66 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, Nov. 25, 2022”

  1. Hi gang, I have just published another essay on my website. This one is not shocking at all but I think it is a little humurous.

    The Fine-Tuned Universe.com

    I plan on publishing a new essay about twice a month, give or take. But I will soon quit announcing it here on this blog for this is just not the place for it. However, I am compiling a mailing list of people to notify when a new essay is published. If you would like to be placed on that list please notify me at Darwinian200@gmail.com . That is a new email address I have set up just for the website.

    1. Keep a fire burning in your eye
      Pay attention to the open sky
      You never know what will be coming down

      I don’t remember losing track of you
      You were always dancing in and out of view
      I must’ve thought you’d always be around

      Always keeping things real by playing the clown
      Now you’re nowhere to be found

      I don’t know what happens when people die
      Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
      It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear

      But I can’t sing, I can’t help listening
      And I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
      Crying is they ease you down
      ‘Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing

      Dancing our sorrow away (right on dancing)
      No matter what fate chooses to play (there’s nothing you can do about it anyway)
      Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
      By everyone you’ve ever known
      Until the dance becomes your very own
      No matter how close to yours
      Another’s steps have grown
      In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone

      Keep a fire for the human race
      Let your prayers go drifting into space
      You never know what will be coming down

      Perhaps a better world is drawing near
      Just as easily it could all disappear
      Along with whatever meaning you might have found

      Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
      (The world keeps turning around and around) go on and make a joyful sound

      Into a dancer you have grown
      From a seed somebody else has thrown
      Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
      And somewhere between the time you arrive
      And the time you go
      May lie a reason you were alive
      That you’ll never know

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig6X3-9wxlI

    2. 2022 US death rate is 9.075; roughly what it was in 1976. My wild ass guess is it will continue to climb.

      https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate

      https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm

      https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/crime-wave-gun-violence-chicago-causes/672216/

      World death rate has had an uptick

      https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/death-rate

      http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-population-data-sheet-2022-highlights-excess-deaths-due-to-covid-19/

      https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/10/covid-most-severe-global-mortality-shock-world-war-ii

      Stay tuned

  3. Hi, gang. Anthracite coal for home heating is running out. This is a dry run for what’s going to happen to the rest of fossil fuels soon.

    Twenty years ago, we could order a truck load (3 tons) of bulk nut coal to dump via chute into our coal bin. The cost was in the lower two hundreds per ton.

    Gradually, the bulk business went away and we had to start buying pallets of coal, a real pain because it means having to open up individual 50-lb bags and dumping them into the bin one by one. We’ve watched the price escalate over the years, into the three hundreds, but it has been worth it because we heat all our hot water, do all our cooking, and heat half our farmhouse from October thru May. For solid fuel, there is nothing like hard coal–hot, long-lasting, even-burning, easier to store than firewood.

    We’ve always supplemented our coal use with firewood cut on the property, but we’re getting old and doing less and less of that. Dry firewood now costs $300/cord delivered. In the 90s, it cost $85/cord.

    This year, when we tried to order coal, all our usual sources–local hardware stores, Ace and such–had none. When they tried to order it for us, they couldn’t get it.

    We are now reliant upon a single supplier in Southern Maine, and we have been waiting a month for a delivery of coal costing $500 a ton. It now comes in 40-lb bags costing up to $12 apiece. We knew this was going to happen.

    We now let the fires go out at night and restart them in the morning. We have a propane kitchen stove, and we installed an electric hot water heater about ten years ago for “backup.” It will soon be primary. Luckily, I have a hubby who is a real handy man. The antique, cast iron coal range is his dream project. It’s like he was born into the wrong century.

    It’s tough having to become more dependent on the grid. It used to be that when the power went out, we could continue life as usual with our coal-fired hot water system and hand pump in the kitchen to charge the plumbing. During the infamous ice storm of 1998, we had dinners for friends here at the house, because even though we were without power for 9 days, we lived life as usual–heating and pumping our own water, cooking food on the range, staying warm near the stove.

    We’re watching coal go away. It has been very dramatic this fall. Rumor is that coal mined in Pennsylvania is being diverted to Europe. Who knows. The fact is, peak anthracite happened a long, long time ago.

    We expected this, grimly. We will manage because we will have to manage. It’s no surprise for us.

    How will others manage when the same thing happens to oil? That is, when it’s expensive, and/or when you can’t get it?

    How we WE manage when this happens to oil?

    I am the kind of person that cannot turn his head away when he knows something awful is coming down the pike. I always watch as the nurse inserts the needle into my arm. Doesn’t make the pain go away, tho.

    Every numb-nuts white boy in our neck of the woods has a gigantic pickup truck that sounds like a garbage truck that he likes to peel out around the corner, ruining everyone’s peace and quiet. I just shake my head. A shameful part of me wants him to suffer. But I console myself that his coming suffering will not be my fault.

    1. Thanks for that perspective Mike, and I very much enjoyed reading your article last week.
      Most of us have no personal experience with coal, having grown up in the oil and gas age.

      I had been doing a little bit of reading on coal recently. I have/had very little knowledge on coal grades and distribution.
      “Anthracite contains 86%–97% carbon and generally has the highest heating value of all ranks of coal. Anthracite accounted for less than 1% of the coal mined in the United States in 2021. All of the anthracite mines in the United States are in northeastern Pennsylvania. In the United States, anthracite is mainly used by the metals industry.”
      I wonder if bituminous coal has also become more expensive, and how much less useful it is for your purposes.
      I saw projections that the US has over 500 yrs of reserves of coal at current levels of consumption. Lower grades as time goes on.

      I have read that natural gas is less common in much of New England since glaciation has resulted in generally very thin soils that makes pipeline installation more difficult. Not so sure how much of a factor that is.

      I expect all energy will all be more and more expensive, and wood will be the last resort at mass scale.
      And the earth gets hotter.

    2. Mike, perhaps there’s a mutual aid network near you. Or start one. Someone would likely chop your wood if you have some apples to trade…. that kinda thing. I got a multi millionaire in my mutual aid network. Poor guy needs a bit of help with the activities of daily living; prob wouldn’t do well in a famine without a crew.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theory)

      1. Thanks, guys.

        I’m of the oil-gas generation, too, but I became decidedly “downwardly mobile” when I met my partner 30 years ago. I went from city life to country life, and have loved it. I had to learn the old ways from scratch and now feel much more self reliant.

        We’re going to do OK at least for the year, having enough firewood to get us through spring. Our landlord has solar panels on his barn roof, so perhaps we’ll have to install an electric system in the main house. That would break our hearts.

        I have a partner who brilliantly knows how to “make do,” in spite of his having to live with Type 1 diabetes for 50 years. The daily stuff is manageable. If the health care system goes, he’s toast.

        1. “Our landlord has solar panels on his barn roof, so perhaps we’ll have to install an electric system in the main house. That would break our hearts.

          I have a partner who brilliantly knows how to “make do,” in spite of his having to live with Type 1 diabetes for 50 years. The daily stuff is manageable. If the health care system goes, he’s toast.”

          So you embrace modern day technologies when it benefits yourself. But when technologies benefit others from climate change your heart breaks ?

          “having enough firewood to get us through spring”

          How symbolic, your going to burn a few of Hickory’s relatives.

          What next, Doug going to post an increase of earth atmosphere CO2 and point the finger.

          “I just shake my head”

          1. I wonder if the population bottleneck will select for conflict seeking personality disorders? Asking for a friend.

            1. Matt, it’s my arm chair opinion. It’s not a disorder until the two of you start talking out loud regularly to each other.

          2. If the healthcare system goes, you may actually have to pay reasonable prices for insulin. Or basically nothing, even. Helluva thought, America catching up to Turkey and Poland. One day, maybe even become a first world nation instead of a Randian nightmare.

    3. The USA has a shit ton of coal. People just aren’t digging it up at the moment.

      The USA has nuclear bombers and nuclear submarines being “permanently” stationed in Australia.

      That is 40% of the worlds coal reserves.

      The last thing the USA has to worry about is if it has access to coal.

      1. “The last thing the USA has to worry about is if it has access to coal.”
        Not true.
        Much lower on the list of worries is the US Solar Energy Reserves and Wind Energy Reserves.
        Same with Australia.

        1. Designer coal, bet your high school teacher never saw that one coming.

          “That would break our hearts”

          What next, a 47 mile one way road trip for a cup of coffee.

          ” I just shake my head.”

    1. I think it would take a WWII level of cultural/industrial disruption in world trade to see global crude oil drop 50% by 2030. If it was just about depletion 2050+ would be closer to the mark I suspect.
      Nonetheless, its an upheaval of proportions hard to imagine.

      Also, I see speculations like that of Simon Michaux- that there will not be enough metals/minerals to enable a transition towards other energy forms like solar, wind or nucs, and more efficient mechanisms of energy use like EV’s or heat pumps.
      While no one knows just how much of the transition can be accomplished without game stopping bottlenecks, there is a take home lesson for anyone (or country) who has a goal of diversifying their reliance on fossil energy and ICE’s.
      And that take home message is- Get on with the energy deployments quickly… very quickly in case shortage of materials does indeed materialize [redundancy intended]. If you wait for the next decade you may be late to the party with all the food already eaten up.

      Trade wars and resource nationalism are likely a much more pressing threat to materials availability than is the threat of actual physical lack of reserves. And the secondary constraint is the the inadequate ramp up of materials processing facilities.

      1. Perhaps a pending lack of physical resources is the impetus for resource wars and trade nationalism.

    2. Okay… What would the counter arguments be???
      To start: A million miles is roughly a person driving 12,000 miles a year for 83 years or 20K miles for 50 years. An electric motor is supposed to last a million miles before having its two main bearings replaced. Try having your ICE car engine last a million miles with a relatively simple fix.

      Tesla, LG, Ford, Toyota (and others) are working on battery packs that can last a million miles (roughly a lifetime of driving). Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are close to those cells as lab testing has their cycle life around 3200 cycles (3200 cycles x 330 miles per cycle is close to but over a million miles). After the packs reach 70% to 80% of their original capacity, they can be removed and used in electrical utility storage or recycled. For instance, Redwood Materials is working on recycling these batteries.

      You may point to depleting copper resources but once copper is embedded into the motor, it’s there until the motor is no longer usable and that could be many millions of miles. Who gets the electric motored vehicles and who does not? Who walks? Who bicycles? Who uses public transportation? Who works from home or at home?

      Without the electrification of transportation, food distribution becomes a big problem. Cars are a starting point and we are seeing the development of electric pickups and semis. Rail can also be electrified since the drive motors are electric. Many of Europe’s railways have already been electrified. We have a long ways to go but we are working on these types of vehicles. It’s not like we are starting from day one and .

      The downside is that the car shell and seats are not likely to last as long because of auto accidents, wear and tear, weather events, etc. Can tires be recycled??? What about the longevity and supply of raw materials for the electronics? They are many questions that present challenges for us to try to solve.

      Perovskite solar cells (in the lab) have a 24.5 to 30% conversion rate. They are made of common materials, easier to manufacture, and cost a tenth the cost of their silicon brethren to do so. They lend themselves to “roll manufacturing”. I’ve seen estimates of cell production at 30 meters/minute. If they can be manufactured with a longevity of their silicon brethren, we could see a revolution in roof top solar and the electrification of transportation, industry, and home heating; leaving the use of remaining fossil fuels to those situation where electricity does not make sense.

      I see a lot of possibilities that would/could ameliorate and are ameliorating our predicament. Whether they arrive in quantity in time is a matter of speculation. On the downside, Mr. Putin has shown what an aggressive policy of limiting grain exports, fossil fuels, and raw materials can have on the world. The lock downs in China due to disease spread are also limiting use of materials and products. Is the latter on purpose?

      Somewhere in all this lies what is going to happen. I don’t think we are going to lie still and just let it happen. I think there are a lot of people seeing the same predicaments we are seeing and are actively working on solutions. We are not going to go quietly into that good night.

      While this is a very simplification of ideas to which papers and books can be or have been written, it does paint some of the things I am seeing to ease our way into the Long Descent (title of John Michael Greer’s book) and Limits to Growth situations. What can we do about it?

      2. Tesla released the their first EV semis yesterday. I believe they are a true game changer. Be sure and watch the release event on Youtube, Twitter or other places. 500 mile range fully loaded, 1 MW charging stations, no more run away trucks on hills at a cost of less than 2 kwh per mile. They will probably produce a 100 of them this year and over 2023 scale to making 50K of them per year.

    2. Thanks for the link to the paper (1000 page pdf!)
      Admittedly I only read the 2 page conclusion thus far
      “In conclusion, this report suggests that replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system (oil, gas, and coal), using renewable technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, will not be possible for the entire global human population. There is simply just not enough time, nor resources to do this by the current target set by the World’s most influential nations. What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of all kinds. This implies a very different social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in place today. Inevitably, this leads to the conclusion that the existing renewable energy sectors and the EV technology systems are merely steppingstones to something else..”

      I have a few comments on this.
      It is likely that fossil fuels and even wood will be relied on heavily for the next 50 yrs, even if in declining amounts
      -as they deplete,
      -as the world replaces some of the consumption with S,W, Nucs, and
      -as the world is forced (learns the hard way) to get by with less energy.

      So a complete replacement of fossil fuel energy/ICE is not about to happen one or two decades.
      You can drop that notion from the equation.
      Humanity will work hard to replace as much as of it as they can muster, and will make substantial progress.
      In fact dramatic progress on replacement will be achieved in some regions.

      Secondly, ” What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of all kinds. This implies a very different social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in place today.”
      I don’t know much about this. I do know that it is a dramatic change in circumstance for a family or community to be able to generate all of their energy needs by self-owned solar energy if they live in a 1/2 sunny area. That ’empowerment’ in a world experiencing energy shortage is a phenomena hard to overstate.

      Third- ‘stepping stone to something else..”
      Good luck with that. Elon wants to take a few of you to Mars. The Pope wants to pick a few of you for a ticket to a mythical heaven, and send the rest to hell.
      And In yet another ’30 years there will be fusion power unlimited’- I first heard that over 40 years ago.

    3. Read today that one reason Nato is running low on ammo for themselves and to supply Ukraine is that artillery shells contain a lot of copper, which is now expensive but, more importantly, often just unavailable.

      Michaux has been on many podcasts and YouTubes with this message recently and always gives the impression that his is the first work in this area, but that is not strictly true. Harald Sverdrup has been using the “World” LtG type model to predict peak supply and declines in minerals for many years, Christopher Clugsen published Blip in 2019, and there has been work for the EU, UN or OECD (can’t remember which) by a French team that I have read but can’t now find (I think the lead author’s name started with a V).

      1. google search comes up blank for that ammunition-cooper shortage assertion.
        The major copper companies stocks are not any higher than they were prepandemic.

        More likely supply lines are stretched.
        That is not a problem to be downplayed for any product.

        1. “Take the example of shell casings, which contain a high proportion of copper,” said Wolfgang Hellmich, head of defence in the German Social Democratic (SPD) party’s parliamentary group and president of the Berlin Security Conference. “Just try buying copper on the markets at the moment. There’s little of it and it’s very expensive. For that reason there are only a very few firms in Europe that are at all able to manufacture shell casings.

          https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/germany-weapons-war-ammunition-stocks-ukraine-ptc69qdcz

          1. Well, perhaps this is more than a just local supply chain and stocking issue.
            Many people have been suggesting a copper supply deficit for the rest of the decade.
            Although such a shortage hasn’t been reflected in the pricing of copper producing company stocks yet.

  6. If the average replacement of an ICE is 12 years (11.6 years for pickups and SUVs, 13.1 for cars) and this is for 2022.
    https://www.kbb.com/car-news/americans-driving-older-cars/
    Also note the growth of EVs is 40% in the last section of the above reference.
    Does that mean that half the ICEs are replaced by 2034 or roughly the time of world peak oil at 2032?
    According to the EIA:
    https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/use-of-gasoline.php
    We use about 369 million gallons of gasoline daily. A barrel of oil supplies about 19 gallons of gasoline or up to 45 gallons per these references:
    https://autooilandfluid.com/how-many-gallons-in-a-barrel-of-oil/
    “Crude oil is often measured in barrels because one barrel contains enough oil to produce about 45 gallons of gasoline. The U.S. consumes an estimated 19 million barrels of petroleum each day.”
    http://www.haitianinternet.com/photos/how-gallons-of-gasoline-in-a-barrel-of-crude-oil.html
    Therefore, we could be down to using less than 10 million barrels of oil per day by 2034.
    Also, “every manufacturer” is switching to making EVs. This link has an impressive number already being made:
    https://www.kbb.com/electric-car/

    If you all are “more right” than this, our gasoline consumption and crude oil usage could be even lower. Combine this with cheaper batteries, cheaper solar cells, better recycling, better replacements, we could postpone a lot of grief.

    1. “Does that mean that half the ICEs are replaced by 2034 or roughly the time of world peak oil at 2032?”

      Yes, 1/2 of the worlds ICE miles traveled could be replaced by EV miles traveled by 2034.
      Whether or not it will happen more quickly or slower than this depends on many factors.

      Light transport is the easy part of oil depletion, after all people are
      -not very heavy compared to cargo, and
      -people do have some degree of self propulsion capability, and
      -people really do not need to put on even 1/2 of the current mileage to live life very well

      On the second point, peak oil is already now, roughly. By 2032 there is very high likelihood [or certainty] that global oil production will be quite lower than now. Twenty or 30% lower shouldn’t surprise anyone.

      1. According to the studies herein, we (the US) are peaking (Mike Shellman) and the world did peak (2019) from Exxon graph with a slow rise to 2032 secondary peak.

        The Exxon graph is showing a secondary peak in 2032 has the world producing a little higher than what we are producing today. It’s not showing a 20 to 30% lower amount but then there was the shift from a fairly flat curve of 10 to 15 years centered roughly on 2040 to this dramatic shift to a more pronounced 2032 peak and higher fall off.

        The US uses 369 million gallons of gasoline per day with 286.9 million registered vehicles or 1.29 gallons per vehicle per day. If 19 gallons of gasoline are produced per barrel, each barrel supports 14.72 vehicles. If we import 5 million barrels of crude each day, that supports 73.6 million vehicles on that imported crude. So to become “Energy Independent”, 73.6 million EVs will have to be sold. The vehicle mix will not be the same for awhile but then these are back of the envelop calculations.

        There are 2 million EVs registered and 6 million plug in and hybrid vehicles registered in the US with sales expected to grow by 40%. From:
        https://electrek.co/2022/10/18/us-electric-vehicle-sales-by-maker-and-ev-model-through-q3-2022/
        “The United States has now crossed 6% in total EV market share, working toward its goal of a 50% share by 2030.”
        However, 6% of 286.9 million is 17.2 million and the number of EVs registered is about 2 million and even with the 6 million plug in and hybrid vehicles registered, that leaves a gap of 9 million unless the 2 million EVs are this year’s registered vehicles. Then the numbers start to make sense. I need to do some more digging. If it is 17.2 million, that’s roughly 17.2/73.6 = 23% toward “energy independence”. That’s impressive if true. Not sure on how to account for the hybrid and plug-ins.

        I think the bottom line is that we are going toward an all-EV future and it is going to take time, resources, and a change in public perspective away from fossil fuels to renewables. We’ll see what happens but so far, I like what I am seeing but I don’t think we are doing enough preparation.

        1. On the oil supply- “The Exxon graph is showing a secondary peak in 2032 has the world producing a little higher than what we are producing today.”
          There are many projections. I don’t subscribe to that Exxon graph you describe.
          Nobody knows just how much is in the ground, and how much can and will be brought up for sale on the world markets.
          Time will tell. To prepare for a decline would be wise, as you know.

          1. Hickory,

            A group of researchers including Jean Laherrere in 2022 estimated World C plus C URR at 3500 Gb. My scenarios that assume no demand peak typically have a URR of 3000 Gb. Below is an older model with adjusted unconventional scenarios with higher URR of 500 Gb (currently my best guess is 200 Gb due to an assumption of low demand.) The URR is 3300 Gb for this scenario, some 200 Gb less than the Laherrere et al estimate (note that Laherrere tends to be conservative in his estimates.) The scenario assumes there will be no peak in demand and that as much oil as is produced will have a market. Supply falls by 10% from 2026 to 2040, but only because I assume no increase in extraction rate after 2026 which is an exceedingly conservative assumption. In short, one needs to assume there is some reason for extraction rate of conventional oil to fall or that unconventional output falls more quickly than assumed in this scenario even in a high demand environment. There are of course lots of reasons demand might fall, whether transition to other types of energy, political turmoil, war, pandemic, etc, the point is simply that one has to have such a story for the 30% decrease in output that you assume.

            1. “There are of course lots of reasons demand might fall, whether transition to other types of energy, political turmoil, war, pandemic, etc, the point is simply that one has to have such a story for the 30% decrease in output that you assume.”

              And just like covid and russian invasion were not predictable events, I do expect continued sporadic disruptions to global economic stability. And perhaps severe enough to put a big dent in the ‘geologic’ best case scenario for global oil extraction.
              Also, I don’t think that the global consumer will be able to afford extraction of oil beyond roughly the URR of 2500.
              And demand for light transport fossil energy will be dropping quick in the 2030’s.
              What does your chart with URR of 2500 look like with the other factors held steady, as a reminder to us here?

              World C C at a level roughly equal to the Covid trough of 2020 in 2032 is a scenario I would assign a big chunk of probability to.

            2. Hickory,

              My recent scenarios have lower output from unconventional oil (about 200 Gb URR vs 500 Gb URR in this older scenaro) so the total World URR for those scenarios is about 3000 Gb (roughly 500 Gb less than the recent estimate by Laherrere et al 2022.)

              There is no scenario with a URR of 2500 Gb with “other factors” (maybe you mean extraction rate it is not clear) held steady.

              The scenario below has unconventional URR at about 173 Gb and total URR is about 2540 Gb, the extraction rate for conventional oil remains constant from 2027 to 2040 and then decreases (under the assumption that demand starts to fall faster than supply which reduces profits and investment and thus the extraction rate). Output falls by about 4.5% from peak in 2027 to 2034 in this scenario (my interpretation of other factors remaining the same). My guess is that there is not a high likelihood of output falling by 20 to 30% by 2032, in 2022 average World C plus C output will be about 80 Mb/d (rough guess) and in 2032 about 80.9 Mb/d for this scenario. Keep in mind that in the past most of my scenarios have underestimated future output.

              On unexpected disruptions, I also expect these, but major pandemics like covid 19 and the Global pandemic of 1918-1920 are 100 year events, I think it unlikely we will see the cycle reduced to say every 20 years, World War 3 hopefully does not occur, if it does (and I think the War in Ukraine significantly increases this risk) peak oil will be low on the list of the World’s problems.

            3. Thanks for that Dennis.
              I have a lot of respect for your work at making these projections.
              My base thinking is that downside risk to global production is pretty high, regardless of the specifics on reserves or depletion rates.
              Venezuela, Libya, Nigeria as examples.
              Importing (and all oil depleting) countries would be wise to accelerate deployment of electric transport and industry as fast as feasible, for the sake of their energy/economic security.

              Also, how do you/we take into account the inexorable increasing expense of producing the remaining oil. At some point, maybe even now to an early degree, the higher expense of producing smaller, deeper and more remote pockets of oil may result in a large slug of potential URR simply being left under the ground and seabed. That is a big reason why I think a lower URR value may come to pass- simply based on affordability.

            4. Hickory,

              I agree a lot of oil will likely not be produced and agree that 2500 Gb URR is likely due to falling demand, this suggests about 1000 Gb of oil that potentially could be produced at higher prices will be left in the ground. Take the very simple example of extra heavy oil which supposedly have proved reserves of about 400 Gb, my 2540 Gb scenario has about 86 Gb of extra heavy oil URR and about 84 Gb of tight oil URR, so about 315 Gb of extra heavy oil in Canada and Venezuela gets left in the ground. For conventional oil the USGS has a TRR of at least 3000 Gb and the EIA claims tight oil URR will be about 120 Gb, my model has about 2370 Gb of conventional oil produced, so 630 Gb of that gets left in the ground along with 35 Gb of tight oil. The total is 315 plus 630 plus 35=980 Gb of oil left behind.

              I am in complete agreement that we should get on with the transition to alternatives to fossil fuel as fast as is feasible, I just don’t want to overstate the case. For every Venezuela, Libya, and Nigeria, there is a Bakken, Permian basin, Eagle Ford, Guyana, Brazil, and Canada that balances the equation, eventually output will decrease, but it looks to me that lack of demand will be the primary reason that decline will be steep as electric transport, wind, solar, batteries, and perhaps a bit of nuclear power make fossil fuel obsolete.

          2. It appears we are closer to the peak and maybe on the other side here in the States. We won’t know until we see evidence in our “rear view mirrors”. Meanwhile, it does not hurt to plan as you mentioned and be prepared to take things as they happen; even trying to divert the bad stuff.

            1. Agree Peter.

              To clarify- i am not predicting a 30% drop in global crude by 2032.

              Rather I said- “By 2032 there is very high likelihood [or certainty] that global oil production will be quite lower than now. Twenty or 30% lower shouldn’t surprise anyone.”
              I’d rather see the country presume that there will be disruptions, rather than be unprepared/surprised.

            2. Hickory,

              I agree it is better that the nation is prepared for peak oil, but I also think believable scenarios are more likely to convince people that peak oil will soon be a reality rather than doomsday scenarios that are not very likely and will be dismissed by most in positions of power.

        2. Remember that the “Next Exporter” math includes the gas/condensates being produced in the US but exported because the refiners don’t want that crap – they want the crude, preferably light and sweet. The gas/condensates are useful to second/third world entities straight into their (smoky) cars and (smoky) infrastructure. So there you have it, the US imports some (C) eight million barrels/day of crude, exports some of the refined products (A) along with all the crap spewing out of the frac fields (B) which then is, supposedly, (A)+(B) > (C).

          1. Matt,

            The tight oil is light sweet crude, the major refineries on the Gulf coast are set up to refine heavy crude oil which is what most of the World’s fields produce. The US refineries can handle about 4000 kb/d of tight oil, any production beyond that is exported simply because we do not have the refinery capacity to utilize it.

            We could restrict exports as some think makes sense (I do not agree), but we would then have to reduce US tight oil output by 4000 kb/d and World output would be reduced by 4000 kb/d.

            It is likely to lead to higher oil prices which some argue would be good for oil producers (I agree) and for the environment (I agree with that as well). Is it fair to oil producers who focus on tight oil and to oil service companies? I think not.

  7. A new post from Tim Morgan at Surplus Economics:
    https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com

    #243. The Great Inflexion
    A SYSTEM UNRAVELS

    “Where almost everybody is in agreement is that, however long it takes, the recession will end. But there’s a striking absence of explanations for how or why growth is supposed to resume. The fall-back position is no more than an assumption – a recovery will arrive for no better reason than that all previous economic downturns have been followed by rebounds. …

    “What economies and markets are now experiencing is trend-inflexion. Cyclicality may indeed continue but, from here on, it will do so around downwards-inflected trends. This process of reversal can only be managed if it is recognized.”

    1. “Transition to renewables is not just possible, but imperative. The economy, no less than the environment, is at grave and worsening risk unless this happens. Sustainability is a worthy goal, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be an attainable one.
      Where this logic breaks down is at the point at which transition is spun, not as sustainability, but as “sustainable growth”.

      I see things very much along these lines. Sustainability may eventually be achieved, but at a much smaller scale population and economy, and with less complexity.
      Contraction is baked in the cake…. a managed retreat, if we are lucky enough to have some downside management.

      ‘Degrowth’ is simply a soft word for Contraction. Its like trying to put lipstick on a pig, for the sake of palatability. The term is used by those hoping that their target audience will be placated because it has ‘growth’ as a component of the word.

  8. My sentiments exactly!

    Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder: ‘There are quite a few areas where physics blurs into religion’ Bold theirs

    To answer life’s biggest questions, says the German theoretical physicist and YouTuber, we need to abandon unscientific ideas such as the multiverse

    You don’t have much time for the multiverse either. Why not?
    It’s another one of those ideas that I’d call ascientific. If you want to believe that there are infinite copies of you with small alterations – one of them maybe won the Nobel prize, another became a rock star – you can believe this if you want to, it’s not in conflict with anything we know. But from a scientific perspective, if you want to make progress in our understanding of natural law, I’d say it’s a waste of time exactly for that reason, because you can’t test it.

    Can you understand why some giants of physics, such as Stephen Hawking, came to believe we are living in a multiverse?
    I have guesses, but I can’t ask him. It’s not just Stephen Hawking, there’s quite a number of people in the foundations of physics, though if you read the popular science press, it overstates the number, because they’re very prominent. It’s very niche, actually, this whole multiverse thing. Those people are really confused about what science can actually do. How they come to this conclusion that the multiverse must exist is that they have some theory that predicts some things that agree with observations – that’s all well and fine. And then they jump to the conclusion that therefore all the mathematics that appears in this theory also has to exist in some sense. But this is not how it works. You’ve just assigned reality to some mathematical expressions. You can’t support it with a scientific argument.

    1. For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith. — Paul Davies, The New York Times, “A Brief History of the Multiverse”

      1. From your first link:
        “Quantum computation […] will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes” – David Deutsch, “The Fabric of Reality”

        David Deutch has lost all touch with reality. We are going to collaborate with folks in parallel universes? We cannot collaborate with folks on other planets in this universe, even in this galaxy! But he thinks he is going to talk to folks in parallel universes? Give me a break.

        Believing in parallel universes is believing science fiction is real. And as Hossenfelder says, it’s closer to religion than science. Deutsch is no slouch; he just has lost touch with reality.

        M-theory is basically string theory. And yes, it can only be believed in as there is not one iota of evidence to support it. Some people believe in heaven and hell and a god that will dispatch them to one or the other when they die. Others believe in M-theory. Others believe in the easter bunny. They are all beliefs with no connection to reality.

        1. Duetsch think quantum computing is evidence of multiverse as where else are the computations happening?

          Hawking thinks super symmetry is evidence for M-theory

          My kids found eggs in our back yard and I consider that evidence for the Easter bunny.

          Nobody has a good leg to stand on when it comes to why the universe is here.

    3. “Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.” ~ Terence McKenna

  9. I have been reading all that I can find on sodium ion battery technology. Recent rapid developments and the interest of Chinese battery giant CATL and several other key players in this sector promise to bring this into production in 2023. The potential here is enormous. With further development of the carbon based anode it could be a lifetime battery, 10,000 charging cycles, function at cold temperatures, not be flammable, cheaper to manufacture than lithium, much more abundant and widely available raw material inputs, very rapid charging capabilities. I have been very leery of many previous battery breakthroughs that never scale out of the lab, but this one I believe is a potential game changer. Combined with break throughs in thin film solar, I see a ray of sunshine (pun intended). I have been looking for a stock or ETF investment vehicle on this one, it could be the next Microsoft, but alas the smart money seems to have kept it private.

  10. Mauna Loa eruption halts key atmospheric measurements
    (The Keeling Curve has been continuous for 60 years until now)

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/29/mauna-loa-volcano-co2-keeling/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjE5NDM4MTgyIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY2OTgyNTk0OSwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY3MTAzNTU0OSwiaWF0IjoxNjY5ODI1OTQ5LCJqdGkiOiI5YjIzZWFhMy0xNTUwLTQ4ZGEtYjRlZS0yZjQ4NmMxYmMxZjIiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vY2xpbWF0ZS1lbnZpcm9ubWVudC8yMDIyLzExLzI5L21hdW5hLWxvYS12b2xjYW5vLWNvMi1rZWVsaW5nLyJ9.ZNz8yU1jaalB52LFDysqc9D7Kg2wWZGxJ7OQ1Tdh-aI&utm_campaign=221233b44d-briefing-dy-20221130&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Nature+Briefing

  11. Of all the charts posted over the last year concerning energy and the economy, and their decline and volatility, this one is probably the most foreboding that I have seen.

    Confronting the Crisis

    1. Given the level of energy input required to extract this 2022 energy vs 1970 energy, the graph understates the impact to society. There is however considerable slack in our economy if we choose to use it wisely. For giggles I looked at the size of the US Recreational Vehicle industry, recreational boating, ATV/UTV, snow machine, cosmetics industry, beer sales, and a number of other discretionary sectors of our economy. The magnitude of which dwarfs the US annual EV sales significantly. We have not even begun to make adjustments to the reality bearing down on us. I think if we had the social will and leadership and at least some consensus on the problem at hand we would stand a chance, lacking that we will get what we deserve. I have transitioned my life in many areas of energy consumption and self reliance, not to save the world but to save myself.

      1. Yes, there is a huge amount of energy consumption fat to trim in the US and Canada.
        Most other countries not so much.

    2. The current global situation is one way to ‘ease’ into contraction.

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