108 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, March 4, 2023”

  2. EV sales collapse as subsidies and tax credits come to an abrupt halt

    “The global electric vehicle (EV) market is reeling from one of the most dramatic collapses in monthly sales to date, with Rystad Energy research showing that only 672,000 units were sold in January, almost half of December 2022 sales and a mere 3% year-on-year increase over January 2022. The EV market share among all passenger car sales also tumbled to 14% in January, well down on the 23% seen in December.”

    Presumably this is indicative of something important, but the thing that struck me most was how small the RoW sales have been (these didn’t collapse like those in Europe and China).

    https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/ev-sales-collapse-as-subsidies-and-tax-credits-come-to-an-abrupt-halt

      1. People are being routinely priced out of the market for cars, no doubt at all.

        And here in the USA, the relatively poor but generally hard working people in my area are really hurting because even older used cars are insanely expensive now, compared to three or four years ago.

        But we can and will learn to get by with less.

        I got used to living in a cramped apartment in the city, without even a parking space of my very own, after living on a farm and owning everything within a ten minute walk in most directions, lol.

        I wonder how long it will be before some of our domestic manufacturers decide it’s time to build some BASIC cars again.

        It wouldn’t be any problem at all to produce a model similar to a Toyota Corolla with just plain old industrial paint of the sort used on farm equipment, with rubber floor mats, everything optional except mechanical essentials , or even simply unavailable at any price.

        Tens of millions of us would be just FINE with an electric a car with only one hundred miles of range, or with a gasoline engine delivering fifty mpg or better.

        I personally know probably a dozen “count every penny” working people who would buy a cheap electric car with only a hundred mile range, rather than another new conventional car, assuming the electric would come with a bullet proof warranty for ten years on the drive train……. because they would be commuting in it a couple of hundred miles a week, and keeping their ordinary car or truck for other trips and work.

        Air bags and a collapsible chassis aren’t all THAT expensive, and the powers that have saddled us with a dozen counter productive safety and pollution regulations have the power to revoke those same regulations.

        From YEARS ago:
        https://www.autoblog.com/2009/10/02/report-all-of-europes-15-most-fuel-efficient-cars-get-better-t/

        All of Europe’s 15 most fuel-efficient cars get better than 56 mpg

        True these were diesels, but diesels can run clean enough to be far better choices, taken all around, than gasoline vehicles.

        Sometimes it’s better to accept a cost such as higher nitrogen oxides emissions in order to save big time on other problems such as CO2. There’s more to preserving civilization than just cleaning up the air, such as spending a hell of a lot less fighting a hot war over access to oil.

        But my real point is that those same cars, equipped with current model gasoline engines, would still be getting twenty percent better fuel economy than just about anything you can buy in the USA today, excepting maybe a Prius.

        1. Hi Mac,

          ” similar to a Toyota Corolla with just plain old industrial paint of the sort used on farm equipment, with rubber floor mats,”

          I still read a lot of your comments and agree with your take a lot. But basically I think you have this wrong. I believe if the American consumers would buy this kind of vehicle. Then manufacturers would produce and sell it. Americans have better options than no options and “old industrial paint”. New vehicles are kind of a luxury in its self and those who buy them understand this.

          Two simple reasons, todays new vehicles life cycle are years longer with less repairs and maintenance today. Second and more importantly, most prefer to buy a nicely equipped 3 year old vehicle for about 50 cents on the dollar compared to new. Bare bones vehicles have poor resale and most Americans ego’s don’t want to be seen diving a Yugo type.

          1. I have to agree, HB, about the wants and desires of car buyers in this country…… but if car companies were FORCED by mandate to build such cars, they would sell, maybe not at a profit, but they would sell.
            And I believe one hell of a lot of business people would buy them, for use as utility and delivery vehicles, etc.

            And while you and Hole in Head are right in the short term…… I’m thinking about the longer term.
            Maybe I’m wrong, but I foresee tough times ahead for everybody in the USA, excepting the elite of course, and for everybody in the world in general.
            Most of us seem to believe that due to overshoot, we’re locked into a crash and burn scenario…… and we might be indeed.

            But I’m thinking that maybe with a great deal of luck, it won’t be quite so bad, at least for some of us in some places, and that SOME of us will hopefully continue to live a more or less modern, dignified lifestyle, but a lifestyle based on using far fewer natural resources, far less energy, doing far more recycling, having far fewer children, etc etc.

            So…. maybe instead of having plain jane cars the size of a Corolla, we’ll have cars half that size, two seaters arranged fore and aft….. but with all the usual fancy paint, leather upholstery, audiophile quality sound system, etc.

            In any case I don’t personally believe that our current lifestyle based on using mind boggling amounts of energy and materials can continue indefinitely, and probably for no more than two or three more decades…. if that long.

            What do you personally believe the future holds in terms of personal vehicles?

            I can’t see any possible way we give up suburbia and the country side, and I can’t see mass transit ever working well if at all except in high density urban areas.

            I believe a CPA or an MD would rather drive a nice micro mini car, if ( maybe because it’s against the law to build bigger cars) nothing else is available, than give up his swimming pool, garage, back yard, and four bedrooms and two or baths……… in exchange for a non existent nice apartment in the city…… where he COULD take a bus or subway.

          2. Cheap cars for poor people will never fly because cars are inherently a waste of money. They sit idle 95% of the time, and depreciate at an alarming rate.

            Like all consumer products, cars are built to make money, not to provide a service. Nobody in product development wastes time dreaming up a product for people who can’t afford one.

            The used car markt is much bigger than the new car market. In countries with a a functional transport system, used cars tend to be exported to poorer countries fairly fast. But the poor have to make do somehow if there is no alternative. Like the the Canaanite woman said to Jesus, the even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table. The car industry isn’t interested in building cars for people who can’t pay for them.

            Used cars are what people can afford, not what people want. Given public transportation that gets them where the need to go, people will do without cars. The average age of the car on the road is a good measure of the efficiency of the transportation system.

            One interesting consequence is that poor Americans drive used gas guzzlers. It seems irrational until you realize the vehicles are designed for people with more money, and then foisted off on the poor.

        2. OFM , “But we can and will learn to get by with less. ”
          Try that with the Tik Tok generation . I promise you will be disappointed . You, me and many others
          are from another era . What we went thru is not what the ” tik tok ” generation has enjoyed .
          Slogan of the Tik Tok generation ” You will pry my I phone from my bloody cold hands ” . 🙂

        3. OFM,
          Your wisdom shines through again. The road to sustainable transportation will include a lot more shoe leather, bicycles, vehicles which are much lighter and travel at much slower average speeds and trains. Physics demands it, the energy budget of a society living on much less fossil fuels will demand it. This future of less is hard for people to swallow. Tesla is not a vision of our future, any more than flying cars. All my opinion of course, but based on a realistic assessment of available future energy supplies.

          1. The road to sustainable transportation also includes legalizing corner stores and apartment buildings, so people don’t have to travel as much.

            One often mentioned problem is “food deserts” in American cities. The solution do-gooders come up with is subsidized supermarkets. This is completely blinkered. The solution is legalizing the sale of fresh vegetables on the sidewalk, as is common all over the world.

      2. Hi HIH,
        years ago, because nearly nobody accepted the thermodynamic calculation of the exergy necessary for oil production, i decided to use the car sales numbers to convince people. Cars are a important part of the oil consuming infrastructure, and when the thermodynamic necessary exergy for oil production goes up, less exergy remains for the infrastructure, and car sales must go down.
        Car sales go down. Slower than i expected, but they go down. Sometimes up, then down again.
        Their decrease is the logical consequence of the 2nd law.
        The image shows the status of current US car sales.

    2. Hi George,

      From what I read it is estimated that roughly 1 in 250 cars on the road is electric, which equals a global market share of around 2.2% for electric vehicles. So, to this point EVs remain a niche market. Where I live virtually all vehicles, new and old, are pickup trucks and SUVs. Maybe EVs will be worth talking about when (if) they reach 10 percent of the global market.

      https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/cars/how-many-electric-cars-in-the-world/

      1. Where I live virtually all vehicles, new and old, are pickup trucks and SUVs.

        Agree, where I live (Bend) most people are driving dinosaurs also.
        I drive a Yaris (have a Subaru also, but haven’t driven it for months), that is over 10years old.
        About ready to abandon cars permantly.

      2. Doug —
        I think you are confusing the new car market with the existing fleet.
        In Europe in December, one in three new cars had a plug. That includes plugin hybrids and EVs. About the same numbers are expected this year in China.

        Those are the two biggest car markets. The #3 market, North America, is a few years behind. Worldwide, EVs are about 10% of the market.

        Anecdotally, my experience is quite different to yours. I live in a cul-de-sac in a German suburb. There are about 30 houses. By my count there are 9 EVs in the street and a couple of hybrids. It all happened in the last year and a half or so.

        Note: The world is changing very quickly. People tend to react emotionally to this, but it’s happening. This is not the same as saying the world is rapidly getting better.

    3. On EVs’
      2022- “Global EV sales continued strong. A total of 10.5 million new BEVs and PHEVs were delivered during 2022, an increase of 55 % compared to 2021.” [Total global sales 2022 roughly 81 million]

      It will take a long time to phase out the global stock of ICE vehicles.
      I doubt there will be enough EV’s on the road to keep oil prices from going very high(er) this decade.
      At some point there will probably be a frenzy for EV’s, with longer wait times.
      Smaller battery capacity vehicles (less expensive) with a more rapid charging capability will become a more common segment of the market over the rest of the decade.

      Battery capacity will be a purchasing choice, that will affect price and range. For example-
      “The Volkswagen ID3 is available in the UK with three battery options
      – 45kWh that’s good for just over 200 miles,
      – 58kWh with a 260-mile range and
      – 77kWh that should be good for up to 340 miles
      [generally actual range is less than standard testing indicates]
      “Those battery sizes are tied to different power outputs for the electric motor, too. Depending on which one you choose, the ID3 will kick out 145hp, 150hp or 204hp.”
      https://www.carwow.co.uk/volkswagen/id3

      It would be good to have access to an EV before petrol rationing in the form of high price or government mandate comes to your country.

    4. No sign of peak oil or climate concern in the worlds biggest country
      “Air India has ordered a record 470 planes, worth more than $100 billion at list prices, from Boeing and Airbus, in a sign of the scale of the post-pandemic rebound in the aviation industry and the growing market in India.”

    5. January sales are always lower than December sales.

      There is no point in trying to figure out long term trends based on two months data. it’s just stupid.

  3. I know this is a serious blog . However this is irresistible . Germany in 2024 .

    A German walks into a bar and orders a fancy beer.
    The bartender tells him : “100 euros!”
    The German is shocked – “100 euros? yesterday it was only 10 euros !”
    “Well, today it is 100 euros.”
    – “But why 100, damn it?”
    Bar tender : “I’ll explain it,
    -10 euros is the beer,
    -10 to help Ukraine,
    -20 assistance to European countries who have imposed sanctions and are not members of the EU.
    -20 euros in aid to the UK, for successful implementation of sanctions against Russia.
    -Then 30 euros are sent to the Balkan countries as aid to buy furnace coal/keep their corrupt politicians.
    – and finally, 10 euros for a gas subsidy for the EU and fund to help maintain sanctions!”
    The German silently with internal anger took out the money and gave the bartender 100 euros.
    The bartender took them, entered in the cash register and gave him 10 euros back.
    German in disbelief : “Wait, you said 100 euros, right ? I gave you 100, why are you giving me back 10 euros?”
    “…..There is no beer.”
    Dennis , you are free to delete this . No problem . I spurted my beer on the laptop on reading this . Got a new laptop . Expensive for me . 🙂

    1. Russia in 2025

      The Russians 1991 economy will be remembered as the good old days in Russia. The $300 billion of international frozen Russian assets will rebuild Ukraine. NATO is larger and more united than anytime in its history. Autocracy takes a back seat to democracy in the world. Putin falls out of a window at the Kremlin. Internet Russian bots and supporters no longer post comments at POB. Joseph Biden starts his second term.

      The educated don’t find humor in the aggressions of Putin in Ukraine

      1. Russia has the worst leaders. Never a good one.
        My guess is DeSantis wins the White House next.
        Over all I expect less two term Presidents from now on.
        It’s not a hope, it’s a forecast; some confuse the two.
        Put a pin in it.

        1. The Republican party is hell-bent on destroying itself. They are fractured and fighting among themselves. Trumpites will never vote for Desantis. Also, Trumpites are supporting Putin right now. They are a majority of the Republican party yet Independents and some Republicans now swear they will never vote for Trump.

          No, Desantis will not be the next president. The 2024 vote will go for a Democrat, whomever that may be.

          1. In general I have been pleased with the Biden Administration and not worried about his years of wisdom. It’s really all about the team around him. FDR and Pelosi are good examples. But there will be those even on the left who will make a deal of it.

            There is a large fraction of the Republican party that is driven by power and wealth at all cost. Don’t think for a second what happened to Nazi Germany couldn’t happen in America. It’s about the education of history, truth, mind control and human nature. Book bands or burnings, it’s the same shit. American democracy isn’t immune. Freedom isn’t free.

            Never say never Ron. These people believe their superior and their playing hardball. This fight is bigger than just America. I hope your right.

          1. There may be many Eisenhowers out there, but none of them stands a chance as long as the conspiracy theory idiots run the GOP.

            1. I think the current insanity of the GOP comes from gerrymandering. The real nuts are in safe seats, where they compete against others appeal to the most hard core voters. If the seats weren’t safe, they’d have to take more reasonable positions.

              The Republicans are a natural minority (they lose the popular vote inn early every presidential election) so they have been pushing gerrymandering (and voter suppression) hard. This is making them more and more dependent on safe seats. The unintended consequence is that their positions are getting crazier and crazier.

            2. I think there is also an issue with money. If you look at campaign contributions over the years there is a big difference in the amount of money flowing to the Republicans in races where they can win and it’s not just on the federal level. Republicans have played the long game for a long time and they have gotten results at the state and local level. The results have been a constant increase in the fraction of national wealth that has gone to a decreasingly small number of individuals and families. That money leads to political power that leads to more money.
              It’s not the conspiracy theory idiots who are running the GOP. That’s the second tier, in charge of sweeping in the low lifes who will vote against their own economic interests to gain leaders who will pass laws enabling their prejudices and hate-filled dreams while keeping them away from the financial and regulatory arenas that might cost the Kochs, Edelsons, Steyers et al a red cent.

          2. There is also the issue of the amount of time and money. I’d like to see us shorten the amount of campaigning time. Maybe start in September before a November election. This would take some of the money needed out of the cycle.

        3. Right and they lost WW2 to Germany is that correct? Because of all those horrible leaders they had?

      2. Come on man. Your post is humor writing itself.

        Russia is strong internally and has many allies. You personally may not like that fact (I have no idea why, Russia has never to my knowledge attacked America and your ancestors fought beside them to defeat Germany). But it’s a fact nonetheless.

        1. Russia’s army: An overestimated power
          https://amp.dw.com/en/russias-army-an-overestimated-power-in-the-war-against-ukraine/a-63264441

          Russia is bogged down in their own incompetence; they can’t even take on Ukraine decisively. Russia is transitioning to being a regional power, one that appears to others as both wealthy and weak.

          12,000 Russian Troops Were Supposed To Defend Kaliningrad. Then They Went To Ukraine To Die.
          https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/10/27/12000-russian-troops-once-posed-a-threat-from-inside-nato-then-they-went-to-ukraine-to-die/?sh=757d52c63375

          Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 8, 2023
          https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-8-2023

          Putin’s War Against Ukraine: The End of The Beginning
          https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/17/putin-s-war-against-ukraine-end-of-beginning-pub-89071

        2. Russia did pretty much the same goddamned thing the Germans set out to do, except that the Germans lost.

          The Russians didn’t go home after the Germans surrendered.

          They continued to occupy one hell of a large part of Europe.

          DP, you’re either a Russian troll, or else you’re incredibly ill informed, or maybe just STUPID, when it comes to Russian foreign and domestic policies for the last hundred years or so.

          1. OFM
            “hundred years” ? A good case can be made that the Russians have never had a good government since the founding of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the 1300s.

    2. A favorite tactic of Hole in Head is called ‘Disparagement Humor’

      Denigrate a particular viewpoint, ethnic group, political stance, or person
      and then just say that you were kidding, or that it was a joke or said in jest.
      Which is basically just a lie.
      Its a juvenile tactic to avoid being straightforward about ones position.
      Trump is a master at it, and H in H is a fan boy.

      Here is an article from the psychopathology literature on this behavior-
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8645564/

  4. The developed Western world is NOT out of resources, not yet anyway.

    But it is obvious we’re at the point of being forced to change our wasteful ways, or else we’re collectively looking at a crash and burn economic scenario, anytime from now until a decade or two down the road at the latest.

    Depending on the leaders we have, going forward, and the way the cards fall, we can either pull thru the coming resource bottleneck more or less whole, or crash all the way back to the nineteenth century.

    Climate is the ultimate wild card but I’m not talking about climate right now.

    History books are replete with examples of countries that were to put it mildly experiencing tough times for years prior to getting involved in a war.

    When the enemy troops appear, such countries have frequently ( almost routinely) pulled off an apparent economic miracle……. finding the resources to equip and train military forces adequate to defend themselves, and even go on the offensive.

    We should remember the power of the Leviathan…… the nation state. Once a nation state reaches the point that its leaders and its people realize that their very survival is at stake, things that are routinely dismissed as impossible, or not even MENTIONED AT ALL, by very close to one hundred percent of the media, suddenly become not only possible…….. they become realities.

    And the same thing that got us into the jam we’re in now….. technology, in the grand collective sense of the word, will likely suffice to get some of us out of the jam.

    https://www.geo.tv/latest/474325-going-green-oil-heartland-texas-embraces-renewable-energy

    Consider wind and solar power for instance. We’re told renewable electricity can never shoulder the load.

    “Texas today remains primarily dependent on fossil fuels. As of early this year, gas was its leading source of energy (at 42%, according to Ercot, which manages the state’s electrical grid). Coal trails at 11%.

    But renewable sources have carved out a major role.

    Wind-generated power now provides 29% of Texas’s needs, with solar at 11%. The remainder comes from nuclear and hydro-power.

    By comparison, wind was at 24% just two years ago, and solar was at less than 5%.”

    Now of course such awesomely fast growth in wind and solar power is possible in Texas because the climate there is extremely favorable, but let’s not forget something else.

    The government and most of the people of the state of Texas are deep dark red hot cherry red, politically.

    Some comedian is famous for saying that if you’re wondering why our country is in such trouble, consider the fact that the average citizen is as dumb as a rock…….. meaning half of us are even worse.

    I don’t know how fast we can transition to renewable energy…… but I’m convinced that once the lights start going off once in a while, due to a lack of fossil fuel, or impossibly expensive fuel, that the typical citizen will understand that wind and solar farms, once built, run pretty much fuel free for pretty much forever…… because they’re going to last INDEFINITELY….. rather than twenty five years.

    Going back and refurbishing them to BETTER than new productivity is going to cost only a very minor fraction of the cost of building new from scratch.

    Even stupid people can understand such a simple matter, once they get hit upside their head a few times with a sharp chunk of brick…… and they’ll eventually come around to supporting renewable energy……. even the ones who own MAGA hats.

    I know a couple of that sort already….. they’re hoping to get on with the construction crew building a new solar farm within commuting distance.

    1. OFM
      I responded very late to your comments on the previous string- don’t know if you were able to pick it up or not.

      2. Hickory,

        Very impressed that the https://globalwindatlas.info/en has a feature for wind speed according to height over surface. When it comes to the very difficult and disputed measure of EROEI measurement a lot can be said. I agree that prospects are favourable when catching winds at higher altitudes. Electricity system costs comes in a major way when wind power exceeds 50% of supply. That is when you get the storage cost calculations that distorts the EROEI substantially. It will wary from region to region so it is not easy to say anything universal about it.

        1. “It will vary from region to region so it is not easy to say anything universal about it.”

          True, although we can be very confident with the notion that wind turbines placed in the choice zones have very favorable energy payback periods and favorable economics. And that choice locations are abundant in many parts of the world.

          it will be very interesting to see if wind powered electrolysis for H2 energy storage becomes viable at large scale.

    3. OFM
      Right now we have a small (and growing smaller) amount of net energy to devote to the production of wind and solar. Explain to me where the energy will come from to build out wind and solar when this available net energy goes negative?? We are squandering and have squandered over the past 30+ years our window of opportunity to make the transition. The Hirsh Report back in, what was it 2005?, established that it would take a couple decades to do a transition with available net energy. Well the clock has run out. The game is nearly over. I do not see how a smooth transition is possible. Dennis is hopeful, but even he sees Peak at 2027 or so. No time left on the clock, we are more than a 3 pointer behind in the game.

      1. I agree that humanity is about 50 years late in getting serious about energy, and population overshoot.

        Regarding ‘net energy to devote to production of wind and solar’ concern…I don’t get that point.
        If we wanted to, there is plenty of energy available, over the next few decades anyway, to build all kinds of things.
        I expect that humanity will continue to burn an immense load of coal, nat gas, and oil between now and 2050.
        A tiny fraction of current industrial energy consumption could produce a massive rollout of wind and solar …if that was a priority. Do we really need an aircraft industry?- as but one example of misguided flash in the pan consumption.

          1. Point taken…the world is not taking overshoot seriously,
            or even acknowledging the condition.
            Easier to keep on the ‘growth’ train as long as possible
            no matter what the ecologic damage or financial debt accrual is.

      2. It’s not going to be EASY, but we are absolutely pissing away simply mind boggling amounts of energy.
        What I’m trying to get across is that if we’re lucky enough to have good leaders, and the general public comes to understand that our very LIVES, not just our living standard, depend on a successful transition to renewable energy, the energy is THERE.
        We can quit building new cars.We did that in WWII.
        We can quit burning ten thousand gallons of jet fuel so a few hundred people can vacation in the sun or in the snow.
        We don’t NEED sports stadiums.
        If other countries are having big enough problems of their own that we need not play policeman to the world, or if we just give that job up for lost, we can divert at least HALF of our military budget to renewable energy infrastructure.

        And once the absolute necessity of making the transition is obvious to everybody, NIMBY won’t matter anymore. Environmental reviews will take weeks, not years, and they will pretty much be rubber stamp approvals. Power lines will get built. So many people will be working on renewables infrastructure that damned few politicians will even THINK about voting to prevent the construction of a wind or solar farm, except maybe at the LOCAL level.

        MILLIONS of men and women will be on welfare…. because they will be thrown out of work, in large part because we will be putting every possible man hour and gallon of diesel and dollars worth of steel and copper into the energy transition…… so we will be putting as many of them as possible to work ON THE TRANSITION. Some of them can work in steel mills, some can work in the copper industry, some will be running machinery digging holes for foundations, or whatever.

        And let’s not forget that while we’re flat out doing all we can to build up renewable capacity, we will also be flat out working on energy conservation as well. So some of those millions of people out of work can be manufacturing insulation, and refurbishing old houses and other buildings to save energy.

        Furthermore tough times mean we will be having fewer children, and the older generations will be dying off fast. We’ll be able to abandon a lot of our worst old buildings and houses. The population WILL peak within the next few decades here in the USA and in most modern countries.

        ( I hate to say so, in so many words……. but I believe that people in countries where everybody is poor today, and birthrates are high are mostly going to suffer a plain old die off, of the sort discussed in freshman level biology text books……. the only difference being that the books talk about animals OTHER than humans dying off due to starvation, thirst, exposure, disease. etc. )

        And when times are tough, and times WILL BE TOUGH, people will do what they’ve always done….. they’ll double up to save money.

        And lets not forget that every four or five years the actual constant money cost of solar power falls by half or more.
        I’ve worn suits and worked in offices. But I was born on a farm, and off and on all my life I’ve worked WITH Mother Nature, as a necessity, farming. I made hay when the sun was shining, I worked on my machinery when it was raining and snowing.

        Once the chips are down, we can live ok while cutting back as much as a third or maybe even half on our current day energy consumption, by the simple expedient of using electricity when the sun is shining and or when the wind is blowing.

        For the last few years, I kept the temperature between seventy and seventy four in the big sunroom where Daddy lived until he died recently. I’m living in this room by myself now, as I did with him.

        I’m using an electric blanket which costs me maybe ten cents a night when the temperature outside is forty . I turn on the oil furnace fifteen minutes when I get up. This is long enough to get the wood stove cranking. Last winter I used three hundred gallons of oil heating this room. This winter……. less than fifty, and I could sleep in another room where the wood stove keeps it cozy all night, and use even less, turning on the oil heat only if I have guests.

        When my water heater gives up, I’m putting in one twice as big, with twice as much insulation, betting that I will be getting off peak electricity rates within the next few years, and there will be a timer on the water heater so that it won’t run any other time, unless I override the timer by hand.

        Now this scenario IS dependent on our country, meaning the USA, implementing economic policies based on live or die manpower and resource allocation. I’m talking about a WWII style wartime economy.

        Hey……. if any given homeowner is willing to drive his OLD car another five or six years, his PAID FOR old car, he can very likely save enough money to upgrade his house to use half as much energy, if it’s a typical house. And he might even have enough money left after buying super efficient appliances,new triple glazed windows, etc….. to buy modest sized solar system of his own….. or maybe a heat pump.

        The BIGGEST reason I don’t have a solar electricity system of my very own is a real eye opener.
        The PRICE of home scale solar systems up until the last year or two has been coming down FASTER than my potential savings on electricity. I’ve estimated my potential savings at about half, without doing anything differently, living just the same, at about five hundred bucks a year.
        The price of all the stuff I would want to buy to set up my own system has been falling MORE than five hundred bucks a year.

        So I’ve been putting buying my own solar power system off on the basis of dollars and cents.

        Things are changing VERY fast now. It’s gotten to the point that it’s CHEAPER to build wind and solar farms without subsidies than it is to build and run gas or coal fired power plants in places with first class wind and sun.

    4. Another important point is that the wild swings in output from solar and wind are finally putting America’s aged and inflexible coal plants out of their misery. The unpredictability of renewables is often cited as a weakness, but sometimes breaking the rules can create a competitive advantage.

  6. OFM , “The developed Western world is NOT out of resources, not yet anyway. ” Not important .
    Liebig’s law of the minimum applies . Some examples :
    1. Steel CrV3 . This is needed to make transmission gears for high speeds viz automotive , aircraft etc , Vanadium is only 3% . No vanadium , no Cr V3 , no gears , no transmission assemblies , adios automotive and aircraft industries .
    2 . Titanium : All modern cutting tools used on CNC machines are coated ( repeat coated NOT made of) titanium dioxide . No titanium coating say goodbye to ( Widia , Sandvik , Iscar ) tool bits , milling cutters , gear shaper cutters, gear hobber cutters basically all high speed metal cutting . Adios manufacturing .
    3 . NPK : Fertiliser is 80% Nitrogen , 15% Phosphorus and 5 % Potash . No potash , no fertilizer . Adios farming .
    Whose sign off line was ” Did you hug your bag of NPK ” ? at TOD . I think his name was Louis .
    Liebig’s law is immutable .
    Additional info . 90 % of Titanium is processed in China . Washington should think not twice but ten times before sanctioning China .
    A

    1. HiH:
      You must not have much experience with metal manufaturing. Virtually everything you mention is “nice but not necessary”. There are plenty of high strength steels without Vanadium. A lot of stuff comes from China because they have low labor rate and virtually no environmental regulations. Other sources are available.I’ve personally machined and drilled very hard metals without Titanium coatings. titanium is hard and it lasts but those are economic, not do-or-die, issues.
      Nonetheless I question the long term viability of industrial society for many reasons. None of those reasons justify pampering murderous governments.

      1. Jjhman , I have been associated with automotive transmission gear manufacturing from 1975 – 2010 . Started from milling machines to gear hobbers, gear shapers, broaching ,gear generators , spline rolling etc . Went thru all the array of metals mild steel , EN 8, EN18 , 16mnCr5, 20mnCr5 , Crv3 etc . used in automotive transmission assemblies . This is just for reference .
        The point that I was trying to make to OFM was the complexity that is imbedded in our living style and how a small tweak can upset the applecart . You said “Nonetheless I question the long term viability of industrial society for many reasons.” Agree . Your reason maybe different than mine . I have said that complexity and connectivity are the Achilles heel of Industrial Civilisation . They do not work with low energy inputs . See Tainter’s spiral .

    2. Liebig’s law is immutable

      Semiconductor manufacturing might be the limit.

      Maybe we can melt down a few SR-71s for the titanium. The past was greater than the present.

    3. We can get by, once the time comes when we MUST get by, with twenty percent of our current consumption of such stuff as the gears you describe. WHY? Because we send ninety nine percent of these gears to the scrap yard in excellent condition, because the car or truck they were installed in is more or less BUILT to be thrown away.

      I’m very well acquainted with Liebig. His work was prominently mentioned in the freshman and sophomore texts I used as an ag major undergrad back in the sixties.

      When we switch to a wartime economic plan, and if we survive the built in bottleneck, I don’t see much hope otherwise, we’ll be able to work around shortages one way or another.

      Consider fertilizers and pesticides.
      I cut my consumption of both a little every year, while still getting the same yields.

      And if we give up on eating lots of beef and to a lesser extent pork…… well any farmer can tell you that we can grow enough grain, beans, and veggies to live just fine , using half as much of these in puts.

      And right now we’re letting enough N P and K go to waste, in runoff, or in sewage sludge that ISN’T used on crop land, etc, to cut back by another twenty percent at least.

      Keep in mind that we’re talking about what’s going to happen over the course of the next two or three decades. There’s time enough for us to make countless changes in our economy, and a lot of these changes will happen automatically, as the result of MIGHTY MIGHTY MARKET and the INVINCIBLE INVISIBLE HAND.

      But in the end, as I see it, the Hand and the Market aren’t going to work even remotely fast enough.
      We’ll either come together, and work together, on a wartime basis, experiencing wartime austerity in countless respects……… or we WILL crash and burn…… because we will NOT succeed in making the transition.

      I’ve often mentioned my handmade rustic furniture… made by an old man in the neighborhood, from locally logged timber, with the only inputs from outside the community being glass and brass screws. Never boxed, never shipped, never retailed, never repaired. Over fifty years old now.
      Life expectancy a few more centuries, barring fire.
      And incidentally……..I ‘ve been offered enough for it to fill the house up twice over with some of the very best quality factory made stuff.

      The birth rate in my extended Baptist family has declined from well over four three or four generations back to under two in my generation…… and my nieces and nephews aren’t going to average over one point five per woman…..

      What I’m saying is that the naysayers, the people who say the transition is impossible, aren’t actually all that well informed, in respect to the BIG PICTURE.

      They mostly remind me of the famous astronomer, a really outstanding scientist, who accurately compared the likelihood of evolution randomly creating a human eyeball to the likelihood of a tornado blowing thru a junkyard and assembling a complete working airliner. Can’t remember his name at the moment.

      His math was good……

      But unfortunately for him he didn’t know shit from apple butter about biology.

  7. It’s a grow or die situation. Greater complexity increases energy consumption because the energy to maintain the infrastructure is seldom considered. You can defer maintenance for awhile but the associated costs are still there. Our present system was built on abundant cheap energy. Without the abundant cheap energy it wouldn’t have been built. Much of what is presently built is beyond it’s life cycle.

    At some point the Ancient Roman’s realized the past was greater than the present. But the really astute recognized it after the last conquest. No growth equals collapse.

    1. We have no growth in the west for the last 40 years in my opinion.

      In the 80s my father financed his home alone with his wage, together with 2 cars. Not fancy ones, and we had no expensive vacations, but still.

      Today you need 2 wages for this. So where is the growth.

      Color TV and stereo was the “must have gadgets” of this time, today it’s color flatscreen and IPads.

      Really, measuring growth is very difficulat, not easy. Because you need to know inflation numbers for it, and measuring Inflation is more black art than science.

      So when using shadowstats as inflation measurement, we had no growth the last 20 years.

      1. No productive growth may be a more apt descriptor. GDP measures waste as growth, the faster items go from the store to the landfill increases GDP. The myriad financial products that are non productive increase GDP. The cruise ship industry increases GDP, on and on ad nauseum.

    2. JT

      “It’s a grow or die situation”

      While I agree about you concerns regarding greater complexity based on the same or less infrastructure, I have to confront you regarding history.

      It is an imperialistic mindset. What comes to mind is the scramble of Africa that happened in the late 1800s century. It was nothing short of the incumbent powers wanting to prove themselves and increase the economic well being of their nations. “A place under the sun” as bragging rights maybe? And access to more resources. After all Africa was divided between colonial powers and WW1 did not start until about 25 years after (1889- 1914). So a limited success for peace for that time period based on growth.

      Ambitions willl be confronted probably, but the bragging rights; some room for it maybe. Better that than human ambitions getting out of control.

      1. Critical Mass is vital to affordability. What we’re already seeing are volume declines pushing up prices. Take a supermarket or large box retailer if his sales declined he must raise prices to cover fixed costs. Which often are energy which is increasing in cost. We’re already seeing empty shelves and empty stores. This isn’t a transition to online shopping. People are buying less and paying more. So gross sales are a poor measure it says nothing about volume of goods and services.

        Take Apple they have reduced their iPhone 14 production because of poor sales. Then look at Foxconn they’re having labor problems why? Because they need to squeeze more profits from less stuff.

        The Roman Empire fell because it could no longer grow. It had grown through conquest of neighboring empires with collective value. Low hanging fruit. When it ran out of the sweet spots it headed north to barbarian lands. But the ROI didn’t work. So they built a wall. Does that sound at all familiar? Diminishing returns stops growth and brings the system back to zero.

        The Anglo/American empire is at that stage. Depletion can not be overcome with diminishing returns or efficiency gains. It’s simply impossible. But the economy can’t function without growth because debt has to be returned with interest. Now one might think that you can simply write it off but you can’t because it’s the foundation of money, debt is a bank asset. Writing off or paying of debt destroys the asset. The US governments largest asset on their ledger are student loans. Think how perverse that is. But true to history people will accept slavery to survive.

      2. The changes we have seen in, say, the last 50 could be counted as growth or stagnations depending on your point of view. Here’s some numbers on growth:
        -Since 1950 the fraction of US federal government income from individual income taxes has remained constant at around 8% of GDP while the fraction from corporate taxes has decreased from 6% to 1%. The fraction for “social insurance”, Social Security and Medicare has increased from under 2% to about 6% (OMB data)
        -The fraction of federal income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of wage earners has dropped from about 7.5% in 1980 to only 2.3% in 2020 while the top 10% of earners have been burdened (ha) with their taxes going from 19% of federal taxes to over 42%. Within that upper group data has only been collected on the top 0.1% of income since 2001. Their share of federal personal income taxes has increased between then and 2020 from 15.7% to 22.1% (IRS data). In spite of the supposed “progressive” income tax these number closly represent the change in the fraction of income for these groups. (IRS data)
        -Since 1983 the wealthiest 1/3 of Americans have increased their share of the nation’s wealth from 60% to 79%, the middle 1/3 had decreased from 32% to 17% and the lowest 1/3 has decreased from 7% to 4% (Pew Research)
        -Gross domestic product has almost tripled (x2.8) during that period (1980 to 2023) so there has been a small increase in wealth even at the bottom 1/3 of the economic public. I doubt that that increase includes the bottom 10% and is confused by inflation. (OMB)
        So the bulk of the economic growth is going to an increasingly smaller group of individuals and , as was noted above, much of the GDP growth during that period includes mitigating the disasters created by weather, war and industrial waste.
        I’ve heard many excuses for why we can have infinite growth; for example that recent growth has occurred during a reduction in kWh per capita and that we can increase services without increasing resource use but then ugly little facts appear such as the news that 5G base stations will consume three times the amount used by 4G.
        And as long as growth includes population growth there will be more material consumption or more misery, probably both.

    2. So far Japan is a good example of population peak and now decline- down about 3% from peak.
      In 2049 they will be back down to 1970 level, at current trend.
      https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/population-growth-rate

      At about that time the world will be up to about 9.6 billion.

      Japan is about 50 years ahead of the world as a whole.
      https://www.populationpyramid.net/population-projections/africa+asia+europe+latin-america-and-the-caribbean+northern-america+world/

      1. Hickory

        At the same time, we have Government and big business in Japan actively promoting increased birth rates because it is good for the economy. A case of the general population behaving more responsibly than those at the top?

        3. By what process would a government that carried out all these “al we need to do is …” solutions get elected and stay in power? Where are the politicians with the right level of understanding, foresight and knowledge. Where are the backers that would put long term global interests above their own immediate ambition and greed. Where are the voters in sufficient numbers who even remotely appreciate the issues involved. Where is the social system that would prevent rioting and social breakdown when the population is told that from now on in every tomorrow you are going to have less than today and you just need to accept it.

          1. Countries remove leaders who don’t keep the foot on the pedal.
            The human bulldozer rolls on as far as it can go, even without any effective or cohesive steering.

            1. Hickory

              With a daughter in politics, it has become clear to me over the past several years that our politicians steer the bulldozer by using the rear view mirror.

  9. I doubt windmills and electric cars will do much on this front.

    GLOBAL FOOD SYSTEM EMISSIONS IMPERIL PARIS CLIMATE GOALS

    Methane from belching livestock, rice paddies and rotting food accounts for about 60 percent of food-related emissions, with CO2 from machinery and transport, along with nitrous oxide from excess use of chemical fertilizers, responsible for 20 percent each.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-03-global-food-emissions-imperil-paris.html

    1. In the past 4 decades, at least, the big precip winters in Calif have been El nino pattern years.
      This one doesn’t fit that pattern.

  12. This is a good lecture (the whole series is worth listening to) about how the earth energy imbalance has doubled since around 2010. The EEI is the fundamental number that sets the long term rate of temperature change in the atmosphere, land and oceans. Most of this doubling occurred before most of the summer antarctic sea ice was lost, before the step change in rate of increase in atmospheric methane, and before low sulphur marine fuel was mandated (i.e. not reflecting the reduced aerosol dimming since 2020). My guess is we’re already well on the way to doubling again.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QKY0DgHLlE

    1. Temperature change because of the global warming seems to be local. My son lives in Yuba City and last year it was at 107, Paso Robles was at 105. Then no more then 20 mile away in Cambria, it was foggy and at 60. Its because of something called micro climates. California has a few of them. Never been anywhere but the USA so I only have my own experience which is there has been no climate change locally in the passed 50 years.

      1. Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s surface observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.

          1. The last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were this high was the mid-Pliocene, about 3 m years ago. Temperatures were 2-3 C higher than now, and the sea level was 25 meters higher than it is now.

            Florida’s average elevation is about 6 meters.

            1. Once all the toxins wash away, it will be a great dive site– if you are into underwater ruins.

      2. Cambria is on the coast. Pasa Robles is 23 miles inland on the other side of the coastal mountains. Cambria often gets marine fog, and inland it’s miserably hot.

        If you haven’t noticed any changes to the climate then you haven’t been paying attention.

        There was an interesting series where older people were asked to describe how the weather might be different now than when they were growing up. It was interesting the changes they noted, everything from changes in summer and winter, changes in insects and wildlife, changes in rainfall and growing seasons.

  13. Fasten your seat belts folks

    1,000 SUPER-EMITTING METHANE LEAKS RISK TRIGGERING CLIMATE TIPPING POINTS

    More than 1,000 “super-emitter” sites gushed the potent greenhouse gas methane into the global atmosphere in 2022, mostly from oil and gas facilities. The worst single leak spewed the pollution at a rate equivalent to 67m running cars.

    Separate data also reveals 55 “methane bombs” around the world – fossil fuel extraction sites where gas leaks alone from future production would release levels of methane equivalent to 30 years of all US greenhouse gas emissions.

    Future methane emissions from fossil fuel sites – the methane bombs – are also forecast to be huge, threatening the entire global “carbon budget” limit required to keep heating below 1.5C. More than half of these fields are already in production, including the three biggest methane bombs, which are all in North America.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/06/revealed-1000-super-emitting-methane-leaks-risk-triggering-climate-tipping-points

    1. Meanwhile, CO2 refuses to be outdone.
      Mar. 7, 2023 420.85 ppm
      Mar. 7, 2022 417.88 ppm
      1 Year Change 2.97 ppm (0.71%)

      1. The really scary chart is this one. Methane had a fairly steady rise of around 10ppm per year for several years to 2020, then it was 15, then 20 and this year looks to be around 25-30. Is this permafrost melt. If it gets to 50 and the effect is maintained throughout the atmosphere then methane will be a bigger influence than carbon dioxide.

          1. Well yes but: “Scientists say they have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast. High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that the discovery could have “serious climate consequences”.”

            https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find

            1. I think isotope analysis is mostly indicating a wetland source. There was an initial theory that the drop in fossil fuel combustion during the lockdowns reduced NOx in the atmosphere which somehow led to lower hydroxyl radicals and less methane scrubbing, but that doesn’t explain how the methane concentration is accelerating even as the fuel use has grown again.

    2. Dave the Geologist discusses the methane leak on a climate change blog in his usual pompous way:
      https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/methane-again/#comment-216374

      “Interesting article Susan, although not entirely accurate. The second-biggest was not in a fracking field in Pennsylvania but a failed well in a gas storage facility in a depleted sandstone reservoir that was likely never fracked (fracking of sandstones was done in the 1950s and 60s, but only for tight gas and that’s the last sort of reservoir you’d want for storage). As indeed it says in the linked Guardian article! (I presume the paper is accurate but some sub-editor thought it would be sexy to mention fraccing because it was in Pennsylvania.) It refers to wells drilled in the 1950s or 60s when regulation was more lax*, and where there has simply been more time for corrosion or wear and tear to take its toll. I suspect inadequate inspection and maintenance didn’t help. Something to bear in mind amidst the push for more storage facilities following the Russian gas crisis (Rough in the UK started production in 1975 and was converted to storage in 1985, so is no spring chicken).

      Incidentally Rough (and I suspect some of the German facilities) were not designed with peak-shaving or crisis-outage in mind. They were designed to arbitrage the summer/winter price differential by pumping in for 3-4 months then flowing out for 6-9 months. That kind of steady pressure change sets quite relaxed reservoir requirements. For very rapid turnaround reservoir heterogeneity matters. I was involve in a North Sea proposal which failed because the commercial model was for a fast turnaround, and it was a heterogeneous reservoir where there would not be time for the pressure to equalise between layers, so the actual working volume would have been a tenth of the original assumption. For really rapid turnaround you want things like salt caverns.

      The Achilles heel of former producing fields or salt mines is the long-term integrity of existing wells or other infrastructure, especially where it has been abandoned and is not being used for current activities. There’s no excuse for not monitoring a well if you can get wireline to T.D., but there’s not a lot you can do to inspect past 20-year-old concrete. Also true for carbon capture and storage, or indeed hydrogen storage which the Rough owners were apparently considering. There you have additional metallurgy issues, with materials not having been selected with hydrogen embrittlement or sour-gas corrosion in mind.

      Having said that this sort of catastrophic leak really is low-hanging fruit. As the second article says, it was as loud as a jet engine. People noticed, right away, and pulled out all the stops to fix it. I wonder how many small leaks there were and are, 24/7/365, and whether on a decadal average they’re actually worse because no-one notices, and the cost/benefit balance of fixing them would be very different (e.g. would you spend $5M to remediate a well that was leaking at 20 cubic feet per day?).

      * Prior to the double-isolation rules which spread across the industry after Piper Alpha, i.e. by design it should be impossible to get a leak through a single point of failure. Obviously you can still get a leak through two barriers if you don’t know one of them had already failed two years earlier, but that’s where inspection and maintenance comes in.”

  14. In case you were wondering:

    “The Earth is expected to shift from a cooler La Niña state into the heat of an El Niño event as early as autumn, with researchers urging policy-makers to prepare for further warming—and the possibility of breaching 1.5°C as early as 2024. The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) latest update on the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) states that the “triple dip” La Niña that began in 2020 “is gradually weakening”, leading to a 90% chance the ENSO will shift to a temporary neutral state between March and May. Those neutral conditions become less likely between May and July, which “can be seen as a potential precursor for El Niño to develop.”

    1. Climatologists are completely clueless when it comes to forecasting El Ninos. The elephant has to come along and squat on them before they can make a correct prediction.

  16. It seems Elon Musk didn’t know not to publicly fire someone in a tweet and then announce publicly in a follow up tweet that he did it because he overheard they are faking a disability; a lawyer had to explain to him why he shouldn’t do that.

    I think we are witnessing the “where it all started to go wrong” phase of Musk’s career.

    1. Musk may well turn out to be the all time champ poster child in terms of WHY we shouldn’t listen to people who venture outside their own area(s) of expertise.

      I will always give him credit for being a superb business man with an awesome ability to see ways to put old technologies together in new ways, adding some new tech along the way of course, and making it work, as a business. There isn’t all that much new about TESLA automobiles…. hardly anything at all, in principle, as a matter of fact. But he managed to put it all together, and start a new car company building cars using all the available new tech.

      But my opinion of him as an individual is right down there with the proverbial snake’s belly.

      1. He’s made a lot of money, so I suppose we all have to come up with some reasons why he’s smart. Perhaps he’s just good at hiring engineers.
        Musk’s communications now spew mostly conspiracy theory, antivaccine canards and Kremlin propaganda, because it generates attention.

        Scratch a contrarian, find a grifter..

        1. There are different kinds of intelligence, and building a successful business which attracts and incorporates skilled individuals is a type. I personally have no business acumen, and consequently I make my living by providing to people who do have it, skill and services that they don’t personally have. I don’t discount their talent just because it is different than my own.

          Although I never believed in Musk, there was a time when I believed him, and whether or not he was sincere when he stated that the goal of Tesla was to accelerate the energy and transport transition, I think Tesla has done that, if by no other means simply by demonstrating demand and feasibility. Would BYD exist as it does without Tesla? Would HMG, VAG, Ford, GM, MB, BMW be where they are in their EV programs? Unlikely. How much did Tesla accelerate it? Who knows, but I’d guess a decade, at least. Tesla could implode today, and it wouldn’t slow the transition that much at this point. The supply chains that serve it would be gobbled up, and there would be a mad scramble to capture their market share. Hard to say who would win that. Will that 10 year acceleration make a meaningful difference to climate change, probably not. Will it make a difference in mitigating the consequences of peak oil supply? Yes.

          Then there is Space X. It would not exist without Musk, and holy shit, how they’ve revolutionized space launch is mind blowing.

          One can argue that neither EV’s or space are the right paths out of our predicaments, and that could well be true. For me, the pursuit of Mars as a reservoir for human intelligence is madness, but on the energy and EV front, there has to be a plausible pathway from where we are to some more sustainable future, and it seems like it does provide a story line, and humans need a good story in order to act.

          Jumping back to Musk, yeah, seems like he has a personality disorder, and seems at least plausible that he’s derailed himself with drug use. Watching him twitch on his first Joe Rogan interview immediately following the Model 3 production ramp up hell, seemed like he was on amphetamines – not hard to speculate why that might be the case. Other public gaffs like the Privatize Tesla 420 tweet seemed drug addled, cannabis surely, possibly psilocybin, and the buying Twitter bid also seems like he legally trapped himself while under the influence of something.

        2. “He’s made a lot of money, so I suppose we all have to come up with some reasons why he’s smart.”

          Don’t forget Musk’s parents owned an Emerald Mine.

          Its a lot easier to risk your capital to start a business if you actually have some capital.

          And if you fail, you still live a life of luxury.

          1. This isn’t a defense of Musk, but the whole emerald mine thing seems like misinformation. Just because someone father owns a mine, doesn’t mean it’s profitable. I’ve never seen credible information that undermines Elon’s own origin story. Please do share it if you’ve got it.

            Here’s what Snopes has to say about it:
            https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/

            1. Good point. Don’t know.

              I read on Wiki. Probably should have done some more research first.

  17. One State Generates Much, Much More Renewable Energy Than Any Other—and It’s Not California
    Inside Clean Energy

    Inside Clean Energy

    This is worth reading, and some discussion afterwards.

  20. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker

    “So is there a ticking bomb — or three — out there in the financial system today? Yes”

    No discussion of the SVB banking collapse?

    When it comes to finance, Karl is a good place to start ( you can ignore his climate change denial, and focus on what he is good at )

    SVB focuses on Venture Startups, not individuals. This includes some renewables tech.

    These companies aren’t FDIC insured (or way over the 250k limit).

    So when the banks long dated bonds (assets to the bank) started accumulating unrealized losses because of interest rate hikes, customers wanted their money back because they aren’t insured.

    They can’t create the liquidity needed because the selling of the bonds would convert the unrealized loss to a realized loss.

    These interest rate hikes are going to have some unintended consequences me thinks!

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