127 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum”

  1. This was the last post on the prior Open Tread Non-Petroleum so I figured I could repeat it on the new post. Please feel free to delete either one – thanks.

    From the FT:
    https://www.ft.com/content/75496422-be4b-48e9-b445-d987813a126f

    European scientists in ‘landmark’ nuclear fusion breakthrough
    Experiment at UK’s JET facility boosts hope that clean power source could soon be harnessed commercially

    European scientists have set a new record for the most energy to be generated from nuclear fusion, the latest breakthrough in a decades-long effort to produce power by harnessing the reaction that powers the sun.

    A team of researchers from the Eurofusion consortium produced 59 megajoules from a sustained reaction lasting five seconds — enough power to boil about 60 kettles — in an experiment at the Joint European Torus facility in Oxford, England.

    “These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all,” said Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority.

    JET, a collaboration between EU member states, Switzerland, the UK and Ukraine, founded in 1978, is the world’s largest, most powerful operational “tokamak” machine. The design, pioneered by Soviet scientists in the 1950s, uses powerful magnets to hold a plasma of two hydrogen isotopes — deuterium and tritium — in place as it is heated to temperatures hotter than the sun so that the atomic nuclei fuse, releasing energy.

    In half a century of experiments around the world scientists have been unable to generate more energy from a fusion reaction than the power-intensive system consumes.

    There is more but this should be sufficient to find the article.
    There seems to be (finally) a lot of process in the fusion world. China had a sustained fusion reaction of over 15 minutes and now one in Europe that produces a fair bit of energy. Things are moving in the right direction.
    rgds
    WP

    1. Certainly there is considerable progress being made.
      Remains to be seen if fusion will ever be a viable energy producer.
      The proof will be in the pudding, if it ever gets to the edible stage.
      Until then, place your bets at window number 7.

      1. So what should humanity do with all of this practically free, environmentally benign energy? I would guess, based on the experience of 10,000 years (give or take) of supposed civilization a priority would be made on tanks, supersonic bombers, 50,000 square foot homes, 300 foot long yachts and, perhaps, street lights for working class neighborhoods.

        1. You’re probably pretty much spot on.
          Yet part of me is hoping for a Star Trek- like future where material wants are irrelevant, only expansion of knowledge and skills matter.
          Dream on…

        3. I think you could kiss goodbye to tropical rainforests, all charismatic mammals and most wildlife larger than a weasel (except wild boars maybe).

        4. The northern latitudes get transfigured into productive farmland, but the tropics get even more ridden with disease, and the Arctic is opened up for cargo and exploitation. All in all, it’s a net positive result.

          1. “net positive result” unless, that is, you are part of an intertwined, interdependent, ecosystem; very little of which is understood by the humans making the key decisions, none of which is understood (an purposely at that) by the individuals who are profiting by the changes. All of these individuals think a long time is the gap between dividend dates.

      2. My bet remains that fusion will not come to be.
        The big question is just how much more (over $50 billion so far I have read) money should be spent on the projects, as opposed to putting the R & D elsewhere.
        Glad i don’t have to make that decision.

        1. I wonder how much of the research that goes into [fusion] (or any other narrow field ) is transferable / applicable to other fields of study or usable applications. i.e. to what degree does research suffer from entropy 🙂
          rgds
          WP

          1. Not much other use for metals capable of sustaining 14 Mev neutron damage.

    2. The quality of hopium these days has declined considerably. There is a world of difference between a calculated net positive energy in a lab experiment and the physics and engineering needed to harness and convert this energy to useful amounts of output.

    3. Too Much Magic? Centralized power sources must be “offline” prior to the 1st wave of tomahawks. You must decouple

    4. “New Breakthrough Could Speed Up Nuclear Fusion Development”

      What was predicted to take 50 years in 1978, is now predicted to take 30 years in 2022.
      Progress!

    5. What’s actually been done, so far, in terms intelligible to a hillbilly, is that by spending billions of dollars, and untold years of the time of some of the world’s best physicists and engineers, is to build the equivalent of a small fire that burned for few seconds under conditions unsustainable for more than that few seconds.
      Let’s say this is the equivalent of my taking my oxyacetylene rig and using it to burn up a sliver of wet green wood…… which simply wouldn’t burn except under such forced circumstances.

      So…. we don’t yet have a campfire….. never mind a working fusion reactor capable of producing substantial amounts of energy.

      I’m not saying such a reactor will never be built… but I’m willing to bet my farm it won’t be built within the next thirty years or so.

      I do think the research money could be better spent on other things far more likely to be useful to us in the short to near term…… because the long term is an academic question, considering all our problems.

  2. Methane:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2

    Methane concentrations in the atmosphere raced past 1,900 parts per billion last year, nearly triple preindustrial levels, according to data released in January by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientists says the grim milestone underscores the importance of a pledge made at last year’s COP26 climate summit to curb emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 28 times as potent as CO2.

    The growth of methane emissions slowed around the turn of the millennium, but began a rapid and mysterious uptick around 2007. The spike has caused many researchers to worry that global warming is creating a feedback mechanism that will cause ever more methane to be released, making it even harder to rein in rising temperatures.

    “Methane levels are growing dangerously fast,” says Euan Nisbet, an Earth scientist at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Egham, UK. The emissions, which seem to have accelerated in the past few years, are a major threat to the world’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5–2 °C over pre-industrial temperatures, he says.

    Rgds
    WP

    1. I expected to see that the defrosting “permafrost” in arctic regions would be mentioned in the article. I couldn’t decipher if that was included in wetlands or geological seeps. Since we know that the arctic regions are warming faster than the rest of the surface it would seem that some focus would be on that region. According to this article melting permafrost contributes to three major sources of warming; CO2, organic and fossil methane.
      https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/icelights/2012/07/what-does-seeping-methane-mean-thawing-arctic

  3. Unintended consequences to the tune of $100 million.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/09/science/spacex-satellites-storm.html?referringSource=articleShare

    “As the sun gets more active, it releases an increasing amount of extreme ultraviolet, which gets absorbed into our atmosphere,” Dr. Lewis said. That atmosphere will expand significantly, and “the expectation is that the atmospheric density is going to increase by one or two orders of magnitude. That’s a way bigger change compared to what we’ve just seen with this particular event.”
    Snip
    “If things fail, they fix them and do things better next time,” Dr. Lewis said. “This is another example of that” — a policy of adherence to hindsight, not foresight.

    The death of these satellites is “a harsh lesson for SpaceX,” Dr. Lewis said. What happens next is up to them.

    Dr. Lawler added, “I hope this will knock a little bit of sense into them.”

    1. Interesting that there was a geomagnetic event alert the day they launched, but Tesla either didn’t see it, or didn’t think it would affect them…

  4. Offshore wind, now in its infancy stage, is going to be a big industry.
    Here is a company with a possible disruptive pivot/downwind tower system.

    https://pivotbuoy.eu/

    The short video on that page starts explaining the features at about 45 seconds in.

  5. I found the Calhoun experiment super interesting when I first read about it. Need to go back for a refresh. Thanks for the prod.

    1. Robert Ardrey described a similar experiment with Rats in one of his books, maybe “The Social Contract”. I read his books in college over 40 years ago.

  6. I have just put up a new post on http://thefinetuneduniverse.com/ titled “Free Will”. This is an essay I wrote about twenty years ago though I have made a few changes over the years. I have had it up as a page on peakoilbarrel.com titled “The Grand Illusion” and also a page on TheFineTunedUniverse.com. I have deleted that page and will delete the one on Peak Oil Barrel a little later.

    This essay has little to do with the fine-tuned universe but it is part of the big picture. If most people could understand it I believe it would definitely alter their worldview.

    Looking forward to getting some comments.

    Ron

  7. OT:
    Life expectancy by state in 2019 (including District of Columbia)

    Highest

    1 & 2 Hawaii, California 80.9 yrs
    3 New York 80.7 yrs
    4 & 5 Minnesota, Massachusetts 80.4 yrs

    Lowest

    47 Tennessee 75.6 yrs
    48 Kentucky 75.5 yrs
    49 Alabama 75.2 yrs
    50 West Virginia 74.5 yrs
    51 Mississippi 74.4 yrs

    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-18.pdf

    Not surprising

    1. Also not surprising that the average life expectancy in the US is dropping. Not all of the decline is related to COVID, drug overdoses, homicide, and other diseases account for 25% of the most recent decline.

      The decline is especially ugly since the US has long trailed behind most other industrial countries in life expectancy while maintaining the highest costs.

      But we are showing that we have done really well at separating the working class from the plutocrats.

  8. In todays news, from 4 continents-

    “… in recent years deforestation has climbed steeply… With the moratorium applying only to soya, farmers have been able to sell the crop as deforestation-free, while still clearing land for cattle, maize or other commodities.”
    “slashes corn harvest outlook over drought….cut its forecast for the country’s 2021/22 corn harvest to 51 million tonnes on Thursday, down from its previous estimate of 57 million tonnes…”
    “only 14.5 per cent of the average amount of rain has fallen, the worst figure in 80 years”
    “Wheat is wilting, and cities are planning to ration water… ”
    “Mainland Southeast Asia is entering its fourth year of drought, with climate change and unrelenting dam construction taking an unprecedented toll on the Mekong River and the 65 million people who rely on the waterway for their livelihoods.”

    1. Last night on the News Hour:
      Manatees starving to death by the thousands on the Florida coast; runoff from farm fertilizer and residential runoff is destroying the animal’s habitat.

      When is too much not yet enough?

  9. Horrific allegations of racism prompt California lawsuit against Tesla

    BY MARGOT ROOSEVELT, RUSS MITCHELL
    FEB. 11, 2022 5 AM PT
    Warning: This story quotes several racist slurs allegedly directed at Black workers at Tesla’s California plant, according to a lawsuit filed against the company.

    The N-word and other racist slurs were hurled daily at Black workers at Tesla’s California plant, delivered not just by fellow employees but also by managers and supervisors.

    So says California’s civil rights agency in a lawsuit filed against the electric-vehicle maker in Alameda County Superior Court on Thursday on behalf of thousands of Black workers after a decade of complaints and a 32-month investigation.

    Tesla segregated Black workers into separate areas that its employees referred to as “porch monkey stations,” “the dark side,” “the slave ship” and “the plantation,” the lawsuit alleges.

    Only Black workers had to scrub floors on their hands and knees, and they were relegated to the Fremont, Calif., factory’s most difficult physical jobs, the suit states.

    Graffiti — including “KKK,” “Go back to Africa,” the hangman’s noose, the Confederate Flag and “F– [N-word]” — were carved into restroom walls, workplace benches and lunch tables and were slow to be erased, the lawsuit says.

    Tesla responded to the lawsuit, filed by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, with a blog post saying that the agency had investigated almost 50 discrimination complaints in the past without finding misconduct — an assertion the agency denied.

    The lawsuit comes in the wake of Tesla’s billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, moving the company’s headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas, where he is building a major new assembly plant.

    Not only were Tesla’s Black workers subjected to “willful, malicious” harassment, but they were also denied promotions and paid less than other workers for the same jobs, the suit asserted. They were disciplined for infractions for which other workers were not penalized.

    https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-02-11/la-fi-tesla-race-discrimination-lawsuit

  10. A new Global Study on EVs

    Willingness to pay for advanced tech remains limited
    A majority of consumers are unwilling to pay more for advanced technologies in most global markets as they have been trained to expect new vehicle features as a cost of doing business for brands looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

    Interest in EVs driven by lower running costs and better experience
    Consumer interest in electrified vehicles (EVs) centers on the perception of lower fuel costs, environmental consciousness, and a better driving experience. However, driving range and lack of available charging infrastructure remain barriers to adoption.

    In-person purchase experience still preferred by many
    Most consumers would still prefer to purchase a vehicle at an authorized dealership. However, a perception of increased convenience and ease of use will likely support continued growth of virtual purchase processes.

    Personal vehicles continue as the preferred mode of transportation
    Shared mobility services like ride-hailing and car sharing have been slow to return to their prepandemic pace of growth as people prefer using personal vehicles to satisfy their transportation requirements.

    https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Consumer-Business/us-2022-global-automotive-consumer-study-global-focus-final.pdf

    1. There is a slight problem to this perspective. It is the lithium. The problem is not the abundance of lithium but the capacity of industry to produce industrial-grade lithium. The factories producing this lithium are outrageously long to build and commission. Currently, the world industrial-grade lithium capacity production is unsufficient for the coming demand. https://www.morningbrew.com/emerging-tech/stories/2021/12/13/a-lithium-shortage-is-coming-and-automakers-might-be-unprepared

  11. Gwern Branwen assesses Calhoun:

    https://www.gwern.net/Mouse-Utopia

    “Overall, Mouse Utopia is a sketchy and unreliable result: it is selectively and scantily reported, it is unclear how often the claimed behavioral sinks or population collapses happen even just within Calhoun’s experiments, whether any such problems are due to exogenously-forced density increases rather than the colonies naturally regulating population density close to their optimum, the few replications replicate only parts of it (if at all), it is entirely possible that it is a fluke of that particular mouse colony or mouse strain, and if the experiment ever was replicated exactly (assuming the unpublished materials are adequately informative), it would be unclear what the actual causal mechanism of the collapse would be as the design & analysis is ambiguous and Calhoun tested no hypotheses (much less the most likely ones of disease or genetics, which he resolutely ignored)12⁠. I am left confused what happened in Mouse Utopia, to what extent it reflects any real natural dynamics involving population growth & density, and extremely doubtful of the perennial attempt to link it to humans.”

    It’s worth a read. Cautionary message to self of how uncritically I accept narratives that fit my worldview.

    1. I’m not that impressed with the experiment, either. I’d call it “overshoot in a bottle.”

      No, nothing is comparable to the human situation–not Mouse Utopia, not the proverbial yeast in a vat, not the reindeer of St. Matthew’s Island.

      None of these threaten to bring down whole ecosystems, ruin the planet for millennia, and cause mass extinction.

  12. More grim news from Amazon

    AMAZON DEFORESTATION: RECORD HIGH DESTRUCTION OF TREES IN JANUARY

    “There are a number of factors driving this level of deforestation. Strong global demand for agricultural commodities such as beef and soya beans is fuelling some of these illegal clearances – Another is the expectation that a new law will soon be passed in Brazil to legitimise and forgive land grabbing.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60333422

  13. How long does it take to build up nuclear industry?-
    ““EDF Flags Lasting Power Crunch as Atomic Woes Extend to 2023… Utility already said output this year would be at 30-year low…[in France]
    “French reactors are the backbone of the European power system, but the fleet is becoming more unreliable. The shortfall in domestic generation has forced the nation to import electricity at times, tightening supplies in neighboring countries…”

    And-
    “Europe’s Dependence On Natural Gas Imports Hits 80%.
    The European Union and the UK have seen their dependence on natural gas imports jump to 80 percent in 2020 from 65 percent in 2010, as regional production plunged”

    And-
    ““Popular anger simmers in Turkey over ballooning electricity bills…
    A wave of protests has spread across Turkey over whopping electricity price hikes last month as millions struggle to pay the ballooning bills and many businesses face the threat of going broke amid already galloping inflation.”

    1. Suppose Russia invades Ukraine…… and NATO resists, as expected.
      And suppose that next Putin and company are willing to bet that cutting off gas and oil exports will create such chaos inside NATO that the alliance folds……

      So what exactly is it that Russia MUST import over the short to medium term to survive under wartime conditions?

        1. hightrekker. Not so. Actually. Russia is highly dependent on imports. It is inscribed in the global economy. Let’s say the localization of cars is about 70%. Who will need cars without a gearbox? Most of the domestic market has been captured by Western companies. than 90% comes from foreign companies. The same with products: drinks, milk, beer and the like. Tobacco products are 100% Western.
          Western companies import components, manufacture products on the territory of the Russian Federation and export profits (mainly from oil revenues). Russia mainly exports raw materials, and imports finished products. So the trade balance for 2021 is positive:
          – Russia’s imports in 2021 amounted to $293,420 million.
          -Russia’s exports in 2021 amounted to $491,580 million.
          – Russia’s trade balance in 2021 was positive in the amount of USD 198,160 million.
          A break in relations will lead to a drop in GDP by more than 50%, the economy will be thrown back for decades. But of course Russia will survive this too ….
          P.S.:
          mln USD).
          Russian export

          In the structure of Russian exports in 2021 (and in 2020), the main share of deliveries fell on the following types of goods:

          Mineral products (HS codes 25-27) – 57.40% of Russia’s total exports (51.19% in 2020);
          Metals and products from them (TN VED codes 72-83) – 10.65% of the total volume of Russian exports (in 2020 – 10.37%);
          Products of the chemical industry (HS codes 28-40) – 7.85% of the total volume of Russian exports (in 2020 – 7.11%);
          Food products and agricultural raw materials (HS codes 01-24) – 7.48% of Russia’s total exports (8.80% in 2020);
          Precious metals and stones (TN VED code 71) – 6.58% of the total volume of Russian exports (in 2020 – 9.03%);
          Machinery, equipment and vehicles (HS codes 84-90) – 5.35% of Russia’s total exports (5.73% in 2020);
          Timber and pulp and paper products (HS codes 44-49) – 3.54% of the total volume of Russian exports (in 2020 – 3.68%).
          Russian import:

          In the structure of Russian imports in 2021 (and in 2020), the main share of deliveries fell on the following types of goods:

          Machinery, equipment and vehicles (HS codes 84-90) – 47.26% of total Russian imports (44.35% in 2020);
          Products of the chemical industry (TN VED codes 28-40) – 19.06% of the total volume of Russian imports (in 2020 – 18.32%);
          Food products and agricultural raw materials (TN VED codes 01-24) – 12.05% of total Russian imports (in 2020 – 12.84%);
          Metals and products from them (TN VED codes 72-83) – 7.22% of the total volume of Russian imports (in 2020 – 6.84%);
          Textiles and footwear (TN VED codes 50-67) – 6.03% of total Russian imports (in 2020 – 6.31%);
          Mineral products (HS codes 25-27) – 1.98% of total Russian imports (in 2020 – 1.90%);
          Wood and pulp and paper products (TN VED codes 44-49) – 1.47% of total Russian imports (in 2020 – 1.49%).

          1. Thanks for the information Alexander Opritov
            It seems to me like any tangible gains from this contest of will,s or armed conflict,
            for the Russian people will be zero. Yet the risk for tangible economic pain is far from zero.

            In the long run will Ukrainian people react favorably to the forcing of their preferences?

            I suppose Putin would be pleased with results if a leader like Lukashenko in Belarus becomes the leader of Ukraine.

            [And on a related topic- certainly Putin would be very happy to have anti-democratic Trump or his ponyboys back in power in the USA].

            1. Hickory. Thank you for the question. It is difficult to answer briefly. It is a mistake to accept that the political preferences of citizens of both the Russian Federation and Ukraine, that they are unambiguous and consolidated, are a mistake. So in the Russian Federation there are several types of opposition, both “supporters of the West” and the extreme “right” – supporters of the war, nevertheless, Putin’s support is many times higher and more united. In Ukraine, about half of ethnic Russians live, in the army all verbal orders are in Russian, about 30% can only speak Russian. The ban on the Russian language is one of the reasons for the conflict. The state of Ukraine was created in the offices, no one held a referendum, and for the first time in history it appeared after the 1917 revolution by the will of V. Lenin.
              I don’t know exactly what the situation is in Ukraine, I think the support for the government’s position is overwhelming. But the repressions of 2014 against Russian supporters in Ukraine were huge, hundreds of people disappeared to no one knows where, thousands ended up in the Ukrainian Gestapo, the opposition is suppressed, nevertheless it is large and with recruitment Russia has no problems with spies. In addition, the competent propaganda of the Ukrainian media is doing its job.
              There can be no talk about Russian forces in Ukraine today. Nationalists, “black squadrons” have greater freedom of action. Public executions, murders of oppositionists are not even investigated (Oleg Buzina, hundreds of those killed in the house of trade unions in Odessa in 2014). You can only be outraged at home in the kitchen .. ..
              I believe that the support of Trump by the Russian government is an observable fact. According to everyone about the government media, he is mentioned only in a positive context, while Biden is constantly scolded. It’s strange to me for what? After all, there are no American voters in the Russian Federation.
              And yes. No one in the Russian Federation wants a war in Ukraine. Most want Ukraine to return control over the eastern territories. But forgiveness by Ukraine of the separatists is the reason why this conflict cannot end. Forgiveness is not possible for political reasons in Ukraine ….

      2. I imagine that Putin is thinking he is willing to have Russian citizens absorb a large degree of sacrifice in return for achieving his security and economic goals. A larger degree of sacrifice than either EU or Americans are willing to endure.

      3. Russians are probably the most resilient highly educated population in the world. They are accustomed to centuries of shortages, poor quality merchandise and thuggish governments.

        1. I believe Jjham and Hickory are in the same chapter and and on the same page as I am.

    2. The unreliability of the nuclear sector in 2022 comes from the disruption of proper maintenance due to the covid pandemic. There is aliso the problem of the decadal inspection occuring with a nuclear fleet which has been quickly built ; simultaneously, several reactors must be stopped, properly inspected and the ASN (Agence de Sureté Nucléaire) takes its time to give, or not, the ”go”. And the nuclear fleet is aging, especially the 30 900 MW units, which have been built 30 or 40 years ago. As a result, there are weldings or pipes which eventually corrode leak water. Not the pipes of the reactor core which are carefully maintained but others in less maintained and less important sectors of the units. This lack of maintenance is soming from 1) the pressure exerted on the power plant directors to produce a maximum of electricity 2) the lack of money coming from the fact that EDF is forced to sell electriciity at costing price to electricity brokers in order to create a fictitious electricity market in France. The volume of forced electricity sale is limited to 100 TWh or roughly a quarter of the annual electricity production of the nuclear fleet and this limit has been raised by the government to 120 TWh. Of course, the volume of electricity actually sold in this way depends on market conditions. If the price of the market is lower than the cost price of electricity, there is no interests in buying electricity of EDF. To answer your question; the nuclear fleet has been built for the most part in 20 years. A few reactor units have been added untill the end of 1990s. To solve, the problem of reliability of French nuclear fleet, some works will have to be carried out and, for me, this implies the fact to change the reactor vessels of the oldest units (the 900 MW units) by new reactor vessels and, if possible, by slightly more powerfull reactor vessels (ie replacing the 900 MW reactor vessels by the reactor vessels of the stillborn project ATMEA 1 of 1150 MWe) and adapting the internal organisation of the pipes, the steam generator and so on, to the new reactor vessels.

      1. “President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that France would construct six nuclear reactors, and study the possibility of commissioning a further eight.”
        “Construction will commence in 2028, and the first new reactor could be commissioned by 2035.”

        So, the first in 13 years if everything goes on schedule.

        How many of the existing stock will be retired by then?
        In 2020 “The Associated Press article reported that 14 nuclear reactors out of the 58 now running … will be shut down by 2035”
        Have those plans changed?

        1. I don’t know. But that’s not wishable and that’s the reason I am advocating the replacement of reactor vessels instead of closing them. We are going to need an increase of electricity production in the coming years to feed the production of hydrogen for industry, mainly production of fertilizers and steel production as Arcelormittal is going to replace, at least in part, the coke necessary to reduce iron ore to produce steel by hydrogen.The second item of hydrogen consumption would be rail transport; the French rail network is not fully electrified and some trains use diesel as fuel. If we replace them by trains using hydrogen as a fuel, we will have to produce more hydrogen. The trucks builders in Europe are ready to manufacture hydrogen-powered trucks. That’s pleasing them as because the tanks containing hydrogen are going to take up less place than the current diesel tanks for the same autonomy on the trucks. As a result, the trucks equipped with hydrogen tanks taking the same place as current diesel tanks will have more autonomy. The third reason why we must increase electricity production is the reindustrialization of France, which would be necessary, if only to build wind turbines, solar panels and carry out the thermal renovation of housing to reduce their consumption. The antinuclearists in France are impervious to this kind of basic realities.

          1. I would have thought that a massive overbuild of wind and solar in France would allow them to produce hydrogen or ammonia or synthetic fuels with the excess energy that would inevitable be produced during very windy and/or sunny periods. if the capacity is sufficiently overbuilt it should be possible to ride through periods when there is not enough wind and/or sun. I believe Mark Jacobson and his team at Stanford University have done the modelling and published it in a document: 100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139Countries of the World

            1. Sorry , Island boy . What you think is as my favorite TV lawer Perry Mason use to say ” Immaterial , irrelevant and inadmissible ” . We must admit to the fact that – intermittency and storage are the Achilles heal of solar and wind . Until you acknowledge this you will continue to be surprised .

            2. Jacobson has been heavily criticized for flaws in methodology, and his response to such was to sue those who peer-reviewed him, seeking 10 million in damages and attempting to force a retraction of the critique.

              https://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/6722
              https://medium.com/@nathangonzalez95/jacobson-v-clack-ba8604396d14

              A person who sues another for pursuing the normal course of scientific review is morally bankrupt and their opinion and/or research is clearly not worth our attention.

            3. Jacobson is a smart guy having put together an impressively detailed textbook Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling. Yet agree that his attitude is almost utopian, and he apparently is never wrong.

      2. JEAN-FRANÇOIS —
        It’s probable that since France built all their reactors in a short time period, they will all get shut down in a short time period. When that time comes, the country will face some interesting decisions.

    3. Copy/paste from the comments section of Gail’s blog . Interesting info on the French nuclear scene .

      “I would like to make a note regarding Nuclear Energy.
      You will agree with me that the ‘main law’ of your theory reads…’Too expensive for the consumer, too cheap for the producer’.
      It is an insightful and useful main theorem that actually applies to all forms of energy that you would like to apply.

      With nuclear power, France is in exactly such a situation. France needs to renew and upgrade its reactors. Currently, 17 of its 56 reactors are shut down for reasons various. Worryingly, 6 of the newest reactors (built around 2000) have been diagnosed with corrosion problems that will put them out of commission for a long time. The problems with the decommissioning of the EPR plants and cost overruns are well known

      EDF has had to scale back its production capacity to the level it was at 30 years ago. In addition, two weeks ago they were forced by the French state to sell a larger portion of its generated energy at a rate of 48 euros MWH. This is far below the energy market price of today. (around 200 euros MWH). The reason is to ensure that the energy intensive industries can remain competitive. Loss of EDF is estimated at 7 billion euros for this fiscal year.

      The French state came directly to the aid of the citizens in September when energy prices rapidly rose above 50 euros MWH to support the consumers. They promised consumers a 4% price increase freeze over all of 2022. This was an expensive gift because, as mentioned, prices hovered somewhere around €200 MWH. Cost to the French government estimated at 15 billion over 2022. Add to that the standard energy vouchers paid every year worth about 5 billion euros.

      Meanwhile, Macron has opted for the expansion of nuclear power plants to a total of 15 reactors by 2050, an increase in reprocessing capacity and an increase in the number of sites for the storage of radioactive waste. This is an extremely expensive undertaking, and apart from the question of who is going to finance it, it also raises the question of what an MWH will cost the consumer if you start to budget for the entire chain>.

      The French Court of Auditors has now answered this question and they arrive at an estimated amount of around 100 euros MWH. That is, by the way, comparable to the calculations that also apply to the EPR plant in Hinkleypoint.
      If the Court of Auditors already arrives at such amounts, which can already be expected to be higher, it is difficult to see how the French consumer/industry will ever be able to pay the MWH cost.

      Nuclear power seems nice but will turn out to be just as unaffordable (or even more unaffordable) as any other form of energy. And thus also ‘unreliable’ in a different way than ‘wind and solar’ for industry and consumers. “

      1. Interesting and important comments/info on the cost of the French nuclear industry, HinH

        “two weeks ago they were forced by the French state to sell a larger portion of its generated energy at a rate of 48 euros MWH. This is far below the energy market price of today. (around 200 euros MWH).”

        With electricity project pricing the spot or short-term pricing is not used for planning and contract purposes of big projects. The contracts and pricing are longterm- often 20-30 yrs like the mortgage on a home in the USA. So it is inappropriate to mix up spot prices with the longterm cost. I don’t know if that is what the numbers you present are doing.

        For a comparison purpose-
        UK offshore wind-
        “According to the Department’s latest electricity generation cost report, offshore wind projects which come online between now and 2030 will produce power at an average cost of £47 per megawatt-hour [56 euro per MWh] over the course of their lifetime”
        And the untapped resource is equal to many hundreds of nuclear plants.

        Of course the average wind power output price will fluctuate widely if quoted on a day by day basis, but it is the longterm pricing that matters to the planning process and economic viability of projects. And when comparing the various options.

        We should all wonder at what price nuclear [ or various wind or solar or energy storage] projects will be – on the 30yr levelized basis.
        Here is the best source for new US generation. 2021 Version15 [they update it annually]
        https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

  15. The recent disaster film Moonfall had much of the geophysics correct in spite of the outlandish premise. Read this critique

    “The first thing you think about is in terms of the tides,” McKinnon explained. The moon’s gravity pulls on the Earth’s water, resulting in two high tides and two low tides per day. (The Sun contributes somewhat, too.) So, in Moonfall, as the moon spirals closer and closer to the Earth in a dance of death and destruction, the lunar gravitational pull on our planet increases, leading to massive floods. The movie features an epic flooding of Los Angeles, thanks to these tides.

    We normally think of tides just in terms of water. “But the tides actually also impact the air, the atmosphere, and the rocks,” said McKinnon. “As the moon gets closer, those tides will get stronger and stronger. Suddenly, you’d have high tide and low tide for your air. Places that are higher elevation having low [air] tide means they don’t have enough air anymore.” And indeed, we see this in Moonfall when Tom Lopez (Michael Peña), Sonny Harper (Charlie Plummer), and their companions are forced to find oxygen masks to travel through the mountains in their quest for safety.”

    https://slate.com/technology/2022/02/fact-checking-moonfall-movie-science-astronomy.html

    What I find intriguing is that the movie may get people thinking about how the moon influences climate variation. Right now, the consensus is that it has ZERO impact and that it only controls the ocean tides. Beg to differ on this. Start physics ramble:

    The moon’s long-period orbit is already violently sloshing the Pacific ocean’s equatorial thermocline, creating cycles of El Nino and La Nina. It’s an overlooked feature of a thermocline that it exists within a reduced gravity environment, whereby there are small differences in density above and below the thermocline. Relating to Moonfall, a reduced gravity environment is equivalent to having the moon’s orbit swing much closer to the earth’s surface than it physically does. This doesn’t do anything special to surface (barotropic) tides since the interface is not a subtle density difference, but the subsurface thermocline can shift hundreds of meters vertically due to the gravitational forces. The analytical issue is that solving a sloshing problem in hydrodynamics takes some doing, and the fact that El Nino/La Nina cycles are erratic means that the connection to tidal cycles is difficult to extract.

  17. I am reminded of the movie, “Don’t Look Up”. Politicians and the general public simply laugh it off. They say: “Stupid alarmist, dumb ass doomsters, we have been hearing this collaps bullshit for years and nothing has happened yet. We have the technology, we have birth control, we have renewable energy, birth rates are falling, everything will be just fine”.

    Every species always expands to the limit of its existance. Homo sapiens has become the super-predator. There is nothing to stop his expansion except the limits of the earth’s natural resources. And the destruction of those natural resources is not slowing down. In fact it’s speeding up.

    The authors of this piece say we have: “less than 10 percent in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse.” And they are only looking at deforestation. But we are destroying everything else as well. When everything else is figured in, that chance is whiddled to zero.

    The question is no longer “if” but “when” civilization will collapse. But we are a world of believers. Facts dont bother us, it’s what we believe that counts. If we don’t believe it will happen, then it won’t happen. And we go on happy as a pig in a mud wallow. Our belief comforts us until… until…

  18. “Every species always expands to the limit of its existance.”

    This is simply not true but it is what everyone has been told so I guess it is understandable that you say this.

    There are countless examples of species self regulating at the first sign of depletion of their critical inputs, from microbial to mastodon. No species survives without cooperation, cooperation amongst the species and with other species. Even Darwin knew this. But some predominantly white guys wrote it down as survival of the biggest asshole or some such thing so humans set out on a different path. So far it is not working out so well.

    Indigenous peoples were masterful at husbanding their resources and structuring their peoples to benefit the peoples, but we have been told by the predominantly white guys who wiped them out and then wrote the history that they were simple minded gits and have nothing to offer.

    1. Jef , get real . The examples you talk about were about societies which adjusted because they lived close to the land . They understood their predicament . What do we have today ? The white shoe boys , the wizards on Facebook , Tiktok , Instagram and Twitter . I just saw a clip of the ” wizards ” who were given a rotary dialer telephone and they were tied up in knots . You expect too much .
      P.S ; Hicks , I can see you smiling on my cheeky comment . 🙂

      1. I don’t expect anything but I hate hearing the simple minded proclaimations that say ” thats just how humans are” you know… the TINA twats.

      2. Cheeky indeed. It comes natural to you it seems-
        “impudent or irreverent, typically in a rather self-indulgent way”

        Not funny, and certainly not endearing.

        1. Hicks , ““impudent or irreverent, typically in a rather self-indulgent way” . Incorrect interpretation . I would put it more like ” skepticism with a ring of sarcasm ” . This method gets the message effectively . By the way ” I am not a pessimist , just a disappointed optimist ” 🙂
          P.S : At my age ( past expiry ) skepticism is allowed because most of the time my answer to queries on PO , CC etc with the general public is ” Been there , done that “

    2. Some species of plants and animals have a symbiotic relationship with other species. That is not cooperation, it is a form of survival that has evolved. But people who talk about cooperation between species without giving examples are just spouting bullshit. And Darwin never mentioned cooperation even once in “On the Origin of Species”, not once. Go here:
      The Project Gutenberg eBook of On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
      And search on the word “cooperation”. You will get 0/0 hits.

      Also, Indigenous peoples depended on warfare, hunger, and disease to control their population. They depended on a high death rate, just as all humanity did before the population explosion that began with the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution a few thousand years later.

      I have heard this shit about Darwin writing about cooperation all my life. I am a Darwinian and have read his books. (“The Descent of Man” never mentioned “cooperation” even once either.) He never wrote about cooperation between species or even among species. You are just spouting bullshit, nothing more.

      1. I agree that the poster’s view of evolution is erroneous and romanticized.

        Yet, even though Darwin may not have talked about cooperation, it is a whole field of study in evolutionary biology. I took a course titled “The Evolution of Cooperation” back in 2018 at the college where I work. It was fabulous. “Cooperation” is a term that covers the gamut of interdependencies between species: parasitism, mutualism, altruism, etc.

        1. Would that have been the “Liberty University”, or perhaps the “Oral Roberts University”? Or perhaps some other Christian university?

    3. You really should read “Constant Battles” by Steven Leblanc. It will knock the rose-colored glasses off your face.

      1. Hey, I have read that book. It is one of my favorite books of all time. Yes, everyone should read it. And yes, it will blow you away.

        Oh, Leblanc does not talk about cooperation anywhere in that book. In fact, he stresses the exact opposite.

        The original title of that book was: Constant Battles, the Myth of the Noble Savage.

    1. In the comment section:

      “It’s OK. These people are too stupid to have money. They might cause harm to themselves or others. Taking money from them is a good thing, like not allowing drunks to drive.”

    1. Burning through vast amounts of energy in order to gain… Exactly nothing that we couldn’t already do quite easily.

      Gotta love cryptocurrency.

      1. Yeah, bitcoin will probably crash in a few years. Things go in and out of fashion.

        And just think, we could have used that fuel to drive a three ton SUV a half a mile to by a gallon of milk instead of riding a bike.

  22. El Nino probability seems to be fading as it did last year. Ocean heat content is at record high, that isn’t really news, it’s kind of inevitable every year. Antarctic sea ice is at record low. Every year something strange is seen with the Arctic as it transitions to an ice free state – at the moment the ice is all over the place as it gets clobbered by a series of winter storms. I used to find the Arctic News site a bit hysterical but the way things are going it might prove to be more prescient than most.

    http://arctic-news.blogspot.com

    1. The last NCEP forecast for ENSO (14 february 2022) points to a persistence of La Nina but this only one modelisation on the contrary of the ensemble models above. Amusingly, the Antarctica sea ice is at a low level this year but the Amundsen embayement is clogged with sea ice and icebergs, preventing the scientists of the ITGC (International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration) from conducting their analysis and their research on the Thwaites glacier.

      1. Having spent the last 6 years deep into El Nino/La Nina modeling, presenting at AGU & EGU conferences and publishing, I can report that the world’s climate scientists & geophysicists have no clue what is causing it and are hopeless in predicting which way (El Nino or La Nina) it’s going until one or the other has arrived. As I commented upthread (https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-14/#comment-735021) the movie Moonfall could do a service and enlighten the scientists as to the actual mechanism.

        BTW, I don’t engage much in handwaving on this topic. I only work on it because over 100 years of data is available to enable the extraction of patterns and apply fluid dynamics models to make sense of the physics. It’s should be more like pontificating on the tides — no use describing all the clues, simply report the expected times and levels of low and high tides, because that’s what the calculations say. All the rest of the probabilistic stuff is irrelevant, all current El Nino forecasts show a spread because all their simulations are based on random outcomes. On the other hand, tidal forecasts never have uncertainty associated with them.

  23. Sigh.

    THE GREAT CLIMATE BACKSLIDE: HOW GOVERNMENTS ARE REGRESSING WORLDWIDE

    At the conclusion of COP26 in November, summit chairman Alok Sharma praised the “heroic efforts” by nations showing they can rise above their differences and unite to tackle climate change, an outcome he said “the world had come to doubt.”

    Turns out the world was right to be skeptical. Three months on, a toxic combination of political intransigence, an energy crisis and pandemic-driven economic realities has cast doubt on the progress made in Scotland. If 2021 was marked by optimism that the biggest polluters were finally willing to set ambitious net-zero targets, 2022 already threatens to be the year of global backsliding. From the U.S. to China, in Europe, India and Japan, fossil fuels are staging a comeback, clean energy stocks are taking a hammering, and the prospects for speeding the transition to renewable sources of power are looking grim. That’s even as renewable energy costs have fallen rapidly and investment in clean technologies is soaring, while voters across the world demand stronger action.

    https://phys.org/news/2022-02-great-climate-backslide-regressing-worldwide.html

  24. This will be the first civilisation collapsing where everybody will think they know what is happening almost instantly, at least for some time, maybe short, until the internet goes down for good, and with all the distortions from fake news and social media. I think that will likely may for lots of panic and poor decision making and a speedier fall than otherwise.

    1. It’s an interesting thought that we’re the first collapsing civilization to stare collectively into the abyss, individuals absolutely helpless to do anything about it, while billionaires launch themselves into space projects. Meanwhile, down on the flooding, energy-impoverished Earth, where no one farms anymore, the house pets begin to disappear first….

      During the collapse of the Bronze Age, Hatti and Mycenae simply slipped under the waves. Egypt and Assyria retreated into themselves. Cities burned one by one as marauders and pirates scoured the Mediterranean for sustenance, mega-drought, famine and possibly plague having driven them out of southern Europe and the Aegean.

      The dominoes toppled for fifty years and more, and it is doubtful there was any universal understanding that it was all coming undone.

    2. The internet is not going to go down for good. 🤣 There is enough decentralized infrastructure, plus there may be p2p solutions. And look at what the last 50 years of technology brought us, now just imagine the next 50 years worth.

      1. Jared , the keyword is ” may be ” . This could very well be ” may be not ” . To continue “And look at what the last 50 years of technology brought us, now just imagine the next 50 years worth. ”Because you bring up a hypothetical scenario , let me give you another hypothetical scenario ” Suppose if all the semiconductors built in the last 10 years failed , would society go back 10 years or 100 years ?” Yesterday is not today and today is not tomorrow . Suggested reading ” Anti- fragile ” by Naseem Talab .

      2. “…look at what the last 50 years of technology brought us…”

        It depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it?

        One set of answers is: resource depletion, atmospheric heating, population increase, ocean pollution, habitat destruction, species decline…

      3. The internet, as the general public uses it, is a commercial enterprise.
        If Google or Facebook can’t keep the lights on for any reason- bankruptcy, staffing issues, no electricity, no water- huge portions of the population will find the internet unusable.

        If your ISP goes down, even more immediate and irremediable problems.

        The internet doesn’t go down in isolation….but if everything goes down, so does the internet.

      4. Jared – I think your idea of collapse must be a bit different from mine. I don’t see a minor inconvenience like not being able to log on for a few days; I see people wondering where the next meal is coming from, unburied bodies in the street, people dying of cold of heat, people afraid to go out for fear of being killed, home invaders taking whatever they want when they want, zero humanitarian aid, almost no easily available health care, millions or billions of migrants confronting militia forces, resource wars etc.

          1. Yes it was one of the first books that really awakened me to just how bad some of the issues around climate change are. There were also one or two you tube lectures. He was the first person I heard to mention how really worried the scientists were, even if it didn’t come across as such in their publications. He is an excellent writer on conflict and politics in general.

        2. I left off the most important early consequence – rolling blackouts that get longer and eventually permanent with selective shutdowns of big users, with server farms among the first (as is already being seen with bitcoin miners). Similarly gas grids being shutdown because of low pressure and even if supplies return cannot be restarted because all the pilot lights will have gone out and devices may have been left on so buildings would randomly blow up.

          1. Never had any gas installation?

            If the pilot light goes out a thermal valve closes short time after.

            In old installations you have to use your pocket ligter, in newer ones press a spark button and hold it.

            Sorry, no explosions.
            Had to do this round about 5 times a year in my old house.
            Still no explosions.

        3. George, I think you’ve been binging on too many end of the world dramas on your Netflix watch list. Anyway, I’d rather not fear a future apocalypse, my happiness right now is what’s important.

          1. Jarad, obviously you haven’t a clue as to what is going on in this world. But, of course, you are not alone. Only a tiny minority of the world’s population is truly aware of the desperate situation our planet is in.

            But just go about your happy way Jarad, with your head buried in the sand. After all, that is what the vast majority of people are doing. And that is largely why we are in this goddamn mess.

    3. What West Africa looks like today is what the world will look like in 50 years, only worse.

      The Coming Anarchy

      How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet

      By Robert D. Kaplan

      1. Great link Ron. Indeed, much of the world has proceeded with increased tribalization & politically fragment. I like Kaplan’s writing, although I’m perhaps not into foreign policy amoralism, Realpolitik & Kissinger as much as he seems to be. Gripping stuff though.

        1. That Kaplan article is from 1994 and it has gotten worse. Currently dealing with a situation of trying to get a parent from interacting with Nigerian scammers, and finding it impossible to terminate. They have incredible patience in perpetrating a scam because they start with nothing and their only overhead is a burner phone account.

      2. There is a small zone of existence, between anarchy and authoritarianism.
        Fortunate we have been to experience much of our lives living in that small zone.
        Most forget how fragile that condition of coexistence of freedom and security is.

        And how will issues like energy shortage, fake/falsified mass media news, crop failures, and the weaponization of robots
        play into this whole mess?

    1. And it has also been revealed that Fox news is confirmed as a propaganda site of the
      ‘billionaires for fascism club’
      who now control the supreme court.

      1. Hic,

        As you know, we have been deluged with propaganda since well before ancient Greeks ran the world. Too young to remember Uncle Sam’s Rosie the Riveter posters (World War II) now, of course, it’s at a new, even more obscene level as fake news saturates our phones, computers or other favorite “device”.

        1. Indeed. And lets not forget to mention the Church teachings while we are making some notable examples.

        2. The Greeks never ran the world. At time of classical Greece, the main power in the world were Chinese kingdoms.

          1. LOL No, the Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th centuries was the largest contiguous land empire in history but Mongols weren’t big on propaganda, more like submit-or-die.

        3. Hmmm? Propaganda? I wonder if this use of propaganda has extended to public health issues? The graphic below suggests that some amount of propaganda is being used with the highly vaccinated, wealthy regions like Europe and North America dominating the news and very little attention being paid to low income areas of the world. Despite severely limited access to vaccines many low income counties seem to be faring much better than the wealthy countries. Of course, it could be that low income countries simply do not have the resources to collect meaningful data.

      2. Have fun with critical race theory CNN.
        Germany was found out to be a rassistic hell hole for not giving all the african refugees voting rights.
        Must be right is on CNN.

  26. Miners are returning money to investors because they don’t have places to put the cash to work:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-15/miners-are-scouring-the-earth-again-in-risky-jurisdictions-as-reserves-dwindle?sref=hEO85HQm

    Miners Are Scouring the Earth Again as Reserves Dwindle

    Now is not the time to play it safe. With resources in short supply, miners need to consider venturing back into countries they’ve worked hard to avoid.
    Think your life has been unadventurous over the past few years, as the pandemic and closed borders have kept you bottled up at home? Spare a thought for the mining sector.

    An industry built on the romance and horror of finding riches on the wild frontier — from the Klondike to Kimberley, Kolyma and Katanga — has for years barely needed to get out its passport.
    Take BHP Group. Under former Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie, the biggest miner developed a mantra that it would focus only on “stable, low-risk jurisdictions” — meaning, for the most part, rich countries. Over the past decade, it’s been getting rid of operations in Algeria, Brazil, Colombia, Mozambique, Pakistan, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago, to focus almost entirely on Australia and the Americas.

    That’s an attitude that makes sense as long as the world seems adequately supplied with essential minerals. Why take the operational, legal and reputational risk of going to places where you may be expected to pay bribes or cope with lurching policy reversals, when there’s plentiful assets available in friendlier jurisdictions?
    That’s in line with with a general rise in animal spirits in the industry. Shareholders who’ve spent much of the past decade encouraging miners to slim down and return more cash as dividends are finally sated, and turning a worried eye to the problem of growth. The ore grades of key elements in major mines are in decline across the world, while demand looks set to surge as the planet engages in a resource-intensive drive to decarbonize its energy and industrial systems. Most of the key deposits being exploited were discovered decades ago, and it’s not clear where their successors are coming from. Investors who worried the major miners had grown too big are now worried they’re starting to look too small.

    With BHP’s first-half net income reported Tuesday more than doubling to $9.4 billion and margins of 64%, Henry is now in a position to invest accordingly. The question is where to go.

    Looking at the way mineral resources have developed in recent decades, it’s hard to avoid the notion that restricting activity to developed countries is an unnecessary limitation. About 56% of the world’s copper resources are now outside the traditional tier one mining jurisdictions of Australia, Canada, Chile, Poland and the U.S., up from 49% two decades ago.

    Rgds
    WP

    1. I was having a flick through Blip again the other day and a couple new things I picked up were that not only are ores getting less concentrated they are getting much more mixed up (i.e. with more different compounds commingled) and so may need completely new separation techniques, and second that because so many of the deposits were laid down by the action of water they can only occur fairly near the surface so it’s possible that if we’ve exhausted the easy to get outcrops and shallow mines there just isn’t any more to look for. And third, while I remember, the deep ocean crust is probably too thin to contain much so deep ocean mining might be a pipe dream.

        1. That was purely a probability & statistics analysis. The size of discoveries appears to be a fat-tail probability distribution which means that a single new discovery could be large enough to match the cumulative amount of all previous discoveries. Yet, we are running out of places to look which means this is less likely to happen. That is included in the complete analysis, which is described in detail in the book

          On twitter, there was this comment from a couple days ago:

          The problem is, as we've improved our sonar repertoire, every earthquake essentially is a opportunity to find new fossil fuel reserves.And we're not finding much!They are almost exclusively in prior littoral zones, and we've already found those through seabed analysis.— Really_Bad_At_Names (@25_cycle) February 14, 2022

  27. A North American Climate Boundary Has Shifted 140 Miles East Due to Global Warming

    https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-north-american-climate-boundary-has-shifted-140-miles-east-due-to-global-warming

    “Studying rainfall and temperature data since 1980, Seager and his colleagues found this climatic boundary has already shifted east about 140 miles so that it now sits closer to the 98th meridian. And it will continue to move east as warming global temperatures increase evaporation from the soil and change precipitation patterns, they concluded.”

    No biggie….
    rgds
    WP

  29. In Iowa
    “Bill to outlaw solar projects on quality farmland moves out of committee”

    Its an interesting coverage of the land use subject- solar vs corn

    https://www.kwwl.com/news/bill-to-outlaw-solar-projects-on-quality-farmland-moves-out-of-committee/article_2e9e6bf6-8ee5-11ec-bd01-3b5cf626909a.html

    Of course this is Iowa, so the article failed to mention that 57% of the Iowa corn crop is used for ethanol production.

    If you compare the energy yield of corn ethanol from Iowa prime cropland in terms of vehicle mileage output vs the solar power output from land in central Iowa in terms of miles output with a midrange EV (Ford Mustang EV for example)-
    you get somewhere between 70 and 90 times as many miles from solar PV on an acre vs ethanol corn!!!

    This vast out-performance of solar over corn ethanol does not take into account net energy yield consideration, and if it did the out-performance would be much higher.

    I am not advocating for the wholesale coverage of farmland with photovoltaics.
    Rather, an argument could be made that the corn ethanol cropland in Iowa which is at 7.5 million acres could be reduced to well less than 100,000 acres of solar while yielding the same amount of energy for vehicle travel. This could free up the other 7.4 million acres for uses such as human food crop production or return to wildlife habitat.
    Better yet the solar production would be pushed to lands more marginal for cropping or wildlife habitat.

    1. HICKORY —
      Corn farming as currently practiced in America is an ecological disaster. Replacing corn fields with solar kills two birds with one stone — misincentivized agriculture and fossil fuel burning.

      The idea that it is better to grow corn to make ethanol to power cars is better than to use a fraction of the land to produce the equivalent electricity is stone age thinking. But when farmers figure this out, the troglodytes will have to crawl back into their caves. It’s no accident that Iowa is a big wind state — it is profitable for landowners.

      1. “It’s no accident that Iowa is a big wind state — it is profitable for landowners.”

        The nature of the beast when it comes to corn versus wind and solar power in corn states is such that while every farmer who has suitable land can grow corn…… maybe only one out of a hundred has a realistic shot at putting a wind or solar farm on his property.

        The other ninety-nine can only look on enviously and continue to raise corn and support politicians who support the moonshine industry.

    2. I don’t have any GOOD figures, but I’m sure that you can put a wind farm on good corn land and still produce at least eighty percent as much corn per acre or hectare as previously. Wind turbines are located a long way apart and they don’t cast all that big or dark a shadow, in relation to the amount of land involved.

      Of course you do have to have a buffer around each turbine, and you have to give up some land for service roads to each turbine, etc.

      But this is a LONG LONG way from a one or the other proposition.

      Moonshine for automobiles and trucks is one of the biggest and worst mistakes we have made so far in terms of trying to solve the oil and associated pollution problem.
      In terms of going proactive, it’s just about dead sure the very worst mistake of them all.

      1. The most valuable crop they grow in the corn belt is senators, so economic reality doesn’t really matter out there.

        I doubt coal companies will be able to stop farmers from setting solar for very long.

        1. You’re dead on about the Senators, lol.

          And you’re right about the farmers and solar farms.

          But the real decisions aren’t made at the farm level. The people who control the government at the state level have most of the power involved in getting the necessary permits needed to tie into the grid, etc.

          The gas and coal guys are pretty much dead set against renewable electricity.

          And while times are tough as hell in the coal biz, the owners nevertheless aren’t having any problems coming up with a few tens of millions here and there to distribute among their domesticated and paid for congress critters, governors, and such.

  30. About the mysteries of the universe………..
    Here’s a thought provoking TED talk well worth the time to listen to it.

    The whole thing is great, but the part I find most interesting starts at about the six minute mark.

    1. Cool OFM. Can you give us a few more clues so we can track it down?

  31. I have just put up a new post on The Fine-Tuned Universe

    This post is titled The Strange Characteristics of Dark Matter. This post, in my opinion, puts the final nail in the coffin of the case for the accidental universe. Dark matter is so very finely tuned that it could not possibly be just an accident.

    I put a lot of effort and research into this post. I hope you will check it out and perhaps comment.

    Ron

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