168 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 17, 2021”

  1. Let’s talk about… wait for it… the betz equation. The basic concept that wind turbines are destroyed by the very force they use to do work, and therefore can never return net energy once you invest in materials to counteract damage.

    Engines work if you use natural materials, like iron. If you create the material synthetically then you’re in energy deficit.

    1. A few times I have resorted to a blanket policy of Ignoring a particular person.
      When someone is consistently fabricating information or introducing misleading information, is being an outright troll, is incoherent, or is adding nothing of relevance to the conversation (this sounds like trumps character) then I will pull trigger on the Ignore button.
      Feel free to ignore me anyone, of course.
      You earned it Ingraham- Adios.

      1. No loss. I mean if you can’t get the rather obvious fact that wind turbines lose most of their input to damage then there’s nothing I can do.

        1. John,
          I think it is so dangerous to enable people by ignoring their propaganda, or propagation of blatantly false information for political purposes or economic gain, as in the case of Ingraham.
          Engineers have a reputation based on factual analysis and understanding of physical and sometimes chemical reality. He is no engineer in any field except perhaps the petroleum sector- i am no judge of that. It is obvious that his motivation for the propaganda is fear of job loss.

            1. Cool. Show us the math. Show us your sources. I’m on the edge of my seat to see all of your citations.

            2. There’s no math, it’s just obvious.

              The betz equation says wind is 60% efficient and the rest damages the blade. Therefore wind can’t work because it’s easier to destroy than create.

              As for the empirical consequences of this, consider that there’s around 1000 tons of material per mw. That’s 20% capacity factor 40 gwh over 20 years or 40 mwh per ton.

              https://energyskeptic.com/2020/900-tons-of-material-to-build-just-1-windmill/

              Now, concrete is 1 ton carbon per ton. That’s 10 mwh of oil.

              https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/co2-emission-from-cement-industry-whats-best-estimate-claude-lorea

              Now of course you’ll give some no u response and run away which is fine. So our eroi is now like 4:1. Throw in some maintenance expenses and wind turbines produce little if anything.

              Wind turbines aren’t actually expected to last 20 years. They are upgraded frequently. So that already takes us down to 1-2:1 EROI.

              We don’t know what the life cycle cost of a turbine is because until 2010 the industry was doubling every four years and able to hide this wall of death. Now that growth is 10% we are seeing decommissioning and other signs of failure.

              But, you respond, why can’t we just be okay with producing wind at this pathetic EROI? Well we could, but in reality it comes down to business and basically the entire wind industry is collapsing anyway after the storm.

            3. To ghung:
              “Seriously, though, what is the real data, local board and what were the vicious attacks?” ~ Caelan MacIntyre

              (Crickets so far.)

          2. In the last thread, Mark Ingraham said he had no training or background in geology, physics, etc., and I believe he said his training was in IT. Someone who knows him from another blog said the same thing. Mark didn’t say where he studied or when.

            2. Hasn’t studied physics but stills claims to know on authority that renewables are “physically impossible”, apparently pretending that they don’t exist.

              Definitely worth ignoring.

      3. I have done the same. Ingraham’s comments are rude, idiotic, not based on fact, and almost seem to be coming from someone experiencing manic episode. My enjoyment of the forum has improved greatly after hitting the ignore button. Ingraham, if you read this I hope you realize it means I happily cannot read a word of what you say.

        1. Let’s not turn this entire site into giving me attention. Let’s instead respond, you know, to the argument.

      4. I did the same thing several days ago.
        If all of us refuse to engage, he might go away.

        In other forums, my standard reply when someone I have blocked directly responds to one of my comments is:
        “Hey….I blocked this guy a while ago, and I trust my judgement. Continuing to ignore.”

        Dennis’s situation is somewhat more nuanced than ours, and this is not meant to question his choices.

        1. There’s nothing to engage with. I can literally say 1 sentence like “wind turbines take damage” and people will complain.

          1. Peak Oil Barrel appears to be approaching dreg-level now (you know, with that kind of inherent quality to match?), IngrahamMark7, perhaps like global oil reserves these days.
            And some currently, and since moved-on, dabble/dabbled in inconsistencies and hypocrisies, etc.– Twilight Zone-level sometimes– of one sort or another.
            It’s in the archives if they are intact. You might get a few laughs… or cries.

            1. I would intend to start my own site, nobody would read it though.

        2. Hey…i blocked this guy a while ago, and I trust my judgement.
          Continuing to ignore.

    2. ingrahammark7 is a prime example of a person who is so ignorant he thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us, lol.

      1. I’m pretty sure I have more educational qualifications than anyone on this board. So even within liberalism.

        1. “Pretty sure” is not fact based. You have the wrong blog. Let me suggest to you Tverberg’s place. Where propaganda meets stupid. You will feel at home there. Your ignorance is not funny anymore here. Your just a self absorbed asshole idiot.

            2. Surprise, the 1 person here with a technical education is able to present basic facts like turbines take damage.

              I have no need to be smug if you guys have an actual response instead of just complaining.

        2. And I am pretty sure I have the least education . . . the difference is I keep my trap shut on subjects of which I know little.

          1. It takes close to zero iq to realize that wind turbines take damage and work in similar amounts and don’t work.

          2. “the difference is I keep my trap shut on subjects of which I know little.”

            Wisdom!

      1. It does, however you can’t see the obvious fact that the waste goes to damage. So there’s no point in your reply.

    4. Mark Ingram,

      The extra energy not captured by the Betz limits remains in the slip stream of the wind turbine. If you want to know what the aerodynamic loses in the wind turbine are, you need to look into the viscous losses over the blades. The losses in the gearboxes and other transmission is a separate issue.

      1. Thorium is abundant. Oak Ridge labs had a working reactor. They got rid of it because the government wanted to create nuclear weapons.

        I just got hit in face with a tomato!

          1. 1. It is yet to be operational .
            2. It is experimental .
            3. It is only 2MW .
            4. Planned in 2011 and MIGHT start 2021 . 10 years . How many years required for making a commercial reactor ? 100 , I presume .
            The defense rests , your honor .

  3. A new study from a high heid yin at KPMG (!?) says we are on course for somewhere between the LtG path BAU2 (collapse by 2040 due to pollution) and CT (not quite collapse as technology saves the day. However we are nowhere near the utopian (and evolution denying ) fantasy of sustainability following a societal awakening (the SW run).

    https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html

    I think the years before a collapse sets in are going to feel pretty bad as death rates grow to match and surpass birth rates, unrest rises, ‘precarity’ becomes the norm, last years lockdown tedium is looked at as a high point, and periods of terror start to dominate. It will feel especially bad for us entitled middle classes given the contrast with what we are used to and the resources we have to make life hell for our neighbours.

    I’m currently reading this OECD report about the rise in societal unrest (I think we can expect exponential growth in this from now on).

    https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/perspectives-on-global-development-2021_405e4c32-en

      1. However there have been reports recently that maybe we don’t have enough resources to support BAU2 such as the latest Rystad oil reserves estimates. So maybe an earlier collapse as in BAU will occur (I’m betting on 2025 looking quite bad even by 2020/2021 standards and getting worse quickly in the net 5-10 years.

        Rystaad downgraded reserves by 9% after a detailed well by well analysis (rather than field based). I think reality will be still lower once the mismanagement of some reserves, over estimates of yet-to-find, and straight fraud in some reserves numbers become apparent.

        https://www.rystadenergy.com/newsevents/news/press-releases/worlds-recoverable-oil-now-seen-9pct-slimmer-commercial-volumes-can-keep-global-warming-below-1p8c/

      2. Club of Rome is not based on anything, it’s just the average life of a civilization. But it still worked. That’s what you’re using.

    1. Thanks Gerry, a hopeful article. All is not lost (hopefully not even the mega-fauna)

      1. John, renewable energy will, hopefully, help the climate change problem. But there is nothing in the renewable energy program that will help the extinction of all megafauna, or endangered birds, turtles, and any other endangered animal. Renewable energy offers no hope for deforestation, desertification, the drying up of rivers and lakes, or any of the other destructive things our massive human overpopulation is doing to our environment.

        What I read from, not everyone but most everyone, who has commented on the environmental destruction of the world, is they hope some form of civilization can be salvaged in a few countries of the world. But damn the animals, damn the rivers and lakes, damn the forest, let’s save a tiny chunk of civilization.

        It will take hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions of years, for the earth to recovery after the superpredator Homo sapien species has run its destructive course.

        1. Ron,

          Totally agree. The endless, expanding, and never ending destruction of our natural habitat, for whatever reason, is a sickening fact. Driving an EV, or getting your power from a windfarm, will only help delay the inevitable. Unbelievably, over 200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every day. That is over 150 acres lost every minute of every day, and 78 million acres are lost every year!

        2. “All political systems that I know of, and most kings, have moved their whole nation to desert. And the things that we saw as most proud– the cities and the canals and irrigation and so on– are the things that killed their cultures. And it continues, unabated. If people don’t seize power back, and make their own gardens, and sit in their own gardens of Eden, then we’re all doomed, and the whole world ends in dust.” ~ Bill Mollison

        3. “It will take hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps millions of years, for the earth to recovery after the superpredator Homo sapien species has run its destructive course.”

          Depending on how things go, the tree of life may have some significant branches pruned off.
          Like losing a hundred million galaxies worth of biologic diversity.
          In a handful of decades.

  5. Renewable energy is great, I love it. However…. it will not save the megafauna, they will all be gone in less than half a century, save one rapacious great ape. It will not save the rain forest or the boreal forest, they will all be gone save those on land too rugged to cut or cultivate. It will not save the ocean fisheries. It will not save the rivers, they are all being polluted and drained for irrigation. It will not prevent desertification. It will not prevent the earth from overheating.

    Now you may ask, how do we know this? Because it is happening right now at an alarming speed. The human population is still increasing and will reach 9 billion by mid-century. That is about 5 billion more than the earth can support short term, (one century or more) and about 7 or 8 billion more than the earth can support long term.

    One more thing, far more people are blind to what is happening right now than can actually see it. That is simply human nature. Everyone has a worldview and most have an ideological worldview with views of how the world works set in stone. Their worldview convinces them that nothing really bad can ever happen to the entire human race. They believe we can fix any serious problem that faces humanity. We have the brains and we have the technology to fix any very serious problem. And, amazingly, that is not the only chunk of bullshit most people believe.

    1. Hi Ron,
      I’m forced to agree with you that the shit is in the fan, already, big time, and that most of us are going to find life “hard, brutish, and short” sometime within this century.

      But the fight to save what can be saved is well worth it, and if we’re extremely lucky as a species, some of us have a fair to good shot at pulling thru without reverting to a pre industrial life style.

      Environmentalists are very quick to point out the powers of destruction inherent in LEVIATHAN, the nation state, but they ignore the power of a nation state to work near miracles if and when the leadership comes to believe it’s own survival and power are threatened.

      If we’re lucky, if the cards fall right, some countries such as the USA, Canada, etc, plus some in other parts of the world, have a fair to good shot at pulling thru the coming bottleneck while keeping the water and sewer systems working, the lights on, and food in the stores.

      Any real hope of success will probably hinge on going to something along the lines of the planned economies implemented by major countries engaged in long term life or death wars such as WWII.

      Will we take the initiative, go proactive…… in time to prevent a Biblical scale collapse?

      I can’t say, but the odds are at least fair that we will do so, before it’s too late to save a significant portion of the biosphere, enough of it to maintain at least a skeletal industrial economy, enough to allow the natural world to eventually recover….. although such a recovered world won’t look like the one it replaces in many respects.

      It’s just straight up fucking bullshit that say the USA, Canada, and Western European countries working together can’t SURVIVE without the mineral and other resources of the remainder of the world….. and if we can’t, well then….. our otherwise extraordinarily bloated investment in the military will pay off handsomely…… we’ll just go and TAKE what’s necessary.

      Sure we would suffer a major long lasting depression without imported rare earths, oil, etc, in the short to medium term……. but an economic depression, no matter how bad, is NOT the same thing as collapse and extinction.

      ( And any talk of our being unable to do so, if we are willing to go about it the way it was done historically, just wiping out any local opposition, is also pure bullshit. Any fully modern large combined arms military establishment, with ample supplies, manpower, and transportation, can kill ninety nine percent of the population of a third world or even second world country in a matter of a few days or weeks, in a no holds barred invasion.Poison gas would be a joke, compared to herbicides sprayed on cropland and pastures, with starvation on the grand scale following within a few months, etc.

      In any such scenario, we’re ALREADY at extremely high risk of flat out war with any potential well armed enemy such as China, Russia, or any other emerging major military power. Such powers in any case would be engaged in their own Viking style raids on smaller or less powerful countries, and not likely to PUSH an escalation to the nuclear level. )

      Pray to your favorite Sky Daddy or Mommy for a series of Pearl Harbor Wake Up Events sufficient to put us on the path of going proactive pedal to the metal on the environmental front.

      1. OFM,
        I think a more likely scenario is one where this nation fails to act in a unified and proactive manner. Stability within and without are precarious. The failure of the US to do anything wise or effective with its military since Korea (questionable) shows how poorly we conduct ourselves as a monster abroad. Achieving our goal as a smash and grab power will be a failure, as others in the world simply will refuse to cooperate with bullying in any long lasting manner.

        And internally our decision making and cohesiveness is grade D. Stress will likely make it worse, not better. I think a likely scenario will be one where the next deep recession or depression, whether caused by energy shortage, cybercollapse, trade wars/protectism or failure of proper economy regulation (like 2009), will result in a nation that will begin an inexorable period of a major reduction in ability to fund social programs like medicare, social security, and payments to states for humanitarian programs like disaster relief. And the credit system of funding farmers, construction projects, energy infrastructure, and city operations will be tightened up severely.

        Or maybe I am wrong and everything will only decline 3%/yr…which is roughly 30% in a decade.

        Sorry, but I see it like that on this bright and fresh Sunday morning. I would be more pessimistic if it was smokey outside right now.

        1. HI Hickory,
          “I think a more likely scenario is one where this nation fails to act in a unified and proactive manner.”

          I fear you are correct…. but I’m not giving just because the odds of successful interventions are less than even. The odds of our going proactive in some fashion similar to what I’ve outlined here may be anywhere from one or two percent to fifty or sixty percent.

          Luck and random events are going to play a huge role in our future course of action.

          ” The failure of the US to do anything wise or effective with its military since Korea (questionable) shows how poorly we conduct ourselves as a monster abroad.”

          We haven’t waged unrestricted war against anybody since WWII.

          China and the the old USSR might or might not have come to the aid of North Korea…… but they cooperated when we waged unrestricted war against Germany and Japan.

          Who in the world as it exists today can hope to oppose a coalition of countries such as the NATO coalition, if that coalition once decides a war of conquest is necessary?
          Neither Russia nor China has the ability to project power on the necessary scale except in their own backyards….. except maybe by going nuclear.

          This is or may be going to be about survival, nature red in tooth and claw, not about what people a few generations down the road will think about us.

          Once the word is on fire, with hot wars large and small happening everywhere and just about every country forced to look mostly inward in order to hopefully secure it’s own survival, international relations and political pressure won’t mean diddly squat, period.

          Once people IN a country such as the USA are convinced we MUST have some small helpless countries resources, such as say lithium, even well educated liberal democrats will get on board with taking such resources……… maybe not until they’re convinced the welfare and even the survival of their own children is at stake …. but they’ll get on board.

          Let’s not forget that numbers do not equal power anymore. Most of the people alive today who live in smaller less prosperous countries will live or die in place, without any real hope of escaping their local home. How would the tens of millions of people in Indonesia for instance migrate, and where could they migrate TO?

          Once the name of the game is SURVIVAL at any cost, migrating people will be met at national borders by troops who have been told to shoot, and who will be EAGER to shoot, knowing that otherwise, their own families behind them someplace are going to be in that much more trouble in terms of finding enough to eat, etc.

          I’m not saying Ron’s vision of the future is WRONG….. I’m just saying that once the crisis reaches the boiling over point, it’s going to play out more the way I’ve described it than otherwise….. and that there’s a possibility that some people in some countries can pull thru more or less whole, in terms of their lives and communities, although their economic circumstances will very likely be tough indeed…… but probably not as tough as going back to pre industrial times.

          1. “Once the name of the game is survival at any cost, migrating people will be met at national borders by troops who have been told to shoot,”

            We will consider our fate very lucky if this doesn’t end up applying to regional borders within states as well.

      2. OFM,

        Thanks for the laugh, from your, we’ll be okay while the world around us goes to hell. Here we are currently bathing in wildfire smoke that, I’m told, will likely remain until November (assuming we’re not burnt to a crisp before then); so, a bit difficult to preach your cornucopian message.

        1. Hi Doug,
          I’m not sure if you understand what I mean by “wartime economic policies” etc.

          Let me make it clear.

          No more new F250’s except maybe to government agencies. Existing ones confiscated as necessary and provided to people who REALLY need them…… this does not include towing campers or horse trailers or boats or fetching a case of beer.

          Rationed food, gasoline, consumer goods, with many goods simply disappearing from stores due to shifting the resources used in producing them to critical projects such as refurbishing necessary public infrastructure to make it last or make it more energy efficient.

          Commercial air travel next to non existent.

          Sales of new cars, except possibly electric models, cut back by ninety percent or more.

          Buses built and street cars and tracks for them being laid on an emergency basis.

          Farmers told what to produce and sell…

          If the shit is well and truly in the fan, we won’t be selling much beef at all, and a lot less pork, maybe less chicken ( champions at feed conversion to meat) with beans, grain, fruit, veggies rice, etc, production being so managed as to feed the country using half or less of the resources we put into growing food now…. and we may have a very hard time coming up with even that half of the inputs we used now.

          Construction workers diverted to refurbishing housing of all sorts for energy efficiency rather than building new houses by the millions, etc.

          Solar farms and wind farms being built the way we built ships and planes back in WWII.

          Meat on the table once in a while, not three times a day.

          Men, and maybe women as well, put into uniform, by way of a draft, to be put to work making such programs work, by DOING the work.

          This is about SURVIVAL, with some luck. It’s nothing to do with a cornucopian vision.

          And let me make it clear……. there’s only some HOPE we might go down this path.

          It’s at least as likely, maybe a lot MORE likely, that we will spin our wheels, fight each other, and fail miserably, so that Ron’s black vision of the future is our future reality.

          1. OFM,
            I agree. People say the climate can’t be fixed, but it probably could if it were taken seriously. but it probably will never be taken seriously.

            I think this is pretty obvious from the reaction to the pandemic. America’s poor reaction cost hundreds of thousands of lives. But nobody much cares because there was no scary bearded bad guy to blame like 9/11.

            1. “I think this is pretty obvious from the reaction to the pandemic. America’s poor reaction cost hundreds of thousands of lives. But nobody much cares because there was no scary bearded bad guy to blame like 9/11”

              Umm, plenty of us to the tune of over 80 million voters do know who is primarily responsible for pathetic federal government response.
              The scary orange buffoon.

            2. You do realize that almost the entire population will be dead by 2024 and continued existence of liberals is futile.

      1. Definitely the physical annihilation of libs is the problem. But also a good thing.

  6. Ron said “Renewable energy is great, I love it.”
    And slowly you are starting to hear some tepid support for solar and wind form ‘the heartland’ and those republicans who are seeing an economic benefit (for example they lease land to a wind developer).

    But by and large much of the country continues to have a stance of hostility to the notion of deployment of wind and solar. They would rather pay the oilman apparently, while it lasts.

    From the article GerryF posted above “Engineers: You Can Disrupt Climate Change” is a statement that is painfully true-
    “This surge in solar PV could have happened a decade earlier. Every basic process was ready by 1995: Engineers had mastered the technical steps of making silicon wafers, diffusing diode junctions, applying metal grids to the solar-cell surfaces, passivating the semiconductor surface to add an antireflective coating, and laminating modules. The only missing piece was supportive policy.”

    Now with the price reduction in solar PV this countries ( and most others) solar energy reserve is beyond huge.
    ‘Ripe for the picking’ as they say.

    1. Meanwhile, yet to spot an EV in our community, not one. However, lots of fancy brand spanking new F-250 and F-350 equivalents (and big SUVs). Maybe things will be different in another five or ten years? Kicking the can down the road seems to be the path chosen, around here anyway.

      1. A lot of new 250’s here too. On the other hand, last month I had a cousin visit for a few days from fly over country. As we were driving somewhere she said “I never see any Tesla’s”. Within less than a minute I pointed out 4 to her and after 5 minutes she became annoyed with me pointing them out. Tesla’s here are like Volkswagen Bugs back in the late 60’s.

        The GM Hummer is sold out and the first one has not even been purchased. GM is in the process of building 5 new battery manufacturing plants.

      3. Doug,
        does the retail price of gas and diesel in Canada fluctuate like south of the border?
        I wonder how high the price would have to go before people start looking hard at the F-150 Lightening when thinking of a new pickup?
        We don’t have specific data yet, but gas or diesel would likely have be less than $2/gallon to compete on cost/mile.

        1. The retail price of gas and diesel seems to go up quickly here when oil prices raise and go down slowly when oil prices drop. Makes one cynical.

        2. In Germany fuel prices are more stable, because its mostly taxes, and the taxes don’t change much. This makes it easier for people to plan ahead.

          Oil isn’t the only commodity subject to wild price swings. In general that kind of instability is bad for the economy.

          Sometimes governments try to prevent it with price controls. Simply taxing commodities prone to wild price swings seems like a better idea, but is seldom popular. Under Nixon there were wide scale price controls under the Cost of Living Council, run by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Carter abolished most of them, but couldn’t implement a fuel tax, which would have saved the US economy trillions by this time.

      4. I have seen many many thousands of plug-in vehicles on the road in the past 5 years along the pacific coastal states- SF Bay Area, western Oregon and Washington.
        In fact, there is one in my driveway right now.
        I don’t turn my head any more, except when my eyes catch a new model.
        Last month saw my first VW ID4. Very good looking vehicle.

        Primary source of electrical charge here is hydroelectric.

        1. Here in rural Maine, it’s all big, loud, ugly-ass pickups. It’s despicable.

    1. The USA is behind partly or maybe mostly because we have, up until recently at least, had an abundance of local cheap resources such as coal, oil, gas, iron ore, etc etc, and because there’s no sense of URGENCY here…. YET.

      Of course a big part, maybe most of the blame, for this lack of urgency is the result of ignorance and political manipulation of the people by right winger types such as the Koch brothers.

      But mark these words.

      Unless hard core right winger/ fossil fuel interests get control of the country, we will be building solar capacity at an ever increasing pace for some years to come, ditto wind.

      There will likely be some dips when the political winds blow ill, but both industries have progressed to the point that they’re no brainers in terms of dollars and cents so long as long term financing is available.

      Texans may still elect right wing idiots opposed to anything “green” but they’re smart enough to actually COUNT MONEY.

      https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47636

      But I suppose the trumptards have good enough control of Florida that Floridians will be buying fossil fuels to generate electricity more or less indefinitely in much larger than sensible quantities.

      New wind farms aren’t going to be built as fast as in recent years due to the end of the production tax credit, but the longer term outlook for wind is fantastic, given that the cost of wind power is falling year after year……. while the long term price of natural gas can’t go anywhere but UP……. it comes out of holes in the ground, and it doesn’t grow back ….. well not in less than a few million years anyway, lol.

      1. It will be interesting to see the reaction of Texans, as the state becomes an alternative energy powerhouse, and more and more people experience the economic benefit. I would like to be a fly on the wall in the rural diner when one of the guys talks about how the solar on his shed powers his e F-150, or takes that truck to football game.
        No other state has the great wind and solar energy reserve as Texas.
        Ripe for the picking at current prices, a huge harvest.
        They will have a huge incentive to change the grid setup, and integrate with the surrounding regional grids.

        Will it be hard to admit that the scientists, progressive enghineers and environmentalists (including Al Gore) were correct all along, or will the history be re-written?

        1. I’m old enough to remember when every hillbilly I knew was absolutely convinced that tobacco is perfectly safe, and that IF cigarettes are dangerous, it’s ONLY because of nasty chemicals put in the tobacco by the manufacturers.

          Of course the better educated crowd I ran with in the city back in those days understood the danger right away, as soon as it got to be highly publicized.

          It’s taken about forty to fifty years for those hillbillies, the ones of them still alive, now in their sixties or older , to forget how sure they were that the anti tobacco movement was an early manifestation of them there lib’rl’s trying to run their lives and take away their livelihoods, etc.

          But the ones of them who are left now generally agree that smoking is a bad habit, and that lighting a cigarette in somebody else’s car or home is just not done, unless the owner is doing the same.

          So….. based on these observations, I think it’s likely that today’s Texan trumpsters and Bible thumpers will eventually forget that they were opposed to wind and solar energy, and assure their grandchildren that they knew wind and solar power was a good thing all along.
          Some of them will come around within the next five or ten years, some will never come around, but the majority of them will switch sides after a long enough grace period allowing them to pretend they never partook of the fossil fuel koolaid.

          Say about twenty fifty. The hard core trump crowd will be dead by then of old age if not by cancer brought on by windmills.

          1. Within ten years this discussion will be irrelevant, wind will be this minor scam that lasted a few years. They are already decommissioning turbines.

            1. They’re scrapping twenty five year old cars and coal fired power plants too, lol. Idiot.

  8. A Physics Prof Bet Me $10,000 I’m Wrong *

    “A UCLA Physics Professor bet me $10,000 that my video about going downwind faster than the wind was wrong. “

    If understood correctly, it works similarly upwind too.

    Perhaps society can be made to go ‘faster’ than the wind too (and continue to run over things in the process).
    ——
    * Spoiler alert: Looks like the physics prof was wrong and so lost the 10 grand.

    1. It’s a poorly defined bet, if you have any elasticity or incline then obviously you can go faster.

      1. Against The Wind

        Probably, yes, but it didn’t appear obvious to the physics prof, which is curious. (Maybe like CV-19 conflicting info and fear porn, etc., vis-a-vis some medical profs?)
        I guess if they had placed a bet with another type of prof.

        To part of my sense of it, if a vehicle is small/light/less-resisting/etc. enough and there is a large enough force acting against it like over a large enough sail, through ‘mechanical advantage’ (the area of the sail) (like that bike gearing example they showed), one should be able to get it moving faster than the wind.
        What about sail boats? I’ve sailed somewhat against the wind at a good clip.
        The point seems to be about the force of the wind (vis-a-vis the object that is being moved), and proper gearing (the ‘spinning sail’ as the element of a gear system), rather than its speed that counts. Wind-speed seems almost like a distraction and, (along with being a possible landlubber ‘u^), is maybe what snagged the physics prof.

  9. The Intruder
    “…I could talk about my world
    How you brought about ruin
    I could talk about your greed
    If you want me to

    I could look into evil
    See a heart just like mine
    I could throw away reason
    If you want me to

    I could walk into darkness
    Find the hole you crawled into
    I will be the intruder
    If you want me to…

    I could make you my prisoner
    But you were dead man talking
    When you burned the oceans
    Like you said you would…

    This was always your one life
    I won’t pretend that it matters
    But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?
    This was always your one home
    I won’t pretend that I’ll miss you
    But don’t you wish you’d just listened more?”

  10. So, worldwide, it seems just two percent of pandemic recovery finance is being spent on clean energy. Too little, too late?

    COVID RECOVERY TO DRIVE ALL-TIME EMISSIONS HIGH

    Overall, the IEA said that all countries were missing the opportunity to divert private and public funds towards green projects that would provide triple climate, health and economic benefits. “Not only is clean energy investment still far from what’s needed to put the world on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century, it’s not even enough to prevent global emissions from surging to a new record.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-07-covid-recovery-all-time-emissions-high.html

    1. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a funny thing happened on the way to decarbonization. Shortly after Biden’s bold climate announcement, his administration approved ConocoPhillips’ massive new Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (a wildlife park), which the oil giant estimates at its peak will pump up to 160,000 barrels of oil a day out of some 250 wells, producing nearly 600 million barrels of oil over the next 30 years.

      1. That ought to be enough to run the USA for around a month or so.

        We’re going to be pretty damned short of oil in my opinion a long damned time before we can get even half way thru the transition to electrified personal and commercial highway transportation.

        I’m all for doing whatever can be done to preserve as much of the biosphere as possible, but getting all religious about doing away with oil isn’t going to help solve any real world economic and political problems.

  11. The USA grid is in big need of upgrade, and not just physically but also in management, policy and software.
    The backlog queue for projects (almost entirely utility scale solar and wind) waiting for grid interconnection or permit approval is huge- to the tune of “Over 750 GW of generation, including over 680 GW of wind and solar, and an estimated 200 GW of storage capacity was in queues at the end of 2020,”
    “And capacity in those queues “is growing year-over-year,” according to an analysis by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) of an estimated 85% of U.S. electricity load at the end of 2020.”

    For frame of reference, that 680 GW of wind and solar in the grid queue dwarfs the current national nuclear generating capacity of 96.6 GW

    https://www.utilitydive.com/news/gridlock-in-transmission-queues-spotlights-need-for-ferc-action-on-planning/603128/

    1. So, with the impending USA grid upgrade, everything will be hunky-dory down there? Great to hear. 😉

      1. The US will not get meaningful grid modernization/upgrade in any kind of timely or effective manner, I suspect.
        We don’t do effective energy or industrial policy down here.
        We do partisan gridlock, eating between meals, and sports watching very well.

        1. I think we can extend that to a lot of nations, especially the UK right now. There are very few nations, if any, that are going to do something the populace won’t like, but as a doctor prescribes for them, so they must take the medicine else things break.

      2. No Doug, it’s not hunky-dory and I don’t think anyone here with a little bit of commen sense believe that. But you have to start somewhere to transform.

        Regarding Biden, for at least a couple of more decades oil is going to be in high demand. The Alaska pipeline has a minimum requirement to operate. Let’s have a little faith his administration has a little more information on the situation than us and is making good decisions.

        1. “But you have to start somewhere to transform. ” ~ HuntingtonBeach

          Where’s ‘somewhere’? Anywhere? Somewhere that nowhere narratives suggest?

      3. Impendings

        “So, with the impending USA grid upgrade, everything will be hunky-dory down there? Great to hear. 😉 ” ~ Doug Leighton

        LOL

        …Which will, of course, include impending general infrastructure upgrades, right?, and the overbuilding of all those intermittent energy sources, along with their storage and secured minerals here and there, and in the faces of Nation-State competition, subpar leadership, social unrest, QE/MMT/currency/NIRP/Petrodollar/financial/pensions/etc. questions, and environmental effects, such as from climate change and assorted pollution, and post-peak fossil fuel depletion. Why, the hunky-dory is but a hop, skip and jump away. I can feel it. 😉

        …But, remember, we are all in this together. Does that thought not give you the warm-and-fuzzies inside?

        1. Hyperinflation only happens in slow collapses. Society will collapse too fast for hyperinflation.

  12. A just published ECS paper from Imperial College indicates new cloud modelling data takes us to 3.2ºC above Industrial Average by 2050, not 2100.

    https://www.pnas.org/content/118/30/e2026290118

    If this is accurate, that’s game over. It was already hilariously optimistic to keep under 1.5ºC, which we’ll likely hit in a few years now, but hitting this level of warming by mid-century makes anything but total shutting down of the global economy immediately a futile gesture.

    1. The earth has 30kg co2 per square meter. Houses are 500.

      Global warming requires co2 be a ten times better insulator than is used in real life.

      1. I was addressing the people with > room temperature IQs. You may sit back down now.

        1. It’s obvious you can’t even read the post. I have a engineering degree and you are a troll.

          1. I invented the oil rig, and I am not a troll.

            This game got old when I was 14. Your Internet tough guy points count for jack and shit here, matey. If you would like to actually work the problem and show your equations, that’d be great.

            If not, kindly go forth and multiply.

            1. You pretend carbon is a 100x better insulator than real life. You’re silly.

      2. I tell you what, we’re in a climate emergency over here. Sound the alarms.

    2. I can believe that a little bit of climate change is man made, but not much more than a 5-10% impact because the sun is the bigger culprit. Since we began launching weather balloons in the 1930’s, tests have shown that the atmosphere is getting increasingly warmer on account of increased ionization. That’s important because what happens in the upper atmosphere happens to the land below too. Well, the atmosphere’s ionization and temperature have both been rising in unison since those first tests.

      Another thing is, the increased ionization is also increasing the quantity of “Hot Flights” which is the term on airplanes when the radiation exposure is higher than the expected baseline, measured with a radiation dose meter. Government began tracking radiation dose rate airplane passengers are exposed to back in the 1980’s. Today all airliners in the U.S. according to FAA laws have radiation dose meters installed so there has been a lot of data collected over many years. High readings have been increasing just about every year due to the increased solar radiation coming into the atmosphere caused by the sun.

      NOAA/NWS Space Weather Prediction Center is the government agency that keeps track of these things. I have used that website for about 10 years to show how radiation in the atmosphere has been going up year after year.

      1. Sunspots explain temperature with a fifty year lag. Currently temperature is falling over last five years.

      2. You best go tell the scientific bodies this then, because it will certainly be eye opening that they missed accounting for that blazing ball of fusing hydrogen I see in the sky daily.

        1. There are 5 kg of CO2 per square meter. That’s about a inch. It is claimed a 1% increase of CO2
          raises temperature 1 degree or more, at 1 kw per square meter. Delta T between earth and space is 300K. That means we need a R value of .3 to insulate the earth. “Normal” insulation is around 1.

          From here a R value of 1 insulates approximately a five degree difference. So we would need a 400% increase in CO2 to raise temperature five degrees K.

          Yet, climate models like IPCC require a ~5% rise in CO2
          for this. Converted to an R value this would mean CO2
          is 30 or more.

          Why is CO2 10-100x more effective as a insulator than in real life?

          1. Ha! Ha!

            Mark, in this thread you’ve shown that you’re uninformed on fundamental principles of fluid mechanics, and you’ve also shown that you’re fundamentally uninformed on principles of heat transfer, earth sciences, and much more.

            It appears that neither your high school education or your IT training included a lot of basic science.

            You also make assertions of fact that, with trivial effort, are shown to be wrong. So you’re also unreliable. .

            I’m sure you’ve already been told all this by others, and maybe for some time.

            I suspect you’re not coming up with these poorly thought out assertions on your own, and you don’t seem to be trying to persuade anybody of your “insights” by providing sources, but rather you just seem to be trying to provoke reactions. The web is full of psychological explanations for why people do that, and maybe you could check that out.

            Just using basic math, we wind up with:
            Your posts = Uninformed plus Unreliable = Unimportant.

            This is good though, because once you know what you don’t know, you have a path to follow. Maybe you’ll learn something.

            1. It’s obvious you’re wrong. You’re pretending co2 is a 100x better insulator than fiberglass. This thread does nothing but mock you.

            2. I haven’t seen anything he has said lately [ignore], but according to your comments Gerry, he is honing his resume to become Trumpholes energy secretary in the shadow government. the kind of guy trumphole looks for (inject bleach).

            3. Words mean nothing to you anyway. Your claim that co2 is a 100x better insulator than real life simply proves my point.

            4. We need to send this guy back to the village denied its resident idiot, because I fear we won’t do justice to his antics if we just point and laugh at every retarded thing he says. He needs love and attention. Just not by us.

            5. Your own actions prove you don’t believe what you’re saying. No one is stupid enough to insulate their house with co2 because it’s not as effective as you pretend.

      3. Oh God are we going to have to go through this bullshit again? Just as a heads up deniers are not welcome to comment on anything I post – I’ll remove it, even if it’s nothing to do with climate. And if you comment on being removed on the other thread I’ll remove that too. Denis – if this doesn’t suit then please delete the posts I have as drafts and count me out for the future. There are people dying in droves in major climate events virtually every day now and we are supposed to put up with this shit. Well not me any more.

          1. Anybody who denies climate change with the fires in North America ,floods in Europe and China , droughts where there were none , and all what Doug has been posting on the Arctic ice has his head up his a*** .

            1. A house is 500kg per square meter. There is 5 kg carbon per sq m on the earth. You are pretending carbon is a 100x better insulator than what people use in reality.

            2. Climate change is an extremely hard topic for people to wrap their heads around. We should strive to actually listen to one another on this topic instead of trying to cancel and censor each other or tear each other down.

            3. It’s not that hard to understand. The problem is disinformation.

            4. It’s very easy to understand. There’s 5kg co2 per square meter. Your house is 500. Carbon would be a 100x better insulator than real life.

            5. Mark,

              I suggested yesterday that you talk to a high school student who can explain it to you.

              You didn’t do that yet, did you?

              You should also take some training in reading comprehension.

              Old Dominion University wouldn’t be proud to hear that you’re using their name.

          2. +1 on that.

            First time I have actually used the ignore button on this blog!

        2. Sorry guys. Away on vacation, hadn’t been reading the Open Thread.

          I asked Ron to ban Mark Ingraham and he has done so.

  13. Dennis, Ron, It’s time to get rid of our newest high energy troll Ingraham.

    1. Yes Mac, I agree. But this is Dennis’ site now. I have suggested such action to him but he has not responded. But it’s his decision, not mine. But this guy is an absolute idiotic nut case. He adds nothing to the site, he only makes us look stupid by permitting his stupid posts.

        1. Dear Idiot, this is the post that did it for me:

          INGRAHAMMARK7

          07/20/2021 at 6:06 pm
          Sunspots explain temperature with a fifty year lag. Currently temperature is falling over last five years.

          Only a blooming fucking idiot could write such a stupid post. So yes, please go away.

          Bye now.

          1. I think maybe Dennis has been too busy the last few days to block this idiot, lol.
            My money says he’ll be gone pretty soon.

        2. Mark,

          I don’t believe your claim that you graduated from Old Dominion University.

          This is high school science that you don’t understand. Nowadays, it might be grade 8 science.

          ODU would be embarrassed by your assertions.

          You don’t seem interested in actually researching or learning the subject, but maybe you can find a high school student and they can explain it to you.

          I’m going back to ignoring you.

  14. On Ingraham-

    One wonders what could cause someone to so publicly and consistently embarrass themselves, like walking around the village square with crap on their clothes.
    It could be shear idiocy (but the guy can type and he says he made it past 4th grade).
    It could be a political proganda motive (we saw that every day of trumps presidency from the prez himself)
    It could be a vested interest, and the sense of extreme threat from countervailing realities.
    Or it could be simple delusion, unable to sort out reality- we have seen that with a few select other visitors here.
    Or it could be a case of severe loneliness, hoping for a little attention despite derision.
    Or it could simply be fear. Fear of what is happening in this world, like climate change.

    In this case it seems to be a mixed picture, as far as I can tell.

    1. I haven’t read him since the third comment except for a couple of unblocks but he seems to have completely buggered up the whole site so its not even worth trying to separate the signal from noise any more. From what I’ve seen he has never offered real data, certainly never deigning to add anything as useful as a link (maybe he doesn’t know how), just assertions based on completely misunderstood or fabricated concepts, and written in some breathless “look at me” word salad (is English his first language). To be honest some of the unmodulated threads on PeakOil are more entertaining and no less informative than this has become. I think he has only a few hobby horses so maybe he’ll just start repeating himself and then fade away like a few in the past. Until then there are plenty of other blogs – Desdemona Despair, Tim Morgan, NatCapViz and Alice Friedermannn have some good stuff at the moment.

      1. The Strategic Advancing of An Alternative-Energy Corporate-State Agenda Through Reverse Psychology?

        ——

        Islandboy’s recent comment seems to insinuate too much sophistication behind ingrahammark7’s commentary/hypothetical intent.

        Then again, Nick G, with his particular, ostensibly-inverted, agenda/stance and style, seems to have disappeared aroundabout the same time as ingrahammark7’s appearance:

        …”Definitely the physical annihilation of libs is the problem. But also a good thing.” ~ ingrahammark7

        Aside from it appearing to attempt to make techno-political connections over the course of their comments, those kinds of quotes of violence (‘physical annihilation’ and “Cops will be annihlated…”) would get you banned on some sites.

        But maybe that’s sort of the point:

        Connect violent suggestions with anti-renewable sentiment across one’s commentary and therefore help to associate those questioning renewables with those sorts of attitudes.

        What was the, or one of the, last things Nick G wrote? Amanda Ripley? Why? (Anything after June 19?)

        …It’s probably nothing…

        Saints And Liars

    2. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse delivered over 275 weekly presentations in the senate titled “Time to Wake up”. In his 276th presentation, “Time to Wake Up 276: Another Peek Into the Web of Denial” he features the work of a PR firm, FTI Consulting and at about 12 minutes in he goes into what may be going on here (the link above goes straight to that point in the video). Paid agents can be hired to disrupt any discussion that the client finds inconvenient. Why anyone would want to stifle discussions on this particular blog is a good question but the inane nature of the stuff being posted by trolls here fits the picture described by Whitehouse. It appears purely intended to frustrate any attempts at sensible discussion of the issues.

      1. Exactly Island, excellent link. Whitehouse’s explanation of conservative court packing is just as valuable for understanding what’s going on.

        Dennis needs to 86 Mark7 and have a moratorium on new posters. He is Javier 2.0, also known as Trumpism.

      2. I agree, Islandboy and George.
        Since I blocked Javier 2.0, I have been able to see the extent of his infiltration, and it does look like a planned Denial of Service-esque attack.

        I also question why anyone would bother, but the proof is in front of us. Whether paid K-Streeter (unlikely) or bored basement dweller, he is a pox….or perhaps a spike protein coronavirus.

        Either way, enough is enough. Time to vax.

        1. Yes , time to vax, I don’t care about your side effects. Also invest in Tesla and other global warming liberals.

  15. I have followed this site for years, back to the oil drum days, and learned so much, both from the posts and the discussions. I have never commented because I have no expertise to add. Please don’t let this one asshole troll fuck it up for all of us.

    1. Well hickory’s claim is obviously physically impossible so maybe that’s why the site quality is down?

  16. Worth a few minutes……..

    https://theconversation.com/the-us-army-tried-portable-nuclear-power-at-remote-bases-60-years-ago-it-didnt-go-well-164138?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20July%2021%202021%20-%202009119735&utm_content=Science%20Editors%20Picks%20%20July%2021%202021%20-%202009119735+CID_904a5ffeda6f5b682c87d50842395087&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=The%20US%20Army%20tried%20portable%20nuclear%20power%20at%20remote%20bases%2060%20years%20ago%20%20it%20didnt%20go%20well

    1. The article doesn’t mention it, but these mini-reactors were typically 1 to 2 MW in size.

      The new Pele reactor mentioned is 1-5 MW.

      Evaluation of proposals is supposed to be completed next year.

  17. Wall Street Journal reporting today on the iron-air battery being developed by Form Energy.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/startup-claims-breakthrough-in-long-duration-batteries-11626946330

    Form Energy hopes to be in place by 2025. Backed by Gates and Bezos.

    More detail from the Form Energy’s site.


    Our first commercial product using our iron-air technology is optimized to store electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with legacy power plants.
    …
    Each individual battery is about the size of a washing machine. Each of these modules is filled with a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, similar to the electrolyte used in AA batteries. Inside of the liquid electrolyte are stacks of between 10 and 20 meter-scale cells, which include iron electrodes and air electrodes, the parts of the battery that enable the electrochemical reactions to store and discharge electricity.

    These battery modules are grouped together in modular megawatt-scale power blocks, which comprise thousands of battery modules in an environmentally protected enclosure. Depending on the system size, tens to hundreds of these power blocks will be connected to the electricity grid. For scale, in its least dense configuration, a one megawatt system requires about an acre of land. Higher density configurations can achieve >3MW/acre.

    Our battery systems can be sited anywhere, even in urban areas, to meet utility-scale energy needs. Our batteries complement the function of lithium-ion batteries, allowing for an optimal balance of our technology and lithium-ion batteries to deliver the lowest-cost renewable and reliable electric system year-round.

    https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/

    1. Gerry F ” Form Energy hopes to be in place by 2025. Backed by Gates and Bezos.”
      I keep away from the renewable / battery debates . Gates and Bezos are not Gods . They cannot triumph the laws of Mathematics , Physics , Chemistry , EROEI , etc . Heck, even the Gods can’t go against them because the failure would demolish their very existence .

      1. Yeah, i agree. I included that just to show there was some money. I believe one of their biggest supporters is an iron ore company.

        All the usual questions about another storage solution apply.

        Best to believe it when we see it.

        1. Gerry F , since we are in agreement , no logic in continuing this argument . Just for the fun of it I saw a n article that was ” The most overrated people ”
          1. Bill Gates . Stole the software . Created viruses to sell anti virus software .\
          2. Steve Jobs ; Ran Apple to bankruptcy . Resurrected himself but on the strength of his technical team . Good salesman ,have to give him credit where due .
          3. Warren Buffet : The largest recipient of FED funds in the 2008 GFC . Free of cost bailout . Sucking at the teat of the treasury .
          4. Jeff Bezos : Amazon never ever made a profit from operations . Even today they make profits not out of buying and selling but selling cloud computing to Pentagon and other govt agencies .
          5 . Elon Musk ; The lesser said the better .
          6. Tony Robbins : – Surprised , are you ? Yes , easy to motivate people who sit on millions . Hey , why are you not in Africa , Latin America or in other parts of the world where you are needed .
          I recall a failed hedge fund manager surmising his whole career where he went from ” hero to zero “, ” never attribute genius to what is luck . ” . Believe me I know this as I have observed this in my lifetime (69 yrs ) and this applies to me on a personal basis .

          1. So basically you have the same investments as a climate denier.

            Also, as requested by Ron I have stopped making constructive posts.

          2. Hole- Gerries post was not about rich guys. it was about batteries.
            If you wanted to rail on rich guys you could have courteously started your own thread.

            Regarding the battery post, its interesting to see these innovation attempts.
            My guess is that for stationary energy storage that one of these companies will come up a less expensive and widely adopted mechanism within a few years.
            And hopefully it will be with lower toxicity materials.

            I am less optimistic regarding breakthroughs for vehicles batteries, but am probably wrong about this.

            here is the link from Gerry again- https://formenergy.com/technology/battery-technology/

            btw- its wishful thinking, but the US DOEnergy has issued the challenge to reduce for long duration storage costs. “DOE developed the Long Duration Storage Shot target through its Energy Storage Grand Challenge (ESGC) …”

            https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/doe-announces-goal-to-cut-costs-of-long-duration-energy-storage-by-90/

            1. Interesting that the DOE challenge defines ‘long duration storage’ as 10 hours or more.

              Metal-air batteries have been talked about for a time, but Form Energy’s site talks about 100 hours storage. If their claim for costs comparable to traditional energy pans out it could be a big deal. 3 MW/acre, at 100 hours, that’s 300 MWHr/acre.

              The WSJ story that led me down this path seemed to be mostly a PR piece, so hard to know where they really are, but Form Energy is talking only a couple of years so we won’t have long to wait. I assume there are many other manufacturer’s chasing this same target.

            2. Hicks , I think you got out on the wrong side of the bed because this rough post is not expected from you . Read my post carefully .
              “Gerry F , since we are in agreement , no logic in continuing this argument . Just for the fun of it I saw a n article that was ” The most overrated people ”
              The view is not mine but of others and also for fun . I do not expect to be named as a beneficiary to the wealth of any of the individuals . I would have not shed a tear if Bezos or Branson did not return to earth after their self promotion space flights . By the way , how do you know I am not rich ? Do you have access to my balance sheet ? Railing against myself ? As to your unsolicited advice to start my own website , well the host Dennis( to add the founder Ron ) has no problems with me and he has opined on that earlier .
              As to the renewables / battery debate , I have already recused myself from it . See my reply to Gerry F ” I keep away from the renewable / battery debates . ” .
              I am not offended , like I said maybe you got out on the wrong side of the bed . Just putting things in order . By the way i read all your posts , they are interesting .

            3. Hole in Head. Lets unruffle our feathers a little here.
              Just to clarify, when i said start a new thread that means begin a new topic by entering a fresh comment box down below rather than replying to someone else’s note.
              That prevents ‘hijacking’ of someones topic to some other issue (like Bill Gates in this example, which had been initiated as a note about battery innovation). I am aware of that ‘hijacking’ issue now, but in the past I wasn’t and am likely guilty of the practice myself.
              Not sure what rest of your comment was referring to, but feel free to disregard whatever you’d prefer to.

    2. There will be big battery advances this decade, spillover from the explosion of the EV revolution now in progress. In my opinion the entire point of the EV revolution is this spillover so we can get cheap batteries into play for intermittent renewable resources. Once an industry reaches critical mass the advances and price declines are all but inevitable. Eight billion humans can do a lot of science very quickly. Lots of breakthroughs in the pipelines. Not sure which ones will pan out but some will.

  18. Just put him on ignore. Trolls are often just after attention. He’S hijacked the entire thread already.

      1. Dennis, please get this asshole off our site.

        Thank you!
        Stephen

    1. He had started an account on StackExchange, posted his ‘R value of CO2’ insight to the Physics Q&A, and linked to it .

      He’s been banned from all of StackExchange for posting in bad faith.

    1. I looked at the satellite map of northern/central Calif yesterday on the NWS site.
      Its a view I am used to seeing probably over a hundred times in the past decades.
      Startling to see how little green is visible for this time of year.
      Brown.
      The whole country should hope for a good winter winter ran in the west this year, unless you are into
      watching economic decline.

      Image- https://twitter.com/NWSBayArea/status/1417918630121988096/photo/1

  22. About the metal air batteries up thread….

    Does anybody know something about the round trip charge / discharge cycle energy efficiency?

  23. thinking about less energy being available…for some people there will be plenty, as there is today, and for more and more people energy will be tight…maybe very tight…
    what did people do before they had plenty of energy…they worked with their back and their hands, or they forced others like mules or other people to do work for them…
    people with their own fertile land, woodlots, water and weapons used to have some measure of security… until the marauders came- from over the hill, from the Vatican, or from the capital…
    in an energy tight world people will be even more rude, since the easy life, the abundant goods, the leisure time and the sense of security will be more of a memory than an experience…
    who will they blame?…people always like to blame someone, easier than accepting any personal responsibility or casting dispersion on your own sense of god…and you better hope you are not on that false blame list…

  24. See Dennis, I might’ve been right about stagflation scenario playing out.

    Stagflation is ‘a legitimate risk’ that would be painful for U.S. markets

    https://finance.yahoo.com/m/f6f3f3a0-a1be-32c0-9c50-6f4b42904425/stagflation-is-%E2%80%98a-legitimate.html

    Any of my U.S buddies on here, know or want to predict what will occur with the debt ceiling drama. Are they going to raise it again in the final hours…. is there any point of having a debt ceiling anymore?

    1. debt ceiling-
      I would not be at all surprised by any severely dysfunctional move the us government would make in the name of
      -partisanship
      -poorly qualified individuals in leadership/decision making roles
      -a gross misunderstanding of the nature of the world, its economy, and international relations

      hang on to your hat

    2. Iron Mike,

      I will believe the stagflation scenario when there is evidence it is occurring. It remains very doubtful (less than 1 in 10 odds) the scenario will play out in the next 10 years in the US.

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