changed for 100’s of years based on analyzing the records.
Everything grinds slowly, agreed.
Hi WHT,
I would like to take this opportunity to add my two cents worth of appreciation to what Fred has had to say.
I still think anybody who chooses net handle such as WHT should rightfully expect a little ribbing from time to time.
IF I could draw, I would put you in a cartoon with binoculars for eyes, but it would be a COMPLIMENTARY cartoon.
Hopefully you will see fit to write up these findings in relatively simple layman’s language and publish them here- or maybe Dennis or somebody else who understands your work will find time to do so.
Given my small monitor, male color blindness,a bit of dyslexia, etc, , I can’t clearly SEE the periodic pattern in the one graph I saw in your link.
I am sure I am not the only layman who would appreciate an EXPANDED copy with an overlaid smoothed trend line superimposed.
You may be sure I will never again refer to you as a pompous stuffed shirt.
Hopefully you will as Fred suggests eventually get some recognition for your original work.
Hey listen, guys, I have an agenda, but doesn’t everyone? So? Fess up.
I said political agenda. My agenda is one of doing the science correctly.
Oh. Ok, I get it now. So I’ll let you have your agenda if you let me have mine. Deal?
Honey, get off this site please! You are embarrassing yourself! And me!
Hey sorry everyone! She hasn’t been the same since she lost her job.
Ok!! Do they really need to know this!!!???
Hey Ashley,
There are lots of fish over at Tverberg’s blog. Your not going to catch anything here.
http://ourfiniteworld.com/
Hello, I am the “original” Ashley Alloway who wrote the message posted at 4:06 PM debunking the wildly deceptive claim about CO2 made by “WebHubTelescope.” I did not make, nor do I have any connection to, the messages made to look like they were posted by me at 12:05 AM, 12:32 AM, and 12:37 AM. They were written by an impostor. I also don’t know anybody named “Dirk” much less a Dirk with the same last name as myself. I find all of this behavior quite rude and disrespectful, but sadly representative of the level those on the left of the political spectrum will stoop to in order to shut down any discussion of climate change that runs counter to what they claim is the “settled” science on the matter. Little do they realize that these types of actions thoroughly damage their entire ideology and belief system.
Regards,
Ashley
-alltheway30
Here is what NOAA has to say about water vapor.
Water Vapor
Water Vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is why it is addressed here first. However, changes in its concentration is also considered to be a result of climate feedbacks related to the warming of the atmosphere rather than a direct result of industrialization. The feedback loop in which water is involved is critically important to projecting future climate change, but as yet is still fairly poorly measured and understood.
As the temperature of the atmosphere rises, more water is evaporated from ground storage (rivers, oceans, reservoirs, soil). Because the air is warmer, the absolute humidity can be higher (in essence, the air is able to ‘hold’ more water when it’s warmer), leading to more water vapor in the atmosphere. As a greenhouse gas, the higher concentration of water vapor is then able to absorb more thermal IR energy radiated from the Earth, thus further warming the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere can then hold more water vapor and so on and so on. This is referred to as a ‘positive feedback loop’. However, huge scientific uncertainty exists in defining the extent and importance of this feedback loop. As water vapor increases in the atmosphere, more of it will eventually also condense into clouds, which are more able to reflect incoming solar radiation (thus allowing less energy to reach the Earth’s surface and heat it up). …..
From my studies of actual research papers, changes in water vapor have a slight positive effect on warming overall. The key delta parameter is carbon dioxide. That is the trigger for global warming. Paleo occurrences of CO2 increases plus basic physics and measurements of modern CO2 levels all indicate an increased greenhouse effect due to CO2. The CO2 change of late is due to humans burning fossil fuels and other human activities. This is acting as a trigger to induce natural feedbacks. “Luckily” other pollution from fossil fuel use has caused increased albedo in cloud formations and we do not get the full effect of global warming currently. When these pollutants decrease we will and if cloud formations change it could cause massive warming. Bad enough the new droughts are dumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere as forests burn off.
Ashley, there is no “wildly deceptive claim about CO2 ” only wildly deceptive political claims about there being no human caused global warming.
CO2 provides a minuscule greenhouse climate change effect. Either you are attempting to deliberately mislead the less scientifically literate or you are unaware of what little has actually been proven in the actual research literature, I can’t tell. But I can say about CO2 that it is a lagging indicator of climatic events – and an unreliable indicator, as the climate changes out of sync with CO2 levels, that is, not in concert. You cannot even find accurate correlation, much less causation, with anything related to CO2 and global climate.
Hence, while levels of atmospheric CO2 have increased overseas (and as has always been the case – the North American Continent is a pure CO2 sink – a place where atmospheric CO2 migrates to so as to be absorbed by plant life, thus making our forests greener and helping our farmers achieve record harvests) the worldwide climate temperature measurements have held steady or even cooled a bit over the past 18 years and counting.
After reading that, I feel like I just put my brain in a full garbage can. What trash. Psuedo science a la ultra conservative party politics.
your sink is lagging
As I said in a post below, Ive been watching a lot of video clips featuring Bernie Sanders lately and he is one politician that really seems to “get it”. He has had a lot to say about the influence of big money on politics and is very concerned about the results of the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. He has been known to raise the question as to why the Koch brothers have been willing to spend millions in support of certain political campaigns? What is it they hope to achieve? The above post might be a clue.
I am going to assume you mean the post above mine and not my post.
That is correct sir.
Hello Ashley. the disdain with which you and your ilk are treated on this site and others has a lot more to do with the perceived influence of fossil fuel industry money than anything else. Most of us are aware of the gargantuan sums of money and profit that are generated by the FF industries and consequently, the businesses that will be put at risk by any efforts to curb CO2 emissions. We are also, most of us, familiar with the tactics of the tobacco industry when evidence started to mount that there were serious risks to the health of people who developed and maintained the habit of smocking tobacco. As a result many people have come to the conclusion that the owners of the FF industries, including people like th Koch brothers will happily do whatever is necessary to keep their wealth growing regardless of any damage their activities might do to the environment.
Many people have come to the conclusion that “whatever is necessary” includes concocting “cleverly” disguised (pseudo) scientific research designed to cast doubt on the broad scientific consensus regarding global warming and then using PR outfits to spread the conclusions of this false science. In some cases these PR outfits are the same ones that were involved in trying to discredit the research that showed that smoking is bad for health.
As far as agendas go, most of us find it far more plausible that the FF industry is taking steps to discredit any climate science that would restrict their multi-billion dollar profits than the idea put forward by you and those of your ilk that, the vast body of climate scientists world wide are fraudulently foisting the idea of CO2 driven global warming on the public, ostensibly in an effort to maintain some supposedly lucrative stream of funding. If money were the motivation for climate science, the vast majority of climate scientists wold have capitulated long ago and dismissed any notion of man-made global warming.
I would guess that you and more specifically, those who have paid you or otherwise convinced you to troll the Internet spreading you message of doubt, are facing some serious headwinds. I have spent a considerable amount of time watching video clips of speeches/depositions/interviews featuring presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and based on the most recent speech at a rally in Boston on Saturday night (October 3), the groundswell of support for this particular candidate is breathtaking . A central pillar of his platform is opposition to the obscene influence of oligarchs, such as those who are no doubt behind the activities of you and your ilk. Bill McKibben introduced him to the crowd, estimated at more than twenty thousand and Bill’s remarks on the threat of global warming seemed to be quite well received.
Islandboy,
There’s no need to suggest that people are just speculating, or guessing about the Koch’s influence. There’s quite a lot of public evidence that makes it very clear, starting with their father and the John Birch Society, proceeding through the vast network of “think tanks” and other organizations they’ve created and ending up with the vast amounts of money they’re currently spending to buy, influence or intimidate politicians.
Bernie Sanders is un-electable in a general election. The inevitable attack ads proclaiming him to be a Jewish socialist who will raise my taxes to give away “freebies” to the entitled liberals like the ones who show up at his rallies will be very effective, and he is not a very good fit as a candidate for Florida or the Midwest/Great Lakes (Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa). A candidate effectively must win one of those regions to become president.
Bernie Sanders is un-electable in a general election.
That is what I told somebody when I was visiting the US between September 14 and 19. However, since then I have been trying to figure out what his agenda really is and he has some positions that will resonate with conservative voters (not Republican die hards) as well as liberals. One of the things he points out is that, the US has become isolated amongst modern developed societies in terms of how it provides health care to it’s citizens, at he same time pointing out that while the US spends more per capita than any country in the world, other countries get much better value for the spending that they do.
As opposed to the GOP stance of pandering to the few (the 1%), his platform seems to be pandering to the 99% and the more I listen to him, the more reasonable his positions seem to be. It would be exceedingly interesting to watch a Trump/Sanders debate!
Hello Ashley. the disdain with which you and your ilk are treated on this site and others has a lot more to do with the perceived influence of fossil fuel industry money than anything else. Most of us are aware of the gargantuan sums of money and profit that are generated by the FF industries and consequently, the businesses that will be put at risk by any efforts to curb CO2 emissions. We are also, most of us, familiar with the tactics of the tobacco industry when evidence started to mount that there were serious risks to the health of people who developed and maintained the habit of smocking tobacco. As a result many people have come to the conclusion that the owners of the FF industries will happily do whatever is necessary to keep their wealth growing regardless of any damage their activities might do to the environment.
Many people have come to the conclusion that “whatever is necessary” includes concocting “cleverly” disguised (pseudo) scientific research designed to cast doubt on the broad scientific consensus regarding global warming and then using PR outfits to spread the conclusions of this false science. In some cases these PR outfits are the same ones that were involved in trying to discredit the research that showed that smoking is bad for health.
As far as agendas go, most of us find it far more plausible that the FF industry is taking steps to discredit any climate science that would restrict their multi-billion dollar profits than the idea put forward by you and those of your ilk that, the vast body of climate scientists world wide are fraudulently foisting the idea of CO2 driven global warming on the public, ostensibly in an effort to maintain some supposedly lucrative stream of funding. If money were the motivation for climate science, the vast majority of climate scientists wold have capitulated long ago and dismissed any notion of man-made global warming.
I would guess that you and more specifically, those who have paid you or otherwise convinced you to troll the Internet spreading you message of doubt, are facing some serious headwinds. I have spent a considerable amount of time watching video clips of speeches/depositions/interviews featuring a particular presidential hopeful and based on the most recent speech at a rally in Boston on Saturday night (October 3), the groundswell of support for this particular candidate is breathtaking . A central pillar of his platform is opposition to the obscene influence of oligarchs, such as those who are no doubt behind the activities of you and your ilk. Bill McKibben introduced him to the crowd, estimated at more than twenty thousand and Bill’s remarks on the threat of global warming seemed to be quite well received.
Ashleyvapor™
“Allo, Oui? Prenez-vous votre vapeur?”™
I went on a collection spree and favorited all of the ‘Real Clear xxxx’ sites I could find: World, Science, Defense, Politics, Markets, Policy and some others.
I could not find RealClear Climate.
I suppose that topic has been subsumed into the RealClear Science and Policy sites?
Gun Violence
Is there anything that can be done in the United States to stop or reduce Gun Violence ? Why is it increasing ? Is it another sign of the beginning of civil collapse ? Why is it such a polarizing subject with such strong beliefs on both sides ? Is it viewed by most as just a risk we have to take like riding in a car ? Is it about personal power and self esteem ? Are guns a sport or hobby ? If man is uncontrollable , should he have easy or any access to such individual power over others ?
There is nothing that can be done about this. It’s just the way it is!
http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-51444
Hillary Clinton Goes Big On Gun Policy, Creates Contrast With Bernie Sanders
She promises to take administrative action on background checks if Congress doesn’t act.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-gun-control_5611d70ae4b0dd85030c6b3b?9lpojemi
I personally am in favor of gun rights within reason but I think this is a huge problem that isn’t going to end well.
It keeps escalating, it never de-escalates.
I think allowing firearms, such as hunting rifles, for sportsmen can regulated and be done safely. However what we have happening in the USA is very different beast altogether.
Look at the data, look at the data again, and look at the data a third time. Now what do you conclude?
The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world, researchers found.
A study by two New York City cardiologists found that the U.S. has 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people – more than any of the other 27 developed countries they studied.
Japan, on the other hand, had only .6 guns per 100 people and .06 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, making it the country with both the fewest guns per capita and the fewest gun-related deaths.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/09/19/u-s-has-more-guns-and-gun-deaths-than-any-other-country-study-finds/
If you are Ok with those statistics, then carry on!
As noted below, based on FBI data, total US gun related murders, in 2014, were down by more than half since 1993.
Of course, this does not count suicides, accidents and justified shootings.
Fred said: “The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world, researchers found.”
Jeez, Fred, what would you expect in a country founded on genocide and slavery by Europe’s rejects, terrorists, and sociopathic opportunists?
Hey Ghung,
Good to see you here! How ya been?
Jeez, Fred, what would you expect in a country founded on genocide and slavery by Europe’s rejects, terrorists, and sociopathic opportunists?
Yeah, I know, I know. Tis what it is!
I naively keep hoping that somehow I’ll see the day when things change…
Hey Ghung, nice to catch you here. What took you so long? I’ve seen you on other sites I think, but not here until now.
How’s the house?
Good comment BTW.
During the Weimar Republic, liberal Jewish intellectuals campaigned for gun control laws. Gun control legislation was passed into law. After legislation and a few years later, one of Europe’s rejects that remained there used those laws against the people who had them passed into law.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Might not work out like you would want or think it should be, but you got what you wanted.
That’s how it will really work itself out and the grim reality.
That’s how it will really work itself out and the grim reality.
Well, the current situation is pretty darn grim as it is.
The United States has more guns and gun deaths than any other developed country in the world, researchers found.
I’ve fired hundreds upon hundreds of rounds, all day long, up and down the road, firing round after round, re-loading the fifty round clip several times, never once hitting a single bird unless my aim was on purpose. High-powered rifles, shooting at deer and later on, it’s in the freezer and made into sausage.
Almost got shot in the head with a shotgun blast when I was a just as dumb as I am now, been shot at missed, for real, a day of hunting that almost went wrong. You learn to be careful because somebody could get hurt.
I can take my car and begin to mow people down on the street if I want to go on a rampage, there is always a new way to skin a cat. I doubt that cars will be outlawed, somebody will get a hold of me right on the street and keep kicking until I don’t move, so sanity and knowing right from wrong prevents the dastardly act, an ounce of prevention.
The only problem I see is the copycat Charles Whitman wannabes go postal, and history proves that will never change.
Lizzy Borden and her axe is the proof in the pudding.
Gun violence is good for gun manufacturers. They can sell the idea that everyone needs a gun for protection. Not only do they not care to take responsibility for gun violence and gun accidents, I’m not sure they really want a safer country because gun sales would likely go down.
Yeah, maybe but….
Pope says weapons manufacturers can’t call themselves Christian
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/21/us-pope-turin-arms-idUSKBN0P10U220150621
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34429918
NAOM
I agree with the author.
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/stop-calling-daughters-death-car-accident/
Reckless driving is endemic.
Equipping all cars with comprehensive driving parameter/event recorders, including built-in cameras that record a rolling last hour of driving, combined with much tougher enforcement by police and judges, supported by an appropriately digressive insurance and legal industry, would go a long way towards making our streets, roads, and highways much safer. I have often thought about how much safer and less stressful and indeed more pleasant driving would be if we could purge the roads of even just the 10% worst drivers. And turn signals…arghh! Either wire the car to prevent you from turning unless you activate them, or else activate them automatically when the steering wheel is turned 10 degrees or more from straight ahead. Drunk drivers…the state I live in lets people continue to drive who have had numerous..even MANY DWI convictions. Maybe all cars should be equipped with breathalyzer interlocks. Life in prison with hard labor for anyone who kills another while driving drunk. Certainly a lifetime ban from operating any vehicle.
If this push for strict accountability for one’s driving catches on, it would be yet another force causing a turn towards self-driving cars, towards service such as Uber and Lyft, perhaps towards greater mass transit, and also towards reduced car ownership, reduce numbers of people who get and hold drivers licenses, and reduced VMT, and therefore reduced oil usage for personal transportation.
With great power comes great responsibility.
I would love to see the U.S. decriminalize drugs like Portugal did (leading to a some 40% reduction in drug use in Portugal..isn’t reduce drug use THE GOAL?) and take a fraction of those police resources formerly spent on the war on drugs and deploy them on a war against illegal driving, if we feel we must have a ‘war on…’ anything.
32,000 people per year die in the U.S. in automobile incidents. Much of the time due to people acting like asses.
Yes, this number has been declining over the years, and the per-capita number has been declining faster, but so what? If some small faction (say, 1% or even one tenth of one percent) of that total died in Islamist-sponsored terrorism in the U.S. each year, could anyone tell me what measures would be enacted, and at what financial and Constitutional costs?
This week’s The Economist claims there is a study (unfortunately not referenced) that estimates some 58,000 U.S. Americans die from NOx and other pollutants emitted by automobiles every year. This is very close to the official U.S. servicemen fatality count for the entire Vietnam War. Each Year.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21666226-volkswagens-falsification-pollution-tests-opens-door-very-different-car
The Economist’s figure jibes closely with this study cited in Physics.org:
http://phys.org/news/2013-08-air-pollution-early-deaths-year.html
This study estimates some 200,000 people per year die about 10 years prematurely due to air pollution, with some 53,000 of those due to road-borne vehicular air pollution.
No, this doesn’t count the some 400,000+ people in the U.S. who die annually from cigarette smoking. (Oh, but this toxic stew drug mix, and also alcohol, are legal in the U.S., while ‘illegal’ drugs are illegal…substances that, combined, kill a fraction of the people, but the enforcement against which costs how much ?).
Yet we have morons who rail and froth at the mouth about how they hate the EPA and want it disbanded and how they want business to be completely unregulated…the same imbeciles who applaud VW for their criminal evasions of pollution standards; the same idiots who obsess about 4 folks killed in Benghazi and see an Islamic terrorist behind every tree, yet count 50K people dying from vehicle emissions as an ‘oh well’ cost of the non-negotiable lifestyle.
We have an extremely poor perception of risk factors, and a highly skewed and inaccurate comprehension of cost-benefit trade-offs, and we have a hugely counterproductive prioritization and application of risk mitigation, with a lot of the blame due to blind mindless ideology substituting for even a shred of occasional logical,critical thinking.
All of this mixed with way too many people who blubber on about their freedom and liberty but then accept little personal responsibility and also assign responsibility/blame only to those who are received as the political and/or social ‘others’.
A significant fraction of people have been behaving as petulant, spoiled, irresponsible children for a long time.
The Party is continuing to wind down due to the Limits to Growth, but most people don’t know it yet, and if they have an inkling, most are too stupid to analyze the situation and understand the causes and effects…the depth of their ‘understanding’ stops at the superficial fact-free headline sound-bite ‘detail’.
Hey, but as long as they fight the gays and abortion and contraception and go around saying ‘Have a Blessed Day’ everything is alright I guess.
/Rant OFF
Good rant and good points all.
There is no simple explanation for this sorry state of affairs but the political aspects mostly come down to “us” versus “them” politically.
It IS extremely unfortunate that the D party is the party that gets it right on the environment – while also being the party determined to force social change on the rest of the country- change which most people don’t especially care for and which many tens of millions DETEST.
So we have a culture war- and anything the D’s stand for the R’s generally oppose- and vice versa of course.
It is terribly unfortunate that environmental and social politics are entangled.
The rest of the problems you describe can be mostly put down to the fact that human beings are not actually very prone to thinking at all, unless circumstances FORCE them to think.
The odds of getting killed in an auto crash are too low to get most people’s serious attention. Ditto the odds of smoking. People quit smoking,if they quit, not because they hear about the health consequences and sit down and research them and QUIT , but because they are HAMMERED with the quit smoking message.
We mostly eat junk food because we are TRAINED to eat it as the consequence of watching ads on tv.
“the party determined to force social change on the rest of the country”
Dear Liberal Conservative,
Please provide examples. Surely your not speaking about gay marriage. Because Liberals aren’t stopping heterosexual from making a legal bond. It’s the conservatives that are trying to push their beliefs on the homosexuals. Yes, with the Affordable Care Act the Dems are trying to make the freeloaders who can afford health insurance buy coverage. But than again, Republicans are suppose to be the party of personal responsibility. I don’t see liberals trying to take away conservatives guns. Just trying to confirm that the owners are qualified to own and operate them like any other dangerous piece of equipment like cars, planes, medical devices, heavy equipment or explosives material.
Please Mac, give me three social issues that are being forced on conservatives that warrants the Republicans calling our current state of affairs a culture war. Liberals aren’t trying to take away conservatives “Sky Daddy” (that’s your words). They just laugh at them for their beliefs.
If you open your eyes. You will realize what you are talking about are wedge issues. The Republican party leadership has been lying to its constituency for years trying to stay in power. Those in power have been using religion to corral the sheep since the beginning of man.
I’ve never seen a liberal force a conservatives to have an abortion. Have you ? The gay community deserves to have all the same rights as all American citizens.
An eye-opener:
http://www.ucd.ie/cai/classics-ireland/1996/Dauphin96.html
Dear Living in the 5th Century with others thoughts,
Excuse me for taking so long to repond…..It’s harder getting up off the floor than it used to be…Not to mention that FINE glass of California chardonnaly I spilled while I was down there laughing…For once in my life….I’m speechless…
You might want to read the contents of the study.
Chief I am afraid you are missing THE POINT.
Sure I AM speaking about gay marriage, among other things.
Tens of millions of people, probably well over a hundred million voting age people, DETEST the very idea. Maybe as many as a majority, it’s hard to say. Polls all too often give results depending on who and how the polls are conducted.
Your argument that Ocare is an attempt to make FREELOADERS buy coverage is close to a partisan ABSURDITY. It is an attempt, and a commendable one imo , to PAY for coverage for people who are too hard up to afford it on their own.
Only a fool would argue that it is not at bottom an income transfer from better off to less well off people. You are calling the poor people freeloaders. Here and there if you look or listen you will hear hard core right wingers call poor people freeloaders too.
As a matter of fact I think of a few people I know PERSONALLY as freeloaders- people who have owned six or eight new cars for instance AND smoked three packs a day for decades- who have gotten a quarter of a million dollars worth of written off free health care, which I helped pay for and will continue to pay for- and incidentally my net worth is less than a quarter million and I have NEVER owned a new car.
That same care would have BANKRUPTED ME prior to my getting on Medicare since I opted to quit work enough to pay ten grand a year for insurance and look after my parents instead of putting them in a nursing home. It would have been free to me too- IF I had been a GRASSHOPPER instead of an ANT.
There IS something to be said for the CONSERVATIVE value of looking after your own personal affairs and living within your means and NOT winding up on welfare as the result of your own lack of responsibility. Don’t bother to start in about people who thru no fault of their own are poor-I have already said that I am in favor of socialized health care because the system we have DOES NOT WORK – unless you are well off.
If you don’t see liberals trying to take away guns PERIOD then you are EITHER naive or a partisan lying thru your teeth, take your choice.
Of course the rhetoric is couched as regulation, but dig down a bit and you will find the movers and shakers speeches to confirm this fact. I am NOT argueing whether this is good or bad policy but whether it is the ultimate GOAL of anti gun control policy advocates.
Pair bonding, or serial pair bonding, MOSTLY HETEROSEXUAL, is part of human nature, so is homosexual bonding, but it is also perfectly obvious that various societies decide collectively that some behaviors are acceptable and some are not.
Sometimes there are rational reasons for taboos- eating pork is not very smart if you get infected with tricho.Eating cows is a bad choice in an environment where cows are worth more alive than on a plate.
Socially and legally endorsed marriage helps keep the peace and helps ensure the well being of women and children.
TABOOS AGAINST free sex, what we called free love and I indulged in to the extent I could find willing females of that persuasion myself, back in the sixties, helped and still help prevent a lot of women and kids winding up destitute. Anybody that thinks otherwise is a FOOL.
Now whether folks of the DC as opposed to AC persuasion should be allowed to live as they please- I agree they have the right to do so. But otoh, the most liberal of the liberal crowd insists that we AIN’T any better than anybody else
and OUGHT to keep our noses OUT of other cultures and societies BUSINESS. Ask them about genital mutilation of young girls, or harems, or the casual way some societies allow men to get rid of a woman by just kicking her out, and you get to wondering from the answers you get if hard core liberals know how to wipe their own ass.
Now just how can they believe they are justified in allowing people in OTHER countries from havin the right to live AS THEY PLEASE AMONG LIKE MINDED people- and DENY that same right to people here ?
As Humpty Dumpty said, the REAL QUESTION is WHO WILL BE MASTER?
The only practical peaceable solution to varying social mores, if you want peace, is to allow people with varying mores to sort themselves into communities of like minded people.
Otherwise you run the risk of the sort of political backlash I just described upthread- the people who don’t want the social changes you want, in respect to gay marriage, etc, also reject UNRELATED changes in other areas, such as laws needed to protect the environment.
SOMETIMES the back lash erupts into a hot fight and it can potentially escalate to actual warfare. Anybody who has ever read any history knows this is true.
I have not argued whether same sex marriage is right or wrong. It’s ok with ME, but that does not prevent me seeing both the good and the bad sides of it in terms of our entire society.
I have been accused of being a homosexual myself due to having a male housemate ( off and on, I have had MORE female housemates plus three live in shared keys and checking account female lovers and two hot young blossom wives ) – to which I just laughed and suggested the motor mouth send his good looking daughter over to spend the night and she would set him straight in a hurry. He wanted a fight – and he got one. I won it. Back then I was not old and fat, but he was.
I am merely pointing out that within the context of the value system of a VERY large part of the country system same sex marriage IS wrong, and that only a FOOL would expect anything other than a backlash from forcing it on people of that persuasion..
PART of the backlash is the REJECTION of desperately needed environmental action on the part of these people for reasons of political solidarity.
Is it POSSIBLE to make this point in any PLAINER language? This WAS and IS one of my major points – That it is EXTREMELY UNFORTUNATE that environmental politics are entangled with social politics.
ABSOLUTELY THESE THINGS ARE SO CALLED “WEDGE ISSUES”.
The REASON they are called that is they are tools useful in to helping maintain and enforce group solidarity by opposing social factions. Both sides use them as both bait and clubs.
Now as far as taking away Sky Daddy- He, she or it is anybody’s to take or leave as they see fit. As Ivan put it paraphrased in the Brothers Karamazov , paraphrased, if there is no god, then anything goes -whatever one decides is ok, IS OK.
HOWEVER, the particular sky daddy that has dominated the culture of this particular country, the USA, is the JC sky daddy and the people of this country MOSTLY CHERISH his values- which after all include such values as do not steal, do not kill, honor thy father and thy mother , work hard and be thrifty, etc etc etc. That such values are often honored “in the breach” does not change the reality of them. That they are shared by most people who think of themselves as liberals does not change this reality.
The people who hold to them see attacks on THEIR social taboos as attacks on THEIR way of life, and rightfully fight back.
I wish I had this quote handy but will have to paraphrase.
IF there is no god, then it follows that ANYTHING goes. What is right and wrong will be decided by whoever has the POWER to say what will be and what will not be. Any individual can make up his own mind-which incidentally is my own personal conviction.
The real lesson here is that there is no OBJECTIVE morality, it is impossible for morality to be absolute in terms of what it holds good or bad without deferring to some ULTIMATE ARBITER or judge or authority. Lots of societies have for instance thought it quite the decent thing to do to capture an enemy and torture him.
I can justifiably be called a conservative liberal and you are justified in calling me a liberal conservative although I suspect you mistake my real politics for R party politics.
ONE MAJOR underlying theme in everything I post here and elsewhere under varying handles (HI WIMBI! ) is that the very terms liberal and conservative are wedges that serve to prevent NEEDED cooperation between various social and political factions.
ANOTHER major underlying theme is that people individually and collectively do not customarily or often make decisions using their neocortex. The mid brain rules human affairs.
The ultimate best short description of reality, when it comes to the affairs of mankind, has always been, IS, and probably always will be “us” versus “them”.
Ya GET it?
I will point out once again that my old redneck conservative friends, some of them with advanced degrees from very well known universities, think I have morphed into a pink panties whale loving tree hugging commie socialist -and occasionally say so to my face – but they SMILE while saying it.
The card carrying ACLU hippie free love Earth Firster anti nuke whole earth types I used to hang around with back in the late sixties and early seventies think I have regressed to Neanderthal status. I still see one of them once in a while, and a couple of them actually come to enjoy an occasional visit on the farm in this picturesque resort area. I maintain contact with a few others via phone and email. They smile when they call me a caveman.
That sort is thin on the ground in this area although quite a lot of them who made some money and LOVE the wilderness come here wanting a redneck construction guy to build them a HOUSE ON THE SKYLINE -and just a FEW MORE houses nearby for THEIR equally high minded and SENSITIVE friends- and any FURTHER construction OUTLAWED.
Can we all spell “h y p o c r i t e ” and ” c o g n i t i v e d i s s o n a n c e ” together?I have yet to meet one who ever stops to think his skyline house spoils the view of everybody within forty miles of it with a direct line of sight.
Can’t travel myself anymore but like Thoreau I can see plenty from my little corner of the world.
You can also label me the OLD CYNIC MAC if you please. That label will be justified too.
I beg the pardon of people who only want to read sound bites.
Sound bites SELDOM if ever contribute to real understanding of any issue.
I am married to a fox, however, I have been wondering if it is OK to marry my dog, for obvious reasons or if legal marriage can extend to gazelles and whales. Is it possible to apply for a marriage license to marry various animals, legalize bestiality?
If it isn’t legal, bestiality should be. Liberals would endorse bestiality, so would conservatives, it would be common ground politically.
Ronald, this is obviously a slur at same sex marriage. I have heard the exact same argument from right wing homophobes. No, neither liberals or conservatives would endorse it. I have heard the exact same rational from Mike Huckabee. In fact that is likely where you got the idea.
If you are a homophobe just say so. If you don’t believe that same sexes should marry, if you think people born gay do not have the same rights and privileges as people born heterosexual just say so. Don’t beat around the bush with your cute little bestiality arguments. They are not one goddamn bit funny.
Ron:
Psychologists are the first to admit the latent homosexual attraction among people in the same occupations. People in uniform of any endeavor, military, sports, etc.
Some humans have more than two sex chromosones, XYYY, and the extra chromosomes effect the final outcome. Indeed, SRS, sex rearrangement surgery is done.
I knew the comment was shark jumping, my reason is obvious, nobody is going to accept such stupid nonsense.
And, no, I’m not a homophobe, if two people of the same sex want to marry, they can. It doesn’t bother me and I don’t object.
What I can’t understand is why the government is involved in any way. What business is it of the government’s? Ain’t nobody’s business if they do get married, so what?
Ronald Walker says:
What I can’t understand is why the government is involved in any way. What business is it of the government’s? Ain’t nobody’s business if they do get married, so what?
The rub is that marriage is as much of a legal institution as it is anything else, and it’s the government that hands out the marriage licenses.
Are you unaware of this case and a handful of other similar cases?
“Here’s What We Know About The Kentucky Clerk Refusing Marriage Licenses”
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/02/436893283/heres-what-we-know-about-the-ky-clerk-refusing-gay-marriage-licenses
What I can’t understand is why the government is involved in any way.
You really can’t be serious with that question. Spousel rithts, ever hear of that term?
Go here: Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States and you will find a listing of over 50 rights the spouse in a marriage receives that they would not receive if they were not allowed to marry. Just a few of them:
Veteran’s disability
Supplemental Security Income
Disability payments for federal employees
Medicaid
Property tax exemption for homes of totally disabled veterans
Funeral and bereavement leave
Joint adoption and foster care
Joint tax filing
Insurance licenses, coverage, eligibility, and benefits organization of mutual benefits society
Legal status with stepchildren
Making spousal medical decisions
Spousal non-resident tuition deferential waiver
Permission to make funeral arrangements for a deceased spouse, including burial or cremation
Right of survivorship of custodial trust
Right to change surname upon marriage
Right to enter into prenuptial agreement
Right to inheritance of property
Spousal privilege in court cases (the marital confidences privilege and the spousal testimonial privilege)
For those divorced or widowed, the right to many of ex- or late spouse’s benefits, including:
Social Security pension
Income tax deductions, credits, rates exemption, and estimates
Wages of an employee working for one’s spouse are exempt from federal unemployment tax
The government in every country in the world, to my knowledge, issues marriage license. To get spousal rights, you must be married.
Ronald Walter said:
Psychologists are the first to admit the latent homosexual attraction among people in the same occupations. People in uniform of any endeavor, military, sports, etc.
I believe this sort of sterotyping, as benign as it may seem, is not helpful. Unfortunately, LGBT rights advocates can be as guilty of it as their enemies.
I remember somewhere along the way when LGBTs came under a barrage of negative stereotyping, much of it emanating from Dr. Paul Cameron and his fellow psychologists at the Family Research Institute.
The claims were numerous: those who “choose” a LGBT “lifestyle” suffer from more psychological disorders, more physical disorders, disproportionately tend to be pedophiles, are generally less healthy and less productive than their heterosexual counterparts, and on and on and on.
And topping these claims off was the final claim that LGBTs have significantly shorter life expectancies than those who “choose” the heterosexucal “lifestyle.” Here’s an example of what LGBT rights advocates were, and still are, up against:
“Only the gay die young? Examining claims of shorter life expectancy for homosexuals”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2007/04/12/only-the-gay-die-young-examining-claims-of-shorter-life-expectancy-for-homosexuals/
These claims are not new. Cameron has been up to these tricks since at least 1982, when he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS).
In response, LGBT rights advocates in the 1980s came up with the bright idea of fighting negative stereotypes with positive stereotypes, claiming LGBTs were more affluent than the average bear.
Big mistake. Their enemies immediately seized upon the positive stereotype to make the argument: “See there, this shows that LGBTs prosper inordinately and don’t need legal protections.” To wit:
To hear it as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would have it, gays are a privileged set, living it up in cities across the country. As the justice wrote in his dissent to Romer v. Evans—a landmark 1996 case that overturned a Colorado state constitutional amendment prohibiting legal protections for gays and lesbians—“Those who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities.” Even more ominously, to Scalia, they have “high disposable income,” which gives them “disproportionate political power… to [achieve] not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality.”
The pernicious insinuation—that gays and lesbians are one the wealthiest demographics in the country—isn’t a new cliché.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-gay-affluence/284570/
Ronald Walter said:
Some humans have more than two sex chromosones, XYYY, and the extra chromosomes effect the final outcome. Indeed, SRS, sex rearrangement surgery is done.
The problem with this line of argument is that genetics don’t detemine sexual orientation, or not entirely so.
Richard C. Friedman points out in Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective that “a number of cases of divergent sexual orientation in monogyzotic twins were reported.” And he goes into great detail to describe one such set of twins he studied.
Then there’s the problem of defining what “sexual orientation” is. As he explains:
No definition of the term homosexuality has been universally accepted by clinicians and behavioral scientists. Articles and books about homosexuality ususally refer to some combinaiton of four behaioral components: erotic fantasies, sexual activity with others, perceived sense of identity, and social role.
Then there’s the problem of trying to make homosexuality into some discreet category into which we can cram individuals. Perhaps the most famous study of all regarding human sexuality is the Kinsey study. Kinsey and his co-workers “objected” to using “homosexual” as a noun. “We have objected to the use of the terms heterosexual and homosexual when used as nouns which stand for individuals,” the researchers wrote.
Instead, Kinsey and co-workers took a more empirical approach, looking at individuals’ histories of past sexual activities with others. And what they found is that human sexuality exists on a continuum, instead of two discreet opposite poles.
Here’s the graph they came up with to illustrate their findings:
Instead of two opposite poles, here are the range of categories which Kinsey and co-workers used:
I suspect that maybe those who think homosexuality is a choice are those who face it as one.
It was never a choice for me, a Kinsey 0 if ever there was one. I am however kind of limp wristed, artisticly inclined, openly emotional, and more intimacy driven than sexually charged. I once joked to my dear friend Tom, a Kinsey 6 that “I’m gay in every way except my sexual orientation”.
His response surprised me: “The hell you are.” he said. He actually got quite angry about it. I think it may have been because he has suffered a lot for his orientation. I’ve never suffered a bit for mine.
My late brother was also gay. We were born into, and indoctrinated by a religion that taught that sex outside of marriage was a sin only exceeded by murder in severity, and homosexual sex was worse sin still.
He sought the specific personal advice of his church and was told: “You are not gay. Don’t think about it. Find a woman to marry, and follow God’s plan for you.
He followed that advice. He stuck it out for 25 years and six kids. He was probably a Kinsey 4.
His homosexuality, or rather the social penalties exacted for it, ruined his life, and denied him the happiness he may have found had he not been taught to hate himself. He died of cancer last year, surrounded by many loving friends, but destitute of the lover that he sought but never found.
There is no question for me that he did not choose to be gay.
Neither did Tom, indoctrinated by the same religion as my brother, he went so far as to subject himself to aversion therapy in a futile quest to be cured of it.
You have to be pretty serious about wanting a ‘cure’ if you are willing to have electrodes attached to your penis, and be subjected to shocks if you have an arousal response when shown gay porn. It doesn’t work by the way.
Eventually Tom decided that he couldn’t choose not to be gay, but he could choose to be happy, and one less religion, one less wife, and many lovers later, he is.
For my brother, he thought the choice question was irrelevant. “So what if it is a choice?” he said. “Consenting adults should be free choose what they do with each other.”
Hard to argue against that without resorting to “Thus sayeth the Lord”.
On a lighter note from the gay perspective on gay marriage: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/28/a-modest-proposal
If you are married to a fox, ya CAN’T marry your dog. That would make you a BIGAMIST.
Just about everybody, excepting a few outcast Mormons, in this country agrees for reasons that have never been QUITE clear to me that bigamy is a no no.
Sarcasm light ON.
I wonder if a few hot young women decided to marry say four guys each -all a tad older and thus easily SATISFIED – in order to live like queens, or at least princesses on the combined incomes of their four princes, what the PC elite would have to say about it.
My guess is that the silence would be as loud as three second thunder- see the flash, say one two three CRASH!!
Sarc light still on.
As I’ve oft said, OFM is the wisest man I know. This is why.
OFM,
I’m watching the on-line course you recommended of the last few hundred years of the Roman Empire. I’m on #5 now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B9b9mUPJik&index=26&list=PL9069142072CDCC89
Great stuff. Can you imagine what that course would cost to take at Yale? And like you say, “It’s free!”
Here’s a talk Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell’s chief of staff, gave recently. He believes, as I do, that the US empire is now very much in crisis, the same way the Roman Empire was in the 3rd and 5th centuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckjY-FW7-dc
What was interesting about the Roman Empire was that Diocletian was able to make reforms in the 3rd century which extended the life of the empire another couple of centuries. Are such reforms for the US empire possible? Wilkerson says we have no other choice but to try, because if the US goes out in a flame, we go with it.
The other thing which Wilkerson points out, and with which I also agree, is that now things move a lot faster than they did in the 5th century. As Kevin Phillips points out, none of the great hegemonic global empires since the Reniassance — Spain, Holland or Great Britain — has managed to last over a hundred years or so after it reached its apogee of wealth and power. So the “imperiopathosis,” as Peter Turchin calls it, seems to take its tool much faster now than in the ancient past.
It IS extremely unfortunate that the D party is the party that gets it right on the environment – while also being the party determined to force social change on the rest of the country- change which most people don’t especially care for and which many tens of millions DETEST.
Mac, just what social changes are the democratic party trying to force on you that you DETEST so damn much? Let me guess? I’ll bet it is gay marriage, gay rights or more specific, giving gays the same rights and privileges as heterosexuals. Well allow me to give you my opinion on this issue.
Gay people are born that way. Treating people different because of an advent of birth is just another form of bigotry. People who wish to deny homosexuals the same rights and privileges as they receive from their government are fucking BIGOTS!
“Gay people are born that way”
Dear Ron,
In the early 80’s, my brother told me that exact statement. Followed up by “no one in their right mind would choose a gay lifestyle in this world”.
May they Rest In Peace
The early 80’s was a terrible time to be gay. They did not know that a disease called AIDS existed…. until it was too late.
Hi Ron,
Very well said. The constitution and Supreme Court precedent provide equal protection under the law (in principle). The people who are upset that rights that should have been granted to homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people long ago are now enforced by law in most of the US can move to more conservative states, or to Russia.
I am sure if I went to the trouble that I could find a comment here in your blog that I posted MYSELF to the effect that gay people are born that way and have the same right – so far as I am concerned- to live as they please. You can take your lantern and search until hell freezes over and you will not be able to ever find a comment ANYWHERE that I have made that can be interpreted as anti gay IN CONTEXT.
I simply point out REALITY.
It seems that hardly anybody is able to deal with reality.I learned to accept that a LONG time ago.
Suppose we switch the topic to oh, let us say, burning wives at their husbands funerals. Now on that topic you and I will agree this is an UNDESIRABLE behavior – an atrocious behavior. But can you call the man who has lived all his life in a society where this perfectly common place behavior a sinner, a criminal, or a bigot because he believes what he believes and behaves as he behaves?
The very word B I G O T is a values laden term and implies moral judgement. You say you do not believe in a god-neither do I although to be technically correct since the question can be neither proven nor disproven I label my self an agnostic leaning towards atheism..
Now IF you do NOT believe in any absolute REVEALED or holy or sacred or whatever term you might choose to describe it moral code, then you OBVIOUSLY must believe in a morality that involves YOU and YOUR peer group deciding what is right and wrong.
Do you deny others who believe differently the right to their own beliefs?
If so , where will you draw the line? Would you like to live in a society – to make an extreme example – where a man is free to pull out his pecker and urinate on the sidewalk in front of your wife – and have this behavior declared unlawful ONLY on the grounds of sanitary regulations? I once used this very example in a graduate class seminar -it turned the light on for three or four people who up until that point had been unable to distinguish their personal beliefs from facts and reality.
( We are NOT talking about facts, as some famous scientist once said. Everybody is entitled to his own opinions and beliefs, but NOT his own facts. Facts are not based on belief or opinion.)
I don’t really give a hoot PERSONALLY. You don’t marry a New York City Jewish girl, an artist no less, unless your personal politics are pretty damned liberal. I have said here I am going to vote for Bernie if he gets the nomination. I am welcome in a the homes of the small handful of gays and lesbians I still know from living off and on in the university district in Richmond off and on for forty years or so -easy for me since I owned a duplex there. Any time there was a vacancy, I stayed in town if it suited me, sometimes for six months or longer. Other times I commuted in a couple of evenings for the odd class.
Now my dear old Daddy does not believe in gay marriage – he grew up in a culture in which this behavior was a big no no and spent his life in that culture and at ninety he still believes the same way. Calling him a bigot would be exceedingly unjust -about as unjustified as calling a fifteen century American “Indian” a S AV A G E because he believed in torturing an enemy.
I am not taking sides. I am simply pointing out cognitive dissonance, ignorance, partisanship, which afflicts people of every persuasion.
Call me the alien biologist who is observing humanity with a REALLY good telescope and REALLY good microphones from his hide out in a mountain side or from his flying saucer in orbit.
He would no more interpret our behaviors in terms of morality, sin, prejudice, bigotry, etc, than a human biologist would interpret the behavior of ants, cows, wolves , or MAYBE chimps- chimps seem to have the rudiments of a morality that is SCARILY like human morality.
You CANNOT POSSIBLY say a behavior is bigoted unless you are speaking as a partisan, a member of a group who disapproves of the behavior in question.
If there is no God to tell you one way or the other, then you are free to decide as you please. People who disagree are also free to decide as they please .
If you choose to force the issue, you run the risk of a fight. If you win, you can say your morality is the superior one- the winners always write the history books.
Now as far as what has actually happened, is happening, and will happen in this country, I have often pointed out that the older conservative element is dieing off fast and that history and demographics are on the side of the D’s rather than the R’s. The fight is basically over, all that is left is the mopping up operations – unless perchance the political backlash is adequate to tip the scales- in combination with many other factors of course – to the point that the country elects a reactionary right wing government. My estimate is that the chances of this happening are small but not negligible by any means.
Maybe I should just summarize by saying there IS NO SUCH THING as an OBJECTIVE right or wrong. All things are either right or wrong because the prevailing attitude at any given time at any given place favors one or the other interpretation.
Call me OLD CYNIC MAC.
This additional label is entirely justified.
Hi Old Farmer Mac,
Let’s say one person rapes another, most would agree that that is morally wrong.
Let’s say a person kills another person at random (they don’t know each other, the murdered person was not threatening the murderer in any way, and the two were not part of an armed conflict), again most would consider this amoral.
You are familiar with equal protection under the law I assume. Those that don’t like it can move elsewhere.
I believe in equal protection under the law of course.
But there is NO getting around the fact that law is an artifact of the will of the people- specifically whichever people happen to control the political process at any particular time and place.
When a cohesive society starts to diverge into two or more divided societies because once commonly accepted behaviors and taboos are no longer commonly accepted and or observed, then you must expect a FIGHT.
SOMEBODY HAS TO GIVE IN OR GIVE UP.
In the end , the question again becomes, WHO shall be master?
Perhaps-JUST PERHAPS – the easier more practical and peaceable and safer option would be for the handful of gay people BORN in my backwoods community to move to San Francisco- or the Fan District in Richmond- than to ask the ninety nine percent of the hetero folk to move.
For the most part this is what local G/L people have done- move to a community where they are accepted.
My redneck acquaintances would NOT find it easy to get along in some neighborhoods where I have spent some time. Guys who are gay are not necessarily peaceable or ninety eight pound weaklings.
I used to know a couple of lesbians who would just as soon shoot you as not- both of them had been in jail for assault and battery.They lived a couple of houses down from me in the Oregon Hill neighborhood in Richmond, where the city dwelling red neck whites congregated. (DIRT CHEAP rent is a super redneck magnet. ) I bought a house there, correctly predicting the gentrification of the neighborhood with the growth of the university. Even biker types gave those two women room on the sidewalk. I got along fine with them- would have been afraid NOT to , to be honest.
People need communities of like minded people. I could fit in there no problem given my backwoods southern mountain background.I grew up with guns and violence and the sight of a gun to me is no more alarming than the sight of a coffee cup -unless it is pointed at me of course. LOL
At the same time I was dating my Big Apple princess- who lived a mile or so away in the Fan. DIFFERENT WORLD. Once we got married, I moved in with her at the corner of Boulevard and Monument. I could hit Stonewall Jacksons horse in the butt with an apple from the balcony. Would have bought in that immediate area, but it was already to expensive for us to buy so we rented as long as we were there.
So I have sort of been there and seen that when it comes to sexual mores. If you want peace, you must allow people to sort themselves out. Otherwise you will inevitably get a fight.
Hopefully the fight in this country will remain low level.I don’t hear about THAT MANY murders involving sexual mores, considering the size of the population.
The people who can’t handle change are dieing off fast.
Give them another decade or two and they will mostly be gone, and gay rights will cease to be an issue.
Women no longer have to fight to get into law school or med school to illustrate.
When a cohesive society starts to diverge into two or more divided societies because once commonly accepted behaviors and taboos are no longer commonly accepted and or observed, then you must expect a FIGHT.
SOMEBODY HAS TO GIVE IN OR GIVE UP.
Mac, there is no fight anywhere except in the minds of bigoted people.
Also a majority of straight people are not bigots. They accept their neighbors for what they are.
Perhaps-JUST PERHAPS – the easier more practical and peaceable and safer option would be for the handful of gay people BORN in my backwoods community to move to San Francisco- or the Fan District in Richmond- than to ask the ninety nine percent of the hetero folk to move.
Goddammit Mac, nobody is asking anybody to move. And 99% of the people in the in any district in the nation are not straight. It is closer to between 87% and 90%.
And of that 87 to 90%, most of them are not bigots and they don’t mind gays living in the neighborhood. Only about 25% to 40% are bigots and don’t want any gays in their neighborhood.
There is no fight. The fight is over. The bigots will just have to learn to live with it. But they are a minority anyway so they are way outnumbered.
Can’t say I agree with you Ron. I read articles by Rod Dreher at the American Conservative website. He is prepared to notionally withdraw from the wider society to preserve his way of thinking and his way of life for his children.
However, there are some of his commenters (since banned if I’m not mistaken) who fairly regularly call for war, or something closely equating to war, to preserve the prior status quo. After reading that site for so long, I’m honestly wondering when or how the war will start. Probably there needs to be real money on the line for the Civil War redux to erupt, but I think much of the tinder for that conflagration is already there. Perhaps I’m just an alarmist.
I see the same thing at the Altantic website, where the conflicting sides are very much out in the open and slugging it out daily. I don’t doubt that they can be led to war with the right cause, and the right leadership.
As an aside, why the heck are we talking about gay marriage here of all places? I get more than enough culture war topics elsewhere as I’m sure everyone else (who’s American or Canadian anyways) does too. I consider this place a bit of a refuge from that endless and solution-less rigamarole. Can we just leave that elsewhere please? That horse has been beaten so dead everywhere else, that it honestly and truly need not be beaten to quarks and other subatomic particles here.
Please?
Wet One, this horse will never die with me. Let me repeat:
Sexual orientation is not a choice. Anyone with half a brain should know that. They are born that way. Anyone who would deny anyone the same rights and privileges they themselves enjoy, because of an advent of birth, is a fucking bigot!
Now you may wonder why I have such very strong feelings on this subject. I had a son who was gay. He died in 1994 from AIDS. He was 30 years old.
But I was a liberal who believed in equal rights for everyone even before he was born. I have not changed my opinion on this subject of equal rights for everyone regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation since I was a very young man. But I just am more passionate about it now.
The bigots are simply wrong on this issue.
I’m very sorry for your loss Ron.
HI RON,
I don’t PERSONALLY detest any of the current day policies of the D’s.Some I disagree with in terms of the way they are implemented. Some I would like to see abandoned or refined.
Being inclined towards the libertarian end of the spectrum, I believe in people doing to suit themselves, so long as they do not harm others unnecessarily.
Hence I believe in legalized pot and gay rights. What other people do behind closed doors is none of MY business. It MIGHT be that I enjoy a few things behind closed doors myself that are not approved behaviors in this society. That would be MY business rather than some old fuddy duddy preachers.
I don’t believe in cops being able to kick the shit out of people just because they are minorities -that could easily backfire since I I might find myself in the minority one day.I would actually, most likely, except I will not live another fifty years.
I detest HRC and have every since the days of Cattle Gate and White Water because I have never allowed my personal values to blind me to obvious realities. Let’s not forget that at one time I was a long haired ACLU card carrying guy married to a New York City born and bred Jewish artist and spent almost all my free time hanging around with the education and social sciences grad students at a large university. You can take it to the bank that you must be pretty liberal to fit that description.
And for what it is worth the radio in my car has been tuned to the closest NPR station so long I cannot ever remember changing the station -except late at night when they play organ music. Then I turn it to a local bluegrass station.
I am merely pointing out REALITY as I see it when it comes to what is going on a and WHY in this country and the world.
Perhaps you believe in an absolute morality but NOT in a GOD?
Pray tell me the source of your beliefs.
Do you wish to deny other people the right to believe in OTHER values?
I am NOT talking about facts of the DNA sort.
I am talking about facts of the sort whereby people in different cultures do things differently – such as own slaves, incinerate wives at their funerals, torture captured enemies, cut off the external genitals of young girls- all these things are perfectly ok by common consent in some society or another.
Everybody with a brain who has looked into the subject knows (by now) gay people are born that way, and thus have as much right to live as they please as any body else.
I am pointing out WHY cultural politics became entangled with environmental politics.It seems that people wish to take offense at having this pointed out.
Maybe the hundred million or so people ( a wild assed guess ) who do not approve of gay marriage etc are wrong. We are all entitled to our own beliefs imo.
MY point in part is that they believe ( correctly as I see it ) that their way of life is under attack and that only an idiot would expect them to just GIVE UP their culture without a fight.
MY point is that if you force change on people, too much change, THEY WILL FIGHT.Mostly the fight has been won in the courts, by the liberal element, which is ok by me.
BUT the conservative element has the ballot box as a weapon with which to fight back. WHY would anybody expect them to vote any differently than they do?
Given the way humans think and BEHAVE , we just naturally oppose whatever the OUT group wants and root for whatever our IN group wants. We don’t make value judgements with our neocortex. Our midbrain is our boss. THIS is my MAIN point. THIS is WHY so called run of the mill conservatives so often oppose sensible environmental policies that are would be -IF IMPLEMENTED- very very good for them personally.
Clean air for instance to me is a property right.
NOTHING is more fundamental to true conservatism as I define the term than property rights. Nobody should be allowed to poison the air I have no choice but to breathe.
Any body with brains enough ,and data enough, to understand the actual physical facts involved when it comes to air pollution and their OWN PERSONAL well being WOULD BE a rabid supporter of clean air legislation-IF ONLY he were to THINK RATIONALLY about the issue. What I am trying to get across is that partisan politics TRUMPS ( unfortunate word, I DETEST him about as fervently as I detest HRC ) rational thinking.
I can point out plenty of people with asthma and heart trouble etc who believe – mistakenly of course – that Democrats are out to strangle the coal industry for some never quite understandable reason. But the reason need not be understandable. ALL they give a shit about is whether the D party is for or against coal so as to take the opposite position. If the D’s were to come out in favor of coal, they would within a year or two convince themselves burning coal is a part of the devil’s plot to sully Sky Daddy’s beautiful creation.
NOW does this sort of argument lead you to believe I am a STUPID REPUBLICAN? OR ignorant? or prejudiced against liberalism?
I am a political outlier, a person who believes what my lying eyes show me.
Remember the old song, who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes ? LOL
ROFL.
Maybe I am a simpleton – but if so, then so are the professors who write books about sociology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, evolution, history etc etc.
None of them would argue in person, privately , with anything I have said. In public, they are constrained to go along with the current status quo value judgements and imply they are absolutes but they are very careful to never come right out and say any value is an absolute.
Absolutes are for PHYSICAL scientists.
Of COURSE this is no strain for them because they virtually all do agree with the current status quo as it stands in academia and in law.
We mostly eat junk food because we are TRAINED to eat it as the consequence of watching ads on tv.
Yup. That’s it right there! Television, the greatest mind control technology ever invented. Fortunately, more and more people are turning to the internet for information and entertainment but, TV still has an awful lot of influence on people’s thoughts and if you’ve got money, you can buy a pathway into people’s thoughts..
Who said Americans are rational? We’ll never willingly give up large cars or powerful guns. Never. We’ll break up into civil war well before that happens.
Hi dfens9,
On guns I agree, for some reason people don’t really understand the second amendment.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
One possible interpretation (I am not a lawyer) is that regulation is actually mentioned in the second amendment, so perhaps this right (based on the need for a well regulated militia) is not unlimited.
We actually no longer have a well regulated militia to ensure the security of the State, we have police, national guard and armed forces, so the basis for this “right” no longer exists.
Sensible nations in the rest of the OECD have firearms strictly regulated.
Large cars will be given up when oil prices rise, they will be reserved for the affluent once peak oil arrives and oil prices rise to $150 per barrel in 2015$ or higher.
A couple of 2013 articles:
Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/
Study: Gun homicides, violence down sharply in past 20 years
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/us/study-gun-homicide/
Some FBI numbers I found:
Total US gun related homicides in 1993: 18,200
Total US gun related homicides in 2010: 9,100
Total US gun related homicides in 2014: 8,100
Note that this does not count accidents, suicides and justified shootings, etc.
Mass murder, shooting sprees and rampage violence: Research roundup – Journalist's Resource Journalist's Resource: Even as the total gun homicide rate has fallen, however, some of the worst acts of violence in U.S. history have taken place within the past decade. Half of the deadliest shootings — incidents at Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Binghamton, Fort Hood (2009), the Washington Navy Yard and a church in Charleston — have taken place since 2007. In September 2014 the FBI released a report confirming that U.S. mass shootings had risen sharply since 2007: From 2000 to 2006, there were an average of 6.4 annually; from 2007 to 2013, the average more than doubled, rising to 16.4 such shootings per year.
First, do you believe the numbers, and second, if you do, what is the explanation?
If the numbers are correct, the truth is that so many people have been locked up, and abortion/birth rate decline has reduced absolute numbers of violent young men. If conservatives got their wish of no abortion, we would see increased crime. To be fair, though, if liberals got their wish of lighter prison sentences, we would have increased crime.
Still, I don’t see how peak oil combined with imperial and economic decline, lots of guns, and racial tension in a country that now has people from all over the world, makes for a good combination. I think the system is cracking and the result is going to be violent, I really do.
The “Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime” also known as the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis remains controversial and appears to not yet be supported by the data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
Emphasis mine.
“Donohue and Levitt subsequently published a response to the Foote and Goetz paper.[8] The response acknowledged the mistake, but showed that with different methodology, the effect of legalized abortion on crime rates still existed. Foote and Goetz, however, soon produced a rebuttal of their own and showed that even after analyzing the data using the methods that Levitt and Donohue recommend, the data does not show a positive correlation between abortion rates and crime rates. [9] They are quick to point out that this does not necessarily disprove Levitt’s thesis, however, and emphasize that with data this messy and incomplete, it is in all likelihood not even possible to prove or disprove Donohue and Levitt’s conclusion.”
A couple of years ago I ran across this article by Kevin Drum cleverly entitled “America’s Real Criminal Element”:
“Experts often suggest that crime resembles an epidemic. But what kind? Karl Smith, a professor of public economics and government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has a good rule of thumb for categorizing epidemics: If it spreads along lines of communication, he says, the cause is information. Think Bieber Fever. If it travels along major transportation routes, the cause is microbial. Think influenza. If it spreads out like a fan, the cause is an insect. Think malaria. But if it’s everywhere, all at once—as both the rise of crime in the ’60s and ’70s and the fall of crime in the ’90s seemed to be—the cause is a molecule.
A molecule? That sounds crazy. What molecule could be responsible for a steep and sudden decline in violent crime?
Well, here’s one possibility: Pb(CH2CH3)4.”
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline which describes the correlation that lead poisoning has with violent crime.
It is an interesting notion, with startling criminological and philosophical implications, so I was interested to see this mentioned at the end of the above Wiki article regarding the possible link between abortion and crime rates.
Jessica Wolpaw Reyes’ research paper on the topic can be found at: http://www3.amherst.edu/~jwreyes/papers/LeadCrimeBEJEAP.pdf
Veering recklessly into the non-rigorous world of anecdote, not long after I was exposed to the ‘lead as violence driver’ hypothesis, Darwinian posted a list on The Drum Beat of the countries in the world with the highest violent crime rates. I was curious, so I looked up the countries on the list to see how many of them still used leaded gasoline. If my memory serves, every country on the list either still sold leaded gasoline, or had only banned it so recently that the violent crime reduction benefit would not yet have shown up in the data. (I think the latency is about 20 years, but may be mis-remembering).
It’s a little surprising to me that this hasn’t garnered more attention in media, or in policy circles. I’ve never heard a politician mention it. In conversation, I encounter strong resistance to the concept when talking to someone with strong beliefs in narratives of boot strapping Horatio Alger self determination as the driver of success in life, and also with theologians, or cops.
To some, the suggestion that perpetrators of violent crime may in fact be victims of a crime of a different nature altogether doesn’t settle well. We like our vengeance served hot and served often, so long as the criminal fits our description of what a criminal is.
Other related articles of interest on behavioural topics:
Rat Park and drug addiction or, what happens if you build a rodent paradise and give them access to unlimited opiates:
“We compared the drug intake of rats housed in a reasonably normal environment 24 hours a day with rats kept in isolation in the solitary confinement cages that were standard in those days. […] In virtually every experiment, the rats in solitary confinement consumed more drug solution, by every measure we could devise. And not just a little more. A lot more.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
The human implication according to Johan Hari:
“[T]he single biggest factor […] is that addicts are people who can’t bear to be present in their lives. If we want to change that, and there are countries that have changed that, we have to make their lives better, not worse.”
http://fivebooks.com/interviews/johann-hari-on-war-drugs
The Behavioural Sink, or, what happens if you build a rodent paradise and give them unlimited resources, but limited space:
“In July 1968 four pairs of mice were introduced into the Utopian universe. […] There was no shortage of food or water or nesting material. There were no predators. The only adversity was the limit on space.”
[…]
“On day 560, a little more than eighteen months into the experiment, the population peaked at 2,200 mice and its growth ceased. A few mice survived past weaning until day six hundred, after which there were few pregnancies and no surviving young. As the population had ceased to regenerate itself, its path to extinction was clear. There would be no recovery, […] The mice had lost the capacity to rebuild their numbers […] [they] had lost the social ability to do so.”
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/42/wiles.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
Again, in Calhoun’s experiment, space was the only limited resource.
Mark MiPalabras said:
That is the stated goal. But it is the real goal?
If the reduction of drug usage were the goal, then the so-called “War on Drugs” has had just the opposite effect. And yet our policy makers continue doing the same thing. Why?
So this begs the question: What is the real goal of the “War on Drugs”? Here are a couple of possible motives for the “War on Drugs”:
1) It is a form of social control, a way to control the underclasses who are, at the same time, mostly racial and ethnic minorities. So in addition to being a class war, the “War on Drugs” is a race war too. Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation gives greater detail in this short talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs43ghB6FAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA5vF8BhjTI
The “War on Drugs” is thus part and parcel of a creeping US police state, but for the control freaks to get it past congress it had to be repackaged to appeal to the racists.
2) The “War on Drugs” provides a pretense for imperial intervention into the internal affairs of countries in Latin America.
These two articles are in Spanish, but given your moniker perhaps you speak Spanish so can read them:
http://aldeaglobal.jornada.com.mx/2012/octubre/guerra-contra-el-narcotrafico-estrategia-estadunidense-de-contencion-en-sudamerica
http://aldeaglobal.jornada.com.mx/2013/febrero/la-estrategia
Not to mention of course that both widespread drug use and the ongoing war on drugs are both big sources of profit for the multinational big banks.
Some argue that not only are the transnational money-center banks beneficiaries of the drug trade, but they are the biggest beneficiaries.
The Canadian researcher Peter Dale Scott, referencing documents he obtained from the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Treasury, concludes that the banks are “collectively the largest beneficiaries of the traffic of drugs.”
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/06/06/opinion/a12a1cul
And as far as the symbiotic relationship between bankers and war-makers and war-profiteers, there’s a centuries-long history of that.
Governor of the Bank of England expresses concern about climate change in a recent speech:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/upshot/one-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-central-bankers-is-worried-about-climate-change.html?rref=upshot
Hi Caelan,
Well there are elections, which helps a little. In most advanced economies there is the rule of law, which also helps.
How is it that in a stateless society any rules are enforced? Or do humans become angels in this utopian world?
I am assuming for example that the regulation of firearms would not exist in your stateless world, it would be every person or tribe for themselves.
Of course these people would not have been corrupted by a state so they would be angelic and would not choose to go to war with other tribes.
Dennis said “How is it that in a stateless society any rules are enforced? Or do humans become angels in this utopian world?”
A stateless society enforces it’s will by rule of the mob and the vigilante group. Peasants with torches burn the offenders homes and maybe them too, mobs with guns and ropes hunt them down and hang them, kangaroo courts hand out predetermined sentences. Local “bosses” take care of things, if you know what I mean? People just disappear or end up dead of “unknown” causes.
Sounds like the state, only large scale and with some exceptions, such as nuclear waste. Of course it’s too late for that. We’ll have the waste for awhile.
Hi Dennis, how are you?
The idea of Government as an agent external to society is analogous to the idea of God as an intervener in human affairs….
This quote also serves to enhance my response to MarbleZeppelin’s ‘mob’ comment and my response to it.
In any case, you make some typical points, to which I respond that it is not for me to give you (even though I do via the Permaea Manifesto) ‘the answer’ to a corrupt system, except to simply say that, from an ethical responsibility standpoint, we must, collectively, or this system will kill us and/or our civilization and take much down with it– as it is doing. So that’s the challenge.
Ron of course sheds his tears about ecocide, but so far seems to turn a blind eye to its cause– in large part the crony-capitalist plutarchy, or state/’government’ if you will which he, you, Nick G and others seem to cling to like the proverbial bird that remains in its cage when the door is opened even though it’s free to fly out.
This does not seem to befit intelligent adults.
So, Dennis, if you have a response in the future to this kind of thing, I would respectfully recommend you make some additional thought/effort at the effective transcendence of this status-quo. Help us help us.
As others have said before hereon, BAU, which is part of so-called government-as-usual, ‘is a dead man walking’.
Hi Caelan,
There is no perfect system, I agree things should change and that BAU will not continue. Maybe 500 years hence society will devolve to the utopian tribal society you hint at. Would you agree that some states are better than others? I would rather live in the US than El Salvador, particularly if I were poor. Canada or Western Europe would be preferred in many ways over the US, by me.
Until we get population down to 1 billion Worldwide (maybe in 2300), I just don’t see how a stateless society would function, but I won’t be here in 2200, much less 2300, and think a transition to less energy use, and lower fossil fuel use should be the focus of our efforts.
I will refrain from responding (or try) in the future.
Hi Dennis. How are you today?
If we’re going to even bother being online and discussing stuff like this, like improving energy systems, or our analyses of resource depletion, or our smooth transitioning and whatever else, shouldn’t we also be doing the same kind of thing with the current system model, given how it contextualizes, oversees and affects much of this?
I tried to edit the above yesterday to no avail, so just to add today that to, as you say, ‘see how a stateless society would function’, you need to actually look, (which is not to necessarily suggest that you have not). If one is serious, a start might be selecting one of the links I provided for the ‘Center for a Stateless Society’. I imagine that they can answer some of your questions and concerns much better than I.
Suggesting that one won’t be here in 2200 or that such-and-such a State is better than this or the other one doesn’t seem adequate for a responsible adult who cares about their world or the kind of one they may be leaving future generations.
If you that think that, as you say, ‘a transition to less energy use, and lower fossil fuel use should be the focus of our efforts’, and if we agree, I recommend that the ‘focus’ be broad, be systems-level, thus including analyses and critiques of the State, or our initial focus may subvert itself; conflict with its raison d’être and/or this ‘transition’ won’t be smooth or self-empowering to people in general.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/vegas-casinos-fight-to-buy-their-own-electricity-1443999633
Price per kWh in Sunny markets has crashed like Oil.
“After Berkshire bought NV Energy in December 2013, the utility signed long-term contracts to buy solar power for as little as 3.9 cents a kilowatt-hour from First Solar Inc. and SunPower Corp., according to documents NV Energy filed in July with the state regulatory commission. Wholesale conventional power is even cheaper, going for an average of 3.5 cents a kilowatt-hour at a hub in southern California, where Nevada gets some of its power. That is down 34% from 2014, and 57% below 2008 prices, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange Inc.?”
That’s why solar isn’t just a “liberal” concept.
Decentralized power generation and distribution allows more flexibility in how and from whom electricity consumers get their power.
Sooner or later the concept of a grid controlled by one utility will change. And it will change as more businesses realize there is money to be made or money to be saved by developing a variety of power supply options.
German wind output already above 2014 total by end-Sept: BDEW
* Jan-Sept wind output at 59 TWh vs 57.4 TWh total for 2014
* Offshore wind adds 4.6 TWh as installations boom
* Wind conditions above average so far this year
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/german-wind-output-already-above-2014-total-by-26226455
SolarCity today said it has manufactured the world’s most efficient rooftop solar panel.
The photovoltaic panels have an efficiency exceeding 22%, the company said, 7 percentage points higher than the average rooftop panel efficiency rating of roughly 15%.
…
According to SolarCity, the new panels were measured as having a 22.04% module-level efficiency by Renewable Energy Test Center, a third-party certification provider.
The new panels produce 30% to 40% more power over the current models, but they cost the same to manufacture — about .55 cents per watt, according to Bass. The panels, which are 1.61 meters or 1.81 meters in size, depending on the model, will have a capacity of 355 watts each.
http://www.itworld.com/article/2989138/hardware/solarcity-claims-it-has-created-the-worlds-most-powerful-solar-panel.html?google_editors_picks=true
There seems to be a little bit of hyperbole in this story since the following source indicates that there is at least one other company claiming to be shipping similarly efficient modules:
SolarCity to begin production of >22% efficient PV modules this month
“However, not everyone agrees on SolarCity’s claim. While we were not able to verify efficiencies for Panasonic’s multi-junction HIT modules by press time, SunPower, which has held the record for this highest efficiency mass-produced crystalline silicon modules, told pv magazine that it has been shipping modules with greater than 22% efficiency to some of its customers.”
well, it’s great to have them both!
neither panel likely to be for sale unless you buy an installed system. We are stuck with 17-18% product with a few exceptions like HIT or LG’s Neons. For many southern roofs that have the room , lower efficiency can be better – more roof area is shaded.
Note that PV Panels will have a STC rating – That’s Power output at radiance of 1000watts/squ meter @ 25C. So a 20% panel will have an STC output of ~200 watts/sq meter. A standard 60 cell panel is ~ 1000x1600mm, so you can multiple by 1.6 or so for a soft conversion. The Solar constant for Planet Earth is 1366 watts/ squ meter… That’s what a satellite will see if the array is perpendicular to the Sun’s rays. On the Beach or Desert you can get over 1000 watts/m @ solar noon on clear days.
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday announced a final settlement with the oil giant BP of $20.8 billion for its role in the disastrous 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, raising the total from the initial $18.7 billion settlement announced in July.
At either amount, it is the largest environmental settlement — and the largest civil settlement with any single entity — in the nation’s history.
The United States attorney general, Loretta Lynch, called the filing of the final settlement “a major step forward in our effort to deliver justice to the Gulf region in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy — the largest environmental disaster our nation has ever endured.”
Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, estimated that the final settlement represented $1,725 a barrel of oil spilled in the disaster. The maximum amount that a judge could have assessed in the case was $4,300 a barrel.
So it seems BP dodged a major bullet in the cost per barrel. I thought they had been found willfully negligent and were to be charged the higher fee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/business/bp-settlement-in-gulf-oil-spill-is-raised-to-20-8-billion.html?_r=0
Been watching alot of video clips featuring Bernie Sanders, including his rally in Boston on Saturday evening, where he was introduced by none other than Bill McKibben of 350.org fame. If and as of right now it’s a pretty big if, this guy ever gets to be the POTUS. it should have big implications for the renewable energy af FF industries since one of the core planks of his platform is “the transformation of the US energy system”. He also does not hide his disdain for global warming deniers. From my perspective, he appears to be the prospective candidate that is least afflicted with fairy tale dreams, having what appears to be a fairly sound grasp on reality. This election could turn out to be really interesting.
The attached figure shows China’s electric power generating capacity over the first eight months of this year. The January-Februrary data are reported together to remove the statistical impact of the Chinese lunar new year.
China’s total electricity generating capacity (utility scale, defined as electric power facilities with a capacity of 6MW or above) grew from 1,329 GW in February to 1,374 GW in August.
As of August 2015, China had 24 GW of nuclear power, 940 GW of conventional thermal power, 270 GW of hydro power, 108 GW of wind power, and 31 GW of other renewable power (including solar, biomass, geothermal and other renewables)
China’s electricity statistics do not break the conventional thermal power into coal-fired and gas-fired. But it can be confidently said that currently more than 90 percent of the thermal power is coal-fired power. China has a plan to build up to 100 GW of gas-fired power by 2020.
All powers are not equal.
Nuclear power has the highest capacity utilization rate. Between January and August 2015, China’s nuclear power capacity utilization rate varied between 78 percent and 99 percent. That is, within each given period, one gigawatt of nuclear power can generate electricity at rates between 0.78 GW and 9.99 GW.
China’s conventional thermal power had capacity utilization rates varying between 50 and 54 percent.
Hydro power’s capacity utilization rate varied between 28 percent (Jan-Feb) and 54 percent (July).
Wind power’s capacity utilization rate varied between 14 percent (August) and 26 percent (March).
Other renewable power’s capacity utilization rate varied beween 12 percent (May) and 28 percent (July)
After posting the first graph above. I’ve had trouble to post additional graphs. Any one else has a similar problem?
hearings with CA PUC started today…
The California Public Utilities Commission on Monday holds hearings that could result in changes to the way that solar panel users are reimbursed for the power they generate, improbably making the Golden State the newest front in a battle between power companies and rooftop solar firms. On one side are proponents of solar energy and the companies that make the panels, while arrayed against them are utilities that want policy changes that would result in solar power being less cost-effective for homeowners and businesses that want to use it.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/05/utilities-newest-solar-battleground-california.html
China Electricity Generation
Ok, this is interesting. It seems the system is fine with the area/bar graphs but refuses to take line graphs. I had a line graph showing China’s electric power sector capacity utilization rates. Whenever I tried to post it, it takes me to a Not Found page.
Anyway, work with what we’ve here. This graph shows the rates of generation of China’s electric power sector by generating source. Note that this graphs shows the rates of generation not the generating capacity (shown in the first graph).
For example, in August 2015, China’s total electricity generation was 515.5 TWH. This translates into a rate of generation of 692.9 GW (515.5 TWH/24/31 = 692.9 GW; 31 is the number of days in August).
Between January and August 2015, China’s electric power generating rates varied between 600 and 700 GW. Currently, about 20 GW is provided by nuclear power. Conventional thermal power provided 460-500 GW. Hydro power provided 70-150 GW (depending on the season). Wind power provided 15-25 GW and other renewable power provided less than 10 GW.
This has important implications for China’s future renewable development. Given China’s current electricity demand (600-700 GW) and subtracting supplies from hydro and nuclear power, the remaining electricity demand to be met from conventional and renewable sources amount to about 500 GW.
This means that given China’s current electricity demand, the limit to renewable power’s generating capacity is probably around 500 GW. If renewable power is greater than 500 GW, the extra power when the renewable power plants are operating at near capacity will have to be dumped. Note that the graphs shows monthly means. Thus, the actual day-to-day, hour-to-hour fluctuations are much larger. The minimum demand could be significantly lower than 500 GW. In fact, China already rugularly abandons about 10% of the wind power generated.
If 500 GW is the maximum limit for generating capacity (given the current electric power system), the actural average generation from renewable power will be much less than 500 GW. China’s wind power has a capacity rate of 15-25 percent. Solar capacity utilization rate is around 10 percent. I am not talking about the ideal, lab, theoretical capacity utilization rate but the actual observed on-the-field average capacity utilization rate.
Say, China’s average capacity utilization rate for renewables will be 20 percent. That means, with 500 GW of generating capacity, the actual generation from renewables will be only 100 GW. This leaves a gap of 400 GW to be filled by fossil fuels. (Note that the problem cannot be easily solved by overbuilding renewables; if you build 1000 GW of renewables, a large portion of the second 500 GW will be wasted, and the actual generation may only rise from 100 GW to, say, 150 GW; Energy Matters has some post on this)
The conventional thermal power need to have at least 500 GW to meet the 400 GW demand and to fill in the gap when renewables fall short of their capacity. In reality, the fluctuations of electricity demand are much larger than that of the monthly means. Thus, the conventional thermal power needs to be sufficiently large to meet large upward deviations of demand from monthly means. Using the current conventional thermal capacity utilization rate as a guide, China probably needs at least 800 GW of conventional thermal power. Given China’s shortage of natural gas, only a small proportion of the 800 GW can be gas-fired power.
Conclusion, without breakthrough in large-scale storage, the electric power sector will continue to depend on fossil fuels (and in China, it will continue to depend on coal).
This is all utility scale. Is there significant distributed solar in China?
For the first six months of this year, China built 7.7 GW of solar power, including 5.1 GW of utility scale solar
Whenever I hear of excess solar/wind being “dumped”, I think any sensible energy engineer, given the opportunity to use electricity costing nothing, could come up with hundreds of things to do with it right now.
In my own personal situation, I have a lot of excess PV, and on a sunny day like this, my array is pumping maybe 30kW-hrs back to the grid.
So I am working on a compressed air storage (discarded pipeline) from which i could draw and heat air to the inlet of a gas turbine (turbocharger), to crank out kW on demand at nite or on cloudy days. Sure, inefficient. So what? Cheap and easy.
China has plenty of smart engineers–and Germany. It will just naturally happen.
wimbi, I am looking for the best systems for my treehouse and shipping container home designs. Would you be interested in collaborating online? I can do the CAD and dimensioning and even if it doesn’t get built, we’d have it as a 3D CAD file with plenty of photorealistic renders to share with POB. We could even insert a 3D representation of you taking a shower or something. What do you say?
Caelan. Thanks for the good thought. Flattering.
It happens that I have just made arrangements for a collaboration with Community Solutions, Yellow Springs OH, to set up a web site whereon I and anyone else can put their low tech survival widget ideas with room for anyone to offer helps and constructive criticism.
Idea is same as what you said- to get lots of this kind of thinking out there for anyone to pick up and run with.
As for my shower, nobody would care to watch THAT! But, i betcha there are lots of targets people would be super eager to watch – bringing in brilliant minds from all over the globe to suggest– um, whatever.
That’s great to hear about your site, wimbi.
When do you think it will be up and running?
As for the shower, well, to be a little more serious, it is my best ‘think-tank’, where I, and probably many others, get the best ideas.
Do you remember a book called Design for the Real World?
It first came out in 1971. I loved it. Lots of low tech ideas for places with limited resources and/or money.
The idea I remember most was for a radio for Africa. Since it was to be available for people in places with only one radio station, there was no need to design a radio with a tuner to find multiple stations. Thus the cost of that could be eliminated.
Hi Boomer II,
Largely, the reason I ‘pinged’ wimbi is because of the sense I get that they are more interested and have a background in low tech ideas, and designs that don’t rely, or rely as much, on complex infrastructures and global economic webs that involve long distance setups, like overseas; that can be maintained and repaired locally with local materials at hand; and that are flexible and can be adaptively-reused, and stuff like that.
Believe it or not, a couple of my ideas for heating an all-season adult live-in treehouse might be lots of south-facing glazing and/or a passive solar, hot-air pipe system made with black-painted recycled aluminum cans and duct tape or old clothes-dryer-outlet duct-tubes or somesuch. With regard to a passive solar hot water heater, I might generally be happy to shower only when it is sunny. As for lighting demands, I might also be generally happy to actually go to sleep when it gets dark out, like the birds and much of the fauna.
Caelan, what is you Latitude? To Heat from PV in the Winter at 36 degrees latitude you have 3-6X excessive kWh in the Summer so you do get very creative, PV is cheap and easier than chopping wood as you get older. like to brainstorm some designs. email me at my handle at Gmail..
I am about 40 north. I put my small split mitsubishi on top of a big old cistern that never goes below about 14C, so the heat pump is happy all year around, and boosts our usual wood stove quite satisfactorily on coldest days.
Other people here say they do as well putting their heat pump in the basement, where it takes same temp air from all the heat leaks thru the floor and the warm sewer.
I think my widget stuff will be up in maybe a month. They want to fancify the site so there is a bit of a delay. Of course this is an ever ongoing thing.
Some favorites at the moment
pyrolyzer wood stove. heat, hot water, charcoal from firewood.
heat driven water pump. Like the old putput boat toys in the bathtub, but plenty strong to drive hydronic heat system. No explosions allowed.
carbon smothered potty- good replacement for that atrocious toilet and septic and all that. Super garden conditioner.
compressed pipeline + turbine solar power storage. Seems to me this one can be scaled up BIG.
All loads of fun, harmless and cheap, especially if you don’t actually do any of it.
@ 40 degrees 70% of you energy use in winter is for Heat. No? Fab a large Tank with 1-3 week time constant in the Basement and use a Conventional or Heat Pump Hot water heater. You would need a big array for space heating – .5 to 2x Module to Inside Area. I have deployed PV to resistance heat storage systems with positive results. There are solutions entering the market.
Hi Longtimber,
Ok, let’s talk. I’ll email you in a bit.
“All loads of fun, harmless and cheap, especially if you don’t actually do any of it.” ~ wimbi
I actually appreciate that, but also the spirit of ‘online collaborative exhibitionistic papertecture’ as part of the discourse, which can still bear fruit, whether by those collaborating/demonstrating/exhibiting or by those as more passive audience-members– even though I also like that anyone can get involved or outvolved in any capacity and at any time. Thought experiments that flirt with the practical.
It’s also in part about the new more collaborative, rather than more competitive, world we seem to need, post peaks.
Halifax, Nova Scotia:
44.6478° N, 63.5714° W
Hi PE, I’m not sure I follow your logic with regard to the limitations of renewables in China. To explain why, I’m attaching a screenshot of a page from the Fraunhoffer ISE Energy Charts web site. The page shows the electricity production data for the month of August 2015 and it is plain to see that production/consumption of electricity varies considerably throughout each day with variations between the days as well. The minimum amount of electricity needed for a period is called the base load and is typically supplied by “base load” plants, designed and built to run very close to full capacity all the time (24/7/365). The peaks are usually supplied by “peaker” or “load following” plants designed to be able to modulate their power output to follow the variations in demand.
How a given jurisdiction designs it’s electricity generating system can vary widely. Hydro plants can be designed to load follow and as the Germans have shown, so can coal. Typically it is preferred to use plants with lower capital costs to do load following, since their utilization rates can be quite low. Due to the high capital costs of nuclear plants, their owners tend to want to run them at full capacity as much as possible.
Solar PV plants are somewhat unique, in that they can only produce during the daylight hours and even then, produce less the further away from mid day you are. The capacity factor. that is the amount of power generated relative to the nameplate capacity of the plant, for solar PV is probably limited to about 30% at the best of times in the best locations on the planet. A 30% capacity factor for solar would equate to a solar resource equivalent to almost eight continuous hours of mid day sun!
To end, I would say that the limits to renewable penetration will be whatever is designed into the system and will be governed by how much storage is available for electricity from intermittent renewable sources, how flexible the load following plants are and what capacity factors (utilization rates) will be acceptable to the owners of load following plants. In Germany, the law requires that electricity from renewable sources be given priority access to the grid so, if the owners of FF burning power plants cannot operate them profitably but, the plants are required for reliable operation of the grid, that is a problem Germany will have to solve. The situation in China will be determined by the actions that they take.
One of the concerns I have for my island nation is that we design our system to take maximum advantage of renewables. If fuel costs go very high in the future, the repayment of capital invested in fuel burning plants could end up as an unnecessary burden on the population.
Hi Islandboy, thanks for the comment.
Using the graph you provided, the baseload in the German system is apporximately 30 GW and the variable part is between 30 and 80 GW. Thus, in the German system, assuming that the 30GW of baseload is given, the maximum limit of wind/solar generating capacity is approximately 50GW. This could be too generous as most of the variations take place betwen 30 and 70GW and a large portion of the variations are covered by brown coal.
Again, using your graph, just from eyeballing, the mean generation is about 50 GW. This is the same as the maximum wind/solar capacity estimated above by looking at the variable part.
Now, in the Chinese case, I don’t have hourly generation data. All I have are the monthly means. The monthly mean generating rates are between 600 and 700 GW. After subtracting hydro/nuclear, the remaining “mean” generation is about 500 GW. Using the above rule of thumb, we can estimate that the maximum generating CAPACITY of wind/solar that can be allowed in the Chinese system is probably around 500 GW. Agree?
Now, start with 500 GW of wind/solar capacity, how much electricity can it generate? Again, let me emphasize again, I am talking about the actual, observed, on the filed capacity utilization rates. Not the ideal conditions, not for individual good sizes, but the AVERAGE.
The data are readily available. Thanks for Fred, the monthly capacity utilization rates are shown in the graph below. In addition, you can calculate the annual average capacity utilization rates using the BP data.
According to BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015, in 2014, China consumed 158.4 TWH of wind electricity. In the same year, China’s wind electricity installation reached 114.609 GW. China’s wind electricity capacity utilization rate was 158.4 / (114.609*8.76) = 15.8%
In 2014, China consumed 29.1 TWH of solar electricity. In the same year, China’s solar PV installation reached 28.199 GW. China’s solar electricity capacity utilization rate was 29.1/(28.199*8.76) = 11.8%
The number 8.76 is used because 8.76 = 8760/1000. A year has 8760 hours and TWH needs to be converted to GW
Optimistically, I was assuming that China’s average capacity utilization rate for renewables will be 20%. With 500 GW of renewable generating capacity, it can generate 500 * 8.76 * 20% = 876 TWH of electricity in a year or 100 GW in term of rate of generation.
Hope this addresses your inquiry.
I posted a fairly long response to this but it seems to have triggered the filters that are in effect. I’ve attached a graphic showing the data for Germany from the Electricity production page of the Fraunhoffer ISE’s Energy Charts web site.
“This means that given China’s current electricity demand, the limit to renewable power’s generating capacity is probably around 500 GW. If renewable power is greater than 500 GW, the extra power when the renewable power plants are operating at near capacity will have to be dumped.”
That is wrong and nonsensical. Only in case of CORRELATED PRODUCTION you may see a production near the maximum nameplate capacity.
In case of UN-correlated production you can simply overbuild capacity, with 30% capacity factor you could use 300% of the demand as nameplate capacity without losses.
You have to check power duration curves. For the in comparison to China tiny Germany, which has in addition not uniformly distributed but clustered wind power the north, it is for example obvious that you can install 150% of the maximum demand without producing waste, 200% with only 3% losses.
My bet is that you could without any problems install 1000 GW wind power in China.
Thanks for pointing out the correlation part. Mine is of course a rule of thumb, rough calculation. 500 GW of renewables of course does not always generate at the rate of 500 GW but this could happen sometimes.
On the other hand, the 500 GW of demand (after subtracting hydro/nuclear) is only the monthly averages. In some hours, it could fall to 300-400 GW.
What will happen when you install 1000 GW of wind/solar, both are opearing at their capacity in some hours (or say, just at 70% of their capacity), and the electricity demand is at 500 GW (could be as low as 300-400 GW in some hours)?
And I can add that with China’s current small contribution of wind, China already regularly dumps about 10% of its wind generation (significantly more than the 3% you optimistically projected)
http://www.ccchina.gov.cn/Detail.aspx?newsId=54546&TId=57%22%20title=%22%E4%B8%8A%E5%8D%8A%E5%B9%B4%E9%A3%8E%E7%94%B5%E5%BC%83%E9%A3%8E%E7%8E%87%E5%8D%87%E8%87%B315.2%
Here is a report. It’s in Chinese though. It says during the first half of 2015, 15.2% of the wind electricity has to be abandoned. That happens when China’s wind capacity is only about 8% of the total capacity.
http://www.xincailiao.com/html/weizixun/gaoxingnenxianweijiqifuhecailiao/2015/0723/4665.html
Another report says that China’s nation-wide PV electricity dumping rate is about 14%. In some province, it’s as high as 40%.
I’m not sure I understand the definition of capacity factor as it is being used here. My understanding of capacity factor, as explained here, is the actual amount of energy a source delivers relative to the theoretical maximum, based on nameplate power. Further up, I mistakenly used the term power instead of energy, in my explanation of the term capacity factor. For example a 1 GW nuclear plant putting out 1 GW 24 hours a day 365 days a year would have a 100% capacity factor. If it were to average 36 days of down time per year, the capacity factor would be 90%. It is impossible for solar or wind to approach anything remotely close to 100% capacity since, the sun doesn’t shine for roughly half the day and I don’t know of any place on earth that has a steady wind blowing all the time.
Having said that, a single solar PV installation is capable of producing power at levels in excess of nameplate capacity but, many installations taken in aggregate across a wide geographical area that is never the case. German solar PV has produced power at levels in excess of 75% of nameplate with wind being capable of similar power levels relative to nameplate capacity. Going by that logic if wind and or solar were to be overbuilt such that they could supply a region’s entire energy needs, there could be serious excess power issues on a regular basis.
In case of UN-correlated production you can simply overbuild capacity, with 30% capacity factor you could use 300% of the demand as nameplate capacity without losses.
Which demand? Energy or power and if power, minimum. average or peak? If you’re talking about power demand, that would mean that a system with 300% of demand as nameplate capacity would be capable of producing 240% of the demand!
A 30% capacity factor does not mean that the generator is only putting out 30% of it’s rated power, it means that the generator is only providing 30% of the energy it’s nameplate capacity suggests it should be putting out over a given period (day, month or year), as if it were operating at full power for 30% of the time and producing nothing otherwise. For solar, where the case is that the Atacama Desert in Chile, the best location in the world for solar has a solar resource equivalent to 6.26 hours of mid day sun, the capacity factor would work out to about 26%.
You have to check power duration curves.
That is the crux of the matter. If the source and the load have different profiles, something has to be done to make them match. That’s the job of the electrical (power) engineer.
Islandboy,
the use of capacity factor in case of PV is arteficial, that should be clear and only allows a rough comparison of generated energy.
“Which demand? Energy or power and if power, minimum. average or peak? If you’re talking about power demand, that would mean that a system with 300% of demand as nameplate capacity would be capable of producing 240% of the demand!”
My point is, that if you want 10 GW “baseload” power and you have perfectly UNCORRELATED wind farms with 30% capacity factor then you can install 30 GW wind power without losses, because the maximum power you will observe is 10 GW.
If you have perfectly CORRELATED wind farms, you may see on some days indeed 30 GW generation (much waste, storage demand) or you could only install 10 GW without any losses.
Reality is usually somewhere in between these extrema. The more uncorrelated generation you get the more you can overbuild to achieve a certain maximum output.
“A 30% capacity factor does not mean that the generator is only putting out 30% of it’s rated power, it means that the generator is only providing 30% of the energy it’s nameplate capacity suggests it should be putting out over a given period (day, month or year), as if it were operating at full power for 30% of the time and producing nothing otherwise.”
Your argument is correct, but does not make my post wrong. 🙂
You still do not address the influenece of correlation. In case of uncorrelated capacity it simply does not matter if a 30% CF means, that the generator runs 30% of the time at full power or for 100% of the time at 30% of nameplate power.
These differences become important in case of correlated production.
Am I to understand that in terms of correlation, that you are referring to a large number of distributed generation units taken together as a whole? That makes sense from the point of view that, it is somewhat rare that a distributed renewable resource like solar or wind, will be uniformly distributed across a wide geographical area although, it seems fairly common, based on the data from Germany, for a certain weather patterns to raise output to 80% of nameplate capacity for most of the region, at midday in the case of solar or for days on end in the case of wind.
The likelihood of excess production increases with increased penetration of intermittent sources which explains the current focus on storage in California and Germany.
My point should have been, that the comparion of tiny Germany with a lot of correlated generation and therefore need for storage or curtailment, at least in case of a purly German solution, and quite large China does not make sense.
Germany can solve of course its storage problem simply by increasing crossborder transmission line capacity, this connects non correlated production and cheap storage potential in Scandinavia and the Alps.
If you read German the dissertation of Gregor Czisch (University of Kassel, 2005) is an eye opener, you may check whether there is an English translation.
Again, from the Fraunhoffer ISE’s web site Electricity Production page a graphic showing the production for week 28 0f 2015. I’ve posted this to try and illustrate how dynamic electricity systems are. The peak for this graph was on July 6 at 13:00 hrs. when total production was 71.94 GW but, consumption was 63.59 GW, resulting in 8.35 GW of exports. The minimum was on July 11 at 04:45 hrs when total production was 31.32 GW with 28.3 GW of consumption and 3.02 GW of exports. It is also interesting that on July 9 at 15:00 hrs a full 39.06 GW was being generated by wind and solar with 30.01 coming from conventional sources.
Here is a graph of the data from the Fraunhoffer ISE’s Electricity Production page for week 30 of 2015, a week when very rare conditions produced both high solar and wind production. The result was a record proportion of production from solar and wind. My calculations based on data from the web page suggest that at 14:30 hrs. on July 25th, solar and wind alone were generating 80.88% of the electric power being consumed in Germany. In terms of energy, data from the Energy page at the Fraunhoffer web site gives a total of 35.5% of the Energy (GWh) for the day on July 26, 2015 (day 209), coming from solar and wind and if the figures for hydro and biomass are included the figure goes up to 47.9% for all renewables.
Hi Islandboy, thanks for posting these graphs. See my comments above.
Again, I think your graphs actually help to illustrate my point. From your weekly graph, the mean is about 50 GW. From your graph, the electricity generated by wind/solar on July 25 appears to be 40 GW. If that is 80% of the demand, then the meximum limit would be 50 GW.
And, in the German case, I wonder to what extent they have benefited from the possibility to export surplus electricity to the rest of Europe
The German PV numbers are real, since almost all sites have an “utility” production meter. Much DG in the US is NET Metered, or behind the meter, so much actual production is invisible. The Utility bills for NET reduction or in some cases Surplus. In some states any Surplus is given to the utility for free.
And, in the German case, I wonder to what extent they have benefited from the possibility to export surplus electricity to the rest of Europe
I think they have benefited immensely from having access to the European grid, both in terms of using it as a sink for excess power and a source when they come up short.
I recommend that you visit the following link and do some investigations of your own. I may be ignoring data that you would find very interesting. As an example I just looked at a the spot market price data but will address that in another post. For now take a look at what wind and solar production did to the base load in week 30! If they had not been able to export, base load generation would have to have been curtailed even more! There is an aspect of prices but, I will address that elsewhere.
https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm
The utilities use their excess coal capacity to export electricity which substites expensive NG capacity in neighbour countries (Netherlands, Austria, France) or customers in neighbour countries use the chance to buy cheap German electrity.
The overall net effect is of course that PV/wind replaces NG. This situation will last until 2019, then we can expect less excess generation capacity in Germany and the chance that NG comes back into the game. From 2021 on coal will be the main victim of REs in Germany.
Wrong graph, ignore this
What graph?
It was already deleted
Here is the capacity utilization graph (for those who care to look at):
http://redchinacn.net/data/attachment/portal/201510/06/062612sc444c6rafb21lc8.jpg
For some reason I cannot post this graph here.
Dennis, can you help to post the graph
I checked the file size of the original image and it was about 90 Kb I think that is over the allowable limit size. So I resized it.
Test
Hi Fred, thanks a lot for fixing the graph.
How did you make the size of the graph smaller? Would it be sufficient if you just make the physical size of the picture smaller?
Hi Political Economist,
I use photo editing software. I have about 35 years of computer graphics experience so I have lots of tricks up my sleeve but to answer your question, no, it isn’t enough to make the physical size smaller. It has more to do with image resolution and sometimes color depth and file type. Sometimes it takes a little trial and error to get it right. There are some pretty decent and relatively inexpensive products available nowadays and the learning curves aren’t all that steep.
Fred, thanks for your help
HI RON,
I don’t PERSONALLY detest any of the current day policies of the D’s.Some I disagree with in terms of the way they are implemented. Some I would like to see abandoned or refined.
Being inclined towards the libertarian end of the spectrum, I believe in people doing to suit themselves, so long as they do not harm others unnecessarily.
Hence I believe in legalized pot and gay rights. What other people do behind closed doors is none of MY business. It MIGHT be that I enjoy a few things behind closed doors myself that are not approved behaviors in this society. That would be MY business rather than some old fuddy duddy preachers.
I don’t believe in cops being able to kick the shit out of people just because they are minorities -that could easily backfire since I I might find myself in the minority one day.I would actually, most likely, except I will not live another fifty years.
I detest HRC and have every since the days of Cattle Gate and White Water because I have never allowed my personal values to blind me to obvious realities. Let’s not forget that at one time I was a long haired ACLU card carrying guy married to a New York City born and bred Jewish artist and spent almost all my free time hanging around with the education and social sciences grad students at a large university. You can take it to the bank that you must be pretty liberal to fit that description.
And for what it is worth the radio in my car has been tuned to the closest NPR station so long I cannot ever remember changing the station -except late at night when they play organ music. Then I turn it to a local bluegrass station.
I am merely pointing out REALITY as I see it when it comes to what is going on a and WHY in this country and the world.
Perhaps you believe in an absolute morality but NOT in a GOD?
Pray tell me the source of your beliefs.
Do you wish to deny other people the right to believe in OTHER values?
I am NOT talking about facts of the DNA sort.
I am talking about facts of the sort whereby people in different cultures do things differently – such as own slaves, incinerate wives at their funerals, torture captured enemies, cut off the external genitals of young girls- all these things are perfectly ok by common consent in some society or another.
Everybody with a brain who has looked into the subject knows (by now) gay people are born that way, and thus have as much right to live as they please as any body else.
I am pointing out WHY cultural politics became entangled with environmental politics.It seems that people wish to take offense at having this pointed out.
Maybe the hundred million or so people ( a wild assed guess ) who do not approve of gay marriage etc are wrong. We are all entitled to our own beliefs imo.
MY point in part is that they believe ( correctly as I see it ) that their way of life is under attack and that only an idiot would expect them to just GIVE UP their culture without a fight.
MY point is that if you force change on people, too much change, THEY WILL FIGHT.Mostly the fight has been won in the courts, by the liberal element, which is ok by me.
BUT the conservative element has the ballot box as a weapon with which to fight back. WHY would anybody expect them to vote any differently than they do?
Given the way humans think and BEHAVE , we just naturally oppose whatever the OUT group wants and root for whatever our IN group wants. We don’t make value judgements with our neocortex. Our midbrain is our boss. THIS is my MAIN point. THIS is WHY so called run of the mill conservatives so often oppose sensible environmental policies that are would be -IF IMPLEMENTED- very very good for them personally.
Clean air for instance to me is a property right. NOTHING is more fundamental to true conservatism as I define the term than property rights. Nobody should be allowed to poison the air I have no choice but to breathe.
Any body with brains enough to understand the actual physical facts involved when it comes to air pollution and their OWN PERSONAL well being WOULD BE a rabid supporter of clean air legislation-IF ONLY he were to THINK RATIONALLY about the issue. What I am trying to get across is that partisan politics TRUMPS ( unfortunate word, I DETEST him about as fervently as I detest HRC ) rational thinking.
I can point out plenty of people with asthma and heart trouble etc who believe – mistakenly of course – that Democrats are out to strangle the coal industry for some never quite understandable reason. But the reason need not be understandable. ALL they give a shit about is whether the D party is for or against coal so as to take the opposite position. If the D’s were to come out in favor of coal, they would within a year or two convince themselves burning coal is a part of the devil’s plot to sully Sky Daddy’s beautiful creation.
NOW does this sort of argument lead you to believe I am a STUPID REPUBLICAN? OR ignorant? or prejudiced against liberalism?
I am a political outlier, a person who believes what my lying eyes show me.
Remember the old song, who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes ? LOL
ROFL.
Maybe I am a simpleton – but if so, then so are the professors who write books about sociology, anthropology, evolutionary psychology, evolution, history etc etc.
None of them would argue in person, privately , with anything I have said. In public, they are constrained to go along with the current status quo value judgements and imply they are absolutes but they are very careful to never come right out and say any value is an absolute.
Absolutes are for PHYSICAL scientists.
Of COURSE this is no strain for them because they virtually all do agree with the current status quo as it stands in academia and in law.
The video of the Bank of England’s speech at Lloyd’s of London last week.
Breaking the tragedy of the horizon – climate change and financial stability
A Minsky moment is a sudden major collapse of asset values
https://youtu.be/V5c-eqNxeSQ
Islandboy and Ulenspiegel, I considered your points again.
I guess the problem has to do with the difference between the maximum likely generation from all the renewable sources and the total generating capacity. In the German case, using Islandboy’s graph, the maximum likely generation from wind/solar appears to be 40 GW. I checked the BP data, currently Germany has about 80 GW of wind and solar capacity combined. So in the German case, the maximum likely generation is about 50% of the wind and solar generating capacity. Islandboy says at times the 40GW provides up to 80% of German electricity consumption, so the maximum wind/solar generation allowed is about 50 GW. This would allow for a maximum of 100 GW of wind/solar electricity without significant losses.
Following the same logic, given China’s current electric power structure, it allows for a maximum generation from wind/solar of about 500 GW. This probably allows for a total generating capacity of 1000 GW (Ulenspiegel, now I agree with you).
Still, 1000 GW of capacity means 200 GW of average generation (and maybe less if some of the generation is abandoned, as the current Chinese data indicate). That leaves 300 GW out of the 500 GW (the non-nuclear, non-hydro) to be covered by fossil fuels, requiring maybe 600 GW of thermal capacity
In case of Germany we have a highly clustered wind power, i.e. the windfarms operate in a very correlated way.
The observed maximum generation is around 75% of the nameplate capacity of all of the installed wind turbines, this with an low average capacity factor of 17-20% (due to the age structure of German wind turbines).
Maximum generation by PV is also around 75% of nameplate capacity.
PV does not contribute meaningful capacity in winter, while windpower has usually generation peaks in winter, German electricity demand is higher in winter than in summer. Therefore, for a useful discussion I would not combine wind and PV, the latter will only contribute 15-25% of the energy geneartion, wind power is the backbone of a high RE scenario and should be optimized.
China is much larger and you have uncorrelated generation, no useful comparison with German situation possibel.The good news is that you can overbuild much more.
Ron
Here’s an energy heads-up.
Louis DeChiaro of US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is making claims that seem to crack the cold fusion conundrum. Among other things he is using “…direct numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger Equation for a single nuclear particle in a parabolic energy well.”
“Hopefully, we will be able to get all the details of this material released for publication to the general public over the next few weeks.”
http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/10/06/louis-dechario-of-us-naval-sea-systems-command-navsea-on-replicating-pons-and-fleischmann/
some news on solar in India…
The Indian government is making aggressive moves to accelerate the country’s solar energy supply. According to Bridge to India, a Delhi-based solar energy firm, India’s solar industry is expected to grow 250 percent this year, putting the country on track to become one of the top five solar countries globally. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has just approved a plan to develop 50 solar cities. The world’s first airport that runs entirely on solar power was recently built in the southwestern Indian state of Cochin. And India is soon to have the world’s largest solar power station. Describing solar energy as the “ultimate solution,” Modi pledged to give all Indians access to electricity and called on the country’s scientists to develop more efficient solar energy equipment.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33112-solar-power-boom-in-india-will-it-reach-the-people-who-need-it-most
ASP was a PV Module manufacture in Florida who was using Wafers from India. We installed quite a few kW. Obama has Punitive tariffs on any product with Taiwan wafers/modules. We can import drill stock duty free, but not PV. Note Taiwan is a free trade partner. This administration seems to make up it’s own laws from scratch. It would be wonderful to have Indian supply.. But they have to have power for the furnaces…
China’s renewable electricity average capacity utilization rate
Alright, so one-line graph is OK. This graph shows the average capacity utilization rates by month for China’s renewable electricity. I pooled different kinds of renewable electricity together. But right now about three-quarters of the utility scale renewable electricity is from wind.
The highest capacity utilization rates happened in March and April, with capacity utilization rates around 23 percent. August has the lowest utilization rate so far, with a capacity utilization rate of 16 percent.
The airthmetic monthly average capacity utilization rate from January to August is 20 percent. But the average capacity utilization calculated from total generation divided by the average capacity of Feburary and August is calculated to be 18 percent.
Continue with the question of limits on renewable electricity.
Based on the discussion with Islandboy and Ulenspiegel, it seems the correct approach to assess the limits imposed on renewable energy from intermittency (assuming no large-scale storage) is to calculate the maximum renewable capacity as the following:
Maximum Renewable Electricity = Average Electricity Demand / The Renewable Sector’s Maximum Capacity Utilization Rate
For simplicity, I am using the average electricity demand, ignoring the fact that the actual demand may either correlate or counter-correlate with renewable generation.
For the renewable sector’s maximum capacity utilization rate, ideally daily maximum capacity utilization rate should be used (that is, the capacity utilization rate on the day in a year with the maximum capacity utilization). This will ensure that no siginificant amount of renewable electricty will be dumped. However in the Chinese case, we have got only the monthly mean data. So I will work with the monthly maximum capacity utilization rate.
Going back to the previous graphs. Here are some of the basic information about China’s electricity sector. The monthly average electricity demand varies from 600 to 700 GW. After subtracting nuclear/hydro (assuming the two takes prioirty in meeting electricity demand), the remaining electricity demand is about 500 GW. Currently, all types renewable electricity meets about 25-30 GW out of the 500 GW. The rest is provided by fossil fuels (almost all from coal).
If China were to have a total renewable electricity of 1000 GW, assuming an average capacity utilization rate of 20%, it would be able to generate at an average rate of 200 GW. There may be times when the capacity utilization rate rises above 50 percent. In that case, some of the renewable electricity will have to be dumped. For now, let’s assume that the dumped electricity will be insignificant. This will allow renewable electricity to meet about one-third of China’s electricity demand. But about one-half of the electricity will continue to be provided by fossil fuels. The rest is provided by nuclear and hydro.
What if China builds 2200 GW of renewable electricity? This would correspond to 500 GW / 0.23 (0.23 is the maximum monthly capacity utilization rate). In this case, the renewable power plants will generate at the average rate of 500 GW during the months with the maximum utilization rate (based on the observed data, this will happen in March and April). However, as the renewable energy supply fluctuates, during the two months, there will be about half the time when the renewable generation is above 500 GW (and therefore will be dumped) and the other half the time when the renewable generation is below 500 GW (and therefore needs to be backed up by fossil fuels).
Assuming that during March and April, about one-half of the renewable electricity is dumped, the effective capacity utilization rate in the two months would be only about 12 percent. It would be difficult to asssess the effective utilization rate in other months. But it may not be unreasonable to think that they will not be higher than 12 percent. Thus, the average generation will be 2200 GW * 12% = 264 GW.
Thus, at maximum, renewable electricity may provide one-half of the non-nuclear, non-hydro electricity demand or about 40% of the total electricity demand.
As I suggested in my first response to your initial post, the limits to renewable penetration will depend on the political decisions taken and the degree to which the owners of FF generators are willing or able to accept the economic consequences. As an illustration the attached graphic from the Fraunhoffer ISE Energy Charts web site, shows the effect excess renewable generation had on prices towards the end of week 30.
The detractors of the Energiewende (Energy Transition) will point to the data and say “Look! after wasting all that money on renewables, here we are, paying our neighbors to take the electricity we are generating from them!” and they may have a point. The supporters of the transition will point out that, low and negative spot market prices present opportunities for the development of storage technologies that can store excess electricity in times of high supply and release it when demand is high and supplies are lower. That is more or less what is happening in all markets with high levels of PV penetration in particular. Both Germany and California are markets where the interest in high capacity battery storage is extremely high and there is significant interest in systems that will facilitate greater self consumption for residential and commercial installations.
Another aspect of the German case is the use of excess electricity to manufacture synthetic motor fuels. That is one way of turning something that is essentially free into something of value. If the economics turn out right, it may eventually become a means of storing energy from solar power in the summer for use in winter, in other words, seasonal as opposed to diurnal energy storage.
The case of California is interesting from the point of view that there is a huge need for power during the summer months when solar power is most abundant so, it is likely that there will be far less need for seasonal storage in California as opposed to Germany. The same goes for the the south eastern US especially South Florida.
One thing is clear, as the costs of PV and storage continue to decline, the value proposition of using it, as opposed to increasingly expensive grid power, will continue to improve. Do you not think that the Chinese government will start to implement policies directed at improving the ability of their electrical system to handle greater amounts of intermittent renewables (solar and wind)?
The Germans have always been very strong in chemistry, and there are tons of chemical reactions that can profitably be driven faster by electricity. Seems to me inevitable that they will quickly develop all sorts of interruptible end uses that will soak up effectively any amount of “free” electricity from solar/wind as it comes and goes.
Ditto with the Chinese-or anybody with ” ears to hear or eyes to see”.
General comment on present state of solar- in the beginning of any new thing, we are ignorant. We learn as we do. Sometimes, we even learn fast.
Silly to make any judgement on any big new movement before we can truly, as a society “get”it. Solar realities haven’t begun to soak in yet. Hold the judgements.
Island boy the above exercise does not assume that renewables are limited by fossil fuels. On the contrary, it allows renewable to meet more than 100% demand at times. The only limit, clearly stated above, is the assumption that hydro and nuclear takes precedence.
Currently the Chinese gov plans to build 1300 GW of renewable power by 2050, and 800 GW of hydro and pumped storage, 400 GW of nuclear, 300 GW of gas fired. But, China will have 1200 GW of coal fired power by 2050. It is expected that fossil fuels will provide one half of electricity by 2050
What if China builds 2200 GW of renewable electricity? This would correspond to 500 GW / 0.23 (0.23 is the maximum monthly capacity utilization rate). In this case, the renewable power plants will generate at the average rate of 500 GW during the months with the maximum utilization rate (based on the observed data, this will happen in March and April). However, as the renewable energy supply fluctuates, during the two months, there will be about half the time when the renewable generation is above 500 GW (and therefore will be dumped) and the other half the time when the renewable generation is below 500 GW (and therefore needs to be backed up by fossil fuels).
One of the points I am trying to make is that, given proper planning, “dumping” of renewable electricity can be avoided. One way is to have other sources of electricity that can modulate their output to balance demand. This can be an effective approach as renewable generation approaches the demand limit but, not when it starts to exceed demand. Another way is to have storage that can soak up the excess and release it on demand. Another way hinted at by OFM is demand response, having flexible loads that switch on and off depending on availability.
I would think that since FF are a finite resource, designing an energy system capable of preserving them might be a good idea. Whereas the current coal plants in China are probably all base load, designed to run flat out all the time, I would hope that future plants will be more flexible. Which begs the question, how does China deal with variations in demand throughout the day? If power plants are designed to handle large variations in output, hopefully operating them at lower loads and for shorter periods will extend their useful life in addition to saving fuel for future use.
IMO a sane policy would be to maximize the use of infinite but, intermittent renewable energy sources by developing all the solutions to avoid “dumping” energy. Renewable energy would then be used to offset the use of FF, extending their useful life and not dumping CO2 into the atmosphere as an added benefit. This seems to be the approach being taken, by and large, in Germany, with the owners of FF burning plants objecting the most, as they would prefer to be able to maximize revenues by utilizing their generation assets as much as possible. Isn’t the Chinese grid and generating capacity state owned? In that case, cutting back on the production of electricity from FF plants won’t be a problem in that, short term economic gain is not their primary focus.
61,064 Failing Bridges Must Wait as Cities Borrow at Decade Low
But never mind that, cuz there’s the Tesla!
I don’t care for the term “dumping” electricity. It’s too handy a club for fossil fuel interests to beat up on renewables.
There will be ways discovered to take advantage of any excess that can be transmitted on the grid. Extra large hot water heaters, double or triple insulated, with off peak pricing ( based on AVAILABILITY of wind or solar power rather than time of day) could for instance store quite a bit of electrical energy as thermal energy for later use. Ditto refrigerators freezers, industrial size cold storage, smart appliances enabled to run when they get the signal- dishwashers, washing machines, clothes dryers, etc.
It would not cost very much to put a couple of tons of crushed stone in a large cage basket in the basement or any unused part of a large house with more space than people. Put a heater wire in it, and any surplus wind juice any time during the heating season could be stored thermally.
A really well insulated house, properly situated to the sun and properly shaded, with plenty of thermal mass, could easily be chilled to the lower limit of the homeowners comfort zone during the afternoon when solar is cranking it out all across the American south- thus dramatically lowering the need for gas or coal fired juice from say four to eight or nine pm.
Our old farmhouse has a lot of thermal mass and while I can make the AIR in it comfortable in a hurry with ceiling fans and a HOT fire, it takes all day or night for all the sheet rock and masonry and wood inside the outer envelope to warm up.
But this means I can keep her nice and warm up until midnightish bedtime and let the fire go down to a few hot coals, very low risk of fire that way-and still wake up to a house that is not unreasonably chilly when the temperature drops down into the thirties F.
Thermal mass REALLY works when it comes to load shifting heating and cooling loads a few hours either way.
There must be a hundred ways of making good use of any surplus wind and solar power.
IN THE END-It’s ALL about conserving fossil fuels. They deplete and they pollute.
Here is an idea. Take all the obsolete bombs and artillery shells sitting around surplus and use them to enlarge a valley in steep mountains very near the sea. Then build a pumped storage reservoir and hydro plant there to use as for load balancing. With the sea as the lower level, this would cost a hell of a lot less than conventional pumped hydro- and dumping the excavated stone near shore would create a dynamite sports fishing hot spot that would help pay for the hydro plant and provide local employment.
Every kWh of so called surplus wind and solar power could be used to fill the reservoir.
I can hear the holier than thou environmentalists hissing and puffing and getting all righteous already. But reality is reality. Such a hydro installation would be far better for the environment than dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere more or less forever- which is about how long such a hydro plant will last, with maintenance of course.
Over building is perfectly common in a hell of a lot of industries. A lot of retail establishments do more business between Thanksgiving and New Year than all the rest of the year. Most trucks run only twenty or thirty hours a week. A lot of heavy construction equipment such as bulldozers is used only a few hundred hours in a typical year. A typical farm tractor is used well under a thousand hours a year.
Beach houses sit empty in the winter time.
We can afford to overbuild wind and solar farms in order to help cut back on the need for coal and gas fired electricity.
Saving an extra five or ten percent on the cost of importing coal and gas is going to prove to be a LONG TERM BARGAIN compared to the cost of building more wind and solar capacity in any country with a good wind and sun resource. The amount that can be saved, when all the low hanging fruit is harvested, may well approach one hundred percent- but not for a long time of course. Scaling up from a few percent is going to take decades.
Old farmer dumping electricity is a reality in China. China now regularly dumps 15% of wind/solar electricity. And I do not work for fossil fuels industry, nor do I have any investment interest
What are the reasons? Could it be that the lack of transmission lines lead to the high losses?
China’s semi-official plan for future electricity generating capacity
China’s semi-official plan for future electricity generation (in rates of generation, GW)
Source: http://www.cec.org.cn/yaowenkuaidi/2015-03-10/134972.html
anyone heard of Juice Box?
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The Fourteenth Amendment: Equal Protection under the Law clause leads to the Constitutional ruling:
Gay/Lesbian folks can marry each other with the exact same certainty and justification as straight folk.
The government, per the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, cannot establish a U.S. religion…that has been interpreted over and over again to mean that NO favoritism can be shown towards any religion through any laws, rules, or actions at any level (Federal, State, Local) of the U.S Government. We have a long way to go to fully realize this ideal (Taking “In God we trust” off the currency would be a start).
Some religious folks detest gay marriage? Too fucking BAD! The government issues marriage licenses as a SECULAR function, not as a RELIGIOUS function. Also, the government’s issuance of marriage licenses absolutely does NOT compel/mandate/force any religious organization to conduct a wedding ceremony for ANYONE, not does it force religious institutions to condone/validate a government sanctioned marriage with their religious organization’s imprimatur, nor does it force individuals to like it.
Although Gay/Lesbian folks are not yet a Federal Protect Class (I think), I certainly will do anything I can be elect and goad lawmakers who will make that happen as fast as possible.
Attention religious folks: The United States is NOT a theocracy! It also does not (formally anyway) adjudicate rights according to the tyranny of the majority. The majority cannot vote (not for long, anymore) to deny equal protection under the Law. The Constitution was designed to protect Minority rights against abuse/denial from the Majority. That is what SCOTUS has done. This is NOT a ‘states rights’ issue…we fought a Civil War over that wrt slavery…we are one nation…get on-board the Constitution, as interpreted, or get your happy ass enforced by the Law. There was a time in the Land of of the Free that bigots, including many religious folks, prohibited then discouraged interracial marriage….and even owned non-white people as slaves. Segregation. Jim Crow. Not all, but some religious folks tried to use the Bible as some sort of justification for this tyranny of the Majority way of things. Hell, the Mormons persisted until I believe the early 1970s with their ‘Mud People’ bullshit. The they realized the tide was taking them out to sea and the elders had a well-timed and convenient revelation and they lightened up, some.
The only reason gay rights seems divisive is the aging bigots in our country who are too hard-hearted and stone-headed to get over the fact that their time is done. I have young-mid twenty-something offspring, and interact with their friends…gay equality is an accepted fact among the majority of this cohort, except for young ones who are still being brainwashed by their parents.
Freedom of religion…applies to religion as a Private affair…not as some tool for some old bitties and farts to impress their mind control via legislation on their fellow citizens.
The War is over: Bigots, lay down your arms and step off the battlefield.
If you don’t like it, shut your mouths and keep to yourselves.
This thread is pretty dead, so I’ll post this elsewhere as well, but I wanted to share it today (being October 14, 2015): http://www.desdemonadespair.net/
Many good articles on the state of affairs and the pace of change in the world.