132 thoughts to “Open thread Non-Petroleum”

      1. Yes it was rebaselined to 100 then, so 130 now would have been about 220 before (just about the point at which the Arab spring disturbances started).

        1. Thanks for helping me with the timeline on that one lads. Sometimes I’m a bit thick with the Google and I don’t stumble across what I hope to.

    1. My understanding is that Lebanon’s problems started with defending a fixed exchange rate, which pretty much bankrupted the country.

      SWB would eliminate fuel imports, which would certainly help.

      1. Nick,
        Lebanon’s fundamental problem is that they import everything and have nothing to export. They also have a very corrupt administration. The lack of foreign exchange to import necessities is just one symptom of that. I don’t think Lebanon is viable as a nation. The Shiite parts could join Syria and the Christian parts could become an Israeli protectorate.

    2. The media blows this news out of proportion. The Lebanon state electrical had only been providing about 1 or 2 hours electricity a day before. Now 0. It wasn’t 24 hours before and now 0 hours suddenly. Most people already adapted to the terrible electrical supply by getting private diesel generators.

      1. Does anybody in Lebanon install solar in their roof or residential compound?

        They’d still need the generator, but it seems like solar panels and batteries would greatly reduce the amount of expensive diesel.

        Or solar without batteries…

        1. Nick G , you are infuriating . The Lebanese people are suffering and surviving meal to meal and you come along asking why they don’t ( why they didn’t ) install solar panels . Their are limits to being passionate about a subject or topic . When limits of passion are crossed it is called craziness (madness) .

          1. If the Lebanese are buying diesel generators and expensive fuel as Analoumonday suggests, then Nick’s question as to whether any folks invest in solar instead seems reasonable.

            And he asked “does anybody install solar”, not “why don’t they”; there is a difference between those two questions.

            1. Riban , “And he asked “does anybody install solar”, . Do you expect someone who is worrying about where his next meal is coming from to think about installing solar ? What happened to something called ” logic ” . Perhaps it’s on vacation . Poor timing and context of the post .

            2. Yeah, there was no judgement there, just curiousity about local conditions.

              People assume that oil-fired generation has mostly gone away because it’s so expensive, and yet middleclass folks and businesses burn a lot of diesel in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and many other places around the world where utilities are extremely unreliable.

              It would be logical to mostly replace diesel with PV. If that’s not happening, I’m curious as to why.

          1. Ah, thanks, good articles.

            So, the first problem is massive subsidies for both diesel and utility electricity. This disincentivizes rational strategies like solar.

            2nd, the power shortages are relatively recent: only two years ago the power supply was much better.

            3rd. there’s no national strategy or regulatory framework for solar: the utility is state owned and private solar installations have no public policy to incentivize them or even make it clear that they are legal.

            Wow. A massive management failure.

      2. In a country as poor as Lebanon, I doubt one household out of ten can afford a diesel generator.

        1. Apparently a lot of people share generators, with a subscription! Kind’ve like community solar…

  4. Looks like Tony Seba was wrong. You can now buy a 200 mile EV for $9250 in China. Tony Seba thought we will not get there until 2030. Granted this is NEDC range and not EPA range. Still it is ridiculously cheap. If we assume that EPA range is 150 miles and doubling the range will cost an additional $7000 you then get a car with a 300 mile EPA range for $16250. That is cheaper than most gasoline cars.
    https://insideevs.com/news/539437/geometry-ex3-costs-usd9250-china/

    1. This isn’t ridiculously cheap. The problem is that cars are ridiculously expensive for a machine that is supposed to provide basic transportation. The car-centric transportation model has failed.

      1. Here in the good ole USA, in tons of communities, you can put say three or four thousand bucks a year in owning a car, including all expenses, plus commuting time of course, and live as if you’re making twenty or thirty or even forty thousand dollars more money.

        Why?

        Well, it’s about fifteen miles to jobs in town from my place. A house in town equal in every way to the one I live in, including privacy, spectacular views, nice grounds, plenty of room for outdoor activities, etc, etc, would cost me at least three times, and probably five or six times, as much in additional rent or payment….. because places like mine seldom exist in town, and if they do, they usually sell for millions.

        The car centric model is a long way from a complete failure, lol.

        But you’re right, for the most part.

      1. I’d guess the audience thinks it’s prep for a presidential run. I suspect it’s just a way to get donations, to pay the bills.

        1. A comment explaining details about the rally seems to be deleted.

      2. “A rally for (or against) what exactly?”

        Authoritarianism,
        and oh yeh- keeping the billionaires money in private accounts and away from any taxation.

        The nurse, the electrician, the fireman, the teacher….all paid more tax than trump.
        Somehow, they think that is admirable.
        We all know that it really a blatant form of hatred for this country, and its common citizens.

        2. My experience with nurses, electricians, fireman and teachers are clue less as to understanding their nice income and retirement is a function of government and unions, yet have a negative opinion of both. There is a lot of professions out there that work a lot harder with less benefits.

    2. “Trump has a rally tonite.. 7 pm cst.”

      Its a prepubescent puppy love type thing, gone wrong. very wrong.
      Poor human brain function. Gullible and fragile human mind.
      Its how Hitler came to power too.

      These rally goers are the guys who had not been sexually abused by the priesthood, but secretly feel as though they might like to be abused.
      The women at the rallies are are a more complicated thing to explain- it always is.

      1. Don’t forget playing the victim and hate.

        Fiona Hill- “If Trump gets reelected democracy is over”.

        Glad to see you uses the “Hilter” word. Most are in denial.

        Texas abortion law is an example of authoritarianism under Republicans.

        1. To be clear, I am not comparing Trump to Hitler.

          But the mentality that enabled Nazism and the rise of Hitler is the same exact voter mentality that
          will enable authoritarianism here in the USA, and has taken a step in that direction with Trump, and the republican party. Almost all of the elected Republicans have been complicit with this current episode of despotism.

          And yes! the recent Fiona Hill revelations are incredibly insightful. From a foreign policy expert who was on the inside, siting right next to Putin and Trump.

          2. Trump appears (to me at least) to be a mediocre populist politician. He achieved power by standing against continued globalisation, which has hollowed out the US economy and made a handful of billionaires super wealthy, whilst millions of working class men and women have seen their living standards decline. Some sort of rebellion through the ballot box was all but inevitable.

            But for a variety of reasons, he has so far failed to turn MAGA into anything useful to the average man. His trade tariffs against China have likely added to inflation, at a time when energy costs are already pushing in this direction. The problem is that the US is not in a position to emulate Chinese competitive advantage, in the form of cheap coal based energy, cheaper labour, long established supply lines and huge economies of scale. Chinese competitive advantage is failing anyway and coal depletion will soon result in severe physical shortages of energy intensive products. Trump failed to understand the energy basis of the economy and had no grand plan for laying the groundwork for a US manufacturing renaissance. Such a renaissance can only be based on a nuclear energy base, as US domestic oil and gas EROI has fallen too low to provide the energy base for a renewed US manufacturing economy. The idea of a renewable energy base for a manufacturing renaissance is a non starter for the same reason. Growth and high levels of average prosperity require a high EROI energy base.

            Trump missed an obvious easy win in failing to reform Obama Care into something like an affordable universal health care system, that would have broken the racket that US health care has become. Succeeding in this area would have benefited his voter base more than anything else he could have done, at least in the short term. And he would have had enough bipartisan support. But he failed miserably. He abolished affordable health care reforms largely to spite his predecessor. In my opinion, had he seen past his ego on this issue, it would have guaranteed him a second term.

            Like so many on the Right, he failed completely in grasping the nettle in the anthropogenic global warming debate. A man with even high school level physics would have understood that radiative forcing is long established physics. There seems to be a misunderstanding generally, that reality isn’t something you can change through political debate. The fact that your opponents are exploiting an issue, does not make the issue fake; and the right course of action in the face of that problem is not to attempt to take a contrarian stand against scientific consensus. An aggressive approach to replacing the fossil energy base with high power density, Gen 4 nuclear power reactors, would have pulled the climate crisis from under the Left’s feet by effectively solving it in the only way that it can be solved without poverty and starvation. And it would have given the US some world dominating exports that it could have sold to the rest of the world. But this, like so many other opportunities, was missed.

            All in all, this man does not have the ability or desire to be the messiah of the New Right, nor is he the Fascist demagogue that the US Jewish Left try to paint him as. The sad truth is that he doesn’t appear to have the foresight, education level or brain power to derive any kind of clever masterplan. He will be remembered as a sort of Ronald Reagan with less brains.

            1. “nor is he the Fascist demagogue that the US Jewish Left try to paint him as”

              Overt racism Tony.
              Demonize one group among hundreds.

              You forgot to mention the other Americans who consider Trump as having fascist/authoritarian tendencies like-
              Quakers, Sikhs, Koreans, Arapaho, Bengali’s, Italians, Hispanic, Irish, Buddhists…….for example.

            2. Exactly Hickory. That is nothing more than a racist anti-Semitic remark. I know many who see Trump as the Fascist and Hitler wannabe he really is. And none of them are Jewish. To insinuate that is only the Jews who see him as a Fascist in racist and anti-Semitic.

              But this remark by Tony is nothing but total bullshit. And I mean bullshit waist deep.

              He achieved power by standing against continued globalisation, which has hollowed out the US economy and made a handful of billionaires super wealthy, whilst millions of working class men and women have seen their living standards decline.

              Trump increased the wealth of those billionaires by many more billions with his massive tax cut for the rich and super-rich while giving the middle class the shaft. To imply that he opposed the superwealthy while supporting the working-class men and women is the far bigger lie than Trump himself could ever dream up.

              I find this type of twisted logic by Trumpites astounding. Have they completely lost the ability to use common sense?

            3. ‘Trump increased the wealth of those billionaires by many more billions with his massive tax cut for the rich and super-rich while giving the middle class the shaft. To imply that he opposed the superwealthy while supporting the working-class men and women is the far bigger lie than Trump himself could ever dream up.’

              He did not help the working class appreciably, but my point is that he was elected by them. Trump came to power on the back of anti-globalisation sentiment. The bulk of his supporters were not the richest (who generally hate him and support the Dems) but the poorest, whose incomes have suffered most as a result of globalisation and the deteriorating energy dynamic. He has failed to reward their support in any meaningful way.

              But the average man is not suffering because the rich are taxed too lightly, but because the manufacturing base that used to pay blue collar workers good wages, has disappeared. The structure of the economy has shifted as the EROI of its driving energy sources has deteriorated. The service economy that has grown up in the absence of a robust manufacturing economy, provides a large number of low wage jobs. Manufacturing generates exports, so the US now has a huge trade deficit. Wages also pay the bulk of taxes, so the US finds itself with huge government deficits, just as the need for social support is growing. The deteriorating energy dynamic and rising inflation makes the decline in prosperity far worse than simple dollar comparison of wages would suggest. So it tends to blindside political elites.

            4. “Trump missed an obvious easy win in failing to reform Obama Care into something like an affordable universal health care system, that would have broken the racket that US health care has become. ”

              There’s a saying in my part of the backwoods that describes about how likely trump was to do such a thing.

              “I’d rather eat shit with a splinter.”

      2. Dennis, Ovi, George Kaplan:

        Why is Hickory’s offensive comment making a joke out of sexual abuse of children allowed to stay up but comments from conservatives get deleted from this website?

        1. A little to close to home ?

          So, if the sexually abused was a teenage girl and she became pregnant. Shouldn’t the teenager and her family get to make the decision to terminate and not the government ?

        2. John.
          I admit that comment was in poor taste.
          Pardon.

          Nonetheless, something is very wrong with those who idolize Trump.
          Like mentally ill wrong. It is clearly in the category of a cult.

          1. Hickory, I don’t think it’s mentally ill. But, intentional poorly educated and disinformation. Definitely cult like.

  6. I’m trying to find out how much FRESH water is used to extract enough lithium carbonate a ton of lithium AT THE SALT FLAT MINE SITE in a place such as Chile in South America.

    When somebody says it takes 500,000 gallons to produce a ton of lithium, and then talks endlessly about the shortage of fresh water in such places, I find myself strongly suspecting that most of that water is brine that simply evaporates, or that if it’s fresh water, some of it gets recycled at the site, that a large and maybe the biggest portion of the 500k in used ELSEWHERE, etc.

    Knowing the answer would be quite useful in countering anti renewable energy trolls.

    Some people,playing a similar game, who are opposed to eating cows for various reasons, throw out figures saying it takes an insane amount of water to grow corn. It does take a lot, but unless it’s fossil irrigation water, it’s pretty much a non issue in environmental terms, since rain falling on a cornfield either seeps into the soil or runs off or evaporates just as it does every where else. NOTE, I’m talking about the water itself, not ground water pollution, nor runoff pollution. I’m not talking about whether raising corn to make moonshine or feed cows on the grand scale is a good idea.

    Perspective is always useful.

    1. OFM –

      Lithium (actually lithium carbonate) is extracted from mineral-rich brines typically found a few metres beneath the surfaces of high-altitude salt flats, or playas. The process begins by drilling, or hand auguring, down through the crust and then pumping the brine up to the surface into evaporation pools, where it is left for months at a time to reduce water content. In some cases, reverse osmosis is used to speed up the evaporation process.

      There are various ways to extract the “lithium” and the one(s) chosen depends, mostly, on the other salts involved: Boron, etc. The “final” recovery choice of the lithium carbonate from brine depends on various factors but might include: chemical means, electrolysis, centrifuges, filtration, ion exchange, etc. Basically, what you’re doing is removing contaminants and/or unwanted constituents from a lithium-rich brine. This is never easy and can be expensive but I have never seen an example where fresh water was a significant factor in either brine concentration or lithium carbonate separation and I have visited operations in Bolivia, Chile, the US and Argentina (albeit many years ago). These visits were in preparation for running a major lithium exploration program in western North America for a large Canadian company that was expecting to become involved with battery production.

      Note that I am not addressing hard rock spodumene lithium extraction which may have water issues in some places. I have seen spodumene deposits but not an active mine nor lithium being extracted from this mineral which may indeed require a lot of fresh water. This is the realm of metallurgists.

      1. Thank you Doug.
        I don’t have the link handy, but I asked this question after reading some tearjerker stuff about how it takes 5ook gallons to process a ton of lithium, saying that’s enough for a thousand people to live on for a long time…… which penciled out to a couple of gallons a day, meaning these people would be living in a desert with barely enough water for drinking, and almost NONE for any other purpose. The tear jerker scenario was set in a brine mining operation.

        Your answer goes a long way toward confirming my suspicion that this criticism of lithium mining and electric cars, by extension, is mostly F U D…… troll work.

        Even if it does take thousands of gallons to process a ton, that work is being done in places where there’s almost for sure plenty of water, without any body going thirsty.

        1. OFM —
          The focus on South America is a red herring as well, since Australia produces nearly as much lithium as the rest of the world put together.

          2. What many people do not understand is that mineral reserve dos not equal production.
            True whether we are talking about lithium, or rare earth metals, or copper, etc

            Take rare earth metals- there are many locations with metal in the ground.
            Once the raw ore with a small percent of target product is mined, it must be concentrated and purified and separated into individual elements- we’ll call it ‘processing’.
            This processing capacity primarily is in China and is a difficult thing to replicate.

            An Australian company is an example-
            “Lynas is the only producer of scale of separated Rare Earths outside of China. Our Rare Earths deposit in Mt Weld, Western Australia, is acknowledged as one of the highest grade Rare Earths mine in the world and we operate the world’s largest single Rare Earths processing plant in Malaysia.”

            It took them about 15 years to get ramped up. And has been a difficult road regarding permitting and financing.
            Just having a resource reserve or deposit does not equate to production.

            “China currently dominates the global rare earths industry, both in the upstream mining and the midstream processing segments. For example, it commands 83% of global markets share for NdPr, with Lynas a distant second at 15%,”- 2021

            1. HICKORY —

              I expect you know this, but rare earth metals (REEs) include 17 elements — which are subdivided into the light rare earths and heavy rare earths subsets based on their atomic weights. They are found in many natural deposits globally. Heavy rare earths are the harder to source and Chinese deposits are rich in these: they include metals like dysprosium and terbium, which play a critical role in defense, technology and electric vehicles. Neodymium and praseodymium are some of the most sought-after light rare earth elements crucial in products such as motors, turbines and medical devices. To simply throw out the rare earth catchphrase can be, and often is, like comparing apples with oranges. Also, there are a LOT of environmental considerations associated with REE mining/extraction (which the Chinese tend to ignore). I visited the rare earth mines located in Inner Mongolia at one point and watched child “miners” wallowing in highly radioactive muck. Not a pretty sight. Apparently conditions are better now but one wonders, how much better?

            2. Yes indeed Doug- good points all.

              The concentration of raw mine ore and then separation into pure elemental components is no easy task. It took Lynas a long time to get get that capability designed, permitted, and built in Malaysia.
              Not in my back yard was big issue with locals, until many jobs and infrastructure benefits were provided as part of the deal.

              And the price $/MT of finished product varies by over a 1000 depending on which particular rare earth we are talking about.

              Its a good example of how the process isn’t simple, quick and clean even if you have the mineral reserve rights/ownership.
              Did anyone ask the Native Americans if they had claim to the continents mineral rights, I didn’t learn anything about that in school history?

            3. Did anyone ask the Native Americans if they had claim to the continents mineral rights

              No, mineral rights are a very well settled area of law. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of money as stake, so it’s thoroughly legislated and litigated…

            4. Of course not- it was a rhetorical question.
              Like Religious principles, Law is only applied in the favor of conquerors,
              and does not prevent ethnic cleansing, genocide or wholesale wealth expropriation by European or other cultures.

  7. CLIMATE CHANGE MAY ALREADY IMPACT MAJORITY OF HUMANITY

    The effects of climate change could already be impacting 85 percent of the world’s population, an analysis of tens of thousands of scientific studies shows. A team of researchers used machine learning to comb through vast troves of research published between 1951 and 2018 and found some 100,000 papers that potentially documented evidence of climate change’s effects on the Earth’s systems. “We have overwhelming evidence that climate change is affecting all continents, all systems,” study author Max Callaghan.

    https://phys.org/news/2021-10-climate-impact-majority-humanity.html

      1. Flooding was there before the human made climate change, too. Look at catastrophes like the big rain in California during the 19th century when Lake Salton was created. This would be a multi trillion $ damage today (whole silicon valley under water) – and this completely without climate change.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862

        Fortunately, there was little US settlement there at this time and the indigen population evaded, too. No megacities in the Sacramento Valley.

        Yes, the climate change is a big problem – but there would be weather problem without it, too.

        Or a flood from Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary_Magdalene%27s_flood
        13 billion tons of soil washed away in a few days. This is a size of a mega catastrophy when happening today.

        So – not every flood and storm is climate change.

        1. “So – not every flood and storm is climate change.”

          Of course not.
          But climate change is certainly going to make the floods that happen considerable worse, and more often.
          Maybe not too concerned in your neighborhood now, but 100’s of millions of people live in low delta regions.
          They will be trying to migrate to your neighborhood as the century unfolds.

        2. Flooding (and drought) in California is primarily the result of poor land and water management. The instinct all across the America West seems to be to deal with water by increasing the speed of flow across the surface, with sealed surfaces, channels and even laws bizarrely forbidding water capture on private land.

          In fact the solution is to slow the flow of water, allowing it to seep into the ground and raise the water table.

          This is somewhat analogous the American city planning, whose primary goal seems to be to increase the speed of traffic instead of reducing the need to drive around.

          Anyway the result has been increasing desertification and flooding when the seasonal rains come.

          1. “Flooding (and drought) in California is primarily the result of poor land and water management.”

            And here I thought drought was caused by a period of abnormally low rainfall. Maybe it’s different in California? 😉

            1. It’s a common misconception. The real problem is not the lack of water per se, but the irregular timing of rainfall.

              https://www.foxnews.com/science/despite-californias-long-drought-trillions-of-gallons-of-rainwater-wastefully-flowing-into-sea

              California dumps huge amounts of water into the ocean an complains about droughts al the time. Sometimes they complain about flooding and droughts at the same time.

              https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/30/weather/flash-flooding-west-drought-forecast-friday/index.html

              This has been going on for decades. Preventing water from seeping into the soil (for example by pacing the Los Angeles River in the 1930s) combined with terrible farming practices has resulted in a steady lowering of the water table.

              Los Angeles gets about 375 mm (15 inches) of rain annually, or 375 liters per square meter. The city’s area is about 1,300 square kilometers, or 1.3 billion square meters.

              So that’s 487.5 billion liters of rain per annum. The population is about 4 million, so that gives us about 122,000 liters of water per person per year, or about 334 liters a day.

              That is less than total consumption (106 gallons a day) but if water were recycled instead of being dumped into the ocean, and other conservation measures were taken, the city could survive on rainwater alone.

              Similar calculations could be down for other supposedly waterless cities, like Las Vegas and Phoenix, two supposedly dry cities with huge canals to get rid of rainwater as quickly as possibly.

              Also paving vast areas for parking and absurdly overwide streets is nutty behavior. It’s bonkers. Sealing the surface on areas that do not carry high speed traffic makes no sense whatsoever.

              The amount of water and topsoil carried away by flash flooding is huge. Nobody seems to care.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLCqKK0XwNQ&ab_channel=OnDemandNews

    2. I think I have been impacted by “climate change” but it is all good impacts from my perspective. I suggest if they want to keep spending time and money researching climate, they focus on the positive upsides.

      1. “……focus on the positive upsides.”

        Ok. I’ll start. We can keep dumping our trash in the oceans guilt free since everything but the jellyfish will be dead. Pretty sure the jellyfish won’t mind.
        Who’s next?

      2. Good for you William.
        Its all about you.
        Got room for some refugees in your house?

        1. Refugees are ultimately going to be the straw that breaks the back of the climate denier meme but the scary part is that the cure they decide on will be worse than the disease.

      3. Yeah, that seems to be the Russian point of view. Opens up the arctic for drilling and shipping.

  8. I have to admit, I thought peak oil would be a more urgent problem than peak natural gas. Believing peak gas would be 10 years further down the road.

    Looking at the natural gas reserves (BP statistical review), the countries that stand out are Russia with 1320 tcf (20% of global reserves), Iran 1134 tcf (17% of global reserves), Qatar (17% of global reserves) and Turkmenistan 480 tcf (7.2% of global reserves). Together these countries stand for a staggering 61% of remaining reserves according to BP.

    It didn’t cross my mind that this would not be enough to put peak gas 10 years beyond peak oil. The reserve figures could be exaggerated though. It would not surprise me at all. But still mainland Asia being a bit virgin to exploration holds a lot of natural gas most certainly. If the idea is to hold countries ransom towards energy needs in the form of natural gas, maybe it would be short lived. Higher prices would make at least some nations doing what they can to have a majority electricity base load out of hydro, wind solar, geothermal and bio based. If they can. So increase the energy transition maybe then, in spite of some parts of it being a bit costly. Which backfires for those who wants steady natural gas exports for decades. If the reserve figures are about right, that is.

    1. Kolbeinih , “But still mainland Asia being a bit virgin to exploration holds a lot of natural gas most certainly ”
      No , in most parts of the world gas fields are found adjacent to oil fields so your estimation is incorrect . Further with the current technology of 3D seismic most of the probable areas have been mapped . There is nothing economical and abundant to drill for . What we have is what we have , nothing more .

  9. So, unsurprisingly, staying warm and keeping factories running trumps China’s climate considerations. Now, will they kiss and make up over Australia’s coal?

    CHINA BACKPEDALS ON CLIMATE COMMITMENTS

    Li said that economic development took priority because it “holds the key to solving all its problems.” To that end, China will continue building its production capacity in all three fossil fuels, the Premier also said.

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Backpedals-On-Climate-Commitments.html

  10. Resisted commenting about Trump. Resisted chiming in on solar. But in about 15 minutes the most ludicrous example of waste and AGW despair is about to launch. Chunky Capt Kirk is about to lift into space as a 90 year old tourist. It reminds me of the food swilling traps that cruise by our home every summer with about the same level of nod to nature and our place in it.

    Asked if he thought he was really an astronaut, Canadian Shatner at least had the grace to reply something like….”I am an Ass…. tronaut”. This is the same man who vacations where I live at an exclusive fly in fishing resort, is taken out to the fishing holes by helicopter, then writes op-ed pieces in our local papers about how we need to stop logging here. His fishing hole is at the head of Seymour Inlet, a landing pad in the wide point of a logging road, the point chosen so the well heeled do not have to walk to the base of the rapids where the spawners rest.

    I’ve had enough.

    As for Trump, I went back and re read about the rise of Hitler and then thought about friends of my parents who got caught up in Hitler’s Germany. My parents were WW2 vets, mom a Canadian army nurse and dad a supply officer in the US 7th army. Yes, he was at Normandy on day 3, I believe….even won a medal for capturing 11 Germans while on his way back from a poker game. 🙂 Mom followed the fighting as a casualty nurse and that is where they met….married in Belgium. Anyway, decades later we had family friends who emigrated to Canada who had been on the German side. One friend was captured and detained in a Russian POW camp at age 14. Yes, he was a soldier at 14. Conditions were so bad he had a pile of culverts roll over his legs so they would break and he would be in the prison hospital. It was how he survived. Better with broken legs than on a POW work detail. Age 14.

    This is what they said about Hitler, and I paraphrase:

    When Hitler came to power we gave thanks. We had nothing, no food, no work, no pride. Hitler gave us all of that. We even had cars after he took over. He gave us our pride.

    That is why I believe Trump will never make it. These aren’t tough times. Sure, there is a lot of shite and pissed off malcontents, but the food crisis these days is really about obesity….not starvation. The culture crisis is based on social media and misinformation, not a prior war defeat. People are angry about wearing masks at school, on airplanes, or in restaurants. They can actually afford to dine out. Their kids have school.! I met old Germans who were illiterate because they had no schools to go to.

    This isn’t about Trump becoming Hitler, rather a reflection of rot, of having too much and obvious sloth and social decay. Video games for effing adults? 24/7 internet connection. Free porn/bought porn with a mouse click. Hands free phones. So many cast off clothes it has become an environmental issue. Plastic products everywhere. I’ve met poor First Nations kids who had $1000 phones, but had to grab a free breakfast before school because there was no food in the house. Okaaaay. And now a FREE life saving vaccine caught in culture wars with some states at 50% vaccination status. My rights…my choice….Govt won’t tell me what to do. nah, these are not hard times. This is fuck all and nothing more than a bunch of whiny entitled dicks being exploited by an elite for their own power and wealth grab.

    It isn’t that Trump really has the brains to take power, it is what he’ll wreck along the way as he lumbers through time with his grift and graft of the American public. Yes, he could wreck everything, but more than anything else he is a by product of what almost unlimited splurging and pandering has created. Supposed Exceptionalism meets reality, and by God people don’t like it and want change. Let’s go back to the ‘good ole days’ and on and on and on. The whiners are unhappy. They are dissatisfied. They have guns and a spare 5 bucks to donate to assholes along with the corporations who own the assholes and know they work for them.

    And the 90 year old is going to ride on Bezos’ couch into space, and the media is lined up for miles as if this is important and a good thing. Well, I call it rot and decay. This is an analogy of overreach and insanity. You couldn’t make this shit up if you wanted to. And meanwhile most of the World would give anything for 3 hots and a cot, a chance to go to school, and maybe…..maybe just one day have a job that provides for a family.

    Rant over, but I feel better. Take care you guys.

    1. I bet Europe would be a much wealthier place right now, if they hadn’t squandered all that cash on Christopher Columbus’ pointless transatlantic joy ride. I bet Britain would be much better off if it had concentrated on the important issue of woodland depletion from excessive charcoal production, rather than trying to build a global empire. What a ridulous waste of wood, building transatlantic ships, when peasants at home are dying from cold in winter? Likewise, if only we could stop those pain in asses Bezos and Musk from burning all those (hundreds of) tonnes of methane in those pointless rockets, suddenly we wouldn’t have a problem with energy depletion and all the starving kids of Africa would have full bellies and no flies crawling on their faces.

      Suffice to say, it would be a mistake to rage over Bezos and Musk’s use of their own money to develop new space transportation systems, just because they don’t have an immediate or obvious bearing on our problems right now. The thing about transportation systems is that they allow people to go to new places. New places with new resources. Some of those resources might even be useful back home. And they will develop new technologies along the way, that will be applicable everywhere. Britain would not have developed the steam engine or launched the industrial revolution, without the wealth and resources brought to it by its global empire. And it could not have built the empire without ocean going ships, which required a lot of resources to develop, at a time when Britain was in the midst of an energy crisis.

      I could go on. But my point is that even with all of the resource problems that we face, the development of new space transportation technologies might be one of our wisest investments in the long run. Just how much Shatner’s flight will contribute to that is debatable. But if he wants to use his own money in this way, I certainly have no problem with it.

      1. > I bet Europe would be a much wealthier place right now, if they hadn’t squandered all that cash on Christopher Columbus’ pointless transatlantic joy ride.

        I doubt that as a matter of fact. Potatoes caused a huge boom in population in Europe. And sweet potatoes did the same in China.

        But I do agree that sending people into space is bonkers.

        1. I was being sarcastic. The lowest form of wit, but wit nonetheless.

          I don’t agree that sending people into space is bonkers for reasons that should be clear from my post above.

          1. What reasons,” transportation”? Where to, the moon, Mars? What the recent accomplishments in rocketry have accomplished is making it cheaper to do what has always been done with rockets, kill each other and do off-Earth research. There is no viable use of Mars or the moon that is going to improve life for any humans beyond the writing of some research papers. Musk imagines starting a new civilization on Mars. If you want to see a realistic approximation of what life on Mars could ever be watch the movie “The Martian”. It is functionally uninhabitable as is the moon. There is no plan B to living on Earth and depending on the Earth ecosystem to support humanity.

            1. Space exploration has been enormously useful in many ways. One big example is the development of satellites. Satellites are a direct result of space exploration, and they are key to many things including climate research.

            2. NickG , there is a time and place for all things . Doing stupid waste of energy when you are on the downward slope of energy predicament is neither the time nor the place . Living on Mars ?? Heck let us first get the earth in order .
              P.S : I put on my trousers and then my shoes but obviously you do it the other way around .

            3. JJ, Could not agree more. And to all who say space exploration gave us XYZ, cmon really? Do ya really think all discoveries and inventions would’ve stopped, at say, oh I don’t know, the atomic bomb?? Nah.

            4. HiH,

              I see two ideas in your comment worth discussing: The value of space exploration, and the problem of an energy predicament.

              Space exploration is interesting, but the question of an energy predicament seems more important, so it might be a better place to start. So, let me ask, do you feel that fossil fuels are simply impossible to replace with wind, solar, nuclear, etc.?

            5. Nick G , yes renewables will never replace FF . Britain , Germany and USA have learnt their lesson , the rest of the world will . Not much enthusiasm about COP 26 now at least in Europe or Asia . Let me give you a real life example from Benelux . The courts asked the Groningen gas fields to be closed because of complaints by residents because of earthquakes . Well , they just allowed the opening of 5 pits to counter the expected winter temperatures . This is reality , better to tolerate a few earthquakes then freezing in the cold . I assure you that we will burn our home furniture if we have to keep warm . Get real .

            6. HiH,

              You gave 2 examples of energy problems. (recent high gas prices in US, Europe, etc) and reviving a gas field vs earthquakes.

              Both of those seem to show the problems of fossil fuels. They do show that energy is important to consumers, but they don’t show that fossil fuels are the only source of energy.

              Again, why do you think wind, solar, nuclear etc can’t work as replacements?

    2. As for whether Trump will ‘make it’ in the next presidential election, I don’t know. It frankly astounds me that out of 300 million Americans, Trump and Biden ended up being the top candidates for the essential job of leading America into the future. Both men are well over retirement age; long past their physical and mental peaks and neither have the education level for the job. That is before saying a word about their personal qualities or histories. The next US election really will be a competition that asks voters to choose the shiniest turd.

      As I said previously, I think Trump’s failure to deliver any concrete benefits to his voter base (who are mostly poor, working class, white Americans) will bite his reelection chances. MAGA was a good soundbite, but there doesn’t seem to be any grand masterplan for rebuilding US manufacturing economy, beyond taxing Chinese imports. It is therefore doomed to fail. And without, Trump’s voter base will remain in low paying service jobs.

  12. “White House Announces Plans For Massive Expansion Of Offshore Wind Farms

    The projects would transform the U.S. power grid and help President Joe Biden meet the U.S.’s climate targets.

    Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Wednesday the government would begin work to identify seven major zones where it could lease federal waters to offshore wind development. Auctions could take place by 2025, a major step toward President Joe Biden’s pledges to build 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, an amount that would power up to 10 million homes.”

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-offshore-wind-farms_n_6167846fe4b0f26084f0178b

    1. Question: Why does the Whitehouse have a plan for Offshore wind at all? Surely, if this project made sense, commercial interests would be doing it? Offshore wind is a questionable endeavour in the US. The reason that it is pursued in Europe is the high population density, which makes it difficult to build large capacity on land.

      1. Offshore wind in many parts of the USA is a massive energy reserve.
        Anyone who has taken a look sees that clearly.

        Its a big potential part of the toolkit that helps a nation wean itself from coal, and supply additional electricity for transportation and industry, among all the other current uses.
        The current administration is providing guidance and encouragement to industry such as in the form of permitting streamlining.
        [this is not like the federal government loan guarantees for nuclear projects that have been required by that industry in order to obtain funding their few projects]
        The actual work and funding will all be done by private companies.
        And it will be a very big industry.

        Hint- Every site with with wind speed average of over 8.0 m/s roughly, as presented on the wind atlas, is currently economically viable for wind energy development.
        The scale of the energy reserve is hard for most to comprehend.
        https://globalwindatlas.info/

      2. Because the offshore waters and the land underneath them are owned by the US federal government !!!! The US needs a plan for licensing it for wind farms because it is ***US government land***. Areas of the offshore waters owned by state governments are already being licensed for wind farms. Areas of the offshore waters owned by private landowners (very few!) were licensed for wind farms *decades* ago.

        Your question is like asking “Why does the US need a plan for when and how to lease federally-owned land for oil and gas drilling?” It answers itself.

        Simple answers to simple questions.

  13. For a glimpse of the kind of industry that is forming up around the offshore wind energy sector check out these links and sample companies-
    https://www.dco.uscg.mil/OCSNCOE/Renewable-Energy/Support-Vessels/
    https://www.ge.com/news/reports/ships-ahoy-ge-new-smart-vessel-transforming-offshore-wind-farm-maintenance
    https://ulstein.com/ship-design/offshore-wind
    http://www.chouest.com/press/windfarm-service-operation-vessel.html
    https://www.crowley.com/shipping/offshore/wind/
    https://ww2.eagle.org/en/Products-and-Services/offshore-energy/offshore-wind-farm-vessels.html
    https://new.abb.com/marine/vessel-segments/offshore/offshore-wind

    1. Sure, I would think offshore wind power is one of the best options going forward. Some of us are luckily not alone with this view as a lot of countries are rallying to increase offshore wind power installations.

      The energy return on energy invested ratio has some merits, and while offshore wind is somewhat expensive and rely on mega structures. The return is still positive. Is it 3-1 or 4-1 all inputs being included? If being conservative, it could be the case. Some would of course argue it is a lot higher. Could be the case in some specific projects. It can go in all directions depending on location, cost of construction, longevity, maintenance etc. But all together it is a very good energy sink compared to building concrete ghost cities in China or artificial tourist destinations somewhere in the desert in the middle east.

      And floating offshore most certainly is not that more expensive to ground fast offshore wind to be a turn off. 30%+ at most with already established anchoring technology?. Big future for floating offshore wind mills most likely.

      It is a very good solution to scale up offshore wind to the scale necessary to replace fossil fuels for electricity generation, where it can be done. And that will mean using it as a base load for electricity and ideally overbuild 20-30%. Which is not possible everywhere. In the UK, the updated the capacity factor (meaning efficient power generation compared to capacity) for 2020 was 28% for onshore and 46% for offshore. That is due to the gigantic 300 meter tall mega structures of wind mills, that don’t stand in the way, but capture more of the wind (tall structures) and also due to the wind blowing at a faster pace and more reliably.

      There is a problem to replace the windmills after a while (as is the case with solar panels, hydro dams, nuclear reactors and all other things as well). Or have the industrial capacity to build enough in the first place. Probably have to downscale renewables at some point. But that will be a much more gentle process, compared to rely solely on fossil fuels.

      1. “In short: typical wind turbines, of the types illustrated below, have both energy and carbon paybacks of less than one year. This compares extremely favorably with all other forms of generation (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro and solar).”…
        “By way of an independent check on SGRE’s results: in 2016 the paper ‘Life Cycle Assessment of onshore and offshore wind energy – from theory to practice‘ was accepted for publication by Applied Energy. It finds (Table 4) an energy payback for a 6 MW offshore turbine of 10 months: i.e. not significantly different than SGRE’s number.”

        https://www.offshorewindadvisory.com/faqs-ghg-payback/

        “Probably have to downscale renewables at some point”
        Right along with the size of the human population.

        1. “Right along with the size of the human population.”

          One way or another!

          Either we do it ourselves, collectively, or Mother Nature will do it for us, or if you choose to express it a little more bluntly, TO us.

          My personal ” most likely” scenario is that the richer countries will continue to experience falling birth rates, and with a little luck, will peak and start to decline before the shit is well and truly in the fan, climate wise and otherwise.
          Such countries, if they are lucky enough to have good leaders, can manage the transition to renewable energy within a couple of generations, easily, from the technical point of view.

          But from the economic pov, it’s going to mean some big changes….. and these changes may be rather painful to a lot of people.

          I can’t see any real reason why it’s going to be harder to support the energy transition than it is to support the military industrial complex. We have to transition arms factories and employees to building , installing and maintaining wind and solar farms, tidal farms, super energy efficient buildings, etc etc.

          Levianthan, the nation state, can do it….. once Leviathan is awake and scared for its own continued existence.

          Poor countries that lack the necessary leadership and resources are going to be up shit creek without a paddle, especially if they fail to reduce the birth rate to below replacement level. There’s precedent for that happening…… it’s happened before, at least once in modern times in a religious society.
          https://www.statista.com/statistics/1069654/fertility-rate-iran-historical/

          ” Following the war’s end with a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1988, fertility would fall sharply in the country, falling to 2.4 by the turn of the century, and falling below replacement-level in 2005. However, after bottoming out at 1.82 in 2010, fertility has risen somewhat in recent years, as the Iranian government has rolled out a series of economic incentives aimed at increasing fertility in the country. As a result, in 2020, the total fertility rate in Iran is estimated to have risen slightly, to 2.15 children per woman, above replacement-level. ”

          The government as I understand it during this time period when the birth rate was really low actually ENCOURAGED women having fewer children….. later then switched the emphasis back to having MORE children.

  14. Coal’s dead you say. Well, maybe next year?

    CHINA COAL IMPORTS SURGE, PRICES HIT RECORD

    “China’s coal imports surged 76% in September as power plants scrambled for fuel to ease a power crunch that is pushing domestic coal prices to record highs and disrupting business activity in the world’s second-largest economy.”

    Meanwhile, India is facing a looming power crisis, as stocks of coal in power plants have fallen to unprecedentedly low levels and states are warning of power blackouts. States across India have issued panicked warnings that coal supplies to thermal power plants, which convert heat from coal to electricity, are running perilously low.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-coal-prices-hit-record-high-floods-add-supply-woes-2021-10-13/

    1. And,

      AUSTRALIA STANDS BY COAL ‘BEYOND 2030’

      The Australian government said Monday that the country would keep producing and exporting coal “well beyond 2030,” despite a stark warning from a top UN climate official that failing to scrap the fossil fuel will “wreak havoc” on the economy. In his 360-word statement, the minister listed a number of economic benefits coal has brought the Australian economy but made no mention of the climate crisis. Pitt’s statement added that figures showing coal’s “impending death are greatly exaggerated and its future is assured well beyond 2030.

      Coal consumption throughout Asia is forecast by the International Energy Agency to grow over the next decade to meet the energy demands of countries like China, India and South Korea.

      https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/06/business/australia-warned-climate-coal-intl-hnk/index.html

      1. a stark warning from a top UN climate official that failing to scrap the fossil fuel will “wreak havoc” on the economy.

        Yes, failing to scrap fossil fuel will “wreak havoc” on the economy. However, scrapping fossil fuel will also “wreak havoc” on the economy. We are just in a damn mess, that’s all.

    2. Wait, doesn’t a power crunch mean China is producing less electricity? And why does it matter how much coal they import? That isn’t the same measure as how much they burn.

      It would be interesting to see some data about how much they are consuming.

      Also I don’t see how Indian coal stockpiles are related.

    3. What’s the current fertility rate in India, nation wide?
      Short answer, the population of India is going to grow like weeds for at least another twenty years or so. After that, there’s probably SOME hope for stabilization and maybe eventual decline.

      Mother Nature has ways of dealing with such problems. Farmers are a damned sight better acquainted with them, first hand, than anybody except rescue organization personnel.

      Famines and ecological collapse are extremely unlikely to occur world wide at the same time. Such events are regional by their very nature.

      India as a nation may succeed in producing food enough for the country, with a great deal of luck and foresight, megabucks in investment, etc. Or India might be able to generate enough foreign exchange to buy staple foods on the open market, IF such foods are available in adequate quantities at ANY price.

      If the climate turns seriously sick within this rough time frame, which I think is a VERY strong possibility, and a dead sure thing over a longer time frame, there won’t be enough surplus food for sale. It will be hoarded nation by nation, as likely as not, or sold only to close friend and ally nations.

      India is in some extremely deep shit already, climate wise.There’s not one chance in a hundred IMO, as a pro in the field, that India can feed herself over the next thirty or forty years.

      It’s not necessarily the technology that’s the problem, it’s rather that the necessary leadership isn’t there and that the investment won’t be made at the necessary scale

      We live in EXTREMELY interesting times, but I’m afraid the worms or maybe the incinerator will get me before I get to see the most interesting parts coming up, lol.

      https://www.findeasy.in/indian-states-by-fertility-rate/

        1. The overall fertility rate in India is such that the population will continue to grow for another couple of decades, for sure, barring so called acts of god such as would wipe out a big chunk of the population in short order.

          The odds seem to be well into the nineties that the climate in India, on a nationwide basis, will be substantially less favorable to food production within that time frame.

          The two problems are in essence conjoined twins.

        2. HiH,

          From your source: ““Inequality — between regions, countries, districts, and communities — is pervasive and, (if) left unchecked, will keep the world from achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) mandate to “leave no one behind,” it said.”

          It’s not a food shortage, it’s poverty and inequality.

        3. 50% malnourishment in women and children .

          Your source says it’s 17.3%: “According to the report, the share of wasting among children in India rose from 17.1 per cent between 1998-2002 to 17.3 per cent between 2016-2020,”

      2. It’s not necessarily the technology that’s the problem, it’s rather that the necessary leadership isn’t there and that the investment won’t be made at the necessary scale

        Yep. Food production per hectare is relatively low in India, in part because the median farm size is less than a hectare. And inequity in income and food is large, with more people being overweight than underweight. Kind’ve looks like men eat first…

        1. Nick G , you are nuts . 800 million out of 1.3 billion survive on 5 Kg of wheat / rice per month of FREE RATIONS FOR A FAMILY OF 4 , or else they would starve .Works to 1200 calories per day per person . Did you even read the report ? I have remarked that your passion for your subjects within limits is acceptable , but when passion crosses limits it is called craziness ( madness ) . I hate to say this but get some help .

          1. HiH,

            First, how does your comment answer my comment? You don’t seem to be addressing most of what I said.

            2nd, could you provide a link or source for your comments?

  15. I expect our greenwashes will be up in arms over this — as in (deep) denial!

    NATIONS NOWHERE CLOSE TO HALTING ‘CATASTROPHIC’ CLIMATE CHANGE

    Commitments to halt greenhouse gas emissions are currently nowhere near stopping the worst ravages of climate change in the years to come. Even if countries meet their commitments – still a very big if – this will only reduce fossil fuel emissions by 40 percent by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/13/nations-nowhere-close-to-halting-catastrophic-climate-change

    1. “The best time to plant an apple tree was five years ago. The second best time is now.”

      – Chinese Proverb

      1. “Once the damage is on the apple, it is too late to spray.”

        –Mikey’s Proverb

        1. Why Kyrie Irving is getting exactly what he deserves
          Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large 1 day ago

          On Tuesday, Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks announced that Kyrie Irving would not be playing or practicing with the team until he gets vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus.

          At the Nets media day last month, Irving refused to disclose his vaccination status — saying he would “like to keep all that private.” Earlier this month, while still not disclosing his vaccine status, Irving tweeted this: “I am protected by God and so are my people. We stand together.”

          In an attempt to further clarify his position, sources “with knowledge of Kyrie’s mindset” told The Athletic’s Shams Charania that Irving is “not anti-vaccine and that his stance is that he is upset that people are losing their jobs due to vaccine mandates. … To him this is about a grander fight than the one on the court and Irving is challenging a perceived control of society and peoples’ livelihoods.”

          Which, um, what? Like, go read those sentences again. Literally makes zero sense.

          https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/why-kyrie-irving-is-getting-exactly-what-he-deserves/ar-AAPtmVF?ocid=msedgntp

        2. We USED to have a satisfactory market for rough apples.
          No more.

          Over the last thirty years before retiring, we probably dumped a thousand tons a year, absolute minimum, average, in a gully, from our ITTY BITTY orchard, for lack of any market paying enough to cover shipping costs.

          See Paulo’s rant.

          It’s dead center in the bullseye on close to half of his points, and in the scoring rings on the rest. No dead misses that I remember at the moment.

          1. Red face here. We typically dumped a ton a year, on average from our little farm. Some years we dumped five or maybe even ten times that, other years, none at all.

            Our best years we might have grown five hundred or so tons. The top years were invariably the years we had to dump for lack of a sale.

            1. OFM, I have a hobby heritage orchard, one acre, eighty semi-dwarf trees, which I take care of myself. I sell to local markets in Portland, ME, where folks dig the old varieties like Baldwin, Newtown Pippin, Esopus, etc. etc. I pick the trees clean, sort and sell, store the rest, make cider , and feed the pomice and drops to the pigs. Can say I waste less than 1% of my crop. It’s nice, but a bit of work for a 61-yr-old f-ggot such as myself!

  16. Nick some posts ago you had posted on the obesity problem in India .
    NICK G
    IGNORED
    10/08/2021 at 1:36 pm
    HiH,

    It seems like poverty and income inequality are the problems, not resource limits. Indian farmers could produce far more, but they’re poor and their production is less than others because their farms are so small. And even with low farm productivity there’s enough food in India. Obesity is far more prevalent than malnutrition:

    “Prevalence of obesity in India is 40.3%.”
    “14% population estimated to be undernourished”

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0972753120987465#:~:text=Prevalence of obesity in India is 40.3%.,than rural (44.17% vs.

    https://www.firstpost.com/india/india-ranks-94th-among-107-countries-in-global-hunger-index-14-population-estimated-to-be-undernourished-8924501.html
    Well yesterday the World Hunger index came out . Posted is the link for your information .
    https://indianexpress.com/article/india/global-hunger-index-2021-india-slips-to-101st-spot-behind-pakistan-bangladesh-nepal-7572109/

    1. Indian farmers could produce far more, but they’re poor and their production is less than others because their farms are so small.

      HiH,
      Also farmers in India suffer from pollution from coal-fired power plants. Quite a few even commit suicide because of this. At least that is what I read years ago.

      1. Sorry Han , you are misinformed . The issue regarding suicides is because the farmers are not getting the price for their production . 100% of the suicide are due to the inability to pay their debts to the bank . India is now having a farmers agitation which has been going over for 10 months , the longest peaceful agitation in the world ever . I am posting a link because it is in English .
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whuc1EIdan4&ab_channel=MOJOSTORY

  17. Latest news NOBODY wants to hear. Well, except the fossil fuel producers I suppose. Seems even the U.S. is having a “miniboom” in coal as utilities are on track to burn 23% more coal this year (according to Bloomberg). Who would have thought?

    CARBON EMISSIONS FROM RICH COUNTRIES ROSE RAPIDLY IN 2021

    “This year’s rebound is being powered by fossil fuel — especially coal. According to a report, compiled by 16 research organisations and environmental campaign groups, coal use across the G20 is projected to rise by 5% this year. This is mainly due to China who are responsible for around 60% of the rise but increases in coal are also taking place in the US and India. Coal use in China has surged with the country experiencing increased demand for energy as the global economy has recovered. Coal prices are up nearly 200% from a year ago. This in turn has seen power cuts as it became uneconomical for coal-fired electricity plants generate electricity in recent months. With the Chinese government announcing a change in policy this week to allow these power plants to charge market rates for their energy, the expectation is that this will spur even more coal use this year…

    When it comes to gas, the Climate Transparency Report finds that use is up by 12% across the G20 in the 2015-2020 period.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58897805

    1. Yeah, hydrogen would work, if necessary.

      I’d say it’s lost the competition with batteries for light vehicles, but it’s probably sensible for large fleet vehicles: long distance trucks, container ships, etc.

      1. also interesting that during the record run in southern california, it bypassed 12 hydrogen fuelling stations. I didn’t realize there were that many around in one area.

        1. I really don’t understand the use of H2 in vehicles. What is the energy source? Ultimately H2 is just a way to store energy from another source to generate electricity to run an electric motor. It could conceivably be an option for transmitting energy over long distances by pipeline but it, ultimately, can’t be as efficient or as low first cost as a simple EV.

          1. Again, I’d say hydrogen lost the competition with batteries for light vehicles. Batteries are cheaper and more efficient, overall.

            But it’s probably sensible for large fleet vehicles: long distance trucks, container ships, etc. Eventually wind and solar are going to be overbuilt, just like fossil fuels are now. Unlike FF, wind & solar don’t have marginal costs, so you may as well produce all of the time, even if demand is low. That means that electricity is going to be very cheap most of the time.

            Cheap electricity can make hydrogen work in niche applications: long distance trucks, container ships, seasonal agriculture, and utility scale storage.

  19. Disappointing to say the least.

    KEY TO BIDEN’S CLIMATE AGENDA LIKELY TO BE CUT

    The most powerful part of President Biden’s climate agenda — a program to rapidly replace the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy — will likely be dropped from the massive budget bill pending in Congress.

    “This is absolutely the most important climate policy in the package,” said Leah Stokes, an expert on climate policy, who has been advising Senate Democrats on how to craft the program. “We fundamentally need it to meet our climate goals. That’s just the reality. And now we can’t. So this is pretty sad.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/climate/biden-clean-energy-manchin.html

    1. The oil industry is a major part of the problem:

      “President Joe Biden’s bid to tackle climate change is running straight through the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry — a much bigger, more influential foe than Democrats faced when they took on the coal industry during the Obama years…Biden’s election has put big oil companies on the defensive after largely having their way in Washington under President Donald Trump. But in taking on petroleum companies with a moratorium on oil and gas lease sales, Biden picked a foe that spent lavishly over decades to secure allegiance from Republican lawmakers…the difference now is going to be stark. (Oil and gas companies) don’t get to run energy and environmental policy in the way they once did. Gone from power in Washington are former industry lobbyists including Trump’s Interior Department secretary, David Bernhardt, who oversaw a loosening of rules for drilling.”

      Fortunately, the oil industry can’t stop change forever:

      “…Pressures on the oil and gas industry are growing along with concern over climate change, said Lifset, the Oklahoma history professor. Foremost are recent plans by major vehicle makers including Volvo and GM to transition to electric vehicles from gasoline, which takes up almost half the U.S. crude oil on the market.

      “The real threat is not the government limiting production,″ Lifset said. “It’s the economy and the culture moving away from consuming oil and shrinking the market.””

      https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-technology-climate-climate-change-cbfb975634cf9a6395649ecaec65201e

      1. The problem isn’t an industry but a single individual; Joe Manchin. They need his vote and his personal fortune is tied up in coal. End of story.

        1. I agree that Manchin is a big problem. But he’s far from the only problem. Just one example of this is very relevant: Manchin’s coal money is only part of his problem: he gets a lot of money from the oil & gas industry:

          “Manchin isn’t just sticking up for the coal industry and his family’s generational wealth; he’s doing the bidding of oil and gas executives, who also stand to lose money if the nation transitions away from toxic fuels.

          Manchin’s political campaigns are fueled by the dirty energy industry. Over the past decade, his election campaigns have received nearly $65,000 from disastrously dishonest oil giant Exxon’s lobbyists, its corporate political action committee, and the lobbying firms that Exxon works with. A top Exxon lobbyist recently bragged about his access to Manchin.

          In the 2018 election cycle, his most recent, Manchin’s campaign got more money from oil and gas Pacs and employees than any other Senate Democrat except then North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp. Manchin was also the mining industry’s top Democratic recipient in Congress that cycle.”

          https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/20/joe-manchin-big-oil-democratic-senator

    2. On the contrary, dropping the climate agenda means saving millions of good-paying jobs for hardworking men in states where such jobs can be hard to come by. That’s a far greater win than anything the agenda could accomplish.

      1. Nature bats last. Ruining the planet’s ability to support civilization to save some (probably not “millions”) jobs is not a smart long term strategy.

        1. Jjhman , agree in the long term , but we are hardwired to think short term . Ever wonder why millions buy lottery tickets ?

      2. There are already more men working in the wind and solar industries than there are in the coal industry, by a wide margin.
        And it’s going to be quite some time before we start losing jobs in the oil and gas industries for reasons other than depletion. By then the old guys will be retired anyway, and younger guys will have seen the writing on the wall and be going into other industries for the most part.

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