49 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, January 19, 2024”

    1. Thanks Geroge, great stuff. Am slowly reading my way through but it’s a slog.

    2. Hasn’t the “discredited kook” Guy McPherson been screaming about this for years?

  2. My gut feeling is that we’re looking at the climate going to hell a lot faster than expected by the large majority of people in the field.
    Furthermore, it’s highly probable that even if we were to cut back on fossil fuels very sharply over the next few years, this would be too little too late to accomplish more than slowing down the rate of warming .. according to my interpretation of what I’ve been reading.

    And it’s my opinion that we’ll be burning more fossil fuel year after year for quite some time to come, at least a decade or two, maybe a lot longer.

    We’re like a trucker already started down a long mountain with the brakes already overheated and no hope of stopping or even slowing down, so it’s ride it out or crash before reaching the bottom. Some make it, some don’t.

    It’s my personal belief that most of us naked apes will die hard before this century is out, and that things will be pretty damned tough even in the best prepared and richest countries.” Business as usual” is well on it’s way to the scrap heap of history, world wide.

    But I also believe that some of us in some places have a fair to good shot at maintaining an industrial civilization to the extent we can have water and sewer, a working electrical grid, food in stores and cops on the street, reasonably decent basic medical care, etc.

    If we’re so lucky, most of us Yankee’s might yet die of old age, depending on how well we manage our society and our economy. It’s not at all out of the question, once the chips are down, that we can make a go of it, under a wartime type of controlled economy, and get by on half or less of our current per capita energy consumption, eating beans, bread, and potatoes, and maybe some chicken once in a while.

    A lot of the regulars here just don’t seem to be able to get their heads around the rather obvious fact that we don’t have to transition to an entirely sustainable economy in the near to medium term…….. and the medium term in this case can extend out to a century or even longer.

    We’re not just going to RUN OUT of much of anything that’s really and truly essential to maintaining a functional economy. Sure oil and gas will go thru the roof, but once we have no choice other than to drive micro mini cars, or quit driving at all, there will be ENOUGH diesel fuel, and ENOUGH electric cars, etc, to keep ESSENTIAL wheels turning.

    Entire professions and many kinds of jobs will more or less disappear, and the people who work now in these fields will have to be on welfare…….. but they can also be put to work on numerous kinds of infrastructure projects to pay for their beans and bread.

    Maybe forty or fifty million of us will find ourselves working at jobs such as small scale urban farming, or repairing appliances that are REDESIGNED to be repaired and so to last a couple or three generations. Once of my few remaining uncles has my maternal grandmother’s refrigerator bought new shortly after WWII…… and it’s still running without ever a single failure. Sure the freezer compartment is tiny, and he has to defrost it manually once in a while……

    Most of my furniture was hand made from thirty to sixty or seventy years ago by a local old farmer during the winter when he had time on his hands. It’s worth a LOT of money now, because he was a serious craftsman, and it’ll last indefinitely……. a century or two at the very least. I’ve watched my friends and acquaintances throw away furniture bought new two or three times over the years.

    Trucks and tractors built back in the fifties and sixties are still going strong on local farms, including my own. They were BUILT to last, and BUILT to be easily repairable.

    There’s really no reason, from an engineering and cost standpoint, why cars and light trucks can’t be made to last five or six hundred thousand miles or even longer, for a very minor fraction of the cost of building TWO additional vehicles to replace the ones we have today, which are typically scrapped at well under two hundred thousand miles on average.

    My POINT is that we can and will (HOPEFULLY) once we have no choice reorganize the economy so that our real needs can be met using only a minor fraction of the materials and energy we use today manufacturing throw away junk.

    I once owned a little cracker box house built right after the Korean War that was still in EXCELLENT condition when I sold it twenty five years ago……. and it’s in even better condition today, because the current owner is spending a couple of thousand bucks a year on improvements. Even so his total annual cost of ownership, payment, taxes, insurance, etc, is less than it would cost him to live in a comparable apartment a mile or two away.

    It won’t be against the law to subdivide a house into two or three apartments once we really need to double up in and near town so as to live on far less energy per capita. Old houses out in the boonies will be left to rot down……. unless maybe they’re needed to house farm workers.

    I don’t see any serious likelihood at all for birthrates to go anywhere except lower than at present, so the population problem will pretty much solve itself in this country and most other more or less modern countries.

    Immigration will NOT be a serious problem, because once the shit is in the fan to the point we have to switch over to a wartime economy, there won’t be an immigration football in play anymore….. The borders WILL be closed for all practical purposes except for maybe a few people we want to let in, such as doctors and engineers, etc.

    I’m speculating wearing my pink glasses of course. But anybody who has read a great deal of modern history involving war on the grand scale will understand what I’m getting at…. that once it’s NECESSARY, scenarios such as I’ve outlined here are more or less commonplace.

    Food, fuel, and materials are rationed, men are put to work on critical jobs at the point of a gun, if necessary. Industrial infrastructure is commandeered as the government sees fit. What is ESSENTIAL gets manufactured, what’s not isn’t.

    Within the next few decades we will see stuff such as insulated doors, triple pane windows, extra insulation, etc, subsidized and installed on the grand scale…….. because doing this will be by far the best possible use of labor and materials in terms of keeping the economy running , albeit on an austerity basis.

    Austerity is a hell of a lot better than collapse.

    A hell of a lot of the money being spent on military personnel and hardware will be diverted to various measures of efficiency and conservation, and to building more renewable energy infrastructure.

    On the other hand, we might be fighting a flat out WWIII any year now, or dealing with a deadly contagious disease which spreads so fast it cannot be controlled………. And the only safe assumption in this respect is to assume that various people in various countries are HARD at work creating such a disease right this minute.

    There are no guarantees, but giving up is not an option, and it’s the job of each generation to do what has to be done during it’s own time.

    Barring the worst sort of bad luck, we have enough fossil fuel and other essential resources, assuming we use them wisely, to get along for another century or so.

    1. This strikes a chord.

      A few weeks ago, I dropped a laptop that was less than two years old and instantly turned it to junk. I bought the cheapest fucking replacement I could find because I hate their fragility and will probably have to buy another in the future because I need it for my teaching job.

      Just yesterday, my partner was busy repairing a 19th century rocking chair that I love. He was doing it the old fashioned way–with chisels, glue and clamps. While working, I said, “That looks like a pain.” He responded, “At least it’s repairable.” Then he mumbled ,”No one wants to do this anymore.” That chair will last another hundred years.

      He can repair just about anything made of wood. He can design kitchen cabinets in his head and go into his shop and build them. But he’s 70, diabetic, and has recovered from a stroke. “You should be teaching some boy to carry on your skills.”

      Again: “No one wants to do this anymore.”

      We have a 1950s Ford 8N tractor that we keep nursing along because it’s a joy to run. Luckily, we know a repairman who can work on it. We have nice axes, saws and sledge hammers for cutting up firewood. We have fine copper cookware that we keep scrubbed clean. Don has hand tools in his shop that he has had for nearly half a century. While I like my John Deere with its bucket loader and rototiller, we have a store room in the barn full of nice spades and shovels, steel rakes, digging forks, iron pry bars, ice breakers, etc. I can’t do carpentry for shit, but I can grow things.

      For when worse comes to worse.

      1. Electronics gets obsolete after a few years. Not really comparable to a hammer.

    3. Great post. Rings true to me. I have followed Limits to Growth since it came out. I was in college studying Resource Economics and it made a big splash in my field. This week I have been rereading Limits and Beyond. the 50 year update. I find it useful to step back and look at our situation from the wholistic systems perspective. It amazes me how well the model has tracked for over 50 years!!! From a LtG perspective, we have been on the BAU, standard run for over 40 years. It now seems that we have begun moving over towards the BAU2 run, likely due to the tight oil plays. There has been a little movement towards the CT run, but we are clearly not on that path. Now the bottom line: In the BAU run, resource depletion was the limit to overshoot that lead to collapse. In BAU2, with a larger resource base assumption, population grows more, industrial output continues longer and it is pollution that leads to collapse. I call the readers attention to this because it backs up what OFM is saying in the lead to his post. Climate going to hell…… neither the BAU or BAU2 scenario escapes collapse. Local resiliency will be the key to saving what can be saved, and a strong dose of luck.
      EV’s as currently configured (at least in the west) are not on the CT pathway. They are too heavy, too fast, too luxurious, not easily recyclable, too energy intensive to build, resulting in having modest carbon paybacks. Smaller, slower, lighter, fully recyclable, would put them more on the CT pathway. The older, simpler technologies, built to last, like my 75 year old singer sewing machines are examples of the future in my humble opinion.

    4. Thanks OFM, and amen to all that.
      A lot of the arguments we hear about these issues on climate and energy and resource over-exploitation are coming from the stance of
      ‘that approach is not as good, or cheap, or convenient as what I am used to’

      Well, conditions are changing and expectations about work and money and convenience and privilege will have to as well.
      As you say- ‘Austerity is a hell of a lot better than collapse.’

      1. “The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed,”

        Mahatma Gandhi said in what is now one of his best-known quotes.

        Greed- intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.

    6. Mac- “We’re like a trucker already started down a long mountain with the brakes already overheated and no hope of stopping or even slowing down, so it’s ride it out or crash before reaching the bottom.”

      Actually, naked apes addressed this issue about 50 years ago and it’s now currently manageable. You and I know it’s called an engine brake. FYI, if I recall correctly the average 18 wheeler has about 2000 horsepower of braking at the wheels and most engine brakes have about 400 horsepower. The engine brake can absorb more energy going down a hill than the wheel brakes safely if managed properly.

      https://www.brakeandfrontend.com/braking-horsepower-how-much-does-your-car-have/

      What’s my point. There are political parties and industries in this country that are or have been overly obsessed with greed(selfish human natural instincts). Which have gotten in the way of addressing the environment, via denial. The real question is coming in November. Does society continue to put greed above the environment and humanity or safely manage this down hill snowball headed for a desert.

    7. Good to hear from you. Best I can do is make sure the grandkids have bikes to ride ten miles to town and the skills to keep them running.

    8. Nice thoughts OFM, but at what stage does the government go on a ‘war footing’ to implement these things that will save part of modernity?

      Right now there is widespread denial of any problems ahead, and any politician that dares mention ‘hard times’ ahead will be shown the door by the voting public. The public want growth and modern conveniences to continue, so how far down the curve does the war footing happen?

      Electric grids now are based on modern electronics, serviced by electrical tradesmen that only know the modern way, when something major fails it can’t be replaced with something simple that will ‘do’. Every other electronic gizmo is likely to be upset and fail if not given the ‘correct’ frequency and voltage. Likewise for factories everywhere.
      Every prior civilization that collapsed didn’t just go back to a simpler time, they collapsed completely, why would we expect anything less with our highly complex modern system that relies upon supply chains from around the world to function?

      1. Technology advances like adding rungs to make a higher ladder and then the old tech is obsolete, so the lower rungs are removed. No way to climb back down! Some of us recognize this and are actively looking for the relics of old tech, restoring them, using them, showing others what has been lost. The government WILL NOT save this situation. It is paralyzed by party polarization. I will likely not live long enough to see much of the long decline, my children will see more, everything I do to build self-reliance is for them. I have assembled a library of old tech books, taught my children many skills. This process of decline has started, it is underway but globally, regionally it will be very uneven in its progression. There isn’t anyway to accurately forecast it, particularly at a level of granularity that would help me out. Most aren’t even looking, let alone seeing and understanding what is happening. The younger generation has a feeling that things are not OK, that the future may darken, but most simple don’t know what to do. The problem for them is that it is very hard to continue to participate in the current economy in order to survive, while positioning oneself and preparing for what is coming. It is also hard to say how much time we have to do this. I thought 2016 would be the high water mark, but tight oil pushed it out, now maybe 2028, 2032 before it is really recognized. But now climate is moving faster than I thought. I don’t think we have much time. Enjoy it now!

      2. “but at what stage does the government go on a ‘war footing’ to implement these things that will save part of modernity?”

        It’s impossible to say, but beyond a certain tipping point, maintaining a modern electrical grid, etc, would obviously be impossible.

        I’ve often mentioned sharp edged broken bricks upside our collective head as probably being necessary to get the attention of the general public and enable whoever leads the country at the time to put the necessary policies in place.

        Almost everybody in this country prior to Pearl Harbor had a fairly decent understanding of what was going in in Europe, but most of us weren’t interested in actually sending troops over to help our friends, and a hell of a lot of us didn’t even want to help at all, not with money, nor with war materials.

        Isolationism was VERY real indeed.

        But within a couple of days of bombs landing on our own soil, we were ready to go to war, EAGER to go to war.

        I can make an analogy. We can predict long term climate, no problem. But we can’t reliably predict weather for more than a few days.

        I’m perfectly confident in predicting very tough times ahead. There will be war, famine, pestilence,
        riots, warlords. Almost bad thing I can imagine may well come to pass.

        But I can’t predict these things in detail. Luck, pure and simple, will play a big role.

        And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a enough bricks upside our head, or a big enough brick, to enable us to get on a war time economic model, and do what’s necessary to save enough of our basic infrastructure to avoid a crash and burn hard landing……..A Seneca Cliff scenario.

        The best we can hope for, in my personal opinion, is that these bricks will suffice to get and hold our collective attention, but not cripple us to the extent that it’s too late to get our collective act together.

        It’s paradoxical or ironic that as bad as today’s business as usual economy is, in terms of sustainability and climate, etc, we BETTER be praying that today’s BAU lasts quite some time, that it falls apart slowly.

        This means we will hopefully have enough time for the renewable energy and recycling industries to grow big enough to start shouldering a big enough portion of the energy load, and raw material needs, to pull thru by way of austerity rather than going over the cliff.

        1. OFM, I agree with all of this…
          “I’m perfectly confident in predicting very tough times ahead. There will be war, famine, pestilence,
          riots, warlords. Almost bad thing I can imagine may well come to pass.

          But I can’t predict these things in detail. Luck, pure and simple, will play a big role.

          And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a enough bricks upside our head, or a big enough brick, to enable us to get on a war time economic model, and do what’s necessary to save enough of our basic infrastructure to avoid a crash and burn hard landing……..A Seneca Cliff scenario.”
          …. with the exception of the last bit..

          …back at the beginning of WW2, the US was a young, rapidly growing country with relatively unlimited resources. Now all the easy to get resources have been mined, the agricultural land relies heavily on fertilizer, the population more than doubled, and on average older, much fatter and less able to ‘work hard’.

          There is no easy oil to obtain, to put into immediate use, nor other local energy sources. The situation is vastly different to 80 years ago. Everyone relies totally on their car, SUV, pickup to get and do anything. How is any of it going to work in a world without oil, the most important resource the US had at the beginning of WW2??
          How will people get from A to B to make a grid happen without oil??

          There will be no recovery of modernity, once it’s gone. The only places likely to have a semblance of modern lifestyle are those able to keep as much as possible until everything wears out. I suspect that is what the ‘elite’ are thinking with their bunkers and whatever else.
          We live in such a complex interconnected world, that parts breaking down will make most if not all of modernity junk very quickly.

          The grid was only possible in a growing world with more industrialization, more of everything, when it’s gone, it will be gone forever..
          People struggling for survival don’t have the time, resources or effort to build for the future as survival in the present becomes all important.

    9. It’s my personal belief that most of us naked apes will die hard before this century is out
      It’s a pretty safe bet that nearly all of us will be dead by the end of the century. The question is how many will be born to replace us.

  3. OFM

    Great to have you back! A very well crafted post overall.

    A point you make:
    “A lot of the regulars here just don’t seem to be able to get their heads around the rather obvious fact that we don’t have to transition to an entirely sustainable economy in the near to medium term…….. and the medium term in this case can extend out to a century or even longer. ”

    To add to that I have to say again that making upfront investments in renewables lockes in energy production for a future period, in addition to bringing energy that otherwise not could have be added to the system.

    Fossil fuel producers have to be paid one way or another, it is a balancing act. I read someone knowledgeable said 60 dollars a barrel for oil was a fair price before the inflation pulse the last 2 years. Now 80 dollars a barrel is probably a fair price, but it is not going to facilitate any growth. Again it is a balancing act, to win and win and win again would have backlashes for certain.

    I certainly agree that the economy must facilitate more reuse and repair – in addition to melting or remelting metals like iron, aluminium and copper using electricity as much as possible. Even glass shard can in the grand scale of thing be reused along with asfalt. But there has to be a long term viability for new mineral investments as well. It is a balancing act, and I would suspect that a large degree of stability would be needed in a degrowth scenario. I have no idea as to how exactly that would pan out. And if it would work as intended.

  4. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21012024/southwest-aridity-mine-proposals/

    There’s plenty to think about in this article.

    One thing in particular that has escaped the attention of people who believe there just isn’t enough lithium or copper, etc, to go renewable is that there are LOTS of unexploited places where such minerals are already known to be abundant and plentiful enough to produce them at affordable prices. Indeed there may not be enough, but there’s almost for sure enough to get thru the next couple of decades and maybe a lot longer than that.

    But it’s mostly about the water supply issue in the notoriously dry Southwest.

    I’m willing to speculate that although doing it would cost an arm and a leg, it might be possible to build a couple of gargantuan pipelines or canals and deliver the needed water from someplace up north.

    This might not be a question of being able to afford it. It could turn out to be a do or die issue.

    1. Maybe if they stopped wasting water on idiotic crops like lettuce and alfalfa in the Arizona desert, there’s be a little more water to go around.

      Another idea would be rainwater harvesting and erosion prevention instead of moronically standing around saying “Wow! Look at that!” while your country turns into a desert.

      https://youtu.be/Ipo0kwQQcgQ?t=213

  5. 1957 – American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his “flying disc” to the Wham-O toy company, who later renamed it the “Frisbee” —-.

    We need more innovation like this—–

    1. If your talking about the innovation of renaming something. We have plenty of that kind of innovation right here in America. It’s called the RNC. If you don’t believe me. Try watching just one episode of Hannity on Fox and get back to me.

      Now if your talking about the Frisbee. That’s just another WOKE climate change boondoggle to spend our hard earned tax dollar. Because a “flying disc” or whatever, is made out of plastic. Plastic comes from oil and natural gas. After peak oil, we won’t have enough whatever’s and than humanity will collapse. To a point all the white kid families will have the same kind of toys as the colored kids. Now that kind of shit ain’t gonna fly. If you know what I mean. So isn’t it just easier to sit around on our computers BAU and complain ?

      Just saying

      1. Don’t have a TV, so that is out of the question.

        The frisbee took the football and baseball away from casual recreation, and was quite revolutionary in many ways.
        You did this in the 60’s like everyone, i assume?
        It was a different experience for sure.

        1. Well we all know what happens when we assume. We think every American has a TV. Good for you. Your not missing much. But, if your waiting for a FDR fireplace chat on your radio. It’s not going to happen. Maybe a podcast. Mostly I used your comment to mock the oil is the center of the universe theory and the end of civilization BAU crowd rerunning the same episode 80 million times here. Yes, I remember the 60’s, V8’s, B&W TV, the dog ate my homework and the first American peakoil in 1970. Followed by 4 hour gas station lines in the middle of the night 50 years ago. Nice 2 inches of rain here the last 3 days. Sunny and in the high 60’s today.

          1. It has been white here in Bend for most of January—
            I can see some dirt here now.

          2. “We think every American has a TV.”

            I attended UCSB in the late 60’s.
            No one had a TV.
            Of course, these were smart students, at a progressive time.
            Sometimes I’m stuck in a hotel room, and after going through 100 channels, nothing is on.

  6. This is a pretty good summary of what may be the effects if/as limits to growth start to impact over the next five years. I think the comments on the unpredictable chaos that is likely as social order breaks down and it turns into every man for himself especially apposite (see Ecuador, Acapulco, Gaza, Yemen/Red Sea, Libya, Lebanon, PNG over past few months – and all that is before there are any region wide food shortages yet).

    https://medium.com/@thehonestsorcerer/2025-a-civilizational-tipping-point-da84d11a0e35

    2025: A Civilizational Tipping Point

    There is a growing body of evidence that the 2024–2030 period will present us with a critical juncture, upending a centuries long era of economic growth. No, it will have nothing to do with climate change or novel viruses: those two will come somewhat later. Missing entirely from mainstream discourse there is a greatly overlooked side of our predicament, which will set a nice little ‘game of musical chairs’ in motion most probably around 2025. Fasten your seat belts, while you can.

    It fits in with a lot of the concerns that are agitating the “quality” at Davos (minus climate issues).

    1. That commentary piece nails it, sorry to say.

      ” At this point, if we had access to a truly general AI capable of understanding our world with all its interrelatedness, it would say only this:

      “You shouldn’t have embarked on this journey, and destroyed the planet in the process to ask me at the very end what to do. There is nothing left to do to prevent collapse. Now, its time to prepare for a long, hard and bumpy landing. Oh, and try not to exterminate yourselves in the process. Good day, and good luck.”

  7. Hickory

    This is one for you

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/New-Law-Could-Put-Geothermal-On-Equal-Footing-With-Oil-And-Gas.html

    I am not against geothermal at all but the up front cost will be a huge issue. The best efficiency is from deeper hotter wells, and even then the temperature is not that hot. The Exergy on such installations is rather low which pushes up cost of power. The LCOE of $56 MWh might be a bit optimistic which is rather a familiar story-line. My guess is that the D&C costs will be even higher than a shale well, as the target will be deeper basement rock.

    You might find these two links useful but you need to understand the thermodynamics to fully understand the challenge.

    https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/openengineering/article/doi/10.1115/1.4054038/1139681/Comparison-of-Thermodynamic-Performances-in-Three

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341592959_Thermodynamics_of_Geothermal_Energy

    Personally I think district heating with a heat pump might be a better option rather than power production. The other issue is how this plant will scale up and supply of water for the cooling system, amd make -up water for re-injection.

  8. As the world warms.

    GLOBAL COAL EXPORTS AND POWER GENERATION HIT NEW HIGHS IN 2023

    Worldwide electricity generation from coal hit record highs in 2023, while thermal coal exports surpassed 1 billion metric tons for the first time as coal’s use in power systems continues to grow despite widespread efforts to cut back on fossil fuels. Coal-fired electricity generation was 8,295 terawatt hours (TWh) through October, up 1% from the same period in 2022 and the highest on record, according to environmental think tank Ember.

    Indonesia was the top thermal coal exporter in 2023, shipping out a record 505.4 million tons for the year, up 54 million tons or 12% from 2022’s levels. For the first time, Indonesia accounted for more than half of all thermal coal shipments within a calendar year in 2023, Kpler data shows. Australia was the second largest thermal coal exporter, shipping out 198 million tons, up 12.5 million tons (7%) from the year before.

    https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/global-coal-exports-power-generation-hit-new-highs-2023-2024-01-18/

    1. Meanwhile,

      Daily CO2

      Jan. 22, 2024 = 422.87 ppm
      Jan. 22, 2023 = 419.03 ppm

      1 Year Change 3.84 ppm (0.92%)

  9. Norway doing its bit on the fossil fuel front.

    NORWAY’S NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION HITS RECORD HIGH

    Oil and gas companies plan to boost exploration activity and spending offshore Norway this year as Western Europe’s top oil and gas producer looks to maintain production and raise exports to the rest of Europe. “The robust exploration and production activity of the past year is set to continue into 2024.”

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Norways-Natural-Gas-Production-Hits-Record-High.html

  10. Latest from Prof. Rees:
    https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/09/18/Climate-Crisis-Wipe-Out/

    One thing the climate crisis underscores is that Homo sapiens are not primarily a rational species. When forced to make important decisions, particularly decisions affecting our economic security or socio-political status, primitive instinct and raw emotion tend to take the upper hand.

    This is not a good thing if the fate of society is at stake. Take “hope” for example. For good evolutionary reasons, humans naturally tend to be hopeful in times of stress. So gently comforting is this word, that some even endow their daughters with its name. But hope can be enervating, flat out debilitating, when it merges with mere wishful thinking — when we hope, for example, that technology alone can save us from climate change.
    …
    “You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable… Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.”

      1. Realize that if renewables had not been deployed,
        then the combustion of coal in the world
        would be close to twice of what it is now.

        1. Agree – and which is why it drives me nuts when there are these naysayers with respect to renewable energy. Is it a perfect substitute for FFs? No, of course not, but what is the alternative? It seems to me that storage is where the focus should be (and probably is for those who are writing checks) – anything from V2G to hydrogen/ammonia as intermediary steps to deal with stranded sources, etc to better match supply and demand. To enable that the allocation of resources focused on renewables and renewable related development vs other stuff is where attention needs to be paid.
          rgds
          WP

  15. Recent report card shows mixed results from Amazon

    OPTIMISM DRIES UP IN AMAZON AS LULA DRIFTS FROM CLIMATE PRIORITIES

    First, the all-important good news. Deforestation in the Amazon has slowed by about 50% over the past year. For the first time since 2018, the clearance rate was less than 10,000 sq km in the 12 months until 31 July. Still more encouraging, the loss of tree cover in Indigenous territories fell by 73%.

    The bad news is that, even with this deceleration, on average close to one million trees are still being chopped down or burned every day in the Amazon. Countless more died because of the drought and this will worsen the degradation of the forest. Overall, there is no doubt the Amazon finished 2023 in a worse condition than it started, though sadly that has been the case for every year in the past half century.

    “Brazil’s president inspired hope a year ago but approval of a new highway shows he remains a concrete-and-oil state builder”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/optimism-dries-up-amazon-lula-drifts-climate-priorities-brazil

    1. Doug, sometimes we need to pay attention to the numbers to call BS, on ‘something’ in this report..
      “the clearance rate was less than 10,000 sq km in the 12 months until 31 July.”

      ” The bad news is that, even with this deceleration, on average close to one million trees are still being chopped down or burned every day in the Amazon.”

      Those 2 comments do not add up. 1 million trees/d = 365 million trees/yr. 10,000sqkm = 1,000,000ha.

      They cleared 365 mature rainforest trees per hectare?? I don’t think so, there are not that many mature trees in a rainforest. I have rainforest on my property, nearly mature trees, probably 20-30/Ha and another 50 smaller ones, but nowhere near 365/ha. Plus the smaller ones tend to die off as they don’t have access to light with their lower canopy and the larger ones still growing.

  16. “The cryosphere – snow, ice, and permafrost – in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region that stretches from from Afghanistan to Myanmar is the world’s most crucial water tower, serving as the water source for large parts of Asia.” Spanning thousands of kilometers and containing the world’s highest mountains, this region supplies water to major rivers like the Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus and Yangtze.”
    “Winter snowfall is a lifeline for the Himalayan people for agriculture, irrigation, drinking water, recreation, tourism, entertainment, and of course recharging of glaciers, which are retreating rapidly…”

    A 2019 study predicted a 90% decline in glacier volumes by the 21st century due to decreased snowfall, increased snowline elevations, and longer melt seasons.
    “Status and Change of the Cryosphere in the Extended Hindu Kush Himalaya Region”
    https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1_7

  18. how Hydrogen won the next car battle over EV 25 years ago
    about more than 25 years ago, GM introduced EV-1 along with Toyota RAV4 EV later,
    but later it was announced that Hydrogen storage was a success and the world will be H2 powered in a decade.

    Bush Jr. announced a great plan for H2 economy, that’s how GM scrapped all 3 thousand EV-1 in the desert.

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