167 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 16, 2022”

  1. While some people talk about wind power and electric cars, for hundreds of millions these things are irrelevant.

    https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/democratic-republic-of-congo

    In Africa and many other countries only a tiny proportion of people have electric or gas cookers. Most use dung or charcoal to cook and heat their homes. The smoke from these sources having serious health implications to the families.

    It is no coincidence that the highest levels of poverty are in countries where their leaders and politicians are the most corrupt.

    https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

    1. Wind power seems sub optimal as cost doesn’t drop much as things scale up. Solar panels do seem to though. To put it mildly I’m not an expert. I’m on a macro hydro grid and my most reliable back up is probably a micro hydro, although solar is much cheaper. I don’t pretend it’ll save everyone in California from famine, but it’ll keeps my fridge running in the summer.

      1. Matt,

        “California from famine”

        “California’s agricultural abundance includes more than 400 commodities. Over a third of the country’s vegetables and three-quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. ”

        https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/

        Yes, my last post was written with a I’m better than yourself, because of your “poor HB” comment. I know you enjoy some spicy conflict, as do I and I can admire it. Orange county sits on a huge aquifer feed by rainfall, sanitation recycling and imports mostly from the Colorado. For almost 20 years the HB city council keeps nixing a salutation plant next to the power plant.

        I actually replaced the air filter a couple of months ago myself. The vehicle came with 4 year or 50k free maintenance. It’s been awhile, but I’ve done driveway complete brake and clutches jobs, but those day are no longer. History says I run new vehicles for about 100k plus and then sell them to private party buyers “like yourself”. I hate dealing with repairs. You may as well bend over and take it around here. No hair plugs or coloring. I keep it short and standing up on top. It makes it look fuller and me looking younger than when it’s longer and lays down. Maybe in another 5 or 10 years I will just put a number 4 on the clippers and avoid going for a regular cut.

        The boat is a 35 year old “minty” 19 foot outboard 200 Merc, I had it built back in 87. It doesn’t get out very often anymore. Not worth much, just not ready to let it go and admit those days are over. There must be 6 months worth of food in the pantry. I stay stocked up on everything and even have a good supply of important pharmaceuticals. I’ve got 10 fruit trees and plenty of room for a greenhouse. I’m sure experience would be good, but right now I will just have to learn on the fly. I bought my 1500 sq. ft. home 40 years ago this coming summer. It’s all remodeled, paid for and taxes are minimal because of California property tax law. One acre of undeveloped land would be to much for me now. My best bet is to be prepared right where I’m at. Also, I believe society here in the states still has a good probably holding together and civil political unrest is a larger concern.

        “Consumerism” – That’s not really myself. Actually it’s more like the opposite. I need to learn to spend freely more. If I had to pick someone from this website as a foxhole buddy. My guess is you would be the best choice.

    2. … I used to live in Kitwe for a bit, up on the Zambia/Zaire (as it was called at the time) border. Corruption was everywhere, from the simplest office transaction to the most complex business contracts; seemed a very low hope situation.

      1. Survivalist

        Very intereting if you could tell us anything about what you were doing or people’s living conditions in practical terms that would be good

        1. I was on with a medical humanitarian assistance outfit. 96-97 ish. Lots of refugees previously bivouacked in eastern Zaire were leaving because of the Congo Wars.
          Everything was fine in town. Rural areas in Northern Province were kinda Wild West. Africa had a “World War”. Public health sucked. Insects made up a lot more of the diet than I was used to thinking about.
          https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/vanh16684-013/pdf

            1. Sad but true. If you want American news audiences to click on your news story, then DON’T put the word Africa in the headline. Editors know this.

    3. “While some people talk about wind power and electric cars, for hundreds of millions these things are irrelevant.”
      A few comments on this
      -for the poorest 10% of the world energy is scarce and always will be. Dung, coal, and wood are gathered as can be found. More and more people will be joining the ranks of people who can’t afford cleaner burning or more convenient energy.
      -for another big chunk of the worlds poorer half the depletion of fossil fuels will be the huge challenge to everyday life. Those who are fortunate will have good soil, and maybe even access to some electricity and electric scooter and small cargo vehicle for local goods.
      -equipment with petrol engines are going to become increasingly irrelevant [unaffordable to operate except for the most critical purposes]

      Energy poverty will become an increasing theme over the next couple decades, for those who simply can’t afford any form of energy. Low grade coal and wood are the fall backs. Fences won’t keep trees standing.

      Other segments of the global population will continue to have plentiful energy. The map of global prosperity is going to rapidly shift, again.

      1. I feel a 3 wheel bike like the Can-Am Spyder would make a nice small EV. It’s not a 2 wheel so never have to worry about laying it’s battery weight down. A little trailer package and you’d be off to the market. A roll bar package and windscreen would make it ideal. It does require a certain amount of strength and range of motion to hoist one’s leg over a bike saddle, but perhaps that could be mitigated with feet forward models that have one sit normally. I feel a minimalistic EV is warranted; not just for joyriding.

        https://electrek.co/2021/05/31/arcimoto-fuv-3-wheeled-electric-vehicle-joyriding-in-this-electric-fun-mobile-with-video/

      2. Hickory

        I agree, the world is splitting even more than before.
        Some will have no concerns about heating and food, many many more can no longer afford the basics no matter how much they work. People in the UK are doing 2 jobs just to pay bills. It is scary to say the least

        1. “It is scary to say the least”
          How our countries and the world deals with the instability of growing poverty will be the biggest variable in most of our lives. Many episodes of human experience in the past have given us a glimpse. French revolution or 1930’s Europe as two examples out of hundreds. Trump only got elected in the US because an early trend of discontent among the poorer and least educated portion of the republican voters willing to try something desperate- to trust the most untrustworthy person with their vote and the fate of the nation. Willing to gamble with the most blatantly narcissistic, racist and unqualified person in the republican primaries.

          The autocrats and anarchists are getting all excited by their improving prospects.

            1. On Africa, don’t be surprised to see dramatic growth in population and energy production the next 20-30 years. Africa will be the last region to experience peak population.

              Just like in the rest of the world, the disparity between have and have-nots will be huge, but Africa is now similar to where China was in the 1980’s- just beginning to enter a big growth phase. I have no idea how far it will go, in this time of great fragility and overshoot.

              Consider some of the info here-
              https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2019
              https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2011/Prospects_for_the_African_PowerSector.pdf

            2. The electricity grid hasn’t spread in Africa because people are too poor to pay their electricity bills, and to buy electrical equipment. Even if households are hooked up to the grid free of charge, they my struggle to finance the in-house wiring. Other problems include the continent’s huge size as well as grid reliability and governance issues, which makes the economics of electricity grid doubtful.

              As a result poor Africans are often forced to use other energy sources, such as kerosene, which are much more expensive and have other disadvantages.

              Traditional Western style electricity technology can’t deliver cheap off-grid electricity. There was never much demand for it, so the tech was never developed. But solar appliances are spreading rapidly in Africa (and South Asia). These are minimal power supplies connected to a household appliance like lighting, phone charging, TVs, fans, refrigerators or water pumps. They are often pay-as-you-go, so initial investment costs are low.

              The amount of electricity they deliver is small, but they are a powerful tool for poverty reduction and economic growth. And the market is growing fast.

    4. However, Africa has the best solar resources of any continent, and solar is the cheapest form of electricity.

      Solar, wind and hydro are all growing at double digit rates from an admittedly small base. I’d say Africa is about a decade behind America in solar.

      1. Heres what is going on with Kenya electricity, as an example
        -‘Kenya has also aggressively tried to increase access to the power grid, having more than doubled electricity access from 32% in 2013 to 75% of households in 2022’
        -‘Current Energy Mix: Kenya’s energy mix predominantly consists of green energy with geothermal, hydro, wind, and solar accounting for roughly 81% generation 2021.’

        https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/kenya-energy-electrical-power-systems
        and
        https://cleantechnica.com/2022/12/19/electric-mobility-cooking-energy-storage-decarbonization-to-anchor-kenya-powers-growth-plan/

    1. He should turn himself in now and avoid all the fuss of a midnight arrest for contempt of court after failing to appear for arraignment.

      1. I believe Donald Trump is now being investigated for breaking securities laws regarding his “Man of Action” NFT trading cards. It looks like a money laundering scam. As well, all the NFT pics are plagiarized stock images and then his face and a new background added in.

      1. You’re welcome JN
        I imagine Elon is about as charismatic as a dial tone.

        1. Even better, he ran a poop last night on if he should buzz off and people said “bye”.

          Kinda want him to just ignore it and carry on doing what he’s doing. It’s too great comedy to stop.

    1. Check the Hansen pre-print just come out. We have 10°C baked in and, even better, the masking effect of aerosols is massively underestimated in established literature, it seems.

      So, faster and harder by 2050 for warning, if that’s the case. I’m sure this is totally fine. The economy is mostly indoors anyway and that’s all that matters.

      1. In that case, maybe a good thing if the gulf stream stops then, for us in Sweden/nordics at least …
        (the point being, less heating from it in that really hot case, but if it stops “now” it will be like Siberia around here, so interesting times indeed)

    1. In the field that I work in peer review dominates the publication and information spread process.
      It is far from perfect in achieving the goals, maybe like swiss cheese in letting poor work through the process.
      Nonetheless, the tide of progress in the industry achieved from the spread of accurate knowledge and techniques has been astounding. Without a good process for filtering bogus or irrelevant info the international spread of bona fide knowledge and result outcomes would have been much less effective.
      Maybe other industries or sectors have different story. I don’t know.

      I have observed a big decline in the relevance and accuracy of much of what appears in the global media these days. A person needs to be extremely skilled at filtering to have any chance of glimpsing what is relevant and accurate.

    2. Good find but misguided. I added a comment as follows:

      I don’t think you have a clue. You’re doing psychology-related stuff, which is essentially game theory. Instead go over to a real science such as condensed matter physics, where papers and conferences demonstrate how real progress is made. BTW condensed matter physics includes solid state physics which is the basis of all computer and communications tech and which makes this substack article possible. Yes, stuff can slip through such as the infamous case of Jan Hendrick Schon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal but the overall process is necessary, otherwise there is stovepiping or science by press-release, which is likely far worse. Consider George Stokes review of Osborne Reynolds paper on fluid turbulence in 1894. Sir George admitted that he didn’t understand the paper but trusted Reynolds implicitly, read page 26 online https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Voyage_Through_Turbulence/04QIthkkPf0C

      https://books.google.com/books/content?id=04QIthkkPf0C&pg=PA26&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&bul=1&sig=ACfU3U1lrf7PWW9YeusRtlqfFIqXVmqARA&w=1280

      If the author responds, will let you know.

    3. This has click bait written all over it. Make the astonishing claim, save caveats for later. Sort of like all those “Darwin Was Wrong!” articles.

    4. Someone (probably the poor janitor) put a sign over a Men’s room urinal at a university, saying “Please don’t pee on the floor.” Someone wrote on the sign and changed it to “Please don’t peer review on the floor.” Indeed, peer review sometimes feels like being peed on.

  6. A hell of a lot of people have been and are continuing to put money into various business ventures based on press release “science”.

    But I’m not at all sure this is problem can be said to have anything much to do with the peer review process.
    My impression is that it has mostly to do with slick salesmanship.

    1. re: Peer Review process

      I have several (IMO) breakthrough findings in peer-reviewed publications that are languishing in the glacially-slow-to-respond geophysics and climate science field. I say languishing because they are getting no attention — neither positive or negative in terms of criticism. Being ignored has advantages in that one can continue to refine the research at a leisurely pace. Of course, this isn’t the way it works in other scientific disciplines, particularly those that can create profitable spin-off technology. Gonna get scooped if you sit on your hands.

  7. Here’s a speculative question.
    Suppose somebody with megabucks were to start distributing small solar panel systems, with a small battery, and a couple of lights and maybe a couple of small power tools, a radio, etc to really poor African people.

    Is it possible that they could produce SOMETHING to sell on the international market to pay for doing so?

    I can’t think of anything myself, right off the bat, but that doesn’t mean much. I’ve very little knowledge of day to day realities on the ground there.

        1. Hi Charles,

          My guess is that you have lived your life comfortably within the confines of a modern industrial civilization.
          Well, so have I for the most part.

          But growing up poor ( although I didn’t even KNOW it at the time!) on the farm, and farming since then, has left me with habits and attitudes foreign to most people in modern countries these days.

          We organized our lives around the sun and the weather.
          If you’re a subsistence farmer, or herder, or other person in such an environment, you simply make use of the sun when it’s shining, it’s as simple as that.

          1. OFM

            The problem is the 2.8 billion people are so poor they must cook with charcoal or wood. This has a huge cost on heath breathing in all that smoke all the time. Also it’s taking even more of a toll on the forests which are already being decimated.
            The answer is electric cookers but the electricity and the cookers are totally unaffordable for these people.

            1. “The answer is electric cookers but the electricity and the cookers are totally unaffordable for these people.”

              While the last part of the sentence above quote is absolutely correct, the first part is not. Below is a link to google search for “solar cookers”.

              https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+cookers&tbm=isch

              The 2.8 billion people that “are so poor they must cook with charcoal or wood” would probably be quite happy to make hay when the sun shines and cook with a solar cooker instead of having to buy coal or go searching for firewood. The coal used in As wood becomes more and more scarce these cookers will look like a much better option. The 2.8 billion people that are so poor they must cook with charcoal or wood are not exactly accustomed to the conveniences most of us on this forum are, such as just turning a knob when we want to cook something. More on that in my next comment.

            2. I will once again link to a popular music video, filmed in Kampala, Uganda that, has received 1,477,714,513 views on YouTube as of the time of this post.

              French Montana – Unforgettable ft. Swae Lee

              This video reminds me of places within a half hours drive from where I am sitting right now. The scenes are probably representative of many desperately poor places all over the world with some obvious differences in skin tone and hair texture. The picture below is a screenshot from the video showing a child dancing on top of a pie of sacks of “coal”. It is actually charcoal which is far more common in places that do not have coal mines nearby. For the places with coal mines nearby some of the coal used by the poor is actually stolen from moving trucks or trains transporting the coal.

              The people in the video don’t appear to be wallowing in their poverty, instead making the best of their situation and in fact having a good time with their dancing. I am reminded of how pampered my existence is every time I watch this video.

        2. Electric light and perhaps some cooking seems the best use for solar PV in rural Africa. Lighting keeps the working and the learning going after dark. Collective food prep would likely require less wood if electricity was added to the mix.

          I agree that batteries will be the short board, and it’s likely that not everyone’s gonna have them.

      2. Solar cookers work quite well, and they’re dirt cheap, compared to solar panels.
        I have never made much use of it, but I built one myself, from scrap metal and wood, except for new aluminum foil to make the reflector surface, and it works like a charm.

        But you do have to turn it a little every hour or so to keep it aimed at the sun.

        It’s four feet across and it will bring a gallon of water to a low simmering boil, no problem, on a nice sunny day, in a couple of hours.

        One built more accurately, with a better reflector, would probably boil a gallon of water in half the time or less.

        1. Ah I forgot about those solar cookers. Boiling water fixes a lot of problems from the get go.

          1. A can on the exhaust manifold of the boat was always a given for me.
            It went with the beating tuna hearts for a bit more protein.

    1. Tough to greenwash Qatar’s economy, but I’m sure they’ll find a timely way to transition to a sustainable future.

      1. Bob
        How green are you?
        Give us a list of holidays you have been on in the last 10 years, how do you heat your home and where does your food come from?

        1. Don’t worry Charles. I fully recognise that I, like Qatar, am utterly dependent on fossil fuels. But I’m about ten years into, and half way along on my 20 year plan of personal carbon neutrality. The measures I’ve implemented are buying certified renewable power, upgrading the thermal envelope of my dwelling and converting it to radiant heating. Installing a 96% efficient CH4 boiler, and scrapping my 25 year old 200,000 mile car for an EV four years ago (used Fiat 500e, $6,600 price at the time!). I’ve bought 22 gallons of gasoline, total, since 2019.
          I don’t have any belief that I’m saving the world with my EV, but I sure do like how fast, quiet, smooth, and convenient it is, which means I drive more :-|. All our yard tools are also electric; also much more pleasant and convenient.
          My diet is primarily rice, beans, cheese, and chicken – none of which I grow myself. I eat how I do because it’s what powers me the furthest with the least effort, not because of some supposed virtue. I do grow tomatoes, onion, peppers, cilantro, grapes, peaches, plums, and apricots; more than we can eat. Escaliered apples go in this year. My house needs a new roof. PV goes on after that: 10kW’s. I’m scouring the dark nets for a black market spent nuclear fuel rod that I can substitute for the boiler. No luck thus far.

          1. Bob

            Carbon neutral does not exist unless you are a tribesmen in the Amazon.
            Every single country’s electricity production comes from burning gas or coal at least in part. Everything we buy is made from processes that use fuel in excavating the iron, copper lithium etc. Vast amounts of fuel oil ships billions of tonnes of goods around the world. Food requires huge input of energy, fertiliser and pesticides.
            The amount of energy required to make a car is far more than most people think.

            https://www.motorbiscuit.com/how-much-energy-to-build-a-car/

            At the moment the world does not have enough wind and solar just to produce all the cars, lorries it makes let alone anything else.
            All the green hydrogen production in the world would power one transatlantic flight a day.
            Net zero is a dream. Back to reality 2.8 billion people are burning the forests of the world to cook and keep warm.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_poverty_and_cooking

            4. Charles- “Carbon neutral does not exist”
              Certainly true, not for humans living on earth.

              Its really just an aspiration…to use less coal and wood and oil and gas
              so that global greenhouse climate heating is less severe than the current trend.

              The only truly carbon neutral pathway for a person, individually or collectively, is to cease and desist. Literally.
              Once the decay of the body is complete and the several generations of organisms that temporarily thrived on the decay food chain have faded into the background, will carbon neutrality have been achieved.

              let us know when global coal consumption has entered the rapid decline phase.

            5. Charles,

              I agree there are lots of problems. Where I disagree is that there is not a way to mitigate the problem. Yes there are many in the World living in poverty, they do not contribute much to CO2 emissions relative to the more wealthy people. We start with the highest emitters and reduce their emissions as as far as possible. In accomplishing that technology and efficiency is improved and those solutions are taken up by people who have less wealth primarily because they will be the cheapest option.

              If we act, two degrees of warming might be avoided. After forests burn, they regrow absorbing some of the carbon emitted.

            6. “After forests burn, they regrow absorbing some of the carbon emitted.”

              That carbon uptake by tree growth is only a temporary carbon sink, unless the wood produced is harvested and put at the bottom of a very deep lake or ocean where decomposition is glacially slow.
              If the forest is not protected from burning or from harvesting for controlled combustion, there is no net carbon sequestration.

            7. one transatlantic flight a day.
              Transatlantic flights are really essential, and make up a tiny proportion of carbon emissions. If you can’t come up with more relevant arguments, you have no arguments.

              You do seem desperate to gin up arguments to discredit any attempts to work towards carbon neutrality.

            8. “Transatlantic flights are really essential”

              I know your comment was directed to Charles, but
              your definition of ‘essential’ needs some reflection.
              I assert that there is absolutely nothing essential about the airline industry/travel,
              except perhaps emergency services like rescue.
              It is all a destructive luxury, as if the living planet is an irrelevant landfill item.

            9. HICKORY —
              It was a typo! I meant “Transatlantic flights are NOT essential”.

          2. Something tells me that all just about every oil and gas rich country in the Mid East and any others with similar climates will eventually figure out that the PROFITABLE thing to do is to build solar farms out the ying yang, and use solar juice for air conditioning and any and all other practical purposes………

            ENABLING the people who RUN these countries to SELL the oil and gas they’re burning to generate electricity at a SUBSTANTIAL PROFIT.

            Depletion does after all mean prices WILL be going way the hell up, unless we adopt the premise that renewable energy wipes out the fossil fuel industries.

            That’s not going to happen, at least not within the next couple of generations at the earliest.

            1. Sure,

              It makes sense due to the demand pattern for electricity during a 24h cycle. If backed up by oil and to a lesser degree gas power plants, the resilience for a public grid to take up a lot of solar should be significant. Meaning oil power plants are expensive to run, but very flexible when it comes to storage. The alternative is for whealthy individuals down there to invest in a micro grid involving overbuilding solar capacity and supplying sufficient battery backup. Both solutions can work in tandem. I could very well see a shift in thinking in the Middle East to allow for this thinking. Enabling more oil exports and less natural gas usage, with a who knows 3-5-10 EROI on many panel types mainly due to longevity and low enough maintenance costs.

              Even the lowest most pessimistic EROI calculation, including all network costs, including transformators and back up electricity generation and storage requirements would have a very big challenge making an investment in solar panels negative. And if not too big part of the grid (less than 50%) almost certainly it would be a very positive contribution.

    2. If would guess that Qatar could afford to implement solar for most of their electricity use. They’ve got more money than they can spend. I expect that a significant portion of heir load is air conditioning and refrigeration. The nearby UAE has ambitious plans for solar and is probably the leader in terms of using solar energy in the region.

      How solar is powering UAE towards sustainability

      The problem with the transition to renewable energy is that the filthy rich are more inclined to buy themselves status symbols like 3 million dollar exotic sports cars. Three million dollars can install 3 MW of solar PV in some locations and in Dubai one can observe very expensive sports cars gathering dust sometimes for no other reason than their indebted owners have fled the country leaving their cars abandoned. Misplaced priorities?

      1. Islandboy

        If those people are happy with their lot why do tens of million of them leave Africa, Asia and Latin America for Europe, Canada and the US every year?

        https://sites.ndtv.com/breathe-clean/smoke-from-chulahs-biggest-killer-in-rural-india

        They obviously don’t agree with you in your perception of their happy existence.

        I however think it is terrible that millions die because they must burn poisonous fuel just to have something cooked. Your sun ovens don’t work when it’s freezing cold or cloudy.
        Your naive fixes are no fixes at all.

        1. Since the regions you mention are near the equator, your don’t seem particularly relevant. You’re grasping at straws.
          I wonder why.

          1. Some people get off on being ” holier than thou”.

            They’re really good at pointing out problems, and pointing out what’s wrong with any solutions offered, but they themselves seldom or never have anything useful to say or offer in terms of solutions.

            Charles is our current reigning champion in this category, lol.

            I’m ready to bet my farm that just about all of the regulars have forgotten more about energy issues than Charles will ever know.

            1. OFM

              Let’s see.

              Question if everyone on the planet used as much gas as you do, how long would global gas reserves last?

  10. “I feel a 3 wheel bike like the Can-Am Spyder would make a nice small EV.”

    Well, there is the Aptera . . .

    https://aptera.us/

    I believe they may be up and running again after “financial difficulties”.

    1. Thanks for the tip SP. I like the idea of a minimalistic EV and a trailer package for trips to the shops. I likely won’t be acquiring any more private vehicles myself, but perhaps the mutual aid club will get one to share. I find it’s not at all inconvenient for several or more people to share the utility a few vehicles.

      I’ve got macro hydro electricity on tap so don’t require panels on the roof. I’m not in a great place for them anyway.

  12. If I ever say anything nice about Elon Musk again, somebody please remind me to wash my mouth with soap.

  14. In an energy constrained and crowded world this kind of small cargo vehicle will be more common, and versions will be useful in the city as well as in a village somewhere.
    Here is one from Denmark, but many companies are working on various such vehicles
    https://www.mate.bike/pages/mate-suv
    https://insideevs.com/news/626265/mate-suv-electric-cargo-bike/

    If you have never pedaled an electric assist bike, it would be hard for you to imagine how useful these could be. You could easily triple the amount of potatoes or sausage you could haul to and from market, with very little electricity.

    1. Cheers Hick. I’m drawn to the practical and minimalistic end of the market. December through February is quite a bit of snow where I’m at, but it’s not hard to prep for that and plan for minimal private transport.

  15. 60% of China’s population/10% of the world’s is going be COVID Pos in the next 90 days. Put a pin in it.

    1. Yet only 9 of China’s 1.4 plus billion population have been recorded as dying of covid over the past 30 days. It could be that the Chinese Sinovac vaccine is actually more effective than the western vaccines, in that it presents complete inactivated viruses with more than just the spike protien generated by the MRNA vaccines. it could also be that the current circulating strains of the virus are far less deadly than the earlier strains. It could also be that the Chinese people are treating the illness early rather than just waiting for it to advance to the stage that requires hospitalisation.

      Whatever the reasons, covid-19 is fast becoming a non issue and there is absolutely no need to try and generate any more hysteria around it.

      1. Yet only 9 of China’s 1.4 plus billion population have been recorded as dying of covid over the past 30 days. It could be that the Chinese Sinovac vaccine is actually more effective than the western vaccines, in that it presents complete inactivated viruses with more than just the spike protien generated by the MRNA vaccines.

        Or, it could be that the Chinese are just lying about the number of deaths. Which do you think is more likely?

        1. Well Ron, having lived/worked in China for seven years and traveled the length and width of the country several times I think you would have to be gullible in the extreme to believe only 9 of China’s 1.4 plus billion population have died of covid over the past 30 days. But, what do I know.

          1. IB’s skepticism seems to only apply to certain data sets; China and Russia are taken at face value.

            1. My skepticism is driven by the question of which fat cat(s) have the most to loose in any given situation? Who is most threatened by an alternative product? It started with Peak Oil but, I have found it equally relevant in other areas like health care.

  19. I’ve been playing around with ChatGTP. I asked it

    When will oil production peak?

    The reply:


    It is difficult to predict exactly when global oil production will peak, as it depends on a variety of factors, including technological advancements, economic conditions, and government policies.

    The concept of “peak oil” refers to the point at which the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which production will begin to decline. Some experts believe that we have already reached peak oil, while others believe that it will not occur until several decades in the future.

    There are also differing opinions on the impact that peak oil will have on the global economy and energy markets. Some believe that it will lead to significant economic disruption, while others believe that the transition to alternative energy sources will be smooth.

    Overall, it is important to continue to invest in and develop renewable energy sources as a way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate the potential negative impacts of peak oil.

    A bit generic, but not bad for an algorithm.

    The big problem right now is the cost. Apparently it costs “less than 10 cents” per answer. That sounds cheap, but remember google fields billions of search queries ever day. The cost of computing continues to fall, so we’ll se how that goes.

    The reason running requests is so expensive is that Chat GPT is a BIG model. It’s a black box with a bunch of dials that need to be tweaked just right to get good output.

    Imagine a whole wall of dials that all have to be set to the right value to make the machine work. If all the dials were set at random values, it could take years of trial and error to get them right.

    Now imagine there are 175 billion dials. No human can cope, so they were set (and are still being set) by a learning algorithm. That in itself is a huge computation.

    When I type “When will oil production peak?” the bot produces an output based on all 175 billion settings, so it it a massive computing task. That’s why it cost a few cents.

  20. Porsche’s synthetic gasoline factory comes online today in Chile
    https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/12/porsches-synthetic-gasoline-factory-comes-online-today-in-chile/

    “Initially, the site will produce around 34,000 gallons (130,000 L) a year, scaling up to 14.5 million gallons (55 million L) a year by 2024, with plans to increase that tenfold to 145 million gallons (550 million L) a year by 2026. ”

    “The synthetic e-fuel won’t be exactly cheap—Steiner thinks at current prices, it works out to around $8 per gallon ($2/L), although that obviously doesn’t include any taxes or duties, which make up most of the price of fuel in most regions around the world. ”

    Earlier this year, gasoline was $2/L in eastern Canada.

  21. One of the problems with being a professional writer in the peak oil/collapse space and having mostly only an online game, like JHK and the Club Orlov guy for example, is that one has to follow the heat in the comments thread to keep the eye balls clicking and the books selling. POB doesn’t seem to have this problem.

    Comment-reading is probably toxic, but it’s mesmerizing. Not just the gory revelations of grotesque brains, but also the eruptions of old schooling vomited up in stressful moments. It seems likely that as the stresses increase more and more vulnerable minds will take the bait of a Culture War Collapse Cult.

    ‘Crisis cults serve up illusions of recovered grandeur and empowerment during times of collapse, anxiety and disempowerment. Crisis Cults echo xenophobic ideology and seek to magically recover a pure mythologized past. A past that most certainly, in reality, did not exist anywhere, ever.’

    “Make Cambodia Great Again” ~ Pol Pot

  22. In 1988 Dr Hanson testified in front of a US Senate committee, one of his perditions was that millions would die in 20 to 30 years due to wide spread famine brought on by Global Warming if the addition on carbon dioxide to the atmosphere wasn’t greatly controlled. The 2022 wheat harvest in Australia was the largest in its history. In India the 2018 harvest in general was its greatest which was surpassed by 2019 which was passed by 2020 and finally the 2021 harvest was the largest in its history. And yet Dr Hanson is considered a visionary and none of his perditions have come to pass.

    1. Land use varies. In India’s case it’s because they’re planting more and more land with wheat, not because the ‘wheat land’ is becoming more productive.

      India believed to have most farm land
      https://www.farmprogress.com/land-management/india-believed-have-most-farm-land

      India’s wheat planting gathers momentum, acreage up nearly 10%
      https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-wheat-planting-gathers-momentum-acreage-up-nearly-10-2022-11-13/

      Climate crisis has cost India 5 million hectares of crop in 2021
      https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/amp/climate-crisis-has-cost-india-5-million-hectares-of-crop-in-2021-80809

      Australia just hit Peak Acreage last year or so, and likely soon Peak Food. Time will tell.

      Australia may have hit peak farming acreage but production set to keep climbing
      https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100443338

      India has a way to go until peak acreage.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country

      To put it mildly, I’m not a regression analysts, but I feel a holistic analysis of climate’s role in food production per country will necessarily consider acreage planted, water use and mass of energy/fertilizer inputs.

      Groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley accelerates during megadrought – 19 Dec 2022
      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35582-x

      Peak Food will be an interesting moment in time. Yield per acre and its volatility is prob the metric to track. Perhaps if one was to index the data we would find that the Yield per Acre Volatility Index™ is rising.

    2. Ervin-
      Like you I am glad that Dr Hansons prediction on famine has not yet come true.
      Lets hope that we get another 10-20 years before the big initial event.

      nonetheless, the number of malnourished and chronically hungry people is astounding [2021]
      -An estimated 45 million children under the age of five were suffering from wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition, which increases children’s risk of death by up to 12 times
      -As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021 – 46 million people more from a year earlier and 150 million more from 2019.
      -Around 2.3 billion people in the world (29.3%) were moderately or severely food insecure in 2021

      btw- I will try to consider that your use of the word perdition rather than prediction was simply a spelling error rather than a reflection of a cruel mind

  23. I’m as worried as anybody about civilization crashing all around us, but never the less……..
    Things might not get as bad as some of us think.
    We’re more adaptable than we think, and there are still enough resources available to turn the corner on problems such as energy supplies……… IF we get our asses in gear and stay on it.

    Check this out.

    A hillside smoothed out and covered with a layer of gravel would enable the installation of a solar farm within a matter of weeks, as far as the land prep and labor are concerned.

    https://newatlas.com/energy/5b-fast-solar-rollout/

    1. We’re more adaptable than we think, …

      Yes we are. Nevertheless, we, that is, you and I, are not the world. The famine will not likely start here, or in Europe, where folks will have all that renewable energy. The coming anarchy and famine will start in Asia and Africa. Lack of fertilizer and imported food will cause havoc in the under developed world. Anarchy and famine will happen there first, at least a decade or two before it happens to the developed world. However, I doubt that the West can survive the total collapse of the rest of the world, not for long anyway.

      But not too wory Mac, both you and I will, very likely, be safely dead when the shit hits the fan.

      1. When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. Our food in the threshing floors was burnt and the vineyards were also destroyed. Our city is sacked. May you know it! May you know it!

        From a famous cuneiform tablet describing the fall of Ugarit, one of dozens of polities to fail during the fifty years from 1200 to 1150 BC.

        Shit happens.

      2. Hi Ron,

        You’re probably right about you and me being gone by the time the shit is really and truly in the fan, but I’m not betting on it. Things could go to hell a lot faster than you we expect.

        Lots of people will vehemently disagree of course, but I don’t really see a global collapse coming about simply because people starve or die from exposure, disease, and violence in Africa and the less prosperous parts of Asia.

        There’s no doubt in my mind, barring extraordinarily good luck on all fronts, that people will be dying hard by the hundreds of millions within the next few decades.

        There’s no way in hell they can emigrate in our direction in large enough numbers to cause us any really bad problems, and with the exception of Pakistan, India, and China, none of the other smaller countries have anything in the way of military power that can be projected more than a few hours march from their borders.

        Will some tin pot dictator launch a few nukes our way? Maybe, but only a few, and a few hours later he would very likely be dead or at least in hiding himself. His country would be a black wasteland.

        I repeat myself. There’s NOTHING outside the borders of the North America and a couple of our closest allies that we CAN’T do without, if we MUST. We can, if we HAVE TO, move to a wartime economic plan.

        I’ve said here on numerous occasions that we should be figuratively praying for some sharp broken bricks upside or collective heads, because that’s the only LIKELY thing that will sufficiently motivate us to get our asses in gear and stay pedal to the metal on the transition to renewables and conservation.

        And as bad as it is for the people of Ukraine, and the Russian people themselves, the war there is such a brick….. and a damned big sharp one.

        https://singularityhub.com/2022/12/19/ukraine-conflict-has-the-world-on-a-massive-renewable-energy-run-iea-report-says/

        “A rapid transition to renewable power is essential to avoid the worst effects of climate change, but governments have been lukewarm in their commitment. Energy security concerns spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seem to be sharpening minds, though, according to a new report.

        In its latest assessment of the state of renewable power, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says that the global energy crisis the conflict has caused is driving a significant acceleration in the roll-out of green energy projects as governments try to reduce their reliance on imported fossil fuels.

        The upshot is that global capacity is expected to grow by as much as 2,400 gigawatts (GW) between now and 2027. That’s equal to China’s total power capacity today, and more renewable power than the world has installed in the previous 20 years.

        It’s also about 30 percent higher than the agency was predicting last year, making this the largest-ever upward revision of its renewable energy forecasts. The report predicts that renewables will make up 90 percent of all new power projects over the next half-decade, and by 2025 solar is likely to overtake coal as the world’s single biggest source of power.

        “Renewables were already expanding quickly, but the global energy crisis has kicked them into an extraordinary new phase of even faster growth as countries seek to capitalize on their energy security benefits,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement. “This is a clear example of how the current energy crisis can be a historic turning point towards a cleaner and more secure energy system.”

        Nowhere has the energy crisis spurred a bigger reaction than in Europe. Much of the continent has long been reliant on Russian fossil fuels, with the EU importing nearly half its natural gas from the country. Given the growing rifts with its neighbor, the bloc is keen to rectify this situation.

        In May, the European Commission released its REPowerEU plan in response to the Russian invasion, which outlines how the bloc plans to reduce its energy use, boost renewables, and diversify the sources of its fossil fuel supplies. This includes commitments to end reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027 and boost renewables’ share of the energy mix to 45 percent.”

        If we HAVE to, we can build five or six micro mini electric cars perfectly capable of getting people to work and to the super market on a daily basis using the materials necessary to electrify just ONE full size car with a three hundred mile range.

        It seems to me that the VAST majority of well educated middle and upper class people just don’t have a fucking CLUE as to what’s possible if they are willing to open their minds to the possibility they might have to actually live SOMEWHAT like poor people in SOME respects……… such as driving a SMALL car or walking once in a while.

        My great great grand parents would have looked at an enclosed electric car capable of a fifty mile trip as a gift from Heaven, given that they grew up with horses and mules. A refrigerator, or an electric light, would have been nothing less than a miracle in their eyes.

        1. Yes.

          Although we are so interconnected to the global economy that we are very vulnerable to the deepest and longest depression if the global economy goes into implosion mode. Many minerals and advanced semiconductors for example.

          1. Hi Hickory,

            Do you really believe a lack of IMPORTED semiconductors can bring the USA,Canada and our European friends to the point our economy collapses?

            I’m not talking about a recession,I’m talking about things grinding to a halt, the electricity going off, the water and sewer systems shutting down…… COLLAPSE, not tough times.

            I don’t see that happening in the real world.

            If things get REALLY scary, the people in places such as Taiwan , the ones who REALLY know all about building chip plants and running them, will be fleeing our way by the jumbo jet load, and we have people enough and resources enough to build chip plants.

            And if there’s a particular mineral we CAN’T get along without, something for which there’s NO possible workaround……. well, I suppose we would simply go a viking and take that resource by force, if there’s no other option.

            It’s true you can’t win a war against a people who are determined to keep you out……. playing by the usual semi civilized rules. We’ve lost that kind of war, the Russians have lost such wars.

            But if you just want to operate a uranium mine, or a rare metal mine……. you don’t have to pacify the locals. You can just kill any that make too big a nuisance of themselves, or any that approach past a certain point.

            Or more likely , you cut a deal with whichever warlord winds up in control of the area where such a mine is located. There will be a hundred essential things he won’t be able to get anywhere else…….. except from us or our allies.

            1. Take semiconductors- vehicles, HVAC control systems, grid management, power plants, manufacturing plants, farm tractors, tools, and medicines are a few of the things that now rely on the international supply chain for production.
              Would we ‘collapse’ with a broken globalized supply chain?
              We could be in for deep and long depression if we have to adapt quickly to a broken system. Depends on the details of what was broken and how people in various countries react. Certain sectors and population groups would feel the affects as ‘collapse’.
              If things happen more gradually, disruption might be digested with less bleeding and weight loss.

              And I don’t think we could assume we go anywhere and just take what we need.
              “Or more likely , you cut a deal with whichever warlord winds up in control of the area where such a mine is located.”
              That is exactly what the US has been doing for a hundred years.
              The coalition of the aggrieved aren’t too keen on the history of Euro-American behavior.

            2. I’ve recently noticed more analogue gauges, speedometer etc, available on new model cars. Usually it’s digital these days. Perhaps it’s a chip thing.

    1. This is extremely bad news, I’m surprised it hasn’t got more coverage. It agrees with the findings from studies on the impacts from loss of aerosols due to the lockdowns and switch to low sulphur marine fuel. I was surprised there wasn’t more hoo-had when the original energy imbalance numbers were published earlier in the year – doubling in ten years is incredibly fast and bodes badly for the immediate future, bad enough at it’s present level but what if the pace of change continues? It looks like multi-million deaths and possibly multi-billion refugees are highly likely within the decade and not after 2050, which was expected only a few years ago. This years’ El Niño seems likely to sit right on or above that accelerated warming wedge.

        1. Your talents are wasted here; you should be CIA, Director if Complicated Analysis.

          The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
          https://www.ialeia.org/docs/Psychology_of_Intelligence_Analysis.pdf

          Beliefs and desires in the predictive brain
          https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18332-9

          Towards the semiotics of the future: From anticipation to premediation
          https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352134063_Towards_the_semiotics_of_the_future_From_anticipation_to_premediation

      2. A little help with understanding please-
        Does this report indicate what percent of the energy has gone towards ocean heating vs land/air?

        I would assume that ocean heating is like waking a sleeping giant.

    1. SURVIVALIST —

      Yes, a welcome touch of realism. And, something to counter Islandboy’s delusional comment(s).

      1. China is prob getting about 5k deaths a day. China had previously prioritized vaccination of workers, not vulnerable health status; prob gonna thin out the top of China’s demographic stack and reduce Longterm Care of Elderly costs.

        https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(22)00882-9/fulltext

        For those interested in Serious Adverse Effects the best data is prob from Canada by way of their VISP
        https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/more-than-2-7m-paid-to-50-claimants-of-serious-injury-connected-to-a-vaccine-in-canada-1.6205187

        https://vaccineinjurysupport.ca/en/program-statistics

        I wonder if Islandboy goes by Islander over on the JHK blog comments thread; if so, then it seems IB would have it that Putin only joined the KGB so as to infiltrate the WEF in preparation to fight The Globalists. Talk about thinking ahead!

        Hopefully the population bottleneck selects for Critical Thinking.

        1. I thought the critical thinkers were the the ones who do NOT blindly follow the “consensus” narrative and instead question what they are being told. Never mind. As old folks say in my neck of the woods, “a nuh sup’m a go, a supm a come” (It’s not something that’s going, it’s something that’s coming), IOW we shall see. Next year should prove quite interesting. China will not be able to hide a massive wave of infections if it is accompanied by hospitalisations and deaths.

          As far as the WHO is concerned, I now view them as the unofficial marketing arm of Big Pharma and am more inclined to follow the advice at the World Council for Health or the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance(FLCCC) with the FLCCC largely made up of medical doctors. Here’s some critical thinking from the head of the FLCCC: Critical Thinking in The Age of Censorship Pt. 1

          Finally I hardly have time for this blog in addition to keeping apace with all the renewable energy and EV news on sites like reneweconomy.com.au , pv-magazine.com , cleantechnica.com and insideevs.com , much less to go spend time over at the JHK blog. After I have prepared and sent an invoice to a client for some work I did on Sunday (in the entertainment field) I will be off line for the rest of the day.

          1. The Age of Censorship; when did that start; Kennedy with The Missile Gap?

            Critical Thinking is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

            It has nothing to do with being a contrarian. It’s is not a sociological phenomenon.

          2. Islandboy,

            I see you as being anything remotely close to a “critical thinker”. More like a rose coloured glasses type. Still touting your anti-vaxxing nonsense?

            1. Yup! Along with a growing cohort of people and not all of them are Trump supporters and/or Republicans. The truth will be known.

        2. “Hopefully the population bottleneck selects for Critical Thinking.”

          Yeah, like Grant Wahl (https://twitter.com/GrantWahl) who tweeted this on Dec 17, 2021″

          If you’re unvaccinated at this point, you’re asking to be hospitalized or worse.

          One year (less a week) later:

          Sports reporter Grant Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at World Cup, his wife says

          (CNN) — Grant Wahl, the American soccer reporter who collapsed and died while covering the World Cup in Qatar last week, died of an aortic aneurysm that ruptured, his wife, Dr. Celine Gounder, said Wednesday.

          “It’s just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason it happened at this point in time,” Gounder said on “CBS Mornings.”

          In a longer statement, Gounder said an autopsy performed by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office determined he died from “the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium.

          “The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him,” she said, adding that there was nothing “nefarious” about his death.

          Wahl, a longtime college basketball and soccer reporter for Sports Illustrated and for his own newsletter, collapsed while covering Friday’s Argentina-Netherlands match and was later declared dead. He was 49.

          Put a pin in it.

          1. IslandBoy. aortic aneurysm has nothing to do with covid
            [other than that they both affect the human body]
            I hope you were not trying to pretend a link.
            perhaps i missed your point.

            1. My point is, I find the psychological abuse being meted out to individuals that choose not to be vaccinated by any of the new tech (mrna) vaccines highly offensive. Comments like “Hopefully the population bottleneck selects for Critical Thinking” and “If you’re unvaccinated at this point, you’re asking to be hospitalized or worse” fit the bill IMO.

              The following German study looked at Autopsy-based histopathological characterization of myocarditis after anti-SARS-CoV-2-vaccination. I know an aortic aneurysm is not the same as myocarditis so I asked Google “Can myocarditis cause an aortic aneurysm?” and the answers appear not to rule it out. Whatever the cause of Grant Wahl’s aneurysm, the amount of young (under 50), healthy individuals that are unexpectedly dropping dead with heart problems needs to be properly investigated.

              Not everyone who has refused an mrna shot is a moron. In my neck of the woods there were actually people talking about microchips in vaccines but, my basis for not taking the vaccine has nothing to do with any of the far out conspiracy theories. It is in fact very simple. I am fairly certain I fall within the 99% plus of people that will/did not die as a result of infection. In fact I am confident that my body and immune system are up to the task of defending against this virus as they have with all the others that I have been infected with over my lifetime. I have found vitamin C taken to bowel tolerance to be very effective in helping the immune system combat most infectious agents. (See A User’s Guide to Vitamin C in the Context of COVID-19 by Amory B. Lovins and Eric Rasmussen MD).

              I am 6 foot 3 inches (1.9 m) tall and weigh roughly 210 lbs. (95 kg) and I take at least 3,000 mg of vitamin C a day (in three or more doses) as well as 50 mg of zinc and 5,000 IU (250 μg) of vitamin D (around the time of the winter solstice, less in the summer time). These amounts are right in line with the advice of the World Council for Health (Early Covid-19 Treatment Guidelines: A Practical Approach to Home-based Care for Healthy Families) and the FLCCC Alliance (Covid, Flu and RSV Protection Protocol as well as an educational resource from The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPSonline.org) (A Guide to Home-Based COVID Treatment).

              The guides linked to above have all been prepared by teams of doctors and I don’t know who gave Survivalist or anybody else for that matter, the idea that they can bully me into believing that the doctors that I am taking advice from are wrong and the folks busy peddling Pfizer’s expensive, high tech MRNA shot are right. Individuals have not had to pay for the shots up till now but, western government purchases netted Pfizer at tidy 100% increase in profits in 2021 (to $22 billion, see: How Pfizer Won the Pandemic, Reaping Outsize Profit and Influence).

              I have never been worried about covid-19 and never will be. I may have had it but, I am not going to spend a penny paying for any tests to find out. (The cost of a covid test in Jamaica can easily buy one or two bottles of 1,000 mg vitamin C tablets) If anybody wants to test me they are going to have to pay for it. I am betting my life that no one will ever live to see me seeking medical attention for any upper respiratory system viral infection as long as I have access to the required supplements. If civilisation collapses and I can’t get supplements or a steady supply of enough of the required nutrients from my food then all bets are off. Last night after I finished the work I was doing I walked home 1.75 miles (2.8 km) in roughly half an hour. The fact that I can do that and feel like I could easily walk for hours is a fair indication that I am in pretty good shape.

            2. The fact that you brought a guy dying of an aortic aneurysm [in bold type no less]
              in the context of covid shows either
              how little you understand about health and disease, or
              how desperate you are to create a false narrative, for other reasons I won’t try to speculate on.

              Sorry, but thats how I see it.

            3. A question for you Island Boy: based on the known data, what is the statistical probability of a person of your age and fitness dying from Covid, vs dying from Covid vaccination?

    2. To put a positive spin on the issue, the global death rate with omicron variants infection looks to be roughly less than 1/3rd as fatal as the earlier strains, and even less so with some vaccinations on board.
      Also, the obesity rate in China is much lower than most countries.
      https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/

      By the summer, covid in China will likely settle down.
      Between now and then…a person is just a number.

      1. In Europe and North America the Excess Deaths increased dramatically once the ICU was full.

        1. Yes, just as one would expect.
          And each persons chances of staying out of the ICU have been dramatically decreased by vaccination during the pandemic.

          for those unfamiliar- you get into the ICU with covid when you would otherwise die in short order. you get a breathing tube down your throat, along with other aggressive support measures that require high levels of staff, equipment… and money. maybe you live to go home some day. maybe not.

          This year in the US the death rate among those with vaccination and up to date boosters has held pretty constant compared to those unvaccinated- 10 fold decrease in risk of death.

          1. Sounds really good, but a link with solid data wound maybe change a few minds.

            1. Thanks for interest in the data.
              Here is one such source-
              Source: CDC COVID-19 Response, Epidemiology Task Force
              “US- Covid Weekly Death Rate by Vaccination Status over age 50”
              this is from April through Sept
              you can scroll over each week to see the comparative data

              https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~50%2B

              There plenty of ‘proof in the pudding’ reports from state department of health showing similar results- Pennsylvania for example
              “77 percent of COVID-19-related deaths among individuals who had an infection date between January 1, 2021 and May 11, 2022 were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.”
              https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Post-Vaccination-Data.aspx

              Now the death rate from Omicron Covid has declined and is coming into the range we in the US sometimes see with a bad influenza year. Get influenza once and you will likely line up a vaccine when you can.

              I will work hard to stay as far from the ICU as I can.

          2. It’s perhaps worth noting that once the ICU is full not all of the excess deaths are COVID deaths. Some are MVAs, some are children who fell off a horse, and some are transplants whose surgery is cancelled cuz they need an ICU bed post op. Everybody and anybody that needs an ICU bed is an excess death once the ICU beds are full.

            “It is morally impermissible to assign an ICU bed to a voluntarily unvaccinated adult COVID patient.” ~ Survivalist

            That’s how you stop ICU from filling up without doing a ‘lockdown’. It’s called ‘Goals of Care’; to wit, No ICU for you. Happens all the time, for all kinds of reasons.

            Data on excess deaths in China will likely be hard to get. Life insurance policies may be a good lead for creating a data set.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Life_Insurance_Company

  27. Hardly surprising.

    OVERSHOOTING CLIMATE TARGETS COULD SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE RISK FOR TIPPING CASCADES

    “Temporarily overshooting the climate targets of 1.5–2 degrees Celsius could increase the tipping risk of several Earth system elements by more than 70% compared to keeping global warming in line with the United Nations Paris Agreement range, a new risk analysis study by an international team of researchers shows. This tipping risk increases even if in the longer term the global temperature would stabilize within the Paris range. Avoiding an overshoot would hence limit the risks.”

    https://phys.org/news/2022-12-overshooting-climate-significantly-cascades.html

  28. Some place upthread, Charles said

    ”

    OFM

    Let’s see.

    Question if everyone on the planet used as much gas as you do, how long would global gas reserves last?”

    I used to use a good bit of gas in the form of nitrate fertilizers, and I still use some in the form of synthetic materials such as plastics……. which in some cases are actually environmental bargains, because nothing else will work nearly as well or last nearly as long. ( An example is the fuel tank on an automobile.)

    The DIFFERENCE is that I don’t just harp on and on and on about how we’re going to have to deal with depletion.

    We all know and understand depletion here, Charles. We also know about forced climate change as well.

    And we knew about it and understood years ago, probably years before you posted your first comment here.

    Here’s my question for you.
    What do you know about possible SOLUTIONS ?

    1. OFM

      I see you cannot calculate my simple challenge, did you run out of fingers? 😂 If you do not know what you use you cannot work out what it would take to become carbon neutral.

      I have mentioned several times solutions, you see, if you knew how much energy is in oil and gas you would know what solutions are realistic.

      1. Charles,

        Better to get on the renewable bandwagon, than getting behind it. It is better for your mental health.

      2. People who have been following this forum for years, since it was first organized, as I have, will likely agree with me when I say I’ve probably forgotten more about environmental issues than you have ever learned.
        I won’t waste any more time on you.
        Keep on chattering like a monkey.
        Maybe someday you will say something useful, something relating to actually solving problems, but it seems unlikely.

    2. “Question if everyone on the planet used as much gas as you do, how long would global gas reserves last?”

      I fail to see the purpose of this exercise. It does not forecast how long or “what it would take” until one is carbon neutral.

      It is a normative inquiry meant to morally differentiate.
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

      My carbon footprint has never been smaller. It’s minuscule. It peaked right before I rapidly contracted it, and it’s worth noting that much of the peaking was prepping motivated/related. Defender 90 Td5’s don’t grow on trees.

      1. Survivalist

        The point of the exercise is to see if OFM knows anything about the subjects discussed here.
        Like most people OFM thinks he can cut down a little here and there and if everyone did the same thing all would be fine.

        What it would take to reverse the total destruction of the world would require far greater sacrifice than what most people are prepared to make.

        The cost of electric vehicles including the solar panels and turbines to power them and charging points will cost over 100 trillion dollars for the next 20 years.
        While policing, protecting and repairing all the forests of the world would cost perhaps 2 trillion dollars.

        https://news.mongabay.com/2022/07/protecting-brazils-amazon-could-be-a-bargain-if-the-government-were-willing-to-pay/

        The cost of providing, policing, protecting and regeneration of global fresh water would cost perhaps 4 or 5 trillion dollars over that kind of time frame.

        https://www.wri.org/insights/it-could-only-cost-1-gdp-solve-global-water-crises

        There simply isn’t the money to electrify personal transport and protect the forest from destruction, fresh water from being used up and soil erosion.

        The forests and plants of the world convert trillions of gigawatts of sun energy into all sorts of essentials.
        As they are destroyed that heat will dry up other places. The forests of Oregon will burn and the wheat fields of Oklahoma will become parched and fail.

        The things like cars which many take for granted were luxuries to my grand parents and need to become so again

        1. Charles is a holier than thou newcomer who obviously hasn’t read the vast majority of my comments here, or in other forums.

          If he weren’t a puppy in over his head, he would know that I’ve consistently predicted that huge numbers ( hundreds of millions or more) of people are going to die hard from starvation, exposure, violence, and contagious diseases, etc, within the easily foreseeable future.

          And he would know that my general position, for the last few years, after having been a hard core doomer for a number of years, is that it’s possible, but by no means certain, that some people in some places have a fair and maybe even good shot at continuing to live more or less civilized lives with such modern conveniences as electricity, working water and sewer systems, food in stores, and cops on the street.

          Puppies like Charles always think they know more than old dogs.

          Thank goodness for the block button, and good riddance as of now.

          1. He is taking the first steps on journey Old Farmer Mac has been traveling for decades…a journey with a hell of lot of real world experience and basic common sense under his hat.

            hint to Charles- read OFM’s comments carefully. His perspective is a gift.

          2. OFM

            Do you know what holier than thou, actually means?

            At no point did I say, I do anything more than you.

            It was you who started insulting me and you implied that you are trying to live a more environmentally friendly life and I was not. Even though you know nothing of the things I have done.

        2. “There simply isn’t the money to electrify personal transport and protect the forest from destruction, fresh water from being used up and soil erosion.” ~ Charles

          No shit. Thanks for explaining the painfully obvious. We here at POB, if I may say so, are very much past the “constructing the problem definition” phase of things. I tend to notice Histrionics don’t get much traction here.

          Charles, when you’re finished interrogating OFM, perhaps you would be so kind as to rank us all in some sort of normative order, and then let us know who is the good ones and who is the bad ones. Perhaps you can get a squabble going.

          You don’t have to beat around the bush about it.

          1. Survivalist

            You are truly part of a very exclusive group of 15 people who know it all. Resorting to petty put downs when someone has a different point of view to you.

            Hardly any wonder 99.99% of people don’t believe in peak oil anymore when they come across peak oil advocates who just insult them instead of carefully delivering good arguments.

            Arrogant knowledge is very unpleasant especially when there is lots of the former and not much of the latter.

            15

            1. “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”

  29. Who’s keeping up with the solid state battery industry, which seems likely to be a BIG THING before too long?

    Whatever you know, short form, will be appreciated and thanks in advance!

    1. OFM
      I would like to know as well.

      What I do know is that future technologies have to be limited in energy input, but still get a lot of output. I guess the germans have something to say about this subject. Probably shell shocked by war; sad as for now.

      1. I read a link, now lost, a couple of days ago to the effect that at least one of the better financed and organized companies in the solid state field is shipping batteries for field testing to car makers. Can’t remember the name.

        So far, it’s pretty much all smoke in terms of solid state batteries for cars and trucks, but there’s obviously SOME fire in there someplace.
        Here’s a link from the Electreck site.

        https://electrek.co/2022/07/19/how-solid-state-ev-batteries-could-cut-emissions-by-up-to-39/

        There’s plenty of lithium out there, if we can find ways to mine low grade deposits at an affordable price, or extract it from sea water or brine from deep wells, etc.

        Cobalt may be the bigger problem in the long run, but there are other battery chemistries that will work, if we have to use them.

        2. The last time I looked at this, it should be a strong market for transport niches benefiting more range at the expense of longer charging time. The proof in the pudding is if some of the majors invest in this technology at a scale big enough to bring costs down. I am not following this close enough to say what investments have been done recently. Maybe less cobalt usage is not worth it as a stand alone argument for using this technology (graphite is definitely even more easy to cope with supply wise). Time will show.

        3. That’s why the next big thing for electrification of traffic is the sodium battery – rollouts are already starting here and end user products are announced.
          No raw material restrictions here.

          1. Thanks Eulenspiegel and Kolbeninih,
            If you know of any in depth coverage of these new battery types that’s not behind paywalls, please post them.

            In the meantime……. China is an a mega roll, building hydro power plants, and neighboring countries are to put it as mildly as possible, thoroughly pissed off and alarmed about the consequences to their own water supplies and hydro potential.

            China USED to be a very peaceful country, in terms of international affairs, because she had no choice, having little or nothing in the way of industry.

            Now that China is industrialized, there’s plenty of reason her leaders will be happy to throw their weight around, running roughshod over other smaller less powerful countries.
            Here’s a link that’s speculative in nature, but it’s my personal opinion that China will proceed with this super dam…… which will likely be an environmental disaster in and of itself, and might even lead to a hot war between China and India.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svkbtA1gRCk

    1. It appears so are investors-

      Tesla short sellers have collected nearly $14 billion since Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter, making Tesla the most profitable short of 2022
      6:24 pm ET December 22, 2022 (MarketWatch)
      Print
      By Wallace Witkowski

      Tesla shares drop below $125 for first time in more than two years as market cap slips below $400 billion, making car maker worth less than Visa and putting it in danger of falling out of top 10 most valuable S&P 500 companies

      Tesla Inc. shares plunged to a fifth consecutive daily decline Thursday, adding more to short sellers’ returns from betting against the electric-vehicle maker.

      Tesla (TSLA) shares finished down 8.9% at $125.35 after dropping as much as 11% on volume of more than 200 million shares Tuesday, compared with a 52-week average daily volume of about 81 million shares. Tesla was the most active and worst performing stock on the S&P 500 index Thursday, and the most active and worst performing stock on the Nasdaq-100 , according to Dow Jones data.

      Read from Monday: Tesla analysts say they can’t ignore Elon Musk’s Twitter ‘nightmare’ anymore.

      Tesla shares are down 64.4% for the year, while the S&P 500 has fallen 19.8% and the Nasdaq Composite Index is off by a third.

      ****

      Tesla Doubles Discounts on Model 3, Model Y Vehicles — Update
      11:44 am ET December 22, 2022 (Dow Jones) Print
      By Will Feuer

      Tesla Inc. has doubled the discounts offered on its Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles delivered in the U.S. this month, according to its website, fueling concern demand for autos from Elon Musk’s car company may be softening.

      “Take delivery of a new Model 3 or Model Y between December 21 and 31, 2022 for a $7,500 credit and 10,000 miles of free Supercharging,” the EV maker says on its website.

      The charging credits also apply to the Model S and Model X vehicles, according to the company’s website, but not the $7,500 discount.

      Discounts are common in the car business, but the $7,500 Tesla is now offering stands out in this current environment, because the auto industry has largely been able to pull back on such incentive programs in recent years with a continuing car shortage driven largely by supply-chain constraints.

      “Manufacturer discounts are up slightly from a month ago, however, they remain historically suppressed,” said Thomas King, president of the data and analytics division at J.D. Power. On average, car companies spent $1,187 per vehicle on such promotions in December, according to the consumer research company, and some Tesla rivals have been raising prices on select models.

  32. Musk is now the poster boy classic example of a man who because he is really good in one line of work thinks he knows all about some other field……….

    When such people jump into a new field, they’re apt to make utter fools of themselves.
    It’s perfectly obvious Musk either doesn’t know as much about the life sciences as a reasonably bright high schooler on the academic track, or else he’s simply trolling when he gets outside the engineering and energy areas.

    “Billionaire Elon Musk frequently tweets about “population collapse,” contending that we as a society must raise our birth rates to counteract ageing populations. At a conference in May, Musk stated that humanity must at least sustain its numbers.Oct 3, 2022″

    Tesla the car and energy company will probably do ok or even great, long term. The fundamentals seem to be sound.

    I’m thinking that Musk intends to turn Twitter into a weapon to further his own and the goals of the hard core right political wing.

    If this is his plan, he’s a clear and present danger to our society, and to the entire earth.

    2. “When such people jump into a new field, they’re apt to make utter fools of themselves.
      It’s perfectly obvious Musk either doesn’t know as much about the life sciences as a reasonably bright high schooler on the academic track, or else he’s simply trolling when he gets outside the engineering and energy areas.”

      I knew he didn’t know anything about cave rescue etc., I was disappointed to find out that Musk doesn’t know that much about the physical sciences either. He seems to be developing a habit on Twitter of making some technical pronouncement, and in the hours afterwards there’s a growing chorus of specialists in the relevant fields that reply and show that he doesn’t understand the issue. High school level understanding of applied statistics, space travel, etc., etc.

      We’re seeing it now with specialists laughing at some of his IT opinions.

      He had a much better reputation when he didn’t open his mouth. My mother had an applicable saying about that …

      Also, doesn’t know much about managing a business, but I suspect he’s probably had few jobs, and little opportunity to learn. He was fortunate that the people who got involved in SpaceX at an early stage were accomplished managers. And he was fortunate that the innovative technology at Tesla was well developed and managed before he ‘founded’ the company.

  33. Global solar capacity additions hit 268 GW in 2022, says BNEF

    BloombergNEF Analyst Jenny Chase says the world installed 268 GW of new solar capacity in 2022, with annual installations expected to hit 315 GW in 2023. In a recent interview with pv magazine, Chase pointed to a large backlog of delivered PV modules in Europe that still have yet to be installed.

    Earlier this year I did a quick and dirty spreadsheet projecting global PV capacity growth to 2030. For my low scenario I increased the amount of new capacity added each year by 10% and the high scenario 20%. Starting from a base of 183 GW of new capacity in 2021 the high scenario was 219.6 GW for 2022, 263.5 for 2023 and 316.2 for 2024. My 2023 and 2024 figures are going to be reached a year ahead of my projections according to BNEF! At this rate I will not be surprised to see 500GW of new capacity by 2025 and expect at least that figure by 2026.

    1. Thanks.
      Globally- “the average capacity factor for utility-scale solar PV systems stood at 17.2 percent”

      which means that the 2022 solar capacity addition of 268 GW is equivalent to annual output
      from a little more than 50 additional nuclear plants [1000MW] that are operating without flaw.

  34. New posts are up. The EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook. I have also included some charts to explain the EIA’s “Other Liquids”

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