77 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 24, 2021”

  1. The transition to EVs is accelerating, as we see below. The transition to renewables is also accelerating: they are the dominant form of new generation investment and capacity.

    This isn’t happening because of a benevolent deity, or because of a market invisible hand. It’s happening because scientists, engineers, politicians and political activists worked hard on doing the right thing over many decades.

    We should ask ourselves: what are we doing to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels? Changing our personal consumption is a start, but what are we doing to change society’s large energy systems? Have we called our representative to let them know our concerns?

    ———————————————

    Mercedes-Benz will go 100% electric by 2030, CEO Ola Källenius announced Thursday, with a massive global transformation in its global design, engineering and production network to ensure they hit the target.

    Mercedes already laid out plans earlier to increase its production of plug-based vehicles. The “Ambition 2039” plan it revealed two years ago set a goal of making plug-in hybrids and pure battery-electric vehicles – or PHEVs and BEVs – 25% of its sales by mid-decade. Now, that has been raised to 50 percent.

    “We have to change”
    The Swedish-born CEO pointed to the mounting evidence of climate change for forcing Mercedes to accelerate its transition to battery power. “We have to change, and we will, even faster than we previously planned.”

    1. Agree Nick.
      Some people may scoff at the idea that policy initiatives can make a dent in the fossil fuel depletion story.
      And that is just limp thinking
      Places that go hard and fast on solar/wind, and electric vehicles, will have better prospects as oil prices go up.
      So far there are very few places in the world with strong policy in this regard.

      On a related topic, good interview about weather and climate change-
      https://grist.org/article/is-climate-change-happening-faster-than-expected-a-climate-scientist-explains/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily

      1. Meanwhile, over the last half century, China’s large manufacturing-based economy has primarily been fueled by coal. From 1990 to 2019, China’s coal consumption nearly quadrupled from 527 metric tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) to 1,951 Mtoe. In 2019, coal made up 57.7 percent of China’s energy use. Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined. China’s industrial sector is by far the largest consumer of coal. In 2018, the industrial sector accounted for around two thirds of China’s total energy consumption and consumed more than 95 percent of the country’s coal. And, of course, India’s ambitious renewable energy goals have received attention, but coal still provides half of India’s commercial primary energy and is the dominant fuel for power generation.

        Now, lets hear from the stranded assets crowd.

        1. Doug, I’m just not clear on your point. Are you simply expressing discouragement?

          I don’t think you want everybody to give up on reducing climate change. You’ve expressed eloquent feelings of wanting to leave a better world for your descendants. So I have the feeling that you really do want people to work on making things better.

          I’m not sure you realize that your tone makes it sound like you want people to give up and do nothing. You don’t want that, do you?

          1. Simply introducing a bit of realism to counter the nonsense that renewables will somehow “save” our world, a world in human population overshoot with attendant environmental destruction on a vast and ever-increasing scale.

            1. So you have given up. Every man for themself. Screw the children and grandchildren. I’m ok with that. I’m 65 and no children.

              If that is the case, why do you waste your time here ? Don’t blame me for overshoot and you? Why go to the doctor or take medicine, your going to die anyway?

            2. Doug,

              Do you feel that people should do nothing to reduce climate change?

            3. Doug- “the nonsense that renewables will somehow “save” our world”…

              Sorry man, but that notion is such a tired story.
              Nothing will ‘save’ the world.
              Some things (like Asian coal burning) will make it worse.
              Some things (like eating much less meat) will make it less worse.

          2. This is what someone says when they cannot accept the facts. They turn attention to the messenger.

            1. Quitters are losers. Winners, leaders and heroes take on the challenge, sacrifice and succeed.

              Nick was doing nothing more than trying to clarify the meaning of Dougs comment. Doug has had every opportunity to respond.

              Mike B, let’s clarify your comment. Are you a loser who enjoys the comforts of hard work and sacrifice of earlier generations, but to lazy to play it forward ?

            3. I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I can’t accept not trying.

              Michael Jordan

          3. Baking The Planet The Renewable Way

            That’s right, Nick…

            We’ve got to keep the global economic oven hot so that it can keep baking renewables to cool down the planet down.

            And the extra baked-in goodness of climate change will create jobs, so taxes, so government.

            Win-win.

        2. Chinese coal consumption boomed between 2000 and 2010 and peaked in 2013, as did world coal consumption. Your story is getting older and older.

          https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2020/demand

          The IEA predicts there will be a return to nearly 2018 levels soon, but they consistently predict more fossil fuel consumption than actually happens.

          1. Not so old,

            CHINA ON TRACK TO REACH PEAK COAL USE, COAL-FIRED CAPACITY AND EMISSIONS BY 2025

            And,

            PRESIDENT XI SAYS CHINA WILL START CUTTING COAL CONSUMPTION FROM 2026

            https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-says-china-will-phase-down-coal-consumption-over-2026-2030-2021-04-22/

            https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3132699/china-track-reach-peak-coal-use-coal-fired-capacity

            And,

            RECORD CHINESE COAL BURNING TO DRIVE SURGE IN CARBON EMISSIONS

            “A 4% surge in Chinese coal demand, coupled with higher consumption elsewhere in Asia, as well as in the U.S. and Europe, will trigger a large increase in carbon emissions, the International Energy Agency said, days before global leaders plan a virtual gathering to discuss the climate change challenge.”

            https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-20/coal-is-set-to-drive-a-rebound-in-carbon-emissions-iea-says

            1. Doug , any explanations about the weather in Europe . My friends in the car airco , retail clothing , gardening tools, BBQ etc are going nuts . Rain always . End of July . Spring and summer have been a washout . 1 st july the vacation season began in Belgium . The restaurants have no traffic because of the rains .

            2. HOLE IN HEAD,

              We are currently in wildfire crisis here in B.C. so I’m more concerned with critical stuff that will fit in car in case of an evacuation notice. That said, I have a Daughter who lives in Italy (currently complaining about abnormal heat) and relatives in Norway who continue to be amazed by “unprecedented warming” there. Other than that, I don’t pay much attention to Europe.

            4. To funny to read such nonsense coming from Xi JinPing. Apparently, the world coal production reached a plateau (see my post below). So, how Xi JinPing will increase the production of electricity with coal without coal?

      2. Hickory, when you say “Some people may scoff at the idea that policy initiatives can make a dent in the fossil fuel depletion story. And that is just limp thinking”, I agree.

        Public policy is always crucial in industrial and energy transitions. For energy, Carter provided an essential kickstart to wind and solar; Clinton jumpstarted vehicle electrification with his Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which resulted in the Prius; the California Air Resources Board caused development of the first modern mainstream EV, the GM EV1; Germany heavily subsidized PV and wind and sharply accelerated their development;, etc., etc.

        It’s why the fossil fuel industry wants to cripple government – only government can threaten it.

    2. It is staggering to see how far Toyota has fallen. They are now almost officially the car of climate disruption deniers. All of the world they are vigorously opposing fuel economy standards with intense lobbying efforts. To go from first to last in two decades time, I think this will go down as one of the most botched corporate leadership stories of all time.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

      1. Agree Stephen.
        On the other hand VW has recovered extremely quickly from the diesel debacle.

  2. Morning trivia:

    The Emissions Gap Report 2013, compiled by 44 scientific groups in 17 countries, warned that if the greenhouse “gap” wasn’t “closed or significantly narrowed” by 2020, the pathway to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C will be closed. Didn’t happen.

    But, on the bright side, the 2°C target could still be achieved by implementing ambitious emissions reduction promises, tightening the rules of existing pledges and international co-operation on areas such as energy efficiency, renewables and fossil fuel subsidies. What are the odds? Maybe we should aim for a 4°C target. Would that be more realistic?

      1. Over the past 3+ billion years. That statistic is in no way relevant to the current situation.

        1. We are in a Mass Extinction—
          The last one happened 65 million years ago.
          This is not a regular occurrence.

  3. repost – sorry cannot see the orignal

    windturbines in the UK – a breif back of a fag packet calculation during an idle few hours gooogle searching . so can they pay off?

    Wind strike price was £74.50 per MWh. x 1000 to get £74,500 per GWh produced
    (for comparison Nat gas CCGT strike is £85/MWh with carbon costs of £32/MWh included ( ie a tax ). )

    1, 365×24 = 8760 hours in a year

    2, offshore produces average 0.42 of name plate

    3, a figure of between 30- 60% for maintenance but TWI has another figure;-

    These costs vary depending upon the age of the asset, but average out at around 20-25% of
    the total levelised cost per kWh produced over the lifetime of the turbine. For a new turbine,
    these costs may be only 10-15%, but can increase to 20-35% towards the end of the turbine’s lifecycle

    4, £ 2.5 Billion per GW capacity

    now calculate returns and maintenance;

    so 1 GWh x 0.42 = 0.42GWh x 8760 hours = 3679.2 GWh delivered per annum

    3679.2 GWh x £74,500 = £274.1 million p.a. income

    given 20 years lifetime = £5,482 million or £5.9 billion rounded up *

    given 25 years lifetime = £6,852.5 million or £6.9 billion rounded up *

    * generated at todays costs

    ROI on 5.9/2.5 = 2.36
    ROI on 6.9/2.5 = 2.76

    maintenance costs are estimated and have a large range of values

    best 20% or 0.2 factor ( 1- 0.2 = 0.8 ), so 2.76 x 0.8 = 2.2 ROI

    worst 60% or 0.6 factor( 1- 0.6 = 0.4 ), so 2.36 x 0.4 = 1.4 ROI

    NOTES:

    1, capacity factor is forecast to rise to 0.63
    2, maintenace is forecast to drop to 10%

    best = £10.3 billion income over 25 years
    10.3/2.5 = 4.12 and maint 0.1 = 3.75 ROI

    I beleive UK is committed to build a further 33Gw capacity to add to its current 22Gw

  5. Day and night, bloody smoke.

    B.C. WILDFIRES NOW BURNING TEN TIMES MORE THAN IN 1990s.

    “This year’s wildfire season has exploded across British Columbia. The provincial government has declared a state of emergency. Hundreds of wildfires are burning and thousands of people are under evacuation order. One of those fires, the Lytton Creek wildfire, made international headlines when it burned the village of Lytton to the ground within hours of starting. That particular fire is still “out of control” and is threatening towns to the north.

    And, historically, B.C.’s primary source of climate pollution was from burning fossil fuels. But, wildfires have surged so dramatically they’ve now overtaken fossil fuels as the province’s major source of climate-destabilizing CO2”

    https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/07/27/analysis/wildfire-surge-overtaking-bc-fossil-fuel-emissions

    1. What Change, Climate?
      Maintaining The Economic Oven For Renewables For Baked-In Global-Warming Goodness For Ages To Come

      Yes, but Doug, never mind about forest fires.

      We need to keep burning fossil fuels to keep on with this amazing economy so we can make real renewables– totally renewable like they say– and like the ones manufactured overseas and shipped back to us like from China using Chinese coal and the fossil fuels that it imports and ships in from afar with fossil-fueled freighters, and whatnot/stuff like that, so we can address climate change.

      So we can address climate change.

      See how this works?

      I’ll say it again: So we can address climate change. Like Nick G says.

      We need– absolutely need– to continue to burn fossil fuels– while forest fires burn– Who cares? Has always happened.– to make real renewables like the ones they call renewable.

      Got it?

      Great!

      Now kindly fall in line with the rest of us, please. Okay?

      Because if not, you are in the minority and you know what they say about the minority, right?

      It’s not a good place to be. It slows down progress.

      So please attempt to be in the majority, because the majority are usually right, as we all know.

      And (the awesomeness of) governments too.

      And their media, those bastions of unfake news– CNN, BBC, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, their reps, and/or whatever and so on.

      Keep watching and learning from them and what Your Government and The Majority says.

      To do otherwise is an affront to Climate Change and Good Policy.

      Those forest fires need all of us, including you!

      Thanks!

      Oh wait, did I just say never mind about forest fires? Well then?

      Never mind about them!

      They are historically-natural like climate changes.

      Pass the butter…

    2. Doug, let me introduce you to some “realism”. Wild fires are nothing new. They happened before you moved into your current home and they will happen after your current residents burns to the ground. May I suggest you sell your car and buy a big ass truck for when you need to evacuate. You might want to make sure you also have a good homeowners fire policy, if you can find one and afford it.

      Every man for themself

      1. Buy a boat. Statistically speaking, fewer people die from forest fires when on a yacht.

      2. Doug, let me introduce you to some “realism”. Wild fires are nothing new.

        HB give me a fucking break. Wildfires are nothing new but an increase of ten times the normal amount of wildfires is something that is goddamn new. No one in their right mind could possibly deny that.

        Why, dear god why, does everyone want to shoot the bearer of bad news? The world is going to hell in a handbasket. Okay, so you can deny, deny, deny. But denial will not change one damn fact, not even one.

    3. Doug, I appreciate your posts. As I do many of the others. Beats me why some of them seem intent on dissecting your mood, accusing your view of present and future when all you are doing is posting information about what is happening. Go figure.

      1. You can understand the meaning of the conversation more easily if you start from the beginning and read the comments back and forth.

        1. Nick, just what are you implying? I have been reading Doug’s comments, starting at the beginning and reading one line at a time, back and forth. I find his comments based on fact. And he gives you the link to back them up.

          Doug is giving you an inconvenient truth. But you, and most others, would much rather hear a reassuring lie.

          1. Ron,

            I have no problem with the factual content of his comments. I agree with him that climate change, coal pollution, etc., are serious problems.

            The point is that he didn’t post his first comment as a simple random piece of information: it was a reply to Hickory, which in turn was a reply to my comment. It started with “Meanwhile , over the last half century, China’s large manufacturing-based economy has primarily been fueled by coal.”

            Meanwhile is a reference back to the two earlier comments. It helps remind us that his comment should be read in that context. He’s saying: “Your comment is about progress, and on the other hand there’s still big problems with coal”.

            So, he’s making a point. When I asked what that was, he wrote that the point was: “Simply introducing a bit of realism to counter the nonsense that renewables will somehow “save” our world”.

            But that didn’t really answer my question. Is he really saying that there’s something wrong with efforts to transition away from FF? So I followed up and asked if he thought we should just do nothing to reduce and mitigate climate change. And….he didn’t answer. Which is an answer: he doesn’t feel we should do anything to deal with climate change. Which is entirely consistent with his comments in the past to me and Islandboy which have criticized solutions like EVs, wind and solar.

            Which seems very puzzling to me. Ron, you are very pessimistic, but you’ve said that you think renewables are great. You’ve made a point that humans won’t go extinct, which suggests that you think that there’s some value in humans making some effort to reduce their misery in the future.

            So why does Doug feel so strongly that nothing should be done? That EVs and wind and solar are bad ideas?

            1. Nick G, let’s just come out and say it:

              It’s abundantly obvious that you are acting in good faith and have people and planet in your best interests, rather than your job dictates or salary. Who cares about those, right?

              Your excellent communication skills and obvious good will are so evident– and a big thank you for endeavouring to make them so– that they practically ooze from every pixel of my computer screen and all over my keyboard here.

              Makes typing fun, oh my goodness yes.

      2. Baking The Planet The Renewable Way, Reheated

        Edgy, let’s go over this again…

        We must maintain and further stoke the current economic heat engine that is driving global warming so that it can continue to manufacture renewable energy to address the global warming that the stoking of the economic heat engine is creating.

        Follow me?

        The extra heat, heat-waves and forest fires provide wonderful feedbacks in helping us gauge what we are doing right and can help add to the excitement of an even hotter world that renewable energy can both help provide and then address!

  6. It’s easy enough for most well informed person to step back far enough to see the forest, rather than just trees, when discussing public policy and environmental issues.

    But it’s tough to impossible for some people. They’re simply unable to see the big picture, or REFUSE to see the big picture, or UNWILLING to ACKNOWLEDGE the big picture, for one reason or another.

    So we have Doug, who unless I’ve missed it, never has anything to say, other than to repeat his doom and gloom message. I’m sure, given that he’s a highly intelligent individual, he understands that we shouldn’t just give up……… but you wouldn’t know that from reading his comments.

    And we have Nick…… . Now I’m personally convinced that Nick is either IN the Public Relations/Propaganda industry, or that he has studied it and knows how to use it’s techniques to fight the good fight… which he does, consistently.

    But you can read his stuff on a regular basis without ever seeing him acknowledge that we’re necessarily stuck with, and MUST acknowledge and ( reluctantly) support the current big economic picture status quo, in order to eventually do away with that same big economic picture status quo, replacing it, eventually, with a green economy.

    Bottom line, both of them are preaching a message for the simple minded, for people who aren’t capable or willing to really think for themselves.

    What Doug might tell a young man or woman to do, in order to live to be old, is one huge question mark.

    What Nick has to say is ok, even perfect, as a Sunday School lesson for the good little kids…… just do what teacher says.

    But his message is the kind that’s easily used as a club by the political opposition to make environmentalists look like nut cases.

    I suppose that in their own way both of them are acknowledging that the general public is either incapable of or unwilling to do any serious thinking.

    Doug’s message can be useful in that it can perhaps shock some individuals who hear it, from him or others of his camp, into becoming environmental activists.

    And Nick’s is very good in that it fits in nicely with a progressive political agenda, which taken all around is highly desirable, at least for everybody except a small number of very rich people whose wealth derives from the status quo.

    I’m personally trying to discover ways to get inside the mental defenses, the city walls of political and cultural prejudices, that keep Joe and Suzy Sixpack voting Republican, assuming they even BOTHER to vote, and thus voting by default for the present day economic status quo, even though it would be very much to their advantage to support the green movement.

    I can’t say that I’ve come up with anything original, but there are some arguments that resonate strongly with some individuals, if you can work them into any conversation or discussion of public policy involving the environment.

    Try to avoid the partisan politics, if at all possible, when you talk to an old country guy, or factory hand about wind and solar power.

    Stick to the arguments he knows and understands. He’s going to be very much into things that last, and brag about how long his old Chevy truck has lasted. But he will also readily acknowledge that most of his neighbors also own a compact car these days…… primarily in order to fill up with ten gallons rather than thirty. He very well understands that tires for the car are four hundred bucks, tires for the truck are half again to double that.

    So he can APPRECIATE the argument that wind and solar farms mean his electric utility have to buy less gas and less coal year after year, everything else held equal, etc. He can appreciate LOCAL tax collections, and he can appreciate keeping money IN his state, rather than sending it to a coal mining state, etc.

    The kind that are into guns, militia, military, etc, are capable of understanding and appreciating the fact that while we have plenty of gas, and ENOUGH oil and coal for now, it’s better to save these things, than to export them, because eventually we will be short of them, and it’s better to AVOID importing them, because that means sending our hard earned dollars overseas to people who are all to often NOT our friends, to put it mildly.

    If you handle it right, you can get it across to such a man that people in countries such as Germany are at very high risk of economic strangulation and national collapse without their potential enemies even having to fire a single shot…… all it would take is for Russia, or any major oil and or gas exporting country, to shut off the pipelines and quit loading ships for a month. Germany has to export a car to get foreign exchange to buy gas and oil to run a car IN Germany……. and the car export business is not necessarily always going to work for Germany. The Koreans and the Chinese are ALREADY eating their lunch, and even staid old American car companies are coming around to the point they can build cars comparable to anything Germany can build an export.

    So wind and solar power, for Germany, are just as valuable, and just as critical, in terms of the safety and prosperity of the German people, as a few more divisions of troops equipped with tens of billions of dollars worth of worthless military hardware…… unless it’s actually used to fight.

    Older guys can enlighten younger ones, by acknowledging that when Thatcher and Reagan were running things, we had it made with the North Sea, and with Alaska. Both are pretty much played out now, but don’t get radical about proving it, just say this is how much oil we’re getting from Alaska NOW……. maybe twenty percent of what we USED to get. Don’t argue about what’s in the ground there …… other than to point out that it too will eventually run out, or so short it’s too expensive to get the last of it out to be used.

    They say amateurs talk about tactics and strategy, the pro’s, the ones with stars, talk about logistics.

    We are going to win or lose control of this country, politically, one voter at a time.

    Most of the regulars here, maybe all of us, know at least a couple of people we can start down the road to political enlightenment.

    All that’s necessary is to avoid offending them while gently enlightening them about such issues as climate, fossil fuels, etc, after discovering their hot buttons…… and pushing them gently.

    1. we’re necessarily stuck with, and MUST acknowledge and ( reluctantly) support the current big economic picture status quo, in order to eventually do away with that same big economic picture status quo, replacing it, eventually, with a green economy.

      I’m really not sure what you mean by this, or how you think that what I’ve written in the past disagrees with this. My comment at the top argues that we need to move faster on the transition from fossil fuels. Do you agree with that? Do you see anything, uhmmmm….misleading or unrealistic about that?

      I think we fundamentally agree about the challenges ahead: I think that the resources and technical knowledge needed for a transition from FF are already here. I think the primary challenge is political. And…isn’t that what you were talking about in your comment: educating people, one at a time, so that they support better policies?

      1. Hi Nick,
        We are indeed on the same page, lol.

        What I mean is that your comments tend toward the pink tinted glasses type.

        I’m certainly no expert on public relations, advertising, etc, but I know a little, and a huge part of that little is tenaciously staying on message while seldom saying much if anything about the difficulties involved.

        This makes your comments read as if you were an advertising man, lol, taken at random, or a political ideologue.

        “This isn’t happening ………. because of a market invisible hand.”

        The invisible hand has a HELL of a lot to do with it happening, but I do agree that pressure brought politically has a HELL of a lot to do with it happening far sooner than it would have otherwise.

        Engineers and investors aren’t pouring billions of dollars into wind and solar power, electric vehicles, etc, primarily to save the environment. They’re doing it to make a buck while solving a problem that has grown big enough to warrant their investment.

        I’m not privy to what a fly on the wall would hear if a couple of GM or Ford board members are having a drink in a private setting, but I’m willing to bet that while they SELDOM if ever mention peak oil publicly, they are VERY well aware that oil depletes, and that a few years down the road, they’re going to be up shit creek without a paddle, in terms of market share, unless they have a good line up of electric vehicles, regardless of what is or is not done politically.

        Unfortunately the public is best educated, in terms of changing what it believes, with soundbites, endlessly repeated, in terms of bang for the expended buck.

        Somebody is going to jump my ass for going back to the best known originators of the BIG LIE technique of public mind control, the nazis, the rule being that if you repeat a big enough lie often enough, people come to believe it.

        The advertising industry applies this same rule endlessly with endless energy, bombarding us with ads continuously until we come to believe the ads, simply because they’re repeated so often.

        It’s ironic that the environmental movement is also more or less compelled to use this same technique, but it IS used, across the board, because it WORKS.

        So I’m not finding fault because you use it, because in your case, you’re using it to GOOD ends.

        I’m just pointing out a reality. When you use sound bite techniques, the opposition can cherry pick your words and use them as clubs to make you look bad.

        1. Hi Nick and Old Man Farmer,

          Old Man, your take on the BIG LIE in my view is right on. Powered by nationism, white supremacy, racism, etc. Five years ago I didn’t understand just how extreme the problem is and how Trump tapped into it. If one watches WWll documentaries now. It is scary to see the correlation of what is going on now here in the states and Germany in the 30’s. One has to wonder if the extreme right aren’t using the documentaries as a play book. In general Old Man we are in agreement except guns and HRC. Don’t get me wrong, HRC is not the princess you at times think I believe she is. Regarding gun, adult human “apes” can not be allowed to play with them in modern society like Barbie and Ken dolls. How is your father doing?

          Nick, no one has been more correct about the future of EV’s and future transition in the past on this site than you. In addition, no one has taken more abuse on the subject than yourself also. You have my respect.

        2. Mac,

          I appreciate your feeling that I have good intentions. But…

          I emphasize that the technical and resource problems are relatively unimportant because I really feel that way. And…I suspect you kind’ve do too. You’ve said many times that if we took the resources that we use for sports stadiums and other low priority items and invested them in addressing our energy and climate problems, the problems would be handled pretty quickly.

          The fact is that we could move remarkably quickly, and with relatively little pain, with a simple measure like a $5 per gallon carbon tax rebated back to low income individuals and vulnerable businesses. That would create a cost level comparable to what we see in Europe, which works: European consumers use only 18% as much fuel per capita compared to the US. The same approach would work in the rest of the world.

          WInd and solar are cheaper than coal in most of the world. They’re cheaper than the operating cost of coal, and they are very competitive with or cheaper than gas. They just need some push from public policy .
          Why don’t we do a carbon tax, if it’s so effective and relatively easy? Even though even conservative economists pretty much universally agree that carbon taxes are a good idea? Because the FF industry is very, very aware that a carbon tax would work. There’s a reason (besides, you know, not wanting to pay taxes) that the Koch’s are fiercely determined to make “no new taxes” a litmus test for republican (and all) politicians. So we’re stuck with complicated and ineffective things like “cap and trade”, and carbon offsets.

          Ok, so on to a different topic: the value of public policy. I definitely agree that market forces are helping to propel the transition from FF. My point was that public policy helped shove these things over the initial barriers to entry that help preserve “natural monopolies” (or oligopolies) like the FF industry, the ICE car industry, rail, horses, wood(!), etc.

  8. An old article (2009) but interesting nevertheless.

    Physics in the Oil Sands of Alberta, Physics Today
    https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.3099577

    (Apologies for posting in the non-petroleum thread, but it didn’t seem to fit in the current petroleum threads.)

    (Interesting aside: One of the references is to a paper on “Sedimentation of Blood Corpuscles”.

  9. New concepts for hydrogen fueling stations take form<, Physics Today, June 2021
    https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.2.20210407a/full/

    A major obstacle to greater adoption of hydrogen-fueled cars and trucks is the simple matter of getting the light element from the large plants where it’s produced to the service station pump. Now two companies have announced plans to generate and store hydrogen at the point of sale using their compact modular systems.

    Standard Hydrogen, based in Albany, New York, will go one step further by including a power-generating stationary fuel cell in its “energy transfer system.” The company will install its first facility in early to mid 2022 at a power plant in New York operated by the utility National Grid, pending regulatory approval. Meanwhile, PowerTap Hydrogen of Vancouver, Canada, says it will install 10 of its hydrogen fueling systems at existing service stations in northern California later this year. They are expected to fuel that state’s small fleet of hydrogen-powered long-haul trucks.

  10. EARTH’S ‘VITAL SIGNS’ WORSENING AS HUMANITY’S IMPACT DEEPENS

    The global economy’s business-as-usual approach to climate change has seen Earth’s “vital signs” deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday, warning that several climate tipping points were now imminent. The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that governments had consistently failed to address the root cause of climate change: “the overexploitation of the Earth”.

    Of 31 “vital signs”—key metrics of planetary health that include greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness, sea-ice extent and deforestation—they found that 18 hit record highs or lows. For example, despite a dip in pollution linked to the pandemic, levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane hit all-time highs in 2021.

    https://phys.org/news/2021-07-earth-vital-worsening-humanity-impact.html

    1. From your article:

      In the immediate term, they proposed a trio of emergency responses to the climate emergency.

      These consisted of “a significant carbon price”, a global phase-out and ban of fossil fuels, and the development of strategic climate reserves such as restoring and maintaining carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots.

      Do you agree with them?

      1. “Do you agree with them?”

        Who am I to disagree with the consensus view of 14,000 scientists?

    2. At the risk of putting words into his mouth, for which I apologise in advance, I think Doug is really the optimist and the EV technocopians are the ultimate doomers. They have a narrow focus on our carbon footprint to the exclusion of our overall ecological footprints. Following their BAU type vision (which comes down effectively to a belief in infinite growth on a finite planet) will lead to a deeper and uglier collapse leaving a largely dead planet with no soil, no fresh water, no biodiversity, no coral reefs, no fish, and quite possibly no humans. Doug is also a realist in recognizing human nature and empathizing with how we will each struggle for survival and advantage in the short term as individuals (thank god) rather than as the Borg collective hive mind the technocopians foresee as the long term answer (but only if the collective vision is their vision, of course).

      2. George that’s just a load of crap, plain and simple. To get humanity and planet earth back on track is going to take 10’s of thousands of changes to human activities. Eliminating the burning of fossil fuels for transportation is just one of the many significant of them. A few months ago I tried to start a conversation about a one child policy, only for that to get shoot down here at this form also. It’s always some fucking reason for in action or lack of vision. Just a conversation of one child policy could bring to society the importance of the situation, but the naysayers shut it down quickly. Change has to start somewhere and EV’s are just one of the most painless. The only organizations that have the ability and power to make the changes that are needed is government and to do that in a democracy the public needs to pull their head out of their ass and fight for survival.

        George, comments like yours will continue down BAU.

        1. I think all of us are traumatized by the times we live in. We are literally killing our own mother. Doug sharing news about our destructive ways or Nick offering hopeful thoughts about renewable energy and EVs is all good, generally I read what both of them say and agree with both. We inherited this world from our forbears and our ability to make positive changes on a planet filled with eight billion naked apes is severely limited. But I appreciate both their efforts. And if we can ameliorate our own personal traumas by sharing them with other folks who give a shit on this blog, then all the better.

      3. George,

        I’m really puzzled. The article that Doug provided indicated that a wide variety of scientists (14,000!) agree that decarbonizing is absolutely essential to both reducing climate change and protecting the overall environment. These aren’t “EV technocopians”.

        “The global economy’s business-as-usual approach to climate change has seen Earth’s “vital signs” deteriorate to record levels, an influential group of scientists said Wednesday, warning that several climate tipping points were now imminent. The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said that governments had consistently failed to address the root cause of climate change: “the overexploitation of the Earth”.”

        In the immediate term, they proposed a trio of emergency responses to the climate emergency.

        These consisted of “a significant carbon price”, a global phase-out and ban of fossil fuels, and the development of strategic climate reserves such as restoring and maintaining carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots.

        Do you agree with them?

  11. Nick G: Just one question. How old are you?

    I’m 40, I’ve been studying all of these things since I was 27. It’s hopeless, utterly hopeless. Just enjoy your one life.

    Or, prepare if you wish. Find an ark, a place of civilization that’s reasonably sustainable and just find your role within it. But don’t bother with humanity. They won’t change.

    They literally locked up healthy young people in their homes just because some old and diseased people were dying of a pendemic. How dare that kid try to walk around and interact with people! That rich old man with a huge house and car is going to contract a virus! That’s how insane humanity is in valuing it’s billions of people and their continued growth and consumption of resources, and in maintaing every single specimen until the very end, at great cost to us all.

    2. hey Dolph
      next time you feel sick as hell (and it will happen unless you take a bullet to the head and bypass the sick as hell phase), then do the world a favor and don’t be a hypocrite-
      By that I mean- stay home and tough it out.
      Don’t go to the hospital.
      Suffer it at home.
      See if you are fit enough to survive without help.
      No matter how bad it gets.
      Fuck the tourniquet.

      That is the prescription you have offered everyone else.
      If the pandemic had not been fought hard- then all the hospitals would have been overflowing onto the street very quickly. Very little or no treatment for literally millions. No matter what the injury or illness. National Guard cordoning off the hospitals and urgent care clinics.

      Next time you are sick as hell and you seek medical care- remember this discussion-
      You didn’t want other people to get help with their sickness, and you didn’t give a shit if someone else got sick, or injured with no access to care.

    3. My Turn
      Hey Dolph9, maybe certain members of the tax-coerced public who pose, posture and prance around to care so much about life and limb (minus the part about freedom I guess) should be withdrawing their taxes that support, for examples, their governments’ shoddy/dubious virus research/security, to say nothing about their wars/war-machinery and so forth.
      And getting out of their cars (because they kill but also pollute/destroy) and biking/walking/etc. or relegating themselves to padded cells for their own protection and the rest of society’s for that matter.
      Anyway, it looks like they flogged your text output a little bit with their text output so maybe those creatures behind the digital curtains feel better now. If so, it’s not just good, it’s awesome-good.

      Oh ya, happy 40th. by the way. May the younger generations, along with the rest of the planet, continue to be thrown under the bus.

    4. How dare that kid try to walk around and interact with people! That rich old man with a huge house and car is going to contract a virus!

      it’s worse than that! A narrative has been and continues to be propagated, that this disease cannot be treated and there is only one way out. This so that the rich old man’s investments in Big Pharma can enjoy some spectacular growth because “the way out” is by way of patented products made by these companies.

      One particular group of doctors is countering this narrative and has a weekly update video series, the latest of which will either cheer you up or make you mad as hell!

      FLCCC Weekly Update 28 July 2021: Covid-19 Variants, PCR Tests, Nurses for FLCCC and more!

      What I find intriguing is how little interest there is in finding out how India quashed the delta variant. The answer certainly doesn’t fit the mainstream narrative so we get this:

      More Covid Mysteries
      There’s much to learn about how the virus spreads.       (New York Times, account required)

      In India — where the Delta variant was first identified and caused a huge outbreak — cases have plunged over the past two months. A similar drop may now be underway in Britain. There is no clear explanation for these declines.

      In the U.S., cases started falling rapidly in early January. The decline began before vaccination was widespread and did not follow any evident changes in Americans’ Covid attitudes.

      In March and April, the Alpha variant helped cause a sharp rise in cases in the upper Midwest and Canada. That outbreak seemed poised to spread to the rest of North America — but did not.

      This spring, caseloads were not consistently higher in parts of the U.S. that had relaxed masking and social distancing measures (like Florida and Texas) than in regions that remained vigilant.

      Large parts of Africa and Asia still have not experienced outbreaks as big as those in Europe, North America and South America.

      There’s obviously more to this pandemic than we are being told!

      1. Currently in the states 99.5 percent of the Covid 19 deaths are the unvaccinated

        1. Copy/Paste

          “…are currently under investigation for fraud… Currently in the states 99.5 percent of the Covid 19 deaths are the unvaccinated… Biden has suggested that Putin should…”

          Believe your captured legacy corporate mainstream media’s expert fear-porn agitprop-level talking-head decontextualized/etc. CV-19 death statistics pronouncements including the ones that might have come from dubious sources or other medical causes or otherwise derived dubiously. Indubitably. Regurgitate them uncritically. Believe the supposed results of the PCR test, what with how it was(/is still?) used and its interpretations. Believe Fauci/CDC/WHOever like they want you to and like their interests want you to. You owe it to them, because you just do. Believe the stories about from where the virus most likely originated (from a wild animal, naturally. Don’t even think about a lab-leak.). Believe in your government (or else). Follow their mandates. Just believe and follow orders. Don’t walk out the door of your place, get into your car, go downtown or for a hike or a swim in the wild, don’t take a plane flight or eat at a resto. Are you kidding? Don’t put anything into your mouth that you don’t know where it’s been, even if they’re tasty, hot and want it/you. Wear a couple of masks, hell even 3 or 4, socially-distance yourself, follow the arrows, and sterilize your hands and shopping cart handles, etc., like you’ve got a serious case of OCD or something. Don’t think for yourself. Don’t risk death on your feet. Embrace it on your knees or, ideally, lying down in bed, watching television. Stay at home. Stay safe. And remember, we’re all in this together.

          See also The System That Cried Wolf.

        2. I am somewhat amazed at how few people appear to be curious about how the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, With a population of 230 million has brought their daily new case count down to 60 as of July 29 (the US reported 122,823 on July 30)

          The media in the states is now ratcheting up the demonization of the unvaccinated and ignoring the fact that the standard of care for those that test positive remains “take Tylenol and come back when you can’t breathe”. The doctors in the video linked to above are accomplished critical care physicians and the frustration in their voices is palpable when they talk about the failure to even attempt to treat covid patients before they become critically ill and require hospitalization.

          The picture below is of a notice in a newspaper from the state of Uttarakhand in India. They used a similar strategy to that used in Uttar Pradesh. The picture has been translated to English using Google Lens and outlines the recommended “medicines” to be taken if one tests positive. The full sized, higher resolution image is at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2p5CjfVIAMIRCf?format=jpg&name=medium

          These doctors insist that early treatment can keep most people out of hospital but, it appears that nobody’s interested in what they have to say.

          1. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Again try to let this sink in, 99.5 percent of Covid deaths in the states are from the unvaccinated.

  12. Out of Time

    “If we burn more fossil fuels than the carbon budget allows, the scales will tip and the world will overshoot the temperature target. CDR could feature in this equation in three different ways.” ~ Neil Grant, Ajay Gambhir

    What carbon budget?!?

    Given the rapid increase in floods, droughts, general disruption of climate regimes, heatwaves, heat domes, storms, wildfires … disappearance of ice, Arctic ice decline, etc…, and the fact that so conservative a climate scientist as Michael Mann now says that ‘Catastrophic climate change is here.’
    ( https://www.democracynow.or… ), on what basis are any of us discussing things as if we’ve not already used up our ‘carbon budget’? The carbon budget concept was designed as a tool–before ‘dangerous’ anthropogenic climate change hit–, to ostensibly help avoid ‘dangerous’ — and now it’s widely accepted that dangerous was a step before catastrophic…, and we’re now at catastrophic.

    Have we all decided that reason and sense are no longer important?

    Can we please stop talking as if we have some more ‘carbon budget’ to spend?

    The IPCC still basically treats anthropogenic climate disruption as if it were a linear process in relation to CO2 emissions (and other greenhouse gases). But climate scientists widely regard the system as non-linear, and profoundly influenced by positive feedbacks which increase the rate of global heating. Why are we (generally) speaking about such matters using the scientific presumptions of a couple of decades ago, despite the fact that the science has changed in the meanwhile?

    ‘CDR’ appears to me to be nothing more than a wishful thinking pipe dream meant to distract folks from reality as the world continues to increase emissions year after year after year. I consider this CDR talk as a ruse, and nothing more.” ~ JRiverMartin

    1. Speaking of Arctic ice decline,

      ARCTIC MELT SETS EARLY JULY RECORD

      “Whether it’s warm water flowing from the North Atlantic into the Barents and Kara Seas, intense heatwaves over the Laptev, increased coastal sea ice thinning, or the Last Ice Area potentially melting away far sooner than expected, things aren’t looking good for the state of Arctic ice. Nor for the world, which relies on this icy region for its cooling moderation in a quickly warming world.”

      https://news.mongabay.com/2021/07/as-arctic-melt-sets-early-july-record-hard-times-lie-ahead-for-ice-studies/

    2. Yup, that was me talking — JRiverMartin.

      I want to be clear that although we are now experiencing an early phase of catastrophic climate disruption (on a scale which looks like this: safe————dangerous———-catastrophic … it may not be too late to avert some of the worst case scenarios in the catastrophic phase. It may be possible, however unlikely, that we could pull out of the nose dive. That is, it is possible that we’ve not already pushed things to the point where dramatic and rapid mitigation would be too late to prevent a self-driving system heading toward 3, 4, 5, 6 degrees of human-caused heating. Once we get to that range of numbers there’s basically nothing to prevent a gargantuan collapse not only of civilization but of global biodiversity and ecosystems… a horrible catastrophe of life on Earth.

      I do not know whether it is already too late, and so I continue to call for a dramatic shift in culture, politics, economy, etc. Merely switching to “renewables” while attempting to maintain industrial civilization as we know it would, of course, be a wildly inadequate response.

  13. When you are so deep into overshoot there is no good answer.
    Every move you make will crush something.
    Ok, I admit, some moves will be less crushing than others.
    And yes, Ok, that is an important distinction. A difference in the degree of severity.

    Just what is your goal anyway?
    Domination and destruction of the ecosystem? Ok, you win.
    Domination and destruction of other peoples? Ok, here we go again. Strap on your helmet.
    No one wins.
    A moment of weightlessness while still alive? big fucking deal
    A peaceful late summer afternoon moment on the porch. Nice…along with 8 Billion others.
    Porches covering the entire garden of eden, or where it once existed.
    And then the sun sets on the planet earth, and whats left of your little god shrivels up.
    Few birds, few crickets….no beaver.
    The last women will walk to the ocean edge, hearing only the crunch of old motherboards and water bottles underfoot.

    [thought a man as he retrieved his Amazon order box from the porch]

  14. While we dither:

    CARBON DIOXIDE PEAKS NEAR 420 PARTS PER MILLION AT MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY

    “While the year-to-year increase of 1.8 ppm in the May CO2 peak was slightly less than previous years, CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa for the first five months of 2021 showed a 2.3 ppm increase over the same five months of 2020, close to the average annual increase from 2010 to 2019. There was no discernible signal in the data from the global economic disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We are adding roughly 40 billion metric tons of CO2 pollution to the atmosphere per year. That is a mountain of carbon that we dig up out of the Earth, burn, and release into the atmosphere as CO2 – year after year. As the measurements from Mauna Loa show, despite decades of negotiation, the global community has been unable to meaningfully slow, let alone reverse, annual increases in atmospheric CO2 levels.”

    https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2764/Coronavirus-response-barely-slows-rising-carbon-dioxide

  15. There have been some here who espouse the view something to the effect of
    ‘everything we do is destructive as hell, so we must stop…just shut it (the human machine) down’

    Well, nice thought, but its just as fairyland thinking as would be thinking there will be a fusion reactor in everyones garage.

    7.9 Billion people aren’t about to say ‘ok old man [or young man] I hear you and your profound realization. yeh lets just shut things down’

    Sorry, but is that is just not in the cards.
    There is a hell of a lot of momentum to this human tsunami.
    Best you can work for is to get a mildly smaller tsunami, by making a lot of changes in the way humans do things.
    If people care about how much nature is left in the wake, or how sustainable the world will be for those who are left after the population ‘readjustment’, they would focus on enacting those changes.

    If not, its all just talk, or dither, or complaint. Or a settlement with the idea that any attempt is a hopeless wasted effort. If you have arrived there- Hey, there is always work on habitat protection.

    -post script. we all struggle to grapple with these realities. I find myself seeing things from various angles, with very different conclusions at times. I have in fact argued for the very thing that I called out above- that being the abrupt shutting down of the human machine when I suggest that we stop having offspring, or stop living so long. Bringing up those suggestions at family gatherings can get pretty damn awkward…
    Pick your moments.
    Pick your battles.

    1. HICKORY —

      For a start, I wish they’d stop destroying rainforests in Central and South America that are being burnt down to make way for cattle farming, farming which supplies beef to the rest of the world. Apparently for each pound of beef produced, 200 square feet of rainforest are destroyed. Then cleared land cannot be used for long without the forests’ nourishment so the soil soon becomes dry and the cattle farmers then have to move on to create new cattle pastures leaving a trail of destruction. I’m not optimistic. Our local cattle baron insists he can’t raise enough beef to supply his market. When I told him I’ve stopped eating beef he just laughed. I guess beef burgers trump vegetarian.

      1. I hear you Doug and certainly concur. You are not alone- many people up and the west coast have cut way back on meat eating it seems. No beef anymore for me as well.
        Yet the human hunger for meat collectively just keeps growing.
        I’m not optimistic about that either until population starts to decline.

        Here are the top beef importing countries, but the list would look different if it was shown per capita.
        https://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-imports-ranking-countries-0-106900
        And then there is seafood and all the other meat.

        Someday there will soylent meat, and not from soy or dead humans, but from fungus and pea and ??, on a mass scale, but I suspect most of the residual forests that are on half decent soil will be pasture by the time it be scaled up and adopted.

        I do salute those who are giving a strong effort. A collection of small changes in behavior can equal a little habitat (and biodiversity) saved.

        7 million years. Maybe many places will have grown back nicely by then, in our long absence.

  16. No one wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

    We have 7.7 billion humans in a collapsing ecosystem.
    Over the last 200,000 years, homo sapiens have had a population of 1-10 million, with a near extinction 65,000 years ago.
    This is a predicament,
    I take a exestentialist view, and do what I think is right action, regardless of the outcome.
    I’m not Camus, but making an effort.

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