112 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, January 8, 2022”

  1. Here is an article doing a good job of reinforcing the message that George has posted lately several times.
    “Rushing headlong into electrification, the West is replacing one energy master with another – MINING.COM”
    https://www.mining.com/web/rushing-headlong-into-electrification-the-west-is-replacing-one-energy-master-with-another/

    I have one big beef with message presented-
    The author couches this whole discussion in terms of a misguided attempt to deal with desire to be
    “clean, green and non-polluting”,
    but pretty much ignores the whole other big impetus for an electric and efficiency transition attempt-
    Fossil Fuel Shortage due to depletion and higher costs of extraction of the remainder.

    Even if we ignore the problem of global warming, fossil fuel depletion will still present us with the big problem- very rapid collapse due to overshooting the energy supplies available.

    1. Goldman Sachs: “Lithium Is the New Gasoline”

      This link appears to be an advertisement to promote investing into Medaro Mining, but I think it gives a good idea of what’s going on in Lithium mining.

      “In fact, we’re going to tell you about what we think may become the first completely green method of lithium production.”

      “This technology is being designed to be applied anywhere in the world… at any hard-rock lithium project… and could drive down its costs by up to 50% or more.”

      “THE TAKEAWAY

      We think Medaro (OTC:MEDAF, CSE:MEDA) has all it takes to become a major force in lithium. The tech that it is acquiring, if successfully commercialized, could help transform a struggling lithium market into a flourishing trillion-dollar one.

      And possibly help solve one of the biggest sustainability problems the world is facing today.”

      https://invest.thefinancialstar.com/medaro-otc?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkIm-_Jih9QIVEe4oBR1dAwizEAEYASAAEgJhpPD_BwE

    2. Hi Hickory,
      I spend a good bit of time on some other sites promoting clean energy, sound environmental policies, etc.

      One strategy I use often to get my basic points across is to just totally ignore climate and other environmental issues, and focus entirely on the economic impacts of resource depletion and evolving technologies, bringing depletion into the picture without even MENTIONING Democratic Party / leftish leaning policies, social or economic, at all.

      My target audience when I use this technique is of course that fraction of the right wing voting public smart enough to be thinking about what they need to know in order to make good long term decisions in terms of their own enlightened self interests.

      A hell of a lot of social conservatives are quite willing to consider any argument that bears on their own long term security and prosperity………. so long as it’s presented in such a way as to avoid pushing their right wing hot buttons. Do that, and you’ve lost them…… before you even get their attention.

      So depending on the forum and the question, I may not even mention global warming, but instead tell a ( true ) story about how gushers were once common in the oil industry, and how oil wells in Texas and Oklahoma once commonly produced thousands of barrels a day for decades…… where as new wells in North Dakota typically require four or five times as much drilling, and produce only a few hundred barres a day for a few years before they taper off to stripper status…..

      Or how the coal trains used to run along side the James River back when I was kid, loaded with anthracite good for making steel…. headed for New Port News to be loaded for shipping overseas…….. but that those mines were worked out years ago, and now West Virginia coal can barely compete with coal from the upper Midwest…….. even though it costs five times as much to ship THAT coal to Atlanta as W Va coal…… because the easy coal in W Va is long gone, and what’s left is mostly deep underground and costly to mine……

      How land that seemed expensive twenty miles out of town thirty years ago now costs four or five times as much, in constant money, due to more people chasing after less and less land near town…… and how the house that they bought twenty years ago is worth three or even four times what they paid for it…… and that the payment on it is now less than a third of what it’s worth as a rental in a lot of places……..

      And how all these changes are the result of population growth, and economic growth….. etc. .

      With the stage set, I sort of meander over to the fairly obvious conclusion that with more and more people owning more and more cars every year, and less and less AFFORDABLE oil left in the ground every year………… it’s entirely logical to expect that the gasoline we paid thirty cents for back when we were young…. that sells for three or four bucks today…….. will likely sell for ten or fifteen bucks, maybe more, in another ten or twenty years….

      So that just maybe electric cars are a GOOD idea …. if for no other reason that if one’s neighbor buys an electric car, that means twice as much gasoline available to one who is still driving an ordinary car……..

      I have reason to believe that I’m successfully moving the needle a little in a lot of conservative voters’ minds in the direction of supporting renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other environmentally sound technologies and policies, etc.

      We don’t need to win over all the hard core right wing. We need only win over one out of every five or ten of them to control the government of this country on a national basis.

      1. if one’s neighbor buys an electric car, that means twice as much gasoline available to one who is still driving an ordinary car

        Exactly, and I would argue that the more people who ride bikes, the more room their is for cars on the road.

      2. Thanks for this OFM.
        Its important for us all to keep in mind the purpose of a our attempts to communicate-
        are we just venting/ranting, or do expect a listener to actually consider what we a re saying as a legitimate point of view, or take us seriously?

        And I did see you comments on civil society fragmentation/behavior from last thread.
        I hope you are correct on that.

        I fear that the norms of behavior in America no longer frown on support of fascism/authoritarianism. Trump and voting for him has made that ok in large parts of the country.

        Also keep in mind that social norms in parts of America made it just fine to leave Church on Sunday morning, and go on Sunday night to a gathering of men around a bonfire wearing a white hood. This country has been far from being ‘good’ people behind the scenes.

        1. Hi Hickory,
          There’s no question you are correct about the horrible corrosive effect trumpism has had on our country.

          I’m surrounded by people who would love to see his ways imposed on the country……. people who are unfortunately too ignorant, or outright STUPID, to see that when people such as trump get their way……. they’re in line, just a little farther back in the line, to be the NEXT victims of such policies.

          And you are correct of course about church in the morning, and night riders at dusk.

          But I do want to say one thing about religion, and the people in this forum, who for the most part are, or at least appear to be, well enough educated that they OUGHT to UNDERSTAND religion, rather than just get morally outraged about it.

          Religion is an EVOLVED behavior, in essence, that enables it’s practicioners to survive and thrive, like so many other common behaviors. It’s FLEXIBLE . It’s adaptable.

          And it’s subservient to more fundamental impulses, such as recognizing US, as insiders, versus THEM, as outsiders.

          So…… we shouldn’t be surprised that people who pray in the morning are quite capable of lynching at night. It’s a far more useful thing to spend our time trying to understand how it is that we so often see anybody who looks differently, or dresses differently, or prays differently, or DOESN’T pray at all, as an enemy, real or potential.

          I could express this differently. Religion is simply a tool leaders use to control their followers, and this is also a true statement, but it lacks too much in terms of context and nuance.

          That religion is such a TOOL, used by leaders, and used EFFECTIVELY, should surprise nobody.

          We’re animals. The only REAL distinctions, in terms of our behavior separating us from other animals, are those made possible by speech and technology.

          In the past, religions have served admirably in many cases as the glue that hold communities and societies together. Such was the case in my own community, when I was a kid, and for generations back. If an individual or family lost their house in a fire, or the breadwinner died or could no longer work, the local churches were there for them, providing food, shelter, and other such help as could be provided.

          I went many times with my Daddy to take some food or firewood to such people. Sometimes the men got together to work on an old widow’s house. Some of us are still doing the same thing.

          We’ve been killing and enslaving each other as far back as we have even the dimmest knowledge of our history. I don’t see any reason to expect that such behavior won’t continue indefinitely….. when it’s to the advantage of people who are capable of promoting it.

          It’s ALWAYS been US OR THEM…… but ……. but …… but

          Not only are religions flexible, with the priests and preachers changing their tunes to fit new circumstances, as they see fit….. WE are flexible too.

          IF we have the right leaders, they can lead us to working together, coexisting peacefully together.

          If we don’t…… well…. we have history books. Unfortunately it’s well known that we are more likely to repeat history, rather than learning from it.

          Now here’s something most of the liberal establishment seems to miss…

          Religion as such, especially the fundamentalist or Evangelical sorts, is on it’s way out in our society, for some fairly obvious simple reasons.

          One, and maybe the most important one that’s so often overlooked, is that social workers and safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, rent subsidies, etc, have mostly displaced churches in terms of holding local society together. It’s not obvious to anybody who isn’t really paying attention, but it’s a VERY real effect, which will continue to grow from one year to the next.

          Two, in spite of all the problems with our schools, etc, people are actually better informed than ever before. Fundamentalist and Evangelical parents who thump their Bibles are in the habit of putting the Devil’s most insidious possible little demon right in their kids possession…. a cell phone.

          I can tell you, speaking from direct personal knowledge, that back when I was a kid, kids in such families believed in the seven days of creation, Jonah and the whale, etc. You can see from their sheepish expression and body language when you ask such kids about such things today that they’re putting quite some distance between accepting such things as factual, and accepting them as moral guidance. They’re apt to be playing space alien games on their phones on the way to and from church.

          Three, the hard core of support for trump type politicians consists mostly of older people such as the ones I grew up with, and live among today.

          They’re dying off fast. In ten years, they will mostly be gone.

          It’s hard to say how long the hard core right wing will be able to weaponize Evangelical Christianity.
          But I can say from direct personal knowledge that a significant number of such people in my own community who voted for trump and company in the past will not vote for them again. Most of them will just stay home…..

          But the younger and somewhat better educated women among them are increasingly coming out to say they’re done with that kind of church, and that kind of ( typically male authoritarian ) preacher, and going to new churches of their own, creating new congregations of their own like minded fellow men and women.

          It’s rare to meet a young woman in my community these days who expects to have more than two kids… regardless of her religious or cultural background. The food soldiers of the Evangelical element in this country are fast becoming an ever smaller part of the political power game at the most basic level, the voting booth, although they’re still numerous enough to control state and local politics in the deep south and many rural communities all over the country.

          But consider Georgia last time around……. they lost, by a razor thin margin it’s true, both Senate seats. Times are changing, demographically, and demographics are destiny.

          Let us pray to our favorite mountain or snake or rock or Sky Daddy or Mommy that our democratic society holds together for just another ten years, politically.

          If we make it that long, I’m pretty sure we’re going to continue to make it…… excepting of course the possibility that the entire house of cards that’s modern industrial society falls apart because of overshoot.

          1. That was one of the most insightful comments I have ever seen on a discussion forum. Thanks OFM!

    3. This meme ignores the fact that the world mines about 8,000 megatons of coal each year, and a hundred million barrels of oil a day. Oh, and something like four trillion cubic meters of natural gas I guess.

      Renewables are replacing that, and the result will be a significant net reduction in extraction. The story is just fossil fuel proponents attempting to project their problems onto the future.

    4. Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

      The problems are global warming due CO2 from fossil fuels and depletion of fossil fuels. The solution
      could be renewable energy. But here comes the same thinking. After depletion of fossil fuels the mankind
      want now deplete metal minerals in the same manner as it did with fossil fuels. Green growth, green new
      deals are the slogans. There are two limitations. One is the whole amount of recoverable metals, the other
      is the speed how fast it could be mined. Here are some links which tells me why it will not work to support
      further growth:

      —

      The following report shows that the mining peak of most important ressources will be between 2030 to 2080.
      And this research didn’t take into account the energy transition :

      Download from the page

      https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/the-world-model-development-the-integrated

      the report

      “The WORLD Model Development and The Integrated Assessment of the Global Natural Resources Supply”

      A summary is found on the pages 407 to 409

      —

      Mr.Simon Morris, Vice President Research, Metals & Mining Global Metals of Wood Mackenzie believes
      that global warming below 3°C until 2070 will not be possible because the necessary resources couldn’t be mined

      https://www.woodmac.com/horizons/champagne-supercycle-taking-the-fizz-out-of-the-commodity-boom/

      —

      This report believes that a first peak of copper mining will be about 2028

      https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/recent-discoveries-fail-to-alter-downward-trend

      —

      Maybe the only solution could be a massive shrinking of the world economies:

      https://scarp.ubc.ca/sites/scarp.ubc.ca/files/energies-14-04508%20%283%29.pdf

        1. Get used to it-
          everything in the world that is dependent on embedded energy-
          like metals, food, clothing, tools, devices of all kinds
          will be more and more expensive over the next decades.

          Higher expense will curtail demand.
          How else would we expect the curtailment of population overshoot to play out in the first chapter?
          Chapter two will feature much more serious episodes of populace backlash against governments and the super wealthy ,mostly as just false hope for some kind of cure. [Ironic that the first episode of this in the USA selected a selfish narcissistic billionaire to carry the torch of the disappointed- clearly a good example of faulty mob brain function].

          Don’t be surprised when chaotic times replace much of what we have taken for granted in ‘civil’ society.

          note- curtailing demand due to higher prices does not mean demand will necessarily fall, but that demand will be less than it would be if energy was inexpensive. For example, i fully expect demand for heat pumps and air conditioners to grow very briskly.

          1. Hicks ” For example, i fully expect demand for heat pumps and air conditioners to grow very briskly. ”
            Just because you demand this it does not mean it will appear . As we stand today both these items are heavily dependent on China for complete assemblies , sub assemblies and components . Supply chain breakdowns have just begun and are going to get worse down the line .
            “Don’t be surprised when chaotic times replace much of what we have taken for granted in ‘civil’ society ”
            100% with you on this . No disagreement .

    1. This is pretty much along the lines of what Tony Seba has been saying since 2014. His basic argument has been that the cost trajectories of batteries for EVs and renewable energy are going to arrive at a point where EVs cost less to buy than the equivalent vehicle fueled with petroleum derived fuels. His reasoning with renewable energy is that once battery cost fall far enough and production scales enough, the cost of electricity from a solar PV based system using batteries to store energy for use overnight will be lower than the cost of transmission on most electricity grids in regions that do not have very long nights during winter. He has added more recently that overbuilding renewable energy resources will be necessary to compensate for periods of limited wind or sun but, the upshot would be that during periods of high wind and/or sun, there will be insanely cheap “excess energy” available. He posits that entire industries will spring up to take advantage of this. The state of South Australia is essentially at the point where renewable energy can satisfy all the demand on some days and produces huge amounts of excess energy on resource rich days.

      Getting back to EVs, Seba originally projected that the internal combustion engine (ICE) would basically be toast by 2030. Based on the fact that cost declines have been running ahead of his 2014 projections he has revised his projections and now claims that production of ICEs will be in rapid terminal decline before 2025. Now at the start of 2022 we have three years left to observe that but, with plug in vehicles selling as fast as they can make them, the demise of the ICE by 2030 is guaranteed for all intents and purposes. Based on the way things are looking at the moment, an extremely low market share for sales of new ICE powered vehicles by 2025 doesn’t look impossible to me.

      There is still the problem that ICEs still account for the vast majority of new additions to the fleet in most markets so the numbers will continue to increase in the short term.

      1. Based on the way things are looking at the moment, an extremely low market share for sales of new ICE powered vehicles by 2025 doesn’t look impossible to me.

        Islandboy,

        This is in conflict with the first post, from Hickory, of this thread.
        By 2025 and far beyond.
        If different kind of the present problems get much worse before 2030 then all bets are off

        1. Han- if there is shortage of particular materials for electricification then certain things will happen, such as
          -smaller vehicles requiring smaller batteries/range
          -more vehicle sharing (many private vehicles sit idle most of the time)
          -unequal distribution of electric energy and transportation capability

          Regarding the last point this will revert society back in time to a situation where the wealthier people and nations had a huge advantage over the rest. i think that is a very likely outcome.

          Also note that unequal distribution of energy and transport capability will be much much worse in a scenario where all the reliance was on petrol and internal combustion engine, especially in countries that are relying on importation of oil product and vehicles.

          1. Hickory,

            And those countries are more susceptible to get a leader with a fascist tendency, who easily can turn into a dictator. Also in countries with increasing numbers of immigrants. Frightening.

  4. In the last post there was some discussion on methane and the hydroxyl ion. I don’t think climate scientists fully understand the chemistry involved – e.g. they quote an expected life time for methane in the atmosphere but I think this is far from certain and not consistent throughout the atmosphere, either by location or season. One thing that is having an effect on the hydroxyl concentrations is the amount of carbon monoxide being thrown up by wildfires, this reacts directly with hydroxyl radicals and so may extend the life of methane, however it’ll probably take a few years until what’s going on is properly understood enough to be able to incorporate into projections for the future.

  5. There is increasing discussion of unrest in the USA rising towards some form of national insurrection or civil war. I’d recommend Timothy Snyder as the best informed and erudite Cassandra on this. He pretty accurately predicted what Trump would do and has some serious warnings already about where US may now be heading.

    https://www.salon.com/2021/10/14/timothy-snyder-warned-us-fascism-was-coming–now-he-says-we-can-survive-it/
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/9/2007765/–The-American-Abyss-Timothy-Snyder-s-op-ed-in-the-NYTimes-is-scary-accurate-and-pulls-no-punches

    1. Thanks George.
      from the second article
      “For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.”

      People won’t realize how precious civil society is until they lose it.

      I see democrats as often naive or ineffective, but that party and the votes they get are the only reason we have
      enforcement of the provisions of freedoms in the Bill of Rights, Hate Crime law, Women and Minority voting, Occupational Health and Safety Laws, Environmental Protection Laws, and a whole slew of international cooperative relationships, to name just a few aspects of life here in the states that we all take for granted.

      1. I don’t see Trump as a threat because he is too stupid and incompetent. The man has the attention span of a 3 year old and is unable to plan and strategize. He is also unable to surround himself with people who are intelligent and competent and form a stable working relationship with them. An intelligent Trump would have formed a stable relationship with someone like Steve Bannon who has the qualities that Trump lacks. Trump is a buffoon. The real threat to democracy is the influence of people who run large corporations on the government and an administration that refuses to prosecute serious crime when it is committed by these individuals.

        1. Suyog- the threat is the American voter- who would vote for a Hitler, a Trump, or some other with fascist tendency.
          And there is a long list of leaders currently in the House and Senate who are much more of threat to democracy than Trump ever was (due his incompetence and lack of ideological fervor- for him it was almost all about self aggrandizement)

          1. I agree that Trump is all about self-aggrandizement. He has no principles or ideological core. I think every society has leaders who could turn into another Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot if they are given a chance. What protects the US is that our institutions are strong and there is a 200 year long tradition of democracy which Germany didn’t have 80 years ago.

            1. “our institutions” are fragile when it comes to protecting democracy against those with authoritarian intent- if the population votes for them.
              The population displayed incredible level of eagerness for fascism in the last two elections.

              An example of problem with our institutions-
              The 4 smallest states have equal representation with the 4 largest states in the Senate, each with 2 senators. That is 8 senators representing 2.8 million, and 4 senators representing 110 million!

            2. We need to get rid of the Senate, Electoral College, and the Supreme Court, for a start.

              A parliamentary system, where who wins the popular vote, wins the election, is what the rest of the First World embraces.
              (One may need to align with other parties)
              Give it a try?

            3. Hightrekker, Canadians who voted Conservative in the last two federal elections would probably find your comment funny, and ignorant.

    2. Thanks, George, we are obviously headed toward fascism, just like Germany was in the thirties. But a huge segment of the US population is just too ignorant to realize it. They think they are making America great again when really what they are doing, or trying to do, is make America a fascist dictatorship. Trump is their wannabe Hitler. And they just may succeed in putting him, and America, in that position.

      1. Hitler was a Shirt Movement street fighter. Before he was in power he’d beat your ass in a street fight with a bullwhip. Trump ain’t no Hitler.
        American fascism will come from the bottom up, not the top down.

        1. I never said he was a Hitler. I said he is a wannabe Hitler. He would love to have the dictatorial power Hitler had. He was working his way up to that level but he just liked enough brown shirt followers on November 3rd, 2020. But he hasn’t given up. He has the propaganda machine, Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax as well as a hoard of radio goons spouting his demonolatry. He has enough fascist followers in the Senate and House to give him everything he wants if only they get the majority.

          You can call that bottom-up or top-down or whatever you wish. It could happen, it has a chance of happening. We could very well lose our democracy to a demigod in the next three years.

          1. The Republicans remind me of the Peronists in Argentina more than anything else. Eva Peron was a radio star who kick started the movement.

            They only say what they think will be popular, and lack any ideology, and didn’t even have a platform in the last election. They promote reality TV stars and other incompetent loons for important jobs, and they don’t mind smashing the economy and blaming everyone else.

            The result has been a country with huge potential shooting itself in the foot over and over again. No country has experienced more economic busts than Argentina.

            We see same thing in America since Reagan, with Republicans ballooning the deficit and blaming it on Democrats, while obstructing any real progress. Their presidents have been a washed up movie star posing as a cowboy, a reasonably competent Washington insider they hated, a weakling with no interest in governing dressed up as a cowboy, and a dim-witted reality TV star with fascist leanings.

            1. Damn, Alimbiquated, I wish every American could read that post.

              I have followed Argentina’s fate over the years and know your story. The problem here is the vast majority are totally ignorant of how governments slide into facism. They are totally ignorant of history, espedially ignorant of past dictators like Peron. They just want someone who will keep their neighborhoods lilly white. That is all that is on their tiny litle minds.

        2. I agree, i don’t live in the U.S so most of my opinions here are probably wrong and should be ignored at best. It seems to me the reason why Trump had so many supporters in the U.S is a mixture of either low IQ illiterate population which the U.S has a lot of:
          54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level
          source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

          Or people fed up with the system. IF the latter is a stronger force, they have already stopped supporting Trump and would have quickly seen through his facade. Does that mean they are Biden supporters now. I would say definitely not.

          If history is any guide wealth inequality is the greatest driver for change and violent revolutions. The voice of the people will come through someone from the lower or middle class. Not some kid with a silver spoon in his mouth.

          In my opinion, U.S corporatism (including mainstream gutter journalism), and the subservient political system, is the root cause of many of the problems, not just in the U.S but the world. Mainstream media is nothing but a giant magnifying glass telling people what to look at and when (while hiding what they don’t want people to look at), and its always superficial in its approach. While the real crux of the problems are much deeper and much more complex or grey than black and white or left vs right.

          1. Well said Mike. I stopped watching broadcast TV and reading newspapers years ago. I still remember how NY Times printed lurid stories from Judith Miller about Saddam’s WMDs on their front page. I also remember how mainstream media ignored the fact that the crack cocaine epidemic in black neighborhoods during the 1980s was a result of CIA enabling the Contras of Nicaragua to smuggle that poison in the US. A black reporter working for San Jose Mercury exposed that scandal. They destroyed his life and career and he committed suicide.

            1. Thanks for these timely reminders. The rot in this country goes back many more years than most people realize.

          2. Iron Mike quoted a Wiki article:
            54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level.

            Not to nitpick Mike but you left out one word that changed the context. What the article actually said:

            According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.

            Literacy and prose literacy are two different things:

            Prose literacy
            The knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, brochures, and instruction manuals.

            The percent of literate Americans is extremely high. But their ability to understand what they are reading is extremely low. 🤣

            1. Definitely agree Suyog, a track record of lies and deceit. The sanest thing one can do is turn that brainwash machine off. Well done to you for unplugging.

              Ron,

              Thanks for the correction. Lol it is still very concerning, being the most powerful country and all. The political and corporate interests love people being dumb down. Independent thinking is their biggest enemy.

            2. The political and corporate interests love people being dumb down.

              Well, one political party loves people being really dumb. Dumb ass people are the base of the leader of that party. Trump said, in a speech in 2016, “I love the poorly educated” If such a survey were possible, I would love to see a literacy level test between Trumpites and the rest of the nation.

    3. Timothy Snyder interview this morning (about 5 minutes)

      Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and author of: “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” talks about how Democracy may fall in the United States. It won’t be lack of elections but through their degradation and absence of fair elections, paired with America’s failure to remember it’s own short history. “Democracy needs history, because history teaches you about your mistakes,” says Snyder. And it’s not separate from our kitchen-table issues the way it may sometimes seem. “A working democracy is going to deliver a much better future.”

      https://www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/watch/historian-depicts-the-fall-of-democracy-in-u-s-through-tainted-elections-130462277603

    1. This report- atleast the executive summary- is worth a thorough read, and consideration.
      I must admit that i have been dismissive of the material supply constraints to fossil fuel alternatives transition, having mostly focused on the near term- 10 to 20 years.
      But this is a mistake on my behalf.
      Just as fossil fuels are on the depletion pathway, at least some of critical the materials necessary for electrification of the world economy
      will face supply constraint before too long- well before a full transition has been achieved.
      We will only get part the there, it appears.

      Thanks to George and others for bringing this to the table here.

      Full report- 287 pgs
      https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/24d5dfbb-a77a-4647-abcc-667867207f74/TheRoleofCriticalMineralsinCleanEnergyTransitions.pdf

    2. Thanks.

      This is such a complex topic to make comments about. They state the obvious; that we can not continue to grow population and grow (or replace) the current global economy based on the green energy revolution.

      Just a couple of observations from this report:
      – Zinc is a bottle neck in a mass wind power scenario
      – Electric cars can not replace ICE vehicles fully (what a surprise..)
      – Risk factors due to concentrated mineral resources being in only a few countries (very real)
      – Very pessimistic when it comes to recycling

      When it comes to recycling they state this:
      Recycling would not eliminate the need for continued investment in new supply to meet climate goals, but we estimate that, by 2040, recycled quantities of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries could reduce combined primary supply requirements for these minerals by around 10%.

      In my experience it is possible to blend recycled minerals with new sourced ones and high grade it for many important metals (copper, aluminum, nickel, cobalt). Not without using a lot of energy though (hopefully renewable electricity. But I am not an expert in the field, few are.

      Electric cars are ok in a scenario where we double the battery consumption from now on and a few decades down the road (15-20 million plug-in cars in average per year). It is more of a question mark how much can be devoted to workhorses (excavators, mid range trucks, ferries, agricultural equipment. It even includes locomotives) Recycling of metals and smaller cars/batteries would probably helps very much to that the personal transportation way of life would survive out this century. For personal use: Just smaller cars, lower range, less usage. For industrial use: Smarter transportation with less use of energy, probably transporting less goods overall.

      This energy transition is going to drag out over time. When people finally grasp that less energy means lower standard of living in most cases, most of us are going to strive for the most optimal solution. More life quality with less energy; more wind and solar energy. And a continuous battle against all kind of shortages and environmental constraints.

      1. Almost all growth in zinc mining since 1990 has been in China. New deposit discoveries of zinc are increasingly smaller and very deep. Several of the original major producer countries are now well past peak. Iridium, Germanium and cadmium come from byproducts of zinc mining, the last two don’t have other sources I think (iridium also comes from tin mining) and all three are important in modern technology e.g. fibre optics, touch screens, solar panels.

        1. Hi George,

          Yes, moat germanium (plus some gallium and indium) comes as a byproduct from zinc smelting but most zinc deposits don’t contain enough to be worth extracting. Maybe one in thirty, or something like that, and only a few smelters are set up to get the germanium even when concentrations are high. Japanese smelters have specialized in this as well as a couple in the U.S. that I know about.

    1. Going green is going to happen anyway, whether we want it or not, because traditional technologies can’t compete.

      The idea that it will increase mining is nonsense, as I talk about elsewhere in this thread.

  8. Methane surge, what next?

    LAST 7 YEARS ‘WARMEST ON RECORD’ GLOBALLY

    The last seven years have been the hottest on record globally “by a clear margin”, the European Union’s climate monitoring service reported Monday, as it raised the alarm over sharp increases in record concentrations of methane in the atmosphere. “We should see the record breaking 2021 events, such as the heatwave in Canada and floods in Germany, as a punch in the face to make politicians and public alike wake up to the urgency of the climate emergency,” he told the Science Media Centre. Moreover, the continued increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere screams out that the underlying causes have yet to be addressed.”

    The C3S also monitored atmospheric concentrations of the planet-warming gases carbon dioxide and methane, finding that both had increased with no sign of a slowdown. Methane particularly has gone up “very substantially”, to an annual record of about 1,876 parts per billion (ppb). Growth rates for 2020 and 2021 were 14.6 ppb per year and 16.3 ppb per year, respectively. That is more than double the average annual growth rate seen over the previous 17 years.

    https://phys.org/news/2022-01-years-warmest-globally-eu.html

    1. The next El Nino is going to be something else; although there is a theory that the changed rain patterns from La Nina is a reason there has been a rise in methane in the last couple of years.

      I’m in the middle of reading the 2020 Arctic Report Card – the trends from climate changing are pretty inexorable, but I think you get a bit inured, instead of finding increasin deviations from the average notable your only excited by deviations from the trend. A couple of things that stand out: 1) the maximum ice volume in May (measured rather than modelled by. PIOMAS took a big dip (winter warming is about four times average whereas summer is only two times), it’ll be interesting to see if similar happens this year (extend is quite high now but the thick multiyear ice is at an all time low; 2) the variation around the trend has markedly increased for a number of variables in the last few years.

    2. From IPCC-3(2), pre-industrial methane (1750) was at about 715 ppb. Now it’s at 1900, more than 2.6x as much, and rising fast. That’s an increase of almost 100 ppm in CO₂e over 20 years. The largest source is non-anthropogenic: tropical wetlands.

      Methane is such bad news.

    1. Where will they deploy them ? On waters of the South China Sea ?? 🙂 . I presume these are tanks and not boats . Maybe against their own people ?? . Maybe to deport Novak Djokovic ?? Best of luck , Oz .

    1. That was an awful article, clearly intended for the in-house crowd. Would be nice to get a sober and informed technical review of what’s happened and what they’re doing and what they’re planning.

    1. Man may very likely be overestimating in terms of what impact they believe we can have as a unit, unfortunately because there are often powerful monetary and political motivations and incentives.

  13. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/11/oceans-hottest-temperatures-research-climate-crisis

    Hottest ocean temperatures in history recorded last year

    “Last year saw a heat record for the top 2,000 meters of all oceans around the world, despite an ongoing La Niña event, a periodic climatic feature that cools waters in the Pacific. The 2021 record tops a stretch of modern record-keeping that goes back to 1955. The second hottest year for oceans was 2020, while the third hottest was 2019.”

    1. Keep in mind CO2 concentration lags the ocean temperatures.

    2. The next solid el nino is going to be very ugly!,
      and the one after that startling.

  15. France has had the most well developed nuclear power industry in the world over the past decades.
    Here is operating data from 2020 showing that wind is not the only variable source of electricity-
    the chart of performance shows that roughly up to 1/2 of nuclear generating capacity was offline at the same time, and that downtime was far from a rare occurrence

    https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/25._figure_25_nuke_france_dailyunavailabilities2020.pdf

    Overall the capacity factor for the French generators is in the mid 70% range.

    1. Their nukes are old and they neglected the ability to build new ones. And they like to strike – some od the outages come from that.

      Their new reactor design is still conventionell and a pain to build with all the fast changing regulations.

      1. It takes a lot of specialized skilled labor to run a nuclear power plant, and the pandemic has resulted in staff shortages. These shortages have delayed maintenance work, which is the main problem in France right now.

        1. Ok, expensive senseless corona quarantaine rules here, too.

          Most people will get Omicron, so no need to send everyone home when there is a positive test in the team. Especially in critical infrastructure like energy.

          Corona will stay, the flu will stay. We can either close down the western countries for corona panic, or live with it.

          Lot’s of collegues now had corona here, too. All vaccined against the original variant – so only light symptoms like a few day of headache and a little bit of fever until it was gone.

          I think it will stay – so take the corona and flu vaccine at the beginning of the cold season, or not. Every year, since every year there will be a new variant. So you can have the pure original or the shot every year. No need to close down everything for months.

    2. I don’t have the links anymore, but a few years back, when everybody was insisting that nukes can’t be ramped up and down as a practical matter…….. it turns out that the French were doing it on a more or less routine daily basis.

      I’m in favor of building new nukes, on two conditions.

      One the technology must be bullet proof in terms of meltdowns and hot leftovers that can be used in weapons.

      Two, the design needs to be standardized and modular, so that they can be built in a reasonable time at a reasonable cost.

      It’s obvious that building them one off is never going to work.

      1. I’ll add a couple more conditions-
        A complete High Level Radioactive waste system must be fully operational, prior to any new project licensing.
        Decommissioning funding for all currently licensed facilities must be banked in full, and held by an independentparty.

        1. No need to load follow (curtail production episodically) since you can use the electricity for storage purposes/other uses when available, such as
          make hydrogen, make ammonia, desalinate water, capture carbon, heat or cool thermal mass, fill reservoirs for pumped hydro, etc

      2. Nuclear reactors can load follow. It just isn’t a desirable option. For one thing, power transients always involve temperature transients, which is something you want to avoid in heavy pressurised steel components (pressurised thermal shock). Delayed neutrons can also make rapid changes in power levels tricky, because rods need to be adjusted again and again, as the delayed neutron precursor isotopes decay, as fission rate producing them decays. It is always much easier from an operational viewpoint to establish a reactor running at a more or less constant power level, with no requirement for continuous reactivity management. Chemical shim can then gradually be adjusted down as the fuel burns up.

        But more importantly, rapid load following requires having a lot of excess reactivity in the core and the use of high worth control rods. To rapidly increase power say, the fuel would need enough reactivity to be able to overcome the effect of xenon and other fission product neutron poisons (I.e neutron absorbers). That means having either higher enrichment, or discharging the fuel at lower burn up. That means higher fuel costs and more downtime for refuelling. That pushes up costs a lot. High worth control rods increase cost as well. Relying on control rods for reactivity control also distorts the neutron flux profile within the reactor. This tends to result in the bottom of the core burning up more quickly than the top. To get the best utilisation of the fuel, flux profile needs to be as flat as possible, such that all of the fuel burns up at about the same rate. That means relying more heavily on chemical shim (dissolved neutron absorbers in the coolant) and burnable poisons in the fuel and less on control rods for reactivity control. Trouble is, chemical shim isn’t something you can change quickly enough for load following. Burnable poisons aren’t things that you can adjust at all.

        Finally, the cost of electricity from nuclear power reactors is more heavily influenced by capital cost than most other technologies. Load following at reduced overall capacity factor, ends up putting the same overhead costs on a reduced total generation of power. So overall, you might as well generate at 100% 24/7 and sell non peak power for less, rather than not generate that power at all.

        So to sum up: Load following using nuclear reactors is possible, but not economically desirable. It ends up pushing up fuel cycle costs and marginal capital cost in a way that make it just as expensive to generate only half as much power. So it isn’t worth it.

        1. It must have been worth it to the French because they did it on a routine basis.

          But I haven’t looked into their nuclear power industry for quite some time, probably ten years at least. I don’t know what they might or might not be doing today.

        2. There are newer designs when switching to molten salt reactors. They combine a 500 mw thermal unit with a 800 mw generator and a molten salt storage. So they can decrease and increase production, while the termal unit can run mostly full power.

          No pressure on the molten salt unit, too, only in the secondary steam turbine unit – so less security problems here handling 400 bar.

          The french reactor designs are mostly from the 60s and 70s – long time doing nothing in between.

  17. Regarding nuclear waste storage facilities. High level waste is the technically easy part of the problem. It is mostly fission products with short half life. In principle, we could store separated high level waste in facilities above ground and it would be less radioactive than Uranium ore after a few centuries. It is the less radioactive, but longer lived actinide wastes (intermediate level) that are in many ways more challenging. Without a closed fuel cycle, these can hang around for tens of thousands of years. And they are relatively toxic because they are high energy alpha emitters and most of them have daughter products that are also alpha emitters. So to avoid the possibility of sizably increasing radiation levels in groundwater, say 200,000 years from now, careful attention must be paid to the chemistry of the local rock and water courses and how they interacts with both the waste materials and its containers.

    Technical development was in most cases finished a long time ago. The barriers to implementing nuclear waste disposal are political, not technological. They are not driven by rational concerns of risks, which are tiny, but by political actors exploiting people’s ignorance. The reality is that we are dealing with something that is deliberately immobilised and buried hundreds of metres beneath the ground in immobile rock strata. The worst case scenario is that as ground water slowly erodes the materials, people drinking locally sourced water may take a slightly increased annual radiation dose, hundreds of thousands of years in the future. Boo hoo! There are plenty of places on Earth where background radiation levels will be higher than that anyway due to radium in drinking water or thorium in surrounding rocks. So we aren’t talking about anything that is going to be world ending for any group of people in the future. It might become a minor local pollution issue for some people (or whatever humans have evolved into by then) many thousands of years into the future.

    But the decisions on where to build these things are hardly ever taken by sensible people who make rational assessment of risks. Most of the people involved are a lot like Hickory, here. Full of opinions, but low on facts. They think radioactive waste is going to be 55 gallon drums full of glowing green goo, slowly going rotten in some basement somewhere, turning everything it touches into a three eyed, glowing green, radioactive space mutant that wants to take over the planet.

    1. Burned down reactor fuel will be a ressource.

      Even the CANDU heavy water reactor can burn these used up fuel another time, since it isn’t as “picky” with source material than a light water reactor. It won’t burn everything, but give it another active run.

      If you manage to extract the plutonium (which is the dangerous part), you can burn it again anyway in MOX fuel rods.

      So most of these alpha radiators can be burned.

      For deposing and ground water – even here in the rhine valley we have old clay layers in the ground. These are dry – isolating since 10 thousands of years. It shouldn’t be that difficult to get a geolocial location that is ground water proof. It’s really a political problem.

      In the Eiffel mountains here it is not recommended to stay in old cellars for a longer time than a few minutes, or install active ventilation. Radon poisoning – from the underground. Lot’s of thorium in the granite. A giant natural atomic waste depony, leaking everywhere.

  18. It seems quite obvious that most of the regulars here are old guys, so once in a long while it’s worthwhile to post something about staying healthy.

    There seems to be some very compelling evidence that Sildenfal ( spelling?) aka Viagra has a very strong beneficial effect in respect to dementia in older men.

    Something gets us all in the end….. in my family, it’s as apt to be a dementia as anything, and more likely than most things that eventually kill other people.

    There’s less compelling but significant evidence it also helps with other problems associated with aging.

    Bottom line………. it’s worth taking it up with your physician next visit.

    1. Bottom line: If there is any sort of collapse, my husband is DOA. He’s 68, Type 1 diabetes, stroke survivor. He’s also a homesteader, carpenter, and over all tough son of a bitch. But he is reliant on “opulent tertiary medicine,” a phrase a poster used here that just kills me (figuratively speaking).

      Both of us are doomers. Neither of us gives a shit about the fate of Earth/civilization anymore, given that we’ve spent 35 years together living the simple life on the farm. We’ve had a good go. Dementia might be a blessing at the end we’re facing. Fuck humanity.

      1. Hopefully when his time comes he can go peacefully without pain. I’m sorry I can’t offer any thing else.
        Maybe you will find some peace afterwards.

      2. Hi Mike, back atcha,

        For what it’s worth, although I do personally believe we’re in for some very tough and quite possibly rough times, the odds are pretty good, in my opinion, that people as old as you guys aren’t very likely to live long enough to have to worry much about it, personally.

        I’m in the same boat…. old enough that I don’t worry very much at all that about what’s going to happen is likely to have very much direct impact on the years I have left.

        1. I’m a bit younger than Don, so I might get a glimpse of the demise. I hope he gets to stick around long enough to be able to declare, “Told ya so.” He has never been very vocal about his deep skepticism of American consumer culture, but he is a clear eyed doer when it comes to the philosophy of “living close to the bone,” as his old neighbor in Concord, Thoreau, put it.

      3. Hi MikeB,

        I had first come across the term ‘opulent tertiary medicine’ when reading Andrew Jameton, PhD. I quite like what he has to say. I was working in an large ICU at the time. The phrase has had quite an impact on my thoughts and plans for the future. One might say that ‘opulent anything’ is immoral and obscene at this point.

        https://www.unmc.edu/publichealth/departments/healthpromotion/facultyandstaff/andrew-jameton.html

        “The practice of opulent tertiary medicine in the present context of increasingly desperate public health problems worldwide and an approaching catastrophe of human misery is not only immoral, it is obscene, horrible, terrible, and repellant.” ~ Andrew Jameton, Casuist or Cassandra? Two Conceptions of the Bioethicist’s Role (1994)

        1. How interesting. A question: Is my husband’s week of stroke rehab, his continuous glucose monitor, his recombinant DNA insulins, and his host of meds (Simvastatin, Timolol, Losartan, etc.) considered “immoral, obscene, horrible, terrible, repellent”? Just asking. He loves me and our cats.

          EDIT: I’ve answered my own question: It’s mostly secondary medicine (endocrinologists, neurologists, etc.)

          As my friend Alan says (retired molecular biologist): The problem is, most of us have outlived our evolutionary expiration date!

          1. Hi MikeB,

            Here’s a link to the abstract.
            https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/745751

            It’s been some time since I read it, but if I was to paraphrase what I recall to be the concern, it is that opulent tertiary medicine (high level equipment and expertise intensive care for inpatients, ICU in particular) is highly polluting to the planet. It makes a lot of garbage & consumes a lot of energy. Perhaps your husbands care is not all that tertiary, relatively speaking.

            I quite like Andrew Jameton. Here is more from him:

            “I feel that in order for health care to adapt to environmentally driven shifts in long-term health risks, health services need to adapt to a drastic decline in population health status, climate refugees, disasters, and disruptions to the supply chain. I don’t see anyone planning for that. Everyone seems to be on the historical trajectory of anticipating status quo and evermore budgets.”

            “I anticipate future healthcare moving towards an environmental philosophy that will challenge the strong commitment to individual autonomy seen in traditional bioethics, and the extensive and intensive care of the very sick and dying”

            “Tertiary healthcare is expensive and therefore environmentally costly. Technologically extending a life at great cost to the environment is increasingly meaningless in the context of the long-term need to maintain the human and nonhuman biosphere.”

            What Moral Distress in Nursing History Could Suggest about the Future of Health Care
            Andrew Jameton, PhD

            https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/what-moral-distress-nursing-history-could-suggest-about-future-health-care/2017-06

            1. Interesting stuff. He’s right on the line. Type 1 diabetes (totally out of his control) is not the same as, say, unvaccinated people on ventilators, tee hee.

              This is a discussion we’ve had: when the shit hits the fan, will he get his insulin? Should he get his insulin?

              Environmentally, I suppose it helps that he has grown much of his own food for decades!

            2. Interesting point you raise there MikeB; perhaps it is morally permissible to allow those who have constrained their carbon use and negative impact on the planet throughout their life to be entitled to use more of it when they require tertiary medicine.
              As well, I feel it is morally impermissible to cancel surgeries, break healthcare workers and healthcare systems in order to provide ICU care to non vaccinated adult COVID patients, and on that basis I feel non vaccinated adult COVID patients should not be admitted to an ICU. It’s a simple check box on the Goals of Care Plan.
              I know many ICU nurses who have been working upwards of 60 hours a week for the better part of 19 months; also worth noting is that each pays a higher true income tax rate than Jeff Bezos.

        2. Let us not forget that an
          obscene level of opulence
          pertains not just to medicine, but to most things that each of you do in your life, from
          using a zipper, a lighter, electricity, store bought food, a washing machine, cotton clothing, toothpaste, and on….

          1. Indeed. Opulence, that is to say resource and energy intensive, seems to be the norm.

  20. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Global_Risks_Report_2022.pdf

    The 2021 WEF Global Risk Report came ou this week. The format has changes a bit so it is not so easy to compare changes from last year, but climate issues seem to be less dominate in the top ten, as these have not reduced in absolute terms it must mean that the other risks, like resource conflicts and wealth disparity, have got significantly worse.

  21. There are a couple of things I find increasingly annoying about some climate scientists, especially in their public talks. They’ll present the complicated science and then come out with some trite statements of hope, which usually involve fields of study in which they have little or no expertise maybe because there’s no hope in the science. A typical statement is “we have the technology to fix this”. Well we have the technology to allow everybody on earth to become a space tourist, but it’s not going to happen because what we don’t have is the resources (human, energy, materials and time). Another is “we’ll have to learn to live with less, but we’ll all be happier because we’ll be closer to nature”. I won’t be happier, I’ll be suddenly dead, along with many others. My guess is that many of the scientists, especially those who go out in the field, are naturally outdoors types, but their wealth means their expeditions are, despite what war stories they may tell down the pub, closer to glamping than a day-to-day struggle to survive . Climate scientists aren’t psychologists but even psychologists won’t pretend to know what makes as all happy, but I think they would have some confidence in saying that “being happy” isn’t the sole, or even a very important, factor in driving our behaviour. We seek self esteem, prefer us over them, fear death, seek to have descendants, want comfort to allow those descendants to reach reproductive age and attract mates, reject unfairness etc. – i.e. do a lot of things thatdon,t make us happy, and all are focused on near term.

    1. Nice observations.

      A typical statement is “we have the technology to fix this”.

      Ironic that King Hubbert was saying virtually the same thing about 40 years ago.

      But it ain’t been fixed.

    2. If you are the bringer of bad news….. you are more or less compelled to sugar coat it……. or else the vast majority of the naked ape audience simply tunes you out.

      With some sugar on it….. well……. most literate people will at least eventually absorb the gist of the message, which helps prepare them for the time when they must face up to reality.

      I personally spend a lot of time trying to get across some bad news to certain classes of people…… such as die hard car and truck owners who refuse to think about peak oil and what it will mean to them.

      One way that works is to simply point out that gasoline has gone from thirty cents to three bucks plus during their own lifetime or the lifetime of their parents…… and let THEM speculate about how much it’s likely to cost their own kids before they get old.

      And it’s easy to get them talking about the very short life of flashlight batteries thirty or forty years ago… and how long they last today with led bulbs.

      These conversations set the stage such that the people involved are brought to speculate, on their own, about the possibilities involving technologies such as wind and solar power, electric cars, self driving cars, etc.

      Their eyes light up when you point out to them that they have their very own crystal ball in their pocket…… except that it’s flat instead of round…… it’s mostly never occurred to them that their great grand parents would have considered cell phones pure magic.

      It took two full generations for the bad news tobacco message to sink in. The public does learn…… sometimes….. but the process is very slow.

    3. OFM truth-
      “If you are the bringer of bad news….. you are more or less compelled to sugar coat it……. or else the vast majority of the naked ape audience simply tunes you out.”

      I am more disturbed by the tendency of just about all discussions of economic issues to resort to the ‘we will grow our way out of the problem’ solution.
      More promises, more debt, more destruction.

      1. Hi Hickory,

        I’m with you all the way on this. I find it nearly impossible to even get into a serious discussion of this problem, even with well educated liberals who get it when it comes to the environment and overshoot.

        Their mindset is such that THEIR OWN NECESSARY sugar coating is the eternal growth meme.

        My personal belief is that our only real and best hope of avoiding the worst is that we collectively go for extremely small families, as in one point four or less per couple, on a world wide basis, and get to this low birth rate in the very near future.

        The odds against this happening look to be at least twenty to one or higher against, but sometimes people change their ways unexpectedly……. as for instance when the birth rate in Brazil collapsed sometime back.

        Poor countries and societies with long term population increases are going to be in a hell of a fix….. my guess being that up to half of the people in such countries will die the hard way…… the Malthus way.

        The other half, with some luck, will be able to eke out enough to eat…….unless they’re in a place such as Saudi Arabia. In that sort of place……. ten percent will be lucky to survive over the long term, once the oil and gas are gone.

        1. “——resource depletion, pollution (including climate change), overpopulation, an enormous buildup of unrepayable debt, and a lingering pandemic.”

          Luck? (lots of it)

          1. When a new society, a new country, a new world rises from the ashes of the old……. debts are something that can be and will be left behind, forgotten.

            Of course this means people with a vested interest in those debts are going to be up the creek without a paddle….. pensions won’t be paid.

            But the houses built by way of debt that won’t be paid…….. will still be there. Ditto the roads, electric, water and sewer grids, school buildings, hospitals, and all other long life infrastructure.

            The big change in this respect will be that there will be new owners. The old ones that survive will believe they’ve been robbed…… and in some cases they will have been. In others, they will simply have been robbed in their own turn, having accumulated their fortunes by stealing them.. legally in most cases, but still by stealing, in ethical terms.

            1. I suspect all the central bankers and other high level economic planners have this in mind- that eventually debt accumulated will just be erased in some sort of collapse.

              Regardless, the battle is to keep credit worthy as long as possible.
              Just be able to afford paying of the interest on the loans with current earnings, and attempt to slowly accumulate assets.
              The quaint notion of funding all operations and purchases on current earnings is sooo 7th century.

              All this is no recipe for long term success, but neither is having a population of 8 B dependent primarily on a depleting source of energy, or continuing to grow indefinitely on a finite and fragile planet.

              I suspect they all know this is a temporary path, and simply hope to outlive the reckoning.

            2. Well—

              “California, the state wingnuts love to hate, is projected to have a tax revenue surplus again this year, making it the ninth consecutive year the state has run a surplus. And Gov. Gavin Newsom has some plans for some of the anticipated $45.7 billion in surplus revenue, about half of which can be used at the state legislature’s discretion.”

    4. we have the technology to fix this

      We have had the tech for generations, just not the political will. In many cases, we just need to fix the laws.

      Want people to drive less? Legalize corner stores so people can get their on foot or by bike. Remember Eric Garner, who was martyred to keep big box stores alive. And tax consumption of oil.

      Want less drought in California? Legalize beavers, their dams replenish groundwater. They were massacred by the million, and currently it is illegal to release a beaver into the wild in the state. Oh, and tax sealed surfaces like parking lots.

      Worried about flash floods? Slow the water upstream instead of speeding it up downstream.Which came first, the desert or the flash flood?

      And so on. Our current lifestyle is far from optimal, and pretending that reducing waste is the same as compromising living standards is the “best of all possible worlds” fallacy debunked by Voltaire nearly three hundred years ago.

    5. One of the most important cultural adaptations that humanity could adopt in response to the current set of overshoot problems we face would be the adoption of the
      ‘Universal Declaration of The Right to Die’
      including easy access to euthanasia, and the means to perform suicide on oneself.
      Should be inexpensive, entirely legal, accepted and without external conflict.
      No one should be forced to here stay longer than they desire, for whatever reason and whatever age.

      On a related topic, when Nobel prize winning Desmond Tutu died recently his body was handled according to his wish via Alkaline Hydrolysis
      “Alkaline hydrolysis uses water, alkaline chemicals, heat, and sometimes pressure and agitation, to accelerate natural decomposition, leaving bone fragments and a neutral liquid called effluent. The decomposition that occurs in alkaline hydrolysis is the same as that which occurs during burial, just sped up dramatically by the chemicals. The effluent is sterile, and contains salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides. There is no tissue and no DNA left after the process completes.”
      Apparently this is a much less energy intensive option than flame cremation.
      New to me.
      https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/alkalinehydrolysis

      1. “One of the most important cultural adaptations that humanity could adopt in response to the current set of overshoot problems we face would be the adoption of the
        ‘Universal Declaration of The Right to Die’
        including easy access to euthanasia, and the means to perform suicide on oneself.
        Should be inexpensive, entirely legal, accepted and without external conflict.
        No one should be forced to here stay longer than they desire, for whatever reason and whatever age.”
        Hicks, I support and second this . I visit several “old people’s home ” in my line of work . Sad to see humans past ” expiry date ” struggling to do basic physical functions like toothbrushing , etc . Those with dementia are pitiful . Just staring into the abyss . The living dead .

        1. I’m not certain that I would support a blanket EAS policy for mentally ill folks, adolescents in particular. If one wanted to create the perfect lab conditions for making people go mad and wanting to kill themselves, then this world that we have created is probably it; if one finds it lacking then joining the military and “fighting for your country” will help finish the job. Perhaps other things could be changed in this world besides adopting a blanket EAS policy? Also, I wouldn’t support an EAS policy that excludes mentally ill folks either. Surely some are entitled to it.

          Euthanasia and assisted suicide in patients with personality disorders: a review of current practice and challenges

          “Conclusions
          In light of our findings, we believe that the current legislation and practice of EAS for people with personality disorders is based on an inadequate understanding of underlying psychopathology and a lack of awareness about the contemporary treatment literature. Moreover, we assert that this practice neglects the individual’s potential for having a life worth living.”

          https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-020-00131-9

          And furthermore;

          Assisted Dying in Persons with Mental Illness

          https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/25328/assisted-dying-in-persons-with-mental-illness

          And finally,

          I feel a blanket EAS policy would mostly just result in letting veterans, poor people and women (few of whom frequent this blog) kill themselves due to lack of care and support, whilst asshole billionaire dudes jerk off in space.

          This is why mental health should be a political priority
          -Depression and anxiety are up to three times as likely for those on low incomes.
          -55% of women report a significant impact from COVID-19-related income loss.
          -Unemployed people are less mentally and physically resilient than those in work.

          https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/poverty-mental-health-covid-intervention/

          1. “I’m not certain that I would support a blanket EAS policy for mentally ill folks, adolescents in particular”

            Your concerns are valid, but I’m far from reaching the same conclusions.
            Very important things these are to consider, prior to being policy.
            I submit that it is a severe act of cruelty to deny anyone the right to die on their own terms and at a time of there own choosing, no explanation required.

            1. “it is a severe act of cruelty to deny anyone the right to die on their own terms and at a time of there own choosing”

              I tend to agree with you. I’ve seen quite a few failed suicide attempts that got admitted to ICU. Some survived, thanks to opulent tertiary medicine, but we’re left brain damaged and only fit for living in a full care dementia unit, despite being quite young. Sad stuff; would have been better to have EAS.
              My concerns are the motivators for making such decisions. Old folks wanting EAS before the diseases settle in is one thing; young folks wanting it because they are emotionally vulnerable due to psychological combat injuries, for example, and living in poverty because of a lack of supports, secondary to tax policy, is another, for me anyway. Some of the saddest first hand stories I’ve heard are from disabled folks on low income who plan to EAS once the money runs out. Sometimes it seems a rash decision.
              I’ve seen quite a few folks recant on their suicidal ideation once they began receiving proper medical care, housing supports and income earning opportunities.
              Having said all that, it’s not like folks need a policy to have the ability to kill themselves. Handicapped folks would, though, in some cases need assistance. Inert gas asphyxiation is quite peaceful and as easy as getting a helium tank.

            2. “Some of the saddest first hand stories I’ve heard are from disabled folks on low income who plan to EAS once the money runs out. ”

              Yes that is very very sad,
              and so is having to live in severe poverty as an individual or a nation past the time when you have run out of steam.
              The choice should be yours without restraint.
              Why should EAS be difficult or illegal?

              Prosperity and a compassionate society are not guaranteed in this world.

      3. I work in a cemetery during the summers. Our little neighborhood board of trustees can’t afford the equipment to do full burials, (we let the funeral homes take care of that), but I do bury cremation urns regularly. It’s pretty simple and takes up less real estate.

        Having witnessed many full burials (which entail vaults, liners, caskets, etc.), I must say I find them deplorable.

        When I die, feed the dogs.

  22. “I suspect they all know this is a temporary path, and simply hope to outlive the reckoning.”
    Hickory’s words, copied from up above in response to my comment.

    Of course he’s right as usual.

    And so far as I’m concerned…… this is my plan too, except that I’m mostly hoping the economy doesn’t crash and burn before I’m gone.

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