107 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, July 4, 2024”

    1. 15 years away and 19 years behind schedule. It kinda makes you wonder if this is anything more than a place to keep a bunch of highly educated folks off the streets.
      I worked on a fusion energy project in the mid-1970s at General Atomic in San Diego. We saw it as a long shot back then. Now it seems to me like it was, and still is, just a waste of time, money and talent.

    2. I figure there will be a working prototype reactor within 50 yrs and the technology will have no effect on the predicament we’re in but it’ll be a fantastic accomplishment like camping on Mars will be a fantastic accomplishment.

      1. 50 years!? Neither I nor my children will be around to see that so there’s no point in wagering on the prospect.
        For that to happen the level of investment will need to remain high.
        For the level of investment to remain high someone will need to believe that there is a continued need for either tremendous amounts of really expensive energy because maintaining the “plant” will require highly skilled technicians and a continuous flow of exotic materials (Imagine the effect of 14Mev neutrons on materials)
        To maintain the supply of skills and exotic materials will require a stable social structure unfettered by internal unrest and international violence.
        What aspects of today’s trajectory gives you confidence that the future contains all of those elements?

  2. Hidaway:
    “The cost of building enough transmission capacity for even 2000km would be immense, but it still wouldn’t have solved the night time problem…”

    Building out a lot of wind power makes transmission lines over long distances more of a proposition, while solar power both promotes more battery or pumped hydro storage to go along with it to cover up nightfall shortages.

    I keep hearing that 1 GW transmission lines are not enough. But to build more capacity some places are not enough anyway? To be honest there has to be some trade offs as to what transmission lines are going to get built or not. But to rule out all together a 5 or 10 fold increase in capacity at critical junctures of distances is not the way to look at the whole picture in my opinion.

    Here for example is a report by DNV and there is a link for the 2024 report as well.
    https://www.dnv.com/energy-transition-outlook/key-highlights/

    The report has its flaws assuming business as usual as a base case. But a big chapter is actually how AI could help the transition. Not in the short term, but in the medium and long term the report claims. And I can see why that could be a benefit. We need to determine where to build transmission lines, at what capacity, to serve excactly what. What renewable resources to include in the network and the cost of maintenance. What are the priorities when it comes to build out, replacement and maintenance? It takes a big brain to figure this out, maybe extensively worked out software like the AI ones could play a role?

    I think this train of intiative will run its course. Everything got limits, but it is much more interesting to work towards solutions.

    2. All the proponents of ‘lots more transmission’ to spread power around a large grid, think and work on averages. In reality we get solar and wind gluts and droughts all across the grid, no matter how large it is. When the NE of the US is in a renewable drought for instance, the assumption is that transmission from the SW of the country ‘could’ have great excess to transfer, but it’s not necessarily the case. What happens if it’s cloudy in the SW as well?

      During the drought in the NE, there might be an excess of wind in the NW of the country, so transmission of great power from the SW to NE is useless. What would be needed was huge transmission from NW to NE in this instance.

      What’s actually needed to cover periods of renewable droughts is large transmission lines from the NW and the SW and the S to the NE, plus large transmission from SW to NE and S, and S to NW and SW and, and , and …..

      The system would need to be massively overbuilt in all directions to cover periods of huge in excess and periods of droughts that occur everywhere throughout the system, especially in winter when all solar is low. It’s totally and utterly unaffordable. In the NE of the USA how much would need to be imported 50GW, 100GW?

      If skimming on the whole lot is the plan, then say goodbye to modern civilization anyway. Continuous power to build the new, plus operate and maintain the existing system is how we’ve reached our modern civilization. If we can’t continue to power it enough to enable all these functions, then it’s the modern civilization that is leaving us.
      Plus of course the plan is to have a lot more power than exists at present as all the EVs need making and powering, plus heat in homes and businesses, plus a lot of new recycling plants etc, so power use will have to grow exponentially for all these ‘extra’ uses of electricity. So the 50-100GW of transmission lines need to be larger, but from everywhere!!

      The numbers to build it properly are astronomical, but building it half arsed means no more modern civilization anyway..
      Plus of course over time, no matter how well the recycling is going, more metals will be needed. As all metals on average need an increased energy input to maintain production because the metals are getting lower grade, deeper and harder to grind, then civilization continuously needs to grow to provide this extra energy.
      Infinite growth on a finite planet, what could possibly go wrong…

      1. Hideaway

        Most of the time such assets would be idle or under-utilised which will only push up the delivered cost of electricity to the consumer. `The whole system will need maintenance which will cost money, epsecially electrical engineers. Where are these people going to come form. “Off the street”.

        1. And that’s a problem isn’t it? We can’t even maintain what we have now don’t even think about trying to build new. when it comes to underutilizing a system, basically you’re going to mine it. You’re going to smelt it. You’re going to manufacture it and then you’re gonna watch it. Just get pissed away by entropy.
          It’s hard to believe how disconnected from reality people have become. What is it we don’t understand?
          We can’t build new without the existing system intact we can keep it intact and build new because the rate of entropy is too high because of depletion and complexity. It’s simply impossible and not really worth discussing. The big green dreams are only that they’re just another fantasy ride in the Magic Kingdom carousel of progress. What they forgot to show is it all ends in Mr. toads wild ride.

      2. ” It’s totally and utterly unaffordable. In the NE of the USA how much would need to be imported 50GW, 100GW?”

        You argue like a politician……. and I’m getting to the point that I have respect for you and Carnot in proportion.

        It’s always at least technically possible that we might have fusion power…… a generation, or two, down the road. Ditto affordable and reasonably safe nukes……. someday. Not anytime soon.

        Sometimes, the real question is not whether we can afford something, but rather whether we can afford NOT having it.

        It’s better to act like reasonably intelligent human beings than to act like a trump style politician making a hell of a lot of noise, the sort of noise that fools simpletons and those who are paying near zero attention to the actual relevant facts.

        ENOUGH of the argument that we can’t afford it. We’ll either afford it, or those who survive fossil fuel will fall back to a pre industrial economy at best. A truly sustainable economy in the ultimate sense may be impossible. It’s not OUR job, here and now, to either achieve perfection, or give up and quit, like pouting children.

        I’m made out to be the idiot…….. but if you care to go back thru what I’ve posted here, and on the old TOD site, you’ll find that I’ve rather consistently predicted very rough times ahead, with a substantial portion of the global population dying hard as the result of overshoot, bottom line.

        Anybody who actually RECOGNIZES what’s happening, and will be happening, in the not so distant future, and fails to acknowledge that TODAY’S business as usual way of life has one foot in the grave already has his head up his ass, or worse, by DELIBERATELY (?) misrepresenting the realities of going renewable to whatever extent we can…. and as soon as we can.

        For purposes of this immediate discussion, let’s consider the USA as a stand alone example. Our population is going to peak before too long, and maybe a hell of a lot sooner than predicted. So….. we’re not going to be building out ANYTHING to continue our current lifestyles. We’ll be DAMNED lucky to simply pull thru the bottleneck without too much in the way of violence and tens of millions of lives lost to starvation, disease, exposure.

        Downsizing on the grand scale is pretty much absolutely baked into the cake already. Unless you happen to believe, like an ignorant trump voter, like a large portion of my older relatives, and most of my neighbors, that climate change is a hoax , that peak oil and other minerals is just another libtard scam to get your money, that Dr Fauci should be in jail rather than have his statue erected in public squares…….

        Well, you simply cannot believe gas and oil will be affordable into the indefinite future, etc, unless you’re that sort of person…… ignorant, or maybe a cynic with an agenda?

        At some point within the next decade, or maybe two, it’s going to be obvious to the general public, even my neighbors and elderly relatives, that the shit is well and truly in the fan, and that it’s do or die time.. unless maybe the right wingers manage to dig themselves into power to the extent that voting them out is impossible… which incidentally is their publicly stated goal.

        We’ll have troubles out the ying yang, but we’ll have plenty of oil and gas, and ENOUGH of the various critical minerals, to start rationing them, restricting their use to critical purposes, scaling down our per capita energy consumption quite dramatically, diverting capital and manpower to building out renewables, upgrading existing infrastructure to higher energy efficiency, adapting our farming economy to more localized production using fewer fossil fuel inputs, going to electric cars and light trucks while getting by with only a minor fraction of our current number of such vehicles per capita.. doing without cars as often or oftener as not, etc.

        It’s going to take a top down economic plan to simply survive as a society. Without it, chaos, a Seneca Cliff scenario is pretty much a given.

        People will be abandoning places where there’s little or no water, and little or no essential industry, because it’s going to be impossible to continue to live in such places…. energy delivered to a desert city has to be paid for, in the end, by something produced by the people of such a city.. Maybe with renewable electricity they can keep the ac running, and the water flowing… otherwise, the people will be packing up for greener pastures.

        Many millions of people are going to out of work, and on a basic welfare program that keeps them under a roof and puts food on their table. Work will have to be found for them, and it will be found…. such work as working at anything that saves or conserves energy or other material resources, growing food on a small local scale, planting trees for shade, or to drop nuts and fruit in years to come… just about anything to stay busy and contribute SOMETHING to our collective survival and general welfare.

        Wind and solar infrastructure production infrastructure, and transmission infrastructure, will be built at a breakneck pace…. the way ships, planes, and guns are built when a country goes to war. There’s nothing in the way of physical or technical considerations to prevent it….. the materials are and will be available, and the manpower will be available, and if the building of it is top down policy, it’s going to get built.

        It doesn’t have to be built all at once, and it doesn’t have to be big enough to handle our total current high per capita demand for electricity, because that demand will be shrinking substantially, as a matter of necessity, a simple reality. We’ll have enough oil and gas to keep the wheels from falling off, under such economic conditions, for a long time…. by conserving both for times when the gas is needed to run generating plants if the wind and sun aren’t up to the job……. and such times are going to be perfectly commonplace, indefinitely. Conserving oil to manufacture gasoline, diesel fuel, lubricants, and essential industrial chemicals, etc, to the point that there’s enough gasoline and diesel fuel to keep ESSENTIAL vehicles running…

        I’m talking about a more or less planned and controlled contraction of the economy.

        Otherwise……we’re looking at something infinitely worse.

        1. You simply don’t understand economics and economies of scale. Once critical mass is lost the system collapses. It’s already starting. Keep dreaming.

          1. JT

            You are shoveling shite up-hill with OFM. He is completely so out to lunch I no longer bother reading his missives. They simply are pipe dreams so far from the reality of what is actually possible.

            2. Carnot, your dreams are that we’ll continue BAU then collapse into Mad Max? You and Hideaway and JT seem devoid of hope and plans and solutions. The system just collapses? This reminds me of the doomer days on The Oil Drum. Remember TOD?

              An End to Eight Years of The Oil Drum
              Posted by Rembrandt on July 3, 2013 – 5:47am
              Dear Readers of The Oil Drum…

          2. JT
            If claiming someone “simply doesn’t understand ” is you best argument, you don’t have any argument. If it isn’t why present it?

            You never present any statistics or mathematical models or anything else worth considering, not even quotable sources. Furthermore your arguments are sophomoric, as seen here. Don’t be surprised if you aren’t taken seriously outside your bubble.

            1. I’m convinced that Carnot, JT, and others of their ilk are either trapped inside their own professional / intellectual/ cultural bubbles, and therefore unable to seriously consider anything contrary to their own opinions.. professional or otherwise……..

              Or else….. Maybe they have reasons of their own, an agenda of their own, and will continue to pursue it for their own reasons…. political, financial,cultural or otherwise.

              Back when I was a kid fresh off the farm, and enrolled in chemistry classes with the chemistry majors, and math classes with the math and engineering majors, and biology classes with the biology majors……. my freshman year….. That was one hell of a load…… but I was eager to learn. I didn’t HAVE to study….. because I WANTED to learn. It left me with next to nothing in the way of free time, but that was ok….. I was happier reading the suggested outside reading in biology, etc, than I was going to a game, or fishing, or anything else, back then.

              ( Things may have been different at other universities, but if you took biology your freshman year at mine…… you took it with the biology majors. Ditto chemistry, ditto math if you were up to it and wanted to. )

              And I’ve made a habit of keeping up as best I could, all my life, taking at least one or two courses almost every year.. courses in my own field, or anything I could get in the way of the hard sciences. I used to read at least one serious book every week, sometimes two….. because I liked books better than people, as a general rule. Went cold turkey on tv, etc, back in the eighties. Got a big screen now, turn it on maybe once or twice a month to watch a special or the news, etc.

              Half of all those books were history books. Some of them were classic novels and some of them were philosophy.

              Now, having explained why I believe I’m entitled to my opinions….. I’ve put in the time to justify them.

              My professors were wrong about a lot of things…. and I found myself in the position of having to abandon a number of strongly held beliefs, and adopting contrary beliefs… which made it necessary to adjust my ” big picture” intellectual picture of ” Life, the Universe, and Everything” courtesy of Douglas Adams.

              I pretty much believed anything I read in my textbooks, or heard in lectures, or during a discussion with an instructor. I believed these authority figures just as confidently as my parents believed in Heaven and Hell.

              If anybody asks, I’ll post some examples of times I had to admit I was wrong , REALLY wrong, about some things in my own field, finding it necessary to adapt my world view to reflect my new beliefs.

              Now…… I’ll try again to get my beliefs across to anybody willing to consider that I just might be RIGHT.

              And I’ll start by pointing out that when somebody attacks by way of words, rather than reasoned arguments, they do so mostly because they don’t HAVE any serious counter arguments.

              When Carnot and his sort say we can’t go renewable, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask what they think we should be doing…….. and they never have anything substantial to say. Their plan seems to be to just continue with today’s business as usual economic model….. until it crashes and burns.

              I understand their basic argument …… that we’re running out of critical resources, and that we’re running out of cheap plentiful energy in particular…. and that without ever increasing amounts of cheap plentiful energy…. the economy as THEY understand it is inevitably going to crash… because there’s nothing much left in the way of high grade easily mined copper ore , etc.

              When somebody asks me if it’s possible for us to give up today’s industrial model of agriculture, I tell them NO….. as a practical matter. We’re locked into it. I buy machinery, fuel, pesticides, seed, building materials to run the farm. I buy my groceries at a super market. My time and expertise are far too valuable to squander them growing my own.

              Nobody in his right mind seriously talks about what we would have to do to give up our current methods, and switch over to a more or less sustainable way of getting the job done. Not more than one person out of a thousand living a comfortable life in a comfortable house or apartment, wearing nice clothes, riding a nice car to work , spending the day in an air conditioned office , is willing to even THINK about moving to a ( non existent) house in the boonies, and work outside in the sun and rain, getting dirty, making peanuts, far from the malls and excitement of urban life.

              But we COULD do it….. given sufficient incentive. It’s not a technical impossibility.
              If we’re lucky enough to have a functional government, we will eventually TRY to do it, because doing it means survival, and not doing it means starvation, at some point.

              We’re already living with immensely powerful, more or less immortal alien entities.. there’s no better description of today’s mega banks, giant manufacturing corporations, giant energy companies, etc. These alien life forms have about the same rights in a courtroom as ordinary naked apes. I DO know a thing or two about scale, lol.

              People who think in scientific terms understand that we’re a social species, and organize our lives into immediate family units, extended family and or small communities, then bigger tribal communities….. and for the last few thousand years……. into giant communities typically referred to as nations, kingdoms, empires, etc.

              The ant colony lives and thrives in accordance with ant colony rules….. and nations live and thrive, or perish, in accordance with the rules governing the survival of nations.

              Carnot and friends don’t seem to understand that once a nation is aroused from it’s comfortable complacency, it will do whatever it deems necessary to protect itself. Putting it’s people into uniforms and sending them out to kill or be killed is perfectly commonplace. Citizens who refuse may escape such servitude, for a while, but the usual thing is that people ALREADY in uniform come get you….. at gun point if necessary.

              It’s possible that the economy will collapse in very short order, the way a man can be ok to outward appearances, and fall over dead at his desk or go to sleep and never wake up, without warning.

              But it’s more likely that things will go bad piecemeal, and that we’ll have some time, quite possibly a decade or two, to do what HAS to be done to survive as a society, after we once come to collectively understanding that it’s do or die time, in respect to energy, climate, conservation and recycling of various materials, downsizing, etc.

              ONE such survival strategy would be to offer people out of work the opportunity to move to the boonies and take up a new life on the farm. When the choice is to do so, or be kicked off the welfare rolls, and starve….. people will do it. It’s pretty much a given that once things get bad enough laggards will find themselves FORCED to move by people in uniform…. people who will shoot first and ask questions later, under then prevailing circumstances.

              We may indeed run out of fossil fuel, rich metal ores, etc, needed to maintain TODAY’S economic model. But that’s not going to happen right away, and we’re not going to need fossil fuel enough to support even MORE billions of people going forward. The overall population is going to be shrinking, and it’s going to shrink faster than expected in countries such as the USA.

              There isn’t going to be much in the way of hordes of starving refugees getting across oceans and into rich western countries. Such refugees will be turned away, at gun point. Border guards will shoot as many as it takes for the rest of them to get the idea.

              The countries with the power to do so will take critical resources from less powerful countries, once doing so is NECESSARY to ensure their own survival.

              Once a country is operating on a war time top down economic basis, huge amounts, staggering amounts, of both material resources and man power can be and WILL be diverted to maintaining the production of ESSENTIAL goods, and providing ESSENTIAL services.

              I could go on pointing out such realities, such as for instance mandating extremely limited production of automobiles, and mandating such as are built to be compact or subcompact models, etc. Just about everything in the way of material goods can be rationed, and WILL be rationed, to whatever extent is deemed necessary.

              People will be doubling up, or tripling and quadrupling up, so as to have energy enough to stay warm on a tough winter night. They’ll be drinking at home, rather than in bars, playing music themselves, rather than going to far away concerts, working community gardens and greenhouses …. not because they want to, but because they HAVE to.

              Right now,today, millions of people are living as refugees, because they HAVE to, or die. People will be MOVING, emigrating, inside their own country’s borders, because they HAVE to, in order to survive. In some cases, they’ll BE moved, by those same previously mentioned people in uniform….. people who will move them forcibly, or deliberately overlook them and allow them to stay behind and die… because the electricity will be off, permanently, the water and sewer will be off, permanently, the stores will be closed, permanently, etc.

              It’s true that we will be needing rare earths, and computer chips, and solar panels, etc, that require such materials. The production thereof, and stockpiling thereof, will be attended to in the same methodical way as we produce warships and aircraft, tanks and rockets, today. It might and quite possibly will turn out that fifty or a hundred years down the road, such production simply can’t be maintained.

              In that case, there will be even fewer people left to enjoy any portion of industrial civilization which can be maintained. There will still be water power, and coal, and various kinds of bio fuels in quantities sufficient to keep the lights on for quite some time.

              Keeping the lights on a couple of generations down the road is not OUR problem. Sailors have a saying….. you can never defeat the sea….. you can only fight it to a draw, one voyage at a time.

              It’s more or less impossible to know how bad things will be, in respect to the climate, other than to say it’s going to be bad indeed, and very likely so bad that people will no longer be able to live in numerous places where millions and tens of millions of people live today.

              People will flee such places of their own accord, for the most part. Those who refuse to move, and those who manage to avoid forcible removal, won’t be getting any support at all from such government as is in power at such times.

              It’s reasonable to HOPE that we’ll be able to produce food enough for our own people, in country such as the USA, by doing the unthinkable, given TODAY’S way of thinking. One thing we’ll be building out the ying yang will be urban gardens and farms, converting existing buildings, etc, for such work. We’ll be building greenhouses out the ying yang too, the way a country at war suddenly finds ways to manufacture ships and planes, rifles and uniforms, that were UNAFFORDABLE, the day BEFORE the hot fighting starts.

              Now I’m more or less ready to rest my case…. with the caveat that people who actually KNOW something about the BIG PICTURE, because they know something about history, and about what people are capable of doing, about what nations are capable of doing, will understand my position…… and incidentally remember that I’ve made it clear I may be wrong.

              And so far as people who DON’T know and appreciate such things are concerned…….

              They will continue to believe I’m the idiot. In the meantime, I’m confident that I’ve forgotten more than they know, in terms of the big picture.

              Civilization as we know it today is pretty much a dead man walking, and we’re sure as hell not going to be driving three ton personal vehicles to fetch the beer in the future, but there’s a real possibility that some of us can pull thru while preserving some of the best parts of our current way of life.

              It’s not unreasonable to hope that SOME of us , and our children and grand children, can continue to have electricity, running water, food in stores, cops on the street, basic medical care, etc, maybe not forever, but at least well into the future, living modest but dignified lives.

              One more thing, as an afterthought. It’s not entirely unreasonable, given that technology is responsible for our current crisis, to expect that technology want enable us to solve some of our bigger specific problems.

              We already have the technology needed to reduce the energy needed to heat and cool a typical house by eighty percent or more. It’s called insulation. We just need to use more of it.

              I don’t have hard numbers, but it’s at least possible and probably likely that we can store enough wind and solar energy by way of thermal mass to reduce the predicted need for batteries quite a bit. If there’s a surplus of renewable electricity during the day, it can be used to heat or cool gravel or concrete, or a tank of water, thereby partially eliminating the need for space heat or cooling over the next twenty four hours or so. Adding thermal mass to buildings of all sorts isn’t much of a problem at all…… other than finding the means to pay for doing it.

              ‘ of rare earth metals, or other critical resources… and out of fossil fuel to

            2. Thanks for your large contribution of ‘food for thought’ OFM.

              One thing that comes to mind is the civil society at risk as countries face contraction. The details of civil fragmentation is a much bigger story than anything we talk about here. Its hard to predict the trigger points, and who gains control. And hard to predict which regions will be more stable, prosperous and freeish than others.
              A unity of purpose and of tribal identification helps people survive difficult times. Which countries have that, or can quickly manufacture it. Who will be able to resist the drift to totalitarianism and tyranny, or anarchy.

              The pending contraction phase of the human experiment is not something I would want to witness. When we look at crisis events around the world in the past few decades you can wonder- are these the early events of contraction- events in places like Syria, Lebanon and Sudan, Rwanda, Ukraine and Gaza? Ask the Rohingya what it feels like.

              Its a crowded, hot, fragmented world with human population and biosphere expropriation level that are grossly overextended.

        2. OFM, This is the bit you continually overlook…

          “There’s nothing in the way of physical or technical considerations to prevent it….. the materials are and will be available”

          Once we have gone past peak oil, with oil production declining at an accelerating rate, all the materials to build anything will not be available. They all rely upon a growing quantity of oil. Once this oil production decline sets in, the feedback loops of necessary equipment to gain access to oil will fall/fail just like everything else. Those huge tractors and trucks will struggle to get the fuel they need, exacerbating the problems in cities, making the building or making anything extremely difficult.

          Once collapse happens we wont be able to access the remaining oil and gas. It’s no longer the matter of drilling a 100 ft deep well with simple technology to gain access to oil. Any future oil comes from either deep down with horizontal drills and fracking, or deep offshore and similar hard to get places that require complex technology to gain access to. Without the complex technology after collapse, the oil may as well be on Mars.

          But wait, it’s worse. As entropy breaks down everything we build, to build new we will need lots of mined new minerals, which also require modern highly complex processes to gain access to. We used up all the simple and close mineral deposits of high grade. Even gathering old metals spread throughout old abandoned cities requires transport, how will this be done without oil and probably horses that have all been eaten during the collapse??

          Modern civilization is over for good once it fails, there are no second chances. What you state at the end of planned and controlled contraction of the economy and population is what I’ve been advocating for the entire time and we should have been doing for many decades. Instead what’s happened is we’ve gone into massive overshoot in every area of modernity and population, so what’s left is to try and reduce future suffering as much as possible by contracting economy and population as much as possible.

          The problem is no-one wants that, so we continually get told stories of magical outcomes from something that’s not physically possible, and everyone embraces further ‘growth’ calling more destruction of the biosphere ‘green’, by burning more fossil fuels and destroying more natural areas to gain the minerals and metals necessary… All while further depleting fossil fuels and going deeper into overshoot.

          1. You’re actually wrong, because we’ll just die in a dumb climate induced famine in 2030 before we’ve even gotten to the true decline of oil and we’ll all look awfully stupid in hindsight debating which badlands Mad Max warlord we were going to be subservient to.

      3. In the meantime, people will get done what they can.
        And some will be ahead of the curve, and some will be way behind.

        If humanity is going to follow the voluntary contraction that Hideaway et al propose then it should be coal as priority phase out.
        And yes you guys are proposing voluntary contraction by attempting to argue off non-fossil energy production.
        I doubt humanity will go for the voluntary contraction.
        And that is unfortunate for all living things, including humans.
        But it is what we do, including yourselves over your entire life.

        1. I think primary energy consumption will start falling pretty soon.

      4. Suppose we continue on our current fossil fuel based economic path?

        What could possibly go wrong?

        How about WWIII brought on by countries desperate for oil and gas, maybe coal as well, going to war to secure access ?

        Personally I find it utterly absurd that anybody with even an A B C level understanding of the physical realities involving the depletion of Mother Nature’s one time gift of fossil fuels somehow manages to convince himself that renewables cost too much.

    3. Just like pipelines, there will be plenty of people heading to the courts to fight the construction of power lines, especially in the densely populated east coast of the country.

    1. Number 1 for preppers ready to live their Fallout lives to the limit.

  5. The problem is the industrial revolution allowed people to abandon God as their primary source of salvation and adopt career goals and offspring carrer goals as their primary source of salvation. As fossil fuels deplete people will be reduced of the ability to receive salvation through career growth and materialism. In other words, as peak oil sets in, people will “lose their religion”. People are going to go insane when they study for many year only to find no job prospects. It’s not that the basic need won’t be met, it’s that the spiritual needs won’t be met because we have gotten so used to a secular way of thinking.

      1. As Schiller put it, “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain”.

        1. “Both, the House in particular, would very likely be filled with even more extreme sycophants who hate the Constitution with the same blind passion with which they hate women and minorities.”
          Could be, I guess?

      2. Nope, not joking. America has become an all-you-can-eat buffet of idols. I don’t blame people for not going to church anymore. Industrialization has brought us a lot of tangible things that can bring meaning and entertainment to our lives.

        1. Nope, not joking. America has become an all-you-can-eat buffet of idols.

          Idols??? That could go either way. But if you said “idiots”, you would be close. They are called Trumpites, and they are blooming fools. Just think, the majority of voters in Northeast Georgia, voted for MTG, a blooming idiot herself. So what does that say about the average citizen of Northeast Georgia?

          I don’t blame people for not going to church anymore.

          Nonsense. The folks of Northeast Georgia are the most religious people in America. They all worship the Orange Jesus. As a general rule, the dumber people are, the more religious they are. But the general population is getting smarter, and they are leaving their church and their religion in droves.

          1. An idol is anything that can bring ultimate meaning and self worth in a person’s life. It’s usually either one of three things: a career ambition, a romantic partner, or a child.

            Idolatry is bad because because it makes you spiritually dependent on people and forces beyond your control.

            In America we have gotten used to this story of if you get a college degree you will get a high paying job and your life will have meaning. This is an idol; and now it is being ripped away from the younger generation and it is causing suffering.

            But the problem isn’t the staggering economy; the problem is that we shouldn’t have been worshipping college degrees and high paying jobs in the first place.

            1. You don’t need an idol, be the best of yourself and quit worrying about what other people think.

            2. Your thesis is a bit muddled. Unclear on what you’re trying to convey.

            3. I think Cactus is talking about the hyper individualism of the modern consumer age. It’s not a radical concept. Celebrities, material goods and narcissism writ large are what people aspire to. It is certainly not relegated to Trumpites, given the amount of absolute bullshit coming from the Biden lot and people across the Western liberal sphere. It’s a loss of meaning and society, which the capitalists figured could be replaced by the market and an endless need to buy your way into a self-image that fills a hole nothing branded goods will be able to.

              At the end of the day, this shallow way of living was going to destroy us even without resource limits. You simply cannot have millions of people acting as individuals who, to borrow Thatcher’s words, believe there is no such thing as society. Doesn’t work, never had, never will.

              The more people wake up to neoliberalism hollowing out the world around them for profiteering by the elites, the better. You only have to read anything by our current benefactors, the likes of Sam Altman and Elon Musk, to realise how rudderlerss this whole mess is.

    2. CACTUS —

      There haven’t been any gods in our family in five generations though I have to say Odin and the goddess Freyja have tempted me on rare occasions. Guess we’re all beyond salvation?

      1. Well you got me beat. My father and his father were both atheists. My great grandfather was Presbyterian. I don’t agree with the secular way of finding meaning for oneself.

        1. God is make believe…someone tries to may you believe.

          I’m fine with simply the concept of the pursuit of goodness.
          Small ‘g’. No book, no authorities, no teams, …those are contrary to goodness.

          So please don’t be so presumptuous and controlling as to tell me about the abandonment of “God as their primary source of salvation”.
          Thank you in advance for extending that grace.

          1. Actually I will express my beliefs about spirituality, religion, and its relevance to the peak oil/climate change/materialism/industrialization discussion.

            Also, I never said anything about being good. That’s not what this discussion is about.

            1. The greatest problem is that too many (most?) people have beliefs based on zero evidence, so they can believe in magic which gives an excuse for continuing bad behavior towards the natural world which is our home.

              Without the natural world performing all it’s very necessary functions, we will make the planet uninhabitable for ourselves and most (all?) other life, in the only planet we know for certain that contains life.

              Don’t most religions have some form ‘of go forth and multiply’ as their mantra so that those in charge are wealthier from the ‘offerings’ of all the followers?

          2. The only thing that is make believe is the concept of endless economic growth.

            2. That’s high on the list of make believe but not the only thing. For example:
              -Heaven
              -God’s love of humanity
              -Trump’s patriotism
              -Absolute morality

    3. When people mention god as a solution to any problem facing humanity or an individual this is the image that comes to mind. It says everything you need to know about man’s place in creation:
      https://www.google.com/imgres?q=child%20with%20vulture&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fthumb%2Fb%2Fb8%2FKevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg%2F300px-Kevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Vulture_and_the_Little_Girl&docid=AGwGvYjrNPS7zM&tbnid=1gFKGFis3SgYnM&vet=12ahUKEwio-Kewn5CHAxUVoY4IHSeuBywQM3oECBIQAA..i&w=300&h=192&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwio-Kewn5CHAxUVoY4IHSeuBywQM3oECBIQAA

      1. That’s pretty sad to see. But there is good news. Firstly, that little girl did survive. Secondly, not to downplay the suffering of this world, but there is a heaven that everyone goes to.

        1. The child was a boy named Kong Nyong. He died in 2007 from a fever.

        2. Secondly, not to downplay the suffering of this world, but there is a heaven that everyone goes to.
          As Nietzsche pointed out, believing is heaven is the same as worshiping death. It’s a death cult, you can’t scare death cultists with images of suffering and dying. They love it.

        3. “but there is a heaven that everyone goes to”

          Does this heaven accept child rappists and serial killers? And does it include animals like dogs and dolphins? I’m OK with “them” not allowing cats, serial killers in their own way.

            1. Good to know that you’re up to date with the current regulations. Let us know if there are any changes.

        4. The picture makes two points to me.
          -No god that cared one whiff about humanity would permit the situation to exist.
          -The reason we have the picture is because a human, not a spiritual being, intervened.

    4. Cactus
      The problem is the industrial revolution allowed people to abandon God
      Blessed are those who believe that.

      1. The problem is that capitalism has forced people to give up community. We are collective beasts. We need a community to thrive. We do not need superstition forced down our throats. Name a benign theocracy.

        1. JJHMAN —
          I like to say that about car oriented city design. Instead of lively walkable communities where you meet and greet your neighbors on your way to work or in the grocery store, different functions are separated geographically, so everyone is forced to travel long distances and the destinations are anonymous.

        1. Appreciate the open mind.

          Bart Ehrman is the Best of the Best when it comes to New Testament scholarship.

          He is fluent in the (now deprecated) greek language that the original manuscripts of the Bible were written in.

          Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Greek or English by the way ( the original texts were based on Chinese Whispers oral tradition that eventually turned in to written tradition by people who had never met Jesus or could speak his language 30-40 years after his death (Gospel of Mark) ).

          The texts have changed throughout the centuries as people didn’t have microsoft word or typewriters, there were fallible scribes hand copying the texts.

          Some were nefarious and with an agenda (Gospel of John)

          We know this for a fact, because we have some of the earliest texts and can compare them to later variants.

          And for the atheists ( I am an atheist with regards to the bible, but agnostic/deist for what is beyond the universe – just think we don’t know!!)

          who will say that Jesus didn’t even exist.

          Bart (an agnostic) has written a book that claims there is more evidence that a human named Jesus did exist than there is evidence that Julius Caesar existed.

          There is no evidence he was anything more than just a human.

          Namely different tribes of people wrote about him who didn’t know each other and they said similar things about him.

          That he was an Apocalypticist (Dead Sea Scrolls, Gospels, Apostle Paul, etc)

          The history, culture, mythology and psychology of the Bible is simply fascinating.


          But it is very dangerous to blindly trust it.

          2. At risk of pointing out the painfully obvious; Bronze Age goat herding tribal dogma isn’t a great framework for modern living.

            2. “At risk of pointing out the painfully obvious; Bronze Age goat herding tribal dogma isn’t a great framework for modern living.”

              BINGO, my thoughts exactly.

            4. “At risk of pointing out the painfully obvious; Bronze Age goat herding tribal dogma isn’t a great framework for modern living.”

              I agree.

              But the history of the Bible is fascinating IMO. And Bart Ehrman does the best job explaining it IMO.

              And even if it isn’t reliable, it has had a huge influence on Western Civilisation.

              For example, the inexplicable concept of the Holy Trinity which I believe appears in 1 passage was added by an unknown scribe in like the 13th century.

              That lies at the heart of the Catholic Religion, but was not taught by Jesus.

              That one scribe changed the modern world!

            5. Andre —
              The Holy Trinity is in the Nicene Creed which was agreed on as the statement of Christian faith in the 4th century. It doesn’t appear in the Bible directly, but is a result of a lot of tortured argument about what the text is supposed to mean.

            6. Alim,

              thanks for pointing that out. I guess that is why I am not a biblical scholar.

              lol.

            7. As to the Trinity, it does appear in the Bible… Well, sort of:

              The phrase “and these three are one” appears in the King James Version of the Bible in 1 John 5:7-8, which states, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”. This verse is considered a clear statement of the Trinity doctrine, which is the Christian belief that God is one being that exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

              I think that is the passage Andre was referring to. Of course it is all mythical nonsense, but there is a Biblical basis for it nevertheless.

            8. Thanks Ron.
              A more modern translation is:

              For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

              Andre was right though, but it was 16th century not 13 century.

    1. The sky is not falling. Although it looked like it in March 2022.

    1. I like it

      Kamala should be the heir apparent, no fighting. She’ll be a pitbull all over that orange ass. She can get the job and do it. Four months to run on Roe, women, justice and democracy.

      Two women, I like it alot

      Biden can go out a hero and hand it over with grace. Winners know when to walk away from the table.

      1. What are the odds of the US political system making a good choice like that? Why didn’t democrats make this type of decision ages ago when it was obvious that Trump would win the primaries? Joe’s ‘ageing’ has been on display for years.

        Then again perhaps it is ironic that the leading nation of modern civilization has a true representative of it’s own aging and nearing end of life, by appointing a demented old man as it’s leader. (as in either current candidate).

        1. Like other democracies, in the US the participants (voters & politicians) are people… all of whom are flawed. Every single one. Good decision making and deep understanding of issues are not a strong suit of most of the the participants.
          So generally you get results ranging from OK to very poor.
          I’ve got no excuse for the performance of the US, or the rest of the worlds countries for that matter.
          Generally I look at the choice for president as ‘who will do the least damage’.
          Damage what? Various people have different priorities.

          1. “Then again perhaps it is ironic that the leading nation of modern civilization has a true representative of it’s own aging and nearing end of life”

            Biden: Like The Nation, I Am Indispensable Too
            https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-interview-stephanopoulos/

            Lmfao WTF; conceited, get over yourself! America has been a laughing stock on the global stage for sometime now; worse than petulant children.

            The two primary options on the ballot appear to be The Elitists vs The Grifters.

            I read that Supreme Court Justice Thomas sold out our Republic for an RV; no bodyguard required.

            Welcome to the downward spiral. Pathetic.

            1. “I read that Supreme Court Justice Thomas sold out our Republic for an RV; no bodyguard required.”
              Who invented the phrase “the banality of evil”?

            2. What got me was all the people making out Trump was the worst thing ever. These people seemingly memory holed 2000 to 2008 where some guy did two consecutive terms and, well, it didn’t go well for America, let me tell you.

              But sure, Trump is the literal anti-Christ.

            3. To Kleiber:
              Trump is not a bad model of an antichrist. Bush 2 was only a catastrophe by comparison. He was never a danger to the concept of representative government. Trump is. While wrong-headed and poorly advised, little Bush was at least moderately tied to the status quo, of the industrialist/capitalist society that we live in. Trump represents the underbelly of authoritarian oligarchy. I first got into politics to oppose the shrub but Trump is in a different category.

  8. -CNN: CEO Trump donor
    -ABC: CEO Trump donor
    -CBS: CEO Trump donor
    -NBC: CEO Trump donor
    -MSNBC: CEO Trump donor
    -Washington Post: owner Jeff Bezo
    -Wall Street Journal: Owner: Rupert Murdoch
    – New York Times: CEO Trump donor.

    Shows where their interests are—

    1. While true and you should never take media owned by vested interests at face value, it kinda rings hollow when Biden has spooked his own party and refuses to step down because he’s literally too senile to acknowledge how terrible his polling is.

    1. High Temperature for Sunday, July 7, 2024
      (as received by 2 pm EDT July 8)
      129 at Death Valley, CA

      Low Temperature for Monday, July 8, 2024
      (as received by 2 pm EDT July 8)
      27 at Peter Sinks, UT

    2. HT, OFM and others,

      “BAD FAITH reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, distorting political issues into Biblical battles between good and evil. Financed through the secretive Council for National Policy, Christian Nationalists have succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within. Discover the origins of this organized grasp for power and the grassroots coalition of secular and interfaith leaders bravely confronting the unholy forces threatening democracy.

      ******

      LIKE MANY AMERICANS, I was shocked by Trump’s victory in 2016.

      His success made me realize I didn’t know my country very well. In 2018, I started doing research: interviewing Evangelicals and reading books about them.

      I hired Chris Jones as editor and co-producer and later that year we began filming all over the country, even in Australia. With the exception of shoots in LA and Washington, DC, we filmed interviews remotely, first to save money and then because of COVID.

      Alec Baer came on the team in the summer of 2021, eventually taking over principal editing from Chris, who became co-director focusing more on music, visual effects and working with our archival producer, Amanda Pinedo.

      As the country was shifting ground under our feet, becoming more radicalized, the goal posts of our doc kept changing. Chris and Alec shared with me the writing of the doc as we struggled to keep up.

      We were fortunate to have highly experienced executive producers join our team early on to guide us, each with his own area of expertise. Peter Graves, John Ptak, Mike Steed and Todd Stiefel help steer the vessel and keep it afloat.

      Co-producer Doug Blush, who has made a staggering number of award-winning documentaries, came on the team mid-2022. He has given invaluable feedback on the cuts, and pointed us in the direction of trusted post-production collaborators. — STEPHEN UJLAKI”

      https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com/filmmakers

      Streaming on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Youtube and Tubi

    1. They should do what the Barcelonans did and shoot the tourists with water pistols.

    1. Bloomberg kinda sounds like they are arguing that deflating prices are a good thing. Because China is very much stuck in deflation currently.

      I don’t believe deflating prices are very good for the banks in China.

      Meanwhile the yield curve in the US treasury market is steepening out in the direction that indicates recession.

      US may also slip into deflation. Since we do indeed have a globally synchronized economy.

      If you check the tanker data. You’ll see fewer oil tankers are heading to China.

      Is that because EV’s are putting a huge dent in oil demand or is it because the economy in China is in crisis mode?

        1. China making cheap goods to solve for FF reliance is a thing the West really hates. See Chinese EV tariffs in the US and EU along with solar etc.

        2. It’s exactly what that article is about. Bloomberg is spinning it as falling prices are a good thing for EV’s.

          I’m saying falling prices are a bad thing for EV’s. Over capacity and falling prices lead to bankruptcy.

          Bloomberg just like many other media outlets tell you what you want to hear. Not necessarily the truth.

          Slowing inflation being a good thing is also a lie. Slowing inflation equals nothing good. It means higher unemployment, higher loan delinquencies, be careful what you ask for comes to mind.

          1. I suggest that you have a somewhat jilted and dysfunctional reality filter on your eyeglasses.

          2. I spent the 90s wholesaling computer components — selling containers full of electronic stuff from Asia to Europe.

            The prices fell drastically the whole time. It was pretty insane. We’d get a new shipment of the latest equipment and rush to call our customers with the exciting news. Six months later it was junk and we were selling the same stuff at cost or below to clear out our warehouse. It didn’t kill the computer industry.

            It wasn’t just chips. For example, I had a wonderfully profitable run with halogen lightbulb ceiling spotlight lamps. We got them straight from a Taiwanese factory. The quality was good and the prices were amazing. We sold huge quantities of them. Customers kept pressuring us to lower prices, and we did, because the price kept falling.

            After about a year the halogen lightbulb cost as much as the rest of the lamp put together. The price was completely broken and we were too small an operation to supply the big retailers that took over the market. So we got out.

            I am not making this up. It’s hard to believe if you’ve never been in the business, but it’s real. There is no bottom. If the materials get too expensive they’ll switch materials or find ways to reduce their use.

            1. Unfortunately this isn’t the 90’s China. China isn’t embarking on an epic growth story that the world has never seen before.

              Things are so bad in China right now. Their government is going to borrow hundreds of billions of government bond from the banks. Unsecured at that. They aren’t posting collateral or actually paying for them.

              The intention is to short sell the bonds into the market to get yields to rise. Because they think it’s the interest rate differentials dragging the currency down.

              It’s not. It’s a bad global economy, bad real estate market, bad banking system that is dragging their currency down.

              That is their plan to support their currency. And it’s ludicrous.
              But they are desperate.

          3. You are right HHH
            LG and other western battery manufacturers are reporting operating losses. There is a slump in demand driving the price down. Not some tech hoopla. China is also dumping steal. They’re in full deflation mode right now.
            CRE here is another example we’re sliding into deflation absent energy costs driving up food medical etc. limits to growth outlined it as capital moves to energy from other areas of the economy who experience deflation.

            1. China has two choices. First choice is have something that resembles a Great Depression internally.

              Second choice is use the currency to export deflation. But since they import just about everything. They are desperate not to allow the currency to fall.

              There is no third choice. So for now depression it is. Until it gets so bad they capitulate and devalue.

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