128 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 3, 2020”

  2. So, as U.S. citizens, we are functionally trapped within our borders now, as most of the world won’t risk letting Americans in due to our Covid19 control failure.

    Hopefully the prophesied Great American Shit Hitting The Fan event hasn’t already begun, and we’re not on track for a once in a millennium neighbor eat neighbor situation from which there is no escape.

    1. I’m personally convinced that we will be rid of the orangutan in the WH in January, and I’m willing to bet two to one now that the Democrats will gain control of Senate as well.
      Plus I expect a lot of down ballot Republicans to lose as well, even in states that have been reliably red up until now. The red is fading out except in the south and midwest.

      https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/gop-lawmakers-are-about-to-start-throwing-trump-under-the-bus-because-he-cant-hurt-them-anymore-conservative/

      But there’s still a possibility that something could happen that would turn the odds back in favor of the Republicans.

      1. We are witnessing all 5 stages of collapse. Plan for independence from cancers in DC.. too far down the rabbit hole. What matters is they start no more new wars.

  4. We have brokered thousands of 18650 torches. This week’s pick headlamp for hurricane season. Single direction USB C, mag, waterproof, and the extra capacity of the 2170 (Tesla M3 dim cell ) is worth the price premium. Only wish it has a 100 Lum mode that would give a week of run time. You can source 5Ah cells but check reviews for actual capacity. Many lie about capacity and sex. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WVD11F1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

      1. Mac,

        Here’s a bit of authoritative info on the question of the cost of cycling fossil fuel generators: “ The renewable generation increased the amount of cycling (start up, shut down and ramping) on the existing fleet of generators, which will result in increased VOM costs on these units. However, these increased costs were small relative to the value of the fuel displacement.”

        https://www.pjm.com/committees-and-groups/subcommittees/irs/pris.aspx

        I think this has the detailed analysis: page 39 might have the particular results you’re looking for. It looks like the additional costs are very small for gas, but significant for coal:
        https://www.pjm.com/-/media/committees-groups/subcommittees/irs/postings/pjm-pris-task-3a-part-g-plant-cycling-and-emissions.ashx?la=en

        1. Thanks Nick,

          I’m grateful anytime anyone posts such links. Research is not my long suite, for sure. It’s too time consuming, and I’m not a details person.

          The info in these links puts the utility industry itself on the record as saying a lot of anti renewable propaganda is just that… propaganda bullshit.

          Here and there I can quote it, when somebody says something either stupid or totally outdated, such as that it costs more in fuel and wear and tear to start up and shut down gas fired power plants than we save in fuel costs by having wind and solar power on the grid.

          This old argument might still be true in the case of coal fired plants though, in some cases, since they are so slow to ramp up.

          I believe it’s safe to say that the environmental camp has won the public opinion war when it comes to wind and solar power, nationwide, in political terms. The people who are still opposed seem to be part of the hard right wing crowd that reflexively believes in everything old as better than anything that’s new, or else people who have financial or political skin in the fossil fuel industry.

          I foresee a truly major infrastructure push shortly after the Democrats gain control of DC again, and long distance transmission lines will be a major part of this push, along with plenty of new wind and solar farms of course.

          And the cheaper wind and solar power gets, the cheaper it WILL get, due to economies of scale in manufacturing and in terms of worker skills and streamlined regulations.

          Three or four years ago, it was commonly said that a typical homeowner scale solar installation cost only HALF as much, turnkey, in Germany, as it did in the United States.

          The reasons usually given for this huge discrepancy were that Germany had a consistent nationwide electrical code, so that everybody could get right along with the work without beuracratic hold ups, and that German installers were well experienced in the work, so that they didn’t have to stand around scratching their heads trying to figure out what some obscure rule meant.

          I don’t know how much of that gap has been closed so far, but I’m guessing it’s still about as big as ever, because if you ask a typical Yankee electrician what he knows about solar power installations, the answer is usually ” nothing”.

          Ditto carpenters and roofers, who have to do things somewhat differently in order to make solar installations go smoothly in the case of new work.

  5. Islandboy, kudos for your relentless environmental efforts; do you think they might be influencing locals? ?

    JAMAICA BECOMES FIRST CARIBBEAN NATION TO SUBMIT TOUGHER CLIMATE PLAN TO UN

    “By 2030, emissions covered by the plan would fall by between 1.8 and 2.0 million tonnes of carbon dioxide relative to the projected BAU levels of 7.2 million tonnes, it said. That was more ambitious than a decline of 1.1 to 1.5 million tonnes under the original plan.”

    https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/07/02/jamaica-becomes-first-caribbean-nation-submit-tougher-climate-plan-un/

    1. I can’t answer for Islandboy, and wouldn’t presume to try, lol.

      But I hope the people on the ground there who are working on expanding the local renewable energy industry understand that the best way to sell more wind and solar power faster to the people of this fine little country is to point out to them that every dime they save on imported gas and oil is a dime they have to spend on themselves, locally.

      An appeal to the pocket book is apt to work better than any other approach in a relatively poor country entirely dependent on imported fossil fuels.

      Of course a tougher climate plan is great news in and of itself, and can in and of itself lead to greater investment in renewable energy and conservation.

  6. On the PJM website at 11:08 am EST the load 106,855 MW . The contribution from about 20,000 MW of installed wind capacity, 40 MW. What a waste

    1. Ervin, maybe the wind’s not blowing? Can you tell us the capacity factor for the last month?

      1. I do not know the capacity factor but I have been checking the website for 20 years and every summer the contribution of wind is almost always 2000 or less but in March with a load of 70,000 to 80,000 the wind supply can get to 8,000 to 9,000 MW. My point when it’s needed the most it’s not there.

        1. There’s a nice inverse correlation between wind and solar: wind is lower in the summer and in the daytime, when solar is higher.

          Never look at one energy source in isolation: it’s the system that’s important.

        2. PJM Interconnection LLC Class Average Capacity Factors Wind and Solar Resources Effective June 1, 2017 1Wind Class Average Capacity Factors Wind Farm Location2Capacity FactorIn Mountainous Terrain14.7%In Open/Flat Terrain 17.6%Solar Class Average Capacity Factors Solar Installation Type3Capacity FactorGround Mounted Fixed Panel42.0%Ground Mounted Tracking Panel60.0%Other Than Ground Mounted38.0%Notes: 1 Averages other than those above can be requested for planned facilities with proper documentation. Alternately for solar, the appropriate solar calculator can be used

          xxxx

          This info is directly copied from a PJM document.

          Note that these figures are historical averages, as best I can tell, and only go up to 2016 or so, being compiled in 2017.

          Older wind and solar farms aren’t nearly as productive and cost efficient as newer ones.

          But if the hundred thousand plus MW mentioned by is correct, then the historical average production from PJM wind farms would be about FIFTEEN THOUSAND, probably closer to sixteen thousand MW.

          And for every day or hour production is low, there’s obviously another day when production is high enough to create that much more impressive average.

          And let’s not forget two really important things. ONE, once built, a wind farm runs on a truly negligible amount of fossil fuel, just enough to run the maintenance trucks and equipment.

          MY guess is that over the long term, a modern wind farm will pay for itself just from the savings associated with buying gas or coal to run a conventional generating plant year after year, because I personally expect the price of gas to rise sharply sometime within the next few years.

          TWO, once it’s built, it can be refurbished more or less forever for a very minor percentage of the initial new cost, because the permits, financing, roads, interconnections, tower foundations, towers, and so forth are all good indefinitely.

          And old tower can be repaired or torn down if necessary, but tower replacements are apparently sort of rare.

          And when it’s time to replace the gen set, the turbine itself plus the associated generator, the new one that will go up there anywhere from twenty to thirty years down the road will outperform the one there today by a substantial margin.

          Fossil fuels DEPLETE. The less gas we use to generate electricity, the more we have left to heat homes, manufacture cheap nitrate fertilizers, etc.

          Even the dumbest right wingers are gradually coming around to understanding that wind and solar farms in THEIR neck of the woods mean local jobs, local tax money, and greater local control of their own personal business.

          1. Since you are convinced that wind and solar is the most efficient source of new power, I have to ask why anywhere they are aggressively advanced the result is very expensive electricity ie. Germany, UK, California.

            July 5, 2020 at 10:00 am the load was 99,000 MW with wind producing 18 MW

            I’m retired and on the internet everyday and I never fail to check the PJM site. I have never seen the wind production over 10,000 MW and when it does get near that number It is during March or April when the system load is low. I don’t know but the cost of maintaining upwards of 20,000 MW of capacity to be used several months a year is a real cost the system must bear and it makes that cheap wind not so cheap.

            The billions of dollars invested producing next to nothing.

            Warren Buffet once said the only reason his company invests in wind is for the subsidies. That says it all.

            2. Thanks for catching that Nick. I should have been more awake myself.
              Maybe Ervin is simply mistaken but serious…… but on the other hand, maybe he’s pushing misinformation, trolling for the fossil fuel status quo.

              It’s probably an honest mistake on his part, since he says he’s never seen wind power at ten thousand or higher, which would be perfectly understandable, with less than ten thousand in installed wind capacity, lol.

              So…… the wind production at roughly fifteen percent capacity for PJM would be around thirteen to fourteen hundred average.

              That’s one hell of money saved on coal or gas, totaled up over twenty years.

            3. Yeah.

              One thought: I’m a little puzzled by the 14.7% capacity factor for wind, as the national average in the US in 2017 was about 35%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

              If that’s really what PJM is getting, that would explain why offshore wind looks attractive on the East Coast.

              OTOH, solar capacity factors of 40% or more are also surprising: perhaps these are calculations for “firm” (statistically likely) contributions during peak periods.

            4. Buffet was saying this sort o thing six years ago. The price of wind power has fallen by half or more since then, and wind power also confers some SUBSTANTIAL non cash benefits in terms of pollution and improved public health outcomes.

              Generally speaking some of the cheapest now electricity in the world today is generated by either wind or solar farms.

              Subsidies were put in place years ago to help both industries grow faster, and so drive the price of electricity DOWN faster.

              The more wind and solar electricity we have available, the CHEAPER the selling prices of coal and natural gas….. both of which are important or even critical inputs in other parts of the economy.

              Cheap gas means cheap nitrate fertilizers, which in turn mean cheap food.
              From https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power

              Real power prices range in European mid-table

              Although in early 2019 they paid the highest nominal power prices of all customers in Europe, a stable majority of Germans continued support the Energiewende and said they consider it generally beneficial for the economy. A possible explanation for this insouciant attitude would be that for many people the financial impact of rising power prices on customers’ budgets is not substantial, since it constitutes only a relatively small fraction of their total income.

              When counted in real terms, the country actually ranks in the middle field compared to fellow EU states. In Bulgaria, for example, power prices are only one third of those in Germany. But power outages are not only much more common, Bulgarians also on average earn only one ninth of what people earn in Germany, newspaper Tageszeitung (taz) reported.

              In 2015, only 2.3 percent of the households’ disposable income were spent on electricity, similar to mid-1980s levels. In 1998, the respective figure was 1.78 percent, as the liberalisation of energy markets led to a temporary price drop.

              Surprisingly, many people in Germany do not even know how much they actually spend on electricity at all. In a 2017 survey conducted by Bitkom, 92 percent of respondents said power consumption was an important consideration when buying new household appliances. At the same time, almost half (49 percent) of respondents said that they did not know their annual power consumption, and 37 percent had no idea how much they paid for it.

              Germans don’t have any problems paying for electricity, lol.
              They know that every kilowatt hour they generate with wind and solar power means saving some money on imported oil and gas.. most of which comes from Russia.

              Neither the Russians nor the Germans have forgotten WWII.

              A wind farm or solar farm is as useful as a fighter jet or a few tanks or a warship, in terms of national security, if your country has to import most of its fossil fuel supply.

            5. I forgot to mention that taxes on consumer residential electricity in Germany are among the highest in the world.
              This enables them to provide electricity somewhat cheaper to their industries, which are highly dependent on exports in a brutally competitive export market.

              And I also forgot that once the older wind and solar farms in Germany are at the end of their first service cycle, the turbines and solar panels will be replaced with MUCH BETTER new ones that cost WAY LESS than the original ones, with the total price of a twenty five year refurbishment being only a VERY minor fraction of building a new wind or solar farm from scratch, because almost everything EXCEPT the turbines and panels will last indefinitely, excepting possibly some turbine towers may have to be replaced or down rated to using a smaller turbine.

              Ninety percent or more of the original work and equipment will continue in use indefinitely, from access roads to security fences to interconnections to foundations and mounts.

              Panels that are replaced will either be recycled or sold on the used market to people who have plenty of space for them and they will be VERY glad to get panels that still produce at seventy five or eight percent for ten or twenty cents on the dollar, lol.

              Virtually everything in a gen set, except maybe the turbine blades themselves, will be entirely recycled, because just about everything is steel or copper etc, excepting insulation for wiring.

              The blades themselves for all the turbines in the entire world would easily fit in the ash pit of one large coal fired power plant, lol…… and the odds are pretty good the blades can be ground up and put to good use as foundation for roads, etc, if not remanufactured into other new products.

            6. Also, Germany is still paying very high feed-in tariffs on old wind and solar capacity. Those old subsidies were a gift to the world, as they helped the global industry scale up and reduce costs.

            8. “I have to ask why anywhere they are aggressively advanced the result is very expensive electricity ie. Germany, UK, California.”

              Re Germany:

              1) Electricity has always been very expensive in germany, that was a feature, not a bug.

              2) PV is now even in Germany so cheap that massive new constructions of PV will not really affect the RE surcharge, that are legacy installtions from ~2011.

              3) Most RE comes from wind turbines…

  7. ARCTIC MELTDOWN

    “Much of the world remains consumed with the deadly novel coronavirus. The US, crippled by the pandemic, is in the throes of a divisive presidential campaign and protests over racial inequality. But at the top of the globe, the Arctic is enduring its own summer of discontent…

    “Vladimir Romanovsky, a researcher at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said the pace, severity and extent of the changes are surprising even to many researchers who study the region for a living. Predictions for how quickly the Arctic would warm that once seemed extreme “underestimate what is going on in reality,” he said. The temperatures occurring in the High Arctic during the past 15 years were not predicted to occur for 70 more years, he said.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/rapid-arctic-meltdown-in-siberia-alarms-scientists/2020/07/03/4c1bd6a6-bbaa-11ea-bdaf-a129f921026f_story.html

    1. It’s the Fourth of July. Time to turn off the computer, take a break from the doom propaganda for a day, and rejoice in the fact that you have the freedom to even look at such content in the first place.

      1. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
        There’s never been a Fourth of July in our country’s history when it has been more important to remember this quote…… than this one.

        Having said this much, it IS important to stop and contemplate the obvious fact that compared to most of the people in the world today, we Yankees have it made in the shade, and that the whole world is not necessarily going to go to hell in a hand basket.

        Some of us, and a large portion, probably most of the biosphere, will survive human overshoot.

        1. Thanks for that quote. We take our Freedoms very seriously here in South Mississippi but many of us got forced to celebrate God & Country at home this year because many of the normal July 4 events were cancelled.

          1. Almost everybody I know with an IQ above about ninety or so is hunkered down likewise.

            So far three people I knew well enough to say hello have died of CV19, all of them pretty old, to be sure, and residents of nursing homes or assisting living facilities.

            I have one very good friend, sixty seven, just got out of the hospital with it after thirty three days.

            My sister knew three people who died from it just the place she worked until retiring a few months back. All of them were production workers in a large factory. She was the HR manager, and dealt with damned near everybody in the entire plant face to face at one time or another, but she retired in January, before the virus showed up locally.

            It’s running wild in local nursing homes.

  8. Donald Trump stated yesterday that 99% of all Covid-19 cases are harmless. I just did the math of cases vs. deaths.
    In the USA, 4.52% of all cases result in death.
    In the World, 4.66% of all cases result in death.

    So much for the truthfulness of our esteemed President. Or perhaps he thought he was being truthful, but just too stupid to know the difference.

    I know, I know, not all cases are reported. That may be the case but then not all Covid-19 deaths are reported as Covid-19 deaths. Covid-19 causes deaths from pre-existing conditions. So the deaths are usually reported as those from those pre-existing conditions. So I would still say that the death rate is about 4.5% unless someone has otherwise evidence.

    1. I guess I ought to feel sorry for him, but I don’t.

      Herman Cain, after toeing the orangutan line on all common sense rules, namely ignoring them, and actually promoting such reckless behaviors, is in the hospital with CV19.

    2. The Pandemic’s Big Mystery: How Deadly Is the Coronavirus?
      By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/coronavirus-death-rate.html

      On Thursday, after the World Health Organization held a two-day online meeting of 1,300 scientists from around the world, the agency’s chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, said the consensus for now was that the I.F.R. is about 0.6 percent — which means that the risk of death is less than 1 percent.

      Although she did not note this, 0.6 percent of the world’s population is 47 million people, and 0.6 percent of the American population is 2 million people. The virus remains a major threat.

      At present, countries have very different case fatality rates, or C.F.R.’s, which measure deaths among patients known to have had Covid-19. In most cases, that number is highest in countries that have had the virus the longest.

      According to data gathered by The New York Times, China had reported 90,294 cases as of Friday and 4,634 deaths, which is a C.F.R. of 5 percent. The United States was very close to that mark. It has had 2,811,447 cases and 129,403 deaths, about 4.6 percent.

      Those percentages are far higher rates than the 2.5 percent death rate often ascribed to the 1918 flu pandemic. Still, it is difficult to measure fatality rates during pandemics, especially at the beginning.

      So far, in most countries, about 20 percent of all confirmed Covid-19 patients become ill enough to need supplemental oxygen or even more advanced hospital care, said Dr. Janet Diaz, head of clinical care for the W.H.O.’s emergencies program.

      Whether those patients survive depends on a host of factors, including age, underlying illnesses and the level of medical care available.

      Death rates are expected to be lower in countries with younger populations and less obesity, which are often the poorest countries. Conversely, the figures should be higher in countries that lack oxygen tanks, ventilators and dialysis machines, and where many people live far from hospitals. Those are also often the poorest countries.

      1. New cases, yesterday:

        Germany: 298
        Denmark: 10
        Norway: 11
        Sweden: 57

        United States: 55,442

        1. High trekker,

          A proper comparison would we new cases per one million of total population.

          For yesterday (July 8, 2020) US 187 new cases per million residents and Germany 5 new cases per million residents, so Germany is doing 37 times better than the US. It’s like a football match between Germany and US. 🙂

      2. “said the consensus for now was that the I.F.R. is about 0.6 percent — which means that the risk of death is less than 1 percent.”

        The age corrected IFR of the pasengers on the Diamond Princess was around 0.6%, the range in Austria and German determined by small antibody studies 0.3% – 0-8%.

        These numbers require however sufficient ICU capacity, if the ICUs are overwhelmed the rate will triple to around 1.5%.

  9. I just copied this from a CNN opinion piece.

    “With his limited mind, deficient heart and empty soul on full display, Trump is discovering that a man who declares “I alone can fix it” runs the risk of being blamed when everything breaks down. This is why his 2016 campaign aide Sam Nunberg says Trump is risking one of the worst defeats in history and political TV host Joe Scarborough is speculating about Trump quitting. Trump is “acting like he doesn’t want to get re-elected,” says Scarborough. “He’s acting like he really wants to lose badly and take the Republican Party down with him.”

    I’m no expert in such matters, but I’ve taken a few courses in psychology, and I’ve read a great deal about abnormal personality issues or problems. I’ve also been unfortunate enough to have encountered two or three nickel and dime level characters very much like our orangutan president.

    Scarborough’s words have a ring of truth to them, as a I see it.

    Such people, once they realize they’ve lost a public fight for position, power, status, money, etc, are very likely to try to drag their supporters down with them. It’s just their natural way of doing things. The orangutan has been doing this politically ever since he got elected, using his rabid hard core base to force more moderate Republican politicians to play along with him or else be driven from office via being “primaried” by his attack dog followers. He’s proven to be perfectly willing, even eager, to throw anybody and everybody under the bus if it it pleases him to do so.

    Throwing the entire Republican establishment under the bus is simply taking this behavior pattern to the final possible extreme.

    There’s a real possibility that the Republican Party, as we know it today, is a dead man walking, although it might stumble along for another decade or so, until it’s current hard core voter base is either dead or on Social Security and Medicare, lol…… at which point the individuals among them with IQ’s above ninety will suddenly come to understand that “SOCIALISM ” isn’t all that bad a deal…… lol.

  10. Notice: When logging on this morning I received this message:

    Dear Peakoilbarrel Visitor,

    You’ve been selected to take part in this year’s online anonymous survey. Tell us what you think of Peakoilbarrel in this 30 second survey, and to say “Thank You” we’ll present you with a few exclusive rewards worth up to $199.95 cash value!

    Question 1 of 8
    What is your gender?
    • Male
    . Female

    This is a scam. PeakOilBarrel did not send this message. I have gotten it twice now, once about a month ago and again today. Please, if you should receive this message, just ignore it.

      1. No, it was not an email. When I logged on to peakoilbarrel it popped up in a new window that I was redirected to. That was the second time this had happened. The first time was about one month ago. This was simply someone trying to get my personal information. They probably do this to a lot of people on other web sites.

        I paid no attention to it, just closed the window. But I thought I should warn people just in case they get the same message. Just ignore it, it’s a scam, someone being very inventive trying to get personal information from people.

  11. Remember when it was “illegal” to hook an answering machine to a telephone line? The Code-A-Phone case resolved the issue and kicked off the telecommunications revolution. Two examples of the Empire striking back at the rebels. IMO This will just result in Defections and the begining of the end for Centralized generation. Sticks and wires need to go.
    “In its annual State of the Energy Market report, the Australian Energy Market Regulator has suggested that solar households should be asked to pay a network fee to be allowed to export energy to the grid.”

    https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/07/03/solar-households-can-soon-be-charged-for-their-exports/?utm_source=pv magazine Australia&utm_campaign=51ce07da53-PV_AUSTRALIA_WEEKEND_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_853c809e71-51ce07da53-159005411

    https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2020/06/30/dont_let_washington_regulate_rooftop_electricity_497689.html

    Note the soft costs for Grid Interconnection can be up to 40% of a PV system costs. These are the idiots that botched Energy De regulation a decade ago and they could have been charging to use the Grid as a battery at a fair price long ago. Are you are grid Parasite?

  12. MSNBC says the Supreme Court is probably going to announce its decision on Congress having access to the orangutan’s tax records tomorrow.

    1. This looks to me like a very important decision on separation of powers. My sense is that the Roberts court doesn’t want to be too aggressive in their move to the right, so I’d bet that it will go against Trump. I’m holding my breath…

      Only a little blue so far…

      1. This is BEYOND very important. It’s basically fundamental in terms of the way our government will work in the future.

        The hard core right wing is not thinking things thru. They’re hoping the SC will protect trump, but forgetting that whatever he gets away with, a Democrat will be getting away with too, later on, in case the Democrats run a scumbag like trump.

  13. Does anyone here know if there is a technical reason why solar panels can’t be 2:1 rectangles?

    Can I shout out a plea to the Gods of PV to produce panels that are 200cm x 100cm, 100cm x 100cm, and a 45 degree right triangle?

      1. Looking like the “peaceful” protesters might now be responsible for more deaths than the police?????

        1. Farmlad, it is not the peaceful protesters that are spreading the virus. It is those dumb-ass Trumpites refusing to wear masks at their rallies as well as other dumb-ass Trumpites not wearing masks anywhere they go.

          1. In that case it looks like we could suspect that New York State is mostly Trumpites and Florida Texas and California have hardly any.
            https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcaG718U4AU5_01?format=jpg&name=small

            Ron Your bias is hilarious. I remember how the media was going nuts as the conservatives were raising a ruckus in Lansing MI because they wanted to continue working and keeping their kids fed and mortgage bills paid. The horrible covid case counts never materialized like the media promised. But rather than admitting their outrageous fear pedaling they double down to this day and continue to scare their followers.

            But even more hilarious was their predicament when the protesters and rioters took over the streets all over the nation so they just did their best to avoid the subject as best they could and sure enough almost none of their true believers noticed. So now we look to have a decent increase in cases and some deaths and injuries should be expected but nothing compared to the amount of people that will be dying this year from other preventable diseases including diabetes and obesity.

            I admit I took this virus a bit to serious in the early days but now that the worst is long over with and the virus had done the majority of its spreading before the shutdowns etc ever started, it now becomes a joke as people now really take mask wearing and social distancing so seriously. Guys; its to late now. If this really would have been as deadly a virus as the media keeps saying and even I had been preparing for, there would already have been several million dead by now in the USA . Thankfully it wasn’t that bad except for the some atrocious actions that were taken in Bergamo, Wuhan, NYC, Detroit and a handful of other places.

            https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1280871098028920833

            1. Farmlad, that chart is from a tweet by a Trumpite. Any Trumpite can tell damn lies in tweets, which that idiot Trump does. You have to be a goddamn idiot to believe that chart, which you obviously are.

              The fact that the average Trumpite would believe a tweeter that posted this chart just shows how goddamn dumb the average Trumpite really is.

              Thank you Farmlad, you have made my day by showing just how fucking dumb the average Trumpite really is.

              New York has the second highest deaths per 100,000 people. New Jersey is first. That is because the Northeast area was the first to be hit, well before they knew how widespread the virus was. So a lot of of people in that area went untreated until it was too late. Also it is because the virus has been there the longest, so total deaths are greater. It is just now starting to run wild in the South and Southeast.

              (I could only find “deaths per state”, not “deaths per-day per state”. So obviously deaths per state would be greatest where the virus had been spreading for the longest time.)

              Now it is a different story. While deaths are spiking in the South and Southwest, they are declining in the Northeast. Deaths are currently rising in the South and Southeast while declining in the Northeast.

  15. Trump is dragging the whole Republican ticket down with him and he is too stupid to know it. Bold theirs.

    Are we on the verge of a ‘Democratic tsunami’?

    “This election is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a Blue wave,” wrote The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter on Wednesday. “Republican strategists we’ve spoken with this week think Trump is close to the point of no return. A couple of others wondered if Trump had reached his ‘Katrina’ moment: a permanent loss of trust and faith of the majority of voters.”

    SNIP

    The Point: The only thing worse than watching a political tsunami build is standing on the beach and knowing you are hopeless to stop it. That’s where Republicans find themselves at the moment.

    1. It’s standard behaviour for a narcissist, if they are losing they will take everyone else down with them, whether they are nominal allies or foes doesn’t matter, only “me” does.

  16. I’m not a legal scholar by any means but I think the SC is wrong in denying Congress access to the orangutan’s tax records.

    But apparently the NY district attorneys will eventually manage to put their hands on them.

    I don’t suppose there’s much hope of that happening in time to see any indictments before election day.

  17. It’s likey that Pickups will have bidirectional charging 1st and then all EV’s. Bidirectional charging means that an EV is also an independent power plant. If the export can master and/or slave to external AC it can form or join a autonomous microgrid. Can you say grid defection? Holding this back is battery life in real word experience and difficulty of battery replacement by poor design. The battery would need a separate odometer. The key to battery life is staying in the 30-80% state of charge band. Sandy Munro tells Elon how to do it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qM0LpsYb6A&feature=youtu.be
    It’s clear that Tesla would rather sell Powerwalls but at some point the EV will be integrated with the powerwall. Will other EV’s makers put the squeeze on Tesla by introducing Utility 1st. It’s possible to get around the standards limitation by using 2 plugs.

    1. Within ten years, maybe a little longer, it’s going to be an entirely practical matter in terms of dollars and cents to own a personal photovoltaic system with a substantial battery capacity in sunny parts of the country.

      It’s not, yet, as a practical matter for thinking people, unless they can get a very cheap loan for the system, because of the opportunity cost of money, plus maybe some subsidy money.

      Consider what putting say twenty or thirty grand into panels, and batteries from Tesla, anytime , would have returned…… compared to putting the money into Tesla stock shares, lol.

      The reason I don’t have a system of my own, yet, and maybe never will, is that the rate of return on my investment would be a very minor fraction of what I earn investing my money other ways.

      But the day is here that utilities and people with substantial amounts of money available can earn a decent return on it by building wind and solar farms, and yes, battery farms too……. if they are in the right place for the right reason.

      Our electrical utilities have plenty of opportunities to deploy battery farms in the right places for the right reasons today.

      Economy of scale makes a battery farm work.

      I’m wondering how long it will be before good high capacity long lasting batteries are a generic item, the way ordinary twelve volt car batteries are a generic item today. Five years? Ten years? Or only when all the patents being issued today or the next couple of years run out, twenty years down the road?

      Better really can be the enemy of good enough. I own tons of cheap tools that enable me to get some critical jobs done, once in a while, at a substantial savings compared to hiring such jobs out.

      1. “It’s not, yet, as a practical matter for thinking people, unless they can get a very cheap loan for the system, because of the opportunity cost of money, plus maybe some subsidy money.”

        Hi Ofm(apple)
        I’m going to give a different perspective on this.
        The payback time (and then ‘profit’) for a system depends on 1) the purchase price, 2) the cost of the electricity from the utility that you are replacing, 3) and how much insolation (incoming sun) that your site has. So each locale will have a different equation.

        Systems are priced in dollars/kw. 2 years ago I purchased for $2.45/kw, which at the time was considered an excellent price. Tesla solar announced last month pricing that comes out to about $1.45/kw, and a price guarantee to match anyone else. These prices are outstanding.

        Payback time for my system is just under 7 years. The number is a little fuzzy because I don’t know exactly how much gasoline cost I will be offsetting, but if you factor in the charging of an electric vehicle, the whole equation gets better and better.

        After seven years, you are keeping energy money in your pocket for another 20-40 years. When you figure return on equity it really depends on your timeframe, but considering this is a very safe investment, you blow the socks off of any other safe investment return over time.

        So, a lot depends on your timeframe, and how much insolation you have. Its a long term investment. Probably the best you can make.

        There is also value that is hard to measure. You get energy cost inflation protection. You get energy security, still with power when the grid fails (if you have a modern system that can stand alone). You can avoid going the gas station, ever.

        By all means, its not a good deal if you have a short timeframe, live in a very cloudy area, have no good installation site, get very cheap electricity from the utility, you use very little electricity and do not expect to have an electric vehicle within the coming decade, if you have some other safe and high yielding investment to put your money in, or you just don’t have the wherewithall to come up with the money or credit.

        Regarding- “you just don’t have the wherewithall to come up with money or credit”
        It is a long term investment, requiring funds right now to offset 30-40 years of expenditures. The same goes for utilities, and states and countries. Takes fiscal discipline to get this kind of work done. Its important work. The kind a nation should prioritize.

        1. Hi Hickory,

          Well said, and I agree with everything you have said.

          But personally owned solar power is not yet priced like low hanging fruit, which is what I’m getting at, unless you have access to easy cheap money and a good site, which you point out. If you can select a contractor, sign some papers, and just DO IT, it’s getting to be a bargain, and even a no brainer for people with good sites.

          Most people I know can’t get the subsidies, which depend mostly on tax deductions, so if you’re old and retired or don’t make much money, the deduction is worthless.

          And most people I know don’t have the cash, and can’t get a cheap long term loan.

          If you have access to cheap money, it may well be time to go for it, but I’ve been watching the prices, and if I get a system of my own, I anticipate self contracting the installation, with the help of a qualified electrician.

          It seems to me that the prices of the equipment, mainly panels and inverters, etc, have been falling faster, annually, than the value of my anticipated annual production, lol.

          So suppose I had spent twelve thousand dollars two years ago to save maybe eight or nine hundred, max, per year on purchased juice. This year I can buy the equipment for less than ten thousand…… which is more saved on the purchase price than earned on the investment over the same time frame.

          And I’m still using an oil furnace… as backup only, for wood heat, but I won’t be able to deal with firewood many more years. I can save more money by installing a heat pump than I can buy installing a solar system.

          I might earn a better return replacing my old double glazed windows with triple glazed, etc.

          I’m long on hard assets, and I pay my bills, lol, but these days banks seem to think I’m a credit risk, in terms of cheap money. They want me to show more income I than I have, except as unrealized capital gains. I would rather do without a solar system than sell some of my property, which is appreciating right along, thanks.

          As my good friend and personal attorney put it once, he could walk into a bank and out in an hour or less, and buy an eighty thousand dollar car, no problem at all, nothing down.

          But at that time, on that same day, he said he would be turned down for a loan on a rental property even with a down payment and a rock solid history as a landlord and investor. In a year, the car would be worth ten grand or more LESS , while the house would have held steady or appreciated. His out of pocket payment every month on the house would have been a minor fraction of the payment on the car, lol, because of rent .

          So my opinion is that we need subsidies available that are arranged in such a way that working class people who don’t make much money can take advantage of them.

          Instead of a tax deduction for the purchase of an electric car, you should get a tax credit, and be able to carry it over from one year to the next until it’s all used up. This would enable a hell of a lot of people to buy an electric car who otherwise are more or less compelled to buy a cheaper conventional car.

          1. “So my opinion is that we need subsidies available that are arranged in such a way that working class people who don’t make much money can take advantage of them. ”
            Very important point- agree wholeheartedly.
            Additionally, I would love to see a countrywide program where people could buy into solar production like a bond. Maybe $1000 buck shares. They might live in an apartment, or in the shade, or in a cloudy zone, or just not have the wherewithall to arrange for a whole system. But they could buy a chunk at a time, and sell it or pass it on to the next generation. A form of this is called Community Solar. Its a good start.

            1. I don’t know how well community solar works, in political terms, but I’m all for it, so long as it results in home sized installations, smaller local solar farms being built, or the money put into a share of ownership of a big one someplace farther away. I don’t see any reason why the concept shouldn’t be expanded to include wind farms as well.

              The bond idea ought to be a great way for local governments to invest pension money in order to earn a reasonable steady future return.

              I’m all for it too.

          2. Mac,

            Even if you don’t have the $7,500 in taxes to qualify for the tax credit, you can still get the benefit. Lease instead of buying, and the lessor gets the credit and can (and usually does) give the lessee the value of the credit.

            You do have to qualify for a lease, but I have the impression that’s not hard these days.

    1. Eric —

      Thanks, Walter Pitman was indeed one of the pioneers.

    2. I was an undergrad in the late sixties, when the debate was still on as to the validity of plate tectonic theory, but pretty well accepted, as best I can remember, at least among YOUNGER scientists, lol.

      One thing that stuck in my mind, permanently, is a conversation I had with a math professor who taught a course I took, which touched on probability theory.

      When I asked him about it, he said anybody who was opposed to it, earlier, should have realized that the odds were billions to ONE that the theory was correct……. because that’s what the odds against all the known geological features of different land masses lining up by accident, lol.

      SOMETIMES you don’t NEED a HOW explanation to know that something is real, or that something has happened. The people that denied tectonics or continental drift, in spite of the fact that many of them forgot many times more higher math than I ever knew were STILL, as a practical matter, mathematically incompetent.

      But it seems to be the case in the past that a hell of a lot of scientists insist that unless you have an explanation or solution to a problem, it’s not a REAL problem, lol, and that what you have to say about it isn’t worth discussion.

      Scientists today seem to be more open minded about admitting that the unexplained is or may still be real.

      Experts in a given field occasionally make utter asses of themselves when they stray into other fields.

      Fred Hoyle was a distinguished astronomer, but he made a complete ass of himself in respect to biological evolution, making a freshman level gross error in his reasoning.

      His MATH was good, but he presumed the problem of the evolution of the eye was like the one about enough chimps eventually typing out a correct manuscript of Shakespeare’s work.

      But evolution doesn’t work that way. In evolution, if you get the first word right, and it’s useful, it’s retained, then you get the second one right, it’s retained, the third one right, etc, each being retained OR PASSED ON, in terms of biological properties or features.

      In this scenario, you can’t go wrong with the first card, wanting to know the odds of being dealt four of a kind, etc. The odds of getting the second card of the same rank aren’t bad at all, and so if you get the second one, you retain both, you don’t DISCARD a pair, lol. You hold the pair, and when you get the third card, you sure as hell don’t discard three of a kind.

      Then you need only one more card as you keep discarding and taking a new card.

      Evolution works by retention of useful mutations. It doesn’t HAVE to create an eye in one step. Evolution IMPROVES the eye a tiny bit at a time, over evolutionary time.

      The moral of this story is that you should ALWAYS take the words of any professional talking outside his own field with a dose of salt, lol.

      1. you should ALWAYS take the words of any professional talking outside his own field with a dose of salt, lol.

        Absolutely. In fact, you should beware of someone who’s stepping outside of their particular niche within their field. There’s just way too much to know, these days.

  19. If you go to faux news to see what they have to say about trump and his tax records and the Supreme Court, you will have to scroll WAY down, lol.
    And you will have to listen to an ad fit to make you puke, before you can hear what faux news has to say. I couldn’t make it thru the ad, myself.

  20. BY 2025, CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS IN EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE WILL BE HIGHER THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE LAST 3.3 MILLION YEARS

    “Focusing on a past warm interval when the incoming insolation from the Sun was the same as today gives us a way to study how Earth responds to CO2 forcing. A striking result we’ve found is that the warmest part of the Pliocene had between 380 and 420 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. This is similar to today’s value of around 415 parts per million, showing that we are already at levels that in the past were associated with temperature and sea-level significantly higher than today. Currently, our CO2 levels are rising at about 2.5 ppm per year, meaning that by 2025 we will have exceeded anything seen in the last 3.3 million years…

    The reason we don’t see Pliocene-like temperatures and sea-levels yet today is because it takes a while for Earth’s climate to fully equilibrate (catch up) to higher CO2 levels and, because of human emissions, CO2 levels are still climbing. Our results give us an idea of what is likely in store once the system has reached equilibrium.”

    https://phys.org/news/2020-07-carbon-dioxide-earth-atmosphere-higher.html

    1. Furthermore,

      IT COULD TAKE DECADES FOR PLANET TO START COOLING AFTER EMISSIONS ARE REDUCED

      “Researchers acknowledge that the results shown by their model cannot be used as a predictor of actual events, though they suggest it does give us a glimpse of what humanity is up against — and shows in a powerful way that time is of the essence. THE LONGER WE WAIT TO DRASTICALLY REDUCE EMISSIONS; THE LONGER IT WILL TAKE TO RECOVER FROM THE DAMAGE WE HAVE DONE.” Caps are mine!

      https://phys.org/news/2020-07-decades-planet-cooling-emissions.html

  21. BTW — Sweden (pop. 10.25 million): Sweden has been controversial for refusing to impose a lockdown. While schools and the economy remained open, the country has suffered the highest fatality rate per capita in the world. Maybe Mr Trump will learn something from this?

      1. Would be interesting to look at Excess mortality rate / M. In Belgium COVID-19 attributed deaths match almost exactly the excess mortality. Is this the case in other countries? I remember a article from the New York Times showing the discrepency between the two numbers for most countries except Belgium and France.
        You can find a more or less recent evaluation and analysis here:

        https://ourworldindata.org/covid-excess-mortality

        In Europe, the excess death is compared to the expected number, in the USA, the excess death is counted the number above the upper limit of the range…

        Difficult to compare without using the same method for all countries…

        1. It could take a few years of research to have more or less accurate numbers as pandemic is still active in about all countries. What is important in my view is to add a few sentences to remind people that those data are not that accurate and often under evaluated, although it is the best “easy to get” estimate we have.

          This is the same for the mortality of the disease. The very low estimate is the number of COVID-19 deaths over the total population. This will increase with time, and depends on how deaths are attributable to COVID-19 and the population that was in contact with the virus. If we take Belgium were I live, it means 0.08% (844/M) lower estimate. Now, through serology testing of blood donors, it seems that ~8% of the population was in contact with the virus. So the actual mortality rate for Belgium could likely be around 1%.
          A higher estimate is the number of deaths over detected positives. In addition to the previous, this depends on the dynamic of the pandemic and testing strategy. For Belgium, as the pandemic is not very active since a few weeks, it currently means around 15%. In fact, this mortality rate is close to what is expected for people needing to be hospitalized.
          Infection and mortality rate depend also on age pyramid, social relation, protection strategy, testing strategy and tracing … For Europe, social relations and age pyramids are very different between Germany and Italy, for example.

      2. Difficult to compare number of deaths/1M pop.
        Many deaths that are directly or indirectly caused by covid-19 are not counted as such if not tested positive, depending on which country you are looking at. And some countries changed their way of counting. Holland f.e. started in april or may to count also deaths most probably caused by covid-19 infection, but never tested. Countries that relatively don’t do a lot of testing and only count the deaths if tested positive of course seemingly are doing well.

        1. Hey, Chris and Han, I know that shit. The data is not perfect. But it is the only data we have. So we just have to go with what we have. But if either of you has better data then please post it.

          1. Hi Ron,

            I know you know that stuff. I just wanted to remind the readers that those numbers are suboptimal. FYI, when looking at the trends per country, I use those same numbers.

            All the best,
            Chris

    2. A common conceit, mostly from conservatives, is that Covid has much larger infection rates compared to reported rates. I’ve also read that the tests may not be entirely accurate. I think that it’s a far more dangerous bug than people want it to be and that everybody should at-minimum wear face-coverings and avoid contact. Swedes probably have a natural tendency to social distance, so they’re not an exact portend for USA outside of death rates, I guess

      1. “A common conceit, mostly from conservatives, is that Covid has much larger infection rates compared to reported rates.”

        That is correct, however, the conclusions the guys draw are wrong. 🙂

  22. Save the planet you say.

    AMAZON DEFORESTATION INCREASES 25 PERCENT IN BRAZIL

    Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon increased by a record 25 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2020, official data released Friday showed, increasing pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro to abandon his plans to develop the region. Some 3,069 square kilometers (1,184 square miles) were affected by deforestation, the highest figure since satellite data has been collected beginning in 2015. June, which marks the start of the dry season and fires, also hit a record with 1,034 square kilometers of deforestation, an increase of nearly 11 percent.

    https://phys.org/news/2020-07-amazon-deforestation-percent-brazil.html

    1. The only Amazon that matters now is the one ran by Jeff Bezos.

  24. What We Lose When Retail Stores Disappear
    Marissa Evans

    https://zora.medium.com/what-we-lose-when-retail-stores-disappear-124318f0a148

    Retail work has often been the proverbial trope in television shows to illustrate women seeking independence or something to “shake up their routine” beyond things like childcare, cooking, and cleaning. But the closure of stores amid the pandemic is not just a matter of communities losing jobs. It’s also women losing opportunities to have a chance at independence, economic freedom, increasing their earning potential, and supporting themselves and their families.

    There are of course other jobs in other industries, some of which pay better than retail. But there’s a reason people often gravitate to in-store work. The National Retail Federation, the organization representing retail outlets, touts retail jobs as being more flexible for job seekers needing part-time work because they’re a stay-at-home parent, want to create a financial cushion, or they’re finishing or continuing their education. About 29% of retail employees are part-time, according to the retail federation. Not every department store employee works in stores, but retail as a first job for teens and even adults reentering the workforce still matters. This matters greatly when thinking about the new future of work and flexibility, especially for women who are still shouldering the brunt of household work like cleaning, cooking, child-rearing, caregiving for older adults, and more.

  25. Conundrum.
    The global human population will peak in the 2nd half of this century and begin a slow decline. This is the most likely scenario unless we get a big meteor or begin mass cannibalism.

    9.7 B by year 2050 is the path we are on.
    Thats like adding another Chima, USA, Japan and Germany.

    The cumulative environmental destruction is beyond massive and tragic. It teeters on qualifying for becoming the 6th Global Mass Extinction event. Its a matter of degree.

    There will be less fuel available over the next few decades. Oil and nat gas will begin to decline.
    There will be plenty of low grade coal still available to dig, and there will still be forests (in the beginning).
    People will resort to digging up that coal and cutting down all of the worlds forests and burning all of that carbon, just to carry on with the basics of survival- cooking, heating, smelting ores to metal, etc.

    I don’t know if any of this is avoidable.
    The most important thing is for the global mindset to value lower consumption of everything.
    That is by far the most important thing.
    A few other things can help too, like
    eating less/no meat,
    what energy you do use- get it from less damaging sources if you can,
    travel less miles every day,
    purchase much less stuff,
    live simple.
    If you care at all.

    1. A few other things can help too, like eating less/no meat,…

      People will eat less only when there is less to eat. Likewise, they will eat no meat only when there is no meat to eat.

      I am a little bemused at why some folks think people will behave differently, en mass, simply because that is what is required of them to do in order to save the environment.

      1. Our local cattle baron buys EVERY property (> 10 acres) that comes for sale and turns it into pasture, even large lots containing perfectly good homes (which he then leaves empty because he can’t be bothered with renters). Why? Because local demand for beef is (currently) increasing faster than he can produce it. At least he provides work for local lads with their massive pickup trucks. 😉

        DEMAND FOR MEAT IS ONLY GOING UP

        BTW “Globally, we consume 315 million tons of meat every year. In 2030 this number will be 453 million – a 44 percent increase. Projections for world meat demand, however, are uncertain, varying from 375 to 570 million tonnes by 2050, that is, an increase of 70–160 percent compared to 2000.”

        https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/foods-and-beverages/world-consumption-of-meat

      2. So Ron, how do you explain India? Their GDP/capita increased 20x from 1960 but their meat consumption is essentially flat…

        (see meat consumption by selected country at this link:
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47057341 )

        Edit: tried to post image but got Page Not Found error…

        1. India has a 2000-year-old tradition of vegetarianism. Hardly counts.

          1. Ron argued that humans will always maximize meat consumption. Another way of saying that is that humans will always abandon vegetarianism when they have the chance.

            India appears to be a very convincing, very large counter-example.

            1. Nick, I desperately want to read that post of mine again. Could you possibly post the link? Because I really don’t remember saying any such thing.

              I am sorry Nick, but it really pisses me off when people accuse me of saying something I know goddamn well I never said.

              What I have said is people will always behave as they have always behaved. That is, human nature will not change. People cling to their idealism. If their idealism is Christianity, or Islam, or vegetarianism, they will abandon it only under extreme conditions.

              NO, no, fuck no, Indians will not abandon their vegetarianism. Nothing I have ever said or written even remotely indicated they would do any such thing.

              I have said people will live to the very limit of their existence, just as all other species do. I am sorry that I have to explain that to you. But it sure as hell does not mean they will maximize meat consumption or abandon their idealism, be it vegetarianism or whatever.

            2. I have said people will live to the very limit of their existence

              Uhmmm…but…what does that mean?

              We’ve seen that people don’t have children “to the very limit”: they have fewer than 2 (replacement level) whenever they have the chance.

              People don’t necessarily maximize food consumption. Or meat consumption. Or oil consumption. Or fossil fuels. Or steel consumption. Or miles driven. It’s clear that those things are leveling off in OECD countries.

              So…what the heck does “live to the very limit of their existence” mean?

            3. It means people will do everything in their power to make their lives better. They will try to make every dollar they possibly can. They live in the very best house they can afford and drive the best car they can afford. They will do everything possible to make their tax burden low, including fudging if they think it will work.

              No one Nick, well almost no one, makes sacrifices good of humanity. Only a tiny few will make sacrifices for the good of the environment. Almost no one will make sacrifices today for a better tomorrow. They maximize their life today. They will eat all the meat they can afford if their ideology permits it.

              People live for themselves Nick, fuck the rest of the world, fuck the environment, fuck animals, let them go extinct. People live to the very limits of their existence today! Fuck tomorrow!

            4. Ron,

              There are a number of points there that could be discussed. Let’s try just one: green house gases are a pollutant that threatens everyone’s safety. It’s just looking out for one’s self interest to get rid of them: no “sacrifice” or altruism is needed. There are many examples of humans working together out of a sense of self interest to deal with pollutants successfully.

              One example is lead pollution. 50 years ago lead was everywhere in paint and gasoline, now it’s been banned in almost every country in the world.

            5. Of course Nick, as long as you have the iron fist of a government to tell people what to do, they will do it. China had such a government when they instituted their one-child policy.

              But China’s one-child policy failed when they relaxed their stranglehold on the population in order to allow for more capitalism to grow their economy. That’s what even totalitarian governments do, they adjust for the best outcome today.

              Governments can have a tremendous effect in places that have strong governments. But in places like Sub-Sahara Africa, there are no strong governments that have control of their population. And even in places like China, the government bends to the best outcome for today, not ten years from now.

              here are many examples of humans working together out of a sense of self-interest to deal with pollutants successfully.

              Sorry but that is total bullshit Nick. Humans will obey their government or go to jail in such cases. They do not do one damn thing out of interest of the well being of the entire population.

              Governments can definitely make a difference. But their record of doing the right thing for the environment is woefully poor. That is, they occasionally get it right but the vast majority of the time they do not. They do what is in the interest of their political interest. And if that is to destroy regulations that protect the environment, that is exactly what they will do. The Trump Administration is a perfect example of that.

            6. But China’s one-child policy failed when they relaxed their stranglehold

              What do you mean? The policy was extremely effective: they achieved their ZPG goal. In fact, AFAIK China decided that the policy could be relaxed a bit to achieve an optimal demographic pattern and…they couldn’t reverse it. They couldn’t get Chinese couples to raise fertility quite as much as they wanted. It’s now about 1.7, which is well below replacement.

            7. No, no, Nick. I meant the program collapsed when they stopped enforcing it with an iron fist. People just went back to more kids. Of course, it was highly effective while it was in effect.

            8. I meant the program collapsed when they stopped enforcing

              But, but…it didn’t. The fertility rate has increased almost not at all. Perhaps you were misled by a small, initial bump up:

              “In 2015, the government ended its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children.

              But that reform has failed to reverse the country’s falling birth rate – despite a two-year increase immediately afterwards.

              “China’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest since the formation of the People’s Republic of China 70 years ago – despite the easing of the much criticised one-child policy. The birth rate was 10.48 per 1,000 in 2019 – the lowest since 1949, the National Bureau of Statistics said.”

              https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51145251

            9. Hint:
              We added 83 million people to the planet last year.
              That is the population of Germany.
              Over the last 200,000 years we have averaged 1-10 million people, with a near extinction 70,000 years ago.
              7.7 billion in a collapsing ecosystem?

            10. Well Nick, maybe when cow is considered sacred in Texas (and the rest of the world) less beef will be consumed.

            11. Doug L,

              “…maybe when cow is considered sacred in Texas (and the rest of the world) AS IT IS IN INDIA less beef will be consumed.”

              Your computer dropped out that part I put in. (I always blame the computer.)

              Time for Port.

            14. Synapsid, love your Port references, makes me smile. Keep them coming. Cheers 🙂

      3. Ron- “I am a little bemused at why some folks think people will behave differently, en mass, simply because that is what is required of them to do in order to save the environment.”

        As you should be. So far, people generally have done only the easy things, for the most part. I really don’t expect people change their behavior for the common good, in meaningful numbers.
        They’ll wait to be forced, the hard way.

        1. Hickory,

          Many people in the US won’t even wear a face mask in the middle of a pandemic, let alone sacrifice much of anything for anyone else.

          I totally agree with your last two sentences.

          regards

    2. There will be less fuel available…Oil and nat gas will begin to decline…People will resort to digging up that coal and cutting down all of the worlds forest

      Are you thinking that will happen in OECD countries? If so, why wouldn’t they just continue and accelerate a move to renewables and electrification? It would, after all, be cheaper. And cleaner. And more convenient. And more sustainable in the simple sense of not depleting quickly and getting ever more expensive, as coal and wood would do.

      Wind, solar and EVs are the low cost option in most areas right now. And, look at how much their cost has dropped in the last 20 years. 20 years from now they will be even cheaper – the choice will be quite simple. These trends aren’t really speculation, they’re just the fundamental dynamics of manufacturing: it’s gets cheaper, year after year.

      1. Well Nick, you tell us. In 2018, around 100 GW of global capacity was added, bringing the total to about 505 gigawatts and producing a bit more than 2 percent of the world’s electricity. By the end of 2018, China had 174 gigawatts of cumulative installed solar capacity. And, as of the end of 2017, the United States had roughly 50 gigawatts of installed photovoltaic capacity. Why so little? Why are we so slow at adopting this “cheep” resource?

        1. The simple answer is that it isn’t needed, at least for the basic function of providing adequate electricity.

          The scenario Hickory laid out involved a dramatic scarcity of energy, with consumers digging up marginal coal and chopping down forests. Instead, the US has a surplus of power and generation due to stagnating consumption. Similarly, China’s central government is pushing wind and solar but the local governments who control such projects are happy to build coal plants (even if they aren’t needed, which is most of the time) because of the construction jobs they bring.

          At the moment, building wind and solar requires foresight. It requires recognition of the value of energy independence and clean power. But…if depletion hits for coal and NG, it’s clear that wind and solar installations could be sharply accelerated to fill the gap.

      2. Similar to what Doug said, but I’ll make the case even bolder. Of all energy consumed (not just electricity), very little currently comes from wind or solar.
        The global urgency to get ready for post-peak fossil fuel is like a limp dick, or a president who cares only about himself. Missing in action. Dereliction of duty.
        So, at this rate, and with this mindset, it looks like the forests will all be cut for wood and other biofuels. And much of the the crappy grade coal will be ground up and burned.

        Flash forward to 2050
        -just a token (less than 20% of current) amount of oil still being produced, and none for export
        -nat gas I don’t know, much less than now. somebody else tell us
        -9.7 B people
        -hotter planet with huge jump in demand for AC, and it still gets cold enough in the winter over much of the globe for people to be desperate for heat
        -dark and cold enough in 1/3rd the year to need wood or coal
        -coal burned everywhere people can get a bucket full
        -big trees mostly only seen in a tree museum

        There are some wildcards. One is just how much nucs or solar or wind is built between now and then, and how good the grid and storage are (in your area). Another is how many failed states and big wars we have. The way these kind of disruptions may play out is very hard to predict. Kind of like viruses.

        1. Hi Doug, Nick, Hickory,

          It sounds very redneck of me, to be sure,but I believe in biology, physics, math, and human psychology, as it applies to material questions. I believe in doing what I can to save me and mine, with mine extending out thru my community, state, nation, and finally, the world.

          I read one hell of a lot, always have, and will continue to do so, so long as I’m able.

          History books tell us in general terms what to expect.

          What happens over the next few decades will depend about half on the hard facts we all know so well here in this forum, and about half on what we collectively decide to do, or not do, about them.

          Some countries will do what has to be done to weather the coming resource and climate storms, to the extent something CAN be done, with the countries of Western Europe leading the way.

          A comedian, I can’t remember which one, once said that we Yankees can be counted on to do the right thing, after we try everything else. There’s a good deal of truth in that observation.

          The world is a big place, and environmental and political advocates, especially the more idealistic but less well informed kind, think of it as a round blue marble……. and there’s a great deal of truth in THAT observation as well.

          But in actuality, we humans are spread out over the entire land mass of the Earth, minus Antarctica and a few giant deserts.

          We’re separated by oceans, rivers, mountain ranges, climates, religions, history, prevailing educational levels, and Sky Daddy alone knows what else, such as nationalism, racism, etc, on and on.

          The bottom line, keeping this obviously accurate description of humanity in mind, is that while the whole world may indeed go to hell in a hand basket, together, IT MAY NOT.

          Some countries will do plenty of things, proactively, to prepare for coming resource shortages, coming climate problems, coming public health problems, etc.

          And as part of these preparations, most of them will eventually adopt a life boat strategy or mode of thinking, when it comes to conserving local resources, closing national borders, and becoming as self sufficient as possible.

          I’m not happy about it, but my gut tells me that once the shit is well and truly in the fan, it won’t just be religious old white people who are afraid of losing their jobs who will insist on closed borders. Nurses will raise hell about foreign nurses being allowed into the country, programmers will raise hell about their work being outsourced to China, local people all thru manufacturing states and communities will insist on high tariffs to protect existing industries and maybe even bring home previously outsourced industries.

          I’m not saying we won’t allow a few highly skilled people, such as physicians and engineers, to come to our country…….. But I am saying that the people I know who are rather liberal to very liberal will be feeling a LOT of pain themselves, that their OWN PERSONAL standards of living will be declining, and they will RESENT supporting people less well off than they are, once they have to tighten their OWN belts.

          I know or used to know plenty of people who were and still are very liberal about supporting various welfare net programs, because they could EASILY afford to do so. They still had money for a new car, lots of clothes, a nice place to live, plenty of meals out, travel, toys, whatever they really wanted.

          Once that income starts SHRINKING, they have a way of suddenly coming around to a conservative/ Republican sort of position about such programs.
          I once knew a radiologist who was making an easy seventy five thousand just looking at pictures during the work day.

          Then it came to pass that the internet made it easy and fast to send those pics overseas, to equally competent radiologists who made ten percent as much.
          Believe it or not, he’s been a Republican voter every since, even though the Republicans have had as much, and usually a LOT MORE, to do with outsourcing jobs of every possible description as the Democrats.

          They say the definition of a newly minted conservative is a liberal who has recently been mugged. There’s some truth in that observation too.

          I foresee my country, and many others, adopting a lifeboat survival strategy.

          In the meantime, let us remember to pray to the ROCK or SNAKE or whatever entity that pleases us best to send a continuous series of Pearl Harbor Wake Up Events……. events disruptive enough to get us moving towards solutions, but not so disruptive as to prevent us from going proactive on the things that really count, such as renewable energy, resource conservation, environmental protections, education, reduced birth rates, etc.

          In the end, the CV19 pandemic may turn out to be the Wake Up event that saves us from something infinitely worse, later on……. if it results in our voting in a decent responsible government that will pursue sensible economic, ecological, and political policies.

          It may also turn out to be the bale of straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  26. Back to BAU? Construction on TMP expansion now under way in BC.

    WHAT IS THE TRANS MOUNTAIN EXPANSION PROJECT?

    “The project twins the existing 1,150 km (715 mile) Trans Mountain pipeline and will triple its capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 per day. It will carry crude oil from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia and increase oil tanker traffic in the area from five to up to 34 tankers a month.”

    BTW A poll in May 2018 found that 56 percent of Canadians supported this project.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48641293

    1. Some time back, either here or at the old TOD site, I put my two cents worth in to the effect that pipelines WOULD be built,and most likely in both directions, to carry Canadian oil to the coast.

      People including First Nations people, excepting maybe the old folks, can be bought. Offer them modern conveniences, from paved roads to grid juice to refrigerators, central heat, washing machines, and pickup trucks, and the younger folks will eventually take the deal, you can bet your last dime on it. Snowmobiles, hunting rifles, video games, satellite tv, internet, night clubs, hospitals, the list of stuff available and tempting beyond any hope of holding out, is endless.

      There’s always a ravening appetite for more of everything, even when you’ve already got plenty more than you can make good use of, and this appetite, once you’ve had a taste, is overpowering when you’re poor.

      The only thing that will prevent these pipelines being built, in the end, is a transition to an oil free or nearly oil free economy, world wide. I don’t think that is even remotely likely to come to pass within the next twenty or thirty years……… which means the Canadian people will be raking in oil revenue by the billions one way or another, in exchange for allowing the oil to be exported.

      And there will still be PLENTY left for the oil companies and pipeline owners, lol.

      1. OFM,

        The Energy East pipeline through Quebec is unlikely to be built until such time Canada falls into real depression. Quebecers are in rabid opposition, preferring KSA product, I guess. 🙂 Any Govt that implements it will be voted out due to the skewing power of the Qubecois vote, and the disarray of everyone else.

        1. Hi Paulo,

          I hope you are right, but history has a way of confirming that bribery offered on the grand scale is eventually accepted.

          If the rest of the people of Canada who won’t have the pipeline in their backyard, but will still get the payola, can’t get one built to the East, well, they will try twice as hard to get one running to the West Coast. Once oil reaches the sea, it doesn’t matter very much in terms of shipping costs.

          My personal redneck environmentalist philosophy is that we should be doing all we can to transition away from oil.

          In the meantime, we should be using up oil coming from unfriendly territory or potential enemy territory, ON CREDIT,because when the shit hits the fan, we won’t be paying up anyway.We should be saving as much oil located on friendly ground as we possibly can.

          Hope for the best, plan for the worst. We may NEED every drop of affordable oil we have left , one of these days, because we may never have electrically operated farm machinery, construction, machinery, aircraft, etc.

          I don’t want to even THINK about how hard it would be to electrify heavy farm machinery……… suitable batteries don’t exist today, and may never exist. Electric trucks such as the Tesla Semi will be running on highways where the grid exists already, and running every day, all day, and maybe all night too, meaning such batteries are affordable. Paying for them to run tractors and combines that sit around most of the time would be five times , maybe ten times, the problem, money wise.

          And while the grid does reach farms……. it’s a RURAL grid, and service is generally limited to a 200 amp 240 volt level, and even THAT’s only possible when only a few houses on each line are pulling the full two hundred amps.
          Damned few farms have anything like the connection needed to charge such batteries in a couple of hours.

          If anything goes wrong with the electric dream, trucks, tractors and construction equipment will be running on oil until it’s gone, or until we revert to preindustrial economy.

      2. “The only thing that will prevent these pipelines being built, in the end, is a transition to an oil free or nearly oil free economy”

        This fails to address the elephant in the room EROEI. Even if everyone agrees, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to swim against the current of ever less energy made available to the end consumer.

        BTW LOL a nearly oil free future ensures no more pipelines being built.

        1. So far as I can see, oil for now and probably for quite some time to come will continue to have an EROEI that’s more than adequate to continue to use it.

          EROEI is not necessarily very important at ALL, except in extreme situations.

          We obviously won’t gain anything by using a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil to market, lol…….. but that’s the EXTREME, not the norm, for now, or for decades to come. Even if we get only three barrels net out of every four barrels produced, that will be ok…… if we REALLY need it, meaning it will sell for enough to turn a profit producing it.

          Compared to using draft animals on the farm, diesel fuel would still be a BARGAIN at twenty bucks a gallon. ( But at that price, biofuels would be quite profitable, lol. )

          Or consider solar power, or wind power. The energy input to run a wind or solar farm is entirely free, and essentially unlimited, as a practical matter, so it doesn’t matter at all how efficient a wind or solar farm actually is, in terms of a theoretical EROEI ratio.

          What actually matters is whether we get a reasonable return on the energy we put into the construction of wind and solar farms, and the return on that energy is apparently excellent.

          A direct calculation is hard, but a reverse engineered calculation is easy. Just consider the amount of juice produced by a wind or solar farm, compared to the amount of fossil fuel needed to produce that same amount of juice, on an annual basis for a few decades. No coal trains, no mining, no drilling, no pipelines, no refineries, no boilers, no turbines, etc. ALL of which are enormous energy hogs.

          Furthermore, there’s a practical political and economic element involved in using resources available now to create infrastructure that will be useful later.

          Consider the difference between spending a thousand bucks going to a rock concert…… or spending that same thousand bucks buying a musical instrument, or cd’s, both of which will last indefinitely.

          We can build a solar farm or wind farm, or we can build another shopping center or military aircraft……….. which in the first case is not useful at all, and in the second….. may never be needed. Most military aircraft are scrapped due to obsolesence..

          But that wind or solar farm will be producing electricity just about forever, once built, because it can be continually refurbished as needed.

          And the fossil fuel energy that goes into a typical generating plant is fifty percent or more wasted……. where as the electricity coming out of that wind farm or solar farm is used very efficiently indeed.

          Personally I foresee Canadian oil being desperately needed, and therefore selling at a premium price, once it’s easily shipped, within the next decade or two….. where as I don’t see us transitioning to an oil free economy, or even a nearly oil free economy, within less than forty or fifty years, unless we run so short of oil sooner that we have no choice.

    2. Polls in 2019 show support higher. It was 56% in BC where all the opposition resides. The support has dropped across Canada from 2/3+ to 56% after the const costs nearly doubled as folks are afraid their tax dollars will be paying for it. It isn’t about the pipeline and oil per se, it is about the taxation implications.

      I am in big support of it and I live on a BC river in the tide zone. Reason? I want to see our markets expand from the captive US. Plus, my son works there as an electrician for a major equipment supplier

  27. THE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF SIBERIA’S CLIMATE-CHANGE-DRIVEN WILDFIRES

    “The New York Times’ Somini Sengupta reports that Arctic wildfires in June released more pollution than in the previous 18 years that data had been collected. Seasonal wildfires are common in Siberia, but this year’s fires are unusually widespread in part because of a climate change-driven heatwave, as Madeleine Stone reports for National Geographic. The Arctic is experiencing climate change-driven warming faster than the rest of the Earth, which sets up the dry conditions that make blazes spread. While on average, the Earth’s temperature has risen by 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit, the Arctic has seen a rise of 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit, a discrepancy accounted for by Arctic amplification.”

    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/siberian-wildfires-cause-record-pollution-send-smoke-us-180975275/

      1. So Alex, that event just confirms your bias against AGW, or what are you trying to say?

      2. Alex Spicker,

        You did notice in the article that Verkhoyansk has the highest temperature range on the planet?

  29. Off topic but the open topic thread is just about dead. Hopefully there will be a new one soon.

    This link is especially for Ron, since he’s long been a foot soldier in the religious wars, lol.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

    But note that I don’t recommend grinding any religious acquaintance or relative’s nose in this video.

    It’s too easy to make an enemy this way, and there’s generally nothing to be gained, personally or politically, by doing so.

    But it’s great to pass it along so that anybody who is not already brainwashed has an opportunity to see it, lol.

    When I talk religion with local people, I generally stick to what Jesus would do, such as feed hungry children, etc. HE wouldn’t do away with school lunches or vaccinations at the local health department, etc.

    1. Mac, the non-petroleum thread is the one that just went up, “EIA’s Electric Power Monthly”. There will be a new OPEC post tomorrow but no non-petroleum open thread. Just post all non-petroleum posts in the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly thread.

Comments are closed.