102 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 20, 2023”

    1. When I said “great job Dennis” I meant on his blog post.

      Not that my last post got abandoned.

      Sorry, that came out wrong.

      Big fan of Dennis’s work.

    1. And,

      PERMAFROST: A TICKING TIME BOMB BENEATH OUR FEET

      “Early climate models predicted that we wouldn’t reach the current stage of permafrost melt until 2090! That shows just how hard it is to forecast permafrost dynamics. The margin of uncertainty is much larger than for glaciers, whose changes are more visible. Studying permafrost is really complicated—not just because everything happens deep beneath our feet, but also because of the sheer extent of the Earth’s surface it covers. A sample taken in one location tells us nothing about the composition and dynamics of permafrost as a whole.”

      https://phys.org/news/2023-12-permafrost-beneath-feet.html

      1. I have always viewed CO2 as a climate modifier, but the trigger as being methane. Either methane hydrate near continental shelves or permafrost. Guess we will be finding out!! Western Maine is a disaster area as we speak. We got 7 inches of rain and it melted the snowpack on Monday. 100 year event anyways. The bridge to my home is gone, It was a rail bridge before it was changed to vehicle bridge, standing since 1923. The small stream raged and blew out over 3,000 yds of rock and gravel in a few hours. The other two ways out are impassable. One road scoured to bedrock, Looking at it you would never guess a road ever existed. Looks like a stream bed. 14 of us stranded out here. Working to put in a temporary logging bridge. Weather is how the climate system is expressed. If more heat energy is added to a system the result will be an increase in amplitude or frequency or both. What don’t deniers get about that. It’s playing out in real time folks.

        1. So. Maine here. Quite a downpour, and wind! In mid December! Forester will not be thinning our woods this winter due to the water. Third year. WTF?!

  4. As I’m writing this it is still night in China and 100s of millions of their citizens are experiencing Fahrenheit temperatures in the single digits and -10 to -20 degrees below zero. Since it’s still night there, there is no power from the solar farms and the Ventusky weather website shows most of China with winds at 10 mph and less. The survival of all of those Chinese rests on the use of fossil fuels. With weather like this every coal plant is running at full capacity.

    1. Is that supposed to be news? Most countries get a majority of their energy from fossil fuels.

      1. Yea, Hickory. Ervin piped in with a very Alex Epstein-like response. Recall that Epstein wrote a book called the “Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”

        The problem with that title is that nature is neither moral or immoral. It is amoral. Why nature decided that fossil fuels are finite & non-renewable is just a fact that humans have to deal with. Laying a guilt trip a la Epstein does not cut it.

    1. Merry Christmas, and may you be blessed with abundance in the new year.

  7. Sorry lads, significant reduction of coal use seems to be a long way off.

    COAL FINANCING IS STILL BOOMING

    “The lion’s share of the coal business emanates from China. In fact, 76% of measured coal financing—or $93 billion—took place in the world’s second-biggest economy last year. The US was a distant second at $10 billion, followed by $3 billion for both India and Germany.

    The International Energy Agency said last week that total coal consumption will reach a record high of more than 8.5 billion metric tons this year, and then start a long, steady decline. Demand will likely slide to 8.3 billion tons by 2026, the agency said in its coal 2023 report.”

    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/coal-financing-is-still-booming-led-by-china-1.2014001

    1. Here is a longer term coal chart, also from the IEA this year. They do project a decline starting later this decade, but the cumulative combustion projected over the 3 decades is immense!
      I consider this projection to be a best case outlook of the phase out of coal.

  9. There is no question that fossil fuels are a finite resource. When that day comes and humankind’s response is a known unknown. I can’t help thinking what will never change is that in that part of the world brutally cold weather will continue and in the predawn hours no amount of solar farms will help and like now there isn’t much wind. One thing is for sure nuclear power plants don’t care the time of day or the weather they just provide life giving electricity.

    1. Nuclear will only work if we elect Democrats or progressives as governing representatives. Republicans, conservatives, or MAGAs do not know how to govern and will screw up any regulatory system that nuclear requires.

        1. I posted these two bits just before the previous thread expired.
          1.The significant technology of the Hermes reactor is not the use of Thorium, it is the use of salt as a coolant, eve n though that’s been done before too. Thorium doesn’t offer any special challanges except the reactor need to be run with a high enough flux to breed the Thorium into U-233. Otherwise it’s useless.
          Getting something as corrosive as salt through a pump made out of metal at 650 C separates the men from the boys. What could possibly go wrong at those temperatures in the same building a fissile material? I hope they use prisoners to run the plant. Anyone else will probably run as soon as an alarm goes off.
          Don’t laugh. I’ve seen it happen.
          2. (This was in regards to Thorium being not as useful to the weapons industry)
          I’m not sure that’s the whole story. The current technology based on natural or partially enriched Uranium In the reactor breeds small amounts of P239 Plutonium from the non-fissile U238. Plutonium is preferred but not necessary for bombs. Fully enriched Uranium works too. In fact the first ever atomic bomb, Fat Boy, used such Uranium. The Nagasaki bomb used Plutonium.
          For a major expansion of nuclear technology Thorium is attractive because there is a lot more of it and it needs only a small amount of Uranium to begin breeding fissile material, U233, from Thorium. U233 bred from Thorium is the actual fuel, not the Thorium. The reactors I worked on in the 1970s did indeed use Uranium in small quantities mixed with larger amounts of Thorium. Unfortunately to enable the Thorium to be useful the Uranium used at that time was fully enriched, or to be more clear: weapons grade Uranium. And, yes, you can make a bomb out of U233 also.
          There is never a really long distance between any nuclear reactors and bombs.

          1. Thanks for your insight jjhman.

            This is certainly an important story on an energy blog.

            I doubt ORNL is dumb.

            Hence, a discussion.

            1. I don’t think ORNL or anyone who qoeka there is dumb. But….
              I used to work closely with a guy whose job title was manager of reactor physics. The guy had a PhD in nuclear physics and could wax eloquent of technical subjects. Nice guy too. When I started to have doubts about the viability of a massive build out of reactors I went to him and asked him what the answer was to the question of nuclear waste. He responded that, first it would take as much energy to undo the danger of the materials as we obtained by creating the waste and, second it really wasn’t his problem. Someone else would have to deal with it.
              A smart guy but caught up in the delimma described by Upton Sinclair:
              “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
              Like the majority of the most serious problems in the world today the issue isn’t smart or dumb. It’s values.

            2. Enjoying reading your experiences JJHMAN.

              You are correct government pie in the sky PHD’s don’t have to deal with the realities of private sector businesses ( you have to make a profit )

              If I am reading things correctly. This is being taken on by a PRIVATE business that is being supported by ORNL who successfully have done this before.

              China and India are doing as well.

              It may not be commercially viable…but the most optimistic energy development I have seen in a while.

            4. Andre:
              You aren’t reading me correctly and your prejudice is showing big time.
              I’m talking about a physicist in a private company working on commercial reactor projects. I’ve never worked for the government.

    2. Ervin, it might help if you try think about combinations of energy sources rather than all or none scenarios.
      Thats how the utilities of the world handle it. They go for the combinations that make long-term sense for reliability and affordability in their service area.
      Example- lets take Texas grid (ERCOT) right now on the shortest day of the year
      Nat Gas- 50%
      Coal- 17%
      Solar- 17%
      Nuclear 12%
      Wind-5%

      Like you said, fossil fuels deplete. Better ramp up the other sources while we can.
      And begin to intentionally downsize.

      On nuclear keep in mind they take a long to build.
      Two new designs have been approved for prototype phase build-out under the Biden administration NRC. Only 5 others have ever been approved in this country, and those were a long time ago.

      1. Hickory … “Like you said, fossil fuels deplete. Better ramp up the other sources while we can.
        And begin to intentionally downsize.”

        We should have been doing your second point for many decades as it’s always been obvious fossil fuels would get harder to obtain. They are basically deeper and more remote on average than 70 years ago, in a situation that is only going to worsen.

        However there has been no sign anywhere of any country nor politician, from anywhere, that runs on a campaign of downsizing, nor any that ever attain office. They all continue the growth narrative and give lip service to looking after the environment..

        The first part of your comment, about building out other energy sources while we can is definitely the path chosen, without care of extra damage to the environment of doing so. Nor does anyone in power want to know if it is a viable plan overall, instead just kicking the can of decision making down the road until someone else’s watch..

        Degrowth will come, probably with collapse because no-one wants to plan for degrowth. Instead we get academics promoting how great renewables and nuclear will be in the future replacing fossil fuels in everything, using very dodgy numbers and ignoring mere details like the whole lot are built with fossil fuels because we often don’t have the processes to do it with just electricity. Of course all politicians just believe and run with the headlines of such papers, and give money for research to those that promote a renewable future with dodgy numbers…

        1. The do-nothing approach that you prescribe Hideaway
          is a failed notion from the start- People aren’t about to just lie down without putting on a big struggle to survive.
          No matter what old men say about it.

          1. Hickory:
            You are right. People will fight to survive.
            Unfortunately about 90% of the population will wait for someone else to do any long range planning or make sacrifices for the future. When things get bad enough the people with guns will solve their own scarcity problems in the obvious way.

            1. Yes…guns and border kill zones, and coal and deforestation, food hording and trade wars, human trafficking and slavery, warloads and drugloads, ethnic cleansing, coups and anarchy.

              I expect it all. Downsizing won’t be voluntary, or graceful.
              Some places will do better than others, however.

          2. Hickory …..”The do-nothing approach that you prescribe Hideaway
            is a failed notion from the start-”

            You constantly seem to misrepresent me… We should have been in massive degrowth for decades, we (as in humanity collectively) have instead chosen to head straight over the cliff to collapse civilization.
            The chief reason being that humans like deluding themselves that the future will be bright despite all the evidence of massive overshoot in every category of environment worth counting.
            I do not expect human nature to change. The average person in the world wants and will vote for ‘more’ as in growth for the future. Any politician telling the truth of where we are headed as in massive degrowth/collapse in the future will never be elected to a position.

            People want to believe that everything will be fine so the promise of renewables and/or nuclear (including fusion) sounds like an answer, so people run with that, including smart people that deliberately don’t open their eyes to the reality. We can’t build any of it without fossil fuels, nor is anyone trying to do so!!

            Even if the EROEI was to get 10 times better than present, for both renewables and nuclear, to make the numbers start to add up, the damage done to the environment with all the extra mining and resultant pollution would likely take us past several more tipping points. That’s just to get the energy levels needed by the current 15% of humanity that lead western lifestyles. Add the rest of humanity into the current level of western civilization and you can probably triple the damage already done.

            Enough electricity produced by itself does not solve anything, we still need lots of products from oil, gas and coal, which are all depleting. Trying to make them with just electricity and carbon capture is horribly inefficient, it’s not realistically feasible for a world wide scale.

            1. I don’t think that attempts to adjust away from such severe reliance on fossil fuels is just to “believe that everything will be fine”.
              Rather, its to achieve some surviving. People will continue to work towards that.

            2. In that vein Hickory, it’s obviously difficult to predict the future state of things, but if there is a significant population collapse, there will be an enormous wealth of already extracted resources lying about almost everywhere.

              Barring zombie hoards, having an ~100kWh V2L EV, a small light and tight dwelling with a heat pump, 10-20 kW of PV, and electric bicycles would be a relatively small footprint providing a pretty solid base of comfort at a fairly low investment cost. The EV would primarily serve as storage; running the HP, charging the bikes and other small appliances, but could also be used for big work or distance travel when needed.

              Understood that those high tech components currently depend upon global supply chains, but if humans are anything, it is tenaciously clever, and our priorities about where we direct our remaining fossil resources could change significantly, along with our attitudes about what actually defines ‘abundance’. In a scavenge economy, every usable battery and PV cell will have a lot of value.

              Our current modality (US) of F150’s serving as single passenger cargo-less transport is insane, but it also demonstrates how much slack there is to be taken up.

      2. Hickory
        I want the energy I use to come from any source that is produced responsibly being sensitive to the land, water and air. I don’t want to, by dictate, be made poorer just to satisfy someone’s ego.
        https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/nome
        Here is an interesting website, write in any city in the world and you can see the amount of possible daylight and, I think, more importantly the angle of the sun to the horizon on any given day. Building a solar farm in Guyana is a very reasonable choice and it surely will earn its keep. Building one in the UK, not so much. On March 21 London has over. 12 hours of daylight but the maximum apex of the sun is 39 degrees above the horizon and that matters. Picture this. In the Southeast US a 1000 guys leave their homes in their F150s to drive to work to get into their diesel powered equipment to cut down forests for making pellets to put on ships to sail across the Atlantic to make electricity for the UK. The pellet burning power plants are sitting on top of a huge coal deposit. This type of wasteful energy production is just so distressing to watch. If the UK disappeared tomorrow the loss of carbon dioxide would be replaced in a matter of weeks by the increase in carbon dioxide fromChina and India. The energy policy of the western nations is all about carbon and the policies of the far east is based of improving the lives of their people.

        1. “improving the lives of their people.” …in the short term, the very short term.

          1. Short term is the key aspect of the ones not seeing the big, longer picture. If your toilet clogs, what do you do? Most (and especially some recent posters here) would happily go and take a sh*t in the soft parts of the playground, since it would then be someone elses problem, later, or in many cases, much later.

    3. in the predawn hours no amount of solar farms will help

      This kind of comment is pretty repetitive and boring. Batteries are more than adequate for leveling out night-day differences. And on average wind is stronger at night: wind and solar are inversely correlated, both for day-night and summer-winter differences.

      like now there isn’t much wind.

      Occasionally (maybe 5% of the time) you’ll see several days in a row of low wind and solar combined. This is not a big deal: there are a lot of effective ways to handle that. A current way to handle that is stored NG in salt caverns. Hydrogen works well in exactly the same way – round trip efficiency is low, but it doesn’t matter because the overall volume isn’t that large, and it has a nice synergy with another standard currently used solution: overbuilding. Wind & solar have essentially no marginal costs, so most of the time there will be large surpluses of cheap power which will be handy for producing stored H2.

      This is just not a big deal. It’s time to let it go…

      ———————
      Articles on this specific topic:

      “When we add gas turbines powered with renewable hydrogen to a hydrogen storage salt-dome, we have a solution that stores and generates electricity with zero carbon emissions,” said Paul Browning, president and CEO of MHPS Americas, in a statement.”
      https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/utah-aims-to-shatter-records-with-1000-mw-energy-storage-plant#gs.fykdci
      —
      https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1454127/largest-hydrogen-from-wind-project-proposed
      —
      Germany, European H2 projects:
      https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-strategy-2050/news/germany-eager-to-become-global-leader-in-developing-hydrogen-technologies/

      https://hydrogeneurope.eu/index.php/projects
      —
      https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/10/17/100-mw-power-to-gas-project-planned-in-germany/
      –
      http://www.itm-power.com/news-item/stranded-wind-energy
      —
      http://www.itm-power.com/project/wind-hydrogen-development-platform
      http://www.itm-power.com/news-item/completion-of-upgrade-to-m1-hydrogen-refuelling-station
      —
      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/20/orkney-northern-powerhouse-electricity-wind-waves-surplus-power-hydrogen-fuel-cell
      —
      http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Hydrogen-Might-Become-A-Threat-For-Batteries.html
      —
      https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/wind-power-makes-hydrogen-for-german-gas-grid#gs.CntXNLg
      —
      https://www.worldenergy.org/news-views/entry/hydrogen-is-key-to-unlocking-the-full-offshore-wind-potential-of-the-north-sea

      1. Nick .. It might be time for you to let go, especially of your old out of date, often not working links to a bright green future. How did the planned power to gas strategy in Germany go as per the PV magazine 2017 article?? Answer…..It didn’t get off the ground, like so many other theories you come up with..

        We already covered that electrolyzers don’t work on intermittent energy, for a variety of reasons covered a couple of weeks ago, but you continue to trot out the same nonsense..

        How is the economic performance of any existing power to gas operations anywhere in the world, running from intermittent electricity, not 24hr continuous electricity. I’m patient, I’ll wait for you to give a link to a currently operating plant with actual real world numbers….

        You talk about overbuilding solar and wind as if it’s done with a wave of the hand. Like all industrial builds the investment case has to add up. Currently here in Australia with a high level of capacity (over 50%) of solar and wind, the windy sunny days are turning the wholesale power price negative, so solar and wind farms get turned off, lowering their capacity factors. This had led to hardly any new large wind and solar being planned to be built in the Eastern grid. It’s not economic to do so…

        Batteries are way too expensive to even cover the day/night energy use in winter. About 6 months ago we had a 3 day period where solar was less than 5% capacity and wind well under 5% most of the time. 72 hours to run a grid of 7-8Gw and growing as people install reverse cycle air conditioners, replacing gas heaters would have been 500Gw of battery power, or about $500B worth!! It’s you Nick that doesn’t have a clue as to how the real world operates…
        Just recently alarge coal power station of 2,000Mw closed down and is being replaced with a 1Gw battery, that can run at 500Mw for 2 hours.

        The solar and wind industries are crying out for more subsidies to get more built, plus price guarantees. Eventually when other grids catch up to the percentage of solar and wind the AEMO grid has, they can also enjoy the problems of too much renewables and calls for grants, subsidies and power price increases to make the grid more stable and reliable..

        1. This is the party line at the headquarters of any fossil fuel company, and is sounds reasonable.

          However, it won’t be enough to save industry profits from the relentless onslaught of easily implemented zero marginal cost renewables. And without profits the industry is doomed.

          You attacks on batteries and other storage ideas are a rearguard action of an industry in retreat. It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that fossil fuels cannot compete with renewables, but its proponents still have the hope that they can compete against batteries. There probably is something to this, so there will be demand for fossil fuel in this niche. This is a bit like the way coal pushed oil out of the electricity business, but oil still survives in niches like small islands.

          The intermittency of renewables is often cited as a reason why they can’t spread, but the opposite is arguably true. Traditionally the cheapest source of energy was the one with the most constant output, meaning big coal or nuclear plants. Peaks were dealt with by switching on pricier peaker plants. Now zero marginal cost intermittent renewables are making that constant output a liability, meaning much of the existing fleet is obsolete. This cancels the incumbency status of the existing industry.

          The fossil business does not exist to keep the lights on. It exists to make money. That will be much harder in the future, so the industry will shrink.

          My prediction: The reason that modern industry doesn’t work well with intermittent energy is that intermittent energy has traditionally been more expensive. Now that it is cheaper the rest of the economy will adapt.

          1. Alimbiquated … Fossil fuels, starting with oil are depleting rapidly. We will not be able to keep modern civilization based on fossil fuels, they are not the answer and never were, nor have I ever stated they were the answer. We are also damaging our environment, possibly beyond repair by using ever increasing amounts until they deplete. I can easily see the rapid change we have done to climate where I live.

            Just because fossil fuels are not the answer, does not mean renewables or nuclear are the answer. The numbers have to add up and they clearly don’t!! We cannot have anything like the complexity of modern civilization run on intermittent energy. It’s not the operating the system that’s the problem, it’s the building, then eventual rebuilding of the system where the problems lie.
            Aluminium smelters cannot operate on intermittent electricity, likewise for many other industrial processes. In an aluminium smelter, if the power goes out the aluminium will solidify in the pots, making them unusable. The damage is in the millions of dollars when this situation happens.
            If solar, wind and backup, say batteries, as is often touted, were really cheaper than coal and gas, then companies would set up aluminium smelters operating off grid with just these power sources, no-one does because they are not cheaper!!

            Humans have backed ourselves into a corner using fossil fuels, they were always going to deplete, yet we enjoy the modern comforts provided by them. It’s far nicer living in a modern house, looking at a screen, while a single person on a diesel powered tractor does the hard manual work of tilling the soil to grow grains for thousands.

            No-one wants to go back to a world of hard manual work just to survive. We (again the collective we) have allowed our population to grow to levels that can only be supported by fossil fuel fertilized agriculture, while the soils degrade, slowly on human time scales but rapidly geologically speaking.
            At some point the combination of soil degradation and climate change will reduce the quantity of human food we can make, no matter how much fossil fuels we have. At the same time we have mined all the easy to get, high grade minerals, so building ‘stuff’ requiring metals is getting harder and harder, requiring more and more energy to do so.

            The future is bleak, when you add, declining energy availability, declining ore grades, increasing damage to the environment and increasing population, there is no answer.

            Civilization itself was most likely never sustainable in any form. There have been many civilizations before ours and the one common theme they all had was they collapsed after running into some limit. I expect nothing different from the modern form of civilization.

            I’m sure past civilizations deluded themselves that praying to the correct gods, or sacrificing the correct number of virgins would keep their world going. It never worked. Solar, wind and nuclear are the modern delusion, it’s not solving the total problem in the slightest when the problem is massive overshoot with only a small proportion of the population enjoying the modern lifestyle.

            1. Well maybe. There is also a school of thought that predicts that renewables will bring almost endless energy abundance.

              It’s one of the reason the tech bros are all going gaga about space flight. Space flight is insanely energy intensive. The reason you hear loony predictions about giant space colonies is that people are asking themselves how in the world mankind will be able to consume the vast energy resources that are becoming available.

              The only ideas anyone has come up with so far are huge desalination projects and spaceflight.

              I don’t buy this. In my mind energy production has become something of a parasite, and its decline will bring about the long overdue focus on efficiency.

              Also, as Buckminster Fuller pointed out a century ago, the economy is steadily dematerializing, a process he called “ephemeralization”. It’s speeding up now. As they say in Silicon Valley, software is eating the world. This means that the economy can continue to grow even as its physical footprint shrinks.

              Or maybe not. But any thoughts that renewable energy isn’t killing the traditional energy business are delusional at this point.

            2. Alimbiquated … “But any thoughts that renewable energy isn’t killing the traditional energy business are delusional at this point.”

              They have been built with grants and subsidies and are indeed killing traditional energy business, especially here in Australia that has a high penetration of renewables. They are also killing their own business model which is why new large renewable projects are very few and far between.

              Alimbiquated …. “There is also a school of thought that predicts that renewables will bring almost endless energy abundance.”

              Renewables factories have reached large economies of scale in production, so any future gains on cost and material use will be minor relative to the gains made over the couple of decades. It’s the balance of system costs that are not declining. Even the IEA has acknowledged the cost of renewables has risen over the last 2 years, not fallen..

              No-one that believes solar is cheaper than coal and gas bothers to answer why aluminium smelters are not going off grid with their own solar and wind set up, avoiding the extra cost of the grid, if they really were cheaper than fossil fuels.
              The obvious answer is they are not cheaper when the full cost of overcoming the intermittency is taken into account.

              The materials needed to build renewables are getting more energy intensive to obtain, copper being the easy to observe metal, with ore grades constantly falling on average. How can renewables get much cheaper if the energy that gets used in the mining of the materials needed rises?? We are building them with fossil fuels, the price of which will also rise as they become scarce, increasing the energy cost of building renewables.

              Having a belief is one thing, having any evidence is entirely another. There is plenty of evidence about falling ore grades and increasing energy use in mining, where is the evidence of how renewables get cheaper in the future??

            3. “It’s one of the reason the tech bros are all going gaga about space flight. Space flight is insanely energy intensive. The reason you hear loony predictions about giant space colonies is that people are asking themselves how in the world mankind will be able to consume the vast energy resources that are becoming available.” ~ Alim

              My apologies, but your argument is a bit muddled; are you, Alim, saying you agree with that?

            4. Survivalist —
              but your argument is a bit muddled
              Fair enough, I wasn’t too clear on my own position.

              I am sort on the fence.

              I strongly believe that solar in particular is going to suck all the profits out of the energy business, not because it it is cheap but because it has zero marginal costs. The utility companies are simply going to die if their funding isn’t changed. But they will lack the funding to buy politicians they need to maintain their current market control. Thanks to EVs the phenomenon will also spread to transport, the mainstay of the oil industry.

              Assuming (for the sake of the argument) that I am right about that, how will society and the economy react? Will the grid just die?

              I don’t think the grid will survive to help poor people, or even industry. America doesn’t provide transportation or health care to the poor why should it provide energy? And the country has let lots of industries die. Other countries may react differently of course.

              One idea I have is that a big part of a possible energy shortage problem can be dealt with by cutting waste. There is no question that even the most frugal societies waste vast amounts of energy. This is usually put down to “human nature” around here, but I doubt that. People tend to save where they can.

              The reason societies are so wasteful must be that energy prices are very low. So energy shortages could just make economies more efficient. The weakness of this idea is that people don’t always act rationally towards shortages. The water shortages in the American West, which are caused by incompetent farming and land management, are a sad confirmation of this.

              Another idea is that they are right in Silicon Valley, and new energy sources like renewables and next gen nukes will make energy free. I am highly skeptical of nukes, which seem like Rube Goldberg devices.

              But assuming (for the sake of the argument) that energy does become free, why would anyone invest in vast energy production when energy prices are near zero? I doubt anyone will bother to build giant solar arrays so we can turn the Sahara into a rain forest or build a colony on Mars. There might be a race to build energy intensive artificial intelligence, because that is already delivering political control, but even that seems dubious.

              So in short I predict the withering away of the fossil fuel industry due to lack of profits, but I don’t know what the consequences will be.

              About the tech bros saying energy will be free, check out Sam Altman of Ope AI /Chat GPT fame, currently the biggest name in Silicon Valley:

              The costs of intelligence and energy are going to be on a path towards near-zero.

              https://twitter.com/sama/status/1739007757381226888

              Not saying that I agree, but it is an interesting contrast to the views aired here. They spend their days brainstorming on how to use the hoped for vast supply of energy, and have only come up with three ideas: Spaceflight, desalination and computing.

            5. HIDEAWAY –
              Aluminium smelters cannot operate on intermittent electricity
              Well maybe. More importantly, If as I predict the grid goes bust thanks to solar, nobody will rescue it for the aluminum industry except the industry itself. That’s how capitalism works. This would be a niche application that would only be viable when the sun doesn’t shine AND the wind doesn’t blow, which doesn’t happen a lot. It won’t save the worldwide industry.

              The reason there is very little grid backup for batteries is that demand outstrips supply. The industry is growing at an insane rate. Production is expected to be maybe 70% higher in 2024 than in 2023, but it won’t be anywhere near enough.

              The reason I think solar will kill fossil fuels: Solar producers don’t have to buy extra fuel to produce more electricity. They just hope the sun shines.

              Markets are driven by cash flow considerations, and you don’t need cash to generate solar. So solar has an incentive to underbid fossil all the way down to $0/MWh. You may see that as an ivory tower bean counting view of things, but the consequences are very real. Whether solar is “really more expensive” doesn’t matter in a free market economy.

            6. Alimbiquated … ” More importantly, If as I predict the grid goes bust thanks to solar, nobody will rescue it for the aluminum industry except the industry itself. ”

              That’s pretty much my prediction that I stated above as well..

              I expect grids that have a high percentage of solar and wind to become more unreliable, lots of blackouts increasing in frequency, as gas and coal become scarce on the system. Also even when solar and wind plants breakdown/age there will not be the replacements built as there is no money to be made from the grid. Some of the existing solar and especially wind installations are already half way or more through their life expectancy.

              In regards to heavy industry, I would expect a lot that is already aging, to close and the companies to set up new plants where they can get reliable power, whether from renewables as in hydro or geothermal, or more likely coal and gas in developing countries where the resources are available.

              Alimbiquated … “The reason I think solar will kill fossil fuels: Solar producers don’t have to buy extra fuel to produce more electricity. They just hope the sun shines.”

              For me this is one of the greatest misunderstandings of the difference in electricity generation. For humanity as a whole, solar, wind, coal, gas and oil are all free. We humans decide someone ‘owns’ things and has a right to ‘sell’ them.

              Coal power plants in this state were set up next to large coal deposits and the companies that uses the coal for electric power plants, owned the coal rights. They don’t have to buy any fuel, it’s there in the ground, many billions of tonnes of the dirty polluting energy.
              Governments charge a very low royalty. No reason they can’t charge a royalty for sun falling on their territory if used!!

              We humans build machines to gather energy from these natural resources. Just because we charge each other for one and not the other makes no difference to the overall EROEI. Yet somehow having to pay for coal and gas, and then attributing an energy cost to these dollars spent has made it’s way into just about all the literature describing EROEI. It is deliberately NOT comparing apples to apples.

              Of course no-one that wants renewables, from governments to ‘green’ leaning institutions wants to work out the EROEI of ‘free’ coal, sitting right next to the plant, being burnt in a cheap basic coal power station, which is how we built our modern world and supplied cheap electricity to our modern civilization over the past 70-80 years.

              You’re correct that people don’t build things for reasons other than money. If it doesn’t make a profit, it wont be done again..

              Consider a 1Gw coal fired power plant that cost $1B to construct (the old style) and has ‘free’ coal from the pit next to the plant. It will produce ~24Gwh of electricity in one day or 8760Gwh/yr. A solar farm, producing power at around the world average for solar power (around 3.3Kwh/d), will need around 7Gw+ built to equal the same power output averaged out over a year.

              At a 6% interest rate, and a capital cost of just $1/w the solar farm would have to make $360M in cashflow above the coal plant for the interest alone!! That’s before any operating and maintenance costs, which the industry itself claims is around 1% of capital costs for the first decade and 3-4% over the remainder of the life. Averaged out to just 2% over 25 years ‘life’, then the cost for solar is $140M/yr or $16/Mwh, whether the sun shines or not..

              Add the cost of money being $420M and you get an extra $48/Mwh added to the total, or $64/Mwh. This just happens to be right in the middle of the range from Lazard’s 2023 LCOE for grid scale solar $24-96/Mwh (unsubsidised pg 3).

              To think that solar has a ‘marginal cost’ of zero is false economics especially in the AEMO market here in Australia where the wholesale price of electricity is negative during daylight hours when the sun is shining and wind blowing, meaning an operator would have to PAY to send their power into the grid!! This will happen in every other grid when the solar and wind penetration gets as high as in Australia, if the rest of the grid is predominantly coal that can’t be turned off, because it’s needed at night.

              Our wholesale electrical market is totally stuffed by the addition of solar and wind without any thought of the consequences of setting parameters where solar and wind get priority on the grid. The wind farm near me had a theoretical capacity factor when built of 37%, but in the 5.5 years of operation has only been at 24% CF, because they turn it off when the wholesale power price goes negative, meaning the owners are likely losing money on the investment (only 2/3rds of expected power generated and the accounts are kept private). The wind farm suffers from entropy, just like everything else, and will only last 25 years whether operating or not.

              There is zero chance of anything creating ‘free energy’, the economics don’t add up for it to happen. Instead of getting cheaper retail power prices have been getting more expensive very rapidly in Australia, where all the generators are losing money. It’s a broken market by applying too many ‘rules’.

              If instead we had a truly free market, then aluminium smelters would sign up to new cheaply built coal power. Due to environmental concerns, that will never happen, so we will continue to have a rigged market that supports intermittent supply until the system fails and the last of the industry leaves for places that put economic benefit of the people above environmental concerns.

              Solar and wind have no-where near the energy return that is portrayed in most EROEI papers, they are in fact a lot less than 5 and that’s before taking the intermittency into account, or extra transmission lines into account. Australia’s largest solar farm only has an EROEI of 1.74 in my calculations, whereas a simple small gas project has an EROEI of 37.8

      2. JJHMAN

        “A smart guy but caught up in the delimma described by Upton Sinclair:
        “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
        Like the majority of the most serious problems in the world today the issue isn’t smart or dumb. It’s values.

        A smart guy but caught up in the delimma described by Upton Sinclair:
        “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
        Like the majority of the most serious problems in the world today the issue isn’t smart or dumb. It’s values.”

        Very true, could not agree more.

        NickG

        “When we add gas turbines powered with renewable hydrogen to a hydrogen storage salt-dome, we have a solution that stores and generates electricity with zero carbon emissions,” said Paul Browning, president and CEO of MHPS Americas, in a statement.”

        Really. All you have done is cut and paste the pure shite from publications whose writers fulfill the first paragraph. Your proofs are nothing but puff picees of optimism that have already crashed and burned.
        What do you know about salt dome storage. It has never been used for hydrogen.

        What about electroysers. The biggest to date is 100MW . That is peanuts and by the way they do not like intemittent operation and require high pirity water

        Then you want to t build a large excess capacity of wind energy to balance the grid- overbuilding (your words).

        Then we have Alimbiquated who thinks that the responce of Hideaway is typical of the fossil fuel fraternity. Evil people out to make a profit.

        The answer to NickG and Alimobiquated is that profits do matter, because it is a form of EROI. No entity is going to build and asset and not use it- period. The chemical industry runs its plants at one speed – flat out, foot to the floor. Otherwise the costs run away. A power plant is the same, unless you expect it to be a peak lopper and then the LCOE will be high, paid for in the price of electricity.

        Unreliables should be on the hook to provide power 24/7. Were they be compelled to provide dispatchable power they would be bust big time. There is no low cost unreliable because the intermittnecy cost is borne by the consumer.

        How many times I have been down this route. I have been through biofuels, algae, cellulosic ethanol, alcohol to jet, biomass gasification and countless others and all have been wishful thinking at best. $ billions wasted. There is no fix for fossil fuels; not wind, not solar, not carbon recycling, not biomass, or any other crackpot solution. The thermodynamics will see to that.

        Nuclear might be an option but the legacy costs will be borne by future generations

        We are racing to the cliff edge, and we will get there sooner with unreliables because the inputs will only increase fossil fuel consumption.

        I do not have a solution. We are like the Roman empire. Heading for collapse as governments become impotent and the lunatics take over the asylum.

    4. Talking about the northern hemisphere, the energy mix is of course different from the southern hemisphere. A lot of countries like Canada, the Nordic countries and Russia for example have more forests and natural resources and less population per square km compared to the rest of the world. Still, the energy upkeep for a person is higher than in more temperate areas. Getting a high proportion renewable electricity grid is not that difficult a lot of places in the north when you balance it out with hydro power. Maximising coal output or other fossil fuel output would be a short term strategy. Some development is probably sensible in some cases if it is not rushed too much.

      To utilize the electric grid for what is worth with as much renewables as possible is the best idea that have come up to counteract fossil fuel decline so far. A lot of other ideas have been thrown into the mix, and it is uncertain if they can be scaled up to the enourmous volumes required and keep the now famous EROI metric somewhat up (imperfect with a lot of weaknesses – but still the general concept makes sense).

      1. Kolbeinih:
        A sensible approach and we have a pretty good start on understanding how to do just as you say.
        Unfortunately until the population dynamic changes from growth to contraction no forseeable energy strategy is going to avoid a world wide catastrophe.

  10. More coal in pipeline folks

    INDIA TO GROW THERMAL COAL POWER FLEET

    India will increase the size of its thermal power fleet, the country’s power minister said, to meet an increased demand for power. India said it would add another 88GW of new power capacity by early 2032—63% more than India’s plan that it published just seven months ago. And most of that will be coal-fired power, with gas-fired electricity generation unavailable to India due to the high cost of natural gas.

    Clean energy is not on the table for India, with prices too high and costly storage capacity sorely lacking. Meanwhile, India’s electricity demand continues to rise above expectations, with maximum demand exceeding the power ministry’s projections of 229GW multiple times so far this year and forecasts of 366GW for fiscal 2032.

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/India-To-Grow-Thermal-Coal-Power-Fleet-As-Demand-Calls.html

    1. Like I stated earlier, their energy policy is designed for the welfare of India’s citizens.

      1. …in the short term. Meanwhile the population of India growseven as already the most populated on the planet, the air is foul, the water contaminated and India is home to a quarter of the undernourished humans on the planet. So, of course, continue with BAU.

    2. Clean energy is not on the table for India
      Not clear that you’re right about that. Got a source?

      The country’s utility-scale solar development pipeline stood at nearly 77 GW as of September 2023, and over 68 GW of projects tendered were pending auction at the end of Q3 2023.

      It looks to me like there will be a lo t more solar installed in the next 2-3 years than coal in the next 10.
      Read more at:
      https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/renewables/solar-capacity-installations-in-india-fall-47-pc-to-5-6-gw-during-jan-sep-report/articleshow/105529431.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

  11. Why is it that when people look at and praise the exponential growth of renewables, what’s never mentioned is the accompanying exponential growth of the resource inputs needed to achieve that growth? Where is that going to come from?

    1. They don’t give a shit as long as BAU continues with decreased rates of GHG emissions into the atmosphere. Who gives a shit about land/water pollution, blowing up forests to raid minerals, child labor. Whatever.

    2. Because the consumption is trivial compared to what it replaces.

      1. Really. Another pearl of wisdom from an unreiiables expert. Can you provide some proof to your claim or is it a figment of your imagination. Nothing trivial about all the mining that needs to be done- WITH fossil fuels.

        I do not see many energy intensive industiries switching to cheaper unreliables. Steel ( as in raw pig iron), aluminium, glass, caustic soda/ chlorine, paper, polymers. Where is this abundant cheap electrical power that is going to power your low carbon economy

        The EV fream is now struggling. Take a look at the recent Ford, GM VW, and Avis announcements. EV’s are only good for short journeys.

        1. Nearly 5 billion tons of coal was consumed worldwide this year. That’s a five followed by nine zeroes.

          A KW solar panel weighs maybe 20 kg and produces energy for 20 years.

          A ton of solar panels would have an approximate rating of 50 KW. At most 400 GW were produced this year. So that’s maybe 80,000 tons of material. Call it 100,000 to make the math easier.

          100,000 / 5,000,000,000 = 1/50,000 = 0.002%

          0.002% is a trivial number.

          EDIT: Woops, my bad 400 GW is the total installed capacity. 2023 new panels were more like 100 GW. So 0.0005% is a better number.

          1. Mr Alimibiquated Gish Gallop,

            You would be lucky with 20 kg/kW. More likely double that. You are only considreing the mass of the panel. What about all the mining of ores and fossil fuels to make the panels. You really should read up on thermodynamics.

            2. Carnot —
              Fine, let’s say the real number is a hundred times my rough estimate. Now we’re at 0.05%. You need to come up with MUCH better arguments.

              Oh yeah, and I forgot about oil. My rough guess is that 1.5 billion tons are produced per year. That number completely dwarfs the renewable industry by itself.

              The amount of material that goes into the renewables industry is trivial compared to fossil fuel.

        2. Carnot,

          Nonsense. I own an EV long trips are fine as long as their are charging stations along main routes.
          In fact I no longer own and ICEV, EV only in a fairly rural area (my state has a population density of 39 people per square mile.

          1. Dennis,

            Give me a break. “as long as there are charging statons along the route” – and they are working. What if there are not enough charging stations and some are U/S which is frequent. What then? A tow truck? – but you can’t tow an EV and a tow truck can bring a gallon of gasoline. but not 10 kW of power.

            EV’s have probably peaked. Over here only a company car driver is driving EV’s because of subsidies.
            I have a high regard for Dave Murphy but I do not agree with his view of EROEI at point of use. Hpw are you going to produce petrochemicals with electricity, jet fuel , diesel fuel, polymers. His concept is flawed. Yo cannot compare KW of fossil fuel with a kW of unreliable power. Have you considered the cost of disptachable power at the point of use? I do not think so.

            1. Carnot:
              Last year a friend of mine drove an EV from Sonoma County, CA (Just north of San Francisco) to North Carolina and only had one “scare. That was, surprisingly between Bakersfield CA and Kingman, AZ. It was only a scare, he made it without a problem. The rest of the country was a breeze. For a trip of that length what would be different is the length of time at each stop. I would say that, all things considered, it’s a small price to pay for the benefits.
              Since most tow trucks are flatbeds I can’t imagine why that’s a problem.
              A few years ago my wife and I would count Priuses on our way to the grocery store until they were so common they were no longer a novelty. We did that with Teslas too. Now they’re too common to count and we can’t distinguish all of the other EVs from gas burners but I see plenty when I can get close enough to read the emblems. Not that many company cars out here in the sticks.
              It may have slipped past you but petrochemicals aren’t a CO2 problem unless they are burned. They can be almost infinitely recycled if desired.

            2. “EV’s have probably peaked. ” Carnot Dec 2023

              Great example of how to broadcast yourself as a frivolous observer of the state of the global industry.

              I will stick to my longterm guesstimate that 90% of global light vehicle sales will have a plug in 2030. I acknowledge that I may be a couple years early…but close.

    3. The free lunch? Yup, another area where the past 150 yrs of increasing fossil production gets misapplied to the future. Hell our present political reality made it possible for the Fed Fuel Tax to remain a static amount since 1993 as though the cost of maintenance let alone new construction hasn’t changed in 30 yrs.

    1. “dual use of the land”
      That is a really inefficient way to install solar cells. The article does use the term “suboptimal”. That might be an understatement. Consider that the plants and the solar cells need the same sunlight so that any light that falls on the cells is not available to the plants and visa versa. Also they have to be arrayed north and south or no light would ever fall on the northern facing panels above the 23rd northern latitude. Even arrayed in that most optimal direction those cells would have to be incredibly cheap and incredibly efficient. Incredible indeed.
      Many years ago I worked on solar thermal systems and did a lot of analysis of the output as a function of the incident light on collectors depending on the solar angles, the latitude and the time of day. This system is so suboptimal it just looks silly to me. I’d like to see some numbers on cost and output, noticelby missing in the article.

      1. JJHMAN.

        i gree with you main point. The effective of the panel is dependent on the angle of incidence. You just happend to make a simple error. The vertical panels will work best when the sun is low in the sky (winter). In summer the sun will be high in the sky and the incident radiation will be at a very shallow angle.

        My own solar system is a tracking system that optimises the incident radiation perpendiclaut to the panel. In winter the panel s are near vertical, in summer almost flat.

        This idea is dumber than dumb. As for and overhead catenary system to power electric tractors, good luck. This will cracsh and burn.

        1. Probably dummer than dumb.

          Think about it, if those rows were North/South, then the sun would have to have risen for an hour or 2 before it cleared the row of panels next to it. The panels have to be up off the ground or the grain will shade them as it grows. However leaving a gap under the panels allows for wind funneling through the gap flattening the crop reducing the harvest.
          Grain growing closest to the panels, will grow taller than usual seeking the light as all plants do.

          Mind you the plan doesn’t match the photo. The plan is to grow root crops carrots and beetroot plus saffron. Those crops suggest a high rainfall area, which means low capacity factor for solar panels because of clouds. Vermont probably not the best area for solar anyway…

          1. Hideaway
            You covered some of what I would have responded. I don’t think I made an error, even a simple one. Not only, as you said, does the sun need to gain a minimum elevation to clear the intervening panels, but the solar radiation has to go through a lot more atmosphere before it reaches the panel. According to data from Duffie and Beckman (1974) the difference between insolation at 8 AM and noon on a clear day can be as much as a factor of 3.
            Carnot
            The economics of a tracking system are a completely different game than flat panels. But you knew that, right?

    2. Its a small scale testing plot. Data coming from these various experiments will be interesting, and I have no doubt that successful Ag/Solar integration will be a big thing,
      and a huge boon to the financial stability/viability of farmers large and small.

      1. I plan to think that vertical solar cells will never be viable until I see some numbers and I’m too lazy to generate them myself on a scheme that common sense tells me is highly unlikely to succeed.

  13. Christmas is here, Christmas is here! Santa will be good to me this year!

    1. Imagine, somewhere on the Earth today a lump of coal would be an excellent gift.

  15. Hickory recently mentioned this company, now appears in The Atlantic’s top 9 technologies of the year.
    Fervo uses fracking techniques developed by the oil-and-gas industry to break into hot underground rock. Then Fervo injects cold water into the rock fissures, creating a kind of artificial hot spring. In November, Fervo announced that its Nevada enhanced-geothermal project is operational and sending carbon-free electricity to Google data centers.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/scientific-breakthroughs-2023-list/676952/
    (subscription?)

    1. Nice idea but fraught with issues. What sort of water is injected to raise steam / hot water? This will have to be treated as otherwise surface water will intoduce calcium salts which will plug the fractures PDQ. As I said nice idea – not that simple.

      1. Carnot, like with other subjects your opinion would be more valuable if you actually educated yourself about the topic. In regard to fluids…it will be a closed loop system with heat exchange mechanism. I’d be curious about your take on it after doing some study.
        I have provided some good links on it over the past couple weeks,
        including an excellent 47 minute interview- worth the listen, here-

        https://www.listennotes.com/et/podcasts/columbia-energy/harnessing-the-heat-beneath-x2XUCm1a4ZD/

        Or find it it on any other podcast service like Apple that hosts Columbia Energy Exchange

        My sense of it is that Deep Geothermal will end up being an excellent baseload electricity complement to whatever nuclear and fossil fuel generation regions have, and may eventually surpass those sources in many locations. There is magnitudes less complexity than any nuclear power system.
        We’ll see how viability and price play out before too long.
        Be ready to be surprised on the upside with this, even in areas where the heat is very deep.
        (And no, of course it won’t ‘save the world’).

        1. Hickory,

          Like all new technology it often turns out not to be so simple. The oil industry is well aware of the issue with injection water for pressure maintenance in oil wells.

          This approach whilst a good idea is going to face a number of issues.
          Even though the system is notionally a closed loop what goes on underground will not ensure that the loop is enclosed. That means that the injected and produced water might vary and that there will be a constant make-up requirement. I merely stated that there will be water treatment requirements which will be determined by the produced water and the make-up water qualities.
          The other issue will be the economics. D&C costs will be significant and this will have to be recovered in the project costs. Above ground the geothermal water will have to be heat exchanged to produce steam to drive a turbine. That means that the conversion to electrical power will be low compared with fossil fuel plant. In other words the capex will be high.
          If this technology were simple we would already be doing it by now. Let us see in 10 years if it is economic. Would I invest my own money in this? – no.

          1. Geothermal is being used where it’s viable, in places like Iceland, pretty much on top of a volcano.
            I think the one above the ongoing eruption has survived, but will have to check. I wonder why they are not used more often?

            1. Hideaway,

              Producing power is the least efficient option. District heating and/or coupled to a heat pump is probably the better option.

              From recollection the global installed capacity for power production is still <30MW.

            2. Carnot, there was a fair bit of tongue in cheek in that comment of mine.

              The problem with geothermal will be the same as every other electrical generator, there is no money in it and while solar and wind get priority on the grid, then the capacity factor of geothermal will be low and uneconomic, no matter what the new tech involved.

              Also geothermal can only be around really hot areas like volcanoes because a curious fact about rock is that it has better insulation characteristics than water. Once you take heat out of the area of rocks it will take time for those rocks to get hot again, especially if you ‘frack’ them over a wide area. Timescale being years of course. The differential from surface temperatures will decrease over time, with the ‘rocks’ closest to a heat source, like a volcano being best.
              Which is precisely why existing geothermal power plants are close to volcanoes with all the accompanying dangers to those plants.

        2. You guys are basing your conclusions/opinions on old notions of geothermal (similar to your approach with many other topics discussed here).
          This is a new phase of technology deployment.
          If you are still around in ten years, you might be surprised how this pans out.

          1. Hickory

            You wish. What new technology. Fracking- big deal. You might get more water down the hole but the temperature will be the same. Go read the paper I suggested. By the way the deeper you drill then the higher the temperature, but also the higher the lithostatic pressure, making hydraulic fracturing even more energy intensive. Try drilling and fracturing granite.
            In ten years time there will be only minimal geothermal power production. I would bet on it, and I do not bet. The last time I bet the SOB never paid out on a 10 year bet I had won on year 3 and I would bet on this as being a niche.

            Why don’t you invest $10K in Fervo and I will invest $10k in gold and we compare investments in 10 years.

  17. Oops.

    MEXICO EMITTED ‘EXTREME’ AMOUNTS OF METHANE FROM GAS PIPELINE

    “Scientists from Harvard University, led by Marc Watine and Daniel Varon, identified a hot spot in Durango that released thousands of metric tons of methane over two months. Watine said the team was able to trace the methane leaks to the El Encino-La Laguna pipeline that passes through the states of Chihuahua and Durango, transporting natural gas from the United States to Mexico.”

    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/mexico-emitted-extreme-amounts-methane-gas-pipeline-scientists-find-2023-12-19/

    1. Actually one of the smarter ex-collegues of mine bought an “old” model S with free supercharge and refurbished batteries for about 1/3 of the original price, he will drive for free for quite some time.
      I´m a bit jealuos.

    2. ATG

      Thanks for the link. An intersting lead. I agree with much of the comments.. Private buyers are scarce where I live. Most EV sales are on misguided companies polishing their ESG credentials. I buy my cars with my own money – i.e. cash. Only a looney would buy an EV outright. The few private buyers are on expensive leases.
      Next year the wheels will come off the wagon as the lease companiies find that the resale values are next to zlich.
      Who wants a second hand battery.
      Worse still is the escalating cost of insurance. EV’s are a liability. I would not follow Laplanders example. At year six a Tesla will be a disposal liability. Negative value.

      1. We´ll see, my personal plan is to run my fairly old gasoline Volvo as far as it gets, then I´ll buy electric in some form.
        Was thinking of getting a hybrid like a gen 2 or 3 Prius and then add some more batteries since they are a bit lacking in storage, but good value. But I wouldn´t mind a used Golf E, model 3 or S either,
        even if the range was a bit reduced by age they would still get me to work and back, and then some.

        1. I have a gen 3 prius from new – 2009. Brilliant bit of kit. 13 miles per litre over its lifespan. Ultra reliable and not too many stupid electronics to go wrong. I am reluctant to change it because it has been so reliable and cheap to run.

    3. As the proud owner of two used EVs (2011 Nissan Leaf and 2012 Chevy Volt, both bought new back in the day), I can tell you that old EVs are still great. They still work great for commuting and errands. And since the Volt can also run on gas, we use it for 1000 miles each way on summer vacation (just about the only time we buy gas).

      Somebody who buys a cheap used EV can get it for free, since the savings on gas will soon pay for the car.

  19. Welcome to the future,

    FOREST FIRES: A RECORD YEAR

    “In 2023 forest fires destroyed nearly 400 million hectares of land around the world, killed more than 250 people and emitted 6.5 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. That compares to 36.8 billion tonnes from fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, and cement.”

    https://phys.org/news/2023-12-forest-year.html

    1. Doug, as soon as read about land being destroyed, you know the reporter has an angle or deliberate point they are trying to highlight instead of just stating facts..
      “2023 forest fires destroyed nearly 400 million hectares of land around the world….”

      No they didn’t destroy any land. The fires burnt trees and wildlife, but didn’t destroy land. The land is still there and the ashes will provide nutrients for primary species that will regrow in those areas. The regrowing trees will sequester CO2 out of the atmosphere as they grow over time, unless humans turn some of that cleared land into ‘farmland’ or ‘urban areas’.

      Increasing fires is a sign of the natural world realigning the distribution of life due to the damage humans have done to the environment.

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