Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please, thanks.
63 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 19, 2025”
I continue to be floored by the Climate Roundup updates, even after years of reading them. It is more dire than I could have imagined only a few years ago, but please let’s focus on Biden’s cancer instead.
Perhaps a very few at the margins, but the research on this seems fairly consistent. Flat out denial and a mix of attribution to natural variation remain persistent within the US. The facts and science really don’t matter much to many people. Tribe matters more, with political affiliation a strong indicator. Anecdotally, it seems that even climate change driven, extreme weather events that have individual personal impacts often don’t move the dial.
True. I have noticed that catastrophic events more than about 50 miles away don’t concern most people, even more so when it involves people from a different tribe.
I don’t have any particular/single good source to substantiate that speculative statement. It is of course an unknowable number with so many variables, for example
-how much credit can we have at our disposal to fund E&P for small residual pockets of oil
-how much Venezuelan bitumen gets burnt
-how much low grade coal will we go after
-what will the population (demand) curve look like
Some might argue we still have 1/2 left to burn. Will we have the capital resources to go after all this tougher and lower grade material? A prosperous population may have success deploying large scale alternatives like solar (distant fusion) , geothermal, and fission to offset some of the fossil combustion requirements, while those who are poor will burn whatever low grade coal or wood they can gather.
A continuing massive pulse of carbon emission is already baked in the cake as we march quickly to exceed 9 billion individuals (12 years).
The world consumes about 100 millions barrels of oil (total liquids) each day. Try to imagine all that stacked up at the worlds biggest loading terminal. One days worth. To burn.
Even better let’s focus on how corrupt his son Hunter is because there’s no corruption at all now.
MAGA Mike, Speaker of the House and second in the line of succession to the presidency tells us that he doesn’t have to focus on the alleged corruption in the Trump administration because it’s all out in the open and not his responsibility anyway because we have a legal system to deal with corruption.
RE: Biden’s cancer. They said that after age 70 the PSA blood test isn’t on the standard panel of tests ordered by doctors. But what I’m wondering is wouldn’t he have had an enlarged prostate? Couldn’t his doctor determine that during a routine exam? It’s something I assume you could feel or at least a description of symptoms would lead in that direction.
Not necessarily. Some aggressive cancers will start as a firm feeling nodule but it depends on what part of the prostate they’re in. If they’re not on the posterior part you may not feel them on digital exam. There’s high odds that he’d already have a large feeling prostate because with age as most men get benign prostatic enlargement anyway.
While stronger economic growth than previously expected and booming demand for petrochemicals will lift China’s oil demand by 1.1% this year, consumption of transportation fuels has peaked, CNPC’s think tank Economics and Technology Research Institute (ETRI) said last month.
Like CNPC, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also believes that oil demand for fuels in China has reached a plateau.
“With the overall Chinese economy pivoting from manufacturing to services-based growth and as the adoption of electric vehicles expands in the transport sector, the data strongly suggest that the combustion uses of petroleum fuel in China have already reached a plateau and that the potential for future growth may be very limited,” IEA market analysts said earlier this year.
On a related note, domestic Chinese cars sales are expected to exceed 40% of world car sales this year. Half of those will be EVs. There is some skepticism around here about the future of EVs, but it is mostly based on observations like “I haven’t seen many in Kansas”.
Hey Keliber, just a shout out of appreciation for your dry sense of humor. I don’t always agree with some of your posts, but your sense of humor never disappoints. Thanks!
FIRES DROVE RECORD LOSS OF WORLD’S FORESTS LAST YEAR
“The destruction of the world’s forests reached the highest level ever recorded in 2024, driven by a surge in fires caused by global heating, according to “frightening” new data. From the Brazilian Amazon to the Siberian taiga, Earth’s forests disappeared at a record rate last year, losing an area the size of Italy to agriculture, fires, logging and mining, according to analysis from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch.”
Elevated interest rates over the past few years have made it more costly for the government to borrow money, accelerating the debt’s upward trajectory. Moody’s, the credit rating agency, downgraded its assessment of government debt last week, specifically citing the rising debt burden as a factor. Technically, the downgrade suggests there is a higher risk the U.S. could fail to pay its debts in the future.
Eventually the US will face the task of rationing medical care to those over 65. Currently Medicare is without much limitation on scope of service. No one wants to discuss it.
America’s debt problems could easily be solves by taxing the rich.
America’s problems are very much like Greece’s problems, though Greece has now solved them.
Refusing to collect taxes is killing the country.
At some point US citizens will realize that billionaires should pay a higher tax rate than others, rather than the current system where they pay a lower share of income tax than the middle class.
A very simple solution would be to eliminate the special treatment of capital gains and dividends which favors the wealthy, all income, wages, interest, dividends and capital gains should be treated the same and highly progressive rates such as those in place in the US from 1945 to 1965 (adjusted for inflation for tax brackets). That would lead to lower government deficits.
But now the wealthy can shelter most of their wealth from all taxation. It used to be secret Swiss accounts, but there are numerous mechanisms available. Trump is the poster boy. They him in the white house instead of Rykers Island.
Probably simpler to kill the estate tax, and make inherited income subject to income taxes. Then make income taxes more progressive so that the rate for most inherited income is as high or higher than the old estate tax rates.
Whichever party is willing to grab the bull by the horns and reduce expenditures for the 3 electric rails ( Military, SS and medicare) will be voted out but will to the country a favor long term. So, in other words, that’s not going to happen.
rgds
WP
It will happen if we get to a longterm financial crises scenario.
Most people alive toady in the US have forgotten that such a scenario is always just a random moment away, just as is death for any particular individual.
The US debt isn’t the problem it’s made out to be in the media. At least not currently.
Commercial banks have what is known as their dollar funding cost. Which is what they pay on the deposits that they themselves create. It’s less than 1% in many cases on what they are paying for deposits. Although some banks are paying more in the 2-3% range for deposits.
The rate of inflation doesn’t matter to the banks. The supply of debt or amount also doesn’t matter to the banks.
Commercial banks use balance sheet expansion when creating loans. So whether they are lending into the economy or to the government they are expanding their balance sheet either way.
It cost them nothing to expand their balance sheet. With government debt yielding 4% and the banks dollar funding costs at in many cases less than 1% the banks pocket the spread.
What’s is 3% return on say $10 trillion? It’s basically free money to the banks.
Very little risk compared to say lending money to a shale oil company. Or elsewhere in the economy.
When the economy is doing poorly. It’s real easy for banks to just lend to the government instead of into the economy.
Which is exactly why government debt explodes higher in economic crisis.
The real debt crisis we are facing isn’t in government debt. It’s in personal debt and perhaps corporate debt.
“The real debt crisis we are facing isn’t in government debt. It’s in personal debt and perhaps corporate debt”.
Absolutely even the Swiss Central Bank admitted recently that the primary source of bank collateral is US treasuries. Country Garden in China has a major dollar debt crisis. It all goes back to Eurodollar funding. Sorry gold bugs you’ll be chasing dollars soon.
What dollar providers generally do say if collateral is in short supply. They will just use rehypothecation of existing collateral to create new loans. So while in normal times the same collateral might be used in say 15 to 20 different loans at the same time. That will go to 30 or even 40 loans using the same collateral.
It’s a pile of damn leverage that if anybody gets defaulted on then a cascade of people get defaulted on because of the reuse of collateral.
All the leverage is great on the way up. It’s what pumps the price of everything higher.
In my opinion it will be the ability of consumers to repay their debts that sparks a cascade of defaults that works it’s way through out the monetary system.
Uncle Sam can’t really bailout the consumer. Sam can give the consumer money but it just leads the consumer going deeper into debt. Aftermath of COVID crisis is a prime example.
The real juice to the US economy wasn’t the stimulus checks it was the forbearance. People could spend thousands of dollars each month on themselves rather than pay mortgages car loans and student loans. Plus we imported about 15million consumers and gave them debitcards tied to federal debt. Without all that junk in the system the economy would have tanked. And now it’s gone.
Jeff Snider thinks we’re in a rolling depression since 2008 and I agree but from another angle. Energy in net terms stop growing. The only thing that did grow is debt.
All assets are simply a claim on someone else’s debt. So what happens when you can’t grow the real economy?
HHH
I agree that private debt is a bigger problem than public debt but Trump’s massive gift to the very rich when public debt is 120% of GDP is frivolous at best.
The truth is that giving away money to the poor is much more likely to grow the economy.
FREQUENT LARGE-SCALE WILDFIRES ARE TURNING FORESTS FROM CARBON SINKS INTO SUPER EMITTERS
Forests once hailed as reliable carbon sinks are rapidly becoming “super emitters” as record breaking wildfires sweep boreal, Amazonian, and Australian landscapes. Today’s climate policies and voluntary carbon markets seldom account for the sharp rise in fire driven emissions.
Key messages:
1. In many parts of the world, forests and peatlands, previously considered to be the largest terrestrial carbon storehouses, are transitioning into super carbon emitters under warming conditions, due to large and frequent wildfires.
2. Carbon mitigation actions and policies— including carbon pricing, credit verification, and Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) projects under the forestry and land-use category, as well as the Paris Agreement— fail to properly account for wildfire-related carbon emissions.
3. Natural carbon sequestration in dry soils through forestation policies might be ineffective in warming environments with more frequent wildfires.
4. Under certain conditions and mostly in arid and warming environments where the efficiency of photosynthesis is reduced, controlled harvesting and grazing could be actively considered as a strategy for maintaining soil and vegetation moisture and preventing increased carbon emissions.
5. A global platform of near-real-time satellite observations of forest conditions is needed to ensure transparency and accountability of VCMs in accordance with the changing conditions of forests under global warming.
Peak oil you say. Well not in Argentina apparently.
RECORD OIL OUTPUT POSITIONS ARGENTINA AS A KEY ENERGY PLAYER
• Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play has led to a record surge in oil and natural gas production, challenging established leaders in South America.
• Despite recent declines in drilling activity due to fluctuating global oil prices, the Vaca Muerta’s low carbon intensity and breakeven costs make it an attractive prospect for international energy companies.
• With planned pipeline development and increasing production, Argentina aims to become a major oil producer in the region, bolstering its economy and potentially shifting South America’s energy landscape.
“Activity in the Vaca Muerta is tipped to soar because of strong global demand for lighter, sweeter oil, which is easier and cheaper to refine into high-quality, low-emission fuels. The shale oil lifted in the Vaca Muerta has an API gravity of 39 to 42 degrees, indicating it is light, with a sulfur content of less than 0.5%, which is particularly sweet, making it highly desirable for refiners seeking to produce low-cost fuels complying with strict modern emission requirements. Furthermore, Argentina’s main conventional crude oil grades, Medanito and Escalante, with API gravity of 40.8 and 24.1 degrees, respectively, are popular in China and the Middle East because of their extremely low sulfur content of 0.15% and 0.91%.”
‘GLOBAL RED ALERT’: FOREST LOSS HITS RECORD HIGH – AND LATIN AMERICA IS THE HEART OF THE INFERNO
“Wildfires engulfed vast swathes of South America last year, devastating ecosystems, closing schools and grounding flights. With its worst fire season on record, Bolivia was especially hard hit.”
when I was a teenager 40 years ago, the news were filled with Brazil was destroying mother earth’s lung by destroying rain forest.
Similar strategy was employed again 25 years later to slow down the industrialization of developing countries under the “carbon footprint or Climate Change CC”.
Brazil was forced to launch an earth monitoring satellite with China 25 years ago.
China successfully used the CC ploy to deindustrialize west, and became the power house of manufacturing from carbon footprint to CC renewable energy.
While we are clarifying terms, lets remind ourselves that ‘Mother Nature’ is not a force of pleasant goodness. Just as a life is born, a life is also devoured.
Entropy, her greatest force, inevitably wins.
another note about renewable and particularly positive thing about solar,
Pakistan is now the largest solar importer and probably 2nd largest installation of solar panels in the world since 2024.
As an over populated underdeveloped country yelling for energy, and yet with little FF or $$ to import, and yet plenty of sunshine, solar panels and especially low cost renewable seem to be a better solution.
In 2025, Saudi will replace Pakistan as the number 1 solar importer but probably close in GW, and both will import tons of LFP batteries.
Pakistan has a temporary solution. 20-30 years from now when China’s oil imports go to zero and their coal reserves are fully exhausted. China won’t be the world’s factory for anything. They will be focused on just taking care of their own needs.
Those solar planes will need replacing. And since China will be in no position to replace them solar planes. As they eventually stop working. Pakistan’s solution becomes Pakistan’s problem.
The Saudi and everyone else might indeed go solar and import vast amounts. But those solar panels eventually have to be replaced. And by whom? Because it won’t be China and it won’t be cheap.
For Pakistan (and most others) it is now cheaper to import PV and take advantage of free fuel than to spend the money on one-time combustion fuel imports.
Flash forward 30 years there won’t be much oil or gas sold on the international markets, or coal for that matter. And the PV’s installed this decade will have some outright panel/inverter failure, with the majority having output down to about 70% of the original nameplate capacity.
And so it looks like a major conundrum.
I’d think still having some solar output is better than the alternative (no fossil fuel).
Most countries are grossly overpopulated, maybe to the tune of 90%, in a hot world with a shortage of energy and degraded environs.
Preemptive voluntary downsizing isn’t too popular.
China is moving aggressively to electrify everything required to manufacture, transport and install solar power. They can certainly produce and install enough PV to power their economy. I can’t imagine why they’d have any difficulty making PV 30 years from now.
I continue to be floored by the Climate Roundup updates, even after years of reading them. It is more dire than I could have imagined only a few years ago, but please let’s focus on Biden’s cancer instead.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2025/05/20/20th-may-2025-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Mike B,
Your Climate Roundup update link is excellent. Might even help to keep a few deniers on the rails.
Perhaps a very few at the margins, but the research on this seems fairly consistent. Flat out denial and a mix of attribution to natural variation remain persistent within the US. The facts and science really don’t matter much to many people. Tribe matters more, with political affiliation a strong indicator. Anecdotally, it seems that even climate change driven, extreme weather events that have individual personal impacts often don’t move the dial.
True. I have noticed that catastrophic events more than about 50 miles away don’t concern most people, even more so when it involves people from a different tribe.
Well, we [Homo pyromancer] still have about 1/3rd of the fossil energy left to burn through.
And then the forests, in short order.
Hickory
Do you have a source for your estimate that we’ve used 2/3 of available or perhaps practically accessible fossil fuels?
As an aside, it’s almost spooky how often our views appear to line up virtually 1:1.
I don’t have any particular/single good source to substantiate that speculative statement. It is of course an unknowable number with so many variables, for example
-how much credit can we have at our disposal to fund E&P for small residual pockets of oil
-how much Venezuelan bitumen gets burnt
-how much low grade coal will we go after
-what will the population (demand) curve look like
Some might argue we still have 1/2 left to burn. Will we have the capital resources to go after all this tougher and lower grade material? A prosperous population may have success deploying large scale alternatives like solar (distant fusion) , geothermal, and fission to offset some of the fossil combustion requirements, while those who are poor will burn whatever low grade coal or wood they can gather.
A continuing massive pulse of carbon emission is already baked in the cake as we march quickly to exceed 9 billion individuals (12 years).
The world consumes about 100 millions barrels of oil (total liquids) each day. Try to imagine all that stacked up at the worlds biggest loading terminal. One days worth. To burn.
Got it, thanks for the reply.
Even better let’s focus on how corrupt his son Hunter is because there’s no corruption at all now.
MAGA Mike, Speaker of the House and second in the line of succession to the presidency tells us that he doesn’t have to focus on the alleged corruption in the Trump administration because it’s all out in the open and not his responsibility anyway because we have a legal system to deal with corruption.
RE: Biden’s cancer. They said that after age 70 the PSA blood test isn’t on the standard panel of tests ordered by doctors. But what I’m wondering is wouldn’t he have had an enlarged prostate? Couldn’t his doctor determine that during a routine exam? It’s something I assume you could feel or at least a description of symptoms would lead in that direction.
Not necessarily. Some aggressive cancers will start as a firm feeling nodule but it depends on what part of the prostate they’re in. If they’re not on the posterior part you may not feel them on digital exam. There’s high odds that he’d already have a large feeling prostate because with age as most men get benign prostatic enlargement anyway.
Cue the famine.
Japanese bond market….
https://www.reuters.com/business/japans-super-long-bond-yields-soar-records-market-frets-about-demand-2025-05-20/
Fun for the whole family!
rgds
WP
https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2025/May/20/the-march-towards-the-next-global-economic-crisis-has-begun-and-you-must-fear-its-coming
The house of financial engineering behind the veil.
“If America does not honour its commitments, it will destabilise foreign exchange and funding markets that total tens of trillions of dollars.”
Honour..? I don’t trust the US to be honorable in the face of even minor distress level.
This is a good article to swallow, if you have a strong stomach.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/CATL-Predicts-Major-Shift-to-Electric-Trucks-in-China.html
While stronger economic growth than previously expected and booming demand for petrochemicals will lift China’s oil demand by 1.1% this year, consumption of transportation fuels has peaked, CNPC’s think tank Economics and Technology Research Institute (ETRI) said last month.
Like CNPC, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also believes that oil demand for fuels in China has reached a plateau.
“With the overall Chinese economy pivoting from manufacturing to services-based growth and as the adoption of electric vehicles expands in the transport sector, the data strongly suggest that the combustion uses of petroleum fuel in China have already reached a plateau and that the potential for future growth may be very limited,” IEA market analysts said earlier this year.
This company CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (3750.HK)
has left the rest of the world in the far dust on battery production technology, automation, supply chain, cost.
https://insideevs.com/news/694109/catl-battery-production-factory-one-cell-per-second/
Article on mashable about the worldwide spread of Chinese EVs (which I have been going on about for some time).
https://mashable.com/article/chinese-evs-us-tarrifs-subsidies-xpeng-tesla
America is falling behind here.
On a related note, domestic Chinese cars sales are expected to exceed 40% of world car sales this year. Half of those will be EVs. There is some skepticism around here about the future of EVs, but it is mostly based on observations like “I haven’t seen many in Kansas”.
t it is mostly based on observations like “I haven’t seen many in Kansas”.
Actually, it seems mostly on the level of “those newfangled horseless carriages don’t work. Get a horse!”
Yeah, see the remark about “electric gizmos” in the other thread.
More cars will solve the problems caused by cars.
Going to drive my new EV on roads that can no longer be maintained because of oil prices crashing/rocketing.
Hey Keliber, just a shout out of appreciation for your dry sense of humor. I don’t always agree with some of your posts, but your sense of humor never disappoints. Thanks!
Definitely not good!
FIRES DROVE RECORD LOSS OF WORLD’S FORESTS LAST YEAR
“The destruction of the world’s forests reached the highest level ever recorded in 2024, driven by a surge in fires caused by global heating, according to “frightening” new data. From the Brazilian Amazon to the Siberian taiga, Earth’s forests disappeared at a record rate last year, losing an area the size of Italy to agriculture, fires, logging and mining, according to analysis from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/21/fires-record-loss-forests-global-heating-agriculture-logging-brazil-bolivia-aoe
Many say it doesn’t matter. I’m not convinced.
U.S. DEBT IS ON PACE TO SET A RECORD HIGH
Elevated interest rates over the past few years have made it more costly for the government to borrow money, accelerating the debt’s upward trajectory. Moody’s, the credit rating agency, downgraded its assessment of government debt last week, specifically citing the rising debt burden as a factor. Technically, the downgrade suggests there is a higher risk the U.S. could fail to pay its debts in the future.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/upshot/record-debt-republicans-bill.html
Eventually the US will face the task of rationing medical care to those over 65. Currently Medicare is without much limitation on scope of service. No one wants to discuss it.
America’s debt problems could easily be solves by taxing the rich.
America’s problems are very much like Greece’s problems, though Greece has now solved them.
Refusing to collect taxes is killing the country.
At some point US citizens will realize that billionaires should pay a higher tax rate than others, rather than the current system where they pay a lower share of income tax than the middle class.
A very simple solution would be to eliminate the special treatment of capital gains and dividends which favors the wealthy, all income, wages, interest, dividends and capital gains should be treated the same and highly progressive rates such as those in place in the US from 1945 to 1965 (adjusted for inflation for tax brackets). That would lead to lower government deficits.
Yes.
And limit the estate tax exemption to $10M.
But now the wealthy can shelter most of their wealth from all taxation. It used to be secret Swiss accounts, but there are numerous mechanisms available. Trump is the poster boy. They him in the white house instead of Rykers Island.
limit the estate tax exemption to $10M.
Probably simpler to kill the estate tax, and make inherited income subject to income taxes. Then make income taxes more progressive so that the rate for most inherited income is as high or higher than the old estate tax rates.
Whichever party is willing to grab the bull by the horns and reduce expenditures for the 3 electric rails ( Military, SS and medicare) will be voted out but will to the country a favor long term. So, in other words, that’s not going to happen.
rgds
WP
It will happen if we get to a longterm financial crises scenario.
Most people alive toady in the US have forgotten that such a scenario is always just a random moment away, just as is death for any particular individual.
Cutting expenditures like that would be a disaster – you need countercyclical expenditures.
Far better to raise taxes during economic good times – the exact opposite of the republican playbook.
The US debt isn’t the problem it’s made out to be in the media. At least not currently.
Commercial banks have what is known as their dollar funding cost. Which is what they pay on the deposits that they themselves create. It’s less than 1% in many cases on what they are paying for deposits. Although some banks are paying more in the 2-3% range for deposits.
The rate of inflation doesn’t matter to the banks. The supply of debt or amount also doesn’t matter to the banks.
Commercial banks use balance sheet expansion when creating loans. So whether they are lending into the economy or to the government they are expanding their balance sheet either way.
It cost them nothing to expand their balance sheet. With government debt yielding 4% and the banks dollar funding costs at in many cases less than 1% the banks pocket the spread.
What’s is 3% return on say $10 trillion? It’s basically free money to the banks.
Very little risk compared to say lending money to a shale oil company. Or elsewhere in the economy.
When the economy is doing poorly. It’s real easy for banks to just lend to the government instead of into the economy.
Which is exactly why government debt explodes higher in economic crisis.
The real debt crisis we are facing isn’t in government debt. It’s in personal debt and perhaps corporate debt.
“The real debt crisis we are facing isn’t in government debt. It’s in personal debt and perhaps corporate debt”.
Absolutely even the Swiss Central Bank admitted recently that the primary source of bank collateral is US treasuries. Country Garden in China has a major dollar debt crisis. It all goes back to Eurodollar funding. Sorry gold bugs you’ll be chasing dollars soon.
What dollar providers generally do say if collateral is in short supply. They will just use rehypothecation of existing collateral to create new loans. So while in normal times the same collateral might be used in say 15 to 20 different loans at the same time. That will go to 30 or even 40 loans using the same collateral.
It’s a pile of damn leverage that if anybody gets defaulted on then a cascade of people get defaulted on because of the reuse of collateral.
All the leverage is great on the way up. It’s what pumps the price of everything higher.
In my opinion it will be the ability of consumers to repay their debts that sparks a cascade of defaults that works it’s way through out the monetary system.
Uncle Sam can’t really bailout the consumer. Sam can give the consumer money but it just leads the consumer going deeper into debt. Aftermath of COVID crisis is a prime example.
HHH
I agree
Watch this and assume your crash position.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DheDWzIMTH8&t=907s
😎
It’s been a few months since I’ve even taken a peek on what is going on with student loans.
45 million people with an average monthly payment of $536 is what is currently going on.
Sounds rather deflationary when you think about it.
The real juice to the US economy wasn’t the stimulus checks it was the forbearance. People could spend thousands of dollars each month on themselves rather than pay mortgages car loans and student loans. Plus we imported about 15million consumers and gave them debitcards tied to federal debt. Without all that junk in the system the economy would have tanked. And now it’s gone.
Jeff Snider thinks we’re in a rolling depression since 2008 and I agree but from another angle. Energy in net terms stop growing. The only thing that did grow is debt.
All assets are simply a claim on someone else’s debt. So what happens when you can’t grow the real economy?
HHH
I agree that private debt is a bigger problem than public debt but Trump’s massive gift to the very rich when public debt is 120% of GDP is frivolous at best.
The truth is that giving away money to the poor is much more likely to grow the economy.
FREQUENT LARGE-SCALE WILDFIRES ARE TURNING FORESTS FROM CARBON SINKS INTO SUPER EMITTERS
Forests once hailed as reliable carbon sinks are rapidly becoming “super emitters” as record breaking wildfires sweep boreal, Amazonian, and Australian landscapes. Today’s climate policies and voluntary carbon markets seldom account for the sharp rise in fire driven emissions.
Key messages:
1. In many parts of the world, forests and peatlands, previously considered to be the largest terrestrial carbon storehouses, are transitioning into super carbon emitters under warming conditions, due to large and frequent wildfires.
2. Carbon mitigation actions and policies— including carbon pricing, credit verification, and Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) projects under the forestry and land-use category, as well as the Paris Agreement— fail to properly account for wildfire-related carbon emissions.
3. Natural carbon sequestration in dry soils through forestation policies might be ineffective in warming environments with more frequent wildfires.
4. Under certain conditions and mostly in arid and warming environments where the efficiency of photosynthesis is reduced, controlled harvesting and grazing could be actively considered as a strategy for maintaining soil and vegetation moisture and preventing increased carbon emissions.
5. A global platform of near-real-time satellite observations of forest conditions is needed to ensure transparency and accountability of VCMs in accordance with the changing conditions of forests under global warming.
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-frequent-large-scale-wildfires-forests.html
Peak oil you say. Well not in Argentina apparently.
RECORD OIL OUTPUT POSITIONS ARGENTINA AS A KEY ENERGY PLAYER
• Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play has led to a record surge in oil and natural gas production, challenging established leaders in South America.
• Despite recent declines in drilling activity due to fluctuating global oil prices, the Vaca Muerta’s low carbon intensity and breakeven costs make it an attractive prospect for international energy companies.
• With planned pipeline development and increasing production, Argentina aims to become a major oil producer in the region, bolstering its economy and potentially shifting South America’s energy landscape.
“Activity in the Vaca Muerta is tipped to soar because of strong global demand for lighter, sweeter oil, which is easier and cheaper to refine into high-quality, low-emission fuels. The shale oil lifted in the Vaca Muerta has an API gravity of 39 to 42 degrees, indicating it is light, with a sulfur content of less than 0.5%, which is particularly sweet, making it highly desirable for refiners seeking to produce low-cost fuels complying with strict modern emission requirements. Furthermore, Argentina’s main conventional crude oil grades, Medanito and Escalante, with API gravity of 40.8 and 24.1 degrees, respectively, are popular in China and the Middle East because of their extremely low sulfur content of 0.15% and 0.91%.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Record-Oil-Output-Positions-Argentina-as-a-Key-Energy-Player.html
They also have massive!!! wind and solar energy reserve.
VM now have more oil in the API 30deg increasing fast, the so called Low GOR Black Shale Oil, like UINTA in Utah, high wax, lacustrine with hypersaline deposition environment,
https://youtu.be/2wwoUOT4rGE?si=U5xebP6OIMyXNgwP
https://youtu.be/Y06Ix5YuZn0?si=A7TYRcUw2azoqkNv
Argentina also have tons of lithium,
Even harder to be positive anymore!
‘GLOBAL RED ALERT’: FOREST LOSS HITS RECORD HIGH – AND LATIN AMERICA IS THE HEART OF THE INFERNO
“Wildfires engulfed vast swathes of South America last year, devastating ecosystems, closing schools and grounding flights. With its worst fire season on record, Bolivia was especially hard hit.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/23/global-forest-loss-record-high-latin-america-heart-inferno
when I was a teenager 40 years ago, the news were filled with Brazil was destroying mother earth’s lung by destroying rain forest.
Similar strategy was employed again 25 years later to slow down the industrialization of developing countries under the “carbon footprint or Climate Change CC”.
Brazil was forced to launch an earth monitoring satellite with China 25 years ago.
China successfully used the CC ploy to deindustrialize west, and became the power house of manufacturing from carbon footprint to CC renewable energy.
I would simply not destroy the only habitable planet in the known universe for a profit cut.
Overview of renewables worldwide in 2024
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2025/2024-in-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsyDWL8Bwi0
Cenk who worked for MSNBC and has his own number #1 rated internet progressive new source “The Young Turks”
spills the bean on the MSNBC. In short, he was told not to criticisise any ELITES.
To avoid the worst’s impacts of climate change we need to reduce carbon emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030.
Oh Dear
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
The reason why we have totally failed is because economists have always stressed money over people and the environment.
China is burning more coal than ever and the climate is already turning against us.
https://climateandeconomy.com/
The reason why we have totally failed is because economists have always stressed money over people and the environment.
This seems like blaming meteorologists for bad weather
Politics is dominated by economics, every time a politician is interviewed they talk about moronic GDP. They all have economic advisors.
I have never heard a politician talk about soil conservation when out campaigning.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02142-7
What is Labour’s policy on water conservation and pollution?
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250523-fears-for-crops-as-drought-hits-northern-europe
Economic theory never considered the environment at university until relatively recently.
https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/economic-theories-in-the-face-of-the-realities-of-environmental-crises-2/
A quote from another paper
First, the number of environmental economists has been increasing. The subdiscipline barely existed thirty years ago”
I’d love to help, but if I just stop digging up the hot rocks and burnable black goo that means my company, and so my lifestyle, is over.
So I choose not to.
China floating electric cars need more work
https://x.com/yangyubin1998/status/1926109950197064069
EVs claim better survivability under water than ICEs?
“Clean power surpasses 40% of global electricity generation”
Nothing humans do at scale is ‘Clean’. They should call it ‘Lower Carbon’ or ‘non-fossil’ to be more accurate.
Agree. It is even less “green”.
While we are clarifying terms, lets remind ourselves that ‘Mother Nature’ is not a force of pleasant goodness. Just as a life is born, a life is also devoured.
Entropy, her greatest force, inevitably wins.
another note about renewable and particularly positive thing about solar,
Pakistan is now the largest solar importer and probably 2nd largest installation of solar panels in the world since 2024.
As an over populated underdeveloped country yelling for energy, and yet with little FF or $$ to import, and yet plenty of sunshine, solar panels and especially low cost renewable seem to be a better solution.
In 2025, Saudi will replace Pakistan as the number 1 solar importer but probably close in GW, and both will import tons of LFP batteries.
Pakistan has a temporary solution. 20-30 years from now when China’s oil imports go to zero and their coal reserves are fully exhausted. China won’t be the world’s factory for anything. They will be focused on just taking care of their own needs.
Those solar planes will need replacing. And since China will be in no position to replace them solar planes. As they eventually stop working. Pakistan’s solution becomes Pakistan’s problem.
The Saudi and everyone else might indeed go solar and import vast amounts. But those solar panels eventually have to be replaced. And by whom? Because it won’t be China and it won’t be cheap.
For Pakistan (and most others) it is now cheaper to import PV and take advantage of free fuel than to spend the money on one-time combustion fuel imports.
Flash forward 30 years there won’t be much oil or gas sold on the international markets, or coal for that matter. And the PV’s installed this decade will have some outright panel/inverter failure, with the majority having output down to about 70% of the original nameplate capacity.
And so it looks like a major conundrum.
I’d think still having some solar output is better than the alternative (no fossil fuel).
Most countries are grossly overpopulated, maybe to the tune of 90%, in a hot world with a shortage of energy and degraded environs.
Preemptive voluntary downsizing isn’t too popular.
China is moving aggressively to electrify everything required to manufacture, transport and install solar power. They can certainly produce and install enough PV to power their economy. I can’t imagine why they’d have any difficulty making PV 30 years from now.
Or anything else for that matter.
Nick G very well stated.
New posts are up
https://peakoilbarrel.com/short-term-energy-outlook-may-2025/
and
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-27-2025/