75 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 2, 2022”

    1. Agree with your prediction, although I suspect we see the timeframe differently.
      Nonetheless the risk is great instability at borders, at food distribution centers and at government facilities in the most heavily affected countries. Just like its been in past episodes.

  2. Self driving cars.

    At the moment every single vehicle on the road needs a driver to get it from A to B. Traffic jams plague all major cities and only a few cities that have implemented Park and Ride schemes have managed to reduce the amount of cars on their roads.

    I think this is a fair study of the timescale required for self driving cars to become a significant proportion of vehicles on the roads.

    https://www.vtpi.org/avip.pdf

    The barrier to self driving cars is not legislation, it is the fact that they do not work properley at the moment and will take at least 10 years to overcome all the technical challeges that still exist

    1. The “it will be ten years from now” view has been the norm since 2010 or so when self-driving started taking off, and we are nowhere nearer to the goal. The entire industry threw a load of new terms at the problem from machine learning to GANN and decided that would do it with the way new GPUs were progressing.

      It didn’t.

      And given people are sick of Musk and his ilk saying this would happen soon, like fusion, the money tap has dried up and many projects have either rolled up fully or are massively scaled back.

      In other news: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11494991/Switzerland-BAN-electric-cars-roads-power-shortages.html

      1. Kleiber

        The technology has improved over the last 10 years, there are already self driving cars that can drive in clear weather, on good city roads which are not too busy.
        I think in 10 years time. top of the range cars like Audi will have a fully autonomous model which will cost around £200,000, the wealthy 1% will be tempted to buy them.

        https://www.audi.com/en/innovation/autonomous-driving/driverless-test-drives-in-china.html

        Most people will use public transport on a daily basis and use expensive petrol and diesel or electric for weekend trips etc

        1. Test drives, yes. In perfect control conditions, even a Tesla, as terrible as they are, can avoid running into a child it mistakes for clear air. We have autonomous taxis near me, in Milton Keynes. They’re not exactly what people were sold on when it came to driverless future cars.

          But the actual problem is not something people even really comprehend, as it’s down to the machine learning models used. Going to Level 3, say, is much easier from Level 1 than it is to go 3 to 5. We’ve had drive assist functionality for decades in some form, from assisted parking to lane changes. To go to full lack of human input? That would require a quantum leap in AI awareness of the world that simply isn’t there. I’ve seen way too many articles on things like DALL-E and supposedly sentient Google chat bots to think this is changing any time soon, since it’s not getting solved with big dataset models or better silicon or camera and LIDAR combos. It’s having true awareness and cognition, which the heuristic decision trees and pattern recognition models many point to as being HAL 9000 here and now, simply are not.

          Another AI winter is probably approaching, what with the recession coming at us and the Big Tech frivolity winding down as many dreams and investor dollars vanish.

          Or I could be wrong. It’d be cool to have a breakthrough; I just don’t see it. Level 4 in the next few years perhaps.

          1. Kleiber

            I agree. Going from Level 1 to 3 is far easier than going from 3 to 4 and even more so to Level 5. I see these driverless cars initially working in the centre of a city where there is good lighting, good road signs and strong 5g.
            Self driving cars being able to drive along country roads in the dark, fog or snow are a long way off.
            If the world spent the 3 trillion each year not on cars but on public transport the public transport in most countries would be fantastic.
            Electric trolley buses every 5 to 10 minutes, transport police going between stations and trains and buses. A safe and cheap way for everyone to get to work and leisure.

            1. I like that cities such Manchester and Nottingham never got rid of their tram system, something that should definitely be part of any modern urban area going forward.

  4. Not sure if this had been posted here before.
    Condolences.

    ” Tracking the health of nature over almost
    50 years, the Living Planet Index acts as an early warning indicator
    by tracking trends in the abundance of mammals, fish, reptiles,
    birds and amphibians around the world.
    In its most comprehensive finding to date, this edition shows an
    average 69% decline in the relative abundance of monitored wildlife
    populations around the world between 1970 and 2018.”

    Yes, that is a roughly 70% decline in global [ex-human and domesticates]
    animal life abundance since 1970.
    Add now 4 more years of that decline to the Holocide.

    Each year of human system growth is another year of unimaginable tragedy for the rest of life.

    https://wwflpr.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/lpr_2022_full_report.pdf

    1. HICKORY —

      A few years ago I was in China looking for business opportunities for a Texas based oil company. One day a bunch of guys appeared at my hotel; they said we were going out for dinner. We all crammed ourselves into a fancy limo and headed out. An hour of travelling across Beijing I asked where we were going, having passed a thousand eating places. I was told it was to a special restaurant. What’s so special about it, I asked in my naïve Canadian way. The answer: “They specialize in endangered species.” At that moment I lost every trace of optimism for the future of our planet.

      1. The great paradox of natural selection:

        An ape of the most unfathomable rapacity able to fathom its own rapacity. And report on it.

        And continue doing it.

      2. “They specialize in endangered species.”…
        This should be startling,
        but I’ve been around long enough that my sensibilities are heavily dulled.
        We’ve all got no respect.

      3. Let’s be real most endangered species will disappear anyway no matter what we do or don’t do. What did you order at that restaurant?

        1. The slow cooked McNarcissist Homo sapiens fatty rib special dipped in chemicals ?

      4. The biggest impact is from habitat loss. The race to renewables and happy motoring EVs will accelerate the destruction rate for a few years now, at least until we start running out of targets.The damage being done to us by the loss of these biosyjtem services is less obvious (but may be happening faster) than for climate change.

    1. good article. i was expecting it to be about oat milk and such (which i do like plenty),
      but this is a completely different approach.

        1. I’d like to see an analysis of those ‘efficiency’ advantages that is/are a little more
          concrete than just a slide by Seba.
          Anyone seen such information?

        2. Those stainless-steel tanks would not be very appetizing on a plate.

        3. I think that Sebas assertions on this topic are in the category of speculation.
          There are quite a few articles looking at the theorectical production efficiencies of the various ‘in vitro food biomass production’ options being considered. I say theoretical because there are not significant scaled up production lines available to do actual measurements and analysis.
          Certainly less land would be required, but water and energy input would be much higher when compared to ‘natural’ grazing of livestock or free range production of poultry.
          Keep in mind that edible biomass in a production facility does not just appear out of thin air.
          Concentrated and expensive energy, nutrient and substrate inputs are required.
          That will never be as inexpensive as the inputs from rain, sunshine and soil.

          Sure, these in vitro food biomass production systems may be useful in a severely overcrowded world like ours, or on the Musk outworld.
          Its a last ditch effort to keep the world population artificially elevated.
          Even more extreme than mayonnaise [hate it].

          example of articles on the subject-
          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6078906/
          https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Environmental Science & Technology&title=Anticipatory life cycle analysis of in vitro biomass cultivation for cultured meat production in the United States&author=C.S. Mattick&author=A.E. Landis&author=B.R. Allenby&author=N.J. Genovese&volume=49&issue=19&publication_year=2015&pages=11941-11949&pmid=26383898&

          1. The point is not that these processes are particularly efficient, but that they are much more efficient than cows.

            1. But cows, and goats, and even more so chicken and turkey
              if raised without intensive feedlot scenario,
              have input costs and input energy efficiency that cannot be matched by any more
              complex system.
              Only in an overcrowded world with the illusion of free excess energy does any artificial system look advantageous.

            2. Industrial ag is a necessary evil for 8G apes to survive.

              But a cow, well cared for by the small farmer, is a delight.

              A cow gives you milk. A cow gives you more cows. A cow gives you meat. A cow gives you rawhide. A cow gives you compost. A cow gives you a cropped field. A cow (ox) gives you work.

              While we could definitely stand to have fewer beefeaters, let there be more small farms with cows, please.

            3. Hickory,
              You wildly overestimate the efficiency of warm blooded animals, and underestimate their complexity.

              Roughly speaking, cold blooded animals produce protein from amino acid-rich feed at ten times the efficiency of warm blooded animals, and single celled organisms produce protein at ten times the efficiency of cold blooded animals.

              By genetically modifying single celled organisms (like yeast) to produce animal protein, you can cut the amount of feed needed to create the desired proteins by well of 90%.

              At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this isn’t science fiction, it’s already happening. Handling these organisms is already big business. Instead of brewing alcohol, giant companies like InBev/Anhaeuser-Busch are starting to brew egg and milk proteins. Meat will soon follow.

              Consumer choice isn’t an issue here. About a third of milk products are used as ingredients, not consumed directly. For example, milk powder makes supermarket chocolate chip cookies tastier and chewier. Manufacturers will definitely switch to cheaper yeast-produced milk protein as soon as the price falls below animal based product. You won’t taste the difference, and demand for dairy (and feed) will crash.

              Pharmaceutical companies are already in the market (for example with insulin), but they don’t have the same cost structures as the processed food industry.

            4. Alim- I am not downplaying the myriad potential of the various food production systems being explored. I have a strong university background in related sciences, and find it very interesting. I am pointing out that Seba speculations about the dramatic advantages are not based on solid evidence, particularly on a large scale basis. I do look forward to watching these attempts at food innovation progress.

              I have often grown Tempeh- [a traditional Indonesian food made from soybeans. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. A fungus, Rhizopus oligosporus or Rhizopus oryzae, is used in the process. The result is a tasty product that takes much less energy than cooking or processing soybeans by any other method]

            5. Alim- got a scientific source for this asserted information. Call me extremely unbelieving on this.
              If the cold-blooded part was true then alligators and other cold-blooded livestock would be filling the feedlots rather cattle.

              “Roughly speaking, cold blooded animals produce protein from amino acid-rich feed at ten times the efficiency of warm blooded animals, and single celled organisms produce protein at ten times the efficiency of cold blooded animals. By genetically modifying single celled organisms (like yeast) to produce animal protein, you can cut the amount of feed needed to create the desired proteins by well of 90%.”

          2. Hickory –
            If the cold-blooded part was true then alligators and other cold-blooded livestock would be filling the feedlots rather cattle.

            90% or more of the energy assimilated by endotherms is converted to heat, so only a small percentage of the food energy drawn from the ecosystem by endotherms is converted to biomass (i.e., to grow tissue or produce offspring). In other words, endotherms have lower production efficiency than ectotherms.

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/referencework/9780444641304/encyclopedia-of-ecology

            Here’s a chart of fish to various warm blooded animals showing a ration between 2:1 and 14:1.

            https://www.biomar.com/en/global/articles/news/fish-are-an-efficient-source-of-protein/

            There is no reason to believe that modern society is particularly resource efficient. it’s also worth mentioning that worldwide production of fish is about 87m tonnes, and beef is about 60m tonnes. The US and Brazil are the largest beef producers by far, part of the ongoing desertification of the New World.

            https://www.umass.edu/news/article/soil-midwestern-us-eroding-10-1000-times-faster-it-forms-study-finds

            1. You are discussing the factory feedlot food production system.
              I look forward to cultured fungus that tastes like lobster for a dollar/lb…
              kind of.

    1. I’m proud to be described as woke in a world lacking in empathy

      I’VE checked the definition of “woke” and generally it’s along the lines of, “alert to injustice in society, especially issues of racial and social justice”. Apparently it’s of African-American origin dating back to at least the 60s but it’s mainstream ubiquity is a recent development.

      https://www.thenational.scot/news/19450590.proud-described-woke-world-lacking-empathy/

    2. In general Republicans have considered awareness of the citizens to be a big disadvantage to the parties prospects ( and rightfully so).
      There is a culture war targeting the Universities and the local school boards.
      A considerable portion of this occurs not just on Fox news and right wing radio, but also in a large portion of the countries churches. A somehow they are tax advantaged business entities.

  7. About the fantasy on driverless cars. I was driving south on I 95 south of Richmond Va. behind me in a Town Car with two retirement age women. We are driving about 75mph and while I was looking in my rear view mirror I watched a Kenworth 18 wheeler move into our lane causing the woman to completely leave the road and drive onto the grass. The truck the moved over and she returned to the pavement but the Kenworth returned again into her lane causing her to head back onto the grass, but only only the left side tires. The truck finally moved over two lanes and it was over. The whole event lasted about 5 or 6 seconds. An added note we were only a 1000’ or so from a bridge. NEVER will a car with cameras and sensors be made that would have saved their lives.

    1. I’d be impressed if the dweebs could make a self driving train. Self driving cars is techno cornucopian circle jerk meant to undermine interest in public transportation systems.

    2. I’m very skeptical about self-driving cars,
      but I will probably be wrong about the prospects of it being successful.
      And it will likely be achieved with less risk than human drivers currently generate.

      Look back in 10 years- we will probably be surprised.

    3. I don’t see self driving cars coming anytime soon. Too many niche cases including what to do about sensor malfunctions and misreadings. Instead, I’d like to see the car companies focus on enhancing the “computer between the ears” of the driver making that driver a safer driver and more aware of potential dangers.

    1. The fifth method, The Hills Groups ‘Analysis’, and I use that term loosely, is garbage.

      Interesting to me that the ‘UnDenial guy’ seems to be a COVIDiot and possesses other characteristics of political reactionism; from reading the comments it seems like an echo chamber for peeps who think Russia is winning on the battle field in Ukraine and can defeat NATO at will. It’s laughable.

      https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-4

      NATO members are doing well in collaboration with Ukraine; a NATO member is not playing Home Team, always nice; and NATO standard kit and training is superior to that of the adversary.

      The primary characteristic that is shared by both Putin & Musk is that when either is fucking up the sycophants cheer “5-D chess”.

      If the Dumas wants to know where the 2 million winter uniforms they authorized went try flea markets in China.

      Russia has resource wealth and a shitty army. It is suboptimal to expose weakness when appearing wealthy. Better to feint and appear strong and poor, but ego usually gets the better part of cover.

    2. This seems like a good place mention a book I came across.
      “Blip” By /Christopher Clugsgton.
      I suspect that many of you are familiar with it. I’d like to write a review of it but my Parkinsons is making it difficult.
      Eric Thurston

    1. Can’t wait to convert more biosphere to dollarydoos. Very good for economic number.

  11. Peter Zeihan recently on The Power Hungry Podcast

    https://robertbryce.com/power-hungry-podcast/

    He’s so-so; quite good at describing things that are happening, not doing well on what will happen in the future.

    Anyone who calls Democrats ‘the left’ is politically illiterate and their take on world events is meaningless. Peter was toilet trained all wrong.

    1. He gets a bit hyperbolic – i.e. a 10% drop (or some such) in a birth cohort does not equal “they are running out of thirty year old workers”, as he’s said about China. Also after the tenth smug little chuckle and (on YT) pushing his hair back behind his ears you want someone to come up and shove a cream pie in his face, just to redress the balance.

      1. Thanks, George. I’ve seen many referrals to his videos, and I find him glib and too full of answers–too much of a know-it-all for my taste.

    2. I think he is pretty good.

      Peter looks at things from a demographic, geographical and geological perspective which I find rare in the analyst community.

      Plus he has some great insight from a military perspective having worked for Stratfor.

      His hair cut isn’t doing him to many favors at it adds to the perception of a know it all.

      My biggest beef is he thinks that US Shale means the US can abandon the world and live on its own.

      I don’t think he is aware of the 85% decline rates in the first 32 months.

      2. I think that he wrestles with the mismatch between the horizon of analysis and the horizon of action.

        Clearly, with birthrates of less than 1 a number of geographies in a few decades are facing very real substantial challenges. But in the meanwhile some of those countries can take their existing resources and materially change the course of history by taking action this week, this month, this year. So I think that trying to spin day to day events in the framework of multi-decade inevitable changes requires stretching of both current events as well as what the future may look like in order to have some degree of consistency.
        Rgds
        WP

      3. I’ll offer some “insight” that no one asked for and I am not qualified to give.

        To counter Peter’s perspective.

        If I am living in America
        1) 4-5 mbpd internal production after the Shale BOOM collapses. Declining at 1-2% annually. Small producers thats it.

        2) 1.5 – 3 mbpd Canadian Tar Sands.. Increasing 2-3% annually. And don’t say there is not enough natural gas…they will hook a nuclear reactor up to the sands to melt them

        3) Taking control of Venezuela and revitalizing their oil production

        4) Dominant coal supplier on the planet with Australia. Their making multi-decadal investment to host US and British military.

        5) The Suburban sprawl scares the hell out of me. You got to drive atleast 15 minutes to get to anything. And driving 3 or 4 times a day is not uncommon.

        If the USA brings microchip and electronics production back to the USA, the US wlll be livable when Peak Oil starts to bite.

  12. Renewable Energy, when you need it most it lets you down

    Temperatures in Europe have been falling to -5 this week and energy demand has increased.

    Lots of solar in July with headlines proclaiming highest ever record is a fat lot of use now.

    https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&legendItems=0001111111111101111111111111111111000000

    When people are freezing in their houses now you need heat now not in July.
    At the moment wind and solar despite having an installed capacity of double Germany average consumption is producing as little as 5% of needs.

    Calculations of ERoEI for large scale wind and solar combined with battery storage is less than 3. Society needs an absolute minimum of 7. This includes minimal consumption and all appliances being the most energy efficient.

    We have a problem Houston.

    2. Its good to know that you as a northern European realize that solar in the winter up there is weak, and that wind is intermittent in a different way.
      And know that France has had a big problem with nuclear this year.
      And know that hydroelectric generation is down in places of drought this year.
      And that fossil fuels are depleting, and are generally concentrated in places that are not called Europe.
      And that energy storage isn’t cheap.

      Some would say the whole place is over built and over peopled.
      How many people could live on the indigenous energy production of Europe?
      (please leave a few trees standing)
      Same question for the rest of the earth.

        1. In many ways, yes for all countries…the same boat.
          Grossly overextended.

          Some regions do have some big advantages on energy over others, after fossil fuels begin the big decline.
          As mentioned by Survivalist some regions have big hydroelectric production capability.
          And about 80% of the worlds people live where the solar resource ranges from good to excellent.
          Some have big wind resource.
          Some will have fossil fuels longer than others.
          Some will work hard to go big on nuclear, and energy storage (which includes hydrogen).

          Work with what you got, and what you can afford.
          The big clock is ticking.
          All options are far from optimal, and as I see it the global economy and population will begin a decline in magnitude to more closely match long term capacities.
          I suppose i could be wrong and there will be plenty of all the critical factors indefinitely.
          More likely, most of the world is in a deep state of denial.

            1. “too much talk about renewables when…..”
              Lets talk about rapid managed downsizing of population and economy then.
              Got any good suggestions that are legal and electable?

          2. I thought this thread was about discussing such things, but I guess I was wrong… But there is apparently a narrative, so I guess time will have to tell.

      2. Hickory, good points.
        It´s interesting that we in the far north of Europe, and north of Sweden to boot, have also gotten much more expensive electricity lately (on the spot market at least)
        The question is, since we “export” electricity to southern Sweden and they export it to continental europe at a premium, who makes a sh*tload of money?
        The cost of generation has certainly not gone up that much, if any. (This might also be a threat to the H2 developments here too)
        But during talk of an energy crisis in Sweden and recommendations of sending kids to school with a blanket and a flashlight just in case, not kidding, we are mostly exporting electrons…
        (Will get a wood stove as a compliment to my air/air heatpump and three pane windows at the coastal dwelling in a few weeks, got my own woodlot for it)

        1. Is Sweden supplied by one utility company, or are there multiple?
          Publicly traded companies?

  13. The Global Food Crisis, Explained- The Economist
    https://youtu.be/oQWaw5S4b3I

    Will there be a global food shortage?
    https://youtu.be/36u4b7my5vI

    Risk of fifth consecutive crop and rangelands season failure in the Horn of Africa
    https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news/risk-fifth-consecutive-crop-and-rangelands-season-failure-horn-africa-2022-11-10_en

    Exceptionally warm autumn raises concerns in the south of Europe
    https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news/exceptionally-warm-autumn-raises-concerns-south-europe-2022-11-21_en

    I’m quite thoroughly convinced that the mechanism of our rapid demise will soon be an energy shortage of the sort that goes on our mouths.

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