I’m starting to think some of you don’t understand The Trolley Problem; it’s not buying a new car from a cringe loser who’s gonna dig a tunnel for you to drive it in.
Not to worry, zoos and wildlife parks provide protein source. Harvest early while supplies last.
NAMIBIA KILLING ELEPHANTS, HIPPOS TO FEED PEOPLE AMID WORST DROUGHT IN A CENTURY
“Namibia’s government is planning to cull some 700 wild animals, including elephants and hippos, in an effort to provide meat to people facing hunger, as the country copes with a historic drought.”
This is one of Ron’s dreadful predictions, now coming to pass. I visited the zoo with my granddaughter, and it was obvious from descriptive captions that most of the animals would be extinct in the wild, very likely in the short lifetime I have remaining. So tragic.
The European Union has set a goal to ban internal combustion engines by 2035. However, how will they achieve this considering that electricity production in the EU hasn’t increased since 2008? I have compiled the electricity production data of EU countries in this chart. As you can see, production has not only stagnated since 2008 but is even in slight decline.
I think Oak Ridge is doing mostly research, this seems to be thought to be operational?
Thorium looks promising, but apparently there are some drawbacks too, I read up about it some years ago but I don´t remember the details.
I used to work in nukes, as a trades man, during shutdowns, way back when. In those days I believed in nuclear power, but later on I decided against it, on the basis of cost and safety considerations.
At the time, I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about the technology.
As best I remember, from talking to the professionals, meaning the engineers running the jobs, there were two major problems with thorium and pretty much any other nuclear tech, other than the usual enriched uranium type.
One problem was that the government wanted the uranium model because that was the source for bomb grade feed stock for the military.
The other one was that thorium is or at that time an extremely tough nut. It was considered damned near impossible to build a thorium reactor that would last and run reliably for any period of time due to problems with heat and corrosion.
I haven’t kept up with nuke technologies in recent times but it could be that it’s possible to build a reliable thorium reactor nowadays.
But wind and solar juice are so cheap and so fast to build that hardly anybody is willing to pay for new reactors, the Chinese being the only real exception.
Not the first thorium reactor. The Germans built a pebble bed thorium reactor in the 1980s at Hamm-Uentrop. They couldn’t get it to work though, so they shut it down after 6 years. It’s still there, eating money.
General Atomic in San Diego built two using mixed fuel Thorium and U233. Peach Bottom completed in about 1969. Ft. St. Vrain in 1974. I worked in the fuel fab when I graduated in 1971 (BSME) and worked loading fuel during the two weeks after Christmas 1973. Bot were fueled with U233 plus Thorium, graphite moderated, gas cooled with Helium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Not exactly a successful endeavor.
All the headlines about banning oil or coal are just propaganda. Political fluff to appease the masses who are delusional.
More coal should be the mantra because it’s the reality.
Yeh, we could pretend there is no greenhouse warming underway, kind of like pretending that you are not getting older.
I suggest that the pretend thinking is just as ‘tunnel view’ as those who like to pretend that we could very rapidly ratchet down fossil fuel consumption.
Makes common sense to look at the paired situation with clear eyes, if you can.
When the average person wakes up to the environmental crisis all around them, there might be a demand for solutions to the crisis, and attempts to institute the changes needed, better education in science would help and climate scientists speaking out more about the most likely scenarios and their impact if we do not make some serious changes.
Putting off the needed changes in society any longer is not a viable option, scientists need to communicate this fact clearly.
We need some scientists to work with communication professionals to get the message out, generally scientists are not great at communicating with the average person, they need to do better.
In the US coal has declined something like 2/3rds in the past 17 years, however most of that decline was enabled by abundant nat gas production and to a lesser degree non-fossil elect generation.
And lets not discount fact that we have off-shored a lot of industrial energy demand to China where they burn the coal for Europeans, Americans, and other purchasers of their products.
We are trying to onshore it or nearshore some of it to Mexico. 80% of Mexico electricity is generated from natural gas. Of which 90% comes across the US border via pipeline.
Mining silver in Mexico becomes expensive when natural gas prices are squeezed higher due to the demand for data centers and electric cars in the US.
Large quantities of silver are needed for energy transition. Just saying.
Mexico would be a failed state without the natural gas and diesel imports from the US.
I’m a big believer in the possibility of going renewable….. eventually, given certain assumptions about falling population, changing lifestyles, conservation, efficiency, etc.
But it’s quite obvious that we’re going to be using coal on the grand scale for quite some time to come to generate electricity, as well as gas, so long as the supply holds up. There’s very likely a time coming when we’ll need all the gas available for other purposes such as industrial feedstock to manufacture fertilizers, etc.
The fall back position will be to use more coal. There’s plenty of coal, and when the time comes, it’ll be full speed ahead, damn the torpedo’s, err climate.
In the meantime, using more coal in order to build out more renewable infrastructure won’t amount to a fart in a hurricane in terms of the overall environmental question or problem. The coal will be burnt IN ANY CASE, realistically speaking.
If we get far enough along with renewables, we will be able to save a significant portion of our current day industrial civilization, at least for some people in some places, and we will be in a better position to deal with the economic and ecological collapse headed our way.
Consider a simple problem….. oversimplified, of course, but adequate to get the point across. No imported gas is available to generate electricity…….. but there’s enough wind and solar power available, SOME of the time, to run the pumps and water treatment plant and keep the water and sewer system working, at least most of the time. If you have water and can flush the toilet, you can stay in town, if you have something to eat.
No water, no sewer, you pack up and leave….. on foot if necessary.
OFM
These discussions often amaze me when someone says, or implies, that the only viable future is to ignore the environmental consequences of fossil fuels because, well, we just can’t imagine a world different than we (well fed dwellers in wealthy countries) have come to expect. i appreciate your frequent reminder that the future is actually about how we are going to scale down.
JJHMAN
It is hard to imagine a world different from the one you’re used to. And if people don’t see any advantage in changing, they tend to actively resist change, coming up with all kinds of imaginative arguments.
Alimbiquated
Science has been constantly changing the world at least since Galileo. Before that it was likely changed more by constant redefining of land use. Hence, constant change pretty much for 10,000 years. What is different now is that the changes we are experiencing are world wide and the result of a world wide cultural choice based on high levels of energy use. Oh, and that technology turns out to be a terminating process.
People are having a difficult time seeing an advantage in changing for several reasons. I suspect we all know lots of those reasons but that doesn’t excuse the people in power who are discouraging understanding for personal, short term, gain.
I’ve been bitching about the mainstream media failing to give any consideration to the upside of declining birth rates and falling population for quite some time.
But it’s finally happening.
Good read. Sober short summary of the problem scenario.
When it comes to the 7 proposed solution attempts, most of them are dependent on enacting difficult proactive global policy changes. And so they won’t happen at effective scale, before crises.
Certainly worth the effort however.
Hickory, “When it comes to the 7 proposed solution attempts, most of them are dependent on enacting difficult proactive global policy changes. And so they won’t happen at effective scale, before crises.
Certainly worth the effort however.”
You beat me to it..
Also there are several aspects in there that are theoretically nice sounding, but in the real world will not work as imagined.
As an example, take a grain farmer using modern machines in the West, planning for the crop, knowing that he has a limited amount of fuel he can use this year 10% less than last year, but also knows last years fuel use was 40,000 litres, in a year when everything went to plan, planting, 2 fertilizer runs, 2 herbicide runs, then harvest. He had a good crop off 10,000 acres.
He knows the new rules limit him to 36,000 litres. He also knows that with farming we have this thing called ‘weather’ that often gets in the way. The first planting could fail due to lack of rain or too much rain and rotting in the ground, so ‘might’ have to do a second planting, which takes more fuel. May even have to do a herbicide run as well before this second planting of a latter crop.
Planting 9,000 acres is asking for trouble, as it gives no reserve fuel ‘in case’, so the farmer is likely to only plant 7,000-8,000 acres at best, and of course can sell off his ‘extra fuel entitlement’ if any left over.
Govt plans are for everyone to be more efficient, so still expects 10,000 acres to be planted in their planning models, whereas in reality the crop will be 20-30% lower in a good season. In a world wide scheme, this would be happening everywhere. Following year much worse again…
Then turn the attention to mines, that have a lowering fuel availability, but also have lower ore grades every year on average. The mine will close altogether with a lot of metals still in the ground after just a few years of fuel reductions, as the economics just wont work. The economics of whether to mine an ore body or not, are based on a continual operation of whatever size, set up. Intermittent running of the machinery doesn’t work, as it takes time to ramp up and down production through the processing plant.
A mine forced to buy extra fuel ‘entitlements’ before buying the extra fuel, will know that when ore grade gets to 0.XX%, profitability has gone, so close down the mine early.
Ability of any ‘new’ mine to start is highly unlikely, as they would have to buy all the entitlements before they can buy the fuel. It means the grade of ore would have to be particularly high to show a profit. On a world wide scale it means a lot of what are counted as reserves, fall out of that category, they are no longer economically viable.
Over a few years of such a scheme, not decades, we will be without most of the food and metals supply..
In other words everything about the modern civilization will collapse with such a scheme. Civilization as we enjoy it, has to have continued growth to be just maintained.
Even all the building of recycling plants for everything, will take new energy and new materials to build, in a world where building anything new is much more expensive because of the ‘energy entitlements’ that have to be bought to run anything new, in a world of falling energy availability..
Even if it was remotely possible to implement Richard’s plan, with a one world government, and no need for any militaries, the physics clearly shows that civilization rapidly unwinds, because of entropy and dissipation of all man materials….
Reducing population as quickly as is humanely possible, is the only path to reduce some future suffering.
“Reducing population as quickly as is humanely possible…”
I don’t see that happening in any kind of planned way. China 1 child policy is tough on growth, so many countries are clamoring for child bearing subsidies.
Heck, we can’t even get a global carbon tax.
In the US we don’t even have a high-level radiation waste repository after 70 years of accumulation…commercial and military.
Hickory, I agree, what needs to be done will not be done on a world wide scale. Therefore we continue to grow, despite the damage to the living environment, with pedal to the metal, telling ourselves (politicians, media “research” etc) that we can have it all by building more, being more inclusive etc…
Until we can’t keep growing, then collapse, with a small lag after growth stops (world wide), before the collapse happens.
Currently we are still increasing overall energy use, with the greatest increase over the last 20 years coming from fossil fuel increases. Oil is the master energy source that enables ALL other types of energy to be produced and deployed. Once the oil decline accelerates so does the ability to mine, make and deploy every other type of energy, which means a rapid decrease in production of coal, gas, food, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and every other type of energy.
Once oil production decline makes everything else too expensive, economics steps in to close down businesses and industries that can no longer make profits, with feedback loops of these various businesses/industries being unable to supply a range of ‘widgets’ necessary to keep machines of all kinds running……….. including oil rigs, refineries, electrical parts like transformers, or wire and cable, plus tractor parts, or inverter parts, or gas turbine parts…
The reality is we wont know which bits are likely to fail because the system of civilization, now relies upon a 6 continent supply chain for all the high end tech and possibly even median end tech, so will have failures that quickly exacerbate the overall decline.
I agree that
“Once oil production decline makes everything else too [more] expensive, economics steps in to close down businesses and industries that can no longer make profits..”
But on- “Once the oil decline accelerates so does the ability to mine, make and deploy every other type of energy, which means a rapid decrease in production of coal, gas, food, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and every other type of energy”
I see this in a very different light. When oil begins to decline those regions who can
1- afford it, and
2- have access to it
will begin to divert a higher and higher portion of the burn to the critical uses. I’d put food production, certain petrochemicals, and energy production enabling industries in that critical category, for example. Many places will have plenty of oil for critical industries for quite a long time.
But many regions will start to get pushed into the oil scarcity category, more so than has been the case on the way up.
We will know that the contraction phase is starting when global air miles traveled per year begins to decline. There is still a long term uptrend in air miles in place, despite covid and current price of fuel. “The year 2024 is expected to be a milestone for global passenger traffic recovery as it reaches 9.4 billion passengers, surpassing the year 2019 that welcomed 9.2 billion passengers (102.5% of the 2019 level).”
I point out that almost all air miles are an entirely optional luxury.
What other trackable indicators of the start of the global contraction phase are there?
For actual World consumption of jet fuel/kerosene we have this from Energy Institute.
Hickory…. “When oil begins to decline those regions who can
1- afford it, and
2- have access to it
will begin to divert a higher and higher portion of the burn to the critical uses. I’d put food production, certain petrochemicals, and energy production enabling industries in that critical category, for example. Many places will have plenty of oil for critical industries for quite a long time.”
I agree that will be tried, and is consensus type thinking..
However we live in a 6 continent supply chain world of immense complexity, so which country or region can be self sufficient as oil declines?? If your region or country cannot import the necessary parts to keep machinery going, that originated in areas now with oil and supply line constraints, how is this overcome?
The concept of we’ll just build the necessary factories, assumes your area can still get the machinery needed by those factories and the raw materials..
We have a whole world complex system of complex interrelationships for highly complex modern machinery. The complexity of everything is the problem, it wont be just an oil shortage in some places and not others. Oil allows the mining and delivery of the raw materials for every factory around the world, which make their own parts which go to many other factories, again spread around the world.
If your region or area still has access to some oil, and it’s just everywhere else suffering, how do you maintain machinery that has relied upon parts from around the world??
True that.
Who makes motors, generators, capacitors, transformers, pumps, compressors, photovoltaics, turbines, drones and such?
Aside from China.
How much oil, coal, natural gas, iron, aluminium, nickel, copper, lithium, platinum, palladium, cobalt, oil seeds, plastics, etc, etc, do China import?
How can they export any items if they can’t import the raw materials? How does their part of civilization stay together without the rest?
They do seem aware of this and it explains much of their behavior such as stockpiling copper and other materials, overbuilding industrial capacity, massive attempts to electrify transport, all sorts of electric generation capacity, establishing a big footprint in Africa and Latin America, and modern military capability.
These are the kind of measures that all countries would be actively engaged in if they were aware of the risks to the system of international trade and supplies of finite items.
China population has already peaked.
What of India?
One comment on this, WSJ source?
“Two principles have guided Xi’s thinking, Chinese policy advisers say. The first is that China must build an all-encompassing industrial supply chain that can keep the domestic economy running in the event of severe sanctions by the U.S. and other Western countries. In the top leader’s views, advisers say, industrial security sits at the core of China’s stability as tensions with the developed world rise.
The second is a deep-rooted philosophical objection to U.S.-style consumption, which Xi sees as wasteful.
China’s first fear is well founded in reality. US sanctions on chips and AI technology have forced China to go it alone. It’s a US mistake to think it can cut off China from leading technology.
Should the US succeed, China would and could cut the supply or rare earth minerals the US needs to make phones, missile guidance systems, EVs, wind turbines, and advanced chips.”
You are quite right about the need to reduce the population.
The problem is that you never, as best I can remember, have any useful suggestions as to how this population reduction problem can be solved, other than possibly a hand wave in the direction of better education, etc.
I’m not an engineer, lol, but I do understand the ABC’s of engineering, geology, and the hard sciences in general. I also understand that human beings, individually and collectively, aren’t easily compelled to change their ways.
In the real everyday world, as many people or more holding positions of great power are convinced we need more people, rather than less. This is perfectly understandable if you understand their beliefs……
More bodies, rather than fewer, mean more power, greater security, increased prosperity, etc, because this is the underlying basis of just about every theory of government and economy, capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist or whatever.
Just about every man, every Joe Sixpack and his wife’s Susie Sixpack, believes in this as gospel, if he or she thinks about such things at all.
So ……. to put it bluntly in redneck terms….. You’re basically ” pissing in the wind” ( no offense intended) because you don’t have ANY solution to offer.
So…….. It follows we’re up sort of up shit creek without a paddle, as the saying goes. ( I never could understand why the saying isn’t DOWN the creek, since you can travel downstream without a paddle, lol, but not upstream.)
But all is not necessarily lost. We’re going to downsize, no question whatsoever.
There ARE things we can do to soften the hard landing ahead of us. Anything that DELAYS the built in crash significantly will serve to enable more of us to survive and to preserve more of the better parts of industrial civilization.
Families are getting smaller, fast…… not because people are forced to have fewer children, but rather because they can’t afford lots of kids anymore and because they don’t WANT lots of kids anymore.
People are and will be changing their ways or lifestyles in order to use less, rather than more, of everything from a to z, not because they want to, but because they’re forced to, as a matter of necessity.
( Of course some people in some places are still fortunate enough to be consuming MORE rather than less…. for NOW. )
Today’s kids in the USA for instance are already living a post automotive lifestyle. They’re far more interested in spending the thousand bucks a month it costs to own a car on more expensive phones, more nights out, larger apartments, etc. Kids are mostly a hindrance to their preferred lifestyle, so they don’t have many, and they have them late.
Most of my neighbors used to drive full size pickup trucks, and a large car as well, so long as they could afford to do so. The ones who can still afford a new pickup have one, but hardly anybody among my local acquaintances has a new or nearly new full size car as well. They’ve been buying compact cars, and driving them most of the time, so that the truck will outlast their need ( or desire) for it. The people driving old full size cars are driving them because owning and driving them costs a hell of a lot less than owning and driving a new econocar, considering depreciation, taxes, and finance expenses, even though such old cars need frequent repairs and burn twice as much gasoline.
The busiest store in the nearest town is the Good Will. It’s all new, three times as big as the old store, and it’s hard to find a parking spot most of the time. Most of the customers can easily afford new clothing…….. but they’re there to save a few bucks.
I’ve always been able, speaking as a hayseed country bumpkin, to use just about any amount of fresh water, considering that I get it either free from an uphill spring, or from a well on my property, so that a thousand gallons costs me less than twenty cents or to run the pump.
When I lived in town, I paid attention. The water and sewer bill where I used to live is over a hundred bucks a month now.
My point is that most of us are already or will be cutting back on our consumption in the fairly near future, as a matter of necessity rather than choice.
If we can DELAY the coming crisis, which could hit is Seneca Cliff fashion, a few years, or a few decades, by staying pedal to the metal on renewables, recycling, efficiency, etc, we can thereby get by ok for quite a few more years as we wait for the population to peak and decline.
And if the cards don’t fall this way…….. well, all the fossil fuel you worry about being wasted on renewables, etc, is going to be burnt ANYWAY….
“In the real everyday world, as many people or more holding positions of great power are convinced we need more people, rather than less. This is perfectly understandable if you understand their beliefs”
Mac, I have come to the conclusion many of those with “great power” view people more as animals or livestock and not humans to increase their wealth and power. Not much different than owning slaves in the past.
Very well concisely written piece. It is not easy to keep it that short, for a subject that begs to be elaborated on.
Making predictions are difficult, especially about the future. And it could also end up being controversial very quickly if making a scenario.
Not sure if I had posted this previously, but if I didn’t he you go-
An excellent book on ecology/biology focused on nutrient flows and the web of life.
Very readable and interesting.
‘Eat, Poop, Die’ Joe Roman.
To OFM’s prior post about electric vehicle cost, there is a big Asian electric vehicle company with a different approach to the issue of battery cost-
70% of NIO Buyers Now Renting the Battery-
“NIO has been running this battery swapping experiment for several years, and it’s been an interesting ongoing exploration of how much people prefer pack swapping to fast charging, how attached people are (or are not) to their EV’s batteries, and what makes the most financial sense. But it’s now going into even more directions, and customers like it.”
“NIO had already been offering a “battery as a service” (BaaS) option whereby people could buy a NIO car but just rent/lease the battery in the car. That could drop the upfront price of a NIO by up to about $10,000. However, starting March 14, the company started offering a modification to that — if the NIO owner decided at some point that they wanted to own their battery pack, they could buy it out from NIO and the amount they had paid in renting the battery (or batteries, to be accurate for most of their cases) would go toward their purchase.”
Some of you may think global warming is something to worry about in future! (FROM RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL AUG. 27, 2024 – The New York Times)
Wildfires are laying waste to Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the most important biodiversity sanctuaries on the planet. And the blazes, the worst on record since Brazil started tracking fires in 1998, are taking a deadly toll on wild animals, including at-risk species that scientists have been working for decades to protect.
“We’re watching the biodiversity of the Pantanal disappear into ash,” said Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist working for SOS Pantanal, a conservation nonprofit. “It’s being burned to a crisp.”
Over the past few weeks there have been some comments on ow refineries could be reconfigured to process lighter crude oil type. Many of the conventional refineries in the US and Europe were designed around medium and heavy crude oil with API ranging from about 28-35.
As I previously discussed the heavy distillate is an important indirect component of gasoline, being utilised as feedstock for the FCC (fluid catalytic cracker) and the alkylation unit. LTO is biased towards light and middle distillate, whereas medium and heavy crude will contain more heavy distillate. To understand the composition of crude oil you must explore the assay of a crude. Some oil companies post crude assays on their websites.
I tried to shrink an assay for 43 API Bakken crude but lost fidelity. So I will try and describe it here but you can download the full assay form the Equinor link and see the abbreviated assay in the attached image. I have depicted the main products by boiling range and you will see that the atmospheric residue is about 22.8 vol%. Typically this value is between 30 and 50% vol% for medium and heavy crude oils. This means the Crude distillation unit has a lower than typical bottom flow, whilst the naphtha fraction is over 45 vol %(inc C4 minus). The diesel fraction is about 18.8 vol% and total jet and diesel about 30 vol%. There are 4 naphtha fractions. The octane numbers for each fraction are given( Research and Motor octane). The paraffins, naphthenes and aromatic are indicative of the composition of the stream. As you an see the heavy naphtha has the worst octane numbers.
The octane numbers of medium and heavy naphtha can be boosted to high 90’s RON in a catalytic reformer, which converts naphthenes to aromatics – toluene , xylene and C9 aromatics. the catalytic reformer will also isomerise the paraffins. However there are limits on the amount of aromatics permitted in gasoline. Light naphtha can be isomerised to increase branching on the C5- C7 species which improves the octane number.
Reconfiguring a classic 30-35 API refinery to run the Bakken crude at 100% would be a fool’s game. Essentially you would need to start again and without an reasonable size FCC and alkylation unit it would be challenging to meet the gasoline spec. 17 vol% VGO would not produce a very big stream of gasoline.
It all comes down to cost of the reconfigurations. No company is willing to invest in refineries if there is no long term prospect as the investment cost could require a payout of 20 years. Recent new build refineries are anything between $15-20 billion for a 400 kb/d refinery. Converting an existing refinery would be very challenging based upon LTO. This is why the US can only absorb a fraction of the LTO output and the exports go to a large number of destinations that can blend in the LTO to the current feedslate.
As ever, this is a very brief outline of the issues and there are many other issues that I do not have time to explain.
The bottom line is that there is no reasonable way of increasing LTO consumption in the existing US refining fleet.
Below is a link to the EIA crude oil production by API. You will note that the 40-45 API range is the most produce grade. and that <35 API grade is the 4th largest grade.
All good info.
“It all comes down to cost of the reconfigurations. No company is willing to invest in refineries if there is no long term prospect as the investment cost could require a payout of 20 years. Recent new build refineries are anything between $15-20 billion for a 400 kb/d refinery. Converting an existing refinery would be very challenging”
The plan if there were a ban on US crude exports is not to reconfigure refineries, it is to reduce tight oil output to a level that is similar to existing US refinery capacity that is designed for lighter grades of oil. Currently about 4500 to 4700 kb/d of such capacity in the US.
Of greater interest is the ability to reconfigure refineries to reduce the fraction of gasoline with the input of heavy grades of crude that comprise much of the World supply. I would think that some of the heavy residue that is cracked to produce gasoline might be cracked into diesel or jet fuel, but I am not a chemical engineer so that may not be possible.
.” I would think that some of the heavy residue that is cracked to produce gasoline might be cracked into diesel or jet fuel, but I am not a chemical engineer so that may not be possible.”
Couldn’t fluid catalytic cracking units be replaced with hydrocracking units in order to produce more diesel and jet fuel from medium and heavy grades of crude in a World where gasoline demand starts to fall? Seems this would be possible in principle.
Seems that this would be preferred to shutting a refinery down altogether.
There’s no REAL reason we can’t switch to diesel engines, if we need to, in future years, if that’s what we will need to do in order to have enough liquid fuel, meaning more diesel and less gasoline per barrel of crude.
The pollution argument is far more about politics than day to day physical reality. Diesels can be made to run CLEAN ENOUGH, considering all the relevant variables in the real world.
“There’s no REAL reason we can’t switch to diesel engines”
Mac, I think you misunderstood and got it backwards. EV’s today mostly replace gasoline and not diesel. Which would mean a shortage of diesel and surplus of gasoline in the future.
I believe there is no reason gasoline engines can’t do most all diesel engine work. The gasoline engines just needs to be built to the same quality of todays diesel. Example, todays gasoline 400hp engines weigh about 600 pounds designed for an average output of about 20hp(passenger cars and pickups) and for a few seconds or maybe minutes of output of 400hp. Todays 400hp diesels weigh(HD trucks) about 3000 pounds and much more expensive and better quality parts that can run at 400hp all day long. The differance in work ability is more about the engine design than the fuel.
“Couldn’t fluid catalytic cracking units be replaced with hydrocracking”
Dennis, 15 to 20 years ago that is almost exactly what some of the independent refiners did expecting heavy crude from Canada and Venezuela to meet supply. They spent billions of dollars to do so. Only to have the shale boom happen and flood the market with light.
A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2153
Climate change and the threat to global breadbaskets
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-threat-global-breadbaskets.amp
Climate change threatens future of farming in Europe
https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/climate-change-threatens-future-of
Emergent constraint on crop yield response to warmer temperature from field experiments
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0569-7
The climate wrecking ball striking food supply
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/07/climate-commodities-food-supply
Newly Identified Jet-Stream Pattern Could Imperil Global Food Supplies
https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/eye-of-the-storm/newly-identified-jet-stream-pattern-could-imperil-global-food-supplies/
What if several of the world’s biggest food crops failed at the same time?
https://theconversation.com/what-if-several-of-the-worlds-biggest-food-crops-failed-at-the-same-time-74017
I’m starting to think some of you don’t understand The Trolley Problem; it’s not buying a new car from a cringe loser who’s gonna dig a tunnel for you to drive it in.
Survivalist —
Not to worry, zoos and wildlife parks provide protein source. Harvest early while supplies last.
NAMIBIA KILLING ELEPHANTS, HIPPOS TO FEED PEOPLE AMID WORST DROUGHT IN A CENTURY
“Namibia’s government is planning to cull some 700 wild animals, including elephants and hippos, in an effort to provide meat to people facing hunger, as the country copes with a historic drought.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/namibia-drought-elephants-hippos-meat-1.7307523
This is one of Ron’s dreadful predictions, now coming to pass. I visited the zoo with my granddaughter, and it was obvious from descriptive captions that most of the animals would be extinct in the wild, very likely in the short lifetime I have remaining. So tragic.
This is horrifying.
Thanks S. Sobering. It’s a similar question to peak oil – how much change and how fast?
Tim Dunn & Farris Wilks, West Texas oil billionaires up to no good.
https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1828365395650134207
Not sure how they accumulated their wealth – old oil or fracking, someone implied oil service?
The European Union has set a goal to ban internal combustion engines by 2035. However, how will they achieve this considering that electricity production in the EU hasn’t increased since 2008? I have compiled the electricity production data of EU countries in this chart. As you can see, production has not only stagnated since 2008 but is even in slight decline.
https://peakoilchart.com/electricity/generation?tab=chart&excluded=1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.15.16.17.18.19.20.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.55.56.59.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.68.70.71.72.73.74.77.78.79.80.81.82.84.85.87.88.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96.97.98.99.100.102.103.104.105.106.108.109.111.112.113.114.115.116.117.118.119.120.121.122.124.125.126.127.128.131.132.133.134.135.136.138.139.140.141.142.143.144.145.146.147.148.149.150.151.152.153.154.155.157.158.159.160.161.162.163.164.165.167.168.169.170.171.172.173.174.175.176.179.180.182.183.184.185.186.187.188.189.190.191.192.193.194.195.196.197.198.199.200.201.204.205.206.207.208.210.211.212.213.216.217.218.219.220.221.222.223.224.225.226.227.228.229.230.231.232.233.235.236.237.238.239.240.241.242.243.244.245.246.247.248.249
While solar and wind energy production has increased tremendously, the question remains: will it be enough to support the transition?
https://peakoilchart.com/electricity/solar/generation?tab=chart&excluded=1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.15.16.17.18.19.20.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.55.56.59.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.68.70.71.72.73.74.77.78.79.80.81.82.84.85.87.88.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96.97.98.99.100.102.103.104.105.106.108.109.111.112.113.114.115.116.117.118.119.120.121.122.124.125.126.127.128.131.132.133.134.135.136.138.139.140.141.142.143.144.145.146.147.148.149.150.151.152.153.154.155.157.158.159.160.161.162.163.164.165.167.168.169.170.171.172.173.174.175.176.179.180.182.183.184.185.186.187.188.189.190.191.192.193.194.195.196.197.198.199.200.201.204.205.206.207.208.210.211.212.213.216.217.218.219.220.221.222.223.224.225.226.227.228.229.230.231.232.233.235.236.237.238.239.240.241.242.243.244.245.246.247.248.249
https://peakoilchart.com/electricity/wind/generation?tab=chart&excluded=1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.15.16.17.18.19.20.22.23.24.25.26.27.28.29.30.31.32.33.35.36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50.51.52.53.55.56.59.61.62.63.64.65.66.67.68.70.71.72.73.74.77.78.79.80.81.82.84.85.87.88.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96.97.98.99.100.102.103.104.105.106.108.109.111.112.113.114.115.116.117.118.119.120.121.122.124.125.126.127.128.131.132.133.134.135.136.138.139.140.141.142.143.144.145.146.147.148.149.150.151.152.153.154.155.157.158.159.160.161.162.163.164.165.167.168.169.170.171.172.173.174.175.176.179.180.182.183.184.185.186.187.188.189.190.191.192.193.194.195.196.197.198.199.200.201.204.205.206.207.208.210.211.212.213.216.217.218.219.220.221.222.223.224.225.226.227.228.229.230.231.232.233.235.236.237.238.239.240.241.242.243.244.245.246.247.248.249
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/china-world-first-molten-salt
China set to launch world’s first thorium reactor.
I believe Oak Ridge (ORNL) launched one previously..so I don’t think it is the first.
I think Oak Ridge is doing mostly research, this seems to be thought to be operational?
Thorium looks promising, but apparently there are some drawbacks too, I read up about it some years ago but I don´t remember the details.
I believe ORNL had a functioning reactor.
They abandoned it, as NUCLEAR BOMBS on the uranium fuel cycle were deemed more important at the time.
I have always been baffled why people don’t want Thorium.
It is abundant everywhere and in COAL.
You could literally build a coal to liquids thorium based facility that took care of your energy needs.
Yes Climate Change ………….
Maybe a talented NUKE person could explain.
I used to work in nukes, as a trades man, during shutdowns, way back when. In those days I believed in nuclear power, but later on I decided against it, on the basis of cost and safety considerations.
At the time, I spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about the technology.
As best I remember, from talking to the professionals, meaning the engineers running the jobs, there were two major problems with thorium and pretty much any other nuclear tech, other than the usual enriched uranium type.
One problem was that the government wanted the uranium model because that was the source for bomb grade feed stock for the military.
The other one was that thorium is or at that time an extremely tough nut. It was considered damned near impossible to build a thorium reactor that would last and run reliably for any period of time due to problems with heat and corrosion.
I haven’t kept up with nuke technologies in recent times but it could be that it’s possible to build a reliable thorium reactor nowadays.
But wind and solar juice are so cheap and so fast to build that hardly anybody is willing to pay for new reactors, the Chinese being the only real exception.
Not the first thorium reactor. The Germans built a pebble bed thorium reactor in the 1980s at Hamm-Uentrop. They couldn’t get it to work though, so they shut it down after 6 years. It’s still there, eating money.
General Atomic in San Diego built two using mixed fuel Thorium and U233. Peach Bottom completed in about 1969. Ft. St. Vrain in 1974. I worked in the fuel fab when I graduated in 1971 (BSME) and worked loading fuel during the two weeks after Christmas 1973. Bot were fueled with U233 plus Thorium, graphite moderated, gas cooled with Helium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Not exactly a successful endeavor.
All the headlines about banning oil or coal are just propaganda. Political fluff to appease the masses who are delusional.
More coal should be the mantra because it’s the reality.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Why-Coal-is-Still-a-Cornerstone-of-the-Global-Energy-Mix.html
Fossil fuels can’t run the system without them.
Yeh, we could pretend there is no greenhouse warming underway, kind of like pretending that you are not getting older.
I suggest that the pretend thinking is just as ‘tunnel view’ as those who like to pretend that we could very rapidly ratchet down fossil fuel consumption.
Makes common sense to look at the paired situation with clear eyes, if you can.
Hickory,
When the average person wakes up to the environmental crisis all around them, there might be a demand for solutions to the crisis, and attempts to institute the changes needed, better education in science would help and climate scientists speaking out more about the most likely scenarios and their impact if we do not make some serious changes.
Putting off the needed changes in society any longer is not a viable option, scientists need to communicate this fact clearly.
The average person will wake up when the taps are dry, the grocery stores empty and NYC, London and Hong Kong are under water.
Dennis,
Scientists have the same platform as people who think the earth is flat. Maybe we deserve to go extinct ?
Iron Mike,
We need some scientists to work with communication professionals to get the message out, generally scientists are not great at communicating with the average person, they need to do better.
JT, global coal peaked in 2019. See below for an example of what’s possible…
The UK imports more than twice the amount of coal it produces. The UK without imports has less than two years of coal reserves.
The UK is an example of what is possible when you run out of domestic coal.
OK, my comment about peak coal in 2019 was totally wrong.
In the US coal has declined something like 2/3rds in the past 17 years, however most of that decline was enabled by abundant nat gas production and to a lesser degree non-fossil elect generation.
And lets not discount fact that we have off-shored a lot of industrial energy demand to China where they burn the coal for Europeans, Americans, and other purchasers of their products.
We are trying to onshore it or nearshore some of it to Mexico. 80% of Mexico electricity is generated from natural gas. Of which 90% comes across the US border via pipeline.
Mining silver in Mexico becomes expensive when natural gas prices are squeezed higher due to the demand for data centers and electric cars in the US.
Large quantities of silver are needed for energy transition. Just saying.
Mexico would be a failed state without the natural gas and diesel imports from the US.
JT said: Fossil fuels can’t run the system
So true 🙂
Try reading what JT said before making comments to avoid appearing to be a chump. Same with your peak coal missive.
Cooment by all means but engage your brain first.
And avoid ad hominem arguments. They just advertise the fact that you don’t have anything better to say.
Carnot, it was a joke.
I’m a big believer in the possibility of going renewable….. eventually, given certain assumptions about falling population, changing lifestyles, conservation, efficiency, etc.
But it’s quite obvious that we’re going to be using coal on the grand scale for quite some time to come to generate electricity, as well as gas, so long as the supply holds up. There’s very likely a time coming when we’ll need all the gas available for other purposes such as industrial feedstock to manufacture fertilizers, etc.
The fall back position will be to use more coal. There’s plenty of coal, and when the time comes, it’ll be full speed ahead, damn the torpedo’s, err climate.
In the meantime, using more coal in order to build out more renewable infrastructure won’t amount to a fart in a hurricane in terms of the overall environmental question or problem. The coal will be burnt IN ANY CASE, realistically speaking.
If we get far enough along with renewables, we will be able to save a significant portion of our current day industrial civilization, at least for some people in some places, and we will be in a better position to deal with the economic and ecological collapse headed our way.
Consider a simple problem….. oversimplified, of course, but adequate to get the point across. No imported gas is available to generate electricity…….. but there’s enough wind and solar power available, SOME of the time, to run the pumps and water treatment plant and keep the water and sewer system working, at least most of the time. If you have water and can flush the toilet, you can stay in town, if you have something to eat.
No water, no sewer, you pack up and leave….. on foot if necessary.
OFM
These discussions often amaze me when someone says, or implies, that the only viable future is to ignore the environmental consequences of fossil fuels because, well, we just can’t imagine a world different than we (well fed dwellers in wealthy countries) have come to expect. i appreciate your frequent reminder that the future is actually about how we are going to scale down.
JJHMAN
It is hard to imagine a world different from the one you’re used to. And if people don’t see any advantage in changing, they tend to actively resist change, coming up with all kinds of imaginative arguments.
Alimbiquated
Science has been constantly changing the world at least since Galileo. Before that it was likely changed more by constant redefining of land use. Hence, constant change pretty much for 10,000 years. What is different now is that the changes we are experiencing are world wide and the result of a world wide cultural choice based on high levels of energy use. Oh, and that technology turns out to be a terminating process.
People are having a difficult time seeing an advantage in changing for several reasons. I suspect we all know lots of those reasons but that doesn’t excuse the people in power who are discouraging understanding for personal, short term, gain.
https://fortune.com/2024/08/29/world-population-decline-news-environment-economy/
I’ve been bitching about the mainstream media failing to give any consideration to the upside of declining birth rates and falling population for quite some time.
But it’s finally happening.
Interesting piece
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-08-22/what-would-a-real-renewable-energy-transition-look-like/
Good read. Sober short summary of the problem scenario.
When it comes to the 7 proposed solution attempts, most of them are dependent on enacting difficult proactive global policy changes. And so they won’t happen at effective scale, before crises.
Certainly worth the effort however.
Heinberg has high level expertise on all of this.
https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/richard-heinberg/
Hickory, “When it comes to the 7 proposed solution attempts, most of them are dependent on enacting difficult proactive global policy changes. And so they won’t happen at effective scale, before crises.
Certainly worth the effort however.”
You beat me to it..
Also there are several aspects in there that are theoretically nice sounding, but in the real world will not work as imagined.
As an example, take a grain farmer using modern machines in the West, planning for the crop, knowing that he has a limited amount of fuel he can use this year 10% less than last year, but also knows last years fuel use was 40,000 litres, in a year when everything went to plan, planting, 2 fertilizer runs, 2 herbicide runs, then harvest. He had a good crop off 10,000 acres.
He knows the new rules limit him to 36,000 litres. He also knows that with farming we have this thing called ‘weather’ that often gets in the way. The first planting could fail due to lack of rain or too much rain and rotting in the ground, so ‘might’ have to do a second planting, which takes more fuel. May even have to do a herbicide run as well before this second planting of a latter crop.
Planting 9,000 acres is asking for trouble, as it gives no reserve fuel ‘in case’, so the farmer is likely to only plant 7,000-8,000 acres at best, and of course can sell off his ‘extra fuel entitlement’ if any left over.
Govt plans are for everyone to be more efficient, so still expects 10,000 acres to be planted in their planning models, whereas in reality the crop will be 20-30% lower in a good season. In a world wide scheme, this would be happening everywhere. Following year much worse again…
Then turn the attention to mines, that have a lowering fuel availability, but also have lower ore grades every year on average. The mine will close altogether with a lot of metals still in the ground after just a few years of fuel reductions, as the economics just wont work. The economics of whether to mine an ore body or not, are based on a continual operation of whatever size, set up. Intermittent running of the machinery doesn’t work, as it takes time to ramp up and down production through the processing plant.
A mine forced to buy extra fuel ‘entitlements’ before buying the extra fuel, will know that when ore grade gets to 0.XX%, profitability has gone, so close down the mine early.
Ability of any ‘new’ mine to start is highly unlikely, as they would have to buy all the entitlements before they can buy the fuel. It means the grade of ore would have to be particularly high to show a profit. On a world wide scale it means a lot of what are counted as reserves, fall out of that category, they are no longer economically viable.
Over a few years of such a scheme, not decades, we will be without most of the food and metals supply..
In other words everything about the modern civilization will collapse with such a scheme. Civilization as we enjoy it, has to have continued growth to be just maintained.
Even all the building of recycling plants for everything, will take new energy and new materials to build, in a world where building anything new is much more expensive because of the ‘energy entitlements’ that have to be bought to run anything new, in a world of falling energy availability..
Even if it was remotely possible to implement Richard’s plan, with a one world government, and no need for any militaries, the physics clearly shows that civilization rapidly unwinds, because of entropy and dissipation of all man materials….
Reducing population as quickly as is humanely possible, is the only path to reduce some future suffering.
“Reducing population as quickly as is humanely possible…”
I don’t see that happening in any kind of planned way. China 1 child policy is tough on growth, so many countries are clamoring for child bearing subsidies.
Heck, we can’t even get a global carbon tax.
In the US we don’t even have a high-level radiation waste repository after 70 years of accumulation…commercial and military.
Hickory, I agree, what needs to be done will not be done on a world wide scale. Therefore we continue to grow, despite the damage to the living environment, with pedal to the metal, telling ourselves (politicians, media “research” etc) that we can have it all by building more, being more inclusive etc…
Until we can’t keep growing, then collapse, with a small lag after growth stops (world wide), before the collapse happens.
Currently we are still increasing overall energy use, with the greatest increase over the last 20 years coming from fossil fuel increases. Oil is the master energy source that enables ALL other types of energy to be produced and deployed. Once the oil decline accelerates so does the ability to mine, make and deploy every other type of energy, which means a rapid decrease in production of coal, gas, food, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and every other type of energy.
Once oil production decline makes everything else too expensive, economics steps in to close down businesses and industries that can no longer make profits, with feedback loops of these various businesses/industries being unable to supply a range of ‘widgets’ necessary to keep machines of all kinds running……….. including oil rigs, refineries, electrical parts like transformers, or wire and cable, plus tractor parts, or inverter parts, or gas turbine parts…
The reality is we wont know which bits are likely to fail because the system of civilization, now relies upon a 6 continent supply chain for all the high end tech and possibly even median end tech, so will have failures that quickly exacerbate the overall decline.
I agree that
“Once oil production decline makes everything else too [more] expensive, economics steps in to close down businesses and industries that can no longer make profits..”
But on- “Once the oil decline accelerates so does the ability to mine, make and deploy every other type of energy, which means a rapid decrease in production of coal, gas, food, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and every other type of energy”
I see this in a very different light. When oil begins to decline those regions who can
1- afford it, and
2- have access to it
will begin to divert a higher and higher portion of the burn to the critical uses. I’d put food production, certain petrochemicals, and energy production enabling industries in that critical category, for example. Many places will have plenty of oil for critical industries for quite a long time.
But many regions will start to get pushed into the oil scarcity category, more so than has been the case on the way up.
We will know that the contraction phase is starting when global air miles traveled per year begins to decline. There is still a long term uptrend in air miles in place, despite covid and current price of fuel. “The year 2024 is expected to be a milestone for global passenger traffic recovery as it reaches 9.4 billion passengers, surpassing the year 2019 that welcomed 9.2 billion passengers (102.5% of the 2019 level).”
I point out that almost all air miles are an entirely optional luxury.
What other trackable indicators of the start of the global contraction phase are there?
For actual World consumption of jet fuel/kerosene we have this from Energy Institute.
Hickory…. “When oil begins to decline those regions who can
1- afford it, and
2- have access to it
will begin to divert a higher and higher portion of the burn to the critical uses. I’d put food production, certain petrochemicals, and energy production enabling industries in that critical category, for example. Many places will have plenty of oil for critical industries for quite a long time.”
I agree that will be tried, and is consensus type thinking..
However we live in a 6 continent supply chain world of immense complexity, so which country or region can be self sufficient as oil declines?? If your region or country cannot import the necessary parts to keep machinery going, that originated in areas now with oil and supply line constraints, how is this overcome?
The concept of we’ll just build the necessary factories, assumes your area can still get the machinery needed by those factories and the raw materials..
We have a whole world complex system of complex interrelationships for highly complex modern machinery. The complexity of everything is the problem, it wont be just an oil shortage in some places and not others. Oil allows the mining and delivery of the raw materials for every factory around the world, which make their own parts which go to many other factories, again spread around the world.
If your region or area still has access to some oil, and it’s just everywhere else suffering, how do you maintain machinery that has relied upon parts from around the world??
True that.
Who makes motors, generators, capacitors, transformers, pumps, compressors, photovoltaics, turbines, drones and such?
Aside from China.
How much oil, coal, natural gas, iron, aluminium, nickel, copper, lithium, platinum, palladium, cobalt, oil seeds, plastics, etc, etc, do China import?
How can they export any items if they can’t import the raw materials? How does their part of civilization stay together without the rest?
They do seem aware of this and it explains much of their behavior such as stockpiling copper and other materials, overbuilding industrial capacity, massive attempts to electrify transport, all sorts of electric generation capacity, establishing a big footprint in Africa and Latin America, and modern military capability.
These are the kind of measures that all countries would be actively engaged in if they were aware of the risks to the system of international trade and supplies of finite items.
China population has already peaked.
What of India?
One comment on this, WSJ source?
“Two principles have guided Xi’s thinking, Chinese policy advisers say. The first is that China must build an all-encompassing industrial supply chain that can keep the domestic economy running in the event of severe sanctions by the U.S. and other Western countries. In the top leader’s views, advisers say, industrial security sits at the core of China’s stability as tensions with the developed world rise.
The second is a deep-rooted philosophical objection to U.S.-style consumption, which Xi sees as wasteful.
China’s first fear is well founded in reality. US sanctions on chips and AI technology have forced China to go it alone. It’s a US mistake to think it can cut off China from leading technology.
Should the US succeed, China would and could cut the supply or rare earth minerals the US needs to make phones, missile guidance systems, EVs, wind turbines, and advanced chips.”
More important commentary on this subject here-
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-High-Cost-of-Cheap-Chinese-Imports.html
Or just stop subsidizing fossil fuel consumption and destructive farming methods.
The population looks like it’s going to fall anyway. Paying women to have more babies doesn’t seem to work at all.
However if someone comes up with an immortality pill the population might zoom upwards for a while at least.
So Hideaway,
You are quite right about the need to reduce the population.
The problem is that you never, as best I can remember, have any useful suggestions as to how this population reduction problem can be solved, other than possibly a hand wave in the direction of better education, etc.
I’m not an engineer, lol, but I do understand the ABC’s of engineering, geology, and the hard sciences in general. I also understand that human beings, individually and collectively, aren’t easily compelled to change their ways.
In the real everyday world, as many people or more holding positions of great power are convinced we need more people, rather than less. This is perfectly understandable if you understand their beliefs……
More bodies, rather than fewer, mean more power, greater security, increased prosperity, etc, because this is the underlying basis of just about every theory of government and economy, capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist or whatever.
Just about every man, every Joe Sixpack and his wife’s Susie Sixpack, believes in this as gospel, if he or she thinks about such things at all.
So ……. to put it bluntly in redneck terms….. You’re basically ” pissing in the wind” ( no offense intended) because you don’t have ANY solution to offer.
So…….. It follows we’re up sort of up shit creek without a paddle, as the saying goes. ( I never could understand why the saying isn’t DOWN the creek, since you can travel downstream without a paddle, lol, but not upstream.)
But all is not necessarily lost. We’re going to downsize, no question whatsoever.
There ARE things we can do to soften the hard landing ahead of us. Anything that DELAYS the built in crash significantly will serve to enable more of us to survive and to preserve more of the better parts of industrial civilization.
Families are getting smaller, fast…… not because people are forced to have fewer children, but rather because they can’t afford lots of kids anymore and because they don’t WANT lots of kids anymore.
People are and will be changing their ways or lifestyles in order to use less, rather than more, of everything from a to z, not because they want to, but because they’re forced to, as a matter of necessity.
( Of course some people in some places are still fortunate enough to be consuming MORE rather than less…. for NOW. )
Today’s kids in the USA for instance are already living a post automotive lifestyle. They’re far more interested in spending the thousand bucks a month it costs to own a car on more expensive phones, more nights out, larger apartments, etc. Kids are mostly a hindrance to their preferred lifestyle, so they don’t have many, and they have them late.
Most of my neighbors used to drive full size pickup trucks, and a large car as well, so long as they could afford to do so. The ones who can still afford a new pickup have one, but hardly anybody among my local acquaintances has a new or nearly new full size car as well. They’ve been buying compact cars, and driving them most of the time, so that the truck will outlast their need ( or desire) for it. The people driving old full size cars are driving them because owning and driving them costs a hell of a lot less than owning and driving a new econocar, considering depreciation, taxes, and finance expenses, even though such old cars need frequent repairs and burn twice as much gasoline.
The busiest store in the nearest town is the Good Will. It’s all new, three times as big as the old store, and it’s hard to find a parking spot most of the time. Most of the customers can easily afford new clothing…….. but they’re there to save a few bucks.
I’ve always been able, speaking as a hayseed country bumpkin, to use just about any amount of fresh water, considering that I get it either free from an uphill spring, or from a well on my property, so that a thousand gallons costs me less than twenty cents or to run the pump.
When I lived in town, I paid attention. The water and sewer bill where I used to live is over a hundred bucks a month now.
My point is that most of us are already or will be cutting back on our consumption in the fairly near future, as a matter of necessity rather than choice.
If we can DELAY the coming crisis, which could hit is Seneca Cliff fashion, a few years, or a few decades, by staying pedal to the metal on renewables, recycling, efficiency, etc, we can thereby get by ok for quite a few more years as we wait for the population to peak and decline.
And if the cards don’t fall this way…….. well, all the fossil fuel you worry about being wasted on renewables, etc, is going to be burnt ANYWAY….
“In the real everyday world, as many people or more holding positions of great power are convinced we need more people, rather than less. This is perfectly understandable if you understand their beliefs”
Mac, I have come to the conclusion many of those with “great power” view people more as animals or livestock and not humans to increase their wealth and power. Not much different than owning slaves in the past.
“Board Blocks Attempt to Divert Money From Teacher Pay to Buy Doon Buggies for Rich Kids”
The Rich Kids are probably not the brightest porch lights on the block, but still, this is too Republican for most—
Agree,
Very well concisely written piece. It is not easy to keep it that short, for a subject that begs to be elaborated on.
Making predictions are difficult, especially about the future. And it could also end up being controversial very quickly if making a scenario.
A report on the solar boom in Pakistan, and how it causes (financial) problems for the power plants.
https://www.voanews.com/a/growth-of-rooftop-solar-power-generation-threatens-grid-in-pakistan/7752899.html
“Donald Trump is not exactly Nostradamus”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/26/trump-predictions-kamala-harris-biden/
Bad Fiction, at best
Not sure if I had posted this previously, but if I didn’t he you go-
An excellent book on ecology/biology focused on nutrient flows and the web of life.
Very readable and interesting.
‘Eat, Poop, Die’ Joe Roman.
To OFM’s prior post about electric vehicle cost, there is a big Asian electric vehicle company with a different approach to the issue of battery cost-
70% of NIO Buyers Now Renting the Battery-
“NIO has been running this battery swapping experiment for several years, and it’s been an interesting ongoing exploration of how much people prefer pack swapping to fast charging, how attached people are (or are not) to their EV’s batteries, and what makes the most financial sense. But it’s now going into even more directions, and customers like it.”
https://www.nio.com/es7?&noredirect=
“NIO had already been offering a “battery as a service” (BaaS) option whereby people could buy a NIO car but just rent/lease the battery in the car. That could drop the upfront price of a NIO by up to about $10,000. However, starting March 14, the company started offering a modification to that — if the NIO owner decided at some point that they wanted to own their battery pack, they could buy it out from NIO and the amount they had paid in renting the battery (or batteries, to be accurate for most of their cases) would go toward their purchase.”
Some of you may think global warming is something to worry about in future! (FROM RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL AUG. 27, 2024 – The New York Times)
Wildfires are laying waste to Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland and one of the most important biodiversity sanctuaries on the planet. And the blazes, the worst on record since Brazil started tracking fires in 1998, are taking a deadly toll on wild animals, including at-risk species that scientists have been working for decades to protect.
“We’re watching the biodiversity of the Pantanal disappear into ash,” said Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist working for SOS Pantanal, a conservation nonprofit. “It’s being burned to a crisp.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/world/americas/pantanal-wildfires-wildlife.html
Over the past few weeks there have been some comments on ow refineries could be reconfigured to process lighter crude oil type. Many of the conventional refineries in the US and Europe were designed around medium and heavy crude oil with API ranging from about 28-35.
As I previously discussed the heavy distillate is an important indirect component of gasoline, being utilised as feedstock for the FCC (fluid catalytic cracker) and the alkylation unit. LTO is biased towards light and middle distillate, whereas medium and heavy crude will contain more heavy distillate. To understand the composition of crude oil you must explore the assay of a crude. Some oil companies post crude assays on their websites.
https://www.equinor.com/energy/crude-oil-assays
https://www.bp.com/en/global/bp-trading-and-shipping/documents-and-downloads/technical-downloads/crudes-assays.html
http://sahratex.com/crude-oils/Crude-trading/Assays-available-for-download.html
Total and chevron also post assays
You can also see the crude types stored in the SPR
https://www.spr.doe.gov/reports/docs/CrudeOilAssayManual.pdf
I tried to shrink an assay for 43 API Bakken crude but lost fidelity. So I will try and describe it here but you can download the full assay form the Equinor link and see the abbreviated assay in the attached image. I have depicted the main products by boiling range and you will see that the atmospheric residue is about 22.8 vol%. Typically this value is between 30 and 50% vol% for medium and heavy crude oils. This means the Crude distillation unit has a lower than typical bottom flow, whilst the naphtha fraction is over 45 vol %(inc C4 minus). The diesel fraction is about 18.8 vol% and total jet and diesel about 30 vol%. There are 4 naphtha fractions. The octane numbers for each fraction are given( Research and Motor octane). The paraffins, naphthenes and aromatic are indicative of the composition of the stream. As you an see the heavy naphtha has the worst octane numbers.
The octane numbers of medium and heavy naphtha can be boosted to high 90’s RON in a catalytic reformer, which converts naphthenes to aromatics – toluene , xylene and C9 aromatics. the catalytic reformer will also isomerise the paraffins. However there are limits on the amount of aromatics permitted in gasoline. Light naphtha can be isomerised to increase branching on the C5- C7 species which improves the octane number.
Reconfiguring a classic 30-35 API refinery to run the Bakken crude at 100% would be a fool’s game. Essentially you would need to start again and without an reasonable size FCC and alkylation unit it would be challenging to meet the gasoline spec. 17 vol% VGO would not produce a very big stream of gasoline.
It all comes down to cost of the reconfigurations. No company is willing to invest in refineries if there is no long term prospect as the investment cost could require a payout of 20 years. Recent new build refineries are anything between $15-20 billion for a 400 kb/d refinery. Converting an existing refinery would be very challenging based upon LTO. This is why the US can only absorb a fraction of the LTO output and the exports go to a large number of destinations that can blend in the LTO to the current feedslate.
As ever, this is a very brief outline of the issues and there are many other issues that I do not have time to explain.
The bottom line is that there is no reasonable way of increasing LTO consumption in the existing US refining fleet.
Below is a link to the EIA crude oil production by API. You will note that the 40-45 API range is the most produce grade. and that <35 API grade is the 4th largest grade.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_api_adc_mbblpd_m.htm
.
For those who are more adventurous then please compare the Bakken with other assays on the Equinor site.
All good info.
“It all comes down to cost of the reconfigurations. No company is willing to invest in refineries if there is no long term prospect as the investment cost could require a payout of 20 years. Recent new build refineries are anything between $15-20 billion for a 400 kb/d refinery. Converting an existing refinery would be very challenging”
Carnot,
The plan if there were a ban on US crude exports is not to reconfigure refineries, it is to reduce tight oil output to a level that is similar to existing US refinery capacity that is designed for lighter grades of oil. Currently about 4500 to 4700 kb/d of such capacity in the US.
Of greater interest is the ability to reconfigure refineries to reduce the fraction of gasoline with the input of heavy grades of crude that comprise much of the World supply. I would think that some of the heavy residue that is cracked to produce gasoline might be cracked into diesel or jet fuel, but I am not a chemical engineer so that may not be possible.
.” I would think that some of the heavy residue that is cracked to produce gasoline might be cracked into diesel or jet fuel, but I am not a chemical engineer so that may not be possible.”
Very true it doesn’t work that way.
Theory meets reality
Carnot,
Couldn’t fluid catalytic cracking units be replaced with hydrocracking units in order to produce more diesel and jet fuel from medium and heavy grades of crude in a World where gasoline demand starts to fall? Seems this would be possible in principle.
Seems that this would be preferred to shutting a refinery down altogether.
There’s no REAL reason we can’t switch to diesel engines, if we need to, in future years, if that’s what we will need to do in order to have enough liquid fuel, meaning more diesel and less gasoline per barrel of crude.
The pollution argument is far more about politics than day to day physical reality. Diesels can be made to run CLEAN ENOUGH, considering all the relevant variables in the real world.
“There’s no REAL reason we can’t switch to diesel engines”
Mac, I think you misunderstood and got it backwards. EV’s today mostly replace gasoline and not diesel. Which would mean a shortage of diesel and surplus of gasoline in the future.
I believe there is no reason gasoline engines can’t do most all diesel engine work. The gasoline engines just needs to be built to the same quality of todays diesel. Example, todays gasoline 400hp engines weigh about 600 pounds designed for an average output of about 20hp(passenger cars and pickups) and for a few seconds or maybe minutes of output of 400hp. Todays 400hp diesels weigh(HD trucks) about 3000 pounds and much more expensive and better quality parts that can run at 400hp all day long. The differance in work ability is more about the engine design than the fuel.
“Couldn’t fluid catalytic cracking units be replaced with hydrocracking”
Dennis, 15 to 20 years ago that is almost exactly what some of the independent refiners did expecting heavy crude from Canada and Venezuela to meet supply. They spent billions of dollars to do so. Only to have the shale boom happen and flood the market with light.
A new open thread Non-Petroleum has been posted.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-september-5-2024/
An update to US June oil production has been posted.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/us-june-oil-production-lower-than-november-2023/