Peak Oil Barrel

Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 26, 2025

D C

Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please. Thanks.

D C

64 responses to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 26, 2025”

  1. Doug Leighton

    Not good

    GLOBAL GAS FLARING SURGES TO 17-YEAR HIGH

    “Gas flaring released 389 million tonnes of CO2 in 2024, with global flaring hitting its highest level since 2007. Weak regulations and limited enforcement continue to allow oil companies to waste gas and pollute the atmosphere. Countries like Kazakhstan and Egypt show progress, but most top flaring nations—including the U.S. and Russia—have made little improvement.”

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Global-Gas-Flaring-Surges-to-17-Year-High.html

  2. hightrekker

    “Convicted felon rapist is calling for Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, and Kamala Harris to be arrested.”

    1. Alimbiquated

      He really hates women.

    2. Huntingtonbeach

      He doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t praise him

    3. Survivalist

      A nation of pedophiles,
      who elected a pedophile,
      to stop the pedophiles.

      It’ll be interesting when Trump pardons Maxwell.

  3. THOMPSON

    If you were living in Rome when it transitioned from a republic to an an Empire with Emperors you may well have been bewildered by the rise of homosexuality (as they called it) and pedophilia back then too. But in the end, everyone went along, because what other choice did they have? They were too busy just trying to get ahead, or make ends meet, depending on their social class. Sounds just like today. People never change.

    1. Survivalist

      In the Republic, It was socially acceptable for a freeborn Roman man to want sex with both female and male partners, as long as he took the penetrative role. The morality of the behavior depended on the social standing of the partner, not the gender, and even pederasty was condoned as long as the younger male partner was not a freeborn Roman.

    2. JJHMAN

      There’s a difference between “rise of homosexuality” and “public acceptance of homosexuality”. I suspect the latter is closer to reality.

    3. THOMPSON

      I suspect you’re right, it’s something I would have said in the post if I’d thought about it. Truth is homosexuality and pedophilia have been with us forever, at all levels of society. It’s just that at certain times it becomes acceptable behavior and not something you do in a closet. When Rome was a young farming civilization, as most Empires began out as, I doubt it was flaunted like it is today. I wonder if they’ll ever legalize pedos? One way would be the collapse of what we call the Western Christian based empire. Islam has no issues with it, nor do the Indians outside of their British imposed moralities. Africa too!
      As SURVIVALIST commented above, as long as the younger male was not free born Roman. No mention was made of girls, perhaps because little girls didn’t count for much in those cultures. They don’t in many cultures today! A dreadful thought, and a dreadful subject, but one that is in the consciousness of everyone now that so many rackets and high profile cases have been exposed.

    4. JJHMAN

      I think the only issue is whether we are dealing with consent. That is an issue both of age and mental competence and, I suppose that, within some guidelines, age is variable. I know that when I was 17 a my 16 year old girlfriend was perfectly mature enough to decide on such issues. I guess she was mature enough since I went away disappointed.
      When I had daughters my opinion changed dramatically.

  4. WeekendPeak

    WSJ has an interesting take on (de)population
    https://www.wsj.com/economy/global/the-depopulation-bomb-b8b4fd1e?st=2Gy6yJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    “Population growth actually makes challenges such as resource scarcity easier to solve. Assume a fixed share of people become idea generators: scientists, entrepreneurs or inventors. The greater the population, the more ideas.
    Solving most problems also involves fixed costs. Developing a vaccine or a smartphone costs the same whether for one person or 8 billion. The bigger the population, the more such investments become financially feasible.”
    Rgds WP

    1. Hickory

      “Assume a fixed share of people become idea generators”
      I think that may be a very faulty assumption.
      More importantly, humanity needs to get much better at encouraging individual people how to behave themselves….restraint of aggressive and destructive tendencies, and to train people how to resist becoming part of the destructive mob. In general, we are miserable at those tasks.

    2. THOMPSON

      Ideas? It’s Ideas that got us into the mess we are in now. Ideas coupled with capitalism coupled with greed! They used to use root canal surgery as an analogy for how industrialization was great and you wouldn’t want to have missed that, but I’ve had a few and they often lead to infection and all manner of trouble till the tooth is finally pulled. Less people sounds like a solution to me. Especially food scarcity.

    3. JJHMAN

      “Population growth actually makes challenges such as resource scarcity easier to solve.”
      That is only true if the problems are solvable and there is a will to solve them.
      The desire to live in a culture of high resource consumption with rampant nationalism and a demand for constant growth in population and individual output may be neither.

    4. Kleiber

      lol that the shitlib computer toucher finance bros think more thinking will get us out of material reality predicaments.

      Explains the massive investment in AI. We can just will reality to bend to our whims because spreadsheets rule the world, not physics.

    5. JJHMAN

      “shitlib” Like Musk, Peter Theil, Larry Ellison?

    6. Iver

      This is a prime example of a journalist focusing on one issue, because they are not intelligent enough to take in the multifaceted world and put problems in any sort of order.

      Does anyone really think we will take fewer fish out of the oceans with 9 billion people?

      https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/global-fish-stocks-are-lower-than-previously-thought-390182

      India with a population of 1.4 billion up from 300 million in a life time, has used up much of its fresh water stores. The massive increase in population has not fixed anything. Articles of dying crops and failing water supplies will only get worse.

      https://news.sky.com/story/one-in-four-living-with-extreme-water-stress-these-are-the-countries-worst-affected-12940995

      If a country receives 2,000 cubic meters of fresh water per person, then things are ok. If that population doubles then very expensive infrastructure needs to be built. Dams, recycling plants, water meters, farms constantly monitored for water misuse. As the population further increases even more expensive technology must be used.

      The 22,000 desalination plants globally only produce 0.4% of human water consumption. Desalination is not cheap and beyond the reach of most poorer countries counties that are water stressed.

      https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/how-much-energy-does-desalinisation

      Deforestation has not been fixed by the global population increasing 5 fold in 150 years it has increased by the same amount. Now forest fires are destroying as much as deforestation.

      https://www.wri.org/insights/forest-loss-drivers-data-trends

    7. Survivalist

      One of the most interesting things I’ve learnt from the internet is that there are people willing to write for free who are better at it than those who expect to get paid for it.

    8. kolbeinih

      WP

      The thought provoking paragraph;
      “Population growth actually makes challenges such as resource scarcity easier to solve. Assume a fixed share of people become idea generators: scientists, entrepreneurs or inventors. The greater the population, the more ideas.”

      I would say that religion historically made living within the means a major issue. My reference is protestantism, but I am sure that several other religions had some of the same core principles in place: Keep people disciplined, with a purpose, accepting the status quo and living within their means dictated by the status quo.

      Probably some in this flavour in a blend with technology roboust enough for tougher times are going to be necessary at some point. But for now we are exploring the boundaries of what is possible foremost.

  5. Doug Leighton

    Some good news, better late than never

    CHINA’S COAL CAPITAL IS TRANSFORMING INTO A CLEAN ENERGY HUB

    • Shanxi produced 1.27 billion tonnes of coal in 2024 but is rapidly expanding its clean energy capacity.
    • Major investments in solar, wind, and hydrogen projects are helping the province shift its energy profile.
    • While the transition promises environmental benefits, over 1.7 million coal-related jobs could be lost by 2030.

    In 2024, China’s primary coal mining region, Shanxi, produced around 1.27 billion tonnes of coal, which is more than that of India. If Shanxi were a country, it would be the second-biggest coal producer in the world, after China. However, thanks to the government’s rapid renewable energy rollout, the country is growing to rely less on coal and is developing its green energy sector. China is developing more wind and solar power than the rest of the world combined, and its wind and solar power generation soared to almost 1,500 GW in April, exceeding its fossil fuel output.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Chinas-Coal-Capital-Is-Transforming-Into-a-Clean-Energy-Hub.html

  6. hightrekker

    “he will have spent at least $52 million of taxpayer money on golf trips.”

    It could be worse?

  7. THOMPSON

    An interesting phenomena is occurring in the EV-O-Sphere. Since the sales began declining a year and more back they took to rebranding Hybrids as EV, to get the adoption rate up. Now many Ytubers and ev sites are slandering the Gasoline hybrid, in it’s many forms, saying it’s NOT the way to go and will hinder the uptake of true EV. They were happy enough when the sales were small but the fact people have flocked to them in preference to ev’s has been a gob-smack. In a sense hybrid adopters are a case of having your cake and eating it too. You get the green nod, but don’t suffer the range anxiety and all the other baggage.

    ‘Hybrids Are A Road To Hell’ says the “godfather of EVs” https://insideevs.com/news/745522/hybrids-road-to-hell-china/

    1. JJHMAN

      I chose a plug-in hybrid in 2017 (Chevy Volt) and still think it was the best choice. Since most of my driving is around town the 40+ mile range is rechargeable overnight. I just put gas in it last Friday for the first time since November 15th last year. I never put in more that 6 gallons unless I’m going on a trip.
      I think the push for all electric cars was a big mistake. Hybrids get people used to the idea of charging (with training wheels), save huge amounts of gas and help to encourage building up the infrastructure.
      Having said that, EV sales are only dropping in the US, the rest of the world is acting more rationally. Probably a big part of that is the Trump effect; pro-big oil noise, removing incentives and scaring buyers about the future.

  8. hightrekker

    “Three people in this country own more
    wealth than the bottom half of America”
    -Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

    1. Bob Nickson

      This doesn’t appear to be true. The total net worth of the bottom 50% of the US population is about 4 trillion, while the combined net worth of Musk, Bezos, and Zuck is about 902 billion.

    2. Nick G

      It looks to me from household net worth percentiles that the correct value is roughly 30%.

      The top 3 individuals hold about as much as the bottom 30%.

      Not good.

    3. Bob Nickson

      While true that it is not good that three individuals hold more wealth than the bottom 30%, it is also true that I personally hold more wealth than the bottom 10-15% simply because my net worth is positive and theirs is not.

    4. Nick G

      Well, isn’t it a serious tragedy that 10-15% have very little in the way of cash or assets and overall are in debt? That’s a very, very hard way to live. Should we tolerate such a thing in this “great nation”?

    5. THOMPSON

      Tolerate? surely you are not advocating forcing people to save? Forcing them not to spend half their income on Alcohol? They tried that once, prohibition, it was a failure. Every year SS pays out over a trillion dollars, direct, no tax. If people choose to spend every dollar they have and then go into debt, you can’t stop them.

    6. Bob Nickson

      Perhaps. Depends on how you look at it. Some chunk of those negative net worthers drive new expensive cars and live in new houses in wealthy neighborhoods and have high incomes. None of those things are true for myself, but my old car and my old house in my poor neighborhood are paid for. Statistics, you know. No doubt many people are crushed by grind and circumstance, but the wonder of credit also allows a lot of people to trade future wealth for present comfort. Is that necessarily a tragic thing just because they are 20 years away from positive equity?

      To circle back to the class war. I don’t agree with Bernie that there should be no billionaires. Stock ownership of successful companies that you founded are a thing, and entrepreneurs should not be punished for success. I don’t care if there is no ceiling, but I do care a lot about where the floor is, and the floor is too low.

    7. Nick G

      Some chunk of those negative net worthers drive new expensive cars and live in new houses in wealthy neighborhoods and have high income

      I don’t believe that’s realistic. That would require mortgage (and auto) lenders to completely ignore credit worthiness. Sure, many people don’t handle money well, but the kind of people you’re talking about have significant positive net worth.

      OYOH, bad money management is NOT the primary problem. And even where it is, we shouldn’t blame the victims of rapacious lenders, exploitive banks, and a system designed to help those who have the power to take advantage of crony capitalism.

      Chase is IIRC, the largest bank in the USA – it’s very convenient. But, don’t use its savings/money market accounts, which pay .01%. They offer an “investment” account that pays 4.5%, but the average acount holders with $500 or $5k will never have access to it. OTOH, those that have that account don’t pay the many exploitive fees paid by the average account holder.

      And that’s just one example of many: interest rates for loans are much higher for those who can least afford it, often with no real risk-based justification. The use of credit ratings to screen renters & set car insurance rates, redlining, etc., etc.

      It’s a rigged system.

      ———————-

      A somewhat different topic:

      “ Stock ownership of successful companies that you founded are a thing, and entrepreneurs should not be punished for success.”

      Corporations are a social invention, not a part of nature. They were invented to subsidize large ventures that took risks because that was thought to be valuable to society. They privatize profit and socialize losses. There’s a limit to losses, so there should be a limit to the upside.

    8. Alimbiquated

      Thompson
      Forcing them not to spend half their income on Alcohol?
      Not forcing poor Americans to waste money on cars just to participate in the job market would be an excellent start.

      Car oriented development, not alcohol consumption, is the primary cause of poverty in America.

      Another huge problem is the lack of a working health care system. Inability to pay for health care is a common cause of bankruptcy in the country. Self-medication drives alcoholism fuels the illegal drug market, making crime endemic.

  9. Alimbiquated

    About Epstein’s mysterious death, here’s something that is seldom mentioned: Epstein had a cell mate, Nicholas Tartaglione, an ex-police officer.

    Tartaglione was in jail for murdering four people, including one using a zip tie, and was in the cell when Epstein died. Apparently he was a hit man.

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-police-officer-sentenced-four-consecutive-life-sentences-2016-quadruple-murder

    After Epstein’s death, he was questioned, and police decided he had nothing to do with Epstein’s death by strangulation.

    1. Survivalist

      Most cops start out fresh as sanctimonious assholes, and it’s all downhill after that.

      I’ve heard it from reliable sources that if Trump orders US troops against Canada, the first thing Canada will do is demolish the potash mines. Not sure what the plan is. They might eat us.

    2. THOMPSON

      I have never trusted the Police, they are just a street gang run by government. They have their territories and run protection rackets, traffic fines and other petty laws they enforce so the gang leaders have a steady income. Sure they keep order, to a degree. But so does every street gang in it’s territory. What’s the difference between a gang peddling heroin and a gang peddling Oxycontin?

    3. Alimbiquated

      Survivalist
      The primary problem with the American police is the lack of basic training.

    4. Se

      Hereabouts police training for lowest level takes about three years. They have additional trainings with some frequency – laws are changed and so forth. You alos need additional training for special branches and for higher positions.

    5. Survivalist

      SWAT Officer At Armed Standoff Has His Rifle Sight On Backward

      https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-officers-rifle-mistake-2013-3

      Most cops are an absolute embarrassment.

    6. Nick G

      I would question that.

      My understanding is that current police training is counter productive, because it is based on unrealistic and harmful premises:

      -suspects should always be considered highly dangerous;
      -officers should prioritize their own safety;
      -officer safety should be ensured by achieving absolute control over the suspect.

      This is a setup for unnecessary danger to suspects, implicit use of racial profiling, and terrorizing and humiliation of suspects, which naturally leads to deep distrust on the part of the community, and a cycle of fear-induced resistance and increasingly oppressive tactics.

    7. hightrekker

      yep

      https://i0.wp.com/digbysblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/image-22.png?

  10. Doug Leighton

    TRUMP BIDS TO SCRAP ALMOST ALL POLLUTION REGULATIONS

    “Once the proposal is published in the Federal Register, the EPA will open a public comment period. Once it finalizes the rule, it will face an array of legal challenges. But if the rollback prevails, it would leave the EPA without any authority to regulate greenhouse gas pollution amid ever-compounding evidence that a swift reduction in these emissions is needed to avert catastrophic global warming.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/31/trump-epa-endangerment-finding

    1. Doug Leighton

      Meanwhile,

      THE COAL CONUNDRUM: BALANCING GROWTH AND CLIMATE GOALS

      “Despite years of climate summits and net-zero targets, global coal consumption and production both hit record highs in 2024. According to the newly released 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, global coal demand reached an all-time high of 165.1 exajoules (EJ), a powerful reminder of how deeply the world still relies on this carbon-intensive fuel.”

      https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/The-Coal-Conundrum-Balancing-Growth-and-Climate-Goals.html

  11. hightrekker

    “Deluded Don’s Climate Con”
    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-s-climate-con

    Nice use of words—-

  12. THOMPSON

    Someone said the system is rigged, and it surely is, from retirement savings accounts that tend to be put in debt ridden corporations, propping their stock prices up, to a faux democracy that puts a layer of respectability between the owners and the workers. But that doesn’t mean you have to partake of it, any of it really.

    Peakoil was the Morpheus moment, you either took the Red pill, or you stayed forever in slavery. By taking the Red pill I mean changing your whole life and how you lived it. Some of us did that, 20 years ago or so, most just talked and talked then went back to business as usual. But lets keep talking, that’s a part of it too. Talking while the value of our Gold and Silver portfolios climbs every upward with inflation.

  13. Alimbiquated

    Interesting plot twist

    https://phys.org/news/2025-07-faster-global-linked-chinese-aerosol.html

    1. THOMPSON

      That’s old science, a rapid decrease of those solar reflecting particles and chemicals would certainly speed things up, instantly.
      2010 – https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Aerosols/page3.php

  14. hightrekker

    Where do they find these clowns?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/31/myanmar-junta-ends-state-emergency-prepares-elections#img-1

  15. Doug Leighton

    Another bloody fire pumping CO2 into atmosphere.

    WILDFIRE RAGING NEAR GRAND CANYON GROWS INTO A ‘MEGAFIRE’

    “The largest wildfire in the continental United States in 2025 has achieved “megafire” status. The Dragon Bravo fire has already burned roughly 100 structures and become the largest fire, by far, to hit the Grand Canyon National Park since 1984. On July 13, the wildfire razed the historic 1937 Grand Canyon Lodge.”

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/wildfire-raging-near-grand-canyon-143849707.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

    1. Iver

      Wildfires are decimating more and more forests all over the world.

      https://www.wri.org/insights/global-trends-forest-fires

      Global soil is deteriorating at horrendous rates.

      https://earth.org/95-of-the-earths-soil-on-course-to-be-degraded-by-2050/

      Most people I have talked to have no idea about soil or water depletion. Although I think they will start to learn about these things very soon.

    2. T HILL

      Iver,

      WRI seems to have some good info.

      I am skeptical about the earth.org data source you cite for soil degradation though. Our-world-in-data provides some nice graphics and analysis of recent work by Evans et al

      Evans, D. L., Quinton, J. N., Davies, J. A. C., Zhao, J., & Govers, G. (2020). Soil lifespans and how they can be extended by land use and management change.

      https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans

  16. HHH

    US jobs numbers for May and June got revised down sharply by a combined 258,000 jobs. May’s total dropped from 144,000 to 19,000 and June’s. From 147,000 to 14,000.

    So we only added 33,000 jobs from those months combined. This economy is at stall speed.

    If the labor market goes to hell so will oil prices.

    1. Iron Mike

      I expected a sharper drop in oil prices than the one we got on that news.

    2. JT

      The Bureau of Lies and Speculation is a worthless matrix. The Fed has now been exposed as irrelevant it really doesn’t matter what they think or do regarding the real economy they are only in the business of creating asset bubbles. Energy is the economy and net energy per capita is declining.

      https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1949877681027166608

  17. Nick G

    “ Governance. Putin has sought information control in Russia since the first days of his presidency. Russian security services raided a major independent TV station in Russia days after Putin’s inauguration in 2000.[3] Putin established state control over Russian media by 2003.[4] The Kremlin has introduced new forms of information control every year since 2000.[5] Present-day Russia punishes any expression that appears to conflict with the Kremlin‘s agenda, and Putin has been expanding censorship since launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[6] The Russian state sentenced a Russian teenager for using 19th-century Ukrainian poetry to protest Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2025, for example.[7] The Kremlin’s efforts to create a national instant messaging platform are among its latest attempts to expand monitoring of domestic communications.[8]”
    https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/primer-russian-cognitive-warfare

    Here in the US, that seems suddenly very familiar.

  18. Alimbiquated

    Chart showing how data center construction is replacing office construction since the rise of large language models.

    https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3lvh32mzdcs2g

  19. hightrekker

    Trump Is Now Running the Worst Economy Since His Last Term in Office

    Some consistency?

  20. THOMPSON

    Data centers. Full of pointless youtube narcissism, personal consumer records for targeted advertising and government over-watch, and naturally, Petabytes of pornography. The gaming industry generates and uses a massive amount of data, In 2020 gaming-related data volume was estimated to be 568 petabytes. Data centers consume 2-3% of global electricity and the figure is growing fast. Bitcoin isn’t hosted at data centers, it’s decentralized and uses an additional 0.5% of global electricity.

    And they want to do away with coal fired power generation?

  21. THOMPSON

    AI Data Centers in Texas Used 463 Million Gallons of Water, Residents Told to Take Shorter Showers.
    https://techiegamers.com/texas-data-centers-quietly-draining-water/

  22. JT

    So to put that in context we need to reduce our standards of personal hygiene so unemployed 30 and 40 year old men can play video games and have AI based chat bots. This is not an advanced civilization this is a crumbling one.

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/08/03/if-only-wed-read-soddy/

    The BLS could fake their numbers for years because of steady demographic growth. Suddenly they’re caught wrong footed because their algorithms no longer work. So every jobs report is adjusted substantially to the down side. It all goes back to one basic unavoidable issue declining net energy per capita. Which is destroying the economy because of no productive capital creation. Because this way of life is unsustainable there is no human way possible to fix the situation. The bubble economy we are living in is starting to burst and will burst completely.

    1. THOMPSON

      Proof the latest technology is actually a step backwards.
      https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hiOeV9fzQAM

  23. Doug Leighton

    Net zero you say.

    BP MAKES ITS BIGGEST OIL AND GAS DISCOVERY IN 25 YEARS

    “BP has hailed its biggest oil and gas discovery in over a quarter of a century as the oil giant renews its focus on fossil fuels. The FTSE 100 group revealed the find after drilling a well off the coast of Brazil, in the Bumerangue oil field, just over 400 kilometres offshore from Rio de Janeiro, spanning more than 300 square kilometres…
    BP – like its rival Shell and other peers – has shifted away from net zero ambitions to focus on extracting more oil and gas, following pressure from some investors to boost its profits.”

    https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-makes-biggest-oil-gas-113103830.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink

    1. Doug Leighton

      Meanwhile,

      NORDIC COUNTRIES HIT BY ‘TRULY UNPRECEDENTED’ HEATWAVE

      “Scientists record longest streak of temperatures higher than 30C in region in records going back to 1961.”

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/02/nordic-countries-hit-by-truly-unprecedented-heatwave

    2. THOMPSON

      Is that like the massive reserves they found in the Black Sea? That weren’t actually there.

  24. Ovi

    A new open thread Non-Petroleum has been posted.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-august-4-2025/

    An update to May US production has been posted.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/us-may-oil-production-hits-new-high-again/

Featured Post

  4. Ovi, Falling new well productivity per 1000 feet of lateral length has been occurring in the Permian Basin since 2017.…