114 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, January 27, 2023”

  2. Exxon Mobil’s Climate Predictions ‘Astonishingly’ Accurate Since 1970s: Study

    For almost 50 years, the oil giant has made public statements contradicting scientific research that turned out to be remarkably on point.

    Seth Borenstein and Cathy Bussewitz
    AP logo
    Jan 12, 2023, 04:54 PM EST

    DENVER (AP) — Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming, even as the company made public statements that contradicted its own scientists’ conclusions, a new study says.

    The study in the journal Science on Thursday looked at research that Exxon funded that didn’t just confirm what climate scientists were saying, but used more than a dozen different computer models that forecast the coming warming with precision equal to or better than government and academic scientists.

    This was during the same time that the oil giant publicly doubted that warming was real and dismissed climate models’ accuracy. Exxon said its understanding of climate change evolved over the years and that critics are misunderstanding its earlier research.

    Scientists, governments, activists and news sites, including Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, several years ago reported that “Exxon knew” about the science of climate change since about 1977 all while publicly casting doubt. What the new study does is detail how accurate Exxon funded research was. From 63% to 83% of those projections fit strict standards for accuracy and generally predicted correctly that the globe would warm about .36 degrees (.2 degrees Celsius) a decade.

    The Exxon-funded science was “actually astonishing” in its precision and accuracy, said study co-author Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard science history professor. But she added so was the “hypocrisy because so much of the Exxon Mobil disinformation for so many years … was the claim that climate models weren’t reliable.”

    “We’ve dug into not just to the language, the rhetoric in these documents, but also the data. And I’d say in that sense, our analysis really seals the deal on ‘Exxon knew’,” Supran said. It “gives us airtight evidence that Exxon Mobil accurately predicted global warming years before, then turned around and attacked the science underlying it.”

    The paper quoted then-Exxon CEO Lee Raymond in 1999 as saying future climate “projections are based on completely unproven climate models, or more often, sheer speculation,” while his successor in 2013 called models “not competent.”

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/exxon-mobil-climate-warming-study-accuracy_n_63c07deee4b0b2e1506faa6e

  3. FASTER THAN EXPECTED …why most climate scientists can’t tell the truth (in public)

    This is a long read but it is the most comprehensive article that I have read explaining why actual climate events are so much worse than various predictions, even those being made now.

    One of the clichés of climate change reporting is climate scientists claiming to be ‘surprised’, ‘shocked’ or ‘baffled’ by extreme events happening so much faster than predicted by their models and research studies.

    These consistent underestimations are often explained by their ‘cautious’ approach which sounds reasonable, until you realise this has led the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — whose role is to advise humanity on the seriousness of the climate crisis — to get their advice consistently wrong.

    …

    This means most people, including those in power and in the media, genuinely don’t know how desperate things already are. Even many directly engaged with the subject, in NGOs and protest groups, don’t realise concepts like limiting warming to a ‘safe’ 1.5C global average are now meaningless — because scientists won’t tell them.

    https://medium.com/@JacksonDamian/faster-than-expected-9675203cf8ac

    I don’t know if the recommendations at the end, even if implemented, which is increasingly unlikely, would have much real impact (like almost all similar sections that come at the end of such articles).

    1. Thanks. The first half of the article is fascinating.

      The second half is psychobabble hokum. The dude also needs an editor.

    2. This is a well written article; however, like you George, the recommendations ring hollow to me. It’s as though every attempt to sound the alarm focuses on righting the ship. It’s not just listing, it’s sinking. It’s too late. Breakdown is occurring. Collectively we do not want to admit what is happening. None of my friends and associates want to discuss the issues, let alone plan a course of action. But they agree something needs to be done. I used to think I’d be ashes before the worst of it happens. Every day the odds of that happening decline.

    3. George —

      It’s clear that scientists tend to underestimate the severity of threats and the rapidity with which they are likely to unfold. At least publicly. This happens for a number of reasons. One is that many scientists worry that if they over-estimate a threat, they will lose credibility, whereas if they under-estimate it, it will have little reputational impact. Respecting climate science, this anxiety is reinforced by the drumbeat of climate denial, in which scientists are accused of being “alarmists” who “exaggerate the threat.”

      1. These scientists should know better than pretending to have deep understandings of climate or what drives it to change. The local newspaper ran a story a while back about how it is virtually impossible to predict climate more than about a month out, because it is just too complex to accurately model.

        1. Richard’s climate denial seems too stupid to actually be human, therefore I think Richard is a bot. But are worry and anxiety by scientists really the difference between apocalyptic climate hell and a future of rainbows and cheap Teslas? If so we’re doomed because if scientists can be triggered to water-down humanity-saving information just to assuage their fear, any two-bit AI program will have them cowering in the corner. And we all know AI is going to be on the side of more growth, more of everything, just like its creators. Anyone who thinks Elon Musk will build an AI machine that says “Elon Musk is an idiot”, must be an… Anyway, just assume posts like Richard’s are coming from non-sentient sources, machine or otherwise. Welcome to the future, really the present: Machines bullying people so the machines and their masters get their way.

        2. Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more. – from the book “The Knowledge Illusion”

        3. Richard is not unusual.
          Many people simply don’t believe science when the implications are unpleasant or unfavorable.
          They find all kinds of reasons to support their point of view, such as Richard who found that his local newspaper was the paramount source of information/opinion on this topic.

          Another large group of people begrudgingly acknowledge that there is global warming, but they don’t think it warrants any change in policies- especially any changes that would threaten their economic prospects or energy availability. Many people in this group simply revert to position #1 during discussions so as to avoid delving into the implications of their position.
          Probably this group is the biggest.

          And a third group thinks we ought to try to work on global warming while also addressing the energy problem at the same time.

          I am in this third group, however I do acknowledge that all three groups likely fail hard to have a position that will allow for a continuation of the big party for too much longer. We’ve got human population overshoot, energy depletion and a tattered biosphere- not a pretty list of ingredients.

          1. But I heard on Faux news that we could count on the market to solve all of these problems. Just lower taxes and the problems will go away.

  4. I didn’t get back to Ervin last time around.

    So I’m copying portions of his last reply, and inserting my own.

    About forced climate change:

    ” I have not read or seen about one of the many apocalyptic predictions even come close to occurring therefore I reject that premise.”

    The evidence for forced climate change is necessarily statistical in nature. It’s hard to come up with air tight LEGAL evidence, because there are always possible natural variations of course. It was hard to convince the public that smoking is a killer, and the tobacco industry was able to fend of warnings, advertising bans and so forth for decades as a result.

    But the evidence is still real. I suggest that you go to the websites associated with your OWN university, and read what the professors of physics, chemistry, math, and biology have to say about it.

    Climate is not a settled science in the sense that an engineer can design a machine, or a circuit, and know with ( near or total ) absolute certainty how it will perform under given conditions.

    The conditions are variable, and the data is incomplete, but getting better every year.

    ” I guess the worst would be mass starvation do to extreme droughts and or floods brought on by climate change. ”

    You’ve made it to first base on this point. I’m a professional farmer, retired. You’re dead on except that things can get a LOT worse. There are large heavily populated geographical regions that might very well get so hot, or dry, that people won’t be able to live in these areas, over the long term. It’s not the AVERAGE temperature or rainfall that applies in understanding this point. It’s the extremes that might last only a week…….. a week of extremely hot dry weather can just about destroy a staple crop for the year.

    People will be migrating, no choice. Wars may well follow.

    And while lots of people, some of them well qualified scientists, do make extreme forecasts, this is to be expected. It’s human nature. They want the limelight, and they want the publicity to get the word out to the public. Furthermore, journalists and talking heads tend to always embellish the most outrageous pronouncements, because bad news sells.

    My physician can’t say how long I will live, presuming I pursue some bad habits. Ask him about excessive drinking, and he says I might …….. MIGHT die as a result within a year, because this increases the risk of heart attacks and stroke, or I might live to be ninety…… given that I have an Irish liver, lol.

    But he CAN say that heavy drinking eventually kills. He just can’t say how long.

    “The fact of the mater is that world wide production of crops have never been greater.”

    True….. but I can say to you, as a fellow professional, that this has almost nothing to do with climate, and almost everything to do with putting more land to the plow, and applying more and more and more industrial inputs in the form of manufactured fertilizers, genetically modified crops, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, diesel fuel, etc.

    There are some EXTREMELY serious problems here. We’re destroying farm land ( mismanagement) at an ever increasing pace, using up one time gifts of nature at an ever increasing pace. One of the very best things we can do, to offset these liabilities, is to use as much renewable energy as possible,and in terms of constant money, wind and solar electricity are getting cheaper year after year, and they’re also getting cheaper year after year in comparison to oil and gas.

    We’re sure as hell going to need oil and gas for generations to come. We shouldn’t be wasting it. Take a moment to contemplate the fact that oil companies are out in the ocean, in thousands of feet of water, producing oil. Shell went up near the Arctic Circle a while back.

    After the first ice free summer in the Arctic I’ll gladly send you a $1000 check.

    I am willing to bet a thousand, even money, that we will see that happen within twenty years.

    We do agree that the earth isn’t a bottomless pit filled with oil and gas. We also agree that every btu supplied by wind and solar is one less from fossil fuels.

    ” I think you feel that that cost of that btu doesn’t matter because the end justifies the means.”
    Costs always matter.

    But you can’t just make long term decisions on the basic of direct costs. The fossil fuel industries aren’t just fucking up the climate. They’re killing us in other ways.

    What were the primary reasons Hitler started WWII? ANY serious historian will tell you that one of them is that he wanted his victim countries land and resources, especially oil.

    And any serious student of military and historical affairs will tell you that Putin thought he would get away with invading Ukraine because he could blackmail his ( presumably) captive oil and gas customers and get away with doing so.

    Our fossil fuel addiction is as dangerous to us, collectively, as any drug addiction is to an individual.

    We’ve no choice, long term, except to break it.

    Fortunately, the COST of going renewable is LESS than the cost of continuing to burn fossil fuels, everything considered.

    I know at least one man who has an electric car and charges it at home, using his own solar panels, and while he doesn’t drive on a schedule anymore, to and from work, he still drives a lot, and he hasn’t spent a dime on purchased electricity to run his car, on average, over a year………. because he has a big system and actually sells electricity back to his utility.

    I could PROFITABLY deploy a solar power system of my own, for home and farm, if I weren’t too old to bother with it now. And I could do it without subsidies, other than maybe a low interest loan, at rates comparable to mortgage rates when such rates are low.

    .

    1. I’m on a bit of a rocky hillside so I’m doing raised beds and have had a ‘strategic topsoil reserve’ brought in from the valley.

    2. OFM
      Thanks for the thoughtful reply to my post.
      We agree that oil, in all its forms, is too precious to waste. How any society spends its wealth in the long run does matter. What is so very difficult is for a society to choose the correct most effective way to expend its resources. As an example, a 100 MW solar farm has to have all of its cables, switches, transformers and safeties sized for 100 MW because on the summer solstice it might be a perfectly clear day and the farm will produce its maximum output. But as we all know the capacity factor of that installation will most likely be 20% to 30% over a years time. How does one measure the true benefit realistically with 70 to 80 percent of the time the system is providing zero power. Now that bothers me. Look at the relationship of the 100s of millions Chinese that were able to leave a life of poverty to the energy consumption of China. The curves rise in unison. I believe that poor of the world know full well how well the people in the developed world live and human nature being what it is these poor desire a home, not having to burn wood or dung to cook food, have a water faucet, a refrigerator, don’t forget a toilet. All of this takes energy and does the developed world have the right to deny this? The Egyptian civilization for 3000 years spent most of it’s wealth building tombs and temples so the wealthy could return from the dead and spend eternity in paradise. Today, I believe we are spending our wealth chasing the carbon dioxide molecule and in the end we will accomplishing just as much. Paradise awaits.

      1. Ervin:
        It matters a great deal less how inefficiently a society uses resources as in your example as long as it lives within the capacity of it’s environment to replenish itself. I don’t know if it is possible to compare the overbuilding of a solar system to any method of power generation that actually consumes, rather than “inefficiently” uses precious resources (I’m thinking copper in the solar array compared to fossil energy). The “overbuilt” solar array will be around a long time because it is overbuilt and virtually all of it’s components are likely re-usable if properly designed and maintained. Not so coal.

        I consider myself, at 79, a member of the luckiest generation in human history. We gobbled up resources like there was no tomorrow and, wow, that’s closer to the truth than we could ever have imagined. My generation, and most alive today in the west, would have a hard time living a simpler life; less running water, less electricity, less transportation, blah blah. But how much of that is needed for a fulfulling life? The answer is obviously much, much less or the suicide rate would be lower today than 100 years ago instead of higher. It isn’t the developed world’s role to deny or enable every living human a faucet and a refrigerator. It is up to humanity as a species to decide if we are going to gobble up every unique resource within the next 20 or 50 years and let our progeny go back to the stone age.
        Perhaps at the level of fossil fuel consumption the earth was experiencing in 1900 it could have been considered infinite and environmentally benign. The problem is the combination of per capita consumption and population. Unless both are addressed there is no solution.

      2. Ervin,
        I find it literally impossible to believe that you are a PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER but nevertheless believe that “we are spending our wealth chasing the carbon dioxide molecule and in the end we will accomplishing just as much. Paradise awaits.”

        Except for one thing……….. I’ve known other professionals who somehow manage to both believe in their OWN professional specialty, while denying the reality of the work of other professionals outside their own limited area.

        The general term for this is “cognitive dissonance”. So……. I know of medical professionals who believe in the KJB, literally…….. economists who believe that there are, or WILL BE INVENTED, viable substitutes for any and every resource that might come up short, a geologist who believes in abiotic oil, on and on.

        What you’re doing, in terms of what you believe, is denying the validity of the work of just about all of the entire world’s major scientific organizations, the work of the people in the hard sciences at your OWN UNIVERSITY.

        You’re basically putting yourself in the position of a parent who wants to pray away a likely fatal disease afflicting their child, not allowing doctors to treat the child with well proven and effective medicines.

        I would be embarrassed to introduce you as a personal friend at a social gathering of people working in the hard sciences, there’s no other way to put it……..

        Unless of course you’re a troll.

        A man who is reasonably skilled in communications can come up with plausible comments such as your own……. for the express purpose of spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt….. FUD.

        If you go back to YOUR OWN university to take undergraduate courses so as to specialize in some other branch of engineering…… courses in geology, physics, atmospheric sciences, biology……… EVERY BODY will be looking at you as if you just fell off the turnip wagon and wandered in, lost in every possible way.

        But you are not alone. There are upwards of a hundred million people in the USA who believe the same as you do, in reference to the climate. A couple of dozen of them are relatives I see on a regular basis, and I know at least a hundred more, personally, well enough to say hello, in the community.

        The difference is that the average level of education for this hundred plus is maybe junior high school, as it was taught a generation or two back.

      3. Erwin,
        There is no problem if solar and wind farms have a capacity factor of 20%-30% for a couple of simple reasons:
        1. Fuel is free forever.
        2. Massive surplus electricity produced on some days can be stored in batteries to be used later. We are in the early days of cheap batteries produced from common minerals that can be used to backup the grid when renewable energy is not available.

        1. Suyog is dead center in ten ring. There are MANY kinds of equipment and infrastructure that are very profitable and economic to own and use that are used no more than twenty to thirty percent of the time.
          I ( used to) have a big truck that I used only once per week on average, maybe even less. But I could do more work with it in half a day than I could with my pickup truck in two or three days, and use eighty percent less fuel doing it.

          I have kept a small car to be used anytime I don’t actually NEED to haul anything, because it got twice to three times the miles per gallon of the pickup truck.

          I used my tractors an average of less than ten percent of the time, on a year around basis, ditto most of my farm equipment.

          And so far as storing otherwise surplus wind and solar power in batteries is concerned……. there are dozens of ways to shift loads around to take advantage of any cheap wind and solar juice.

          If you own a big refrigerated warehouse, or freezer ware house, you can chill it to the practical max when juice is dirt cheap, and use very little, or maybe none at all for the next day or two at times when we are forced to burn coal and gas.

          If I were building a new house today, I would insulate underneath a poured slab, and put some wires or tubing for water in the concrete, and insulate the hell out of the entire house, and heat that slab up when juice is cheap in the winter time, and chill it when juice is cheap in the summer time, and by doing so I could easily cut my heating and cooling energy load by up to a third, and by over two thirds, compared to the old but well maintained house I live in now.

          A super insulated double or triple sized water heater can be used to heat up to ninety percent of a typical homeowner’s hot water, because that’s enough, once it’s hot, to last at least two days for most families, and up to three or four or even five days for a one or two person household.

          If I were still using an irrigation pump, I could run it during hot dry sunny weather over half the time with my own solar panels…… and save as much as eighty percent or more of the fuel needed to run the diesel engine I use now.

          We’ll have smart meters and intelligent appliances within another five years or so, and this means a clothes dryer or washer will run when juice is cheap and abundant, unless you override to make it run at some particular time.

          And batteries ARE getting cheaper year after year.

          I wouldn’t go into so much simple detail for our regulars, but there are some kids and some lurking adults reading this site who don’t know much about such things.

  5. Many people in the world have used cheap energy to buy some distance between themselves (as individuals or small family units) and other people.
    As in separate living quarters, their own cooking spaces, their own household machinery (laundry, frig, HVAC), their own transport vehicles. And their own tractor or boat or chain saw or compressor, and other misc equipment.
    For better or worse its meant less in the way of extended families living in proximity, separation from neighbors, living far from work.
    It all adds up to much less community interaction than was possible without this abundant energy lifestyle.

    I suspect that as inexpensive energy becomes harder to come by , and the prosperity decline that follows, it will result in a reversal of these trends. As one small example I heard an interview with a lady in Sweden saying in her neighborhood this winter people were all having dinner together on a rotating basis so that only one kitchen had to be fired up. And older relatives were being brought back home to save on heating bills.

    Shared housing, shared equipment, closer living to work and market and food supply, are all trend reversals that are likely to accumulate in the next decades.
    People might have to practice up on how to get along better.

    2. Another issue is that people are having fewer children, so people have fewer close relatives than they used to have. In addition, fewer children mean smaller households because children don’t have their own households..

      1. There’s AMPLE room in a typical mcmansion in the American suburbs for three generations, given the number of children women are having these days.

        1. True. Add a corner store and they wouldn’t need to drive much either.

    3. People living in villages in many parts of Europe have until rather recently ( in historical terms) sent their kids to pick up fresh baked bread for the day from the village baker. This was a VERY efficient use of their limited supply of firewood, given that the baker had a BIG oven. One big oven is many times more fuel efficient, if kept hot, than dozens of small ones lit every day or two to make bread for a single family.

      Plus the customer spent or traded less in terms of the value of his family’s own working time.

      Win Win.

      1. OFM — I live in Germany and sometimes walk to the bakery to get fresh baked bread for breakfast. Usually on the weekend. Most supermarkets also have a small bakery these days.

      2. Kind of like Amazon. Drive one big loop and deliver lots of goods in one fell swoop vs lots of individual trips to various stores.
        Rgds
        WP

    4. Most people in the US don’t use their pickup very often for cargo.
      Local sharing or renting of a big vehicle isn’t the end of the world.

    1. Seppo:
      That article was full of so much Republican nonsense-speak as to not be worthy of rebuttal. You really should look for better wources of information,

    1. Quotes from the above article at “Real Clear Energy::

      …the imagined crisis posed by the continued use of gasoline and diesel fuel…

      …the symbol of the One World Order in which billionaires and their cronies alone intend to determine what we can drive, eat, and say.

      Wait. What?

      That website is shite.

      1. I really tried to give it a chance but it ended up sounding like a Trump campaign speech.

  8. Here is a pretty good demolition of economists’ (lack of) understanding of energy from the Shift Project.

    https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/energy-inflation-dangerous-liaisons/#_ftn11

    Energy and Inflation: Dangerous Liaisons

    Central banks and their legions of economists made two serious mistakes as they evaluated and modeled the energy issue. The first one concerns the price signal relevance on energy futures markets, and this blunder will not be forgiven: while assessing the inflationary risk, the great money men have displayed an unfounded belief in the market’s capacity to give a relevant indication on the future prices of oil.

    …

    All central banks have been confronted with the increasing energy prices since spring 2021, with the gradual emergence of the economic collapse brought on by the pandemic. All were wrong about the future evolution of energy prices, based on their assumptions on prices in the energy futures market.
    …

    The two misjudgments of the link between energy and inflation outlined above reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the energy issue by “economic science” and a misunderstanding of the essential physical role of energy in the workings of the economy. In both cases, “economic science” is tempted to clumsily apply to energy  some concepts – such as the law of supply and demand through the price signal – that are more relevant to describe ordinary markets such as wool or pencils.

    …

    In the current context, where energy is at last the focal point, some academic works, and statements by economists, some of whom have become influential central bankers, suggest that the energy-climate issue could finally be revisited by abandoning some of the illusions of “economics”.

    Let us hope so. There is an emergency.

    The French do these things with a lot of charm and grace, even given the occasionally clunky translation. From an anglophone, especially one on the right, this would have read not only as a critique of someone’s actions but a complete condemnation of their whole character.

    1. I think that as long as economists believe that GDP growth is an unmitigated good their advice is worthless on any and every subject they pontificate on. Even leftie economists, like Krugman, paint rather silly pictures of how we can grow the economy and develop technologies that will be environmentally benign. And all of the prominant media parrot their pronouncements. Hopeless.

      1. “as long as economists believe that GDP growth is an unmitigated good”

        Well, the whole recipe of civilization is based on growth.
        There is no contraction theology, or depression party platform, or disinflation business model.
        The whole world is basically in a growth at all and every cost stance.

        Maybe there will be a contraction point credit system that you can redeem for food in the future [sarcasm].

        1. The only natural system based on continuous, unlimited, growth is cancer. Not a good role model .(also sarcasm)

    2. In my senior year in college earning my degree in economics, it became readily apparent that there were at least two fundamental contradictions in Neoclassical economics that made studying the subject irrelevant.

      The first is what George alludes to above, the lack of understanding of energy and its role in creating wealth. Economists mostly believe that all goods are substitutable, often in a positive way. So as one resource nears depletion, human ingenuity is such that an equal or better resource will be found for its replacement. This is the foundation for the religious belief in never ending growth.

      The second fallacy is that goods that are not traded cannot have value. So a protected area of woods, for example, has a value of zero, whereas if it’s destroyed and cut into lumber it has much greater value. The corollary is that even damaging events add to economic growth as long as more resources are employed. So building a home in a dangerous location, say on the coast, that will soon get destroyed, is good for the overall economy. Therefore, the quicker things obsolesce, the more they add to economic growth. Of course this obsolescence includes our individual selves as well. The poorer health we are in the more we contribute to the economy.

      Economic growth in the Neoclassical sense should be seen as a measure of ecological churn or disruption, as this is its primary effect. And the more things churn, the more they homogenize.

      1. I have never studied economics, so thanks for this lesson.

        It sounds like a beast eating itself alive.

    3. Because energy is wasted so flagrantly, there isn’t any reason to require more energy for economic growth. Growth decoupled from energy consumption decades ago.

      1. Not sure I understand you correctly there.

        If we look at electricity or oil consumption it correlates 97%+ with real GDP growth. So there is both correlation and underlying causation there.

        Energy wastage (heat) is inbuilt in the laws of the universe we live in.

        Or do you mean energy wastage in terms of human inefficiency ? Which i strongly agree with.

        1. “Energy is wasted flagrantly”

          I think he’s saying at this level the economic gain from additional energy consumption is very little. This is true in developed nations. Driving an SUV five miles to the convenience store for a candy bar uses tremendous amounts of energy for no gain. But in less affluent nations energy consumed leads to much greater growth.

          1. Right, Africa And India desperately need more energy, Europe and especially North America would be better off consuming less.

          2. Stephen,
            Are you familiar with Wood Fiber Insulation?
            I understand it has been gaining traction in Europe and the first USA plant is supposed to come online this year at an old pulp mill plant in Maine.
            https://www.woodfiberinsulation.com/
            https://timberhp.com/

            Seems like it would be useful as part of an new shell around an existing 2×4 or 2×6 stick building.

            1. Hickory, my personal favorite for insulating earth building is hempcrete. It’s from the pithy part of the hemp fiber plant. You can use the exterior of the stem for exceptional fiber and the center (also called “Hurd”) is shredded and cast in place with lime for an insulation that can hold itself up like foam board and has about R-2.1/in.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hempcrete

              Lime and clay are both excellent and complimentary binders that also desiccate organic materials to preserve them for centuries. Wood fiber can be used in a similar manner although I’m not as familiar with it.

              Earth buildings such as cob when wrapped in some type of breathable insulation like hempcrete make very energy efficient low material cost structures that both have a tight building envelope and are also breathable. The earth is a very cheap thermal battery as well as being structural, and of course is fireproof, termite-proof and nearly soundproof. This combination of materials is gaining some momentum and is applicable throughout the world. You may find the Cobbauge project of interest

              https://www.building.co.uk/buildings/cobbauge-what-on-earth-is-going-on/5115314.article

            2. Good article Stephen. I wonder how those guys are seeing the wood fiber insulation products that are on the market over there.

            3. Years ago, cellulose fibers (produced from old newspapers ) were a popular option for boosting attic insulation because they could be blown in with little labor cost. Then they disappeared from the market, I think it was related to the fire suppressant being used.

        2. Iron Mike —
          I am a computer guy, and I think that most of the economic growth in coming years is going to come from better algorithms, not more stuff.

          Obviously algorithms cost energy, but much less per dollar than “real” things. Energy consumption for computing is increasing rapidly, but it is also replace other forms of consumption, and is experiencing rapid efficiency gains.

          The catch phrase in Silicon Valley is “Software is eating the world”, and I believe it. It won’t save the world by itself, but it redefines the problem.

          1. I really don’t understand how that works being a mechanical (engineer) guy. When we make physical things a lot of people are employed and get to participate in the created wealth. When an algorithm is created it can be sold an infinite number of times thereby continuing to generate wealth for someone or som very small number of people. Indeed it can be done with a much lower energy budget. It may be part of the explination for why industrial society is in the process of concentrating wealth among a shrinking number of people. There is an apocriphal story about the unionization of the Ford Motor Company. Supposedly Henry Ford and Walter Reuther are walking through the plant and Ford points out a new machine saying “That one machine will replace 50 of your union men” Reuther replies “Yeah. but can you sell it a car?”. For many years increasing consumption and increasing efficiency managed to work hand and hand with increasing enerfy consumption to make most of the members of industrial society wealthier, at least in terms of goods consumed. That model is breaking down.

          2. Thanks Stephen makes sense.

            Alim,

            I think you are right, with the explosion of data science and machine learning, the west seems to be headed in that direction for sure.

            I think smart cities might come to fruition by the end of this decade. But regardless of how it plays out, there is a massive momentum in that direction.

  9. From Gizmodo:
    “Read any article about the clean energy revolution, and chances are you’ll run into some staggering numbers about how demand for lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other minerals and metals is projected to rise over the next few decades.

    But the future isn’t set in stone. The U.S. may need up to 90% less of these materials if it simply prioritizes things like public transit, urban walkability, and smaller cars, according to groundbreaking new research from the Climate and Community Project and University of California, Davis.”

    Adaptation IS possible. I easily learned to live in a cramped apartment hunting a place to park my car within a hundred yards and got used to it, after spending many years being able to do anything I pleased outside because I had no neighbors within a quarter of a mile.

    The biggest question may be whether we will have warning enough, and time enough, to implement such adaptations as will be necessary.

    Pray to your favorite Snake or Mountain or whatever for a series of broken bricks upside our collective head….. pieces big enough to GET OUR ATTENTION….. but not so big as to prevent our taking action.

    The silver lining in the Ukrainian cloud is that people all over the world are now substantially better informed in regard to the dangers of our fossil fuel addiction.

    1. “broken bricks upside our collective head”. I’ve thought a lot about that concept. It’s clear that without some serious damage somewhere the collective will cannot force any of the changes needed to save the biosphere from industrial society. And “prevent our taking action” is exactly what will happen I fear if the brick is too big. Civilization is a very thin veneer, as you can see just watching Republican electeds in front of a camera. The gap between the needed message and utter madness grows slimmer.

      1. Hi JJHMAN,
        You understand perfectly.
        Here and there I explain this in greater detail, saying in effect that we should be figuratively praying for a SERIES of broken bricks upside our collective head, coming often enough to get our full attention, but not so frequently, or in such quantities as to render us incapable of taking proactive measures……. which will necessarily have to be taken on the grand scale.

        I’m somewhat hopeful ( and positive some days) that the renewable energy industries are now big enough that they CAN BE scaled up to shoulder the ESSENTIAL fossil fuel load, combined with energy conservation and efficiency measures, etc, so that industrial civilization will survive……. at least in some parts of the world…… assuming good luck of course.

        Whether this scenario might come to pass depends to a substantial extent on random chance, in terms of political happenings, on how fast the climate turns sour, on how fast essential resources such as oil decline, the luck of the draw in terms of our future leaders, on and on.

        From my perspective as a farmer reasonably well grounded in the GLOBAL scene, it’s my belief that large portions of the world and the people thereof are going to die hard within this century, but that if countries such as the USA and Canada manage their own affairs well, we will mostly be ok…….. as long as the environment doesn’t go totally to hell, and as long as we don’t have to fight a CNB WWIII.

        So far as I can see, it’s bullshit when you hear some banker or economist saying we simply cannot SURVIVE without computer chips from ASIA, etc.

        We WOULD have a lot of problems, but we COULD keep the electricity on, the water flowing, the sewers working, and enough stuff coming out of factories to make things work. Cars built fifty years ago worked just fine……….. with almost NOTHING in the way of electronics or computers.Ditto everything else that REALLY HAD TO WORK.

        Success in such a scenario, meaning a “Fortress America’s” would mean going to a war time type economy…… but that’s survivable.

        We could have half a million top level engineers from places such as Hong Kong and Taiwan inside our borders within a year if we were to make it perfectly clear to them that they will be employed in their specialties and get first class treatment here.

        So how long would it take us to build a couple of state of the art chip fabs, under wartime conditions, meaning throwing any and all available resources into that job?

        As I understand it, the actual MACHINERY in such chip plants is typically built in Italy, or West Germany, even here in the USA, lol.

        1. I’ve been pondering this. You said:

          “I’m somewhat hopeful ( and positive some days) that the renewable energy industries are now big enough that they CAN BE scaled up to shoulder the ESSENTIAL fossil fuel load, combined with energy conservation and efficiency measures, etc, so that industrial civilization will survive……. at least in some parts of the world…… assuming good luck of course.”

          I would be shocked, shocked! if the total USA solar + wind (and any other renewable) industry’s annual production capacity was anywhere close to 1% of total US energy consumption. What do we have – 11 offshore windmills, vs 1000’s elsewhere? The only large scale solar panel manufacturing in the USA is done by foreign companies taking advantage of right-to-wage slavery states.

          Is it fair to say that the USA has essentially zero wind, solar, and nuclear industrial capacity, especially relative to consumption?

        2. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-chip-controls-may-force-092957115.html

          Biden’s micro chip controls could force US Citizens working for Chinese semiconductor industry to renounce their American citizenship or quit their jobs.

          I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t renounce a USA citizenship to live in China.

          Becoming a dual Canadian and American citizen (which is definitely possible) is the best strategy for what is coming.

          Alberta was looking for overseas geologists for 100k minimum salaries a couple years ago sponsorship included.

          Options Options Options

  11. I am increasingly impressed with articles from Thomas Homer-Dixon. This is from a year ago and last year’s mid-term results may have countered some of his worries but, on the other hand, the shiny new twitter is probably exacerbating things.

    States of Emergency

    By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship.

    We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.

    Leading American academics are now actively addressing the prospect of a fatal weakening of U.S. democracy.

    https://homerdixon.com/states-of-emergency/

    This is broadly in line with the timeline in the trilogy of books written by Morris Berman (Decline of the American Empire written between 2000 and 2005). He thinks that Europe will do better than America, but given the disparity in available resources and it looking increasingly likely that Europe’s weather is going to be seriously, and possibly shortly, disrupted through climate change (e.g. AMOC weakening, ice free Barents Sea), I somehow doubt that.

  13. Healthy rise is coal use folks, at least in India.

    INDIA SET TO CRANK UP COAL POWER TO MEET SOARING DEMAND

    India will see its power generation from coal increase in the coming year as authorities plan to have coal-fired units maximize electricity production from imported coal to meet rising demand. India’s government expects coal-fired power plants to use 8% more coal in the next financial year between March 2023 and March 2024, as demand is set to continue rising thanks to growing economic activity and unpredictable weather.

    Coal still generates around 70% of India’s electricity. And, India’s coal minister said at the end of 2022 that the country has no intention of ditching coal from its energy mix any time soon. Addressing a parliamentary committee, Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi said that coal would continue to play an important role in India until at least 2040, referring to the fuel as an affordable source of energy for which demand has yet to peak in India.

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/India-Set-To-Crank-Up-Coal-Power-To-Meet-Soaring-Demand.html

      1. 99.99% of everything that has evolved is now extinct.
        Are we the exception?

    2. And people shit their pants when they hear we burn 4 tons of anthracite every year to warm our house, heat our water, and cook our food.

  14. Raised bed gardening is about as close to a silver bullet as you can get, in respect to making gardening enjoyable and practical, especially for older people and people who are short of time.

    If you can afford the upfront cost of building them of course.
    I’m urging my friends and acquaintances who have the opportunity and inclination to build as many as they can.

    Lumber and masonry block, etc, are expensive up front, but the much increased yields you get from a raised bed mean the extra expense is well covered over a few years time.

    You also save big on weeding and other garden chores.

    You can ENJOY a raised bed without aching knees and back.

    And people in a homestead or rural setting can build them from small diameter trees, holding them together with stakes or rebar put into holes drilled down thru the upper layers. When the logs used this way rot, in five to ten years or so, you can just go right around the outside again with another set of log sides.

    Depending on what’s available, I tell people to use logs ranging from four inches across at the small end on up to eight or ten inches. Bigger ones are REALLY heavy, and take up more space than necessary.

  15. About vertical farming…… I don’t personally see it working anytime soon except for high dollar greens and such that can be sold locally all year around at a premium price.
    I believe this guy is right.
    https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/john-phipps-why-vertical-farming-falls-short-hype

    For now, and for quite some time to come, as a I see things, trucks and warehouses ( stored full of frozen, dried, canned food) are going to be one hell of a lot cheaper than so called vertical farms, which are essentially no more than high tech greenhouses. They just simply cost to much to build, and too much to run them, especially for electricity for lights.

    But ordinary greenhouses are cheap enough to build and operate to be quite competitive for quite a few crops, especially fresh veggies.

    2. Speaking of greenhouses, there is an intermediate type that is used a lot by the Chinese. Last I read, they had 3-4 million acres of this type. I call it the “Chinese Passive Solar Greenhouse.” It features an operable thermal curtain over the glazing and a back wall which is thermal mass. I visited a market gardener/GH importer in Winnipeg some years ago and he was growing in them for 10 months of the year without any back-up heat. Cost was around 45k. Another example from Southern Alberta. Look up Dong Yianyi on FB who is using even more substantial structures. The idea is to extend the growing season substantially with modest construction costs and little if any FF use. Commercial growing is a tough business so this might be a better balance of fixed and operating costs.

  16. Wind power is slowly getting less attention compared to what was the case the last couple of years. If you compare wind power to solar power the first one is more becoming an industrial machine with maintenance requirements, while the other one can last for a longer time with potential less maintenance requirements. Solar energy’s disadvantage is the reliance on China to get it to be low cost. The big wind mills offshore are industrial machines with a resonable EROEI (energy return on energy invested) return, with required maintenance changing blades and other critical equipment after a while. The energy gained from harvesting wind from higher altitudes and better capacity factor makes it worthwhile. Floating offshore wind power is a costly solution that makes sense near major population centers in the energy transition (California, Northern Scotland, Celtic ocean, Japan …primary examples as of now), due to different wind patterns making floating wind power a part of energy security; making the total more reliable.

    Wind power is not going away anytime soon considering that almost all (and I mean absolutely all) offshore areas with good wind conditions for groundfast wind farms (below 60 meters depth) have investments ongoing or planned globally. Industrial machines one can say, but at least they are using current solar energy indirectly and not stored below the surface.

    How much we build of the wind mills and solar power has its limits. I am betting pretty hard that we have a window of opportunity this decade to invest it up the “max”, whatever that means.

    2. “we have a window of opportunity this decade to invest it [solar and wind] up the “max”

      The clock really started ticking on this in 1972, roughly. So we have a small window of possibility left, with the past 50 years having accomplished a negative 50% on outcome prospects. That is- roughly a doubling in chances of experiencing a hard crash on the overshoot journey, compared to what an aggressive path of action might have accomplished.

      The US just stepped up with a small jump start to energy efficiency and electrification policy courtesy of the Biden administration and democrats in congress. Despite pushing hard for years, the programs could not be more aggressive since the political right wing of this country is staunchly opposed to any government involvement in modern industrial policy on energy, preferring to cede most of the industrial accomplishments in these sectors to China. At least a small program finally got passed.

      1. Just got back from Spain, on business, and did see both solar parks and quite a bit of windmills of unknown origin from the high speed train. So there is possibly a bit of hope for renewables contributing/dominating in Europe, I hope.
        I also did see some goats in small meadows, also a possible future…
        (tax free scotch contributed to this post)

  17. Hi gang. I just got out of the hospital. 11 days. A high hernia in my diaphragm, just above my naval. While he was in there, he was supposed to reverse my colostomy. Unsuccessful because of too much scar tissue. Lots more to this story, including a cancerous appendix that was removed. But I am just too tired to tell it right now. I have the strength of a kitten.

    Later, Ron

    2. Good grief, that sounds terrible. We all hope you come out of this OK.

    3. You voice was missed. Sorry that the reversal didn’t pan out.
      I’ll have to agree with IslandBoy on the vitC in regard to wound healing,
      along with all of the rest of importance nutrients.
      Goodspeed on your recovery.

    5. Ron,
      I can’t think of anybody else I am prouder and more privileged to call a friend, even though we’re only cyber friends due to being so far apart.
      I’m figuratively praying for you.

      OFM.

    7. Our family is praying for you. We wanted you to know that we think highly of you.

  18. From the newly published BP annual report
    “A range of methods for carbon
    dioxide removal – including
    bioenergy combined with carbon
    capture and storage, natural
    climate solutions, and direct air
    carbon capture with storage – will
    be needed for the world to achieve
    a deep and rapid decarbonization.”

    Call me a big skeptic on this.
    All of carbon capture techniques require energy expenditure.
    Who will have extra energy for these efforts, and if the energy is expended for this purpose it will be at the expense of other components of the biosphere or of humans who are energy short.
    No free lunch on this. If we desire less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, then it should be left in the ground unburnt.
    The only exception to the energy requirement for carbon capture is the planting of trees in places that have been converted from forest cover to urban or agriculture land use. And that is only small scale temporary carbon capture unless the reclaimed forest lands are left undisturbed indefinitely.

    Secondly- can anyone tell me how ‘bioenergy’ is a carbon dioxide removal mechanism?

    1. Speaking about trees, you should see whats happening here in Australia regarding deforestation and land clearing, the scale is among the highest in the developed world.
      They also use satellite image algorithms to claim we have more tree cover than the year 2000. Which is absolute nonesense but suits vested interests and is obviously swallowed by states and federal governments.

      At the same time they talk about climate change policy and how seriously they are taking it. The hypocrisy is unbearable to deal with at times for people concerned with the trajectory humans are going.

    2. If Hansen et. al. are only half right then we are already toast (literally), even if we stop all emissions now, unless we can remove great gobs of CO2 and pretty sharpish. If that fact ever gets through to the average sports fan or shopping mall habitué I doubt if it’s going to be very pretty.

      1. Central Park recorded the first measurable snowfall of the season this morning, with nearly half an inch as of 5:30 AM.

        This is latest first measurable snowfall for the season since record keeping began in 1869.

    4. Carbon capture reminds me of that old cure-all: a rubber glove for a leaky fountain pen.

    1. Trendsetting perhaps.
      Maybe it is good for most people to fade fast.
      An aspiration to plan for.

  21. Completely unrelated to anything:
    Does anyone here have expertise in lending against oil producing assets in California?
    Thanks
    WP

  23. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248014

    “Stop with that “core” bullshit; ignoring that which is both a mandatory purchase (food) and which feeds EVERY OTHER THING on the cost side (energy) is open, notorious fraud.”

    “You might be half-right, but being half-right often costs you all your money in the market.“

    1. From the same article:
      “a long tail to inflation as a result of the Fed allowing it to get into the wage base..”
      Why is it that wage growth is inflationary but corporate profits are a sign of a healthy economy?

    1. I saw several years ago that the Netherlands had passed the US in average height and that the cause was nutrition, they were eating better than us. So today’s surprise is that the UK is eating better than us! I was in England a few years ago and certainly saw that there was much less of the junk fast food that is everywhere here and the old trope about English food being so bad was not true but it does make you wonder.
      I suppose that, like health care, the UK does not suffer the vast differences in many measures of well-being that are characteristic here, due to both the vast gap in wealth and the weakness of our safety net.

    1. And remember “The Donald” walked around with an Iphone in his pocket.

      Did the Secret Service allow him to do that on request from the FBI????????

      Which Russian oligarch was Trump hanging out with that triggered the FBI??????

  27. There’s a continuous propaganda barrage pushed by the right wing political faction, by the fossil fuel industry, and by a substantial fraction of the banking and finance industry, to the effect that there just isn’t enough of the necessary raw materials available to transition to renewable energy, breaking our fossil fuel addiction.

    I’m not seeing a whole lot of open source articles pointing out the actual facts, in respect to the amounts of various resources needed.
    Anybody who has open source links, to the effect that there IS enough, PLEASE post them here. It’s easy to find hundreds of links saying it ain’t so, lol.

    This one seems to be based on actual facts, as far as I can see.
    And with the possible exception of rare earth metals, which are not covered in any detail at all, there seems to be NO SERIOUS problem in terms of steel, aluminum, and copper, which are actually the BIG THREE in any sort of electrical infrastructure work, along with concrete.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/02/1067641/busting-myths-about-materials-and-renewable-energy/

    And of course I’m eager to read any comments about this, pro or con.

    1. I just saw this article earlier in the week.
      https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00001-6
      It addresses minerals for electrical generation and transmission over the next 30 years
      ‘Sufficiency of geologic reserves-
      Current global reserves of critical materials are likely adequate, as future demand from electricity generation infrastructure does not exceed existing resources over the next 30 years, with the possible exception of Te (Table 2). In 1.5°C scenarios, median cumulative Te demand consumes ∼88% of estimated Te resources.’
      “The large future buildout of new electricity generation infrastructure will require significant raw materials. However, while the minerals and heavy industrial sectors remain relatively carbon intensive, the emissions associated with sourcing raw materials for power sector generation infrastructure represent a small fraction of remaining carbon budgets across all scenarios tested.
      Global mineral reserves should adequately meet needs posed by power sector material demand.”

      I think they are doing a followup study on batteries.

      Comment- flash forward to year 2039…what if there isn’t enough of certain materials to avoid a hard stop to adding more non-fossil energy and infrastructure?
      -whoever already got the job accomplished will be in better shape
      -humanity will have to live with what its got
      -getting only 80% of the goal accomplished is better than 6% in a world where fossil fuels are dwindling
      -if energy shortage forces a decline in consumption and economic activity…so be it. Start now…beat the rush.

    2. Currently, in many places the important shortage is in qualified electrician and HVAC personnel to get the electrification work done.

    3. there just isn’t enough of the necessary raw materials available to transition to renewable energy

      Simon Michaux has discussed this extensively. There are not enough metals to transition over to a renewables-powered energy civilization that EATS as much power as the current one.

      this report suggests that replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system oil, gas and coal using renewable technologies, such as solar panels, or wind turbines will not be possible for the entire global human population. There is simply just not enough time nor resources to do this by the current target set by the world’s most influential nations.

      Google him.

      Here’s one of his stats: Over the last 6000 years, humanity has mined over 700 million tons of copper. At current rates of usage and growth–and NOT counting a transition to renewables–humanity is expected to use another 700 million tons in 22 years!

      So we MINE everything now? We turn the Andes upside down?

      Fuck the right wing. Nate Hagens says something to the effect, “Renewable energy can power a wonderful civilization–just not this one.”

      1. When something goes wrong in the circus, they send clowns into the arena to distract the audience.

      2. Mike- “Nate Hagens says something to the effect, “Renewable energy can power a wonderful civilization–just not this one.””

        Thats a fine statement, but it certainly doesn’t mean that renewable energy is therefore a non-starter in the discussion of what to do right now and going forward.
        It is true that a civilization that uses, say, half as much energy as the world now does on average could still be ‘modern’ and civil and culturally rich. And of course the prospects are better if the population scales back…quicker better.

        Nonetheless both Nate and Simon fail to state that a big part of the energy transition can indeed be accomplished with solar and wind complimenting what is left of fossil fuels, hydro etc.
        [unless I simply failed to hear that part of their story]
        Neither of them, or anyone else, knows just how much of the energy transition job can be accomplished before running into roadblocks/bottle necks. But I’m pretty sure we can say that a big chunk of the job could get done, and by the time we hit hard roadblocks perhaps population will have peaked.

        Saying that there is not enough minerals is not the end of the conversation or effort, rather it is just the beginning.

      3. “there just isn’t enough of the necessary raw materials available to transition to renewable energy”

        So what! 67% ain’t too shabby.
        You work with what you’ve got.
        People aren’t going to just volunteer to disappear when peak fossil fuel is declared.

    4. So the real conclusion is that people need an economic crisis to get real about changing habits and goals? A lot of people want BAU as long as they can get away with it.

      According to the Nate Hagens podcasts the real winners will be those who collectively strive towards solutions in a mature way encouraged by a sense of purpose and unity.

      I know for sure that I will strive for something else than the right wing end of the politics are promoting, as will 80%+ of the academic community.

      As for minerals; they are not sufficient to continue the growth story in human energy usage. Which is completely unrealistic in any case over time.

  28. It’s entirely possible that available supplies of oil and gas might fall off a cliff due to causes such as war or maybe even natural disasters.

    It’s also possible, as I understand these things, that oil and gas production could peak and fall pretty fast in the natural course of the petroleum industry, but this seems to be rather unlikely.

    On the other hand, only a relatively modest decline in production of oil or gas could very easily result in prices spiking to the point of causing a wide spread economic down turn or even a major depression. How likely this scenario might be ………. I don’t really have a clue, but it’s certainly nowhere close to zero.

    With luck on our side, we can probably adapt fast enough to keep the wheels from falling off, if we stay on it.

    Implementing a scheme such as this one would cost an arm and a leg, but it would nevertheless be cheaper than the alternative…….. paying several times as much for gas that might not even be available.

    https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230131-can-city-dwellers-ever-have-heat-pumps?utm_source=pocket-newtab

    Maybe this sort of thing will become commonplace in the near future.

    It might even be that the savings are potentially high enough that putting in district heating and cooling systems will be a no brainer, making money for the investors…….

    A district heating system wouldn’t necessarily have to be built using large amounts of tax money.

    1. Its a really good idea- Shared ground source fluid network for distributed heat pumps
      “Rather than each home drilling a single borehole for a single heat pump, however, Heat the Streets uses over 200 boreholes drilled 100m (330ft) beneath the street linked to a huge communal network of horizontal, underground pipes just below street level, known as a heatmain.
      Glycerol – an odourless, non-toxic, viscous liquid – is passed vertically through the boreholes to absorb heat and then circulate it in these horizontal pipes, which in turn supply heat pumps in individual properties along the whole street and, eventually, the whole neighbourhood.
      The heat pumps – no larger than a typical gas boiler – are fitted either inside or outside individual homes, depending on the property’s size, suitability and owner preference.”

    2. It is definitely something there to be exited about. Some reachable relastic solutions to work on to reduce the energy heating “bill” for buildings.

      If you drill down ground source heating to 300 meters you can heat up water to 50-60 degrees celsius and the effect can last about 50 years before you have to drill a new hole (dependent on location of course). If you drill down to 600 meters the heating effect will never wear down, meaning the maintenance of the infrastructure (pipes) sets the limit of the heating system. If you create a 20×20 meter grid with holes you could heat up a whole city with ground based heat and heat pumps, in principle for 100 years with a properly maintained system with 500 000 holes in Helsinki as the example. That is one drilled hole for 2.5 inhabitants. It will take 14 years to drill the holes (to 600 meters). This is all a thought experiment, due to the excessive costs involved, but a very useful one imo.

      In Sweden they add waste (trash) burning and wood residue to the central heating system to add heat. Then you probably can get away with less drilling of holes and less depth to get the same good result. If you focus on high rise building areas of prosperity (Manhattan, London?), the prospect of transporting heated water through a central heating system makes even more sense. The heat loss of transporting water is the enemy of this solution.

      This is something worth studying far more than my feeble attempts here. Some of the solutions may actually be very good in the future.

      Source for some of the figures I throw around:
      I watched this podcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R2Iie1Ju1k&t=3s, and from about 56:18 they bring up ground sourced heating.

      1. “the effect can last about 50 years before you have to drill a new hole (dependent on location of course).”
        You can delay or reverse the underground cooling effect by using summer surface heat circulated in the underground system.

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