105 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, April 26, 2024”

  1. Something about Autopilot: https://x.com/verge/status/1783862861803970748

    Kinda terrifying this is allowed. I don’t think any other car manufacturer could even hope to misrepresent driver assistance systems this way, nor have this bad a safety margin.

    And, uh, not great things in terms of inflation, which Krugman and others assumed was solved (ignoring various annoying things like food, rent and energy) in November last year: https://x.com/LizAnnSonders/status/1783838382688198948

    Which could have big feedback into consumption and, thus, energy.

    1. Kleiber,

      The inflation statistics do not use rent, they try to create an equivalent rent for owner occupied housing, but do a very poor job of it. If we use actual rental statistics instead, we find that housing inflation has come down, so at least in the US inflation is already very close to 2%.

      See for example

      https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/

      1. As I recall, rent equivalent is far lower than rent because it’s estimated by homeowners as while their prices are reasonably static, a large number of people do not have mortgages. And for those people that do, this figure excludes variables like insurance cost, which has been rising especially in places like Florida.

        https://www.cnbc.com/select/homeowners-insurance-skyrocketing-how-to-lower-premium/

        This would be why the “inflation is done with” crowd on Twitter are flummoxed over such bad sentiment from those actually experiencing this economy and why we got that horrific PCE read this week.

        1. Kleiber,

          Rental costs are based on landlord’s total costs as well as the market supply and demand, if insurance costs are higher these are passed on to renters. The homeowner’s equivalent rent is simply a number estimated by government agencies based on surveys. The atual estimate is known to lag the real equivalents rent which is shown pretty clearly by looking at market rates for rentals.

          The poor PCE reading is mostly related to a bad estimate for shelter cost. A quick look at the data confirms this, and note that shelter costs comprise about one third of the weight in total PCE index.

          This is why the PCE appears high when in fact it is very close to 2% (if the shelter cost were estimated accurately).

          See

          https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/08/where-is-shelter-inflation-headed/

          and

          https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2024/03/gimme-shelter-the-lag-in-inflation-for-living-spaces/

          1. I take your point. That is one massive spike though at a time when rents are already massively eating into income for a vast swathe of the population. Remember, inflation coming down is simply disinflation and not, as you’ve mentioned before, deflation, so prices are still elevated even if rising less quickly (currently).

            The concern is because of reports like this: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/americas-rental-housing-2024

            More: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/30/economy/rent-prices-dropping-2024-apartments/index.html

            Which then feeds into: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/us-homeless-encampments-companies-profiting-sweeps

            Given food and shelter are pretty integral to a functioning society, this is where the primary drivers of precarity are for the populace, along with energy feeding into everything else.

            There is an argument going around now that the Fed not cutting is because stagflation is now the most probable outlook: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investors-increasingly-expect-no-landing-for-us-economy-123944030.html

            1. What you seem to have missed is that the housing price index is very badly estimated when it is showing 5.5% YOY while market rents are more like 1 or 2% YOY.

              Housing cost estimates in the PCE index are poorly done, but if the trend of past 10 months continues inflation will be under 2% (all items) within 14 months, but actual inflation may already be very close to this level as the housing price index is likely 2.6% lower than the government has estimated and the government data is lagging by a year.

            2. I guess we’ll see. There’s a chronic shortage of housing in a lot of countries (the UK is similar in this regard) or should that be affordable housing. Companies like Airbnb aren’t helping this either, or those purchasing second/holiday homes in areas where few can afford a first home. The vacancy rate in the US is pretty low, so assuming wages rise and inflation isn’t about to head up again as feared, then that may alleviate some of the burden.

            3. Kleiber,

              I agree that in some areas there is a housing shortage, at least in the US. I am less familiar with the situation in Europe.

          2. With a near stagnant population, it seems odd that there can even be a housing shortage. But people want bigger and bigger houses. I tore out several walls in my house to make bigger rooms. It was built in 1981.

            Also empty nesters keep the houses they bought for their children instead of downsizing, leaving the kids’ bedrooms unused. That is certainly the case in my neighborhood. More generally, the average household size is falling, so you need more units, even if total square footage remains the same. Suburbia is particularly inflexible, as laws often stipulate how many units are allowed per unit of land area.

            1. That’s right. the square footage of housing consumption / use, per person, has grown tremendously. A very large factor in increasing housing expenses is that in the US people are simply consuming more house.

            2. It’s becoming ever more common for home owners to create duplex units, or so called mother in law apartments, etc, on a national basis although I don’t have any numbers to support this observation….. I’m saying it simply because I’m reading one hell of a lot of articles and comments on the net from all over about this topic.

              I should have also mentioned garage to living quarters conversions.

              If somebody complains, most local governments are apparently responding with cease and desist orders, or going directly to court…… but if there’s no complaint made, the owner is typically home free on collecting some rent, or putting a free roof over their own kids’ or parents’ heads.

              Getting caught usually involves Karen neighbors or un permitted construction work within sight of a public road. Getting permits for such conversions is usually hard to impossible in most places.

              This situation has gotten to the point that it’s my understanding that in some cities, such as LA, there are so many bootleg conversions that it’s literally impossible for the city to do anything other than just ignore them, because enforcing the existing regulations is out of the question, politically. Doing so would create a homeless crisis that would make the existing situation look like rain on a picnic… Enforcement would mean the equivalent of a hot war.

              I’ll put in a plug for my part of the country while I’m at it. Any body interested in retiring to an area with all the usual perks can look around in this part of the country, out IN the country, and buy or rent a nice place for a third or even less what such a place would cost in the North East or on the west coast.

              I have new neighbors who have sold out up north and bought better homes than they had there, with a quarter of a million or more left over for old age mad money.

              Of course they’re still DAMNYANKEE’s but once you get to know them, they’re ok (except half of them assume you’re looking for work as a handyman, if you say hello)……. once you manage to convince them the one lane (in places) gravel road is NOT their own personal private drive. It takes them a while to come to understand that the shotguns and rifles racked in the back windows of local guys’ pickup trucks are A DE FACTO GUARANTEE that they’re not going to be bothered by home invaders or car jackers or similar vermin.

              I had a Yankee Karen threaten me with arrest for almost running over her kids riding four wheelers in the road……. met them in a blind curve spinning donuts . She was taking a walk along with her kids, lol, keeping an eye on them riding their new toys.

              So anyway…. I was driving my legal but raggedy old truck, wearing my oldest going to get grungy work clothes, etc…. and this lady decided I could be treated like hired UNDOCUMENTED hired help.

              I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the sheriff’s office, and said hello to the dispatcher, who said HI Mac, whats up, and stated my location, and that there were two kids riding unlicensed vehicles spinning circles in the PUBLIC road, in a blind curve, and that I nearly hit them …… and that I hoped there was deputy nearby……. while this stuck up Karen turned sort of pink and then bright red.

              I had the pleasure of telling her the law was on the way, and that her kid’s toys would be impounded, and she would get a pocket full of tickets, no tags, no insurance on the vehicles, unlicensed minor child operators, etc, within maybe ten or fifteen minutes. LIkely followed up by an investigation by Child Protective Services people associated with the juvenile court. She was on her way back to her vacation place and out of sight of the road within a minute.

              It gets too hot in the summer, but the winters are mild, lol, and there’s usually a WalMart super store and hospital within a thirty minute drive, great natural beauty, low taxes, relatively low crime, etc.

              I’m probably going to sell a few wheelbarrows worth of land to one or two of them within the next year or two and their money is the same green as anybody else’s. I’ll pick a couple that will make great neighbors. Might as well buy myself one new truck or fishing boat, since I can’t take it with me, lol.

  2. I don’t know where the direction of conversation is going in this thread; it seems very polarised.

    If it had not been for the fossil fuel consumption overshoot from about the 1960’s-70s globally, it would have been much easier to envision a softish landing globally utilising all policies and tools. But then, global competition fueld the race. So now we are in a situation of deep overshoot (5 times more than wanted maybe?); but still Africa, South America and Central Asia have more gas in the tank somehow. And have no interest to stop the race of development anytime soon.

    To assume growth at all times seems unreasonable, and especially to target the weak point of the energy transition. Which is the the part of the industry reliant on enourmous amount of combustion heat to fuel growth. All attempts to play around that weakness and to peal the onion of prosperity are in my opinion attempts at working in the right direction. I have to agree with D.Coyne that anyone saying being a “realist” has more to do with getting anyone to agree to their engraved belief system rather than it necessarily having anything to do with reality. There are countless philosophers pointing out the difference between subjective reality and objective reality.

    Pretty interested in the limits of what can be done regarding fossil fuel exploitation and metal extraction and not at least recycling. And that is holding the whole climate and enviroment discussion out of it, because it quickly becomes too complicated for anyone to integrate it all.

    1. You’re not going to get any movement from the growth paradigm with the current system. Capitalism demands this regardless to maintain profits, it’s that or you start denying products and services to the masses, which is pretty much what we see. The premium consumer is being targeted more and more (fancy EVs, luxury getaways, basic untainted or otherwise reduced groceries etc.) because there is very little juice to squeeze left in the lesser peoples of society. The middle class is getting crushed and no one working minimum wage can even afford rent at the cheapest possible rates in the US or UK, to say nothing of saving and spending on conspicuous consumption.

      Without the powers that be taking a bump to the noggin and realising the folly of their ways, you will constantly get “Net Zero by 2050” in the same breath as “an economy growing to meet all our needs” without any hint of aneurysm within the speaker’s brain.

      Look at America now, going to China and telling them they are overproducing cheap EVs and renewable energy and consumer goods and having the gall to think they can tell a sovereign nation they should stop. Why don’t think that is? Isn’t it a good thing that workers in China can get the BYD Seagull for less than ANY other EV from any other global manufacturer? Why is China’s rampant move away from GDP growth and towards more robust, greener infrastructure seen as a as thing by the supposed enlightened leaders of the USA?

        1. Agree, however, the Dems can also go in the bonfire with the GOP, just as over here Labour can get in the bin with the Tories.

          I look at the current situation in Scotland, with the SNP coalition with the Greens collapsing because the remarkably un-ambitious climate change plans were seen as too much. If the most left gov’t of the three houses mentioned is unable to stomach such moves, we have a problem.

          And of yeah, the rest of Europe is currently going full fash as the cost of living spirals. So, there’s that. Plenty of environmental red tape is about to get thrown in the proverbial bonfire by populist idiots and those seeking sabre rattling instead of co-operation.

      2. I’m seriously concerned myself about the inability of low earners to pay their every day living expenses.
        But this situation isn’t quite as dire as it looks at first glance.

        I live in a place where wages are low, and good jobs scarce, compared to most places in the USA.
        And to the best of my knowledge, I don’t personally know any body making minimum wage in the immediate community. Even convenience stores and fast food restaurants are paying at least two bucks over minimum for new employees.

        And among the low paid people I know, virtually all of them are living in some sort of family type home with at two bread winners, or one of the two working a regular job and the other hustling a side line of one kind or another.

        Hustling usually involves such jobs as babysitting, house cleaning, yard work, or running a flea market booth or a road side yard sale, etc. Sometimes it means doing minor carpentry or painting jobs, or repairing cars , etc.

        These side lines don’t interfere with food stamps, rental assistance, free school books and lunches, Medic Aid, or other welfare net support.

        Bottom line, some people really are very hard up, but poor uneducated people aren’t necessarily stupid. They know how the system works, and they work the system.

        Suppose your better half, male or female, can go to work for ten or eleven bucks. Take out commuting expenses and the loss of time available to do things to SAVE money, or earn under the table money, and figure in the gain or loss of Food Stamps, Medic Aid etc, and it’s quite common for such a couple, or a single mother WITH A SERIOUS BOYFRIEND, to be better off hustling rather than working for wages at a routine job.

        ( Serious boyfriends pay some of the bills…… sometimes they spend just about every dime paying household bills. They’re married in everything except the legal sense, in such cases, with the guy more or less living in the same house or apartment, but maintaining his ” official ” address elsewhere…… meaning that as far as social services agencies are concerned, he doesn’t even exist.)

        You can take this comment to the bank, in terms of it applying to the large majority of poor working people known to me, and to my acquaintances from other neighborhoods as well as two cities where I have lived at times…… Richmond, Va and NYC.

    2. Saying that growth can’t be infinite is boring, everyone knows that. The question is how much growth is possible.

      Economic output is not measured in joules or grams. The value of a product is not just the sum of the inputs. That is the Marxist theory of value, and seems very popular around here, but it is nonsense. You can build an airplane out of reinforced concrete at great expense, but it won’t fly and has no value.

      We are nowhere near the limits to efficiency. An SUV weighs maybe 2 tons and costs $50K, or $25/kilo. An iphone 15 Professional weighs 250 grams and costs $1200, about $4800/kilo.

      1. You’re basically arguing the Marxist point for me. Yeah, the reason those things are so expensive despite what they do being easily done by cheaper equivalents is because of labour and rent extraction. Why sell a Fiesta when Ford can make more profit per unit selling a Lightning?

        Hence why China is able to massively undercut America and Europe because… the inputs are cheaper and there is no massive grift or need for directing productive output away from where it is needed.

        Look at Ukraine. The MIC in the west is now charging $8k per 155 mm shell where such shells are made in Russia or China for hundreds of dollars. Why?

          1. What an insightful intellectual comeback. Are you always this nuanced in your replies?

            So, actually, you can’t rebut my points, because you, like a lot of modern people in the West now, operate off vibes, not facts or logic. Concession accepted, child.

            1. It’s what programmers call code smell. An experienced programmer can look at a few lines of a complex piece of code of realize it’s full of mistakes.

              I’m not going to waste my time on your Gish Gallup. Knock yourself out pretending to be arguing in good faith.

        2. Why the high price of artillery ammo in the West?
          First off, there’s very little to almost no competition in the manufacturing segment, especially at a time like this…… when demand is very high after being stagnant for years. It’s a seller’s market.

          And Westerners have a gazillion regulations and laws about such industries. Just getting your foot in the door at a manufacturing or storage facility is at least as hard as getting hired as a cop, plus you need some specialized skills to boot.

          If artillery shells were reasonably safe and needed in large quantities on a regular basis, without all the expensive security issues involved in making them, they would probably be selling for ten or fifteen cents on the dollar, lol.

          We used to use some dynamite on a routine basis on the farm, as did many other farmers all over the country. I would be very happy to pay a hundred dollars a stick right now for some dynamite, if I could buy it legally. Using it is the only practical method available to me to remove a big rock outcropping where I need a road on the farm.

          Calling a contractor with the necessary licenses, permits, etc, would run into five figures, so the road won’t get built. I could use my existing generator or air compressor, and rent a big hammer drill for a day for a hundred bucks, and do the job myself for less than five hundred.

          I could easily buy some heroin within a day or two, no problem at all.

          The baddest of the local bad asses won’t even talk about dynamite or any other explosive, not even to their own brothers.

          The government is supposed to protect us from greedy businessmen, but there are lots of cases where in the govt preferentially protects businessmen.

          I do understand why the feds are hard core as hell about explosives. One case of dynamite could easily kill more people than a dozen idiots could kill with assault style rifles.

          1. Stop contradicting Alimbiquated’s carefully curated world view with facts, OFM. That’s just bad faith.

            Things conflicting with one’s inner narrative are verboten because they’re Putin propaganda or some shit. Like peak oil. It’s a communist lie to talk America down.

    3. So, because full systems thinking is too difficult (in both senses of being too complicated and too emotionally taxing) we simply ignore the really important hard bits. Sounds like the sort of non-reality based economics that got us a long way to the mess we are currently in (i.e. simply ignoring the environment rather than including human economy only as one component of it). There were predictions that as climate change and environmental destruction increasingly impacted everyday life there would be a move among the wealthier to just ignore it (rather than outright denial) and that seems to be underway now.

      1. I actually think full system thinking is too difficult. If the intergated answer is overwhelmingly a doomer proposition, then the question is; what do we do now? To not want to build up solar power for example; I find it futile in a world where short term interests will overwhelm long term interests anyway. Simply because humans are not immortal, short term interests will always prevail. So what can be done is mitigate and adapt. We can always observe what is happening anyway.

    1. “2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year instrumental record in each of the six datasets. The past nine years – from 2015 to 2023 – were the nine warmest years on record. “

      1. This video reminded me so much of the situation in my neck of the woods and it is something that has bothered me for a while. Back when I was six years old my British mother took my siblings and I to England to experience life in the country of her birth. One of the things I remember was the two pints of milk in glass bottles with aluminum seals being picked up of the doorstep every morning. That generated very little waste. When we returned to Jamaica after a little over a year, I remember soda pop was sold in glass bottles with a refundable deposit and this went on well into the 1980s. I don’t remember milk in glass bottles in Jamaica. Instead we had “boxed milk” which still prevails to this day. Still the “boxed” beverages were supplied to the stores in sturdy reusable plastic crates that are still used but there is an increasing trend towards the use of single use cardboard boxes or plastic shrink wrapping.

        The thing is that in my life time we have gone from pens with refills and razors with replaceable blades to disposable (mostly plastic) everything and gargantuan amounts of stuff are being made, consumed and thrown in the trash. It does not have to be this way since almost everything that is not food waste can be recycled. Food waste can generally be turned in fertilizer with bio-gas as a byproduct. The problem is that there is no appetite at the political level to impose the cost of our profligate consumption on the consumers and in many cases measures to increase recycling have met with strong resistance from industry. Is there a price for a sustainable environment?

        This brings to mind that old Cree saying, “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realise that one cannot eat money,”

        1. I think about that Cree saying now and again and then about Nordhaus’ “economic activity is primarily indoors” take on why climate change doesn’t matter.

          1. Then there is the question “What was the guy thinking when he cut down the last tree on Easter Island?”
            The combination of excess consumption x excess population is really the extinction formula.

            1. They might have been thinking “ I wish those damn Europeans would stop blaming us, and take responsibility for the harms they introduced that did us in”.

              ‘The first colonists may not have arrived until centuries later than has been thought, and they did not travel alone. They brought along chickens and rats, both of which served as sources of food. More important, however, was what the rats ate. These prolific rodents may have been the primary cause of the island’s environmental degradation. Using Rapa Nui as an example of “ecocide,” as Diamond has called it, makes for a compelling narrative, but the reality of the island’s tragic history is no less meaningful.’

              https://www.americanscientist.org/article/rethinking-the-fall-of-easter-island#:~:text=Around%201200%20A.D.%2C%20their%20growing,war%2C%20famine%20and%20cultural%20collapse.

            2. What was the guy thinking when he cut down the last tree on Easter Island?

              That guy didn’t know that there had been forests covering the whole island.

              Desertification happens quickly on a geologic scale, but slowly on a human scale. You can see this in the United States. European settlement can be viewed as an ongoing series of series of ecological disasters, but nobody remembers the great forests of the Eastern United States, or the lakes of Southern California. The Bureau of Land Management has to actively fight against ranchers to try to restore the ecosystems their grandfathers destroyed.

              As Falkner put it in The Bear:
              that doomed wilderness whose edges were being constantly and punily gnawed at by men with plows and axes who feared it because it was wilderness, men myriad and nameless even to one another in the land where the old bear had earned a name[…] which the little puny humans swarmed and hacked at in fury of abhorrence and fear like pygmies about the ankles of a drowsing elephant

    3. We’re well on the way in richer countries to solving the population problem BECAUSE of prosperity……. irony indeed! Back when I was a kid, but thinking about such things, the assumption was that prosperity would be the death of us….. due to over population. Over consumption wasn’t really on the radar, back then, except among cutting edge biologists and other such professionals.

      Close but no cigar. Now the problem is mostly over consumption, compounded by over population.

      But falling birth rates are one of the aces that will save the richer western countries, IF we’re lucky enough to draw a couple more aces or wild cards…… namely that we get off the fossil fuel treadmill by way of renewable energy, and that we’re lucky enough to have good leaders that can pull us together before it’s absolutely too late. The last critical high card…… pray that the climate doesn’t go totally nuts before the population crashes.

      I foresee some regional crashes as being extremely likely and running well into the tens of millions and hundreds of millions, but given geographic, demographic, and economic realities, most or maybe nearly all of those who die hard within the next few decades aren’t all that important in the scheme of things, when the discussion is about the survival of people in well developed countries. We just don’t import much in the way of essentials from places such as Egypt or Indonesia, and they don’t buy enough to really matter when the chips are all on the table. Tough, heartless, yes, but realistic.

      The doomer camp simply flat out refuses to consider the possibility that powerful sovereign nations, aka LEVIATHANS, aren’t exactly helpless when forced to cope with life or death issues.

      If we’re lucky, and we get enough sharp broken bricks upside our collective head, soon enough, and LITERALLY see enough bad things happening to force us, including even Bible Thumpers and MAGATS, to face up to reality, we can at least potentially go to a wartime economic footing, and make things happen that are simply UNIMAGINABLE to engineers and economists who believe we’re doomed, that we might as well give up.

      I don’t know how long it will be before we have a Katrina every couple of years, or a Dust Bowl every couple of years, or how long it will be before the Mississippi blows out it’s dikes and drowns a few million people. Maybe next year or within the next five or ten years, maybe twenty or thirty years.

      But it’s at least possible that with good luck and good leadership that some people in some places can pull thru the built in crash headed our way.

      When a farmer has too many cows in too small a pasture, sometimes all of them will starve. But sometimes some of the stronger ones pull thru, and then there’s plenty of grass for the ones that do survive.

      Giving up is not an option.

      1. The first casualty of overall collapse won’t be humans in wealthy countries. It will be humanity in those places. I think that the Israel/Palestine situation is an excellent indication of the future. Both sides are reduced to savagery over an area claimed by two factions with nowhere else to go. The Trump administration of taking children out of the arms of desperate parents is also phrophetic.

  5. I’ve learned a few things here in the past year and am grateful. For example, the work by Delannoy et. al (2021) “Peak oil and the low-carbon energy transition: A net energy perspective” was not new to me. However, it was the discussion on this blog that got me thinking more about the components of energy that go into extracting a barrel of oil. For example, if natural gas or coal are the primary sources of energy inputs to the steel involved in pulling a barrel of oil out of the ground, then the math involved in the subsequent utility of that barrel coming out of the ground isn’t as simple as the direct EROI forecast by Delannoy.

    So, lacking the types of energy-specific expertise that many on this board contribute I was looking for another way to give back. I thought I might offer up a simple tabulation of some of the online sources I regularly visit that might be of interest to this community. Probably old hat to most of you, but maybe you’ll find a new one of some interest here?

    Do-the-Math
    “Using physics and estimation to assess energy, growth, options – by Tom Murphy. Simply excellent.

    The Great Simplification
    By Nate Hagens, one of the original TOD crew. “A podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament.”

    Resilience.org
    This is a Post-Carbon Institute news site. “Reslience.org aims to support building community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, and the social and economic issues which are linked to these.”

    Union of Concerned Scientists (ucsusa.org)
    Good source for some background information on various topics

    Simon Michaux
    Australian mining engineer currently working in Finland. His work on “The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth” is of particular interest if you haven’t seen it.
    “I am developing a plan to transform our relationship between energy, minerals, and industrialization, as the existing proposed strategic plans are shown to be logistically impractical.”

    LOW←TECH MAGAZINE (lowtechmagazine.com)
    By Kris De Decker. “Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices.

    The Honest Sorcerer
    Author unknown, apparently living in Eastern Europe. “A critic of modern times, offering ideas for honest contemplation. A mechanical engineer by training working in the field of electrification”

    Art Berman
    Probably not new to many here at POB, but didn’t want to omit him.

    Canary Media
    New site. “Clean energy journalism for a cleaner tomorrow”

    Our World in Data
    Some good data and visualizations.

    Real Climate
    “Climate science from climate scientists”

    Carbon Brief
    Climate news site

    National Snow & Ice Data Center
    Data. Link to sea ice graph
    Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph | Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis (nsidc.org)

    Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
    Data. Climate Reanalyzer. Link to sea surface temperature

    NASA
    Data. Mauna Loa CO2 data.

    I skipped a number of other sites such as IEA and EIA that should be very familiar to this crowd, as well as a number of news sites that are more routine.

    I also skipped a number of sites that might fit into this list as a result of unease with too many factual errors or fewer, more fundamental errors by the primary authors.

    1. This is like you raided my browser bookmarks. All very good sources for food for thought. Trying to think of some others to add like Ugo Bardi’s or Tim Watkins’ and Tim Morgan’s blog or some Twitter accounts. The Arctic Ice Forum is most excellent too for many things environmental.

    3. Problems, Predicaments, and Technology:
      “This blog covers many different aspects of ecological overshoot focusing on climate change, pollution loading, and energy and resource decline. Specific areas of interest also include anthropocentrism, hubris, cognitive dissonance, and optimism bias.”

      Also Yale360 often has good articles.

  6. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently studying the news as it applies and will apply to this fall’s elections.

    For what it’s worth, I’m getting to the point that barring unforeseen setbacks, I think Biden is very likely to win a second term.

    The deep red states and deep red rural voters all over are in trump’s back pocket, no question.

    But the conventional wisdom, which seems correct to me, is that presidential elections are won or lost in the swing states, and on the turn out of so called independent voters.

    The polling numbers are moving to Biden a little more every week or two, especially among likely registered voters in swing states.

    I live in trump country, within five or six miles of North Carolina , forty miles from the nearest mid sized city.

    The formerly numerous trump signs have just about disappeared from yards and businesses. I haven’t seen anybody wearing a MAGA hat for quite sometime. There’s hardly any trump merchandise at local flea markets now, but there was a TON of it a year or more ago.

    His supporters are still adamant they’ll be voting for him…… but they’re not saying anything in public to defend him these days. A few local Bible thumper type preachers have finally seen the light, and quit supporting him……. or even mentioning him. I’m expecting more of them to follow, because there’s a big a steady drip of bad news about him paying hookers ……… news that IS getting thru to people who attend local churches in my community.

    And even the dumbest local yokels are gradually coming to understand that if he’s rich, as he claims, he wouldn’t have any trouble paying lawyers or posting a bond….. which would have been less than ten percent of his supposed net worth, etc.

    Furthermore since he seized control of the R party finance system, there’s apparently going to be damned little to no money at all from the national party for down ballot republican candidates. His own daughter has said so, in so many words.

    2. I always wince when I see anything in any media suggesting a reason for anyone to not be terrified at the possibility of a Trump win in November.

  7. Latest permafrost data and studies show we are probably going past two degrees even if we followed the most aggressive reduction path for man made emissions now, and it looks more likely than not that the other cascading tipping points will make it impossible to prevent a runaway to a hot house without direct intervention (one study has shown most life would disappear at 5 degrees with humans struggling to survive as a species past 3). I think this is what a lot of Hansen’s latest work is trying to point out.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO-6x7waPNY

    1. Interesting video, thanks George.

      Could you provide a bit more detail about the study you referenced that looked at 3 and 5 degree impacts on humans? I’d like to track that down.

  8. It looks like the wine industry is joining olive oil in being the first western agro-businesses to be markedly and permanently impacted by climate change. Apart from declining harvests some of the wine that is getting made is becoming dangerously alcoholic (e.g. some Italian wines have risen be three or four degrees proof) and the oil has been lower quality.

    “Worst wine harvest in 62 years blamed on ‘extreme’ weather and climate change”

    https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/26/worst-wine-harvest-in-62-years-blamed-on-extreme-weather-and-climate-change

    1. Thanks George. The extra virgin olive oil I buy at Lidl has gone up 2.7x since 2020…

  10. I’ve read about using warm surface sea water and deep cold see water to drive a turbine or piston type steam engine to generate electric power. The fluid wouldn’t be water, but something selected to boil at sea water surface temperature, and condensed back into a liquid using cold deep water brought to the surface via pipes and pumps.

    This sounds fine in principle…… but is there enough difference in the temperatures, etc, after allowing for losses to run the necessary pumps and so forth? Any and all opinions are appreciated, especially those from hands on engineers.

    1. My impression is that it’s feasible in principle, but sufficiently hard to make cost competitive that it’s not getting much attention.

      There was interest in Hawaii, but wind & solar are here now, and even in concept easier and cheaper.

      “A 2015 report by the organization Ocean Energy Systems under the International Energy Agency gave an estimate of about 20.0 cents per kWh for 100 MW plants.[57] Another study estimated power generation costs as low as 7.0 cents per kWh.[58] Comparing to other energy sources, a 2019 study by Lazard estimated the unsubsidized cost of electricity to 3.2 to 4.2 cents per kWh for Solar PV at utility scale and 2.8 to 5.4 cents per kWh for wind power.[59]”

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

  11. I can’t put this argument into precisely the right technical terms, but I think I can get it across anyway.
    Sometimes the value of a good is determined by its scarcity and utility.
    A liter of drinking water is worth a million bucks to a billionaire stranded in a desert. Maybe ten million. Maybe his entire billion!

    There’s a superb super clean spring on my place that produces fifty gallons per minute. It’s basically worthless to me, in terms of money, because there’s no local market for this water. There’s a stream along side my farm that’s clean enough for trout. It flows tens of thousands of gallons per day. I use a little bit of it to irrigate a garden, etc.

    That same stream, if it were located close enough to a city, would be worth millions as a source of drinking water needing hardly any treatment at all.

    Now lets talk about hydrogen for a minute. In very small amounts, it’s close to worthless. It could be worth a hell of a lot of money, worth building the necessary infrastructure to use it as motor fuel, gas turbine fuel at power plants, maybe fuel cell fuel, etc. If it were available in sufficient quantity at low enough production cost……. which is unfortunately not the case.

    The intermediate case may well be that large but still moderate ( compared to natural gas or oil) amounts of hydrogen could be very valuable indeed. Consider the possibility that if it were available, by pipeline, or stored in an old oil well near a power plant, or a salt cavern, etc, it could be used when natural gas is in short supply …….. thereby making it possible to make better use of intermittent wind and solar power. This could reduce the need for back up coal power, and reduce the need for more transmission lines to deliver power from far away gas burning plants, or far away wind and solar farms.

    If dual fuel truck engines that can run on hydrogen plus a little bit of natural gas, or a little bit of diesel fuel become commonplace, it could serve to help prevent sudden price spikes when diesel is in short supply.

    There’s usually plenty of natural gas available in the US at this time, but in a lot of other countries, they’re at the mercy of exporters.

    A substantial supply of hydrogen could be very useful indeed, stored within a reasonable distance of a power plant, could be priceless, in times when gas deliveries are interrupted by war or the threat of war.

    So….. maybe the question is how much it would actually cost to manufacture this much H2 from water, using what might well be otherwise surplus wind and solar power.

    I’m no engineer by any means, but the consensus among people who believe in renewable electricity AND know a lot of engineering seems to be that in order to minimize the intermittency problem, we’ll likely be building at least twice the nameplate production capacity required to meet all our electrical demand….. which in turn means that there will be lots of times we have a huge surplus of wind and solar power that could be put to use manufacturing hydrogen, or ammonia, or other industrial chemicals.

    Whether this might be practical and economical is an open question, but it might work at a large enough scale.

    1. If dual fuel truck engines that can run on hydrogen plus a little bit of natural gas, or a little bit of diesel fuel become commonplace, it could serve to help prevent sudden price spikes when diesel is in short supply.

      Dual-fuel would be a good thing. One version would be electric motors, combined with swappable batteries and an onboard generator, like diesel trains.

      There are a lot of ways to power trucks, and so a lot of possible combinations. Diesel, syn-diesel, bio-diesel, gasoline, H2, swappable batteries, etc., etc.

      Here’s gasoline. My impression is that lower torque means longer acceleration times for heavy loads, which would be inconvenient but doable:
      https://www.fydafreightliner.com/blog/gas-vs-diesel-semi-truck-which-model-should-you-pick–58928#:~:text=Semi-trucks can be gas-powered or diesel models.

      1. I’m just about ready to bet my farm against a stale donut that you won’t see a gasoline powered eighteen wheeler on a public road at all unless it’s an antique on the way to a truck show.

        I haven’t EVER seen a gasoline powered eighteen wheeler myself less than an least sixty or seventy years old, and probably even older.

        1. I think you’d lose your farm, unless these folks are lying. They say they sell them:

          “GAS VS. DIESEL SEMI-TRUCK: WHICH MODEL SHOULD YOU PICK?
          APR. 3 2023
          Buying Guide
          By Fyda Freightliner
          Semi-Truck

          Gas vs. Diesel Semi-Truck

          Semi-Truck Buying Guide

          Semi-trucks, the backbone of the transportation industry, help keep businesses rolling. But they are big-ticket investments, and some latest models are more expensive than others. That’s why you want to take extra measures to purchase the perfect model for your work.

          Semi-trucks can be gas-powered or diesel models. Our guide discusses a few significant factors to help you identify the one to get for your work site. Read on to learn more, and for more information, contact Fyda Freightliner.

          Fuel Economy
          One of the major differences between gasoline and diesel engines is their fuel efficiency.

          Diesel engines are 35-40% more fuel-efficient than gasoline engines. This means you can travel more on a gallon and deliver on your projects more efficiently. However, diesel is more expensive than gasoline, and diesel-powered vehicles are costly to maintain, too.

          Think about the distance your semi-truck will travel regularly, and then make your final decision. Ideally, gas-fueled rigs are better for transporting goods over short distances, while diesel models are ideal for covering long distances.

          Engine Power and Torque
          Next, you want to determine the engine power and torque you need for your semi-truck to work efficiently.

          Diesel engines generate more power and torque compared to gasoline engines. The extra horsepower and torque translate into better hauling capabilities, making transportation safer and more enjoyable. If you hope to haul heavy payloads with your semi-truck, you’ll probably want to buy a diesel model. Conversely, a gas-fueled semi-truck is better for transporting lighter items and cargo.

          …gas-fueled trucks are less polluting than diesel models… diesel models require a higher initial investment,…

          Make the right move for your business by choosing the right semi-truck. Fyda Freightliner, your local truck expert, is here to help you select the perfect model for your work site. To meet our friendly team in person, swing by one of our dealerships in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Kentucky—whichever is nearest to you.”

          https://www.fydafreightliner.com/blog/gas-vs-diesel-semi-truck-which-model-should-you-pick–58928

          1. Nick, I have to side with OFM on this. If you check Fyda’s new inventory you will not find a gas powered semi-tractors(trucks). Even their class 7 bobtails chassis are diesel. The highest gasoline GVW chassis in their new inventory I saw was an Isuzu 19,000 and that’s not a tractor chassis. I would not consider a fifthwheel pickup used for RV’s or a three car trailer haulers a semi.

            1. Well, that’s odd. They seem to be serious with their blog entry. I’ve sent them an email to check on availability and timing.

              Any thoughts about gas semi’s? Certainly they’re not a standard or common thing right now. If we assume that these people have lost their minds and are advertising something that’s not available…how hard would that be for the large manufacturers to produce, should diesel become much more expensive than gasoline?

            2. I would guess whoever wrote the advertising thinks all their trucks are semi’s, and there not. I think the gasoline vs. diesel truck industry is the same low hanging fruit as EV vs. diesel truck. I don’t see a gasoline class 8 truck market for the future. City day tractors and bobtails is where I see EV’s breaking into heavy duty trucking. They leave at 6am and return at 6pm. The wearhouse loads and charges them up overnight and they hit the road for another one to two hundred miles everyday. You can hang 300KWH’s of batteries(4500 pounds) on the frame between the axles. Changing out batteries is a non-starter.

          2. HB’s on the money.

            I’m pretty much totally retired now, except for projects around the home place.
            But I have friends in the trucking business, and not a single one of them has mentioned even seeing an advertisement for a heavy duty truck with a gasoline engine.

            But you can buy a smaller truck , up to around twenty to thirty thousand pounds gross weight, with a gasoline engine.

            Given that diesel is now more expensive than gasoline, and that it’s easier and cheaper to license and operate a gasoline truck, especially if you need to cross state lines with it, a gasoline model can be a better deal….. especially since such gas engine trucks aren’t generally kept on the road fifty thousand miles a year or more. Using diesel fuel means a hell of a lot of paper work if you’re a commercial or even a farm operator sometimes.

            So given the cheaper up front price, and the much more convenient and cheaper registration and insurance details, if you need a truck only a few hours a day, or a couple of days a week, gasoline can be the way to go nowadays.

            1. Hi Nick,
              I read that same piece myself. I composed my comment at first indicating that the author is either an idiot or a bot, or maybe both, lol, but left that out.

              It certainly comes across as bullshit aimed at people outside the trucking industry as such, something written by a marketer or advertising employee.

              The heavy truck industry, as well as the construction and agricultural industries, are virtually one hundred percent standardized on diesel, excepting a few more or less experimental electric or hydrogen models that haven’t yet sold enough units to matter at all…… except as indications of what may come to pass a few years down the road.

              There’s not really any significant difference in driving a diesel versus a modern gasoline truck assuming you buy one with an engine with comparable horsepower. The torque argument is pretty much pure bullshit.

              When somebody runs his pie hole about torque, all he’s saying is that the engine under discussion produces a lot of horsepower at low RPM. Torque considered alone tells you absolutely nothing useful. I have a home made winch with a five horsepower engine salvaged from an old garden tiller that has at least ten thousand pounds of torque at the business end…… but the cable drum rotates slower than the second hand on a watch, lol.

              HORSE POWER measures work.

              Modern vehicles, gas or diesel, have plenty of forward gears in their transmissions, and furthermore, most of them are automatics or semi automatics these days, so keeping the engine revved up enough to be well up into the higher horsepower portion of the power band is as simple as putting it in drive and holding the gas pedal down.

              The only real advantage, other than per gallon fuel economy, of a heavy duty diesel versus a heavy duty gasoline engine is that the diesel is generally built to last twice as long, but if it costs twice as much ……. upfront……..

              Most of my farmer friends are getting rid of their diesel trucks in favor of gasoline models now, if they’re using them only occasionally. I can cross the state line with a gasoline truck hauling a legal load of sixteen thousand pounds with just an ordinary tag and insurance policy.

              My nearest neighbor is getting rid of his diesel F700 for no other reason than that since diesel is so much more expensive now, there’s not enough to be saved on fuel expenses to bother with the necessary paperwork using his diesel truck once a week or so for a couple of hours. ( This paperwork doesn’t apply to the smaller model diesels such as an F250 tagged for personal use. )

            2. Mac,
              I’ve been out of trucking for 15 years or so, but if memory hasn’t totally failed me, the fuel tax reporting/paying regs for commercial trucking covers all heavy vehicles, regardless of fuel type. You can check the IFTA website to verify. I think the quarterly reporting/paying requirement applies to anything over 26k gvw.
              As for gas-engined class 8 trucks, you’re right, they lost out to diesel in the 60’s. Do you remember the GMC v-12 702 cube gas-burner? I’ve got a friend who still has one that his uncle trucked with way back when. Fuel mileage was about 3 mpg. Can’t remember for sure, but I think that gaspot put out around 200 to 250 hp. I’ve driven a 60-something IH 10-wheeler with a 549 v8 gas engine. My dad drove a late 50’s/ early 60’s IH cab-over 18-wheeler with the same engine. He said it would out-pull it’s replacement, which was an IH Emeryville, which had a Cummins 220 diesel (built in Emeryville, CA ) , but it wouldn’t pass a gas station. About 2 to 3 mpg.
              As a comparison as far as mpg and engine life goes, those gaspots often didn’t go over 100k miles without a rebuild.
              My last truck was a year 2000 model with a c16 Cat (16 ltr) 600 hp, 2050 ft-lbs torque. It went around 950k miles before the heads ever came off due to a headgasket leak, then on to 1 mil 60k for a full re-build. It averaged 5 to 5.5 mpg empty or loaded to 80-85k.
              As a bragging trucker might say, “it would pull the devil ass-backwards out of hell”.
              Today’s trucks are getting better than that, I hear 7 to 10 mpg, but I can’t vouch for that myself.
              You mentioned antique trucks on the way to a truck-show. Would you happen to know David Strickland? I think you probably live within a few miles of him. He has a beautiful bunch of restored old trucks. I’ve known him for about 20 years, through the ATHS. Antique truck historical society.
              Nuff rambling
              Stan

    2. OFM

      There is a reason for why hydrogen is getting a lot of attention, especially in Europe. But also in the US. The reason is not that it is very profitable to make it right now when it comes to electrolysis from renewable power. Some of the companies working to promote hydrogen solutions have experienced high expectations, but have come down to more hard realites the last few years or so. Natural gas is too cheap and you can make hydrogen out of that in an efficent way (blue hydrogen, preferably with carbon capture). So hydrogen made from surplus electricity is outcompeted because of ample natural gas supplies.

      But in a low carbon society situation (and that is where we are going, but not very fast), hydrogen goes from being an uneconomic jack of all trade solution to an economic king of all trade solution. Hydrogen has been used as fuel for space ships, can undoubtedly fuel any high temperature melting of minerals like for example titan (1668 celcius melting point). In addition be used to fuel long distance transport vehicle with a 3-4 fold bigger transportation tank, likewise airplanes. Given access to enough hydrogen compression nearby.

      And the idea is also that surplus solar and wind power can be used to produce hydrogen, so the price becomes less of an issue for that amount of surplus electricity.

      The weakness is that hydrogen is not very easily storable. It comes with a percentage drop if stored over time even with compression. That means you would have to build your infrastructure around it if you want it to work. This is not much different from how you have to adapt transport infrastructure differently if petroleum fuel is priced too high due to scarcity. More focus on shipping, railroad on key logistic hubs; transform how cities look like. There are ideas around transporting hydrogen through pipelines or using specialised ships (already several of them). All doable at a cost. These are low EROI activites but so are a lot (but not all) oil and gas projects going forward. Proponents say technology and industry of scale in a mixture can make hydrogen worthwhile after a while. But as of now, outcompeted by natural gas.

      1. Thanks,

        I believe you have pretty much nailed it…… manufactured hydrogen via electrolysis is too expensive at this time…….. but that it might be worth while sometime in the not too distant future.

        Granted that the storage problem is a tough one…… but if it turns out that using manufactured H2 is cheaper at some future time than gray H2, or that burning it at night to generate power is cheaper than batteries or pumped storage, etc………. it might work. In this scenario, it’s likely to be used up mostly on the same day as it’s produced.

        And here’s another point that is generally overlooked when discussing renewable electricity and oil or gas sometimes as well.

        It doesn’t necessarily take a hell of a lot of ethanol to force down the price of oil in our domestic oil market to the point that we may actually be saving money, on a society wide basis, by using ethanol as a gasoline extender.

        Having some H2 available in significant quantities could have a sizable impact on the average price of natural gas …… once natural gas is in short supply……. which could be almost anytime, depending on how the cards fall. There’s plenty in the ground……. but getting it out and to market is always a question mark, due to war, politics, etc.

        1. OFM

          All valid points. That is why it is interesting to follow what can be made out of the hydrogen proposition, rather than right out dismissing it. The ones dismissing it I would expect to have competing interests closer to their hearts. There are so many moving parts going into how interesting hydrogen using electrolysis would be going forward, that the safest projection would be that it will be interesting for sure – but at what quantity is unknown.

  12. OFM,
    I enjoy reading your ruminations. I too live in a very rural location where folks are still shade tree mechanics, and have a lot of practical skills. I helped my neighbor pull the power head off an old outboard motor yesterday in order to fix his dead outboard. He paid $500 for the motor, good power head but lower unit trashed. So $500 to get his 90 hp going, not bad. These things are common where I live.
    Energy use in the longer future will become more diverse, more localized. Folks can get pretty clever when they need to, particularly those that are used to doing things for themselves. Energy systems that don’t make sense at a large scale will be useful at the individual level and visa versa. An example is small hydro. It might make sense to just let it stay as mechanical power and turn a shaft that can be used for all sorts of things. Why bother with a generator, wiring, inverters, battery banks, etc. Or it might make sense to convert it to DC power and avoid conversion losses back and forth to AC power and a battery bank. You know well what I am talking about.
    One of the most interesting books i ever read was Pre-Modern European Economy. In the 1600’s there were over 10,000 windmills in the low countries. Each generated about 25 horsepower. All wooden gears! Amazing. Not much power by todays standards, but a lot of work can be done with 25 horsepower as you well know. Local sawmills, grist mills, shingle mills, barrel makers, small power looms, the spinning wheel… these are the solutions in the long future. Complex technical solutions, nation wide power grids…. not so much. But I will not live to see it, perhaps my children’s children.
    Moving to a lower level of energy use will not be the painful part of a decline, it will be the associated reduction in population that a reduction in energy requires and potential for violence that may accompany it that will be difficult.
    We had a camp on a lake when I grew up. The largest outboard motor was a 25 hp. most were 5 hp. No one had a TV in their cabins. We played cards and board games in the evening. We hand pumped our water out of a well. Heated water on the stove to wash the dishes. Pretty simple, low energy system. Happiest days of my life. More energy use, more complexity, particularly once you rise above your basic needs (think Maslow) has done very little to benefit our happiness, deep connection with friends/family, purpose in life, or tranquility. Returning to a lower energy society is not the issue, it is the path of getting there that scares the crap out of folks, and rightfully so.

    2. A top tip I learned from Airdale at TOD, and passed on to my son just recently, soak the sawchain in oil before use. As with cars, there´s an option to go electric even with chainsaws now, so when the old Husqvarna`s wear out, I´ll try one.
      Btw, got some lead acid batteries and solar PV to charge them,so I´m fairly set, I hope you´re too.
      Regarding outboards, several companies has developed electric ones but hydrofoils seems to be a big advantage, so hull design matters a lot.

      1. Laplander,
        I have an electric chain saw, 2,880W PV, large battery bank, electric hydraulic log splitter, large organic garden, small orchard, small energy efficient cabin (12″ walls, R40 ceilings), lots of canning supplies, EP Carry Electric boat motors, e-bikes, wood heat. With regards to electric boats, it is fool hardy to power an electric boat above Hull Speed, requires exponentially more power and batteries for small increases in speed. Light weight boats with a length to width ratio of 6+. Grumman 19 ft square stern canoe for example. Think 4 to 5 knots. I have been working on a more self reliant life style for 14 years. I am early to the parade and much is for my children who still have to labor in the BAU economy. I love the life style and even if predictions are wrong (timing, not outcome) I am healthier and happier for it. It is physically demanding, but mentally freeing.

        1. We, too, have a lot of that — electric chainsaw and power tools, large (non)organic garden, one acre (non)organic orchard, canned goods and supplies, wood and coal stoves, full workshop PLUS a handpump on a dug well.

          But my partner is dependent on medical devices, so fuck all that.

    1. Our local grid in Victoria Australia would need 800-900 Gwh of capacity, yet the world added 42 Gw in 2023. That number they cite (in executive summary) should be phrased in Gwh of capacity.

      Then they discuss the ramping up of materials necessary. All these minerals are going to be mined with fossil fuels, because that’s how we build and operate mines, plus then the minerals go through multiple high heat processes in their refinement, again using fossil fuels, so an increase in fossil fuel use is inevitable.

      The new mines for all these new batteries are not being set up to run exclusively off electricity, let alone exclusively renewable electricity, because that would be far too expensive and uneconomic. How come you never bring this reality to the topic of discussion?

      Also notice this report, and many commentators always claim how all the EVs will reduce 8Mbbls/d of oil by 2030. That’s actually rubbish. All these EVs will reduce a small proportion of the barrel out of each 100Mbbls/d needed. Each and every barrel of oil has a range of constituent parts. Saving 8Mbbls/d of gasoline will make the gasoline relatively cheaper to other products from a barrel of oil, and likely increase it’s usage for ‘other’ purposes, therefore Jevon’s paradox in action…

      The real problems start when the total oil extracted starts to shrink at an accelerating pace year after year, then we wont have the diesel needed for the mining of all the minerals needed for EVs.
      I expect more and more batteries, EVs, solar and wind while we keep increasing oil use, with all the accompanying damage to the environment.

      It’s the phase of oil production decline at an accelerating rate, when it starts happening, not if, that the reality of our situation will finally start to wake up even the most vehement supporter of the green future. That’s when you will all realise it was a charade, as new solar, wind, EVs mining all slows down rapidly.

      1. You get done what you can.
        Like it always has been.
        No promise offered and none taken.

    1. Lol.

      He may be in contempt of court and jailed if he keeps running his mouth in NYC. That’d be pretty funny, going to and from the trial and the cell.

  15. A good read from Tim Watkins this week.

    A world without growth

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/04/30/a-world-without-growth/

    “… resource shortages, soil depletion, deforestation, desertification, species extinctions, agricultural run-off, toxic water courses, are just a few of the less publicised environmental crises that threaten to wipe out billions of humans …”

    “The proposed alternatives come in two forms. The first is a claim that something called “green” or “sustainable” growth will become possible with the development of new technologies and the harnessing of new energy sources such as – most notoriously – nuclear fusion. The second – and more realistic – version is of a managed de-growth in which we attempt to maintain the useful elements of an advanced industrial economy while cutting back the vast amounts of waste.”

    “It should go without saying that neither is going to happen for two simple reasons. The first is that the people who enjoy the power of decision are having none of it – and are actively corralling their potential opponents into forms of protest that present zero threat to the status quo. The second is that forces far more powerful in reversing growth are already in play and are growing in strength with each passing day.”

  16. Renewable (2.1GW!) aluminium:

    Alcoa on December 19 [2023] announced that it has finalized new power agreements in Quebec through 2040. The agreements will supply clean, renewable energy to all three of the company’s aluminum smelters in the province – Baie Comeau, Becancour (ABI), and Deschambault — and enable Alcoa to upgrade and expand Baie Comeau production. The agreements cover approximately 1.1 million metric tons per year (mtpy)
    …
    with a combined 2100 megawatts of hydropower through December 31, 2040.

    https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/15048/alcoa,-hydro-quebec-sign-power-agreements

    Way to go 🙂

  17. ‘Georgia Power announced this week that the 1.1-gigawatt (GW) Unit 4 nuclear power reactor at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia, entered into commercial operation after connecting to the power grid in March 2024. The commercial start of Unit 4 completes the 11-year expansion project at Plant Vogtle.
    This is the second of two units deployed at the expense of over $30B.
    No nuclear reactors are under construction now in the United States.’
    https://cleantechnica.com/2024/05/01/plant-vogtle-unit-4-begins-commercial-operation-no-more-new-nuclear-under-construction/

    It will be interesting to watch over the next decade. We know that solar and wind capacity additions are going to continue on a rapid growth pace. It is extremely unlikely that any new nuclear capacity will be brought online over the next ten years. There is a three finger handful of permit applications being prepared, so it has been reported. Despite very generous government incentives, the industry is at a snails pace. The problems are project complexity and financial risk.
    Within the next 5 years we will have a solid sense if Geothermal will undergo a successful resurgence. I’d bet the answer is yes. If so, it will compete hard with nuclear for the baseload electricity capital deployments.
    The biggest advantages will be lower complexity and the lack of need for fuel, and that they don’t need to shut down roughly 8% of the time for refueling (6 weeks every 1 1/2 years). Cost will be a big determining factor, of course.
    “advanced geothermal technology could increase the United States’ geothermal energy production to 90 gigawatts or more by 2050”
    https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-unveils-roadmap-next-generation-geothermal-power?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

  18. In the US in the one year from 2022 to 2023 photovoltaic electricity generation production grew 37%.
    Probably higher rate this year, and every year for the decade.

    And to give Hideaway yet more studies to dispute, here is a small handful of newer published reports that show the cradle to grave lifecycle energy payback time for photovoltaics (deployed outside) to be in the 1-3 year time frame.
    Lets hear why they are all so very wrong on this.
    -https://sustainenvironres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s42834-023-00201-x
    -https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abb0055
    -https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/17/6400
    -https://www.ijsgce.com/uploadfile/2012/1019/20121019125331523.pdf

    btw- you might wonder what the performance warranty is for modern photovoltaics?
    “The industry standard is 80-84% retained power output after 25 years. However, some high-end manufacturers, such as Sunpower, LG, and REC guarantee as much as 88% to 92% remaining power output on most modules after 25 years of use.”
    Of course that assumes that they have escaped hail damage and vandalism from redhat fossil fuel nutheads, etc

    1. photovoltaic electricity generation production grew 37%. Probably higher rate this year, and every year for the decade.

      PV had a 3.9% share of US electricity in 2023. 37% growth for 10 more years would get us to 124%. Enough for current consumption and full electrification of light vehicles.

      Of course, our first goal is to replace the 64% that comes from FF – that would happen 2 years earlier…

      https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

      ——————-

      Not that I expect that to happen quite that quickly – there are too many forms of cultural resistance. But, it’s useful to see that it’s technically possible.

      ———————
      The time series:

      2023 3.9%
      2024 5%
      2025 7%
      2026 10%
      2027 14%
      2028 19%
      2029 26%
      2030 35%
      2031 48%
      2032 66%
      2033 91%
      2034 124%

    2. Hickory, all just the usual guff, trying to dazzle you with brilliance of numbers, when they are really baffling you with bullshit.

      By their method, and I mean the references they rely upon, because they don’t have the numbers themselves, they ALL, and I mean ALL, talk about the fuel used by the dump trucks and excavators at mines, the fuel used in running the generators powering the processing plants at mines, then the fuel used in the trucks transporting the concentrate to port, then the fuel used in the ships going to other ports.

      This continues right through the process chain of every component they can think of for every aspect of the final mounted solar arrays..

      This is just a quick example ….
      “The electricity consumption of the Czochralski-process (mono-Si ingot) is estimated at 32 kWh/kg, and of the casting of multi-Si ingots 7 kWh/kg [7].”
      “Distances of 19’994 km, 20’755 km and 4584 km are assumed for the transport from China (Shanghai) to Europe (Rotterdam), from China (Shanghai) to North America (New York) and from China (Shanghai) to APAC (Port Klang), respectively. Furthermore, 50 km transport by lorry and 200 km transport by train are assumed independent of the region.” …. Then the appropriate fuel used per km travelled etc.
      All from, the following document referenced in your first link ….
      https://treeze.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/Publications/Case_Studies/Energy/IEA-PVPS-LCI-report-2020-20201208.pdf

      Just using the mine as an example, apparently fuel and electricity is the only energy cost. The big yellow dump trucks exist so have zero energy cost except for their fuel, likewise for the driver, zero energy, the generators have zero energy cost, the processing plant, zero energy cost, except for use, likewise for management and all staff at the mine site, often fly in/fly out workers here in Australia’s remote mines, but the energy cost of getting the workers to the mine, by jet, zero according to these types of reports (and zero energy cost to construct the jet aircraft as well!!).

      These type of reports would have you believe that the world’s average solar PV output, being 2.74hrs/d (from IEA 11.4% capacity factor Central Europe) times the 365 days/yr = 1000Kwh/yr per Kw of installation, means total payback of energy used in production of less than 2 years, or 2,000Kwh = 2Mwh.

      As the average wholesale energy price over the last 10 years has been around $40/Mwh, then a Mw installation will only cost $80k. Why does solar fully installed cost so much more than this??

      Simple, because they leave out the bulk of the actual energy cost in all their calculations!! Every single report you read and reference is the same!! It’s all trying to prove fairy dust make believe.

      The EROEI is a varying concept, because wages are cheaper in Asia than Europe and the US, the background energy cost is cheaper in factories there. We can’t mine without workers, nor the machines they use, so have to count all the energy to provide these aspects, yet ZERO of the reports ever include it, that makes them worthless in regards to being realistic!!

      These reports give an answer that people want to hear, reality has nothing to do with the numbers given. If the people involved in every aspect, plus all the machines involved in every aspect of mining, processing , manufacturing, transport and deployment lasted forever, then there might be an argument for not considering the background cost. However last I looked everyone and every machine, and every road, bridge and port all suffered from entropy and have limited lifespans.

      How is it you can’t understand the simple fact that these reports are worthless in real EROEI terms?? Only if they EXCLUDE massive amounts of energy used in their manufacture and deployment can they show numbers that appear acceptable to people.

      1. Response as expected.
        Well, in the final analysis the utilities of the world will adjust their decision making process in response to the pricing of generating sources for their particular region.
        And I remind everyone that the price of any product, including photovoltaic panels, includes the cost paid for energy at every step in the production of that product. Everyone passes on their energy cost to the purchaser, whether it is for truck fuel to deliver milk or for the energy used to make the steel and aluminum for the truck, or the energy to pasteurize the milk, and the energy to refrigerate the milk, etc. You the milk buyer, or the solar panel buyer, pay for all the energy used in the whole chain of production for the end product you buy.

        btw- energy used in the whole chain of photovoltaic manufacture and deployment is only roughly 1/3rd of the cost of an installation here in the US. The other 2/3rd is for things like permits, labor, electrician services, inverters, materials, insurance, etc. This equation varies somewhat depending if we are talking residential or utility scale deployments. That is why the energy payback time may be two years but the whole project financial payback time may be closer to 7 years, as a rough example.

      2. There’s no real difference between greenwashing and oil company obfuscation about climate change, and nor should it be expected to be otherwise – exactly the same personalty types get to sit on the boards of all energy companies and we have now allowed the world to be controlled by those companies and those boards.

        1. Even if you don’t give a shit about global warming from fossil fuel combustion,
          the deployment of non-fossil energy production facilities is a logical step
          (that utilities around the world are taking)
          in this era of fossil fuel depletion that is upon us.
          And it is not not just global depletion that drives the motivation….most people in the world are in the position being hostage to the tiny fraction of the worlds population/countries that own the oil, coal and nat gas.
          With solar people, communities and regions have the capability to be local power producers.

          And if you do indeed give a shit about global warming then the decision to deploy becomes an easy one.

          Maybe not in cloudy UK and northern Europe, but certainly in most of the world where it is sunnier.

          1. Hi Hickory,
            For what it’s worth, I’m utterly convinced that the Democrats when Hillary was last running lost to trump for a critical reason that’s not often mentioned by the liberal establishment……. namely that she ran on issues important to well educated, well paid liberals ( personal liberties, gay rights, environment, etc) while more or less simply ignoring the less educated working class people of our country.

            This left the REAL working class, the people such as my neighbors, wide open to being duped by trump and company. Poor people and WORKING people ( by which I do NOT mean people such as nurses, teachers, etc, with university degrees ) don’t know shit about the nuances of gay rights, or the environment, and don’t give a shit about these things, for the most part.

            They don’t read the NYT, or the Washington Post, because they’re behind paywalls. Faux News is free all the time. They’re easily manipulated by the right wing in large part…… because the liberal establishment in effect ridiculed them as peasants while nevertheless expecting them to kneel and tug the forelock in obeisance to their betters, and continue to vote for them.

            Well now, even a dog knows when you’re making mean fun of it.

            I’ll go to my grave utterly convinced that if HRC had had the HUMAN TOUCH, she would have won going away, rather than losing the pissed off people of this country who actually get dirty and break a sweat on the job to the trump camp.

            And now the environmental camp is making essentially the same stupid mistake…. campaigning to the elite, preaching to the environmental choir, so to speak. Working class ( dirty, sweaty, paid by the week, living check to check WORKING people) generally don’t have more than the vaguest possible grasp of the physical sciences, and are more likely than not to believe whatever they’re told by the people they best trust…….. right wingers of course.

            So……. it’s way goddamned time to quit putting nearly all of the day to day emphasis on global warming, in terms of winning back control of political control. The educated voter is already a confirmed Democrat, that voter is IN THE BAG.

            What’s needed now is emphasis on the benefits of going green, going sustainable, for working class people. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, local control, new industries, getting across the message that Biden/ the Democrats ARE bringing home the industries that were shipped overseas, or allowed to flourish overseas at the expense our own domestic job market, etc.

            It takes an idiot to believe that a long term successful economy can be based on SERVICES. UN UH…. Somebody someplace has to manufacture, ship, sell, build, and repair physical STUFF.

            And there are tens of millions, close to a hundred million Americans of working age who lack the personal background and education necessary to hold elite jobs, programming, marketing, law, accounting, artistic or entertaining, skills, whatever.

            If they have jobs suited to their capabilities, which pay well enough for them to live respectably, and they know who makes things so they have such jobs, they’ll vote accordingly.

            If they DON’T have such jobs…….. they’re up for grabs. HRC and similarly high brow Democrats fumbled the ball dealing with such people. They turned in frustration to somebody who at least TOLD them what they wanted to hear….. trump and company.

            Now the environmental camp needs to be telling working class people what they want to hear……. JOBS. But they’re fumbling the ball, and allowing the right wing to get away with telling people renewable electricity costs more, that safer cars that get better fuel economy are a socialist plot to steal their freedoms, etc.

            My neighbors know just enough about climate to be dangerous to themselves….. namely that it’s always changed, and always will…… but that’s just enough for them to fall for the right wing argument that IF it’s changing NOW, it’s natural, not the result of burning coal, oil, and gas.

            We’re allowing the enemy to control the dialogue.

            BIG mistake.

            1. OFM

              You are talking a lot of sense. So if the Democrats moves to the middle and the some, it would be advantageous? The right side of politics in Norway did that for what it is worth for the last decade or so, and it actually worked very well. Until the left side won recently anyway. The alternative is worse sometimes. For Norway, a close call now since the main parties are very aligned when it comes to actual views. It is not a big secret that Norway’s right side politics are about where Democrats are, so take that into account. Best of luck.

            2. OFM- indeed.
              I think describing any energy sources as ‘green’, or carbon neutral is inaccurate and really poor messaging. Everything we do on an industrial scale is damaging…its a matter of degree.
              Better to aim for a ‘smaller footprint’ and ‘resiliency’. Local and diversified are also messages that generally resonant with people. Most people get that keeping spent money local is a winning proposition.
              Green landscape is great, but green politics/party is a hodgepodge that is a sub-optimal association or framework for energy policy. Its simply a non-starter for a large segment of the population. ‘Green Energy’ is simply poor terminology.
              I have come to refer to solar, wind, geothermal as ‘non-fossil energy’ mechanisms, that harvest perpetual energy sources.
              I have many old friends who fall squarely in ‘progressive’ wing of the Demo party. They generally have lovely ideals, but are their own worst enemy when it comes to moving the ball towards their goals. I see myself as a hardcore pragmatist.

  19. Of course a grid with 3.9% solar and wind share can grow a lot. Here in Australia the large AEMO grid (several thousand Km end to end) is often operating with solar and wind up to 40-50% share. However it is towards these levels that the problems appear.

    The current growth rate for commercial solar and wind installation has fallen off a cliff compared to several years ago, because there are often negative wholesale prices when the sun is shining in particular. Forward plans are contracting, there is no money in it, despite healthy government subsidies and incentives. Some are adding batteries, but mostly 1-2 hrs to cover evening peak prices. (Australia’s largest solar farm is adding about 35 minutes!! of battery capacity)

    Many energy farms capacity factor has fallen greatly from expected, as they have had to turn off the plants during sunny hours from Spring right through Autumn. The nearby utility wind farm has had a 24% capacity factor since it started, when ‘planned’ it was 37%. The costs of operating it are the same, so it’s rapidly becoming uneconomic. It’ll be interesting to see if it lasts its proposed 25 year lifetime. First really major maintenance comes up in 2 years at the 8 year mark, when bearings have to be replaced.

    It’s funny how slow humans are to learn from others mistakes. We have made retail electricity very expensive in this country by deploying lots of solar and wind, while we have to maintain a great deal of gas, hydro and coal fired power at the same time.
    Governments are now paying coal powered generators to stay open for longer than planned lives, because if they close we will have massive blackouts especially at night and in winter. The amount they are paying to keep coal plants open is a secret commercial deal of course.

    Instead of learning from Australia’s mistakes, the US appears to be headed on exactly the same path over the next few years, building more and more renewables, then suddenly there will be all these problems that no-one could have predicted…(include sarc emogi here!!)

    Even large grids need massive battery capacity to back up solar and wind. It’s not possible to get vast amounts of electricity across from one side of the grid to the other, say from outback Queensland to Victoria at a cheap cost.
    The transmission lines needed would be horrendously expensive for something used fairly irregularly. This is another huge weakness most never bother to include. Just the building of extra solar plus the transmission lines from whoop whoop to cities over thousands of km, to just be used ‘some of the time’ is ridiculously expensive and a waste of resources, let alone the extra environmental damage it would cause.
    We need a different and much better plan..

    1. “Many energy farms capacity factor has fallen greatly from expected, as they have had to turn off the plants during sunny hours from Spring right through Autumn. The nearby utility wind farm has had a 24% capacity factor since it started, when ‘planned’ it was 37%. The costs of operating it are the same, so it’s rapidly becoming uneconomic. It’ll be interesting to see if it lasts its proposed 25 year lifetime. First really major maintenance comes up in 2 years at the 8 year mark, when bearings have to be replaced. ”

      “It’s to be expected that there will be turmoil and trouble anytime any important industry is going thru a major change. operating with solar and wind up to 40-50% share. However it is towards these levels that the problems appear.”

      Five to ten years ago, the naysayers were still telling us that the grid could never be kept stable with more than ten or maybe fifteen percent wind and solar power. Now you’re talking about problems at triple that level…………….

      ”

      So……right now, we have a ton of excess solar power in some places, some of the time. Ditto wind.

      But given time, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that people from individual consumers to industrial customers will find ways to make profitable use of such otherwise excess solar power….. so long as the grid is capable of delivering it , of course.

      Today’s smart grid is mostly an IDEA, rather than a reality, but it will inevitably BE a reality within another ten or twenty years. Homes can be equipped with double or triple capacity, double insulated hot water heaters for instance….. meaning homeowners will seldom ever need any fossil fuel juice to heat water.

      It’s going to be entirely practical and profitable for business and industrial customers to install HVAC systems capable of storing electrical energy in de facto WATER batteries….. simply by freezing largish tanks of water and using the ice, made during peak solar and wind production times, to cool schools, office buildings, hospitals, etc. This may scale down to profitability for home owners as well.

      Putting a few more tons of thermal mass inside the insulation envelope , rather than OUTSIDE it is a trivial engineering and construction problem, for new buildings. This means heating and cooling capacity can effectively be stored as de facto concrete or steel batteries……. utilizing otherwise surplus wind and solar juice. If I were to build again, I would put twenty tons of gravel under my new house, with embedded wire and pipe, to circulate electricity and or water as needed to store energy for later use. This would add only five thousand bucks or so, at local prices, to excavate the pit and put in the gravel, wire and pipe and tie this set up to a heat pump.

      Some industries that need a lot of heat will be able to utilize such otherwise surplus juice in their manufacturing processes.

      I understand that your camp believes batteries aren’t sustainable, that they’re never going to be cheap enough, and plentiful enough, to be sustainable. But there are other battery chemistries already available, or on the way, that won’t be dependent on lithium supplies…… and contrary to the fossil fuel camp’s claim that batteries and wind turbines, etc, can’t be recycled……..

      Both batteries and turbine blades CAN be recycled, and ARE being recycled already, and WILL be designed and manufactured in the future so as to make recycling easier year after year, as the NECESSARY volume of old batteries and blades becomes available.

      I personally believe vehicle to house is going to be a very real thing, and that parked vehicles will be charged automatically anytime otherwise surplus solar or wind juice is available……. meaning the home owner will need less gas fired juice from the grid……..

      Not to mention that he’ll need less grid juice because he’ll be charging his own car using his own solar panels. And since he’s apt to own TWO cars in prosperous countries, he can charge one at home on alternate days.

      Change is going to be expensive and painful.

      But it’s possible, and it’s coming.

      And while it’s true that long distance transmission lines are expensive…… they’re cheap, compared to nuclear submarines, air craft carriers, intercontinental range stealth bombers, tanks, and well trained soldiers, sailors and airmen by the hundreds of thousands and millions.

      It’s going to be a political dog fight worth paying to watch, for sure……when we figure out how to pay for the necessary gas ( and maybe coal or nuclear ) generating capacity needed to keep the grid up as we add ever more wind and solar power…… but one way or another, that capacity will be paid for, and preserved, so long as it’s needed……. my guess being that it will be needed for another fifty years at least. The key thing to remember is that it will be needed as a lesser and lesser percentage of production as the years pass….. thereby extending the finite supply of gas so that it will last longer at affordable prices.

      And as far as bearings are concerned, I’m having a problem visualizing why bearings are needed to any significant extent at a solar farm, and if they are……… why they would wear out in only eight years.

  20. I always wince when I see anything in any media suggesting a reason for anyone to not be terrified at the possibility of a Trump win in November.

    1. Europe is going to take a huge swing to the right in the elections coming up, especially for MEPs. The politicians aren’t quite as repugnant as Trump, or they hide it better, but they are unfortunately more competent and less demented. In the UK we are going the opposite way in reaction to economic and social decline over the past few years (only partly due to Tory mismanagement). However as the deterioration accelerates over the next five years, probably to the point of outright collapse in some areas away from the rich South East and major university cities, and in reaction to their losses, there will almost certainly be a move to the right in the opposition groups with the Reform party getting overtly fascist and the Tories showing their true colours (maybe Johnson returning but with no bounds on his and his advisors’ ambitions or illogical bonkersness).

  21. FAO Food Price Index up marginally in April, mostly driven by higher world meat prices…

    1. My grand parents grew up with horses and mules, but owned cars and trucks by the time they were in their late twenties. MY great grand parents never owned a motor vehicle.

      When the first Model T make it to town and back in a little less than three hours, it sparked a local revolution, given that it was twelve hours round trip with a team of horses or mules and a wagon. The car could have done it a lot quicker, but the road was so rough it was hard to find a place smooth enough and long enough to get over ten mph back then.

      Living on a farm, closer to nature than most people, finding ways to get by, to substitute, to do without, to reuse, etc, I like to think of myself as a realist, when it comes to the realities of adaptation.

      I haven’t had a truly FRESH strawberry for ten years…….. because nobody is growing them in my neighborhood anymore…….. but I get along ok with supermarket strawberries……. without a second thought.

      I don’t foresee any real problems with people getting used to driving cars that won’t go very fast or very far on a charge, once they have that choice, or walking. I didn’t have any real trouble learning to live in a dorm room, or an apartment in a city, after living where I could walk a mile in just about any direction without asking permission to do so.

      If there’s not enough lithium, cobalt and such available to make cars that go like gasoline models, we’ll get used to it, after a decade or so of bitching about it…. and drive cars with sodium or other battery chemistries…… assuming of course that we can still buy a car.

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