Now I realize that most of the regulars here don’t think much of Yergin, and I have made substantial fun of him myself, talking about measuring the price of oil in Yergins, when the price went three times or four times what he predicted……. but in the end the old TOD site is gone, and all of us who were doomer regulars there,your’s truly included, were wrong …. short term anyway, and now maybe medium term.
Yergin knows some stuff, and he’s a SUPERB writer,and anybody interested in oil and energy who hasn’t read THE PRIZE, his book on the history of the oil industry, is in for a REAL TREAT, and will learn a hell of a lot.
I will speculate that one way or the other, things will play out in favor of the Maduro government, or the opposition, within the next twelve months.
I would say a bit shorter time– the US needs to torpedo Ven in about 6 months, or the completion date for the Heavy Oil Refinery will be coming up, and the writing will be on the wall.
As stated before, GS, China, and Russia are all betting on Maduro.
We shall see–
A small heavy oil processing unit at Puerto la Cruz won’t do much to reverse oil field decline. Even a 200 kbopd upgrader won’t do the job, and there’s none being built.
Mac, from what I see, Venezuela’s production should keep going down at say 10% per year. Some of us have mentioned to the protest movement that it makes more sense to stop protesting openly because repression is so harsh, go underground and focus on helping pdvsa employees quit their jobs.
The Chinese are refusing to invest in Venezuela, the Russians are making token investments to hold acreage, but there’s simply no capability to engineer and execute large projects. So if the brain drain continues and the dictatorship remains entrenched, the production drop will continue.
But I don’t see a long term shut down, the repression machine is fully castroized, they murder or disappear people at will, the secret police from both Venezuela (SEBIN) and Cuba (G2) have the military under control.
Longer term the humanitarian crisis, epidemics (we are seeing diphtheria reappear) and the regime abuses may lead to heavy sanctions and possibly a full naval blockade to make tgey regime collapse. But that will be in 2018-2019, and by then exports should be about 1.3 million BOPD of heavy blend. That’s easy to offset with keystone XL if they ever get it going.
Hi Fernando,
I did a quick check and for the past 15 months (through July 2017) based on EIA C+C data Venezuela’s C+C output has declined at a rate of 13%/year, so your assumption of 10% per year may be optimistic, though you know the reality on the ground there far better than me.
Maybe the ghosts of Pinochet, Jiménez and Batista can bring back the conventional oil? Otherwise they’re pretty much f*cked.
Still, not quite as funny as the news coming out about the Christian right in America, examplified by the likes of god fearing, honest and upstanding citizens, like the good judge Roy Moore and his supporters, in that bastion of intellectual enlightenment and rationality, otherwise known as Alabama.
Or how about the Trump administration sending clean coal advocates to the climate summit? If that’s not satire at it’s finest, I don’t know what is!
One does have to feel pity for the staff at the Onion these days, eh?
FredM,
I have the impression that Trump actually thinks that clean coal is something dug up out of the ground, that somehow the US has cleaner coal than other countries. Am I alone in this?
Synapsid,
I have the impression that Trump has a thought processes somewhat below that of a Hermissenda crassicornis, though that might be insulting to the average Hermissenda…
Cheers!
Trump has very obviously been surrounding himself with sycophants for most of his life. He’s living in a self induced fantasy. This characteristic no doubt makes him one of the best representatives of the American population in all of American political history. Not because it’s right or good, but because it seems highly representative of the characteristics of a majority of Americans. He seems to see no value in obtaining the insights of smart people who disagree with him. This will not end well.
I remember several years ago when right wing protesters could be seen holding up signs with pictures of Obama wearing a Hitler mustache and calling him a dictator. Now large elements of the right wing are turning towards faux-Nazism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; waste of rations. I wouldn’t throw them a life preserver if I saw them drowning.
Trump administration reverses ban on import of elephant trophies
.
My first thought on that development:
Jesus Suffering F*ck (I first heard that one in Scotland)
I see no constructive policy, no MAGA just a ‘If it was done by Obama, scrap it.’. Oh, unless it is handing the rich more money.
NAOM
The elephants are doomed anyway, but this shows what a piece of trash the guy is.
Goddammit Fred, I knew somebody would notice that Bro Roy Retard Moore was from Bama, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. We’re not all like that, really!
I guess I can take some small measure of comfort from the fact that Frump-the-chump isn’t from Bama, or anywhere else in the South. Let’s hear it for fucking Nu Yawk! Let’s not leave out those from the left side of the country who are making the news lately either. Just shows that “Grab’em by the pussy” has no respect for statehood, geography, or political affiliation.
Hell, all this shit is moving me right on up the ladder as far as my ethics/morality record goes. Too bad I’m not looking for a job these days, I would have a nice phrase to end my resume with. “Never convicted of a violent rape or unneeded murder.”
Okay, I’ll shut up now and get back to wiring the outlet for the 60 or so year-old welder I just found.
Stan
It’s OK, Stan, Nothing particular against the people who live in Bama. After all, I live in the sunny state of Flo-reed-DUH! 😉
My beef is only with a certain segment of the population!
No offense taken Fred,
Due to a lifetime’s training, I instinctively flinch whenever I hear the word “Alabama” on any national newscast. Chances are, it’s not going to be in any good context. There’s plenty of stupidity to go around in this state and all others.
Stan
My thoughts on a dialogue in the petroleum section that I perhaps best posted here in this section as I’m taking it way off topic.
My first thought is this:
The left vs right paradigm is a stage set for fools to argue upon about how they should best be enslaved (no offence).
Furthermore, in a world where that stage was abundant with natural resources the primary issue seems to me to be how to distribute the surplus gained by exploiting the ecosystem. I suppose that’s an ethical issue. Justice/administrating fairness is center stage in political philosophy. Concepts of justice differ in every culture. I think folks tend to go with the philosophy that they perceive is in their best interest, as in the one that allows them to obtain access to financial resources in the manner in which they prefer to do so. Blame is relative and people assign it in their own best interest. A key function in society is who controls the blame pattern. In USA the blame pattern seems to be directed ‘downward’ to blame the ‘welfare chiselers’ who are trying to get a LITTLE something for nothing instead of ‘upward’ to the Wall Street ‘fat cats’ who get a WHOLE LOT of something for nothing. That’s because the blame pattern is manipulated (I’m paraphrasing Utah Phillips in that last 3 sentences).
That chart applies to oil/fossil fuels, not to energy overall. Solar power is 10,000 times larger than current fossil fuel consumption, and is non-depleting.
And, yes, the same economic theories apply. Economics is defined as the science of distribution of scarce resources.
Ah yes, The Magic Porridge Pot. Good luck with that. The Silicon Valley Circle Jerk™ will make a few bucks in the short term, but it won’t solve jack shit in the long term.
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economic theories, on the other hand, try to explain economic phenomena, try to interpret why and how the economy behaves the way it does, and define what is the best solution to particular problems- how to influence the economic phenomena. They are comprehensive system of assumptions, hypotheses, definitions and instructions of what should be done in certain economic situations.
You live in a dream world, as disconnected from reality as your ideological opponents that you loath.
Fossil fuel burning set to hit record high in 2017, scientists warn
2018 will exceed 2017. 2019 will exceed 2018. And so on.
Your shallow optimism is a cheap and naive form of positive thinking. Are you one of those The Singularity/Rapture of the Nerds types?
We are down at the source rock for oil now, doesn’t look good. The Arctic dream is just that. One more place to wreck for no good reason. Coal? So nasty and toxic only a sick and twisted mentality would think that is good. Natural Gas? The bridge to worse climate change and methane hydrate destabilization.
If their actual costs were ever charged, they would have ended already.
Prognosis: Fossil fuels are zombie fuels, their end is near and they are a terrible way to energize a world civilization. But watch out the zombies don’t get you.
And here is a very moderate view of the situation:
This Is The End of The Fossil Fuel Age as We Know It, Says Report
You can’t fight the future.
“2018 will exceed 2017. 2019 will exceed 2018. And so on.”
I wouldn’t bet on that, in fact I’d bet the exact opposite. At the rate solar PV is being installed, it’s gotta have an impact sooner or later and my guess is sooner, like next year. We have less than four months to find out what the contribution to electricity generation from solar for the US ends up at. My WAG, 2%. Just in case it is said that this is a US centric view, solar is expanding faster than it is in the US in other more significant places like China and India.
All the data you need is in the excel file at the page above.
You have to make some heroic assumptions about the pace of solar and wind installation to assume that fossil fuel use will decline before 2025.
Do the analysis at the World level and it will become clear.
A fast energy transition with wind and solar growing 20%/year from 2015-2020 and 15% per year from 2021-2030 (at World level) would lead to a peak in fossil fuel emissions in 2025 and elimination of emissions by 2045 with total fossil fuel plus land use and cement carbon emissions at 865 Pg C from 1750 to 2200.
I doubt this scenario is realistic, but it is what we should aim for. The “slow” transition (which is more realistic in my view) shown in the chart below has total carbon emissions of 986 Pg from 1750-2200.
Uhmm…that’s puzzling.
Your first comment showed a chart which suggested that fossil energy availability was plummeting. Your second comment suggested that fossil energy production was growing too much.
So…are we agreed that energy scarcity isn’t our real problem, and that too much fossil fuel burning is our real problem?
Excellent point Nick. If solar energy were on that graph, the oil hump would be barely visible. We ignore all that energy at our peril. Pay no attention to the FF freaks, they are shaking in their boots since renewable energies not only replace FF but allow further generations of humans and life in general to proceed.
They have us in their hands right now but can see the light at the end of the tunnel heading right for them. Cheaper, better, cleaner, far less toxic and more life promoting. It’s coming, the horn has been blaring, yet they are deer in the headlights unwilling to move.
The world war is being waged right now. Most every other front has fallen, the energy front is under attack now.
The dummies don’t even realize how much energy has been cut already by efficiency and system analysis. They don’t want to see the fact that oil can barely keep up in even a more efficient and transitioning world. The world would have tried to use about twice as much energy if not for advances across the board. We would have hit the energy wall decades ago. Fossil fuels are the least abundant and most expensive energy on the planet.
U.S. SENATE PANEL VOTES TO OPEN ALASKAN REFUGE TO DRILLING
“The U.S. Senate energy and natural resources panel voted to open a portion of an Alaskan wildlife refuge to allow oil drilling on Wednesday, angering conservationists who had fought to save the area from fossil fuel interests.”
It’s OK to trash earth after all, here’s another one for us (maybe):
CLOSEST TEMPERATE WORLD ORBITING QUIET STAR DISCOVERED
“A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the solar system by a team using ESO’s unique planet-hunting HARPS instrument. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be detected after Proxima b. It is also the closest planet to be discovered orbiting an inactive red dwarf star, which may increase the likelihood that this planet could potentially sustain life.”
I am not waiting the several thousand years for a probe to start sending back data.
Why not? This may be your only chance.
No need, population here will soon fall dramatically and the problem will be solved. 🙂
To paraphrase Chris Hedges- receding arctic ice is seen as a business opportunity to drop billion dollar drill bits in the arctic and harvest the last vestiges of oil, minerals and fish stocks. It’s insane.
I’m not much of a Dimitri Orlov fan, so I don’t recommend the second half of the show (although he is not at his worst in this particular case), but I do recommend the first half of the show in which the hosts interview Chris Hedges and Morris Berman. https://xenetwork.org/xe/episodes/episode-60-days-destruction/
Might as well tap Yellowstone as an energy source. What other dangerous systems will humans tap to “make a profit”?
Hi GF,
Doug posted some stuff a few days back about volcanoes. Links there, if you look back maybe a week.
There’s serious talk about actually tapping Yellowstone not to get power ,but rather to allow it to cool down and thus avoid a catastrophic eruption. Using the energy drained off to generate electricity would help pay for the job.
In my estimation, this might be within the realm of the possible, from an engineering stand point, but from a political stand point, my guess is the probability of it being tried approaches zero, at least for the next few decades.
I think it best not to mess with Yellowstone. If Yellowstone blows it is a local (North America) cataclysm and a worldwide disaster.
receding arctic ice is seen as a business opportunity
Except that Arctic ice hasn’t receded in 10 years. I wouldn’t bet the farm on that business opportunity.
Yawn
“Evidently Javier was unhappy about NSIDC using daily data on sea ice extent to show that this year had the 2nd-lowest annual minimum on record. So, he decided to go with the September monthly averages for each year, and to start with 2007 to show a “trend” which, he says, shows “that Arctic sea ice has been increasing since that fateful September of 2007.”
Gosh, Javier, what was that you were saying about “The trend is always determined by the choice of starting point and ending point“? Didn’t you “Do your homework“?
Of course the trend isn’t determined by the choice of start and end points, but it’s strongly influenced by it. That’s especially true if you start (or end) with an extreme, which I discussed here. And that’s exactly what Javier has done: start, not just with the most extreme September average in the record, but one so extreme he himself refers to it as “fateful.”
Javier has also resorted to another denier favorite: computing a “trend” based on a time span that’s way to short. Way too short. Ten years, from 2007 to 2016. And, in classic fashion, he omits to estimate any uncertainty with that “trend.”
“The time span is so short that the uncertainty in any trend estimate is gigantic. In this case, it’s so big that there’s really no evidence sea ice is declining any more slowly than it was before. There’s no evidence that the recent apparent trend change is anything more than a fluctuation which looks like one.”
What kind of maths requirement did your PhD in biological sciences entail, grade 8? What an embarrassment!
Could be just a case of a three monkeys infection.
Don’t feed the troll. Put him on ignore.
Survivalist — Is Javier still doing his clown act, pretending to be a climate scientist? Best X him out and save your breath.
My bad. I clear my web browsing history from time to time and I have to remember to re-[x] him each time.
computing a “trend” based on a time span that’s way to short. Way too short. Ten years, from 2007 to 2016.
From 2007 to 2017, mind you. The count keeps growing.
I would not say that 10 years is too short a time to invest on something. And according to Divine & Dick 2006 “Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas,” the wait could be much longer, as the main periodicity they identify in Arctic sea ice won’t change phase until around 2045. Who would want to invest with such perspective? Zero yield for 28 years?
Says the person who uses an El Nino year to a La Nina year as evidence of cooling. Liar.
NAOM
You have no problem in using an El Niño year as evidence of warming. Without the 2014-2016 El Niño, no warming since 2003.
Thinking that a CO₂ emissions reduction will affect the climate and make it more to our liking is the biggest lie of our time.
Where did I say that? I look at the trend and ignore outliers as it is supposed to be done. You, on the other hand, used the last high El Nino for your “no warming” bullshit.
NAOM
Where did I say the world has not warmed? I just compare the observations to the predictions as it is supposed to be done, and it is clear that the world is not warming as much as predicted by models made just a few years ago. Alarmistic predictions cannot be based on observations.
2017 will be less warm than 2016, and it is likely that 2018 will be less warm than 2017 if La Niña finally shows up, so the disparity is going to look quite bad.
@Javier
“Where did I say the world has not warmed?”
Here:-
“Without the 2014-2016 El Niño, no warming since 2003.”
Oh, for someone so smart(y pants), you should keep up with the news and not stick n 2003. We are in a La Nina year.
NAOM
Well, then it is clear. There was warming because there was an El Niño.
And no, this is not a La Niña year. That we are in La Niña conditions doesn’t mean that a La Niña event is taking place. It takes several months of La Niña conditions for a La Niña event to be declared. Since we are already in November, 2017 will not be a La Niña year. 2018 might be a La Niña year if the conditions remain for the next five months.
Expect the global average temperature to continue decreasing in 2018 if that is the case.
The next world war is going to be fought over the Arctic. Once the ice melts for good, a free for all will take place among various nations. Already Russia has made moves to claim first dibs on key territory proclaimed neutral in the past. The potential natural resources locked up under the otherwise useless ice all these years is astonishing, and much too economically irresistible for any nation to pass up.
Jared, what makes you think the Arctic will be completely ice free before 2200 or later? By then, I doubt if anyone will be burning fossil fuels for energy. With maybe one and a half years worth of oil under the Arctic Ocean, is it worth the trouble or expense especially with no real market?
Even by the time the Arctic Ocean is ice free all summer the energy transistion away from oil and gas will be long on it’s way to completion.
This is just the desperation of an industry seeing it’s end days coming.
Here is an article concerning estimates and realities of Arctic fossil fuels. To give a sense of scale to these numbers, world oil consumption is around 30 billion barrels per year, and world gas consumption is about 110 TCF per year. So the Arctic may contain anywhere from a 1-3 year supply of oil and a 7-27 year supply of gas.
However, these are merely estimates of “original oil and gas in place.” Typically, only 25-35% of that amount is economically recoverable using current technology. So the Arctic may in fact have perhaps a 4-month world supply of recoverable oil, and around a 2-year supply of gas.
But you know the oil wouldn’t be taken out all at once, but over many years gradually. As long as there are prospects for economic growth by extracting the resource, someone will do so. Also I’d think there’s more than just oil trapped under ice. How about minerals, what kind of riches does Greenland have? We have limited understanding of what is under Antarctica either, so you have another world war in the making there due to the various claims over the land.
I don’t see your logic. War over very limited resources that one could obtain by other less dangerous and expensive means? Not very bright to put your nation in the crosshairs for some minerals. Cost to profit ratio is really low in that case.
Plus we don’t have to worry about BAU for that long, if we continue with your mindset the population will have dropped by a huge amount. No need for all those resources at that point, is there?
Transition or die. Trashing the planet further has deadly ramifications for all life on it.
You are deliberately overlooking the point, it is a drop in the ocean. Given the environment it will be hugely costly to produce and is unlikely to be developed.
NAOM
As long as there are prospects for economic growth by extracting the resource, someone will do so.
You seem to be stuck in a mindset that simply no longer makes any sense! There is simply no future prospect whatsoever for the old extractive economic growth model. If we continue on that path that you envision there won’t be any wars because the planet will already be dead. Your entire concept of what even constitutes, ‘riches’ i.e. mineral wealth, is headed for the dustbin of history.
Disruptive Innovation Festival
Streamed live on Nov 15, 2017
What is the goal of economics? Does GDP really tell us all we need to know about a country’s wealth and well-being? Our guest in this show argues that our economic system should be designed to meet everyone’s needs, while living within the means of the planet.
Kate Raworth is the author of the acclaimed book ‘Doughnut Economics’, and she will join us in the studio for an exploration of a new 21st century economic model and why she believes so many economists have got it wrong for so long.
The implications of her Doughnut Economics are profound and and can be read and embraced as a roadmap for change not just by experts or economists, but by everyone! This is a chance to challenge her with your questions and critiques.
what makes you think the Arctic will be completely ice free before 2200 or later? By then, I doubt if anyone will be burning fossil fuels for energy.
Exactly. For what we know the Arctic might not be completely ice free again during this interglacial. And fossil fuels in large quantities will become uneconomical in just a few decades at most.
JQ- While I tend to sympathize with your sentiments, the next World War will likely be fought in Africa. Or perhaps the Middle East. While conflict in the Arctic is certain to increase from current levels, I highly doubt it will be a World War.
Do you have any references regarding the inventory of natural resources found there?
For those in first world/developed countries who are interested in gaining insight into their future living conditions, I recommend keeping an eye on trends in famine, ecological collapse and violent conflict in Africa. #LowIntensityTribalWarfare.
China on track for 500,000 EV this year.
Mega video surveillance manufacturer Dahua is now electric car manufacturer Dahua. http://www.leapmotor.com/#section0
Dahua founded Leap Motors in 2015. It is joint owned by Dahua (33%) and 2 of Dahua’s executives (another 33% for Dahua’s Founder and 20% for Dahua’s former President).
Note these IP Video Manufactures have drive costs of products down more than an order of magnitude. – Source ipvm.com – Warren Buffet holding stake in BYD?
That is a low price per kWh for the new battery. Soon, especially if fuel prices rise, the savings from using electricity will pay for the battery.
Now if only the Powerwall would come down near those prices.
Republicans crazies are running out of corporate funding.
Great! So in the future we can use diesel power mining machines to mine ~30 elements (many of which are rapidly depleting), load them onto diesel powered trucks where they are driven to refineries (blast furnaces are very hard to run with renewables), the refined products of which are put onto container ships with diesel engines the size of houses where they are taken to another factory, assembled into solar panels, loaded back on the ships, and sent back to us so we can cleanly power our houses and electric cars in a completely renewable way.
Of course the battery back ups go through the same diesel powered process of non-renewable extraction, as do the cars themselves, as do all the components for making and maintaining the grid.
And the whole system will need to be replaced once every 30 – 50 years or so.
Hi Justanta
Except for strip mining or surface mining, the vast majority of all mining is done these days with electric machinery already, and once diesel gets to be really expensive, which it must someday, heavy freight transportation will be managed via electrified trucks and trains. There are two surface mines very near my home, one that produces granite, which is used for architectural work, and one that produces gravel and rip rap for construction work.
Both these mines are already powered more by electricity than they are by diesel fuel, and it’s already possible to buy ALL the machinery used in either one of them with electric motors, rather than diesel engines. SO FAR, it’s cheaper to run diesel.
In ten years, electric machinery will probably be cheaper.
And no matter how you slice it or dice it, you move one load of raw materials to build install solar panels or wind turbines, for every ten to twenty loads worth of electricity you get back in fuel free electricity from wind and solar farms.
Nor will wind and solar farms have to be rebuilt from scratch every thirty to fifty years.
Considering the planning and permitting costs, purchase or rental of land, engineering work, construction of roads, etc, and the fact that a lot of wind and solar infrastructure will last indefinitely, well……….
Probably no more than of the cost, and maybe much less, will have to be spent to refurbish wind and solar farms to same as or better than new condition every thirty or forty years, in constant money. The roads will be there, the rights of ways will be there transmission lines, etc will be there, foundations will be there, towers and racking will probably last that long twice , at least, etc.
And all the stuff that WILL have to be replaced can be replaced piecemeal, as it goes bad. New panels going up on old racks, using existing installed wiring, will probably cost only half as much in constant money per watt output, ten to twenty years down the road.
Wind turbine cost may fall just as fast, lol.
The grid requires maintenance, for sure, but except for the actual generating stations, the grid requires remarkably little maintenance work, in comparison to the value of it.
Wooden poles last thirty or forty years, and the same cable that was strung in my neighborhood prior to WWII is still in use in places, although most of the original transmission lines have been replaced with BIGGER lines.
How long steel and concrete transmission poles and towers will last is anybody’s guess.Mine is fifty to a hundred years easily.
You’re either trolling, or else you are not very well informed.
Unfortunately it’s the latter. Seems like every other day I read something that turns out not to be true. My recent foray was “When the Trucks Stop Running” by Alice Friedman, which makes the point that mining equipment utterly depends on diesel. Apparently that was incorrect. I’ll have to research more, but I stand corrected.
Solar panels don’t use rare earths or anything rare. No sense going down the list. The choice is between transitioning to renewable energy or watch civilization collapse as the fossil fuels run low. Pick one.
Yes solar panels don’t use rare earths, but the entire renewable “ecosystem” I think will require a lot of them, as well as hard to come by elements not on the list of 17 rare earths. I won’t stake my pride on that considering how recently I was thoroughly wrong, but from my understanding mineral shortages are something we definitely need to consider when talking about an energy transition.
My worry is not whether we should try to transition. We absolutely should. My worry is that right now, it seems like world leaders and most world citizens want to believe that we can transition while maintaining our current lifestyle and growth oriented economies.
I think a transition to a combination of solar, wind, batteries, pumped hydro, biofuel, and all the others will necessitate a period of degrowth followed by a substantial paradigm shift for the world economy, a new economy in which we “work while the sun is shining” so to speak. We are talking about refurbishing large portions of our industrial system at a time when energy from other fuels are tending to get more expensive on an EROEI basis. It irks me seeing all the discussion about the truly staggering decreases in price of renewables(which are truly staggering), while glossing over the significant challenges to their widespread adoption. The underlying assumption is always that we can continue to grow at our present rate while performing this mass renewable deployment, which to me seems obviously false and wrongheaded.
>Yes solar panels don’t use rare earths, but the entire renewable “ecosystem” I think will require a lot of them, as well as hard to come by elements not on the list of 17 rare earths
This is ludicrously vague, but still wrong. The only place rare earths might come into play in in magnets for wind turbines, but wind turbines don’t use permanent magnets for the most part.
I think you should rely less on propaganda and more on some basic research.
If you have read some of the hundreds of books put out by climate activists and scientists on the subject, you would know there is no underlying assumption of continued growth. My own take is we will be using a lot less energy in the future than right now.
Underground mining has used electricity for a long time. Any form of ICE is an anathema as it is an explosion risk and produces fumes that need to be removed. We have had many discussions, here, about electric powered surface mines including trucks that use electric from catenaries. Keep reading this blog and you will find out a lot more. The fossil fuel is pushing out a lot of misinformation about the need for diesel, see the reaction to the Tesla truck for example. They are reacting like deer in the headlights of change.
I visited it once. Enlarge the photo to see how big this thing really is.
That is BIG and the USA still thinks diesel trucks are the way – yeesh!
NAOM
Jalisco has a new wind farm, I am not sure if just started or just completed. There is a lot of push for renewables. Nearly every time I go out I see new rooftop sets and you can order through Costco or put them on your phone bill with Telmex. I may have to look at solar, in a few years when costs fall and temperatures rise so I can add aircon.
NAOM
You in Jalisco?
Spent last Winter in PV and San Pancho.
Was that surfing in San Pan? Haven’t jumped on the ATM for a while.
NAOM
Great break. But my upper body strength is not what it used to be.
But had a lot of water time.
Did you meet Renee from San Fran in San Pacho?
I did.
We are the best of friends from way back! Amazing, with over 7 B people, and yet a random connection is still possible.
Elon Musk has always dreamed big, and tonight he showed off his biggest reverie yet: the fully electric Tesla Semi. Powered by a massive battery and capable of hauling 80,000 pounds, it can ramble 500 miles between charges. It’ll even drive itself—on the highway, at least.1
And Musk promises production will start in 2019.
The big rig, which Musk unveiled at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California headquarters Thursday night, is just the latest step in his mission to make humanity forget about planet-killing fossil fuels and embrace the gospel of electric power.
That is, of course, if he can convince the trucking industry it’s time for a new way of moving stuff around—and if he can actually make the thing.
Acceleration 0-60 mph with 80k lbs – 20 sec
Speed up a 5% Grade – 65 mph
Mile Range – 300 or 500 miles
Powertrain – 4 Independent Motors on Rear Axles
Energy Consumption – Less than 2 kWh / mile
Fuel Savings – $200,000+
I bet it will do great in stop and go traffic with the regen feature. Now if they would implement those aerodynamic designs done by that German designer, the range would probably increase substantially. That will probably happen later if trucks still do long range in the future.
Is Musk trying to take over the world or just showing the way? Everybody expects pioneers to fail occasionally but this guy has a great track record.
“Is Musk trying to take over the world or just showing the way?”
As someone who has been following his activities since he and his co-founders started Tesla Motors, I think he just got frustrated waiting for the established auto-manufacturers to innovate and is basically showing the way. See my post below on the new roadster. A couple of Porsche owning guys I know have been gushing about the upcoming Mission-e from Porsche and how it’s gonna kill Tesla. Well Elon just delivered the ultimate smackdown. You think the Mission-e is fast? No. This is fast! Quicker to 60, quicker to 100 and it’s got a 600 mile range to boot. Like I told the Porsche guys, by the time the Mission-e hits the road, Tesla will have come up with something better. Done. Musk is just trying to drive home his point. Fossil fuels are unsustainable and electric propulsion is just plainly superior.
Edison was right, just ahead of his time.
Edison was right, just ahead of his time.
Like Malthus. Who will be proven correct first? EVs for everybody or lack of sufficient resources?
Like Malthus.
Malthus has been proved wrong. His primary argument was that human fertility could not (should not – he believed contraception was immoral!) be limited. And…most of the world has proved that wrong.
“Thomas Malthus | Biography | Britannica.com https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus
Thomas Malthus: English economist known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply.”
Malthus has been wrong so far, as food supply has outrun population growth, but it is unclear what will happen in the end. Many here believe the world is or will be in a not very distant future in overshooting. That would prove Malthus was ultimately correct, just did not consider the ability of human ingenuity to delay the inevitable.
There is more to overshoot than just the human food supply. All the world’s megafauna is dying off, save one great ape that is raping the world.
If you were a member of any other species of megafauna you would say that the world is collapsing. But because you are a member of the species that is killing off all the others, you think we are winning this battle.
We are a plague species that is killing the world.
Anyone paying even minor attention, and of at least moderate intelligence, can see we are in a situation of mass ecocide, population overshoot, runaway climate change, and collapsing ecosystems.
And I could go on—-
This is not a battle and there is no way of winning, Ron. It is not only the megafauna, but the entire biosphere that is being very seriously affected, with a few species taking advantage while most are being negatively affected. Amphibians are probably the worst affected, but even insects are taking a serious hit. And ecosystems are interconnected networks. Once some species are hit enough the entire ecosystem moves to a new equilibrium that is simpler, poorer, and less productive, and there is no way to restore it by adding one or a few species back. Only a very long time will allow the increase in lost complexity.
And quite frankly, I don’t think there is a way out of the situation. If we stop growing our economy will collapse, and then our civilization will collapse, and then tens of billions of hungry people will fall on what is left of our natural spaces trying to feed, get energy, and clothing, from them and destroying most of what is left.
For the time being the most important thing we can do is to try to preserve and expand natural spaces and wildlife populations, and put them above any other consideration. We should stop appropriating more of the planet from the rest of species.
Javier, I have been studying the planet’s collapse due to massive human overshoot for many years. So I am well aware of the fact that it is not just megafauna that is being affected.
And no, this is not a problem that can be fixed. It is a predicament that must be dealt with. It is inevitable, civilization as we know it will collapse. There is no way to avoid that fact.
Water tables are still dropping. Rivers are still going dry. Deserts are still expanding. Forests are still disappearing. Animal species are still going extinct. Ocean fisheries are still disappearing. Air pollution is still getting worse. And the world’s climate is still getting warmer.
These things are happening but at such a slow pace few are getting alarmed. We live on a day to day basis, or even a year to year basis. Things are changing so slowly that it is easy for most people to deny they are happening. Some even calculate that in a couple of hundred years or so, the population will level out and even start dropping. I am sure that will happen but not for the reasons they believe.
Worldwide famine will only accelerate the destruction of our ecosystem. We will eat the songbirds out of the trees.
We will eat the songbirds out of the trees.
Will?! whaddaya mean WILL?!
You don’t think that is already happening?
Just look at this plate of yummy little boids!
.
Ron, I do remember how the world was in the 1970’s, just over 4 decades ago, and while humans are on average better, the rest of the planet is much worse. Some species that we declared protected in the first world have very much improved their situation, and this points to the only hope we have. We must protect not species but entire ecosystems in natural preserves both on land and sea, that we should expand over time, not reduce. A quarter of the planet (every biome) should be protected from human exploitation, and international export of junk and residues ought to be banned. International regulation of residues should be passed as a condition to participate in international trade.
These are the real priorities of the planet, and I don’t see the world leaders and leading nations making any effort in the right direction.
The only way that might be true is if you misrepresent Malthus as a metaphor for overshoot.
Again – Malthus argued that fertility could not, should not be limited, and therefore population would always outrun food supplies.
And that’s clearly not the case. A majority of the world has reduced fertility to replacement, and most of the rest have fertility rates that are dropping pretty fast.
Malthus was dead wrong.
Malthus argued that fertility could not, should not be limited, and therefore population would always outrun xxxx supplies.
Remove the word “food” from that phrase and it is clearly correct. Well, that is if you remove the words “should not” as well. Malthus was a religious nut and did not believe in birth control.
That being said, however, we are clearly destroying the planet’s ability to feed its 7.5 billion people. Topsoil is being destroyed, washed and blown away. Water tables are dropping and rivers are drying up. The Yellow River in China is a prime example. Over-irrigation is drying the Yellow River as well as other rivers, not just in China but in many other countries.
There is no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that Malthus will be proven correct. The world’s agricultural system will soon be unable to feed its teeming masses.
Remove the word “food” from that phrase and it is clearly correct. Well, that is if you remove the words “should not” as well
Again, Malthus’ emphasis was on fertility, not food production. Whatever happened with food production, he argued that population would outstrip it.
Malthus has been proven wrong on fertility.
It’s also worth noting that this argument wasn’t even his primary point: his primary point was that poverty and starvation were inevitable, and therefore it was pointless to try to help the poor.
Malthus was the Trump of his time.
Malthus’ emphasis was on fertility, not food production.
That is clearly incorrect. Malthus’ emphasis was clearly on both, fertility and food production.
As a side note, World population when Malthus published his essay, was .9 billion. It has since increased over 8 fold.
Malthus could never have anticipated the industrial revolution, or the medical revolution allowing for a much longer lifespan. And he sure as hell could have never anticipated the green revolution.
Trashing Malthus is a favorite pastime of those with 20-20 hindsight. And it is especially a favorite pastime for those who are incapable of understanding just how desperately overpopulated the world actually is.
Malthus was a cleric with only a moderate income. He was about as far removed from a narcissistic con-artist billionaire as one could possibly get.
Perhaps it’s unreasonable to criticize Malthus for being wrong. He seems mighty disagreeable to me – I don’t know why anyone would defend him.
But he was still wrong. Fertility has dropped dramatically, and food production has more than kept pace (not only are people eating more than they need on average, by quite a distance, but they’re eating a lot more meat – food production has expanded faster than population). Perhaps he will be proven right in the future…but not on the fertility side, that’s for sure.
He was dead wrong on fertility, right?
(not only are people eating more than they need on average, by quite a distance, but they’re eating a lot more meat –
Yes, they are eating a lot of meat… bushmeat to be exact. Africa’s hungry hoards are driving all their wildlife into extinction. Africa is desperately overpopulated.
Yes, food production in Africa is keeping pace with population growth. Well, that is if you count monkeys, chimps and other African wildlife as food.
Yep, parts of Africa have serious problems, no doubt about it. But that’s not really a serious answer to this debate about Malthus.
If you want to have a debate about wildlife, we can. That’s a different debate, but we can switch topics.
Okay. Switching to wildlife.
How long did the buffalo or the Passenger Pigeon survive the arrival of Europeans? How long did wolves survive in the Eastern US, or the Western US, for that matter?
What was the population of England when the last major predators were wiped out?
Yes, humans are wiping out wild megafauna, but not because of over population. It’s because humans currently don’t really think wild megafauna are good to have around, and have used powerful weapons to eliminate them ASAP. There’s plenty of good habitat available in the US for wolves, for instance – not only are there good parks and countryside , but the suburbs are perfect. But, any wolves get shot mighty quick outside of Yellowstone.
On the other hand, there’s plenty of domesticated megafauna. Dogs, cats, cows, horses – the numbers are quite large. But…they’re not wild.
It’s not primarily because humans are genetically predisposed to fear predators (though I think they are). Ron, ask yourself: are you different genetically from the rest of humanity, even though you like wildlife? I don’t think so.
Human society simply hasn’t matured to the point of welcoming wildlife. Let’s hope it does before wildlife is completely wiped out.
Yes, humans are wiping out wild megafauna, but not because of over population. It’s because humans currently don’t really think wild megafauna are good to have around,…
Huh?
There’s plenty of good habitat available in the US for wolves, for instance – not only are there good parks and countryside , but the suburbs are perfect.
This is a joke… Right? No one could possibly be that stupid. There is plenty of space for wolves in the parks and suburbs? Really?
On the other hand, there’s plenty of domesticated megafauna. Dogs, cats, cows, horses – the numbers are quite large.
Oh yeah, what we lose in wild megafauna we can simply make up with increasing the population of our domestic megafauna. One elephant can simply be replaced by about 20 cows. No problem, we can easily do that.
I am sorry Nick, but I don’t think I will ever respond to one of your posts again. Good God in Heaven, after this post, I would not dare.
I hope you have a good life. But until now I had no idea what we were up against in trying to explain the very serious ecological crisis we face to the uninformed. The uninformed like Nick, which is likely about 95% of the population. But now I realize, the situation is hopeless. We are fucking doomed.
Well, of course I’m joking. Kind’ve.
I’m trying to give you a different perspective, which is that wildlife extinction, and habitat loss, aren’t accidents. They’re mostly deliberate.
I think that on some level you’re giving humanity the benefit of the doubt, and saying that wildlife extinction is an accidental byproduct of overpopulation, rather than deliberate ecocide.
And, in a way, I agree with you – I think people don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t realize the value of wildlife. And, they can be educated, and do things differently.
I think that on some level you’re giving humanity the benefit of the doubt, and saying that wildlife extinction is an accidental byproduct of overpopulation, rather than deliberate ecocide.
Deliberate? By whom? All humanity?
Really Nick, your naivety here is astounding. If we take over their territory to support our ever-growing population numbers, this is deliberate ecocide? No, human beings have a natural desire to survive. They simply want to live. If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do. The extinction of the species they displace is just an unfortunate consequence of their/our ever growing population numbers.
Your desire to blame someone else for the natural consequences of population growth is understandable, but just dead wrong. No one is to blame. It is just human nature.
If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do.
That’s a big IF. Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? Did anybody’s survival depend on eliminating buffalo and Passenger Pigeons?
I wrote: “If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do.”
You replied: Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? Did anybody’s survival depend on eliminating buffalo and Passenger Pigeons?
Jesus H. Fucing Christ. You have to be joking. It is very obvious that you have not a fucking clue as to what is happening to the world’s wild species.
Species began their sixth extinction, not in recent years but at least four hundred years ago when the human population started its recent expansion. The dodo disappeared from the island of Martius in around 1650 about half a century after humans first arrived on the island. And it has been downhill ever since.
I am not saying that human survival depended on the destruction of much of the wildlife in their path, but it was just natural for them to destroy it. That is just what we do. If it is not necessary for our survival, we will destroy it. That is just what we do. It is just human nature.
But you are dead wrong when you say: Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? No, the very large extinction of megafauna species began only about 100 to 50 or so years ago. Though the actual extinction, at a slower rate, began several hundred years earlier.
As I have said in earlier post, the long-term carrying capacity of a human being on the earth is likely around 2 billion people. But now I think that is way too high. Perhaps it is one billion or less. At any rate, the mass destruction of our megafauna began well before we were at one billion people.
All that being said, it is just common sense that as the human population expanded, and began taking over more and more of the other megafauna’s former territory, their numbers would decrease. Jesus H. fucking Christ, how could it possibly otherwise?
Is there a name for the folks that believe that the human population explosion is not a problem? A name for those who believe that we are God’s chosen to dominate the earth and fuck all the other species? If so, what is the name for those folks? And just when did they stop using common sense?
No, the very large extinction of megafauna species began only about 100 to 50 or so years ago.
This is not correct, Ron.
“Earth’s most recent major extinction episode, the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction, claimed two-thirds of mammal genera and one-half of species that weighed >44 kg between ~50,000 and 3,000 years ago.”
I am not saying that human survival depended on the destruction of much of the wildlife in their path, but it was just natural for them to destroy it. That is just what we do. If it is not necessary for our survival, we will destroy it. That is just what we do. It is just human nature.
If it was up to you, we wouldn’t do that. You would make different choices. So would the majority of people on this forum, and many, many people in the wide world.
Are you genetically different from other people? Are environmentalists different genetically? No. Environmental destruction is not written in our genes.
You’ve learned better. Many people would, and that’s a cultural thing, which can spread. Our world can be very different, and that could happen faster than one could imagine. Change can happen fast…
Will we do so in time? Who knows. But it’s possible, and many people are working to make it happen. Even you, in your own way….
Are you genetically different from other people? Are environmentalists different genetically? No. Environmental destruction is not written in our genes.
No, it is not. But neither is environmental preservation. What is written in our genes is survival and reproduction. And we will survive and reproduce to the limits of our ability.
Nick, one thing you simply don’t seem to understand. The main reason species are going extinct is habitat loss. The prime reason the human population has been able to explode is habitat gain. We had to take over the habitat of other species to build our cities, to graze our domestic animals and to grow the crops required to feed those expanding masses.
Therefore the inescapable conclusion is that human population increase is the prime reason other species are going extinct.
What is written in our genes is survival and reproduction. And we will survive and reproduce to the limits of our ability.
That might have been a reasonable argument 40 years ago. Not now. Look at Japan, which not only has a fertility rate well below replacement, but it’s absolute population has started to fall. Look at the UK, where Malthus was writing. The Total Fertility Rate is 1.83, well below replacement of roughly 2.10.
We can see that people are not just naked apes. They actually can use their prefrontal cortex, and make recognizably smart decisions.
The main reason species are going extinct is habitat loss
Well, if you define habitat loss as the area where humans don’t tolerate wild animals, then yeah. But humans can coexist with wildlife. More importantly, humans can choose to live in smaller areas (look at the population density of Singapore), and farm a relatively small percentage of overall land area (some crops use less land, and greatly reducing meat production would cut land requirements by much more than 50%).
Here’s the key question: if everyone in the world valued wildlife as much as you (or, if you were the absolute ruler of the world!), couldn’t they choose to preserve wildlife? You would. If everyone thought like you, they would too. And, if they chose to do it, they could succeed in doing it. Right?
Nick, I will respond to this post at a later date on another thread.
Take care,
Ron
The current average population increase is estimated at 83 million people per year, globally .
We are not reducing population.
Out of the 7.5 billion, 6.5 billion are alive only because of the Haber-Bosch process.
It takes 10 calories of hydrocarbons to produce 1 calorie of food.
17th century
1627 – The last known aurochs died in Poland. This large wild cattle formerly inhabited much of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, central Asia, and India.[23]
c. 1645 – Finsch’s duck survived in New Zealand until around this time.[3]
c. 1660 – The giant vampire bat survived in Argentina until about this time.[3]
1662 – The last definite sighting of a Mauritius dodo was made.[14] The extinction was due to hunting, but also by the pigs, rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by settlers. The species has become an iconic symbol of animal extinction.[24]
The moa was one of the largest birds that ever existed.
The elephant bird Aepyornis maximus was last recorded around the end of the 17th century.[22]
18th century[edit]
1768 – Steller’s sea cow became extinct due to overhunting for meat and leather.[3][25]
1773 – The Tahiti sandpiper died out after rats were introduced to its habitat in the Society Islands.[26]
1774 – The Sardinian pika became extinct due to invasive species (foxes, cats, etc.) that were introduced to Sardinia and Corsica.[27]
1777 – The Society parakeet population dies out on the Society Islands after vessels released pests.[28]
1790 – The Lord Howe swamphen, also known as the white gallinule, becomes extinct.[29]
19th century[edit]
1800 – The last known bluebuck was shot, making the species the first African antelope to be hunted to extinction by European settlers.[30]
1825 – The mysterious starling died out.[31]
1826 – The Mauritius blue pigeon becomes extinct due to excessive hunting.[32]
1827 – The Tonga ground skink dies out from its only home in the Tongan Islands.[33]
Quagga
1852 – The last sighting of a great auk was made off the coast of Newfoundland. The bird was driven to extinction by hunting for its fat, feathers, meat, and oil.[14][34]
1860 – The string tree from the island of St Helena becomes extinct because of habitat destruction.[35]
1860 – The sea mink becomes extinct because of hunting for its fur.[36]
1875 – The broad-faced potoroo was last recorded.[3]
1876 – The Falkland Islands wolf became extinct.[3]
1878 – Labrador duck declared extinct after last appearances in Long Island three years earlier.[37]
c. 1879 – The last known Atlas bear, Africa’s only native bear, is killed by hunters in Morocco. The bear was heavily hunted and used for sport in the Roman Empire.[38]
1880 – The eastern elk, a subspecies of elk in the US and Canada, is declared extinct.[39]
1883 – The Quagga, a sub-species of the plains zebra, goes extinct.[40]
1886 – The red alga known as Bennett’s seaweed from Australia disappears because of the massive human activities.[41]
1889 – The last Hokkaido wolf dies from poisoning campaign.[42]
1890 – The eastern hare-wallaby was last recorded.[3]
20th century[edit]
1900s[edit]
1902 – The last known specimens of the Rocky Mountain locust are collected near Brandon, Manitoba.[43]
1905 – The last known Honshū wolf of Japan dies in Nara Prefecture.[44]
1907 – The huia, a native bird of New Zealand, is last seen. Habitat loss, hunting, and disease all played a role in its extinction.[45]
1909 – The last known tarpan, a Polish wild horse, died in captivity.[46]
1910s[edit]
1911 – The last Newfoundland wolf was shot.[42]
1914 – The last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Excessive hunting contributed to its extinction; it was formerly one of the world’s most abundant birds.[47]
1918 – The last Carolina parakeet died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. The bird, formerly inhabiting the southeastern United States, was driven to extinction by exploitation, deforestation, and competition with introduced bees.[48]
1920s[edit]
1924 – The California grizzly bear is sighted for the last time.[49]
1925 – The Kenai Peninsula wolf was driven to extinction.[42]
1929 – Acalypha wilderi was last seen in the wild. This species may be synonymous with A. raivavensis and A. tubuaiensis, which would mean it is in fact not extinct globally. [50]
1930s[edit]
1930 – Darwin’s rice rat was last recorded in the Galápagos Islands. Its extinction was probably caused by the introduction of black rats.[51]
1932 – “Booming Ben”, the last known heath hen was seen on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.[52][53]
1933 – The cry pansy from Europe becomes extinct due to habitat loss and overcollection in the only place where it grew, France.[54]
1934 – The indefatigable Galapagos mouse was last recorded. Its extinction was probably caused by the introduction of black rats.[55]
1935 – The desert rat-kangaroo was last recorded.[3]
1935 – The Mogollon mountain wolf and the Southern Rocky Mountains wolf were hunted to extinction.[42]
1936 – The last thylacine died in captivity. Hunting, habitat loss, disease, and competition from domestic dogs all may have contributed to the extinction of the species.[56]
c. 1937 – The Bali tiger was last definitively seen around this time, but likely persisted into the 1940’s or possibly even the early 1950’s.[57]
1939 – The toolache wallaby was last recorded.[3]
The great auk was hunted for its down until its extinction around 1844.
The thylacine was exterminated into extinction.
1940s[edit]
1940 – The Cascade mountain wolf was hunted to extinction.[42]
1942 – The Texas wolf was purposefully driven to extinction.[42]
1942 – The last confirmed sighting of the Barbary lion, although unconfirmed reports surfaced until 1970.[58]
1950s[edit]
1952 – Last reliable report of the Caribbean monk seal.[59]
1952 – The Bernard’s wolf was hunted to extinction.[42]
1956 – The crescent nail-tail wallaby and imperial woodpecker were last recorded.[3]
1957 – The Scioto madtom, a species of fish, is last collected.[60]
1960s[edit]
c. 1960 – The Mexican grizzly bear was exterminated around this time.[61]
1962 – The red-bellied gracile opossum was last recorded in Argentina.[3]
1964 – The Hawaii chaff flower of the Hawaiian islands becomes extinct because of habitat loss.[62]
1965 – Last sighting of the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, an American mussel.[63]
1966 – The last Arabian ostrich died around this time.[64]
1970s[edit]
c. 1970 – The Caspian tiger becomes extinct primarily due to habitat loss, hunting, and loss of prey.[65]
1972 – The endemic to Jamaica Mason River myrtle becomes extinct.[66]
1974 – The last known Japanese sea lion is captured off the coast of Rebun Island, Hokkaido.[67]
c. 1976 – Last sightings of the Javan tiger.[68]
1980s[edit]
1981 – The Puhielelu hibiscadelphus becomes extinct.[69]
1981 – Last sighting of the green-blossom pearly mussel, an American mussel.[70]
1981 – The Southern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus) became extinct probably due to habitat destruction and disease.[71]
1983 – Last unconfirmed spotting of the kouprey (Bos sauveli),[72] last absolute confirmed spotting was in 1969/70.[73] Declared as “most likely to be extinct” by the IUCN.[73]
1983-84 – The 24-rayed sunstar (Heliaster solaris), the Galapagos black-spotted damselfish and the Galapagos stringweed likely become extinct due to climate change.[74]
1985 – The Northern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus vitellinus) became extinct probably due to habitat destruction and disease.[75]
1987 – The last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō (Moho braccatus), a male, is recorded singing a mating call. The species was never heard from again and was declared extinct.[76]
1989 – The golden toad of Costa Rica becomes extinct, perhaps because of climate change.[77]
1990s[edit]
1990 – The dusky seaside sparrow was officially declared extinct in December 1990. The last definite known individual died on 17 June 1987.[78]
1994 – Saint Croix racer, a snake native to the Virgin Islands, declared extinct.[79]
1994 – Levuana moth from Hawaii goes extinct.[80]
1997 – The Hainan ormosia (a species of legume) which was native to China is no longer seen.[81]
3rd millennium CE[edit]
See also: List of recently extinct species
21st century[edit]
2000s[edit]
2000 – “Celia”, the last Pyrenean ibex, was found dead in 2000. However, in 2003, a female was cloned back into existence, but died shortly after birth due to defects in the lungs.[82][83]
2003 – The last individual from the St. Helena olive, which was grown in cultivation, dies off. The last plant in the wild had died in 1994.[84]
2006 – A technologically sophisticated survey of the Yangtze River failed to find specimens of the baiji dolphin, prompting scientists to declare it functionally extinct.[85]
2010s[edit]
2011 – The Eastern cougar was declared extinct. Last known individual was trapped and killed in 1938.[86][87]
2011 – The western black rhinoceros was declared extinct.[88]
2012 – The Japanese river otter (Lutra lutra whiteneyi) declared extinct by the country’s Ministry of the Environment, after not being seen for more than 30 years.[89]
2012 – “Lonesome George”, the last known specimen of the Pinta Island tortoise, died on 24 June 2012.[90]
2013 – The Cape Verde giant skink was declared extinct.[91]
2013 – The Formosan clouded leopard, previously endemic to the island of Taiwan, is officially declared extinct.[92]
2014 – The Bermuda saw-whet owl was declared extinct after being described from fossils in 2012.[93]
2016 – The Bramble Cay melomys was declared extinct.[94]
Everybody expects pioneers to fail occasionally but this guy has a great track record.
Yep! But it really doesn’t matter even if he fails in a most spectacular way. I mean it would certainly be bad for him personally. One thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for Elon Musk not a single one of the major auto manufacturers would have a serious EV contender in the works. Not to mention all the other startups around the world. He has single handedly already changed the paradigm. I sometimes get a kick out of watching the Tesla racing channel where a stock Tesla 100 PSD takes down smoke belching muscle car after smoke belching muscle car in quarter mile drag racing. Some of the drivers actually get upset… Tough shit!
Wow…. OFM was right about the range.
They didn’t mention the battery capacity in watt hours, but at 2kwh/mile and 500 miles that comes to 1MWh or 10 times the size of the largest model S battery. To charge that to 80% in 30 minutes (400 miles added) requires 2 mega watts of power! At 0.07 cents per kwh it’s only $70 to add that 400 miles of range.
Seems more modest if you think of it as only 5 roadster batteries. 🙂
Lets see how fast these are going into actual use.
I would not hold your breath.
Short range EV delivery vehicles seem a perfect fit first.
I’m really wondering how Musk is planning on talking utilities into running enough new transmission lines to charge up three or four of these trucks at the same time, even if the chargers are a few miles apart on the same branch line.
I foresee some major demand spike problems, if the owners try to run these trucks on the open road.
Using them one or two shifts a day locally won’t be that big a deal. Most utilities have a lot of spare capacity overnight, except during extremely cold weather.
I’m blown away by the range claimed, but I did say earlier that there’s plenty of room for batteries under the rails, and between them, where the engine and transmission used to go, and also under or even in the trailer that actually hauls the cargo.
And between them, Tesla and Panasonic may have some new battery tech in the pipeline that will result in substantially more kWh per unit size and weight of the batteries.
Note that the pictures provided obviously show a trailer precisely shaped to match the shape of the cab, so as to achieve that awesomely low drag coefficient.
Now since I’m more interested in the truth than in playing advocate in any situation, and in provoking lots of comments, especially ones that indicate my own blind spots, I will point out that there’s little or nothing to prevent any old line truck manufacturer from building a truck with a similar coefficient of drag, and likewise nothing from preventing the use of any new light weight materials and design features the Tesla truck will incorporate, excepting any that might be patented.
With drag reduced that much, a conventional truck would get almost twice the miles per gallon, and it might be a little premature to write the epitaph of conventional trucks.
Now if it were to come to pass that Uncle Sam, and John Bull, and the other powers that be in the world decide for some reason to REALLY push the adoption of electric trucks, and provide low interest loans to buy them, or simply subsidize the price of them, they may well sell as fast as they can be built.
Conventional trucks are almost entirely modular, in terms of all the things that make a truck a TRUCK.
Excepting the cab which in practical matters doesn’t do anything except keep the weather off the running gear and provide a perch and nest for the driver, just about every part of a truck that is EXPECTED to fail at some point is standardized so that it can be very easily replaced, even if the original manufacturer of a given part or assembly has gone out of business. You can bolt just about any make of engine built for use in big trucks in just about any big truck, and there are at least three or four makes of transmissions, and a dozen models of transmissions, that will bolt to any of these engines, ditto the front and rear axle assemblies, etc etc.
Things worked out this way not because the manufacturers wanted it this way, but because their CUSTOMERS sought out the makes and models that they believed would be the most economical to own and operate, and believe me………
You DON’T want to have to go to a new truck dealer and pay a thousand bucks for an alternator, when you can get a new one from a different manufacturer that wires up and bolts up the same way for half that. I sometimes pay as much as five or six times for dealer only parts for both cars and trucks, as well as farm machinery, as I pay for excellent quality similar aftermarket parts……. when aftermarket parts are available.
My point is that with the exception of the motors and batteries, there’s not much going to be different from one make to the next, once electric trucks get to be popular.
The trucking industry will probably have political clout plus buying power enough to FORCE electric truck manufacturers to standardize nearly all of the parts that will ever need to be replaced.
Elon said that the megachargers will be solar powered with power wall backup for peaks and nights. Tesla will only be charging 7 cents per kwh – you can’t do that and use grid power in places like California with high electricity rates. Elon also promised a million miles without a breakdown.
How far can a driver, realistically, drive in a day accounting for rest breaks and hours limits? I suspect it must be close to the range limit on this truck.
NAOM
NOAM,
Currently in the US a driver is limited to 11 hours driving time daily, unless it’s changed since I quit in ’09. So that’s roughly 500 or 600 miles. Majority of drivers are company drivers and pretty much have to adhere to the rules, especially since electronic logging is being mandated. When I was driving, being an independent owner/operator, using paper logs, I might not have always observed that part of the rules. I’ve been a workaholic for most of my adult life, and never really saw the need for someone else to tell me when I was through for the day or night. It’s easy enough to find all kinds of folks screaming about how unsafe it might be to do something they know not a goddamn thing about, so I just tried to avoid them. Which could have possibly meant fudging some things just a bit.
Those who scream about big trucks being dangerous usually ignore the data which shows that in truck/auto accidents, the driver of the car is at fault in something like 80% or 90% of the cases. Can’t remember the exact number.
The safety folks dislike for big trucks is one of the reasons it catches my attention when people start talking about AV trucks, convoys, multiple trailers, and such.
Stan
Well the specs are published for the Tesla Semi:
Stats sourced from cleantechnica.com
20% cheaper than a diesel truck. Diesel truck = $1.51/mile. Tesla Semi = $1.26/mile all-in.
Drag coefficient = .36
500 mile range at GVW & highway speed.
65 mph up 5% grade.
0–60 in 5 seconds unloaded.
0–60 in 20 seconds with 80,000 lb load
Charging: 400 miles of range in 30 minutes at “Megachargers.” at $0.07/kWh guaranteed price.
1 million miles drivetrain guarantee
Production begins in 2019
Automatic lane tracking.
Automatic emergency braking.
And Ol’ Musky said that due to braking regen, you will never have to replace the brake pads.
And don’t forget the nuclear bomb proof windshield. Musk said the windshield will survive a nuclear blast or they will replace it for free!
Yes, But I think the small print says you have to return the old one…
I’ve looked around the web a bit, but haven’t found any info on the weight of the truck Tesla showed with the 500 mile range. Anybody else know? Looks like the batteries are all on the truck, which I expected. They did say 80k GVW, but that doesn’t tell me how much of that is payload.
I’d like some of that $0.07 kwh juice here at home too, thanks.
I still think Musk is targeting the wrong segment of the freight business. Why not start with local pick-up/delivery, so you can always recharge at home terminal at night? Especially since that could build customer acceptance while the charger network has time to expand.
Not that it matters, but Goddamn that thing is UGLY! I’m sure my perspective on that has something to do with the fact that I got lots of buddy-seat time as a kid in a B-model Mack, a GMC crackerbox, IH Emeryville, GMC Astro, and later in my own 1952 Peterbilt. Dammit I’m just gettin’ older all the time!
Stan
“I still think Musk is targeting the wrong segment of the freight business. Why not start with local pick-up/delivery…?”
Musk seems to make things that he personally wants.
My guess is Tesla wants their own fleet of these for transporting battery packs from Reno to Hawthorne. Might be handy for mobile service centers too.
There are a lot of local delivery vehicles coming on the market, now. Why take time developing something that will come on line after the rest. Go for the next level. As for ugly, I remember the adverts trashing the Ford Sierra as a jelly mould when other cars were collections of boxes on wheels. Now all cars are streamlined, well, apart from the big American gas guzzlers.
NAOM
Local pickup/delivery is the perfect EV application.
I don’t see any comments about the second vehicle Musk showed with the semi. The one that had the pickup in the back of it. It looked like the little brother to the semi. Was that the same vehicle without a trailer? I finally found some mention from Musk in April of 2017 about a pickup reveal in 24 months or so. But that “little semi” sure looked like a pickup.
Songster,
I’ve only seen a couple pics, probably the same ones you saw, of the pickup. Looks to me like just another of Musk’s toys for rich boys, certainly nothing addressed to the serious job of using less resources in an effort to mitigate our species raping of the earth, of which I and probably all of us here, have done our part.
I’m not quite as impressed with his big-rig as others seem to be, in no small part because of his acting as if he doesn’t live in the real world. The hype before the unveiling promised to “blow your mind clear out of your skull……”. Then when showing the truck he didn’t seem to think it was important to mention a pricetag or the weight of the truck? Bullshit! I don’t like bullshit, or hype of ’bout any kind, I just think the facts are enough. Guess that’s one of the reasons I don’t watch much TV, and most of the things that seem important to lots of folks just don’t interest me.
Looking about the web, I can’t find a lot of reports about the folks who actually use big trucks, the ones who I would have thought Musk’s truck would have targeted, being overly impressed and signing up to pre-order a few thousand of these things. Maybe something to do with not being in a hurry to send a truckload of freight out 500 miles on the hope that there will be a charging station waiting there.
I think lots of folks who think this is the next big thing are not considering that it has to enter a very competitive market, and make financial sense. Now, I do understand that we will soon (within a couple years to a decade?) run into declining fuel availability and/or very high fuel prices, which will severely impact the movement of freight over long distances. But that does not mean that we will have the resources to build a whole new infrastructure to support another way of doing it.
We’ll see.
Stan
It was only a rendering, not a prototype, and seemed to be intended as comic relief.
When designers work on designs like this truck, which probably is intended to allow for a sleeper version and for things like rolling chassis for making wreckers and dump trucks, they do renderings of variations: I think one of the designers has a sense of humor.
Musk promises insane specs from this new sports car. Zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, quicker than the average Formula 1 car. A quarter mile in 8.9 seconds, in a world where “10-second cars” are coveted. Top speed somewhere north of 250 mph, putting it in the realm of the fastest production cars on the planet, like the Bugatti Chiron and Koenigsegg Agera. And to go with it, four seats (if you’re traveling with two small people), decent cargo room, and 620 miles of range, thanks to a 200-kilowatt hour battery pack, about double what you get in the most capable Model S. Also, it’s a convertible.
No surprise the base price will be $200,000, and reserving your spot on the list will cost you $50,000. Considering that Bugatti is a seven-figure car, it’s a pretty good deal.1
The Tesla CEO has long said he doesn’t want to make the best electric cars around, but the best cars, period. Introducing this new wonderbeast, he took on a bolder tone. “The point of this is to give the hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars.” He also said it’ll make driving a gas car feel like piloting a steam engine with a side of quiche. When you make cars this outrageous, you get to make up your own metaphors, apparently.
Bold mine. It has always been my impression that this guy wants to relegate the infernal combustion engine to the dustbins of history! Even though there were no signs of it watching the videos of the event, I hope Musk is employing a secret service style security detail to watch his back. He is ruffling some serious feathers. On second thought, it must be very hard to get anywhere close to him since he is a serious workaholic.
This is another high end car for the rich. He knows what market to go for without having to try very hard.
The big market, the world changer, will be like the Model T was back in the 1920’s. It will be a tough, practical, efficient, low cost everyman car. Range around 300 miles and cost around $20,000 to $25,000. Versions directly competitive with the Corolla and Camry.
Those will sell by the 100 million.
Next will be the EV pickup truck. Keep the base price below $40,000, the range long and away they will roll.
The real market killers are not invented yet. Maybe soon.
US Corolla sales were 384,000 in 2016, worldwide in 2015 there were 1.34 million Corollas sold. I think the Model 3 (base price 35k) will sell 1 million/year by 2021, also by 2025 the fall in battery cost will lead to a 300 mile range at about 25k.
I agree the Model 3 is the car that matters, pretty similar in size to a Corolla.
Interesting cost for 3 truck convoy which Musk claims matches the cost of rail.
Supposedly 8.5 cents per mile for fully loaded (80,000 lbs GVW) convoy of 3 trucks with first truck driven by a person and two trucks following on autopilot.
For a single truck the cost is 20% lower than a diesel assuming $2.50/gallon diesel and guaranteed cost of 7 cents per kWhr at megachargers (400 miles per 30 minute charge).
The thing that bugs me about a convoy is cars cutting in between and forcing them apart. People will know that the AI will avoid an accident and give way. Alternatively there is the scenario of trying to pass the convoy and discovering there isn’t enough free road to do it.
NAOM
Pretty sure that the convoys would only be practical on divided limited-access highways. And they’re essentially illegal at the moment anyway- laws would have to change.
-Lloyd
The latest numbers don’t tell the story because of lots of competition in the lower cost region. Look at the earlier numbers. I was talking about early market penetration and how EV’s can’t compete in a large segment of the market in the developed world.
300 mile range at 25K would do it, but there will be a lot more competition by then. The Ioniq is so much more efficient than the Model 3 and will be in the right price and mile range in a few years. The Chinese are busting out with lower priced electrics right now.
By 2025 oil will be peaked so the EV market will go crazy after that.
Chevy’s new cheap battery will make a dent for a while. But their Bolt car design is a bit clunky looking. Still quite practical. Ford needs to get it’s act together. Otherwise Tesla and the foreign producers will romp all over the space.
Dennis, could you be slightly biased toward Tesla? 🙂
But they are still just cars. Might knock 10 percent off fossil fuels at best. It’s going to be the combination of solar/wind and EV’s that make a larger dent.
As the air gets cleaned up everything changes. IPCC lists aerosols at about 1.4 w/m2 negative, so we will have to deal with that surge as FF goes by the wayside. Industry and building heating still use a lot of FF, so that will have to be innovated as well. Air conditioning and refrigeration are a big global region for energy use that will build fast in the huge developing nations and Africa.
Lots of work to do.
Personally I think getting rid of roads altogether would be a great idea. Trails and personal VTOL aircraft or VTOL taxis/buses should do, along with railroads and larger VTOL for moving big stuff. We should be able to make insect-like personal carriers that can handle most terrain features, making roads unnecessary.
People tend to look at cutting fossil fuel as a one horse show to say it won’t work. Switching to electric cars won’t do it, solar won’t do it, efficiency won’t do it etc. It is not just each item, it is the combination of all the methods that will bring the change.
NAOM
Change will come. Just not what you, or I, or most people expect.
Hi Javier,
On that I agree.
Hi notanoilman,
I agree EVs, wind, solar, geothermal, heatpumps, ridesharing, sealing homes, more passive solar, thermal storage, and all the other stuff I missed. Will enable the transition to occur.
A big one often missed is that the efficiency of fossil fuels in producing electricity is about 38% on average. If we convert to mostly electric power produced by wind, solar, and hydro we immediately reduce overall energy needs by a factor of 2.6.
For heating where fossil fuel efficiency might be 95%, a heat pump gives about 2.5 units of heat energy for every unit of electrical energy (air source), for ground source heat pumps it is about 4.5 units of heat per unit of electrical energy, we will call it 3.5 on average, so a factor of 3.68 less energy use for heat pumps vs 95% efficient heating system. For car transport there is probably about a factor of 3 improvement in energy use for EV vs ICE.
Overall total energy use could be cut to about one third for the same work and useful heat provided.
Those who think it cannot be done may not have considered the thermodynamics of the entire economic system.
In addition, energy production will cease to be a profitable line of business. That will lead people to look for more efficiency as quickly as the look for more energy.
For example, I remember in 1973 oil prices spiked, and everyone talked about an “energy crisis”. It was just as much an efficiency crisis. Countries with no oil lobby — like Western Europe and Japan — responded by driving for more efficiency.
Hi Gone fishing,
I am in the US, don’t like Chevy’s (bad experience in 80s) and right now the Tesla is the only game in town, the low range vehicles won’t cut it where I live and for where I travel.
The Chinese cars are great, but buying one of those would not be practical for me.
Agree this is a small piece of the puzzle. A lot of space and water heat can be converted to heat pumps (both air and ground source depending on climate), wind and solar expansion ASAP is important and EVs, rail, and public transport as well as ride sharing to reduce transport use.
For those like me not familiar with VTOL, I won’t comment as I don’t know anything about it.
The new Nissan Leaf looks pretty good. Yes, the range is still a little low at 150 miles but that’s not really all that bad. Plus they have pro-pilot driving assistance all for around 30K list, so only 20K with incentives. They say a 200 mile version will be out in 2019.
Plus it looks a lot better….
Hi Dennis, I never personally had many problems with GM cars, but my brother had a Vega that being a POS would be an understatement. But, I leased a Volt in 2013 and found it to be of very high quality and I never had one problem with it. Sometimes when you have too good a memory it may do you a dis-service. 🙂
Electric cars are better quality by design, because they don’t have so many moving parts.
Yeah, Consumer Reports says that US cars have improved dramatically in the last 30 years. Still a small notch behind Japanese cars, but easily equal to European cars.
Hi Gonefishing,
The wheel seems a pretty good invention, we could go to dirt roads, I guess, it would slow things down, for now EVs will work, though they need to be designed for recycling, especially batteries.
There’s an aphorism, I think.
EV’s and renewables are a good first step toward a sustainable and sane civilization. But only a first step away from a disastrous route.
Yup, EV and cel phones are really great, but:
CHILD MINERS AGED FOUR LIVING A HELL ON EARTH SO YOU CAN DRIVE AN ELECTRIC CAR
And, though I haven’t seen the African cobalt mines I have been to the highly radioactive REE deposits in China where conditions are far worse than reported by the media. For example,
RARE EARTH MINING IN CHINA: THE BLEAK SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
Most of the rare earths processed by Baotou are extracted in Bayan Obo, a mining district in the Gobi desert 120km north of the city. Its largest open-pit mine is 1,000 metres deep and spans 48 sq. km; in satellite images by Nasa released in 2012, it appears as one of many massive black craters dwarfing a sprawl of apartment blocks directly to their south. Baotou Steel, lacks a proper lining and for the past 20 years its toxic contents have been seeping into groundwater, according to villagers and state media reports. It is trickling towards the nearby Yellow River, a major drinking water source for much of northern China, at a rate of 20 to 30 metres a year.
“You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals. These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs. In 2009 China produced 95% of the world’s supply of these elements, and it’s estimated that the Bayan Obo mines just north of Baotou contain 70% of the world’s reserves. But, as we would discover, at what cost?
Technology companies continually urge us to upgrade; to buy the newest tablet or phone. But I cannot forget that it all begins in a place like Bautou, and a terrible toxic lake that stretches to the horizon.”
I have the same mobile phone for four years, the same computer for 10 years, and the same car for 12 years. A lot of people say they are very worried about the environment, but keep producing toxic waste at an alarming rate by constantly upgrading their gadgets and cars that still are in perfect use, and living a consumerist life. I am with Caelan on this. If we worry about the planet we need to demonstrate it with actions, not words.
Now an easy question. What is more environmentally friendly, to keep your old ICE car still working fine or to replace it with a new EV?
Doug,
A lot of African and Chinese mining and manufacturing is really, really dirty.
Here’s the key question: is that essential, or is it just a bit cheaper than more ethical mining and manufacturing? The answer is very clear: it’s not essential. There are many sources of rare earths, cobalt, lithium, etc – Chinese and Africa sources are used because they’re slightly cheaper, and China and African countries have chosen to ignore pollution and child labor.
Unethical mining and manufacturing in developing countries are absolutely not essential to consumer consumption in developed countries.
You should replace your used ICE with a used EV.
Easy.
Sounds like the US at various times and somewhat today.
BTW Doug, EV’s have gotten away from rare earth magnets. Also PV does not use any either. Cell phones use a little.
So most of the rare earth use is in the electronics, which is ubiquitous.
Using children for mining is a societal issue that needs to addressed.
Well yeah but:
An estimated 1 kg of rare earth elements can be found inside a typical hybrid automobile.
Rare Earths are not needed for magnets. Two different technologies have been developed, recently, that do not use them and can make better magnets at the same time. One is a ferrite while the other is iron based.
NAOM
Details would help: ferrites (magnetic oxides) have been around since before the birth of Christ man. And remember crystal radio coil winding when you were a kid? — 100 turns wound around a ferrite rod. 🙂
@Doug
Sorry, I just remember the details in passing but I think it was Toyota that was doing the ferrites and was as good as REs. Yep, I remember those rods, broke sooo easily, now I want a couple I can’t find them. The Iron one I can’t remember but I think it was an iron/nitrogen thing and out performed REs plus being a lot cheaper. Sorry I can’t be more specific but if I see them again I will try and remember to post them.
NAOM
Appears that 25% of cobalt is used for batteries and another 25% for alloys, leaving 50% across a wide variety of applications including color, tools and catalysts.
Why not recycle cobalt and other rare earth materials?
Better yet, lets look at the fact that China has 30 percent of the worlds rare earth reserves and produces 97% of world consumption. That implies that most of the reserves are untouched.
Or we can just give up and go back to the stone age.
Sorry Doug, I really have to question your choice of “news” sources. I am inclined to believe that your cited source may be taking money from the Koch brothers funded anti-EV campaign. See :
British actor Robert Llewellyn, most recognized for his role in the UK tv series Red Dwarf, who produces a video blog, Fully Charged, has a rant about The Daily Mail in his latest video (as of 7:22 am EST Nov 20, 2017) at:
You are way too smart to be suckered into the misinformation campaigns of these vested interests. I am very suspicious of articles taking strong opposition to stuff that would appear to be harmless or even beneficial on the face of it, especially if said stuff poses an existential threat to some large, powerful, profitable industry. I prefer to get my propaganda from sources that are very open about their biases as opposed to those that hide behind a veil of impartiality.
islandboy,
As usual, you’re right: getting sloppy in my old age. 🙂
Mind you, I’m not saying that child labour is not being used to mine rare earth minerals or whatever else in Africa. My main purpose is to point out that the purpose of this particular hit piece is, to associate EVs with the abuse of child labour in Africa in the minds of readers and thus create negative feelings about EVs in particular as opposed to anything else that these materials are used to make.
If you include the tax credits the base model 3 is pretty close to that 25k price. After the credits run out next year, hopefully the costs will fall fast enough to keep it in the same ballpark.
Hi Preston,
Only the first 500,000 (or possibly much less) cars or so will get any credit at all, and probably less than 150,000 will get the full $7500 credit.
For most it will be $35k (220 mile range) until battery costs fall, and the longer range (330 miles) model will be $49k.
There are additional credits in some states like California. California is looking at a new program to help make up for the dropping federal credit. If the Trump middle class tax increase passes and removes the credit for 2018 then it’s likely California would act immediately to bump up their credit. Canada, Norway, China, etc all have very large incentives.
I’d say most buyers will get a pretty large incentive, at least for 2018. If I were Tesla, I wouldn’t drop the price until I was out of backlog, but certainly by 2020.
Hi Preston,
Only Federal incentive where I live. I don’t know the rules in every state.
The real market killers are not invented yet. Maybe soon.
Depends on which market you’re looking at. Watch the market for high end, two door, performance supercars with internal combustion engines, dry up and blow away in three, two, one …… Poof! (years that is). Ferrari is famous for saying they will never abandon internal combustion and go electric. Never say never. It will be go electric or die! These performance figures are for an early prototype. By the time it enters production in three years time, who knows what advances will have been made to make it lighter, more powerful and faster? Even then there is no production automobile on the planet that can match it, period. Tesla is putting an end to the debate. Electric is better.
On another point, Musk has always said that he intends to follow the cell phone/laptop model and make early adopters pay for the early advances that will eventually trickle down to the mass market. IMO he has been more successful with that approach than Nissan has been with their mass market first approach. At least in the USA according to the pie chart “Market Share Among Plug-In Automakers in USA” at the following link:
According to that chart, Tesla has sold a total of 148,757 to Nissan’s 114,550 with the minimum purchase price for any Tesla being about double the price of the Nissan Leaf. Globally, if you add the sales of the Renault Zoe then the Renault/Nissan alliance is probably ahead.
Below is a Youtube video from “Brooks from DragTimes”, a guy who regularly post videos of drag races featuring his Tesla vs, some high end ICE cars. He was among a throng of Tesla fans that paid a $50,000 deposit on a car they won’t get until 2020 and after his test ride his reaction was “I’m so glad I put my money down on this car!” That has planted the seed for some serious EVangelism.
So what portion of the global car market is the high end $70,000 and up region? 148,757 cars is less than a drop in the bucket of global sales. People are not lining up to buy them. I have seen two.
Tesla is not competing against EV’s, Tesla is competing against all vehicles. That is why they are producing the Model 3. More market in lower end. They also know the mindset of their customers. Which makes me wonder why they are so early in developing an EV pickup.
Patience my good friend. Twas not so long ago ( 2007) solar only contributed 0.01% of US electricity generation. This year it’s looking like about 2%, 200 times as much as 2007!
Maybe they are not as early in the development of a pick-up as last night’s presentation might suggest. The rendering they showed was a vehicle, based on the semi, much more akin to a F-450 Super Duty, which carries a MSRP of over 100 grand. Nobody had a clue about the Roadster, caught everybody completely by surprise. Maybe Tesla has a few more surprises up their sleeve.
If (when) Tesla sort out their production issues with the Model 3, they will leapfrog everybody by quite a margin, making 20,000+ cars a month. That should almost double the current plug-in (not just EV) market share. That should also trigger the rest of the manufacturers to raise their ambitions as well.
I hear that traffic cops are selling off their cruisers and looking to buy surplus Air Force A10s.
Just a rumor 😉
My old computer died, and I dragged out another.
So……. Something’s not quite right.
A lot of comments are showing a red ignored in a box to the right, although I can read them.
How do I get rid of these “ignored ” notices.
Keep in mind I’m the forum idiot when it comes to computers, politics, and several other topics, lol, and use kindergarden level language, and thanks in advance.
I don’ ignore anybody.
Hi OFM,
Try a reboot or clearing your cookies in your browser, maybe update your system using windows update (last resort as this may cause more problems than it solves).
A simple solution is to ignore the “ignored” marker.
Ignores are stored in the cookies. I suggest Cookies Manager+ as a useful tool on Firefox.
NAOM
Hi OFM, if, for example, it says Javier[X] ignored, just hit the X and he will be un-ignored.
Thanks, running internet explorer, there are red boxes but no x to clear.
Switched to chrome and it’s fine, and working much faster as well.
Time for a new computer .
Tell anybody who may be using an old computer that got a free upgrade to TEN that if they wipe it, you will NOT be allowed to reinstall TEN without paying for it.
People still use Internet Exploiter?
What’s that and for that matter what is Ten? 😉
One of the local cybers left the IE logos but linked them to Firefox, I wonder if anyone noticed or just thought it had been improved.
NAOM
M$$T always takes their pound of flesh.
Apple is not much better.
“People still use internet explorer? ”
It still works on this antique. I suppose it still works on a lot of older machines if you just want to cruise the news and read whatever’s free on the net.
It was the only browser on it when I dug it out of the closet.
But it didn’t take me long to try it with Chrome, and it runs Chrome ok. Runs it fine for blogging here, reading the news, etc.
Waste not, want not, but I may buy a new computer anyway. Black Friday sales are on.
Hi GF,
Doug posted some stuff a few days back about volcanoes. Links there, if you look back maybe a week.
There’s serious talk about actually tapping Yellowstone not to get power ,but rather to allow it to cool down and thus avoid a catastrophic eruption. Using the energy drained off to generate electricity would help pay for the job.
In my estimation, this might be within the realm of the possible, from an engineering stand point, but from a political stand point, my guess is the probability of it being tried approaches zero, at least for the next few decades.
On the other hand, I have been VERY surprised at the speed with which some things have changed on the political stage, and if the cards fall in favor, the public might be willing to buy it.
Suppose for instance that sea levels do rise two or three feet within the working lives of kids in school today, just about all of whom are at least HEARING something about forced climate change, even if it’s not being taught.
With such an example in mind, they might heed the warning of the science establishment, assuming the establishment comes out in favor.
PS I don’t know why this comment is so far away from the place it was intended to go.
Yes. thanks, I recall that earlier Yellowstone discussion.
Sure anxiety and panic will set in as the things that were predicted decades ago start to come true. Who knows what people will try? Most really don’t seem to mind screwing up the whole planet so little things like Yellowstone geothermal, methane hydrate mining, Arctic Ocean drilling should hardly cause them to blink. Most are idiots or purposely ignore facts, until reality hits them in the face, then they spin it and do something stupid.
We live in a world of high tech, vast knowledge and most people don’t know fertilizer.
Our only real hope may be that SKY Daddy, or MOMMY, or random chance, take your choice, slaps us upside our collective head quite often from here on out with a figurative mugger’s broken brick, in the form of some sort of natural or man made disaster.
These disasters will have to be bad enough to REALLY get our attention, collectively, but NOT bad enough to cripple us economically and technically so that we can’t start doing some things proactively about our environmental problems.
I refer to these figurative muggers bricks as Pearl Harbor WAKE UP Events. I suppose I should be paying more attention to not insulting anybody, but I can’t think of any other historical event even half so suitable for getting the point across.
Fuck it.
Most of the people who rant about insulting ANYBODY seem to being prone to making ONE major exception. It’s ok to make fun of poor hard up Christians , so long as they live in the south, and they are males.
I’ve noticed that they never make fun of my hard up ill educated black folk neighbors and fellow Christians who are actually more likely to be in church on Sunday’s than my redneck white neighbors, lol.
I’m only nominally a Christian, personally, but sometimes I fantasize about smacking people who make fun of people such as my dear departed Momma and my soon to be departed Daddy, lol.
Ah well, hypocrisy, cynicism, lies big and little, these things are all part and parcel of Mother Nature’s tool box, and we shouldn’t expect anything different. I once tried to catch a quail hen when I was a kid. She fooled me with her broken wing act, lol.
Some time back , maybe a couple of years ago, I stirred up a fuss here in this forum about what GOVERNMENTS can do, when things once get bad enough that government gets it’s ass in gear.
I’m talking about MILITARY government, authoritarian government,LEVIATHAN awakened , which can actually work wonders if it is put into place voluntarily by a country such as the USA, with the people in INITIALLY put into positions of power being reasonably well vetted for honesty and competence.
Under something approaching martial law , we could cut back on our use of oil here in the USA by a third within a few months, and by two thirds within a year or two, without anybody starving or dying of exposure as a consequence of doing so.
We could put a million construction guys to work upgrading the energy efficiency of old houses. We could outlaw the sale of new seven thousand pound beer fetchers within a few months. There are more than enough around already to meet the needs of tradesmen for at least a decade, and the USE of them could be outlawed except for actual necessary work.
Now could we stop athe climate from running into the red, or sea level from rising?
I don’t think so. Rising temperatures and rising seas are already baked in.
But I think maybe we can survive, most of us anyway, in countries such as the USA, depending on what sort of leadership we have, when the shit hits the fan.
Maybe.
The shit IS going to hit hard, sometime within the next few decades, barring miraculous good luck.
We are a very unique animal, yet still just an animal. It is not surprising for successful animals to overrun their food supply and have population collapse. Why should we be excluded from that universal principle? Due to our unique qualities it just takes longer and a lot more, which means just that much farther and a more dramatic fall.
If Mother Nature had a newspaper, it would be filled with examples of this and lately examples of extinction plus editorials about humans. We will be just one headline in the long chain of headlines, when we crash.
My neighbor puts it more succinctly “There will be blood in the streets.”
But on the other side of the coin, the more we do right now to lessen future impacts the more we can increase the odds of life surviving on this planet.
OFM,
I’ve seen you mention the scenario above several times, where the US gov could do this and that, force all these efficiency moves etc., and I do understand what you’re saying. Now tell me, what do you think the chances of that happening really are?
I guess I’m a true pessimist at heart, because I just don’t see that happening. I think the interests of the elite will be served well enough even with the great majority of the country starving, so they (elite) will have no real reason to try and force such a comprehensive game. Besides, the ability of people in general to fuck up such an undertaking would be hard to control.
I’ve read quite a bit about how this country’s manufacturing and production system was pressed into service in WW2, and I think that is in keeping with what you’re talking about, but I think there are some important differences between then and now.
One is the political leadership in this country, and the general population’s respect, or rather lack of respect for it. Partly due to the ease of getting info, whether correct or not, we see the warts and downright sleaziness of our great leaders.
“Authoritarian gov, put in place voluntarily” with “leaders vetted for honesty and competence”? Just where in hell is that going to happen, and where in hell are those leaders?
I might understand the need for such, but my weak mind just doesn’t see it happening. It could be that I’ve just become all too cynical in my expectations from my fellow humans, but I really don’t think I see FDR’s equivalent and the accompanying programs happening again here.
Two, December 7, 1941, was a pretty big brick upside the head, as you say. I don’t think there were many deniers in the US. Not so for our creeping predicaments.
Seriously, I’d like your thoughts on how likely it is that we could see that scenario.
Stan
I guess old HB must be sick or on vacation or something. He ‘s not doing much to help me point out how rotten the Trump administration is.
GROUNDWATER DEPLETION COULD BE SIGNIFICANT SOURCE OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
“Humans may be adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by using groundwater faster than it is replenished, according to new research. This process, known as groundwater depletion, releases a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has until now been overlooked by scientists in calculating carbon sources, according to the new study.”
Lesson to be learned: we really do not understand our world
Next lesson: when the water runs out this century (less than 50 years) Drying times: Could the rapidly depleting Ogallala Aquifer run dry?
45 years of well data show near 100-foot declines in some counties …
Get out here in the boonies where Trump is STILL popular among less intellectually gifted voters , and you will hear quick that ” them there dimmerkrats er the biggest goddamn hiperkrits I ever heard of” or something to that effect.
These voters are pretty goddamned quick to point out that while at least some big name Republicans republicans have roundly condemned Trump , Moore, and their kind, but when it was the top dog D in the spotlight, you could search high and low for a big D Democrat of any sort that had anything to say about Bill’s habits, and Hill’s “bimbo squad”.
NAH, there’s no culture war, that’s all a figment of my imagination.
Republicans who defend R’s predatory sexual behavior are called idiots, stupid, perverted, naive, you name it.
When they have pointed out, up until NOW, that Bill and Hill worked as a team, with him committing the crimes and Hill covering up for him, the D’s just repeated the ” Great Right Wing Conspiracy” mantra.
A lot of them believed and still believe in that mantra, just as a lot of simple minded R voters still believe in Trump and Moore. Some unknown fraction of people on both sides of the political fence knew or know better, but they played the game anyway. All of this kind are cynics and hypocrites , all of them, regardless of which side they are on.
I have a hard time understanding why anybody would think backwoods grade school dropouts should be condemned for defending Trump and Moore and their kind, when countless university educated D’s just as adamantly defended Bill and Hill.
I’m hoping for a couple of sarcastic replies.
Facing Public Outrage, Trump Puts Elephant Trophy Decision ‘On Hold’
Earlier this week, the administration lifted a ban on the import of elephant parts from two African nations.
In the face of widespread public backlash, President Donald Trump announced late Friday that he has suspended — at least for now — his own administration’s decision to reverse an Obama-era ban
When I look at that picture, words fail me! My primitive brain stem, cerebellum, and basal ganglia take over and and all I can muster are howls of pure unadulterated rage! What a pathetic little POS!
Why can’t Junior just shoot them with a camera or play a video game ? Mental illness ? Insecure penis size ? Raised by a narcissist ?
All three, I’m betting.
Get out here in the boonies where Trump is STILL popular among less intellectually gifted voters , and you will hear quick that ” them there dimmerkrats er the biggest goddamn hiperkrits I ever heard of” or something to that effect.
…I’m hoping for a couple of sarcastic replies.
First, a political affiliation disclaimer: I think the Remocrats and Depublicans are two sides of the same wooden nickel! They are just as obsolete and useless as all the ideologies, religions, economic theories and isms of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Not that that makes any difference as to finding a way out of our current predicaments.
For what it’s worth, I don’t hate yeast or cyanobacteria either. We just happen to be living at the dawn of the Anthropocene. Humans, who collectively are not much smarter than yeast, are changing the ecosphere, we are well into ecological overshoot and have for all intents and purposes initiated the sixth mass extinction event. C’est la vie, as Louie Pasteur might have exclaimed!
While I do upon occasion still enjoy a nice ice cold artisanal pale ale or two, I tend not to spend too much time engaged in intellectual discussion about topics such as population dynamics or atmospheric chemistry with large fermenting vats containing Saccharomyces cerevisiae… When encountering such vats, I have found that dancing semi naked around them and mumbling incoherently to the beer gods while raising a mug or two in their honor, is a rather more satisfactory and productive use of my time. 😉
/sarc
Cheers!
Well said, Sir Fred!
If you were the court jester, and I the king, I would reward you with something a LOT better than a wooden nickel, lol.
All the best ale you could handle for the remainder of the evening, and something moderately hard and yellow and shiny, and even more to be desired than the Nectar of the Gods.
I totally agree with you about Dim rats and repugiclans, so long as we remember to point out the D’s are a light year ahead on environment.
We share the conviction that Mother Nature values turkey buzzards, pubic lice and men in tuxes equally. Many years ago I realized that that hating my enemies is a waste of time and energy. It’s much better to stay cool and THINK about the best ways to manage them. ( One good way, sometimes, is to use the hatred of others as a tool to further my own ends. )
I just LOVE to poke sharp sticks into the eyes of hypocrites, no matter who they are, or where I encounter them.
If you ever find yourself up around Northwest NC, look me up. I don’t know anybody local that’s making really good home brewed beer these days, but methinks maybe I could put my paws on some REAL artisanal brandy, so long as old HB promises not to call the law on me for soliciting the sale thereof.
That would be wrong, as Tricky Dick, said, and truly, in this case, because I would be supplying it as a GIFT.
Be forewarned, the local culture judges the quality of such brandy by how bad it burns, going down, and if the guy making it knows you’ll be sampling it for the first time, he ‘ll run it thru twice so that it will bite as hard as onefiftyone rum.
I once took a jug down to my flat country inlaws, and my old pappy in law fell asleep in his rocker after every body had a nip or two of it, celebrating family and holiday.
He woke up an hour or two later, and looked around, and said “I guess old Skipper’s dead now. He took a big drink of that stuff.”
Every body laughed so hard that some of them spilled their drinks and a couple of others choked almost strangled themselves on half chewed food.
Now times have come such that we’re ALL up shit creek without a paddle, before too much longer, unless we listen to those who counsel us to set aside our differences and work together.
Said Jessie Jackson, paraphrased:
We didn’t all come over in the same boat, but we’re all in the same boat now.
“I totally agree with you about Dim rats and repugiclans, so long as we remember to point out the D’s are a light year ahead on environment”
And on Noverber 8, 2016 OldMacDonald aka KGB Trumpster punted on the environment, when he had a chance to do something about it.
HB
You’re still as dumb as a fence post. Virginia was perfectly safe for HRC, and everybody knew it.
So I was free to vote my conscience, and voted green.
HRC’s problem is or was that she’s about as stupid as you are, lol, when it comes to UNDERSTANDING the mood of the country, the things that lead people to decide to vote one way, or the other, what it means to be scared for one’s job and future, etc.
I would have stayed home before I would have voted for either of the cretins running.
“It soon becomes clear that the means of obtaining such material is more significant than what it discloses. Why, after all, bother about the awe inspiring deficiencies of the Democratic campaign, with its tarnished leader?”
OFM, you remind me of the village women. They were always hunting for any kind of gossip and spreading dissension and ignorance as fast as possible. Gossip is gossip, even if it’s about presidents and nameless people defaming the ignorant. At least the women gave names and details.
I know of one guy who made the mistake of listening to that gossip and saying some of it to the parties involved. He ended up being badly injured. Men should stay out of that game. There are consequences.
I mean really, don’t you see what is actually going on? Or are you just part of the problem?
Divided we fall.
Agree, last night on this year’s closing Bill Maher show. A guest pointed out how in 1980 the Democrats divided themselves between a conservative Carter(that’s a laugh) and liberal Kennedy. Only to end up with a Ronny Ray Gun and a real conservative movement. One can always find some kind of fault and in today’s world the media spin will do it for you.
Hi GF,
It’s perfectly ok to make fun of white males, especially Christian white males. I nominally fit that description, but my hide is thick, and I’m deliberately out to draw fire.
But ya better watch out making fun of women, or they may take their figurative scissors to ya someday. Hardly any of the younger ones seem to have a sense of humor when it comes to being insulted simply because they ARE women.
Now it’s my intention to get the attention of every possible person who is willing to think just a LITTLE, when it comes to PRACTICAL politics, and I do that as best I can, by various means.
Pointing out the self serving hypocrisy and cynicism of people who pretended for partisan ends that they never believed a word spoken by any of the women who accused BC of molesting them, or worse, is one great way of getting it done.
You’re obviously quite knowledgeable, especially so in respect to ecology, environment, and so forth. I will never question your intelligence or intellect, since you have obviously demonstrated that your are well above average in that department.
But methinks you are not so well informed outside your professional specialty, and I’m ready, willing, and eager to play hardball or soft with you when it comes to politics and human nature and a general knowledge of the social and behavioral specialties.
I can post links all night to sites such as the Mayo Clinic, if I so desire, supporting my arguments in these areas.
Have you ever heard of “defining deviancy down”?
This would be a great jumping off point.
Almost all the more liberal women I knew at the time,the Clinton years, and virtually all the women in academia, were perfectly willing to pretend Bill was a gentleman, and that Hillary was an honorable woman with self respect.
Maybe so. Or maybe they were willing to PRETEND, so as to maintain and maybe gain some short term political advantage.
I can’t prove they pretended, and that most D inclined men pretended along with them. You can’t prove they didn’t.
You can scream at the top of your lungs GREAT RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY, if you want.
I can say that SINCE THEN some liberal and liberated women of my own acquaintance have discussed this subject within my hearing, and a lot of them said in essence that they had nothing but the utmost contempt for HRC, for putting up with Bill, hanging in for the sake of her political ambitions.
Now whether they were in the right, or wrong, matters NOT A WHIT, within the context of MY ARGUMENTS.
What I’m saying is that she managed to lose to DT, and that took some fucking DOING. Some of the young women I heard say such things said them in the community college cafeteria nearest me. I was taking a couple of courses at the time trying to keep up with the electronics revolution happening under car hoods, and sat in on political discussions whenever possible. I heard more say basically the same thing at Sanders events.
There’s no point in trying to convince any body who can’t step back and look at the election objectively that she was a rotten candidate for lots of reasons.
But there are always a few people around who are willing to look at the elephant from various points of view.
I’m telling anybody who is willing to listen with an open mind WHY HRC lost, WHY half of the country loathed her, and WHY some life long D voters either stayed home, or actually voted R for the first time ever.
So let’s mix it up a little.
Let’s talk about the hypocrisy, and the crooked campaigning, which SOME big D Democrats are now acknowledging, and how such cynicism and hypocrisy can and does spread right thru the body politic.
A lot of rather pious old women on the R oriented side of the political fence decided that although they would not ordinarily even consider voting for a person like Trump, on the basis of his PERSONAL history, they had little choice but to fight fire WITH fire, so to speak. They voted for Trump, so as to vote against HRC. These particular women wouldn’t have voted for Trump, if they had known him well, or better.
You can piss and moan and cast blame and call them ignorant Bible thumpers, call them deplorables, call them kids living in their mom’s basement, whatever you like. That will undoubtedly make you feel better, lol.
But it won’t help you come to grips with the fact that the D’s ran their weakest candidate all the way back to the McGovern candidacy, as indicated by the various polls conducted before and during the campaign. Half the country, more or less, clearly had a very low opinion of her, and there’s simply no way you can deny that.
My game is to talk like a coach, and convince as many people as possible that you don’t run somebody who is arrogant, condescending, wooden, elitist, and utterly lacking in the common touch department, a BAU candidate at a time the country is BOILING with the desire for change.
A candidate stupid enough to use a home brewed email system, which OBVIOUSLY had to be common knowledge in the upper reaches of the Obama administration, one stupid enough to think she could accept over a hundred million dollars from shady characters with business with Uncle Sam in general and the State Dept in particular, and still get elected…….. well, she almost did, but she dragged down the D party with her.
Making fun of the people who voted for Trump is NOT going to incline them to vote for a D next time around, no siree.
The gossiping little old ladies were numerous enough to put Trump in office, IF they had voted for her. The university educated young people characterized as spoiled brats living with their parents were enough to have put her IN office, but she stuck her foot in her mouth to such an extent that ENOUGH of them stayed home. The normally reliable D voters in the Rust Belt states would have put her in office……. If she hadn’t done all she could to piss them off and scare and insult them, all the while taking them for granted, talking about them like peasants on her lordly estate, while hobnobbing with banksters, oh my OH MY.
Bottom line, a lot of people believe in principles first, politics second, and that sort of people will not vote for such candidates as HRC or Trump…….. IF they actually know that candidate’s history.
Trump had the advantage of HRC in this respect, because the D’s didn’t have history all the way back to Arkansas days on their side to help them with tarring and feathering Trump. He’s a scumbag that makes HRC look like a girl scout, but the public is slow to come to understanding such things.
A year or so is not long enough, because the R wing /conservative oriented media was able to cover for Trump well enough for that length of time for him to run a successful campaign.
It’s a cliche in every profession that deals with mental health that the first and most critical step on the patient’s part in achieving a cure or at least relief is that the patient must come to UNDERSTAND and ACCEPT that he or she HAS A PROBLEM.
See, you and HB haven’t yet accepted that you had a PROBLEM, which is now water under the bridge, in terms of the LAST election.
If you don’t come to accept that you had a PROBLEM, you are going into the next election cycle, and maybe the next ones after that, at high risk of making the same mistake as the last time………. running a candidate who is detested by half the electorate before even the first primary date.
I’m willing to bet I have posted more dirt on the Trump crowd here and elsewhere than all the other regulars in this forum COMBINED, unless the others use different handles in other forums, as I often do.
I’m not a partisan foot soldier.
I was not making fun of anyone.
I see you have switched personas again. That was one crazy rant. Didn’t see any relevance or logic to most of it, but definitely crazy.
I can set him off again. Do I need to prove it to you ? I didn’t think so. It’s what I do best
Didn’t mean to get in between you two. Although you should pay more attention to him.
“but lately this negative political agenda of yours seems to have taken you to a low point”
I believe OldFarmerMac does more damage to the Democrat party than good and he doesn’t understand the damage he does. He is the gift that just keeps on giving for the Republicans. For the 6 months running up to the election, he keep running his Republican talking points of 25 years all over this blog. I’m going to take credit for OFM low point. It’s been my only goal with him for the last year. Attacking him in the same manner and play book the GOP has used on HRC for the last 25 years. Far more Democrats choose HRC than Sanders. OFM opinion doesn’t over ride the party. The 6 months leading up to the election, OFM needed to hold his nose and shut up. But he didn’t and actions like his has given us the most damaging leader to this country and the world in history.
“you should pay more attention to him”
GF, you do this a lot, half a thought. For months now I have only been attacking OFM when he calls me out. Communicating with him is pretty much like talking to a block wall. Do you want me to attack him more often or do you think I should listen to him for my own enlightenment ? I am not the HRC supporter OFM makes me out to be. On the other hand I don’t believe all the Republican talking point he falls for about her. Besides, is there anyone here who reads all his dribble. I can’t. He has no focus in his rants except to attack HRC. I just scan them and attack the first stupid thing he writes. He always supplies plenty of material.
It’s a beautiful day here. So I’m out of here GoneBiking. Later
BS, it was HRC and you that did the damage to the democratic party, not people speaking out like OFM.
Maybe you should of supported a candidate that wasn’t so corrupt, or one that wasn’t a Henry Kissinger loving warmonger, or one that would actually campaign in Wisconsin. HRC currently has a lower aproval rating than Trump. She was a terrible candidate and the dems have no one but themselves to blame for Trump.
YEP–
And when we look a Honduras, Libya, Nato, etc. we have one of the most War Centric Secretaries of State in quite a while, especially for a Dim.
Haha you are a GRU asset, and you don’t even know it.
It’s funny how Republicans like you trumpeted Reagan’s famous victory over the Russians for decades, and now are just Putin’s bitch. Because it feels good, right?
Funny, I thought the McCarthy era ended long ago.
Please pardon me for thinking you were making fun of me by lumping me in with gossiping village women. I apologize!
But ya better watch out, or the PC establishment will be on you like stink on shit. The ONLY allowable out group consists of White Christian males only, lol. Everybody else is IN. 😉
It’s my PLAN to keep this general discussion going, because I believe it is contributing a little to helping anybody interested in winning elections ( rather than crowing and preening about their intellectual and moral superiority) come to a better understanding of the day to day realities of practical politicing.
Now every once in a while I use a screw driver as a chisel or crowbar, if I don’t have the right tool available.
HRC was the wrong tool, for lots of reasons.
Once that sinks in, and it IS sinking in, then the D party will be in better shape, less under the influence of the old time machine style politics of by gone times, as exemplified by the HRC machine recently.
The party will be a lot less likely no nominate another loser.
Children blame their losses on the playing field on the opposition. Adults accept the blame by accepting that they didn’t play well enough.
It’s more fun for me to do this when I have HB and or anybody else to joust with. I can’t lose, because I’m not here to win. I’m here to provoke some thinking on the part of D voters.
Incidentally I voted a straight D ticket a few days back, lol.
It wasn’t making fun, it was constructive criticism. Spreading dissension and gossip is not a good way to get any serious person to listen. Only the morally and ethically bankrupt listen to that twaddle.
You might want to cut down on the machine gun blame and finger pointing game too. Might want to eliminate some of the rabbit trails also.
My experience is that if a person is running down other people consistently they are doing the same to about everyone, so are not trustworthy or worthy of being heard. Much like our furious leader.
Take this any way you want, I like a lot of your ideas but lately this negative political agenda of yours seems to have taken you to a low point, IMHO.
COAL BACK AS FLASHPOINT IN CLIMATE-CHANGE FIGHT
“Coal emerged as the surprise winner from two weeks of international climate talks in Germany, with leaders of the host country and neighboring Poland joining Donald Trump in support of the dirtiest fossil fuel.”
It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.
— Pierre Trudeau
Meanwhile,
SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES DRILLING IN ALASKAN WILDLIFE REFUGE
“The Senate Energy panel approved legislation Wednesday allowing for oil and gas drilling in a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. The legislation is highly controversial, with Democrats and environmentalists slamming Senate Republicans for mandating new revenue from Arctic drilling as part of their tax-reform push. But GOP supporters of the legislation said Wednesday the drilling proposal is good for both Alaska, an energy-dependent state, and the federal government. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has long made ANWR drilling one of her top legislative priorities, said oil development won’t impact the refuge as much as opponents of the plan warn it will.”
Yes it does mark the beginning of the end for the weak economic situation in Alaska. Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.
Sure it will. I doubt if there is much real interest by oil companies. Just one more source of oil to depress oil prices again. Good plan.
You are being suckered by a Republican need to have virtual money fill the huge gap in their income tax plan so it can pass. It’s an accounting magic trick. Mere political magic. The don’t care if a dollar of profit is made up there.
Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.
Ok! Let’s for a moment pretend that is true. It isn’t, but we are only playing make believe here… Then what? What’s plan B?
Unless there were a plan B, which there isn’t, you’d be back at square one again and at that point, truly up shit’s creek without a paddle.
Decades of prosperity from oil and gas in ANWR is a pipe dream, pun intended!
And the pipes have been having some problems lately, even when not dreaming.
ANWR is plan B, labeled last ditch effort. Plan C is abandon ship, but to where?
“Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.”
You don’t seem to know a lot about the exploration business. Canada’s Beaufort Sea was explored with great fan fair, lots of targets identified, oil = zip. ANWR could easily turn out the same way: all gas, no oil.
Glide paths always hit hard ground.
NAOM
Coal? More coal? Keep burning coal?
We are taking the atmosphere and the planet back into the distant past. Why not keep civilization in the Victorian era? Shiny Teslas, windmills and silicon will not save us from the medieval mind.
Fish — A few days ago, I had a long talk with my niece, Nicole (known to one and all as Nicki). She’s a young Petroleum Engineer who works for Statoil. As I’m sure you (all) know, Statoil is a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway; it is a fully integrated petroleum company with operations in thirty-six countries. Nicki is a keen environmentalist, a workaholic, super intelligent (as was my wife) and she drives an EV. She enjoys her job which involves a lot of time on the North Sea rigs but would be equally happy with a new profession and has talked about teaching. In other words, a pretty balanced kid. The point of this is that she insists, absolutely, that every barrel of oil in Norwegian waters that can be reached with current technology will be extracted. I wish it were otherwise, she wishes it were otherwise, because if anyone has to ability to painlessly abandon this oil and gas play it’s Norway. Norwegians are well educated, environmentally aware and exceedingly wealthy BUT the momentum (if that’s the right word) of the industry is simply too great to stop. That’s the opinion of an expert, like it or not.
Norwegians are well educated, environmentally aware and exceedingly wealthy BUT the momentum (if that’s the right word) of the industry is simply too great to stop. That’s the opinion of an expert, like it or not.
OHHKAY! 😉
On the other, hand apparently the Norway Wealth Fund, seems to be at least thinking about divesting from oil stocks. I guess they don’t want all their eggs in the same basket given that there seems to be more and more risk in that sector.
Big Oil Shares Drop After Norway Wealth Fund Plans to Exit Sector
Norway will be “less vulnerable” to a drop in oil prices by not being invested in stocks of companies in the industry, the Oslo-based fund said in a statement on Thursday. The Finance Ministry, and potentially even parliament, will make the final decision on whether to go ahead with the plan.
While the fund says the decision isn’t based on any future view on the industry, it will likely add pressure on oil producers, already struggling in a world where crude prices have slumped and renewable energy is gaining sway.
I think that what Norway is saying to big oil is: “We’ve had a great run together, but maybe it’s time for us to go our separate ways…”
I think that Norway will strive for an amicable divorce but I have a hunch that even your niece will be working in some other industry before too long!
Fred – I’m certainly no expert but my understanding of Norway’s state fund debate about dropping oil and gas investments is about making the country “less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices” and doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with saving the planet: currently, roughly 6% of the fund is invested in oil and gas stocks. In other words, any decision will be based on financial arguments and analyses of the government’s total oil and gas exposure.
Fred – I’m certainly no expert but my understanding of Norway’s state fund debate about dropping oil and gas investments is about making the country “less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices”
Yes, that is exactly as I understood it as well.
Which also leads me to wonder how economically viable extracting oil and gas will be in the future and if they might not become stranded assets as demand continues to drop and costs of extraction continue to rise. Especially as renewables and alternative energy become ever more competitive.
Add to that new technologies such as local manufacturing of products via 3D printing that have the potential to disrupt the entire global shipping paradigm. In my view the fossil fuel industry is going to die by a thousand tiny cuts, some that are already quite evident and some that are not on our radars as of yet.
Suffice it to say, that despite the prevailing general view that we will continue to depend on extracting fossil fuels to run much of our industrial civilization and global transport systems, I don’t see a rosy future for the big oil and gas companies. Especially as the economy becomes more and more decentralized and local.
Additive Manufacturing, What Is It and How Is It Changing Our Future?
The Additive Manufacturing technologies are reaching their tipping point with the potential to revolutionize how we design and manufacture products; in almost any industrial sector. The consequences of the general adoption of these advanced manufacturing technologies will disrupt entire supply chains and the human work. Possible changes can influence how we use energy and raw materials; perform harsh and hazardous processes; design product life-cycles and manage waste.
All the advanced manufacturing technologies can redefine business models based on the economy of scale and mass production. They will redefine decentralization and the roles of human workers.
Doug, I already know and have said as much in some previous comments. I know I do not live in a sensible and rational world (the human side) but also live in a very sensible world (nature). It’s schizophrenic.
However, despite the apparent futility of the situation I still do my best to not attend the mad hatter party.
I also have minimized my use of fossil fuels and materials despite knowing that it will do little good overall. It is a matter of following my personal beliefs and the knowledge I have acquired over the years. We all make choices, justifying them does not change them.
I realize that most people chose to not help themselves or change their actions.
But when I look outside and see a squirrel, I see that nature has a way of making things work without even having a large brain. Watching that squirrel grab a nut, make a small hole in the ground, plant the nut then carefully cover it up shows how a whole system of positive reinforcement sustains both squirrels and trees, each helping the other (and probably many more creatures too). There is a system at work that is beyond thought unless thought goes right down to the cellular level and below.
Why mankind seems bent on destructive actions is not known. It makes no sense, is not a survival mechanism and will (already is) end badly. Maybe there is truly something wrong with us. Maybe what we think of as understanding is just the opposite. humans, the only creature that did not fail when it wandered outside of the natural order, or more likely the only creature that took a long time to fail when it wandered outside the natural way.
We are apparently capable of anything except changing our ways in a positive fashion.
But until we fail, we will keep ignoring or band-aiding our mistakes and compounding our errors. But we all know where compounding leads.
Hi GF,
I don’t recall you saying so in so many words, but my guess is that you ARE a biologist of one sort or another, in the usual sense……. meaning you have a degree in the field. If not , you sure as hell know a lot for an amateur, and have managed to enjoy a career doing the work of a biologist, degree in the field or no.
But you say:
“Why mankind seems bent on destructive actions is not known. It makes no sense, is not a survival mechanism and will (already is) end badly. Maybe there is truly something wrong with us. Maybe what we think of as understanding is just the opposite. humans, the only creature that did not fail when it wandered outside of the natural order, or more likely the only creature that took a long time to fail when it wandered outside the natural way.
We are apparently capable of anything except changing our ways in a positive fashion.”
I’m only an AMATEUR, with a lot of courses in the general field, but I do know enough to know that you are displaying a less than stellar understanding of human behavior, which is entirely or almost entirely explainable in terms of evolutionary psychology.
Maybe my years of living in the woods while engaged on a random walk thru the literature of the world has paid off.
I know why we behave the way we do, lol. LOTS of people know.
I suggest you read some evolutionary psychology books, as well as some basic texts on evolution.
It took me a year to get thru Gould’s self described “monstergraph” titled The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, an evening or two a week, but I’ve never regretted putting the effort into it. It IS sort of involved, and it’s as thick as four or five typical books, lol.
It’s a nice day out , and I’m going to enjoy spending it outside, but I’ll be thinking about how I can reduce what’s known about our behavior, in terms of evolutionary theory, down to a bare essence that will make sense. I’ll try to post that essence later today.
So you disagree with the concept that we are on a destructive path and argue that it is sensible? Interesting. I can’t wait to hear you make sense of what has been going on, especially lately when we supposedly know better. I especially want to know the why, not the how or the observations but why we are blatantly self and world destructive.
Remember this must make sense in the natural scheme of things which is what I base my premise upon. If you can figure out why us you get a brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster.
BTW, I am a professional physics/chemistry person, not biology. Although I have studied the subject widely in both text and field, I am more of a naturalist than a biologist. Meaning I never got paid for the nature parts.
Like you, I can weld, build a house, fix a car, do plumbing, electrical and other trade type endeavors. I have worked professionally in the trades and as a state certified guide.
But more importantly, I learned long ago how to walk in the world and how to respect nature.
If you can figure out why we are the way we are (not how) then you get a brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels.
I especially want to know the why, not the how or the observations but why we are blatantly self and world destructive.
Remember this must make sense in the natural scheme of things which is what I base my premise upon.
My own take is that humans are actually following all the natural laws and are simply behaving according to their evolutionary programing.
I think all of us, myself included, often tend to fall into the trap of thinking that we are somehow endowed with this higher level power of reasoning and rationality. We talk about being self aware and having a quality we define as consciousness. While that may be true on an individual level it doesn’t tell the full story.
There is no doubt we are an extremely clever species, our large brains and tool making capabilities have certainly given us a leg up in terms of evolutionary fitness. This has allowed us to suceed in spreading into just about every ecosystem niche on the planet. Though at the end of the day we are still only highly social great apes evolved to live in relatively small tribes of at most a few hundred individuals.
We most certainly did not biologically evolve to live in an interconnected global industrial civilization consisting of 7.5 billion individuals.
My favorite all time biologist and naturalist, E.O. Wilson, who specialized and spent a lifetime studying social, or more correctly eusocial insects such as bees, ants, termites and some wasps, argues the we humans are now on the verge of evolving into an truly eusocial species. However we are encumbered with a lot of evolutionary tribal ape baggage that we are still lugging around with us.
How 7.5 billion humans following their evolutionary programing collectively affect the biosphere is not very different
than what cyanobacteria did to change the atmospheric chemistry of the planet 3.8 billion years ago by introducing what to the anaerobes would have been a toxic and deadly gas, namely O2. This despite the fact that we have a tiny minority of individuals like yourself who who are able to connect the dots. and understand the consequences of our activities.
This doesn’t mean that humans are incapable of changing course from our self destructive, but for most, still a totally unconscious path.
Clearly, we are at an evolutionary inflection point and the Fat Lady has yet to sing.
IMHO, we might want to start by getting rid of people in power who’s offspring are still engaged in cutting off elephant’s tails with knives.
Anyways, just my two cents here!
So where do I apply for my brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels
😉
No figlagee for you, just a fig newton. When you earn one it will be delivered.
E for effort though Fred. I did not read anything that explained the how, let alone the why.
Up until about 10 or 12,000 years ago we were a dangerous pest species, capable of doing a lot of damage but still only edging off the typical ways of nature. At that time we had all the tools needed to move outside the box but had not developed the understanding needed to go far off the edge, though we kept trying. Soon though we developed agriculture, metallurgy, geometry, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. Bang, like an explosion we started the systems that would launch us into a global techno civilization capable of flight, ocean travel (sub and surface), use of the full EM spectrum, machines, even space travel and on and on.
I am looking at why nature produced such a beast. One that could despoil the system and not be erased quickly by natural checks and balances.
If I can’t get a why answer, which may be too difficult or impossible, at least an answer as to what happened to us long ago that changed our brains so dramatically. Turned us into imagination fiends. What evolutionary cause forced the change or was it just some revolutionary accident? I don’t think we are any smarter than those ancient Egyptians or Greeks, so the change happened well before that time.
It is a serious mistake to think we are like the rest of the animals. Except for our brains and hands we are really a weak and slow creature for our size. with limited senses. But we managed to slip the noose of nature for a long time now and not come to a screeching halt or get diminished by more fitting portions of our breed.
I can understand how most creatures fit into the pattern of life, but why such a not-work creature? Why produce something so uncontrollable and unstoppable that it takes practical destruction of the whole ecosystem and planetary changes to stop it. Everything else seems to have limits and follows an order. We try to create new orders and push back all the limits.
From what I see of this, I wonder how we ever made it.
Why produce something so uncontrollable and unstoppable that it takes practical destruction of the whole ecosystem and planetary changes to stop it.
Sounds to me as if you are asking for a purpose to the universe.
There isn’t any! It just is. There is no answer to the why question and it is pointless to ask it. Evolution has no definable goal.
As for the how did we get here question? Absolutely, that is what all of our sciences, i.e. biology, evolution, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology etc… have been designed to answer.
I highly recommend the following three ASU Origins Project debates and panel discussions to get a good feel for the big picture. It might take up a good four hours or so of your time. This isn’t something suitable for sound bites. It involes a lot of in depth cross disciplinary knowledge.
If you listen to only one speaker from this final group then check out Curtis Marean’s talk at the end of Inconvenient Truths – From Love to Extinctions
Marean is a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the associate director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. He is interested in the relation between climate and environmental change and human evolution, both for its significance as a force driving past human evolution, and as a challenge to be faced in the near future. Curtis has focused his career on developing field and laboratory teams and methods that tap the synergy between the disciplines to bring new insights to old scientific problems. He has spent over 20 years doing fieldwork in Africa, and conducting laboratory work on the field-collected materials, with the goal of illuminating the final stages of human evolution – how modern humans became modern.
The other speaker I would listen to is Sarah Mathew,
In the Transcending Our Origins – Violence, Humanity, and the Future debate/
Sarah Mathew I study the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. I am especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. To address these issues, I combine formal modeling of the evolution of cooperation with fieldwork among the Turkana. The Turkana are an egalitarian pastoral society in East Africa who cooperate, including in costly inter-ethnic raids, with hundreds of other Turkana who are not kin nor close friends. Through systematic empirical studies in this unique ethnographic context, my research project here aims to provide a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underpinning cooperation and moral origins.
To paraphrase Richard Feynman, if you don’t like the way this universe is, tough noogies! Go find yourself another one.
Cheers!
P.S.
And I still want my brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels 😉
No, not asking for the purpose of the universe. Merely looking at a much smaller segment, the natural system on planet Earth and how that operates at a general level. There is a purpose and intent at the molecular level, which means it is everywhere.
However, due to your annoying the angels with your claim of no meaning, I can merely only send you an image of the brass figlagee. See down near the bottom of the comments.
There is a purpose and intent at the molecular level, which means it is everywhere.
Could you expand on that?
What is the ability, purpose and intent of say DNA or other cellular molecules?
Well, her perspective is certainly helpful, and she may be right. On the other hand, a perspective from inside an industry can be limited.
General Motors was the largest car company in the world for a very long time. It seemed to be a Master of the Universe. No one inside the company believed that it could ever go bankrupt. No one. We saw the same thing with Hillary in 2016. And, coming back to oil, we saw the same thing with LTO and KSA.
Overconfidence can destroy you.
Hi Doug,
Luckily there is not a lot of oil there. I tend to agree with your niece. The best we can do is transition to EVs etc as fast as possible (as far as oil) and wind, and solar widely interconnected to replace most natural gas use (passive solar, thermal, storage, and heat pumps would also help).
As oil and natural gas deplete and become more expensive, it will help drive the transition, this may gain enough momentum that demand for oil and natural gas will fall enough to drive prices down to the point where further extraction from high cost resources is no longer profitable.
At that point much of the resource gets left in the ground, but we are unlikely to reach this point before 2045, at that point Norway’s oil may be gone, but there may be a lot of OPEC, Russian, Canadian, Brazilian and Venezuelan oil that never gets produced because it will not be profitable to do so.
Shiny Teslas, windmills and silicon will not save us from the medieval mind.
It’s not the medieval mind I worry about, it’s the OS!
“we are running a 21st century digital economy on a 13th Century printing-press era operating system.”
Douglas Rushkoff, In Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
It’s getting close to five o’clock somewhere. Don’t forget to punch that time clock on your way out.
Fred said”It’s not the medieval mind I worry about, it’s the OS!”
The operating system?
You are afraid of nature?
You are afraid of nature?
Nah, I’m down with nature, she always tends to trump whatever economic system is in vogue…
But nature is the operating system, despite all the hoopla otherwise. No need to worry about nature.
Hey, in case anyone is interested in getting their hands on their very own grenade launcher, you’re in luck!
Have you ever daydreamed of blowing the feet out from under a gaggle of drug-smuggling goons like Thomas Jane in The Punisher? Or watched Predator with envy as Arnold Schwarzenegger lit up the Central American jungle? If so, you’re in luck: Colt Defense is rolling out a handful of genuine mil-spec, production-standard M203 under-barrel grenade launchers to the civilian market for the first time ever.
Colt has produced a limited run of M203s that are legal for civilian ownership, offered through ArmsUnlimited, one of the company’s major law enforcement distributors, starting on Nov. 15.
And another feedback to worry about… but don’t be alarmed!
Abstract: Land-atmosphere exchanges influence atmospheric CO2. Emphasis has been on describing photosynthetic CO2 uptake, but less on respiration losses. New global datasets describe upper canopy dark respiration (Rd) and temperature dependencies. This allows characterisation of baseline Rd, instantaneous temperature responses and longer-term thermal acclimation effects. Here we show the global implications of these parameterisations with a global gridded land model. This model aggregates Rd to whole-plant respiration Rp, driven with meteorological forcings spanning uncertainty across climate change models. For pre-industrial estimates, new baseline Rd increases Rp and especially in the tropics. Compared to new baseline, revised instantaneous response decreases Rp for mid-latitudes, while acclimation lowers this for the tropics with increases elsewhere. Under global warming, new Rd estimates amplify modelled respiration increases, although partially lowered by acclimation. Future measurements will refine how Rd aggregates to whole-plant respiration. Our analysis suggests Rp could be around 30% higher than existing estimates.
Trump, breaking with precedent, will not meet with American Nobel recipients
Not all the honorees are disappointed.
Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president.
“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, Pence, or Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank said. “I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.”
Fish and Nick G – From above. To begin with, three countries have almost all the rare earth reserves: China, Brazil and Russia: 44 million MT; 22 million MT; 18 million MT respectively. Second, and this is key, the rare earth market is basically made up of just four (or five) distinct “critical rare earths.” Even with new mine supply and refining capacity coming on-line, these elements will remain in short supply. For at least half of the REEs, production and usage are tiny and there is no “market” to speak of.
Dysprosium is where its at and dysprosium is going be in short supply for some time and China has almost all the dysprosium. Forget all those light REEs. For example, Molycorp’s much talked about Mountain Pass deposit, contains light REEs and has little economic value. Put another way, there are heavy rare earths and light rare earths, the latter having very little value. I’ve worked on a number of REE deposits and know the situation well. I don’t know squat about cobalt, or no more than anyone else with an internet connection. Interesting applicable article: THE ONLY FIVE RARE EARTH ELEMENTS THAT MATTER
“For many REEs, production exceeds demand and will for the foreseeable future. Cerium is a good example of the fact that not all rare earth demand is equivalent. When you produce dysprosium, you are always producing much more cerium than dysprosium. That doesn’t mean that there is a market for cerium. In fact, it is more correct to say that some cerium/lanthanum/neodymium deposits contain recoverable dysprosium. Saying it this way really defines the problem.”
No problem, EV motors are fast getting away from rare earth magnets and I hear that will happen in wind turbines also.
Tesla is way ahead of the game using no magnets whatsoever in it’s induction motor design. Renault has achieved similar success with a wound rotor motor design. Others are designing to use less rare earth materials.
The newer Chevy Volt uses less rare earth in it’s motors by eliminating it altogether from one motor.
“In the first-generation Volt, both motors used the rare-earth metal neodymium in their magnets. In the new Volt, Motor A substitutes a ferrite magnet, reducing its cost, while Motor B continues to use neodymium.”
Well, that seems to suggest that the US and EU may be dependent on imports of certain REEs. Most mineral reserve estimates are not really comprehensive (they’re very limited geographically, limited to a short time window and by narrow definitions of “economic” reserves) – are we sure about REE resource surveys?
But…more importantly, your original point was about pollution and child labor. Is there any reason to believe that REEs couldn’t be mined ethically, that is to say without child labor and pools of toxic pollution?
“Is there any reason to believe that REEs couldn’t be mined ethically, that is to say without child labor and pools of toxic pollution?”
Of course not, and it’s a sickening sight. I just think when you’ve actually seen it up close you have a duty to report the knowledge, just like any other injustice, and not pretend it isn’t happening.
Well, sure.
On the other hand, you don’t want to fall into a climate denier talking point about how EVs and renewables can be criticized for such things.
It’s like the whole thing about Al Gore not being allowed to fly, because he advocates reductions in carbon emissions.
I don’t think I’m falling into any traps. I simply wonder why people need to replace their cel phones every eighteen months, or whatever the average is, and by doing trashing an irreplaceable resource — mined by children or not.
Actually, they don’t.
Cell phones are just like cars – cars get resold as used about every 3 years, but they’re still in use. Cell phones get recycled as used phones to someone else, and get used for a very long time.
If you say so. Most people I know are on two-year contract and replace their phones every 24 months (without a penalty) and the “old” phone winds up in a drawer. Maybe they’re not average people.
And, according to Wikipedia: “Humans toss millions of cell phones each year in favor of newer technology—and all those discarded phones may be taking a toll on the environment. Electronic scrap accounts for 70% of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills in the U.S.A. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 141 million mobile phones were discarded in 2009 and only 12 million of those were collected for recycling.” Is it any better now?
“smartphones and feature phones have the shortest life expectancy at 4.7 years.”
Cell phones have been sold for what, 20 years? Even if cell phones lasted 15 years, you would still see a significant volume going to landfills or recycling. So, statistics on the volume of discards aren’t very useful unless you compare them very carefully to both new sales data and actual data on what happens to them after they’re turned in.
Some people put their old phones in a drawer (which is similar to cars, which often are owned for a very long time, but with sharply reduced actual usage – if you don’t consider something at all useful, you don’t keep it in a drawer, you toss it in the garbage or drop it in the Best Buy recycling bin), but most people trade them in on a new phone. That old phone gets re-used. The majority of smart phones ever sold are still in use, somewhere…maybe China.
In 2014, approximately 41.8 million tons of e-waste was generated worldwide. The quantity included 12.8 million tons of small equipment, 11.8 million tons of large equipment, 7.0 million tons of temperature exchange equipment (freezing and cooling equipment), 6.3 million tons of screens and monitors, 3.0 million tons of Small IT and 1.0 million tons of lamps. The amount of worldwide e-waste generation is expected to be 49.8 million tons in 2018 with an annual 4-5 percent growth. Currently, only 15-20 percent of all e-waste is recycled. Each year, globally, around 1 billion cell phones and 300 million computers are put into production. The amount of global e-waste is expected to grow by 8 percent per year.
That is about 12 pounds per person globally per annum. Of course that includes all business and government uses. Not much compared to the over 16oo pounds of trash per person per annum created in the USA.
Is it the amount or the handling of the amount? I don’t know about the rest of the world but here we have laws making it illegal to put e-waste in the trash stream. We have to dispose of it at special recycling centers or at the county hazardous waste disposal unit. Luckily they provide a couple of “free” collection days, otherwise one pays for disposal.
If longevity is the problem, that can be addressed on the manufacturing end. If disposal and recycling is the problem, that can be addresses at the government and manufacturing end.
My dead laser printer cartridge is right now packaged up ready to go back to the manufacturer as an example.
Because the US has not ratified the Basel Convention or its Ban Amendment, and has few domestic federal laws forbidding the export of toxic waste, the Basel Action Network estimates that about 80% of the electronic waste directed to recycling in the US does not get recycled there at all, but is put on container ships and sent to countries such as China.
China no longer accepts foreign e-waste.
My daughter sells her old phones. Big market for them. If people are not selling them, they can have hundreds of dollars sitting in their drawers for no good reason.
I mostly have purchased refurbished used phones except for my current one.
Backpfeifengesicht
German
Noun
(colloquial) a face in need of a slap
How about this one?
.
He sure does look like a preacher’s boy to me, the kind I would rather stomp than see screwing a daughter of my own. Daughters WILL screw, it comes naturally and preserves the species, lol, but when they do it with the wrong guy, well then they are simply getting fucked.
And anybody who knows anything about preachers knows about their boys, lol.
Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion Already Exists, Watergate Prosecutors Say
Mueller Subpoenaed Trump Campaign for More Documents
I could go on all day.
It’s amusing to see how seriously D’s take the responsibility of the law enforcement community when R’s are the subject of investigations, and how they demonize that same law enforcement community when it’s investigating pet D’s.
It’s amusing to see how seriously D’s take the responsibility of the law enforcement community when R’s are the subject of investigations, and how they demonize that same law enforcement community when it’s investigating pet D’s.
Bullshit! I know Democrats demonize the republicans call to investigate the past Democratic administration. And it should be demonized. Jailing your past political opponent is something that happens in dictatorships or banana republics. It is not something that happens in civilized societies.
But demonizing law enforcement is something altogether different from demonizing ignorant politicians. Democrats do not demonize law enforcement and it is a goddamn lie to say they do.
Jeff Sessions, to his credit, is ignoring the ignorant calls to investigate the past Obama or Clinton Administrations.
Hi Ron,
You are displaying your usual partisan colors, nice and bright.
If you can’t remember what the D establishment had to say about HRC and her secret email system and the law enforcement community, around and about the time of the last election, you’re slipping even worse than I am.
Are you telling me that you believe the accusations against Moore, but that you disbelieve essentially similar accusations made against Bill Clinton? Have you ever made a public comment to the effect that you believe Bill Clinton is a predatory man?
I believe both men are as guilty as guilty can be, although Bill did stick to WOMEN, as opposed to girls. Gotta give him credit for that.
My memory isn’t what it used to be. I have to make lists these days to remember half the things I go to town to buy.
Maybe your’s is even worse.
I agree that Sessions is at least halfway competent and ethical, which makes him an exception to the rule in the Trump administration.
My guess is that the only reason Trump hasn’t fired him is that Trump’s afraid the resulting backlash would finish him off. He’s probably thinking he has a better shot at weathering the special prosecutor’s investigation than trying the firing route.
Hopefully Mueller and his team will dig out enough hard proof of Trump and company’s dirty dealings that the public will vote in enough Democrats to impeach his sorry ass, November next.
I’ll be blogging for D’s in general, and providing rides to the local polling station, for D’s, lol. I may help man a phone bank.
BUT I WILL NOT PRETEND TO BELIEVE IN PARTISAN BULLSHIT, D or R oriented.
I’m grinning at the prospect of a Trump impeachment, and I’m thinking that a LOT of Trump associates are trembling and shaking like the proverbial hound shitting cockleburs.
The odds appear to be pretty good that at least a handful of Trump associates are going to court and some of that handful will be convicted.
Now HERE’S the difference between a partisan and a realist.
A partisan never or ALMOST NEVER has anything critical to say about his own party.
The one major exception to this observation is that partisans often admit that while their own party has some problems, they also say in the same breath that their’s is the angel team, while the other party is the devil team.
It’s ok to sacrifice a pawn to capture a more powerful piece, lol.
You’re a partisan, as evidenced by your failure to seriously criticize anything having to do with the D party.
I’m a realist, and I give both sides hell, while frequently stating that the D’s are right, or CLOSER TO RIGHT, about a number of super critical issues, especially the environmental issue, the health care issue, etc.
I don’t say much in favor of the R party, but I do agree with a few R positions, such as that we should bust up the teacher’s monopoly, and that we should be doing some things to make sure we don’t export any more industries, especially the ones that provide employment to the many millions of people in this country that lack education enough to find employment in high tech fields.
There are many reasons Trump is president these days. The election was close enough that any one of these reasons, everything else held equal, could be THE reason he won and HRC lost.
ONE of them is the voter backlash brought on by offshoring so much of our industrial base.
If I’ve ever heard a goddamned STUPID argument, it’s the one about unfettered international trade NECESSARILY being good for the people of this country. I know all the arguments, lol, both sides.
If you ( rhetorical ) stick to ACADEMIC arguments, of the sort made by professional economists, it looks GREAT.
But if you consider the BIG PICTURE, you just MIGHT come to some different conclusions.
If you (again rhetorical) are stupid enough to campaign on this academic argument, when many tens of millions of people are pissed off and scared and worried sick because they know people who HAVE LOST their jobs, and fear they may lose their own, well……….
You just might lose. People vote based on their fears and beliefs and their hopes and dreams,rather than on what they are told by professional economists.
This COUNTRY just might lose, long term. We Yankees haven’t exactly SUFFERED over the last hundred years or so because we were the leading industrial power of the entire world, now, HAVE WE?
Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout. But Trump the AMATEUR politician made a fool out of her, his first time out as a politician. Well, actually it’s far more accurate to say that HRC made a fool out of herself.
I’m talking like a COACH.
We need a general housecleaning , politically, both sides of the aisle.
My personal opinion is that our best hope of getting it is to overthrow the D party establishment which has gotten to be altogether too cozy with the big business big banking establishment, and return control of the D party to it’s real roots.
“I agree that Sessions is at least halfway competent and ethical”
Clearly you didn’t watch Session lie to congress last week with his “I don’t recall” crap covering his ass. Oh that’s right, you’re still living in the 40’s without a TV.
“I’m talking like a COACH”
From his daddy’s basement and broke.
“People vote based on their fears and beliefs and their hopes and dreams,rather than on what they are told by professional economists”
The faith based religious knuckle daggers continue to reject science for ignorance.
OFM(hypocrisy) says-
“partisans often admit that while their own party has some problems, they also say in the same breath that their’s is the angel team”
“Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout”
“Incidentally I voted a straight D ticket a few days back, lol”
Are you telling me that you believe the accusations against Moore, but that you disbelieve essentially similar accusations made against Bill Clinton? Have you ever made a public comment to the effect that you believe Bill Clinton is a predatory man?
Goddammit Mac, please get real. The call by those House Republicans was to go after the Obama administration and Hillary in particular while she was Secretary of State. They wanted Obama and Hillary prosecuted for the Uranium deal.
That was what it was all about Mac.
Again, trying to prosecute and jail your former political opponents is something that dictators do. It is something you would expect from a banana republic, not the United States of America.
So don’t give me this shit about me slipping in my old age. If you fail to see what this call to prosecute Hillary and/or Obama was all about then you are definitely slipping. On the other hand, you are probably not slipping at all. You probably think it is a great thing for newly elected presidents to try to jail their former political opponents. I think you have not a clue as to how dictators behave and think that would be a great idea.
Oh, one more thing, going after Bill Clinton almost two decades after he was out of Office is even more stupid than trying to jail Hillary for something she had absolutely nothing to do with. The President signed off on the Uranium deal, the Secretary of State had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes you absolutely amaze me Mac.
I wonder if German has a word for ‘a face in need of a curb stomping’?
This one’s for Doug in particular, since he’s probably better able to answer it than anybody else.
The rotation of the Earth is known to speed up and slow down, only a very little of course, a few milliseconds per day at the most.
It has been discovered or observed that there is a strong correlation between powerful earthquakes and this periodic change.
I didn’t go very far in physics, because ag guys don’t need a lot of physics……. well, back in my day we didn’t, anyway.
I do know know about the conservation of rotational momentum, and that if a spinning ice skater pulls in her arms she speeds up spinning, and if she extends her arms, she slows down, etc.
What I’m hoping to hear is a simple answer in simple English to this question.
WHY does the Earth’s rotation periodically speed up and slow down ?
It’s easy enough intuitively accept the proposition that when the Earth slows down and speeds up , the stresses along various fault lines increase and decrease to some extent, enough to cause more or fewer earthquakes.
If you put a few nuts or other small objects inside a tubeless tire / wheel assembly and spin it on it’s axle, centrifugal forces hold the nuts stationary if you spin it fast enough. It’s when you allow it to slow down that they start moving, and you can hear them start tumbling around in the wheel.
WHY does the Earth’s rotation periodically speed up and slow down ?
I really get a kick out of typing other people’s questions into Google, just to see what pops up… 😉
The periodic effects result from seasonal changes such as snow and ice building up in the Northern hemisphere during the winter and melting during spring/summer. This reduces the Earth’s moment of inertia tensor during Northern hemisphere winter and increases it during summer. Since the Northern hemisphere is mostly land and the Southern mostly water, it is the seasons in the Northern hemisphere that drive these changes.
I’m sure that Doug can also chime in to add his two cents worth….
Cheers!
Thanks Fred. The only thing I’ll add is the speed of rotation of Earth is decreasing due to revolution of the Moon (due to a transfer of Earth’s rotational momentum to the Moon’s orbital momentum as tidal friction). The days are getting longer due to motion of moon around the Earth causing the day length to get longer: by 1.7 milliseconds per 100 years. 🙂
Hi Fred,
I do occasionally refer to myself as the resident forum idiot, token conservative, Trumpster, Proud Putineer, etc, etc, but I’m not QUITE so helpless that I can’t google such questions. 😉
From my link:
“Bilham and Bendick found that there had been periods of around five years when Earth’s rotation slowed by such an amount several times over the past century and a half. Crucially, these periods were followed by periods when the numbers of intense earthquakes increased.
“It is straightforward,” said Bilham. “The Earth is offering us a five-year heads-up on future earthquakes.”
This link is particularly important because Earth’s rotation began one of its periodic slowdowns more than four years ago. “The inference is clear,” said Bilham. “Next year we should see a significant increase in numbers of severe earthquakes. We have had it easy this year. So far we have only had about six severe earthquakes. We could easily have 20 a year starting in 2018.”
I’m presuming that these periodic day length variations they are talking about are REAL. If so, it’s extremely unlikely that they are driven by the annual weather cycle.
Nor can the well known fact that the Earth is sacrificing some angular momentum to the moon explain the repeating five year cycle observed, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge of physics.
Of course I should have made it clear I was referring to FIVE YEAR cycles, rather than annual cycles.
IF these five year cycles aren’t real, basic probability theory leads to the conclusion that some other natural cycle, as yet unknown, must be influencing this observed well established cyclical pattern of earth quakes.
but I’m not QUITE so helpless that I can’t google such questions.
To be clear, I wasn’t implying that you were.
BTW there is some discussion at the link I provided that also addresses what Doug said about the influence of the moon and even some mention of the relationship to earthquakes.
I think I’d probably stay away from places like California and Japan next year…
We have water shifting from the poles toward the equator from ice melt, causing changes in rotation rate.
Thanks for these links. The arguments in them are obviously sound, and easily understood in terms of ABC level physics, which is about as far as my knowledge extends in physics.
But do they throw any light on possible five year cycles?
Other than the so called Nino Nina events, no they do not involve five year cycles as far as I know.
The core wave harmonic (sloshing) or more likely viscous slipping between the core and the mantel is an intriguing idea. With the core acting somewhat independently to the mantel and crust, gravitational perturbations from within the solar system could set up a torque within the earth. The frequency could be more related to the viscous nature of the core and it’s interaction with the mantel rather than the actual perturbation ( the frequency of pendulum is related to the length not the original force that perturbed it).
It could be from gravitational perturbations or merely the leftover changes from the last retreat of the ice sheets and redistribution of mass on the planet. Or both.
If the effect is diminishing then it might be from a past event, if it is stable or increasing, look elsewhere.
Since the inner solid core rotates at a different rate than the liquid outer core and the earth itself, the dynamic interactions with perturbations are probably very complex. There is also material change, temperature change, and density changes as one crosses the cores to inner and outer mantle to crust. Throw in the somewhat decadal variation in the magnetic field and go figure what external perturbations on these various spinning systems will produce.
Something to do with the earths liquid core, but I don’t think they’ve figured out what causes it – could be external such as intensity of cosmic particles impacting the magnetic field, or could be self generating oscillation, or other.
Interesting case study of an EV car sharing business startup in Munich. Instead of batteries they are using hydrogen fuel cells for electricity storage. It had been a while since hydrogen fuel cells have been on my radar. It seems the technology has matured a bit since I last took a look.
Imagine a world where you produce hydrogen with excess wind and solar energy; then you fuel an electric car with this ‘green’ and very energy-rich fuel within 3 minutes only. The car then goes 500 km with absolute zero emissions. Imagine that, and you envision a world with electric mobility that works also for millions of people at the same time, and a world where renewable energy is highly profitable. Join this session to hear more about the world’s first car sharing with hydrogen turning this vision into a reality.
JAPAN IS BETTING FUTURE CARS WILL USE HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
“Honda and Toyota think the technology’s superior energy density will triumph over batteries. Japan wants the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 to run on hydrogen. Planners envisage fleets of hydrogen-fuelled cars whisking athletes from the village to the venues. They are even pondering the practicalities of a hydrogen-burning Olympic flame to promote one of Japan Inc’s boldest gambles: that hydrogen, not batteries, will become the automotive power source of the future.”
I think having a portion of cars as being hydrogen powered would be a good thing. It would take some pressure off the battery situation and blend in with renewable power storage systems.
The funny thing is that H2 vehicles ARE electric vehicles. They’re very similar to gas-electric hybrids – they use electric motors for propulsion, and batteries for storage of some power, and for braking regeneration.
Given the inefficiency of the H2 powercycle, and the cost of the fuel cell stack, the optimal design (in any place where simple, low voltage charging is available) currently would have an electric plug, a medium-large battery and a small fuel cell, making it very similar to a plug-in ICE like the Chevy Volt.
H2 vehicles can work. The real question is whether they can catch up to the economy of scale of ICE plugins or pure EVs, and whether it will be possible to justify the infrastructure investment.
SMALL STEPS FORWARD AS UN CLIMATE TALKS END IN BONN
“UN climate talks in Bonn have concluded with progress on technical issues, but with bigger questions about cutting carbon unresolved.”
Life has to feel very good when you are important enough to be able to jet set around the world on the taxpayer’s dime in order to tell others they need to clean up their pollution and change their ways of life. I guess things could be different if only there were some kind of technology allowing people to remotely communicate with one another.
So, you no longer fly?
No longer? I’ve never flown regularly ever. I’ve been on a round trip flight five times in my six decades on this earth but none in over a decade.
Many (not all) of the posters here seem to be trust fund babes or upper middle class retired. To them they can’t fathom not flying to exotic locations at least once a year, not having family scattered across Europe, or needing to live paycheck to paycheck your whole working life. Old Farmer Mac is one of the few I’ve seen that is understanding of how the majority of working Americans see things.
Hmmm? If “the majority of working Americans” are so badly off that they can’t fly “to exotic locations at least once a year”, why on earth would they throw their support behind a party and a president that is intent on giving tax cuts to wealthy corporations and families, with only crumbs if any going to “the majority of working Americans”? Why do they support a party that desperately wants to eliminate the death tax, a tax only paid if the estate is worth five million or more?
I’d love to know what would lead “”the majority of working Americans” to believe that their interests are aligned with those of the likes of the Koch brothers? Please enlighten me.
Dems are baby killers thru refusing to ban the sin of abortion. The day Roe vs. Wade happened was the day evil within America’s borders was exposed and it was exposed to be the left side of the scales. Combined with wanting to eliminate the 2nd Amendment, redefine marriage to be something its not and create illegal sanctuary cities, Dems are completely unelectable on God’s Laws no matter what opinion is on the other matters. Anyway now that I said my beliefs I won’t be arguing anymore because your questions made me have to bring up abortion in order to give you an honest answer even though we are not suppose to discuss abortion here.
Who said we can’t discuss abortion on an open thread? That’s news to me!
Ahh, so it’s not economics but, politics and Christian principles that are guiding “the majority of working Americans” then? Do the Christian principles condone the election of a confessed sexual predator (“When you’re famous, they let you do anything! You can grab em by the p*#$y!”) or support for a pedophile once they say they want to ban the sin of abortion, support the right to bear arms of any type and define marriage to be between a man and a woman?
I grew up attending the Quaker Church, where I was taught that certain things are wrong. I’m a little confused here!
By the way I’m with you on the gay thing. If gay’s want to get married in a church, they should first establish a gay religion, with a gay deity and a gay friendly “bible” outlining gay commandments and principles. That way, they can do like the Jews and the Muslims and tell us Christians that were not worshiping the right God. 😉 Why not? Isn’t freedom of religion written in the US constitution?
“Hmmm? If “the majority of working Americans” are so badly off that they can’t fly “to exotic locations at least once a year”, why on earth would they throw their support behind a party and a president that is intent on giving tax cuts to wealthy corporations and families, with only crumbs if any going to “the majority of working Americans”?”
Answer- Because they’re against abortion I guess. These dipshits are sucked in by politicians who appeal to their values but act contrary to their interests. Stupid as fuck.
Global warming worsening Earth’s overpopulation problem.
Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat
Cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather, and it’s not the extreme low or high temperatures that cause the most deaths, according to a study published Wednesday.
The study found the majority of deaths occurred on moderately hot and moderately cold days instead of during extreme temperatures.
“Although the risk of mortality due to extremely cold or hot days is actually higher, they are less frequent,” said lead author Antonio Gasparrini of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Trekker,
Thanks. Maybe that’s why Musk’s presentation was lite on the specifics that will determine whether or not his truck is going anywhere.
The second link had math that a simpleton like myself never learned, hence doesn’t understand. But this same simpleton did notice that the platooning idea, which will presently get you some pretty stiff fines from the hi-po, and screams of rage from the safety folks and car-drivers (and rightly so, IMO), was only applied to the electric trucks and not the diesel trucks. I would hazard a guess that aerodynamics applies equally well to all vehicles, not just the ones being proposed.
It is really no new knowledge that close spacing decreases drag on the overall pack. Ever watched the Nascar guys race? It’s not been at all unheard of for truck-drivers to use the same tactics occasionally in the past. Very noticeable effect. Kind of spooky for the rear driver, and I wouldn’t trust just anyone in the lead either.
Stan
Kind of spooky for the rear driver, and I wouldn’t trust just anyone in the lead either.
Which would suggest that autonomous highway driving might be a good solution. Is Musk arguing that his semi, which includes highway autonomy, is better suited to platooning?
Nick,
No. That reply was addressing the second link in Trekker’s post. Which was a study showing the aerodynamic gains of platooning up to 7 trucks and applying it to electric trucks, using that to show how much cheaper they operate compared to the operating cost of diesel.
Stan
“Musk’s presentation was lite on the specifics”
I’ve never seen him give one that wasn’t.
Hi Trekker
Your two links do a good job of explaining the difficulties of EV cross country highway tractors. I would think the logical entire to the market place would be a 100 to 150 mpd bobtails or city tractors. That returns home every night to recharge.
I agree.
Seems like the perfect fit for now.
OFM – Just for you.
THE STORY THAT HIGHLIGHTS AN UGLY AMERICAN TRIBALISM
“And Jerry Pow, the Republican chairman of Bibb County, Alabama, told a reporter he’d vote for Roy Moore even if the allegations are true, and he did commit a sex crime against a teenager. Take a breath and let that sink in for a moment – it’s 2017 and an Alabama Republican official says he’d vote for a paedophile. What’s so revealing in the context of tribalism is Mr Pow’s reasoning. He’d vote for Moore, he says, because he can’t bring himself to vote for the Democrat in the race.”
>>… American evangelicals have long since decided that the only way to win the culture war is to have their churches permanently uncouple from character and moral accountability. If a candidate supports the gun lobby and says gays will burn in hell and that Democrats murder babies- that’s good enough, no matter what else he does to a child or woman, let alone to the poor, or children needing healthcare. <<
From: Roy Moore’s Wife’s Defense Of Roy Moore And The New Improved Evangelical Moral Relativism
I beat you to it, up thread, saying that everybody knows preachers kids are the worst ones, the kind you DON’T want your daughters dating.
Your problem, and the blogger you quote, is that you are out to make purely partisan hay, when you make such comments, because you don’t make them except when the target is a conservative or religious person, these two types not necessarily being one and the same.
I’m NOT a partisan, and point out the ugly truths that D partisans hide and deny, right along with the ugly truths that R partisans hide and deny.
Tell us, please, I BEG YOU, what do you think of Bill Clinton, in respect to abusing women? I beg you!
Tell us what you think of HRC for sticking by him and running her bimbo squad operation to cover for him.
Now tell me you don’t believe he abused women, and that you don’t believe Hill covered up for him, and anybody who is NOT a blind partisan dingaling true believer will KNOW you are either a lying cynical hypocrite or else as stupid as a fence post.
I’m STILL WAITING for any identifiable liberal in this forum , other than a possible RADICAL or maybe two who seem to be way to the left of the D establishment, to say what they believe about Bill and Hill when it comes to the abuse of women.
Silence can be louder than screams.
OFM, we liberals find it hard to understand how evangelicals can support misogynists such as Trump and Moore. I guess your point is that evangelicals find it hard to understand liberals’ condoning of Bill Clinton’s behaviour.
My defence of Clinton would be along the lines of “consenting adults”. To the extent there was no consent but coercion, that would be rape.
I value your take on your local evangelical culture, especially the despair of seeing jobs disappearing. You write in the spirit of Joe Bageant, who I also admire.
Hi OFM,
Most people consider sexual harrassmant or “misconduct” with a minor to be something different than with an adult.
So if accusations against both Clinton and Moore are true, I would condemn both.
The accusations of sexual contact with a minor are far more serious in my opinion.
Isn’t that the case even in rural Virginia?
“>>… American evangelicals have long since decided that the only way to win the culture war is to have their churches permanently uncouple from character and moral accountability”
Some evangelicals are guilty as charged, no question. But by and large this accusation is a crock of shit, for several reasons.
First off, I know a ton of evangelicals, and while most of them do support our constitutional rights, lol, not very many of them, excepting the ones out in the boonies, really care very much one way or the other about gun rights.
What they ARE doing is making common cause with the gun rights faction against their perceived common enemy. This sort of alliance is as common as dirt, and happens all the time among all political factions, when it suits a couple of factions to combine arms.
Now the VAST majority of people,INCLUDING nose in the air liberals believe THEY are in sole possession of moral truth, and that they are therefore entitled to tell other people what they must think and believe.
I am personally a little smarter than that, and definitely not so arrogant.
Whether a yet to be born baby ,or fetus, take your choice, is a human being, or no, is a question that simply cannot be answered on objective grounds.
I can’t remember any body on the left side of this issue objecting to charging a person who shoots and kills a pregnant woman with murdering TWICE, although I’m sure I could turn up a case or two, lol.
It’s a matter of opinion.
Are you so arrogant that you believe you have the right to tell other people what they should and must believe?
Various people in times past have made such arguments. Slave owners told abolitionists to mind their own fucking business, that black slaves weren’t humans, here in the USA, not that long ago. I remember talking to one of my own great grandfathers who KNEW people who owned slaves prior to the Civil War, but sometime later of course. He wasn’t yet born himself at that time.
I have a sister who is an ICU nurse with every possible bit of training that can be had in looking after prematurely born BABIES. She’s a professor at a med school. Every year, she contributes something to saving preemies a few days younger than the year before.
Incidentally she believes in abortion…….. in some situations. So do I.
But I’m not so arrogant that I believe I am entitled to tell other people what they must believe, when I understand that there are no objective grounds for doing so.
Morality is not subject to determination of “truth” in the sense that we can determine truth in chemistry or physics by running experiments in laboratories.
It seems to be impossible for some boneheaded liberal types to deal with certain facts.
One such fact is that tens of millions of people believe that abortion IS murder, and another is that making fun of them energizes them to get out and vote for the opposition at election time.
Keep it in mind that the people who are WITH you, politically, in this case are already on board, and hardly any of them will ever even CONSIDER voting R.
So as a PRACTICAL matter, you should think about badmouthing the opposition, because the opposition has the power to elect Trumps, when fired up sufficiently.
You want to win elections, or preen your SUPPOSED superior morality ?
OFM, I totally accept that tens of millions believe that abortion is murder. And that gays should be outlawed if not hung (Roy Moore again). And that gun ownership is sacrosanct.
The religious right has a very clear morality, one which I personally find both sad, intolerant and offensive. I get that it goes both ways…
Now the VAST majority of people,INCLUDING nose in the air liberals believe THEY are in sole possession of moral truth, and that they are therefore entitled to tell other people what they must think and believe.
Mac, that is just about the silliest thing I have ever read. We are a nation of laws. Our laws tell people how they must behave, not what they must believe.
I have known people who have told people what they must believe. They were to the man, or to the woman, right-wing Republican Bible-thumping Christians. And virtually all of them tell you what you must believe Mac. You must believe what they say is truth or else you are doomed to hell forever.
I have never known a liberal, not even one, who has ever told anyone what they must believe. They simply say you must obey the law.
How about two hundred or so ?
Speaking PERSONALLY,
Roy Moore ought to be tarred and feathered and rode to the courthouse on a rail, convicted, and put in with the general population in the toughest penitentiary in Alabama.
Speaking as a scientifically literate individual, pundit, and rabble rouser, Roy Moore did pretty much the same thing millions of other men are doing right this MINUTE… all over the world, all over America, regardless of their political affiliations, or their economic status, or their educational achievements. Men, and women too, tend to do whatever they want, quite a lot of the time, when they think they will get away with the doing of it.
I ENJOY poking sharp sticks in the eyes of the countless Democrats who are now ( justifiably! ) foaming at the mouth about Moore’s sins and crimes, whereas they pretended that Bill Clinton didn’t do the same basic things, or worse, although the record does indicate he stuck to abusing WOMEN, as opposed to GIRLS.
You may have noticed that I enjoy poking sticks in the eyes of Republicans equally well, lol.
I go wherever the facts lead. I want change, everybody except the dug in elite wants change, and more of the same isn’t going to solve our problems.
We need a general political housecleaning, BOTH sides of the aisle.
“ABSTRACT
A number of numerical experiments with artificial random signals (the second order autoregressive processes), which have important statistical properties similar to that of the observed instrumental temperature (1850-2015), were carried out. The results show that in frame of the selected mathematical model the return period of climatic events, analogous to the current global warming (linear increase of temperature for 0.95˚C during the last 135 years) is 2849-5180 years (one event per 2849-5180 years). This means that global warming (GW) of the last 135 years can unlikely be fully explained by inherent oscillations of the climatic system. It was found however, that natural fluctuations of climate may appreciably contribute to the GW. The return period of climatic episodes with 0.5˚C warming during the 135 years (half of the observed GW) was less than 500 years. The result testifies that the role of external factors (emission of greenhouse gases, solar activity etc.) in the GW could be less than often presumed.”
Presented to Fred M. for showing fantastic intent with some result in life and still breathing.
TKS! ROTFLMAO!
BTW, the fact that I’m still breathing must have something to do with that molecular intent you were referring to, eh?
Why Does the IEA Always Underestimate Solar Energy’s Rapid Growth?
Baseball philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” That doesn’t stop people from making them, mostly because predictions going out years or decades are long forgotten when the predicted time arrives.
A research engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Hague, Auke Hoekstra, decided to check up on the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its predictions for the rise in solar photovoltaic (PV) installation.
Um, is anyone here surprised that the IEA has consistently underestimated the growth of solar?!
Hey Fred, Boomer II brought this up back in May, see:
Below is his latest graph including the IEA’s latest new and improved projections. Note how the EIA projects that after doubling in less than three years, it is going to take more than ten years to double again. Why on earth would that be the case? See:
for a history of global deployments to date, including estimates for 2017. The IEA couldn’t even get this year’s estimate right, the year in which the “new and improved” forecasts were produced! How embarrassing. On second thought, after 15 years of hopelessly wrong projections, they are probably quite proud of their new, less embarrassing work. Whatever!
Hi islandboy,
Using BP stats, World solar consumption in TW-hours grew at 42.7% per year from 2005 to 2016. See chart below. If we assume World electricity generation grows at 5% per year from 2017 to 2040 and solar consumption grows at 30% per year until all electricity needs are met by solar (ignoring wind, hydro, and nuclear for simplicity), then this point is reached by 2037. It is clear to me that such a scenario is likely to be too optimistic. An alternative scenario has solar growing by only 17% per year (probably too conservative) after 2024 and 25% per year from 2017 to 2024 would meet 83% of all electricity generation by 2050 (assumed to grow by 5% per year on average from 2017 to 2050). The balance could easily be met by wind growing at 8% per year and nuclear and hydro combined growing at 2%/year.
In any case my opinion is that the IEA is likely far too conservative and much of World electricity generation may be solar by 2050 and possibly as soon as 2027. Probably 2040 is a reasonable guess.
Hi Dennis, I’m coming to the conclusion that the IEA (and the EIA) are staffed and run by people who do not readily grasp the concept of disruption involving exponentially growing technologies. I see them as classic examples of “experts and insiders” that Tony Seba talks about in his presentations based on his book “Clean Disruption”.
I bring up Seba again here because in his projections, he outlines how the growth if both solar and EVs will confound the experts . In the case of solar, recent projections are that capacity growth for 2017 will be somewhere between 95 and 100GW, following about 75 GW in 2016 and roughly 50 GW in 2015. If you follow the trade press for solar it would appear that manufacturing capacity additions are out-pacing retirements so the manufacturing capacity is likely to be in excess of 100 GW in 2018 and increase some more in 2019. It would behoove these forecasting agencies to focus on that figure (module manufacturing capacity) since virtually all the solar that is manufactured in a given year is sold, delivered to customers within say, 12 months. I have seen no news of any stockpiles of solar panels being built up anywhere in the world. Until I see evidence of the kind of forecasting done by the solar trade associations coming from the EIA and IEA, I expect their projections to continue to be badly off the mark.
As far as EVs go, Seba does not address this directly but, last weeks reveal of what can only be described as a supercar from Tesla motors could be classified as disruption from above. In this model of disruption expensive, niche products are disrupted by new technology that offers superior performance at a competitive price. This superior performance then trickles down to the mass market. There are supercars on the market now that cost between a few hundred thousand dollars to over two million dollars. The car that Tesla revealed on Thursday night, can out accelerate every single other car on the market bar none, at a price between $200,000 and $250,000. For all the other supercars, it’s game over. They have until 2020 to try and respond. They will most likely not have an adequate response so it will be bye bye Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bugatti and all the rest. In their market acceleration and speed rule.
The mass market will eventually be overwhelmed by EVs as well. Maybe not as fast as Seba projects, maybe faster?
I’ll have to disagree about it being game over for all the ICE supercars. Admitting up front that I’m offering my opinion about a market that I have never and will never be a part of. Not even close. But I do know a little bit about gearheads and their love of machinery. This is a small niche market, very small. And I don’t think absolute top speed and acceleration are all that matter to those guys. If it were, there would only be one car in the market at any time, and that would be the top dog. Performance car lovers enjoy the engineering and the workings of the vehicle more than just having the very top car in the world. Sure, it’s an ego boost to outrun the competition, but that’s just a small part of the game.
I know that some folks may think it’s low-class, stupid, or whatever to enjoy mechanical apparatus, but that’s okay by me, keeps them out of my way. I’ve been having fun bringing a 1950 Buick straight-8 engine back to life, just for the hell of it. Spent probably a day’s time polishing the brass tanks on a 1955 IH truck radiator to put in front for cooling. Not worth a tinker’s dam to most folks, but it keeps me off the streets. Also love hearing an old supercharged NHRS Cummins clatter in an old Autocar.
Ahh, ’nuff of my foolishness! Back out to the chainsaw, wind got part of a tree, I’m getting the rest of it down.
Stan
As I said it’ll be game over in 2020. Who’s gonna want to spend $2.5 million on the ultimate ride, only to have some punk in a Tesla Roadster, that cost one tenth of the price, show them their tail lights all the time. It’s about bragging rights and Tesla has raised the stakes to a point where internal combustion makes no sense.
The romance with the old, relatively complex technology, with multiple possible points of failure is going to grow old fast. Below is a picture of the incredibly complex W16 multi-turbo motor from the $2.9 million Bugatti Chiron. I wouldn’t even want to think about the possibility of something going wrong with that machine!
I guess you didn’t understand my point that it’s not all about the absolute top performer for the gearheads.
Hell, if that’s all that matters, all those super-rich boys could just sign up to ride Elon’s rocket. I don’t know it’s top speed and acceleration spec’s, but I’ll bet it’s faster than his supercar.
Sounds like you’re not acquainted with the hotrod car culture, especially the racing part. A major part of that activity involves going to the track on the weekend and blowing something apart, going back home to rebuild it, hopefully stronger this time, and doing it again. I’ve never played in that field myself either, as I never had the money to waste and don’t really like breaking my stuff, but I know plenty of guys who have.
It’s less than 3 years till 2020, so I could live to see if it’s game over for the high-performance ICE cars. Maybe I will be able to pick up one of their throw-aways cheaply. I do love a bargain.
Stan
“I guess you didn’t understand my point that it’s not all about the absolute top performer for the gearheads. “
I think I do understand your point about being the absolute top performer for the gearheads but, the point is, supercars are rarely owned by gearheads. IMO you have to be obscenely wealthy to spend $2.9 million on a car that really isn’t suitable as a “daily driver”. To put it another way, many supercars cost as much as the entire annual income of the lower end of the top one percent of US income earners. That means if you barely manage to make it in to the one percenter club a supercar could well cost more than one year’s income. I don’t think that income bracket is made up primarily of gearheads. These are CEOs, pop stars, movie stars, sports stars etc., not gear heads.
These cars are status symbols and exclusivity is an important part of their allure. Apart from their cost, extreme performance is part of that exclusivity and before Tesla, extreme performance usually carried a very hefty price tag. Part of Seba’s presentation is about the traditional relationship between extreme performance and price. This latest move by Tesla has produced a vehicle with performance that exceeds that of very expensive supercars at a much more reasonable price. They have significantly reduced the price of admission to what was previously a very exclusive club.
The ICE supercar is going to be replaced by the likes of the Concept 1 and Concept S from Rimac (pictured below). Only 8 Concept 1s were made and they cost like a million dollars. Even then, the newer Concept S cannot match the 2020 Tesla in acceleration or top speed. Rimac will probably outdo Tesla by 2020 but, nothing with an ICE is likely to be able to do it.
Hot rodding is another ball game altogether and I rent some storage space next to a guy that works on turbo charged cars sort of as a hobby. He took his own 13 second, street legal (barely) Toyota Starlet to the local drag races this past Sunday and I was too busy to troll him on Saturday while he was prepping his car but, I get the feeling he has heard about the new Tesla and is avoiding me. He hates when I talk about EVs but, has acknowledged that they are hard to beat on the drag strip. For an idea of what gearheads think about the new Tesla you can have a look at the following two youtube videos
You just helped make my point. Exclusivity appeals to the rich. Those 2mil+ pricetags will keep 99.9% of the population out of the top end of the ICE supercar niche. The rich guys will still want them. I’m sure you’re right that most of them don’t turn wrenches, but they don’t really race either. Stoplight to stoplight a couple times on the weekend is all they need to satisfy their need for speed.
The guys like your acquaintance with the turbo cars will just keep right on doing what they’re doing now. And yeah, it hurts the current top-speed guys feelings a bit to get beat, but that’s always the case. One winner, everybody else loses. But they keep right on playing, ’cause they love doing it.
Some of the environmentally aware groups like to protest against the car folks hobby, but they don’t bother mentioning their own consumption.
Oh well, only 3 years or less and our little debate will be answered, right? I’ve noticed that 3 years seems to slip away quickly……….
Stan
“Oh well, only 3 years or less and our little debate will be answered, right? I’ve noticed that 3 years seems to slip away quickly.”
Yup! Right about the three years thing as well. Do you ever visit https://insideevs.com/ ? The debate is raging over there in the comments section of articles like:
My other point was that the exclusive side of the market is probably going to be dominated by newcomers like Rimac. They only made eight Concept Ones and one of them was totaled during the filming of an episode of a tv series.
For an interesting take on the Rimac, here is an article on the opinion of one of the other co-hosts of the tv show in question:
If you are familiar with the BBC series Top Gear or Clarkson, you will know that this is almost unbelievable!
Not familiar with the TV shows, so I know nothing about that part.
I read the links you posted, except one of them kept giving me an error when trying to read the full article.
Read most of the comment section on the Rimac. Seems to be fairly evenly divided between your view and mine on whether the big-buck ICE’s will be killed off by the faster EV’s.
A somewhat funny thought occurred to me as I read that long list of comments, some of them somewhat vehemently pressing their argument. I suspect that most of them are about as likely as I am to be able to buy any of the cars they were supporting or trashing. Guess that’s about the same thing as old fat fuckers arguing about football teams, and who’s got the best quarterback. Couldn’t roll out of the recliner fast enough to catch a biscuit thrown from the kitchen, but “we’re gonna whip some ass next saddidy.
Later,
Stan
Yair . . . .
“an old supercharged NHRS Cummins clatter in an old Autocar.”
Nah, a tweaked 6-71 Jimmy was more my kinda thing. (grins)
With maybe brown-tag 70 injectors…..nah, I know nothing ’bout them screaming green leakers.
Last trip I got to make with my Dad was in about a ’70 model Astro with a 318 and 13-speed OD. Hauled a 7000 gallon tank on a dropdeck out to west Texas. Bucking a headwind it wouldn’t quite pull top gear, and Dad never was one to lug an engine. My first time to Texas and when we got out to fuel it seemed the wind was whistling in my ears, no matter which direction I faced.
Ahhhhh, the good days are gone! Guess I’ll just dig out my half-dozen Slim Dusty CD’s and pretend I’m in your part of the world way back when.
Yair . . . .
Bloody hell! I had “Lights on the Hill” playing as I read your post.
Go well my friend.
If we assume World electricity generation grows at 5% per year from 2017 to 2040
That seems a little high. My guess is that growth will slow down soon, as China matures. My very rough in-the-head estimate is that 5% per year for 23 years would bring average world consumption to around the level of the EU. That would be pretty amazing.
Hi Nick,
Perhaps you are correct, I was using the growth rate for the most recent 5 years and simply extrapolating.
Note that the rate of growth from 1985 to 2016 (all the data in the BP stats for electricity generation) for electricity generation at the world level is 9.23% per year. For the past 5 years the growth rate has slowed to 4.85% per year.
Also note that as EVs replace ICE vehicles there may be an increase in the rate of growth of electricity consumption, rather than a decrease.
I just picked a round number based on the past 5 years.
If the rate of growth is slower, then solar can replace other forms of energy more quickly, for example in my “conservative” scenario above for renewables growth and 3%/year increase in world electricity consumption, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear combined provide 100% of electricity needs by 2044.
An assumption of zero growth in electricity consumption after 2016 would have renewables plus nuclear provide all electricity by 2036 (for the conservative renewables growth scenario. A faster growth of solar (30%/year), no growth in total electricity consumption and other assumptions for growth of wind, nuclear and hydro left unchanged leads to all electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2031.
Feel free to create your own scenarios.
Hi Dennis, the world electricity generation was 9866 TWH in 1985 and 24816 TWH in 2016, so the average annual growth rate is (24816/9866)^(1/31)-1 = 3.0%
The average annual growth rate between 2011 and 2016 is 2.2%
I wonder when you calculate the average growth rate, if you mistakenly used arithmetic (rather than geometric) growth rate
That’s a relief. 9.2% growth for 30 years seemed way too high: that would mean four doublings, which would be quite amazing.
But, I didn’t have time to dig out the BP data and redo the calculations. Thanks.
Hi Political economist,
Yes you are correct 3% electricity growth 1985-2015.
I made a mistake on the spreadsheet.
For 2010-2016 the growth rate in electricity consumption is about 2.3%/year.
“Why Does the IEA Always Underestimate Solar Energy’s Rapid Growth?”
The best answer I have seen was published this morning (Monday morning in Australia, late Sunday in the Americas) at RenewEconomy.com.au with the original from November 17th at Energy Post
Why then does the IEA do this? It is supposed to be an advisory body to its 30 member countries, all of whom signed the Paris Agreement, committing to keep warming well below 2°C, and to pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5°C. The IEA ought to be showing them how with its climate scenario. It ought to be helping them do so by making climate the main focus guiding decision-makers.
The reason is that the IEA’s real masters appear to be the fossil fuel companies. Last week, when ministers of member governments held their two-yearly meeting, they were joined by the IEA’s Energy Business Council, made up of energy companies, 89% of which produce, consume, service, finance, or lobby for fossil fuels.”
The reason is that the IEA’s real masters appear to be the fossil fuel companies. Last week, when ministers of member governments held their two-yearly meeting, they were joined by the IEA’s Energy Business Council, made up of energy companies, 89% of which produce, consume, service, finance, or lobby for fossil fuels.”
Yeah, I knew that! 😉
More Greenland glaciers threatened by climate change than previously thought
In the 1100’s a.d. as Europe was in the Dark Age, the Vikings were at their most successful point in colonizing Greenland thanks to the land being free of ice completely. There was a reason why Greenland was named Greenland after all.
During the Viking age, a SMALL PART of Greenland was ice free during the summer months. Almost all of Greenland was then and is now covered with an icecap.
Joe, you’re in over your head.
Greenland is 836,000 square miles and the ice cap is 660,000 square miles in area. That gives 78 percent ice covered.
Not really. The name Greenland was a publicity stunt to fool viking colonists into thinking it was a better place than Iceland, when it was much worse. The interior of Greenland has been covered by a massive ice sheet for the past 125,000 years, only the southern coast was livable to the Vikings, and only during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), when they etched a precarious existence by combining limited and hazardous farming with sheep raising, fishing, and marine mammal hunting. The Inuit, who arrived at the area at about the same time, were better adapted to the colder conditions that would become prevalent after the MWP ended. The Vikings could not learn from the Inuit and adapt in part because they considered themselves far superior to the Inuit.
I’ve been following this topic since I learned about the effects of calorie restriction on lab animals in controlled trials back in undergrad days.
Calorie restriction works wonders in mice, in terms of lifespan, and appears to work in people as well.
This stuff is not quackery.
Fasting may literally add years to our lives.
Mac,
Have you tried calorie restriction, or fasting?
I think I’m going to give the 16 hour thing a bit of a try…
Hi Nick,
My neocortex tells me what I OUGHT to do, but my midbrain is my REAL boss, as is the case with with about ninety nine. nine percent of all of us, lol.
But I have in changed my ways a couple of times over the years, due to scaring myself silly, and lucking out. I gave up motorcycles after having a couple of REALLY close calls, etc.
Life got too easy sitting around the house mostly, playing nurse, not HAVING to work physically, and not having motivation enough to EXERCISE as such, rather than doing the outside things I used to do for recreation, such as hunting and fishing in the mountains on foot. I got fat.
And so a few years back I HAD to face up to the fact that it was nearly impossible to walk up a hill without a couple of rest stops that I used to top without even noticing it.
So I went on a calories restricted diet and lost forty pounds and feel ten years years younger, at least, and I have kept the weight off.
And now I’m trying to get myself hyped up to get back to into the same sized clothing I wore as a farm kid. That’s another thirty pounds. The hard part is not eating at night. I can handle it fine all day so long as I can stay busy.I am seldom to never HUNGRY, physically, eating the way I do now, but I still have a powerful urge to eat, partly because it’s pleasure able, partly because eating was a form of self medication I used to deal with being stressed out.
Maybe I WANT to eat MOSTLY because I am PROGRAMMED to eat so as to store to store up fat, in case of famine, lol.
Anybody who doesn’t understand this last point is not very well informed in respect to the physiology of species that normally depend on seasonal food surpluses stored as fat to help survive seasonal shortages. Fair skinned red haired white guys descended from Scots Irish ancestors with some Viking/ Norman blood are especially likely to be programmed this way. Food can get to be pretty damned scare during the winter months right thru spring for hunter gatherers, and even for subsistence farmers.
We are NOT physiologically adapted to our current lifestyles, lol.
We’re killing ourselves by way of over eating and under exercising to the tune of a decade or two on average, maybe longer. Pollution is robbing us on average of a few years too, on average, but teasing out actual numbers is tough, and the estimates of various professionals are all over the map.
The thing that’s worked for me is a high protein high fat diet consisting of a little red meat, chicken, fish, beans, a little peanut butter,olive oil, etc, and LOTS of fruit and veggies. Near zero junk food, no dairy other than a little cheese and cream for coffee, a little butter on veggies, only a LITTLE little bread or other carbs , zero sugar water. No more than one beer , two at the most, once a week.
If I could get motivated to do it, I would get down to the point my ribs stick out, because I don’t believe in an afterlife.
It’s impossible to say for sure, but everything I have read so far indicates that being super skinny is very likely to add some years, maybe as many as ten to twenty, everything else held equal.
Arctic sea ice nearly the same as 2007, 2013, 2014, and 2015, and higher than 2012 and 2016.
European Meteorological Satellite (EUMETSAT) Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF) http://osisaf.met.no/p/new_ice_extent_graphs.php
There’s an excellent chance that the supposedly ignorant and evil voters in Alabama will send Moore home with his tail between his legs.
It’s less than street smart to accuse the majority of people in the state of being ignorant, stupid, ethically challenged, etc etc. This sort of talk motivates LOTS of people who would otherwise be thinking about and sometimes voting D from actually doing so.
Anybody with a lick of sense should be able to see this instantly.
A man who is to about ready to swap sides in a dispute of any sort is FAR MORE apt to stick to his old usual position if you gratuitously jump in his shit.
Read this link, and you will see that a LOT of voters in Alabama crossed party lines in recent elections to vote against Moore while voting for Romney for instance.
At least one or two regulars here have made blanket accusations to the effect that the people of Virginia support Trump and Republicans like mindless sheep, but the real situation is more that Virginians are not all that happy, as a GROUP, with the overall liberal/ D party agenda.
Virginia went NUTS for the D’s a few weeks back, winning by runaway margins, statewide, mopping the floor with the R’s, picking up fifteen seats in the state legislature.
Now according to some people here Va is a redneck place that they wouldn’t even consider as a home.
Well, we’re not QUITE as stupid as certain folks think. A hell of a lot of Virginians voted for Trump in order to vote against HRC, it’s true. But of all the ones I know personally who voted for Trump, at least half of them will vote against him if he runs again.
These particular Trump voters would have voted against him almost to a man if they had really known just what sort of man he is. They have found out since, lol. They had less than a year to learn about Trump, whereas they had DECADES to learn about HRC.
OFM says about Trump -“if they had really known just what sort of man he is”
OFM says – “Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout”
And yet the self claimed “COACH” from Virginia(Trumpster aka KGB) spent all his energy condemning HRC prior to the election( and after)
*****
OFM says:
11/10/2017 AT 10:38 PM
“Old Judge Roy was just doing what comes naturally to men who think they can get away with it”
Lonely Trumpster, are you still defending your Republican friend “Old Judge Roy” ? OFM, what would you do if you could “get away with it” ? Be a man ?
Thank you HB,
I see you are STILL reading my comments, and I appreciate all the help you give me helping me stay motivated.
About Trump’s incompetence and lack of ethics…….. There was no need for me to do more than say “Trump’s worse” back then, because you and everybody else in this forum who comments on politics took care of THAT chore.
About HRC………. I mostly said that I thought she would win, but at times I also said she might lose, due to her countless shortcomings.
AS a matter of PRINCIPLE, I believe in rooting out incompetence and corruption wherever I encounter it, and if HRC demonstrates ANYTHING in spades, other than the ability to climb the political ladder on the coattails of her husband, it’s incompetence and corruption.
IF you read my response to Doug’s question about Moore, you know my personal opinion of Moore is that he should be tarred, feathered, convicted, and imprisoned in the general population of Alabama’s toughest prison. You would also know that speaking as a knowledgeable person, one with a broad basic knowledge of human nature, scientifically based, that I said he did basically the same thing as Bill Clinton, except Clinton did WORSE, actual forcible rape, according to HIS accusers, iirc, but I gave him grudging credit for sticking to women as opposed to girls as victims.
Now YOU, you slimy little partisan, YOU TELL US, what do you believe about Bill Clinton?
I can’t recall you making a single comment pointing out the shortcomings of HRC and her hypocrisy, or the hypocrisy or failings of the D party establishment in general.
My basic argument is that we need a general housecleaning on both sides of the aisle, and that the most practical route to that housecleaning is via the Sanders wing of the D party.
A lot of people, including some very high ranking members of the D party agree with me, and more are coming to agree with me from one month to the next. ( HOW’S THAT FOR ARROGANCE, they are coming to agree with ME? Lol , I was just in a position to say what they believed all along, but felt constrained from saying until recently.)
Now I’m waiting for you ,WORMTONGUE, to answer my question, and I have ten bucks and will prove it by posting a picture of the money order here for your favorite charity, if you answer without dodging. What’s your opinion of Bill Clinton in respect to abusing women?
What’s your opinion of HRC in respect to sticking with him and covering up for him??
Now as to what I have done with women?
I was always lucky, in every respect that counted, and never had any NEED to abuse a woman or girl, although I slept with some that were legally underage when I was also underage myself, or just barely over that age.
My luck was based on the fact that I was ( BACK THEN! ) quite physically attractive, muscular, and well liked by most of the other kids, excepting those who were the children of the local elite. I didn’t have enough money to run with the country club crowd.
But I had enough to manage fine with the other kids. When I went away to U, it didn’t hurt that the girls soon discovered that I lived on a super scenic farm within an easy walk of a national park in a resort like area, and that I had free access to half a dozen pretty quarter horses, although I owned only ONE of them> Little hidden private lake, IDEAL for skinny dipping, lol, right on the place.
I fell in love ( mutual!) with a knock out “TEN” girl who was almost seventeen when I was a couple of months past eighteen, and we fucked like mink from our fourth date on at every possible opportunity for the next four years and we got married a few days after graduation.
If you are physically and intellectually attractive, and I was, back then( purely a matter of luck in the lottery of life of course, no credit to me ) there will always be at least one girl or woman around who will make it clear that she’s willing.
When my first marriage failed, and it was mostly my fault that it did, I got an apartment in the Richmond version of Greenwich Village, and made myself at home in the U district for a long time. A lot of newly “liberated” women actually chased men in that environment, lol.
It wasn’t too long before my Big Apple princess decided she wanted me, and that long term affair and marriage lasted into my middle age. Since then I haven’t met the RIGHT woman, and I doubt I ever will. I know some, but they don’t turn me on, either physically or intellectually, and I’m satisfied with things as they are.Physical sex is still a possibility, but most definitely not a priority at my age, and not having a woman around means I have total control of my time and resources, once I’m finished with one last piece of family business….. my old Daddy won’t live forever, but I’m beginning to think he’s going to pass the century mark pulling away. There are no less than six living or dead members on his side of the family known to me personally that have lived past a hundred, and half a dozen more within easy striking distance.
Now I’m old, and a little fat, and my hair is white, and I couldn’t get a date with a physically attractive woman in a whore house with a roll of hundred dollar bills.
Now tell us what you think of Bill Clinton, and women, and HRC sticking by him instead of using her scissors on him, or at least busting a lamp over his head instead of just busting the lamp, and leaving him.
She had no excuse in terms of being NEEDY and thus having to stick around to feed her one child, considering her connections and her education, etc.
Black Friday is coming: Simply stand in the isle of a corporate, Big Box chain store or in the parking lot of a strip mall that squats, hideous, on some soul-defying, U.S. Interstate highway and allow yourself to feel the emptiness and desperation extant. The tormented landscape, besieged by an ad hoc assemblage of late capitalist structures, emporiums of usurped longing, reflects the desperate, rapacious nature of late capitalist imperium.
Ye olde hardware store, lighting store, clothes store, town drug store could never handle the size of the herd we have today. The olde curmudgeon needs to update his story a bit. It’s not the good olde days again in small town America, it’s been overrun long ago. Get over it HK, those things have been around for six decades now.
The mall where I live is like a mausoleum. Sears, the main anchor went tits up. People overwhelmingly prefer the “old town” where they can wander with their dog (same dog welcome in most stores), where all the better stores operate: best restaurants, as well as a good selection of book stores, clothing stores, bakeries, grocery & drug stores, etc. Almost like Europe but maybe that’s why this olde curmudgeon lives where he does. And, perhaps I’m not alone:
BY 2022, ANALYSTS ESTIMATE THAT 1 OUT OF EVERY 4 MALLS IN THE U.S. COULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS.
I occasionally shop at a Mall (there are no indoor ones where I live, but groups of Midsize Corporate Players).
But all the kool kids are downtown, where it is culturally vibrant, and diverse.
Frackville, Pa? That whole region has been failing economically for a long time now, old anthracite coal country and railroading. You can drive on a main route for 30 miles through several towns and not find a place to eat. Frackville is the largest town in the area and not very big. I can totally understand the closing of the mall there, depressed region.
My reason for going to Frackville was to visit and walk the Mahanoy Plane, an old gravity railroad site steadily going back to nature.
But besides some areas becoming economically depressed over the years, I think there are just too many stores. We are starting to see the shakedown in retail space, pushed on by the internet and overexpansion.
“But besides some areas becoming economically depressed over the years, I think there are just too many stores. We are starting to see the shakedown in retail space, pushed on by the internet and overexpansion.”
Dead on.
The people with purchasing power have moved farther out and away, and new malls have sprung up closer to where they live NOW. The older ones are harder to get too, more miles to drive, more traffic lights, and poorer and fewer customers for the ones that are still open.
I used to stop at a particular McDonald’s location, many years ago, when the customers were typically clean, odor free, and reasonably polite and spoke using words you can repeat in polite company.
That Mc D is still open, and the customers these days are reasonably polite, if you don’t act uppity with them, but nobody who dresses well and bathes regularly and refrains from saying motherfucker every third word stops there more than once, if his business takes him into that part of town.
Ditto the old malls, between the longer drive in worse traffic on older streets with more lights and the loss of the more respectable and more prosperous customers, they’re done for.
I pay double for a cup of coffee and a pastry when I go to town these days so as to enjoy it in more enjoyable surroundings, although I can and do fit right in with the people on the bottom rungs of society when it suits me to do so.
Put on clean but not flashy jeans and shirt and you’re fine in both situations so long as you act right.
Basically the Baby Boomer generation grew up in the suburbs, creating the demand for large self-contained malls back then. When they had kids, the Millennials, their kids moved into cities for college, but unlike their parents, they never quite got as good paying jobs out of school due to the crushing taxes and entitlements the democrats came up with in the time between the separate generations. So instead of settling down, having kids and buying a house in the suburbs, their American Dream is to stay in the city meaning all these suburban malls are now dying out.
Get excited everyone — the South Pacific Island of Niue, with a population of 1,625 people has vowed not to build a coal plant. The nation is so small it is not even a member of the UN. This champion of the move away from coal is 98% powered by diesel. Everybody Cheer!
Powering Past Coal Alliance: 20 countries sign up to phase out coal power by 2030
Twenty countries including Britain, Canada and New Zealand have joined an international alliance to phase out coal from power generation before 2030.
The list includes none of the top 15 coal producers in the world. It’s non-binding. Nearly all the countries that have signed up to “Power Past Coal” are already powered by hydro, gas, nuclear or some combination of renewables (with interconnector back up). The Marshall Islands are powered by almost 100% diesel, with a hint of coconut oil. Luxembourg barely even generates electricity — importing 98% from other countries. And 68% of the people in Angola don’t even have access to electricity.
HYDROGEN CARS FOR THE MASSES ONE STEP CLOSER TO REALITY, THANKS TO INVENTION
A new device that can inexpensively and efficiently create and store energy and create hydrogen fuel, and that needs only sunlight to operate, has now been developed by researchers. The device could make hydrogen cars affordable for many more consumers because it produces hydrogen using nickel, iron and cobalt — elements that are much more abundant and less expensive than the platinum and other precious metals that are currently used to produce hydrogen fuel.
What with Nissan and Toyota putting emphasis on Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars rather than battery vehicles and Toyota, the world’s largest purveyor of hybrids, are we now poised to leapfrog pure EVs altogether to pursue what might be the next big breakthrough: pollution and petroleum-free fuel-cell cars that convert hydrogen to electricity? Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, the “father of the Prius” who helped put hybrids on the map, has said he believes fuel-cell vehicles hold far more promise than battery electric cars.
How puzzling. Fuel cells are still much more expensive than EVs with comparable range; use either fossil fuel H2 or twice as much electricity per mile (if you use wind/solar power); and require far more expensive new infrastructure compared to EVs. As I noted above, fuel cell vehicles are hybrid-electrics. If you’re concerned about range, or the time required to refuel for long trips, it makes far more sense to use a plug-in ICE hybrid, which eliminates 90% of fuel consumption (in theory, the other 10% could be ethanol, if desired). Given that most H2 these days comes from fossils, a plug-in ICE hybrid would be far cleaner and environmentally conscious – most early adopters who might consider such vehicles would know this.
Many observers are baffled by the intransigence of Japanese car companies. One theory is that they are extracting as much value as they can from their ICE and hybrid investments, while quietly developing pure EVs (which really aren’t technically that different from hybrids). I believe Japanese companies are now reluctantly shifting to pure EVs to satisfy China’s demands.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d like H2 to work, but I suspect that it makes sense more for stationary applications like seasonal grid backup, where efficiency isn’t important, you don’t need fuel cells, and you don’t need new distribution infrastructure.
“Don’t get me wrong – I’d like H2 to work, but I suspect that it makes sense more for stationary applications like seasonal grid backup, where efficiency isn’t important, you don’t need fuel cells, and you don’t need new distribution infrastructure.”
DEAD ON.
There are still tons of problems with fuel cells, and with the manufacture of hydrogen storage tanks suitable for use in cars and trucks.
There’s no real reason to my knowledge for betting that the combined costs of small portable fuel cells, hydrogen separation, distribution and storage in small tanks on or in cars will ever be less than the cost of pure electric propulsion using batteries.
Having said this much, hydrogen might eventually serve well as internal combustion engine fuel or with fuel cells in heavy trucks and other machinery, if the on board tanks can be built at reasonable cost. It would be easy to build a truck engine that can run on hydrogen, compressed natural gas, OR diesel fuel or any combination thereof, but the doing of it would add maybe ten thousand dollars to the cost of a truck equipped to run on all three fuels.
The tech is off the shelf except that suitable tanks for the on board storage of natural gas and or hydrogen are still super expensive and lacking in sufficient capacity. But fueling big trucks with hydrogen could be easily accomplished with just one or two locations per hundred miles of major highway. Truck stops that sell diesel aren’t usually much closer to each other than that in most places, except right around cities.
Wang, J., et al. (2017). The implications of fossil fuel supply constraints on climate change projections: A supply-side analysis. Futures, 86, 58-72.
“Climate projections are based on emission scenarios. The emission scenarios used by the IPCC and by mainstream climate scientists are largely derived from the predicted demand for fossil fuels, and in our view take insufficient consideration of the constrained emissions that are likely due to the depletion of these fuels. This paper, by contrast, takes a supply- side view of CO2 emission, and generates two supply-driven emission scenarios based on a comprehensive investigation of likely long-term pathways of fossil fuel production drawn from peer-reviewed literature published since 2000. The potential rapid increases in the supply of the non-conventional fossil fuels are also investigated. Climate projections calculated in this paper indicate that the future atmospheric CO2 concentration will not exceed 610 ppm in this century; and that the increase in global surface temperature will be lower than 2.6 °C compared to pre-industrial level even if there is a significant increase in the production of non-conventional fossil fuels. Our results indicate therefore that the IPCC’s climate projections overestimate the upper-bound of climate change. Furthermore, this paper shows that different production pathways of fossil fuels use, and different climate models, are the two main reasons for the significant differences in current literature on the topic.”
Both Dennis and Fernando Leanme have supported that from the supply side it is unrealistic to think emissions necessary to surpass 610 ppm atmospheric CO₂ could be produced this century. It is illogical to believe in Peak Oil and at the same time believe in IPCC RCP 8.5 or 6 worst case climate scenarios.
Figure 1 from the paper eve looks quite optimistic regarding non-conventional fossil fuels in my opinion.
Yep. It’s time to transition away from fossil fuels ASAP.
On that I agree, but we should do it wisely. Renewables have serious problems and are unlikely to constitute a solution. At present nuclear looks like our best option. France is an example. France produces affordable electricity, exports electricity, and produces less CO₂ from fossil fuels that its neighbors in doing so. Curiously their current government talks about changing their superior model for an inferior one based on renewables. We lack an example of a country that produces electricity at the level of France with renewables and the reason is clear, it can’t be done with present technology. Only countries with plenty of hydro can approach that, like Portugal or Norway. And not only their model cannot be replicated elsewhere, but it runs a very serious risk if a long dry period takes place.
Nuclear certainly could be made to work, but at present it’s more expensive and riskier than renewables.
Nuclear used to be the best alternative, but tech and engineering have changed, and nuclear is losing ground every day.
Wind and solar are cheaper, and come in far smaller modules which are financially far less risky.
Wind and solar are only less reliable is you impose the unreasonable requirement that in each country (and in the US in each state) that all grid generation shall be 100% domestically sourced with no fuel imports: we don’t impose that requirement on nuclear, coal or gas generation.
Regarding price Russians, Chinese, and Koreans seem to know how to build them cheaper. How come Spain could afford to build a bunch of them in the 1960’s when it was a much poorer country and now they are unaffordable?
Wind and solar have two outstanding problems. The low energy density requires to dedicate significant land. If scaled to provide the energy we need, the ecological impact is huge. And if nuclear plants killed a fraction of the birds wind turbines kill there would be an uproar demanding their immediate closure.
The second problem is that they are not dispatchable. When there is no wind and sun you need to get all your energy from some other source. This forces you to have a duplicate system in place that you seldom get to use, and this is hugely expensive and wasteful. But it has been shown that there are times in the winter when an anticyclone over Western Europe causes a wind lull for days. With so little sun at that time, where are we going to get our electricity? From Mongolia? Will they overbuild hugely to curtail most of the electricity only to have available when we lack?
It simply won’t work. You can extrapolate those graphs of increasing energy from wind and solar all you want. Once a country reaches a certain penetrance it nearly stops installing because it creates more problems that it solves.
Germany is without government for the ridiculous exigences of the greens to phase out coal and ICE cars when Merkel’s CDU and the FDP know perfectly well the German energy system cannot take it.
The renewable energy dream could easily turn into a nightmare. Small nuclear, Thorium reactors, and other advances taking place in the nuclear field are probably the way forward.
Nuclear energy is not a bad idea (other than the 24,000 year half life on the waste, that is sitting in cooling ponds all over the planet).
However, humans design, build, and maintain them.
You are going to lose—
(uranium-235 has a half life about 700 million years, in case you think it is a better option)
Thorium?
We have been waiting on that one forever– it is a constant like the speed of light– no matter when observed, 1955 or 2017, it is always 5 years away.
Are there any commercial Thorium Reactors producing electricity in a market based world?
‘Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.’
(The world’s only operating thorium reactor – India’s Kakrapar-1 – is actually a converted PWR)
Javier,
Once again I see why people get so angry at your comments. This one has so many unrealistic claims that its makes me tired thinking about responding to it. A quick answer to the only point that begins to be interesting:
they are not dispatchable
You’re concerned about rare, seasonal lulls. They can be handled well by a range of strategies, but perhaps the most relevant is cheap “wind-gas”: H2 or methane generated using surplus power, stored cheaply in utility underground storage and used in cheap generators (not fuel cells).
They can be handled well by a range of strategies, but perhaps the most relevant is cheap “wind-gas”: H2 or methane generated using surplus power, stored cheaply in utility underground storage and used in cheap generators
Another imaginary solution to a real problem. Where is that being done economically?
There are some small and medium size projects, but there are two relevant facts:
1) all of the components are old, tested tech and engineering which have been tested at scale: H2 electrolysis; H2 underground storage; cheap non-fuel cell H2 generation.
2) “wind-gas” simply isn’t needed yet at large scale. There are some decent-sized projects in development, including injection of H2 into natural gas storage, but there’s no reason to invest in it yet in very large systems.
Here’s an analogy: we could get rid of all landline phones tomorrow, if we chose to and if it were desirable for some reason. Why do most people still have them? Because they still have some utility, and there’s no need to get rid of them. You can’t point to any large countries which have done so. But if we needed to, we could. And, we probably will, especially for residential use. But…not tomorrow, or the day after.
IF and this is a mighty big IF, we were to settle on a standardized design for new nukes,and build a lot of them, it could be that they might be cost effective.
Whether they can be made safe, or not, is an open question,and depends on the definition of safe employed by the various factions arguing pro and con.
I don’t personally see any reason why the spent fuel problem can’t be effectively solved, except for the one reason has so far proven itself eternal and insoluble… human stupidity.
Technically it looks simple enough for me. Pulverize the hot waste, and pump it down ten thousand feet, highly diluted, into an exhausted oil field where in the geology is exceedingly well known due to hundreds of wells having been drilled. There must be plenty of oil fields in places geologists believe are and will be stable for millions of years.
So far the only replies I have ever gotten in response to this possibility is that people occasionally call me an idiot for mentioning it. Nobody has had anything to say about why it wouldn’t WORK.
The most of these french nuclear plants are somewhat old now, so in the Fukushima age. Sometimes they have a little bit of problems, but luckily they manged somehow no one exploded yet. There have been a lot of “almosts”.
They have to rebuild all of them – and that’s somewhat expensive since new models don’t come cheap since they are a lot more safe – what is a good thing.
Precisely that they are old means that they are long lived, even when built by 1960’s standards. With luck wind and solar might last one third, so will need to be replaced twice just to last as long.
With luck wind and solar might last one third
That’s unrealistic. Try to resist the impulse to make stuff up.
And solar panel degradation alone can take out 20% of electricity production in 25 years. Not counting that some weather phenomena can damage the panels.
The first generation of automobiles lasted on average of about five thousand miles, according to my reading, and it took until the fifties for the industry to build cars good enough to reliably last fifty to one hundred thousand miles without need of MAJOR refurbishment and repair work.
It’s rather likely that the wind farm that is being SCRAPPED was poorly designed and poorly sited, IF it is actually being scrapped.
If the site is a decent one, then a sustantial part of the expense of building a new wind farm from scratch can be avoided by building a new one on the same site….. The permitting, the roads, the transmission lines, most likely the foundations of the towers, most likely the towers themselves, and most of the wiring , will be good to go for another twenty five years.. The site itself is already graded as necessary. That work, the surveying work, the political work, etc, will never have to be done again.
A new wind farm the same size on the same spot will probably produce fifty percent more electricity, on average, at substantially lower cost in constant money.
Even Javier understands that oil and gas come out of holes in the ground and won’t last forever, but I don’t expect him to point out this obvious truth, because it doesn’t jibe with his agenda. .
As of Dec. ’16, wind generating capacity was 11.898 gigawatts, providing about 6% of Canada’s electricity demand. The Canadian Wind Energy Assn. has outlined a future strategy for wind energy that would reach a capacity of 55 GW by 2025, meeting 20% of the country’s energy needs. Pretty darn good I’d say.
I never make stuff up….Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard
Using one anecdotal example, that doesn’t even support the claim (claim of roughly 9 year life, vs actual example of 23 year life). That’s makin’ stuff up.
One could point to nuclear plants that were scrapped in their first year of operation, if one wanted to play that game.
23 years is right between the 20-25 years that the industry and governments use for their calculations. And there are reports that indicate that real life performance could be worse.
Nuclear plants in Spain were commissioned for 40 years but their life has been extended in most cases and could easily reach 60 years. 20 years versus 60 years is one third.
Nuclear our best option? What could go wrong!
Only took 6 years to find a bit of hot fuel that got away.
After 30 years the exclusion zone of Chernobyl is one of Europe’s biggest wildlife preserves. All animals are doing much better, including wolves, lynx, moose, deer, bison, even Przewalski’s horses and for the first time in over a century they got brown bears in the area. Hopefully the radioactivity there won’t go below safe levels any time soon.
“win-win situation” ? Goddammit man you must be delusional!
Get some professional help, it’s out there. Or just shoot your fukin’ self!
Delusional?
Delusion and ignorance are a badge of honor among Javier’s tribe.
Or just shoot your fukin’ self!
LOL! That made me curious enough to unblock Javier long enough to read that one comment of his.
Basically if we were to follow his logic we should nuke half the planet so we can turn it into a nature preserve.
Yes, it does seem that radiation is somewhat less harmful to wildlife than humans. However it in no way follows that it is GOOD for wildlife.
As usual Javier is either unaware of the scientific research that has studied the negative effects of radiation on wildlife around Chernobyl or he is cherry picking only the results he likes or whatever suits his personal agenda.
An honest scientist would dig a lot deeper into the data and peer reviewed papers. Especially a scientist with a background in the biosciences. One can do a search on Google Scholar to find plenty of information that debunks Javier’s rosy view of this topic!
Invited Commentary
Effects of ionizing radiation on wildlife: What knowledge have we gained between the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents?
Authors
Nicholas A Beresford,
David Copplestone
First published: 20 June 2011Full publication history
DOI: 10.1002/ieam.238 View/save citation
Cited by (CrossRef): 19 articles Check for updates
LONG-TERM CHRONIC EXPOSURE OF WILDLIFE IN THE AREA AROUND THE CHERNOBYL NPP
Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl accident, there is no consensus on the impact of the chronic exposure to radiation on wildlife in the area around the NPP from which people were evacuated in 1986 and which remains largely uninhabited. This area is commonly referred to as the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Some have suggested that the removal of humans, and cessation of associated activities, has led to the Chernobyl exclusion zone becoming a thriving and biologically diverse environment with many protected species (IAEA 2006). However, such observations can be criticized as being based largely on anecdotal evidence and not rigorous scientific study.
Although the removal of human inhabitants can be viewed as having had a positive net ecological consequence, there may still be detrimental consequences of radiation exposure. For instance, populations may be abundant, but do those in more contaminated areas have the same age structure and reproductive success as those less exposed to radiation? In some areas of the exclusion zone, organisms receive chronic dose rates above those expected to, for instance, impair reproductive success (Chesser et al. 2000). Authors describing the diversity in the exclusion zone recognize the potential for detrimental effects of chronic radiation exposure and recommend long-term studies.
Now back to ignoring Javier!
It turns out I know a little bit more than you think about long term effects of low levels of radiation on wildlife.
The commentary you link and quote by Beresford and Copplestone relies for its analysis on long term effects mainly on a single group’s work:
“Conversely, a group of workers has reported a variety of effects in a range of organisms at comparatively low dose rates within the exclusion zone (Mousseau and Møller 2011). Møller and Mousseau (2009) reported reduced numbers of aboveground invertebrates with increasing dose rate “around Chernobyl” in 2006 to 2008.
Other observations by Møller, Mousseau, and coworkers include: reduced diversity and abundance of “forest” birds in areas with dose rates in excess of 1 mGy d−1 (Møller and Mousseau 2007) and germline mutations, increased sperm deformities, reduced egg viability, albinistic or deformed feathers, and reduced survival rates (determined from annual return to nesting sites) in barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) (Mousseau and Møller 2011).”
So who are these people on whose research your commentary is based? Wikipedia tells us:
“The two primary individuals involved with the attempt to suggest that the mutation rate amongst animals was, and continues to be, higher in the Chernobyl zone, are the Anders Moller and Timothy Mousseau group.[174][175][176][165] Apart from continuing to publish experimentally unrepeatable and discredited papers, Mousseau routinely gives talks at the Helen Caldicott organized “Physicians for Social Responsibility” (PSR) symposiums, an ultra anti-nuclear group, devoted to bring about a “nuclear free planet”.[177] Moreover, in years past Moller was previously caught and reprimanded for publishing papers that crossed the scientific “misconduct”/”fraud” line.[178] The duo have more recently attempted to publish meta-analyses in which the primary references they weigh-up, analyze and draw their conclusions from is their own prior papers along with the discredited book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.[179]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Difficulties_in_assessment.2C_media_hysteria_and_unscientific_claims
As usual when you attack and try to discredit me, you are the ill-informed one. Your criticism is based on the discredited propaganda of rabid anti-nuclear activists.
The evidence in this case is indisputable. The flourishing of wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. All those animals wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the radioactivity. They would have been shot and killed or wouldn’t have found enough resources if humans have remained there. And that’s a fact.
It is a pristine example that if we leave Nature alone it will recover.
Yep, gathering round the snake oil salesman was entertainment back in the old days when entertainment was scarce. A bad way to waste time. There were always a desperate few who would put aside any sense of reality and make a purchase.
Now it’s just pathetic, annoying and destructive.
Best to keep snake oil garbage out of one’s brain.
Fred, it’s generally good to be able to see! Fitness costs of increased cataract frequency and cumulative radiation dose in natural mammalian populations from Chernobyl http://www.nature.com/articles/srep19974
Didn’t you read my comment above, GoneFishing, or haven’t you read that the last two authors of that article are Timothy A. Mousseau & Anders P. Møller?
That’s another article by fraudster Anders Møller, of whom: “A Danish government committee has ruled that one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists, Anders Pape Møller, is responsible for data fabricated in connection with an article that he co-authored in 1998 and subsequently retracted.” http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2004/01/ecologists-rocked-misconduct-finding
Any research by that duo in connection to Chernobyl is severely tainted. They are activists that do not stop at fabricating data. It has been demonstrated.
More suspicious research by the Møller Mousseau team.
On further thought, maybe you’re right. This little “Chernobyl experiment” does make a pretty good case for Ron’s post elsewhere on this blog about too many humans means less, or no, wildlife. Conversely, no humans means more wildlife.
Maybe it will all work out to give us E. O. Wilson’s “Half Earth” scenario, although he didn’t specifically advocate the use of nuclear meltdowns as a preferred means to that end.
Stan
I am not advocating the use of nuclear contamination to clear lands for wildlife. I just say that regarding nuclear, everything is exaggerated, including risks and long term consequences of accidents. To me the current level of safety is enough to make it our energy of choice. To other people no level of safety would be enough and rather have no reliable energy.
Hi Javier,
It will depend on prices, there is a lot of the unconventional resources, whether they will be cheaper than alternatives is unknown, hopefully not.
I agree that after about 2060 the non-conventional is likely to be too optimistic. Probably less than 1400 Pg carbon emissions from 1750 to 2200 from fossil fuel. Emissions from melting permafrost and other Earth system changes are difficult to forecast.
Here is another one for the Uh-Oh squad.
The world’s tropical forests are so degraded they have become a source rather than a sink of carbon emissions, according to a new study that highlights the urgent need to protect and restore the Amazon and similar regions.
Researchers found that forest areas in South America, Africa and Asia – which have until recently played a key role in absorbing greenhouse gases – are now releasing 425 teragrams of carbon annually, which is more than all the traffic in the United States.
Of course our in house expert will disagree with these findings but,
ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE BEING FELT FARTHER SOUTH, SCIENTISTS SAY
An international summary of five year’s worth of research on Arctic climate change concludes the top of the world is getting warmer faster than anyone thought. The report completed for the Arctic Council, the group of eight countries that ring the North Pole, was released last week. It represents the work of 90 scientists from around the world and summarizes the most recent research from 2010 to 2016. “Cumulative global impacts related to Arctic change are expected to be large,” the document said. “Adaptation costs and economic opportunities are estimated in the tens of trillions of U.S. dollars.” The report concludes the Arctic continues to warm at twice the pace of mid-latitudes and is likely to see warming of up to 5 C as early as 2040.
Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can’t be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040. “We should have started 20 years ago,” Barber said. “We didn’t get our act together and we’re still dicking around trying to figure out how to price carbon. “These things are costing us. And they’re costing the stability of our planet.”
“But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040. “
Hogwash.
I agree. There’s not a snowball’s hope in hell things will stabilize “some time around 2040”, Paris agreement notwithstanding. We’re in a mess and nobody knows how it will play out.
Maybe us big brained mammal apes will start a new age of the dinosaurs. Wouldn’t that be ironic deja vu all over again?
The Arctic is getting warmer winters and cooler summers, like this year. In the dark, cold Arctic winter the ocean is under a thick insulating layer of ice. The very dry air can change temperatures easily with less energy. The warmer more humid air is coming from the South. The humidity precipitates as snow, as more snow is falling on Greenland these latest years. The resulting dryer air is warmer than average, but still many degrees below freezing point. Most of that energy is lost to space through IR radiation in the dark winter.
The Arctic is venting more heat to space, and in doing so Arctic sea ice is barely affected. It appears an auto-regulatory mechanism. Not worrying in the least.
The curve illustrates the total mass change month by month measured in gigatonnes (1 Gt is 1 billion tonnes or 1 km3 of water.) The left axis on the graph shows how this ice mass loss corresponds to sea level rise contribution. 100 Gt corresponds to 0.28 mm global sea level.
…
Overall, the Greenland Ice Sheet has during 2003-2011 on average seen a net annual ice loss corresponding to 234 km3 of water. Or approximately 0.65 mm in average annual contribution to global sea level rise (Barletta et al. 2013).
This is well known.
“Over the year, it snows more than it melts, but calving of icebergs also adds to the total mass budget of the ice sheet. Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.” https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
But this has nothing to do with what I was saying. More warm humid air is making it North these past years causing increased snowing over Greenland and increased temperatures in the Arctic. That is what the data indicates. The interpretation is just the opposite than is being given. More heat is leaving the planet through the Arctic and Greenland ice sheet is losing less mass and contributing less to sea level rise.
Since February 2016 the planet is cooling. We are observing the changes that this produces. Some people want to get alarmed no matter what.
Also, in the 2016-17 season, Greenland gained 550 Gt of water at its surface instead of the average 350 Gt. So in that year probably Greenland ice sheet was in balance and did not contribute towards sea level rise.
That’s called weather. It changes day to day and year to year, didn’t think it needed pointing out. 🙂
Of course our in house expert will disagree with these findings
I never disagree with findings. Just with the alarmist spin that is given to them.
The Arctic is warmer in the winter and not melting in the summer. This is one of the ways the planet has of cooling after the big 2014-16 El Niño. How do you think the decrease in temperatures since February 2016 is being achieved?
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill
In terms of the big picture, it’s generally a really serious mistake, ecologically and economically as well in terms of the health of the OVERALL economy, to use the materials most commonly used to make liquid biofuels for that purpose. Used cooking oil can be better utilized as an ingredient in animal rations for instance, unless we decide we’re going to give up meat and dairy.
Otherwise, we farmers will be burning more petroleum to produce livestock feed than is saved by feeding used cooking oil into diesel engines.
Coffee grounds are almost dead sure better utilized by mixing them with other food wastes, sterilization ( effectively accomplished by composting as a rule ) and returning them to the soil, even if the soil is English soil.
Improving efficiency is the thing we should be working on.
Now if Londoners have figured out how to run a city bus on only thirty to thirty five gallons of diesel PER WEEK, as indicated in the linked article, they know something we Yankees don’t……… unless they’re running these buses only a few hours a day and only M to F.
ADDED ARCTIC DATA SHOWS GLOBAL WARMING DIDN’T PAUSE
Improved datasets show that Arctic warmed six times faster than the global average during ‘global warming hiatus’. Gaps in Arctic temperature data caused a misperception that global warming slowed from 1998 to 2012, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The Earth’s average global temperatures have been rising over the past century and accelerating as more human produced carbon dioxide enters and lingers in the atmosphere, which is why the idea of “global warming hiatus” seemed baffling to some scientists. But the new data set and resulting estimates show conclusively that the warming didn’t pause.
Since congress is about to pass tax cuts which will force scientists to pay their fair share and fund their own way from now on that isn’t much of a surprise at all that they would decide to redefine the temperature record to make climate change look worse. Soon they will need massive private donations in order to pay for grad school tuition and economically harmful research, except first they need to find good material to interest the potential donors.
One of the main researchers was Chinese, what tripe can your demented, bigoted pea brain come up to explain his behaviour?
They are Chinese but work in Alaska so probably an H1B visa thing where they take jobs away from Americans and depress wages for everyone else. Like I said they’ll be paying their fair share in taxes soon enough with all the tax reform.
You are a moronic prick, try fucking reading before commenting.
Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, said he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.
They are Chinese but work in Alaska so probably an H1B visa thing where they take jobs away from Americans and depress wages for everyone else.
Fuck off. you dumb ass Nationalist Troll!
Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, said >he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.
Beat you – just.
When you lose your job to a person from a foreign land with no local connections, limited language skills and limited experience then you probably don’t have much going for you. Try upgrading your high school.
Adam – When a Chinese scientist gets his (or her) PhD from MIT, Stanford or Berkeley or Oxford, do you still reject their work because they’re Chinese? Just wondering.
The issue there isn’t that they are Chinese or whatever else. Instead this is about how almost all scientists these days take money out of the taxpayer’s pocket when they get all their research grants and then they double dip on already unfair advantages by not claiming grad school tuition waivers as taxable income. Well this unfairness is about to come to an end with the tax reform.
So you agree there was no pause and climate change is a major issue – there’s no issue there as you say – next time you should start your own thread abut the subject you think is important, i.e. that all scientists should do their work for about half the going rate (seems a bit socialist though), if I understand you correctly, instead of trying to hijack something against which you don’t have an argument.
Instead this is about how almost all scientists these days take money out of the taxpayer’s pocket
I think you are confusing scientists with politicians! The real unfairness is all the tax breaks to the ultra rich 1%. Apparently they pay you well to post this bullshit here!
Maybe you should look a map of the globe. The American taxpayer does not pay for all the scientific research done in other countries around the world!
So who pays for your trolling here? Is it Putin or the Koch brothers!
Adam,
Would you by any chance be from Mississippi?
Just wondering……………
And hoping……….
Stan
I am from California, Stan.
Good, Adam.
Last year I drove up part of the coast along the southern part of that state, then back to the eastern part, through the beautiful big trees, then up through the central valley where lots of this country’s fruits and nuts are grown. I love farm country, even though it’s not anything like nature itself. If it weren’t for farm country we wouldn’t have all the fruits and nuts.
The planet gains energy in the tropical area and loses it in the poles. That during the Pause the poles had more energy is just logical. The Arctic needs to have more energy to lose more energy. That’s how the Pause was achieved, as the incoming energy from the Sun is unlikely to have changed much. This is evidence of the Pause, not the opposite.
Some of those scientists probably know this. They are just not telling because it is inconvenient to the state of fear being promoted. They don’t lie. They just let the media and the people make the incorrect interpretation from the observations.
This pause does it still continue?
Javier has already made up his mind what the answer is so he is unable to process new information. Try reading original papers and making your own mind up instead of finding someone to confirm your preferred answer.
“Javier has already made up his mind what the answer is so he is unable to process new information.” Exactly, the antithesis of a true scientist which is why I keep him Xed out. That plus the fact he seems to think he knows more about climate science than the climate scientists do.
Poster Child for the : In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude.
Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.
Yup, fits Javier to a T.
It’s quite common to hear an older country guy say “he’s so dumb he don’t even know it” in reference to some particularly stupid mistake made by somebody who really should have known better.
It would be a long one if somebody were to work up a a list of all the people who are credited with discovering such things as the Dunning Kruger effect….. things well known to playwrights and story tellers back as far as we have written records.
Does anybody know of such a list?
Anybody here think this could be part of the trump problem? I’m serious. Didn’t he say such shit as, paraphrasing, ’cause I don’t want to take time to look it up, “I know lots of words, I know the best words”. That kind of speech would have given my high-school English teacher a shit-fit. And I attended, and managed to graduate a high-school in what is commonly thought to be poor, stupid Alabama. Goddammit man! Learn to speak if you’re gonna be out in public. Or do as I do, and keep your goddam ignorance to yourself!
Stan
This pause does it still continue?
We don’t really know. The Pause was an unexpected period of lower rate of warming. The rate of warming increased a lot from 2014 to 2016, but this coincided with a very strong El Niño and now we are having the usual cooling that takes place after a strong El Niño. Since El Niño is not considered climate change but a weather phenomenon we need to wait a few years to see what happens.
If part of El Niño warming is retained long term, then the Pause did end in 2014.
If global temperature returns to levels close to pre-El Niño temperature, then the Pause continues and El Niño was just a temporary weather interruption.
This information is not exactly carved in a stone tablet and hidden on the dark side of the moon. You gotta be a fucking idiot not to get it.
“Sciencedaily.com” is yet another science website that doesn’t have comment sections.
Bro. Jimmy,
What’s the problem with that?
Stan
The politics associated with oil may be as important or more important than the actual burning of oil, depending on how the cards fall over the next few decades.
This article throws some light into corners that few people know about, even some such people as hang out in forums such as this one.
Asian glaciers melting less than previously believed and contributing less to sea level rise.
Brun, Fanny, et al. “A spatially resolved estimate of High Mountain Asia glacier mass balances from 2000 to 2016.” Nature Geoscience 10.9 (2017): 668-673.
“High Mountain Asia hosts the largest glacier concentration outside the polar regions. These glaciers are important contributors to streamflow in one of the most populated areas of the world. Past studies have used methods that can provide only regionally averaged glacier mass balances to assess the glacier contribution to rivers and sea level rise. Here we compute the mass balance for about 92% of the glacierized area of High Mountain Asia using time series of digital elevation models derived from satellite stereo-imagery. We calculate a total mass change of −16.3 ± 3.5 Gt yr−1 (−0.18 ± 0.04 m w.e. yr−1) between 2000 and 2016, which is less negative than most previous estimates. Region-wide mass balances vary from −4.0 ± 1.5 Gt yr−1 (−0.62 ± 0.23 m w.e. yr−1) in Nyainqentanglha to +1.4 ± 0.8 Gt yr−1 (+0.14 ± 0.08 m w.e. yr−1) in Kunlun, with large intra-regional variability of individual glacier mass balances (standard deviation within a region ∼0.20 m w.e. yr−1). Specifically, our results shed light on the Nyainqentanglha and Pamir glacier mass changes, for which contradictory estimates exist in the literature. They provide crucial information for the calibration of the models used for projecting glacier response to climatic change, as these models do not capture the pattern, magnitude and intra-regional variability of glacier changes at present.”
“This estimate is in marked disagreement with the total estimate of −46 ± 15 Gt yr−1 from Cogley, 2009 and Marzeion et al., 2015 commonly used in the sea level budget studies.”
The calculated melting is only one third of previous estimates. Shame on the IPCC that in 2007 IPCC AR4 said “there is a very high likelihood that Himalayan glaciers will disappear by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate”. IPCC AR4 WG2
2017 Northern Hemisphere hurricane season totally normal
Philip Lotzbach of Colorado State University has tweeted a chart of the 2017 hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere. The numbers in parenthesis are the historical average. Overall for the northern hemisphere this has been an average year.
Now why are we being told that this year hurricane season represents a worsening situation due to increased CO₂ in the atmosphere, and a prelude of worse things to come? Beware of fake climate news. They are everywhere.
Will Anyone Actually Buy the Tesla Semi or any Other Class 8 Electric Truck
“scientists can work backwards to figure out many kWh the battery would need to be to go 300 to 500 miles, what it would weigh, and the cost for a truck at the maximum road limit of 80,000 pounds.”
I looked a bit – an european truck (they are limited to 38 tons) needs 100-150 KW to roll without hills – so a 1000 kwh battery is a good guess for the Tesla, . This would be 6 tons in today tech – the engine will weight less than the big block engines of fuel trucks, additional the 1 ton fuel tank.
So it’s round about 4 tons more – most truck deliveries are volume restricted, the weight restricted companies can drive their Diesels a few years more.
They wrote about less than 2 kwh/mile at 60 mph full load, so this hints at about 1000 kwh, too.
Thanks for posting that. I didn’t find it when I was looking for sensible responses to Musk’s bs.
The more I read, the more this sounds like the truck-building industry’s equivalent to the oil industry’s shale patch.
Stan
Energy skeptic (Alice Friedemann?) is blowing a lot of hot air on this subject, more of an entertainment piece than anything else. Making up numbers on a specific product that has not been released yet is just imagination. Wait until they are on the road to say why they won’t work, much less embarrassing.
I doubt if Tesla would not know what market it was after, they are good at that.
GF,
That link had more hype and cheerleading than real information. Didn’t impress me at all. Taking Musk’s vague promises at face value is no more useful than listening to the ignorant holy-roller preachers’ promises of “pie in the sky, bye and bye” that I grew up hearing.
Please excuse the loss of my usual restraint here,
maybe I’ll just take another sip,
Happy hour,
Stan
Okay, ignore the reality of his many successes from electronic banking, to the first successful and practical electric cars, rocketry, solar, and power storage. Musk and Tesla have a proven track record even though they are pioneering a whole new way of transport. I think I will believe him over some curmudgeonly naysayer who has no real facts or vision (not you).
This particular truck will fit a niche market. I surmise that Tesla is not out to take over the market yet, just prove the system and get the ball rolling.
Stan, if we don’t change the system will come to a grinding horrible halt which will be devastating. Better to accept and embrace the change than be part of the destruction as fuels run out and pollution reaches a peak.
But that is your choice.
BTW, your reference to pie in the sky is so appropriate considering the amazing successes of Musk’s Space-X.
amazing successes of Musk’s Space-X.
As long as you have the Russians to bail them out when they fail.
It is often best to let the pro’s do the hard work.
Yes, amazing successes, some well beyond what the Russians can do after over 6 decades of experience and lots of government funding.
SpaceX’s achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008);[9] the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010); the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012);[10] the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015); and the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017). As of March 2017, SpaceX has since flown ten missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under a cargo resupply contract.[11] NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon, which would be used to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth.[12]
All in a decade my negative friend.
GF,
I fully agree that the present fossil-fueled system is coming to a halt, and with possibly devastating consequences. I just dislike hype and bullshit, and was expecting more in the way of solid numbers. For the buyers of a truck, that will most definitely include the weight of the truck with batteries for a given range. Also price at same. Subsidizing fuel costs for how long?
Since he doesn’t have a truck to sell yet, I guess that doesn’t matter, presently.
I also agree that we had damn well better prepare for times of less fossil fuels.
That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t get back into trucking after the half-priced car-hauling slump in 2008-09 caused me to park my rig. Also why I now live in a very low-energy, low-maintenance dwelling that I designed with those purposes in mind.
As for SpaceX, yes they’ve done great work thus far. Manned flight is a bit more involved, we’ll soon see how that goes. They didn’t have much competition to have to beat though. I used to be a big NASA fan, now not so sure they could shoot a bottle-rocket up their own ass. I’ve done machine-work for NASA in the past, and hated to see their failures. They did contribute a lot to materials science. Kept developing alloys that we could hardly cut, and wanting them cut!
BTW, I also did work for a guy who, if I remember right, was a propulsion engineer, who later went to work in Utah for SpaceX. He didn’t last long there though, he seemed to be a bit full of himself. But I did see a picture of his daughter riding a rocket-powered bicycle that he built! Nothing like raising your own test subjects.
Later,
Stan
So far Tesla and Musk have not been the Wizard of Oz, more like the wizard of Menlo Park.
Just enough info to wet the curiosity and enough left out so they can look even better when the product arrives. That truck has a Cd of a Toyota Sienna, that is impressive. With battery costs falling below $100/kwh it should be an interesting run. The limiting factor will be the charging systems, something Tesla is good at implementing.
So down one for the good ole days then down another for the future.
Do you have Grandkids (just in time for Christmas). Should go with the cloud chamber you’ve already built for him/her. You have done the cloud chamber thing haven’t you?
PHYSICISTS DESIGN $100 HANDHELD MUON DETECTOR
“Physicists have designed a pocket-sized cosmic ray muon detector to track these ghostly particles. The detector can be made with common electrical parts, and when turned on, it lights up and counts each time a muon passes through. The relatively simple device costs just $100 to build, making it the most affordable muon detector available today.”
Another great one for the Grandkids (too advanced for Javier)
NASA MAP OF EARTH’S SEASONS OVER 20 YEARS HIGHLIGHTS CLIMATE CHANGE
“Werdell said the visualization shows spring coming earlier and autumn lasting longer in the Northern Hemisphere. Also noticeable to him is the Arctic ice caps receding over time – and, though less obvious, the Antarctic, too.”
AMERICANS ‘UNDER SIEGE’ FROM CLIMATE DISINFORMATION – FORMER NASA CHIEF SCIENTIST
Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.
“All 7 billion of us owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains; 6 billion of us also owe our existence to nitrogen created by Haber-Bosch from natural gas.”
People need simple stories just to deal with the groundless world we inhabit.
And there are plenty of Simpletons and Charlatans to give them comfort.
OFM, BRACE YOURSELF 🙂
SCIENTISTS ARE ABOUT TO TEST A DEVASTATING HYPOTHESIS: 2018 WILL SUFFER A LOT OF BIG EARTHQUAKES
“Though Bilham and Bendick don’t know for sure, they believe that every so often the Earth’s mantle might stick a little more to the crust. That could change how the liquid outer core flows. And because it’s all metal down there, the change in flow will affect planet’s magnetic field, which would ever so slightly affect the Earth’s rotation and thus change the length of the day by milliseconds. The Earth’s rotation has been slowing down for the past four years.”
Doug,
Thanks. Doesn’t that mean longer days, as in slower flips of the daily calendar? I sure as hell hope so, ’cause time seems to be slipping away faster and faster these last few years. Maybe I’ll be able to squeeze in another trip or two before time to clock out.
Stan
Thanks, Doug
I was just about dead sure that since you’re a geologist, the question would be of considerable interest to you, 😉 and that you would look into it.
Very few people outside the science and history communities are aware of it, but there’s a real possibility of a very powerful earthquake hitting in my general area. It’s happened before, but there were very few of us Euro types around then, and almost nothing in the way of infrastructure beyond a few crudely built barns and houses.
I’m guessing that the annual odds of another big one close enough by to maybe knock my wood stove over and burn down my house are about one half to one percent, but I’ve never seen any estimates made by geologists.
Another thing that IS happening, or is at least very likely to happen soon, is that an offshore wind farm will be built just offshore from CLEVELAND, about seven miles out into Lake Erie.
This link is a must read for those of us interested in renewable energy.
“This is beyond stupid. And there’s irreparable harm that’s being done to this party and to this country. someone needs to take control here and it’s certainly not the president,” Michael Steele told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
I have often pointed out that while a lot of R types are happy with Trump and his agenda, the R establishment hates his guts, and was afraid of him before the election.
Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn about the country, or the R party, or the people. All he cares about is his own ego, and the people who are ( for now) his “friends” , but a friendly relationship with Trump lasts only so long as it benefits Trump. He has allies, rather than friends.
This is worth posting in both petroleum and non petroleum.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/15/oil-expert-dan-yergin-on-why-venezuela-could-cause-a-big-shock-to-the-oil-markets.html
Now I realize that most of the regulars here don’t think much of Yergin, and I have made substantial fun of him myself, talking about measuring the price of oil in Yergins, when the price went three times or four times what he predicted……. but in the end the old TOD site is gone, and all of us who were doomer regulars there,your’s truly included, were wrong …. short term anyway, and now maybe medium term.
Yergin knows some stuff, and he’s a SUPERB writer,and anybody interested in oil and energy who hasn’t read THE PRIZE, his book on the history of the oil industry, is in for a REAL TREAT, and will learn a hell of a lot.
I will speculate that one way or the other, things will play out in favor of the Maduro government, or the opposition, within the next twelve months.
I would say a bit shorter time– the US needs to torpedo Ven in about 6 months, or the completion date for the Heavy Oil Refinery will be coming up, and the writing will be on the wall.
As stated before, GS, China, and Russia are all betting on Maduro.
We shall see–
A small heavy oil processing unit at Puerto la Cruz won’t do much to reverse oil field decline. Even a 200 kbopd upgrader won’t do the job, and there’s none being built.
Mac, from what I see, Venezuela’s production should keep going down at say 10% per year. Some of us have mentioned to the protest movement that it makes more sense to stop protesting openly because repression is so harsh, go underground and focus on helping pdvsa employees quit their jobs.
The Chinese are refusing to invest in Venezuela, the Russians are making token investments to hold acreage, but there’s simply no capability to engineer and execute large projects. So if the brain drain continues and the dictatorship remains entrenched, the production drop will continue.
But I don’t see a long term shut down, the repression machine is fully castroized, they murder or disappear people at will, the secret police from both Venezuela (SEBIN) and Cuba (G2) have the military under control.
Longer term the humanitarian crisis, epidemics (we are seeing diphtheria reappear) and the regime abuses may lead to heavy sanctions and possibly a full naval blockade to make tgey regime collapse. But that will be in 2018-2019, and by then exports should be about 1.3 million BOPD of heavy blend. That’s easy to offset with keystone XL if they ever get it going.
Hi Fernando,
I did a quick check and for the past 15 months (through July 2017) based on EIA C+C data Venezuela’s C+C output has declined at a rate of 13%/year, so your assumption of 10% per year may be optimistic, though you know the reality on the ground there far better than me.
Maybe the ghosts of Pinochet, Jiménez and Batista can bring back the conventional oil? Otherwise they’re pretty much f*cked.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/360455-house-democrats-introduce-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump
It’s a little early , according to the D leadership, but I’m not so sure about that , myself.
Iceland Mandates Mental Health Warnings On All Bibles
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/2017/10/iceland-mandates-mental-health-warnings-bibles/
Unfortunately, this was satire.
https://www.snopes.com/iceland-mandates-mental-health-warnings-on-all-bibles/
and:
https://www.business2community.com/us-news/iceland-mandating-mental-health-warnings-bibles-satirical-news-01947978#AxtQydwwDcS7bcDu.97
Yep!
Unfortunately, this was satire.
Still, not quite as funny as the news coming out about the Christian right in America, examplified by the likes of god fearing, honest and upstanding citizens, like the good judge Roy Moore and his supporters, in that bastion of intellectual enlightenment and rationality, otherwise known as Alabama.
Or how about the Trump administration sending clean coal advocates to the climate summit? If that’s not satire at it’s finest, I don’t know what is!
One does have to feel pity for the staff at the Onion these days, eh?
FredM,
I have the impression that Trump actually thinks that clean coal is something dug up out of the ground, that somehow the US has cleaner coal than other countries. Am I alone in this?
Synapsid,
I have the impression that Trump has a thought processes somewhat below that of a Hermissenda crassicornis, though that might be insulting to the average Hermissenda…
Cheers!
Trump has very obviously been surrounding himself with sycophants for most of his life. He’s living in a self induced fantasy. This characteristic no doubt makes him one of the best representatives of the American population in all of American political history. Not because it’s right or good, but because it seems highly representative of the characteristics of a majority of Americans. He seems to see no value in obtaining the insights of smart people who disagree with him. This will not end well.
I remember several years ago when right wing protesters could be seen holding up signs with pictures of Obama wearing a Hitler mustache and calling him a dictator. Now large elements of the right wing are turning towards faux-Nazism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; waste of rations. I wouldn’t throw them a life preserver if I saw them drowning.
“Take away our political naiveté, our self-assured exceptionalism, and our national character looks bare.”
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/14/tropic-of-kansas-american-war-el-akkad-book-review/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/11/16/trump-administration-reverses-ban-elephant-trophies/869589001/
Trump administration reverses ban on import of elephant trophies
.
My first thought on that development:
Jesus Suffering F*ck (I first heard that one in Scotland)
I see no constructive policy, no MAGA just a ‘If it was done by Obama, scrap it.’. Oh, unless it is handing the rich more money.
NAOM
The elephants are doomed anyway, but this shows what a piece of trash the guy is.
Goddammit Fred, I knew somebody would notice that Bro Roy Retard Moore was from Bama, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to mention it. We’re not all like that, really!
I guess I can take some small measure of comfort from the fact that Frump-the-chump isn’t from Bama, or anywhere else in the South. Let’s hear it for fucking Nu Yawk! Let’s not leave out those from the left side of the country who are making the news lately either. Just shows that “Grab’em by the pussy” has no respect for statehood, geography, or political affiliation.
Hell, all this shit is moving me right on up the ladder as far as my ethics/morality record goes. Too bad I’m not looking for a job these days, I would have a nice phrase to end my resume with. “Never convicted of a violent rape or unneeded murder.”
Okay, I’ll shut up now and get back to wiring the outlet for the 60 or so year-old welder I just found.
Stan
It’s OK, Stan, Nothing particular against the people who live in Bama. After all, I live in the sunny state of Flo-reed-DUH! 😉
My beef is only with a certain segment of the population!
No offense taken Fred,
Due to a lifetime’s training, I instinctively flinch whenever I hear the word “Alabama” on any national newscast. Chances are, it’s not going to be in any good context. There’s plenty of stupidity to go around in this state and all others.
Stan
My thoughts on a dialogue in the petroleum section that I perhaps best posted here in this section as I’m taking it way off topic.
Here is the dialogue I’m responding to/adding my 2 cents to.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-october-production-data/#comment-620850
My first thought is this:
The left vs right paradigm is a stage set for fools to argue upon about how they should best be enslaved (no offence).
Furthermore, in a world where that stage was abundant with natural resources the primary issue seems to me to be how to distribute the surplus gained by exploiting the ecosystem. I suppose that’s an ethical issue. Justice/administrating fairness is center stage in political philosophy. Concepts of justice differ in every culture. I think folks tend to go with the philosophy that they perceive is in their best interest, as in the one that allows them to obtain access to financial resources in the manner in which they prefer to do so. Blame is relative and people assign it in their own best interest. A key function in society is who controls the blame pattern. In USA the blame pattern seems to be directed ‘downward’ to blame the ‘welfare chiselers’ who are trying to get a LITTLE something for nothing instead of ‘upward’ to the Wall Street ‘fat cats’ who get a WHOLE LOT of something for nothing. That’s because the blame pattern is manipulated (I’m paraphrasing Utah Phillips in that last 3 sentences).
Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billionaires_for_Bush
Image source:
http://www.esf.edu/EFB/hall/
Utah Phillips was one of my favorite anarchists, and one of the great story tellers of all time.
I saw him perform numerous times.
As far as the left/right analysis, when I see the argument that it doesn’t matter anymore, I always see a sharp turn to the Right.
Just saying!
I agree. I’m kind of a left leaning libertarian aka anarchist with training wheels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
To paraphrase George Carlin- If you drop me from 10,000 feet I drift to the left because I care more about people than I do about property.
Actually had a Anarchist Thought class at UCSB, and my final paper was on Kropotkin.
Taught by:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghavan_N._Iyer
One of the most dynamic professors I have ever encountered.
That image is so true. Sums it up in a nutshell.
NAOM
That chart applies to oil/fossil fuels, not to energy overall. Solar power is 10,000 times larger than current fossil fuel consumption, and is non-depleting.
And, yes, the same economic theories apply. Economics is defined as the science of distribution of scarce resources.
Ah yes, The Magic Porridge Pot. Good luck with that. The Silicon Valley Circle Jerk™ will make a few bucks in the short term, but it won’t solve jack shit in the long term.
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economic theories, on the other hand, try to explain economic phenomena, try to interpret why and how the economy behaves the way it does, and define what is the best solution to particular problems- how to influence the economic phenomena. They are comprehensive system of assumptions, hypotheses, definitions and instructions of what should be done in certain economic situations.
You live in a dream world, as disconnected from reality as your ideological opponents that you loath.
Fossil fuel burning set to hit record high in 2017, scientists warn
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/13/fossil-fuel-burning-set-to-hit-record-high-in-2017-scientists-warn
2018 will exceed 2017. 2019 will exceed 2018. And so on.
Your shallow optimism is a cheap and naive form of positive thinking. Are you one of those The Singularity/Rapture of the Nerds types?
We are down at the source rock for oil now, doesn’t look good. The Arctic dream is just that. One more place to wreck for no good reason. Coal? So nasty and toxic only a sick and twisted mentality would think that is good. Natural Gas? The bridge to worse climate change and methane hydrate destabilization.
If their actual costs were ever charged, they would have ended already.
Prognosis: Fossil fuels are zombie fuels, their end is near and they are a terrible way to energize a world civilization. But watch out the zombies don’t get you.
And here is a very moderate view of the situation:
This Is The End of The Fossil Fuel Age as We Know It, Says Report
You can’t fight the future.
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-the-end-of-the-fossil-fuel-age-as-we-know-it-says-report
“2018 will exceed 2017. 2019 will exceed 2018. And so on.”
I wouldn’t bet on that, in fact I’d bet the exact opposite. At the rate solar PV is being installed, it’s gotta have an impact sooner or later and my guess is sooner, like next year. We have less than four months to find out what the contribution to electricity generation from solar for the US ends up at. My WAG, 2%. Just in case it is said that this is a US centric view, solar is expanding faster than it is in the US in other more significant places like China and India.
Hi Islandboy,
You should look at
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
All the data you need is in the excel file at the page above.
You have to make some heroic assumptions about the pace of solar and wind installation to assume that fossil fuel use will decline before 2025.
Do the analysis at the World level and it will become clear.
A fast energy transition with wind and solar growing 20%/year from 2015-2020 and 15% per year from 2021-2030 (at World level) would lead to a peak in fossil fuel emissions in 2025 and elimination of emissions by 2045 with total fossil fuel plus land use and cement carbon emissions at 865 Pg C from 1750 to 2200.
I doubt this scenario is realistic, but it is what we should aim for. The “slow” transition (which is more realistic in my view) shown in the chart below has total carbon emissions of 986 Pg from 1750-2200.
Uhmm…that’s puzzling.
Your first comment showed a chart which suggested that fossil energy availability was plummeting. Your second comment suggested that fossil energy production was growing too much.
So…are we agreed that energy scarcity isn’t our real problem, and that too much fossil fuel burning is our real problem?
Excellent point Nick. If solar energy were on that graph, the oil hump would be barely visible. We ignore all that energy at our peril. Pay no attention to the FF freaks, they are shaking in their boots since renewable energies not only replace FF but allow further generations of humans and life in general to proceed.
They have us in their hands right now but can see the light at the end of the tunnel heading right for them. Cheaper, better, cleaner, far less toxic and more life promoting. It’s coming, the horn has been blaring, yet they are deer in the headlights unwilling to move.
The world war is being waged right now. Most every other front has fallen, the energy front is under attack now.
The dummies don’t even realize how much energy has been cut already by efficiency and system analysis. They don’t want to see the fact that oil can barely keep up in even a more efficient and transitioning world. The world would have tried to use about twice as much energy if not for advances across the board. We would have hit the energy wall decades ago. Fossil fuels are the least abundant and most expensive energy on the planet.
U.S. SENATE PANEL VOTES TO OPEN ALASKAN REFUGE TO DRILLING
“The U.S. Senate energy and natural resources panel voted to open a portion of an Alaskan wildlife refuge to allow oil drilling on Wednesday, angering conservationists who had fought to save the area from fossil fuel interests.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Senate-Panel-Votes-To-Open-Alaskan-Refuge-To-Drilling.html
It’s OK to trash earth after all, here’s another one for us (maybe):
CLOSEST TEMPERATE WORLD ORBITING QUIET STAR DISCOVERED
“A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the solar system by a team using ESO’s unique planet-hunting HARPS instrument. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be detected after Proxima b. It is also the closest planet to be discovered orbiting an inactive red dwarf star, which may increase the likelihood that this planet could potentially sustain life.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171115091747.htm
I am not waiting the several thousand years for a probe to start sending back data.
Why not? This may be your only chance.
No need, population here will soon fall dramatically and the problem will be solved. 🙂
To paraphrase Chris Hedges- receding arctic ice is seen as a business opportunity to drop billion dollar drill bits in the arctic and harvest the last vestiges of oil, minerals and fish stocks. It’s insane.
I’m not much of a Dimitri Orlov fan, so I don’t recommend the second half of the show (although he is not at his worst in this particular case), but I do recommend the first half of the show in which the hosts interview Chris Hedges and Morris Berman.
https://xenetwork.org/xe/episodes/episode-60-days-destruction/
Might as well tap Yellowstone as an energy source. What other dangerous systems will humans tap to “make a profit”?
Hi GF,
Doug posted some stuff a few days back about volcanoes. Links there, if you look back maybe a week.
There’s serious talk about actually tapping Yellowstone not to get power ,but rather to allow it to cool down and thus avoid a catastrophic eruption. Using the energy drained off to generate electricity would help pay for the job.
In my estimation, this might be within the realm of the possible, from an engineering stand point, but from a political stand point, my guess is the probability of it being tried approaches zero, at least for the next few decades.
I think it best not to mess with Yellowstone. If Yellowstone blows it is a local (North America) cataclysm and a worldwide disaster.
Except that Arctic ice hasn’t receded in 10 years. I wouldn’t bet the farm on that business opportunity.
Yawn
“Evidently Javier was unhappy about NSIDC using daily data on sea ice extent to show that this year had the 2nd-lowest annual minimum on record. So, he decided to go with the September monthly averages for each year, and to start with 2007 to show a “trend” which, he says, shows “that Arctic sea ice has been increasing since that fateful September of 2007.”
Gosh, Javier, what was that you were saying about “The trend is always determined by the choice of starting point and ending point“? Didn’t you “Do your homework“?
Of course the trend isn’t determined by the choice of start and end points, but it’s strongly influenced by it. That’s especially true if you start (or end) with an extreme, which I discussed here. And that’s exactly what Javier has done: start, not just with the most extreme September average in the record, but one so extreme he himself refers to it as “fateful.”
Javier has also resorted to another denier favorite: computing a “trend” based on a time span that’s way to short. Way too short. Ten years, from 2007 to 2016. And, in classic fashion, he omits to estimate any uncertainty with that “trend.”
Let’s do the math for him.”
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/extreme-cherry-ice/
“The time span is so short that the uncertainty in any trend estimate is gigantic. In this case, it’s so big that there’s really no evidence sea ice is declining any more slowly than it was before. There’s no evidence that the recent apparent trend change is anything more than a fluctuation which looks like one.”
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/arctic-sea-ice-4/
Furthermore, from before
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-november-8-2017/#comment-620649
What kind of maths requirement did your PhD in biological sciences entail, grade 8? What an embarrassment!
Could be just a case of a three monkeys infection.
Don’t feed the troll. Put him on ignore.
Survivalist — Is Javier still doing his clown act, pretending to be a climate scientist? Best X him out and save your breath.
My bad. I clear my web browsing history from time to time and I have to remember to re-[x] him each time.
From 2007 to 2017, mind you. The count keeps growing.
I would not say that 10 years is too short a time to invest on something. And according to Divine & Dick 2006 “Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas,” the wait could be much longer, as the main periodicity they identify in Arctic sea ice won’t change phase until around 2045. Who would want to invest with such perspective? Zero yield for 28 years?
Says the person who uses an El Nino year to a La Nina year as evidence of cooling. Liar.
NAOM
You have no problem in using an El Niño year as evidence of warming. Without the 2014-2016 El Niño, no warming since 2003.
Thinking that a CO₂ emissions reduction will affect the climate and make it more to our liking is the biggest lie of our time.
Where did I say that? I look at the trend and ignore outliers as it is supposed to be done. You, on the other hand, used the last high El Nino for your “no warming” bullshit.
NAOM
Where did I say the world has not warmed? I just compare the observations to the predictions as it is supposed to be done, and it is clear that the world is not warming as much as predicted by models made just a few years ago. Alarmistic predictions cannot be based on observations.
2017 will be less warm than 2016, and it is likely that 2018 will be less warm than 2017 if La Niña finally shows up, so the disparity is going to look quite bad.
@Javier
“Where did I say the world has not warmed?”
Here:-
“Without the 2014-2016 El Niño, no warming since 2003.”
Oh, for someone so smart(y pants), you should keep up with the news and not stick n 2003. We are in a La Nina year.
NAOM
Well, then it is clear. There was warming because there was an El Niño.
And no, this is not a La Niña year. That we are in La Niña conditions doesn’t mean that a La Niña event is taking place. It takes several months of La Niña conditions for a La Niña event to be declared. Since we are already in November, 2017 will not be a La Niña year. 2018 might be a La Niña year if the conditions remain for the next five months.
Expect the global average temperature to continue decreasing in 2018 if that is the case.
The next world war is going to be fought over the Arctic. Once the ice melts for good, a free for all will take place among various nations. Already Russia has made moves to claim first dibs on key territory proclaimed neutral in the past. The potential natural resources locked up under the otherwise useless ice all these years is astonishing, and much too economically irresistible for any nation to pass up.
Jared, what makes you think the Arctic will be completely ice free before 2200 or later? By then, I doubt if anyone will be burning fossil fuels for energy. With maybe one and a half years worth of oil under the Arctic Ocean, is it worth the trouble or expense especially with no real market?
Even by the time the Arctic Ocean is ice free all summer the energy transistion away from oil and gas will be long on it’s way to completion.
This is just the desperation of an industry seeing it’s end days coming.
Here is an article concerning estimates and realities of Arctic fossil fuels.
To give a sense of scale to these numbers, world oil consumption is around 30 billion barrels per year, and world gas consumption is about 110 TCF per year. So the Arctic may contain anywhere from a 1-3 year supply of oil and a 7-27 year supply of gas.
However, these are merely estimates of “original oil and gas in place.” Typically, only 25-35% of that amount is economically recoverable using current technology. So the Arctic may in fact have perhaps a 4-month world supply of recoverable oil, and around a 2-year supply of gas.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-oil-is-in-the-arctic-2009-6
But you know the oil wouldn’t be taken out all at once, but over many years gradually. As long as there are prospects for economic growth by extracting the resource, someone will do so. Also I’d think there’s more than just oil trapped under ice. How about minerals, what kind of riches does Greenland have? We have limited understanding of what is under Antarctica either, so you have another world war in the making there due to the various claims over the land.
I don’t see your logic. War over very limited resources that one could obtain by other less dangerous and expensive means? Not very bright to put your nation in the crosshairs for some minerals. Cost to profit ratio is really low in that case.
Plus we don’t have to worry about BAU for that long, if we continue with your mindset the population will have dropped by a huge amount. No need for all those resources at that point, is there?
Transition or die. Trashing the planet further has deadly ramifications for all life on it.
You are deliberately overlooking the point, it is a drop in the ocean. Given the environment it will be hugely costly to produce and is unlikely to be developed.
NAOM
As long as there are prospects for economic growth by extracting the resource, someone will do so.
You seem to be stuck in a mindset that simply no longer makes any sense! There is simply no future prospect whatsoever for the old extractive economic growth model. If we continue on that path that you envision there won’t be any wars because the planet will already be dead. Your entire concept of what even constitutes, ‘riches’ i.e. mineral wealth, is headed for the dustbin of history.
How to Think Like a 21st Century Economist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR1Wy7ZAgY0&t=176s
Disruptive Innovation Festival
Streamed live on Nov 15, 2017
What is the goal of economics? Does GDP really tell us all we need to know about a country’s wealth and well-being? Our guest in this show argues that our economic system should be designed to meet everyone’s needs, while living within the means of the planet.
Kate Raworth is the author of the acclaimed book ‘Doughnut Economics’, and she will join us in the studio for an exploration of a new 21st century economic model and why she believes so many economists have got it wrong for so long.
The implications of her Doughnut Economics are profound and and can be read and embraced as a roadmap for change not just by experts or economists, but by everyone! This is a chance to challenge her with your questions and critiques.
Exactly. For what we know the Arctic might not be completely ice free again during this interglacial. And fossil fuels in large quantities will become uneconomical in just a few decades at most.
JQ- While I tend to sympathize with your sentiments, the next World War will likely be fought in Africa. Or perhaps the Middle East. While conflict in the Arctic is certain to increase from current levels, I highly doubt it will be a World War.
Do you have any references regarding the inventory of natural resources found there?
For those in first world/developed countries who are interested in gaining insight into their future living conditions, I recommend keeping an eye on trends in famine, ecological collapse and violent conflict in Africa. #LowIntensityTribalWarfare.
GMs EV strategy
https://www.gm.com/content/dam/gm/events/docs/5265845-684463-Chartset-11-15-2017
China on track for 500,000 EV this year.
Mega video surveillance manufacturer Dahua is now electric car manufacturer Dahua.
http://www.leapmotor.com/#section0
Dahua founded Leap Motors in 2015. It is joint owned by Dahua (33%) and 2 of Dahua’s executives (another 33% for Dahua’s Founder and 20% for Dahua’s former President).
Note these IP Video Manufactures have drive costs of products down more than an order of magnitude. – Source ipvm.com – Warren Buffet holding stake in BYD?
That is a low price per kWh for the new battery. Soon, especially if fuel prices rise, the savings from using electricity will pay for the battery.
Now if only the Powerwall would come down near those prices.
Republicans crazies are running out of corporate funding.
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060066527?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202017-11-16%20Utility%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:12901%5D&utm_term=Utility%20Dive
The price of solar keeps falling — about 80% in the past 4 years, and no bottom in sight yet.
https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/cheapest-electricity-on-the-planet-mexican-solar-power/
Great! So in the future we can use diesel power mining machines to mine ~30 elements (many of which are rapidly depleting), load them onto diesel powered trucks where they are driven to refineries (blast furnaces are very hard to run with renewables), the refined products of which are put onto container ships with diesel engines the size of houses where they are taken to another factory, assembled into solar panels, loaded back on the ships, and sent back to us so we can cleanly power our houses and electric cars in a completely renewable way.
Of course the battery back ups go through the same diesel powered process of non-renewable extraction, as do the cars themselves, as do all the components for making and maintaining the grid.
And the whole system will need to be replaced once every 30 – 50 years or so.
Hi Justanta
Except for strip mining or surface mining, the vast majority of all mining is done these days with electric machinery already, and once diesel gets to be really expensive, which it must someday, heavy freight transportation will be managed via electrified trucks and trains. There are two surface mines very near my home, one that produces granite, which is used for architectural work, and one that produces gravel and rip rap for construction work.
Both these mines are already powered more by electricity than they are by diesel fuel, and it’s already possible to buy ALL the machinery used in either one of them with electric motors, rather than diesel engines. SO FAR, it’s cheaper to run diesel.
In ten years, electric machinery will probably be cheaper.
And no matter how you slice it or dice it, you move one load of raw materials to build install solar panels or wind turbines, for every ten to twenty loads worth of electricity you get back in fuel free electricity from wind and solar farms.
Nor will wind and solar farms have to be rebuilt from scratch every thirty to fifty years.
Considering the planning and permitting costs, purchase or rental of land, engineering work, construction of roads, etc, and the fact that a lot of wind and solar infrastructure will last indefinitely, well……….
Probably no more than of the cost, and maybe much less, will have to be spent to refurbish wind and solar farms to same as or better than new condition every thirty or forty years, in constant money. The roads will be there, the rights of ways will be there transmission lines, etc will be there, foundations will be there, towers and racking will probably last that long twice , at least, etc.
And all the stuff that WILL have to be replaced can be replaced piecemeal, as it goes bad. New panels going up on old racks, using existing installed wiring, will probably cost only half as much in constant money per watt output, ten to twenty years down the road.
Wind turbine cost may fall just as fast, lol.
The grid requires maintenance, for sure, but except for the actual generating stations, the grid requires remarkably little maintenance work, in comparison to the value of it.
Wooden poles last thirty or forty years, and the same cable that was strung in my neighborhood prior to WWII is still in use in places, although most of the original transmission lines have been replaced with BIGGER lines.
How long steel and concrete transmission poles and towers will last is anybody’s guess.Mine is fifty to a hundred years easily.
You’re either trolling, or else you are not very well informed.
Unfortunately it’s the latter. Seems like every other day I read something that turns out not to be true. My recent foray was “When the Trucks Stop Running” by Alice Friedman, which makes the point that mining equipment utterly depends on diesel. Apparently that was incorrect. I’ll have to research more, but I stand corrected.
Solar panels don’t use rare earths or anything rare. No sense going down the list. The choice is between transitioning to renewable energy or watch civilization collapse as the fossil fuels run low. Pick one.
Yes solar panels don’t use rare earths, but the entire renewable “ecosystem” I think will require a lot of them, as well as hard to come by elements not on the list of 17 rare earths. I won’t stake my pride on that considering how recently I was thoroughly wrong, but from my understanding mineral shortages are something we definitely need to consider when talking about an energy transition.
My worry is not whether we should try to transition. We absolutely should. My worry is that right now, it seems like world leaders and most world citizens want to believe that we can transition while maintaining our current lifestyle and growth oriented economies.
I think a transition to a combination of solar, wind, batteries, pumped hydro, biofuel, and all the others will necessitate a period of degrowth followed by a substantial paradigm shift for the world economy, a new economy in which we “work while the sun is shining” so to speak. We are talking about refurbishing large portions of our industrial system at a time when energy from other fuels are tending to get more expensive on an EROEI basis. It irks me seeing all the discussion about the truly staggering decreases in price of renewables(which are truly staggering), while glossing over the significant challenges to their widespread adoption. The underlying assumption is always that we can continue to grow at our present rate while performing this mass renewable deployment, which to me seems obviously false and wrongheaded.
>Yes solar panels don’t use rare earths, but the entire renewable “ecosystem” I think will require a lot of them, as well as hard to come by elements not on the list of 17 rare earths
This is ludicrously vague, but still wrong. The only place rare earths might come into play in in magnets for wind turbines, but wind turbines don’t use permanent magnets for the most part.
I think you should rely less on propaganda and more on some basic research.
If you have read some of the hundreds of books put out by climate activists and scientists on the subject, you would know there is no underlying assumption of continued growth. My own take is we will be using a lot less energy in the future than right now.
Underground mining has used electricity for a long time. Any form of ICE is an anathema as it is an explosion risk and produces fumes that need to be removed. We have had many discussions, here, about electric powered surface mines including trucks that use electric from catenaries. Keep reading this blog and you will find out a lot more. The fossil fuel is pushing out a lot of misinformation about the need for diesel, see the reaction to the Tesla truck for example. They are reacting like deer in the headlights of change.
NAOM
The biggest single mining equip worldwide, and the biggest and heaviest landgoing moveable object ( I won’t call it a vehicle) is going electric:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overburden_Conveyor_Bridge_F60
I visited it once. Enlarge the photo to see how big this thing really is.
That is BIG and the USA still thinks diesel trucks are the way – yeesh!
NAOM
Jalisco has a new wind farm, I am not sure if just started or just completed. There is a lot of push for renewables. Nearly every time I go out I see new rooftop sets and you can order through Costco or put them on your phone bill with Telmex. I may have to look at solar, in a few years when costs fall and temperatures rise so I can add aircon.
NAOM
You in Jalisco?
Spent last Winter in PV and San Pancho.
Was that surfing in San Pan? Haven’t jumped on the ATM for a while.
NAOM
Great break. But my upper body strength is not what it used to be.
But had a lot of water time.
Did you meet Renee from San Fran in San Pacho?
I did.
We are the best of friends from way back! Amazing, with over 7 B people, and yet a random connection is still possible.
Meet the Tesla Semitruck, Elon Musk’s Most Electrifying Gamble Yet
Elon Musk has always dreamed big, and tonight he showed off his biggest reverie yet: the fully electric Tesla Semi. Powered by a massive battery and capable of hauling 80,000 pounds, it can ramble 500 miles between charges. It’ll even drive itself—on the highway, at least.1
And Musk promises production will start in 2019.
The big rig, which Musk unveiled at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California headquarters Thursday night, is just the latest step in his mission to make humanity forget about planet-killing fossil fuels and embrace the gospel of electric power.
That is, of course, if he can convince the trucking industry it’s time for a new way of moving stuff around—and if he can actually make the thing.
From the Tesla Semi web page:
I bet it will do great in stop and go traffic with the regen feature. Now if they would implement those aerodynamic designs done by that German designer, the range would probably increase substantially. That will probably happen later if trucks still do long range in the future.
Is Musk trying to take over the world or just showing the way? Everybody expects pioneers to fail occasionally but this guy has a great track record.
“Is Musk trying to take over the world or just showing the way?”
As someone who has been following his activities since he and his co-founders started Tesla Motors, I think he just got frustrated waiting for the established auto-manufacturers to innovate and is basically showing the way. See my post below on the new roadster. A couple of Porsche owning guys I know have been gushing about the upcoming Mission-e from Porsche and how it’s gonna kill Tesla. Well Elon just delivered the ultimate smackdown. You think the Mission-e is fast? No. This is fast! Quicker to 60, quicker to 100 and it’s got a 600 mile range to boot. Like I told the Porsche guys, by the time the Mission-e hits the road, Tesla will have come up with something better. Done. Musk is just trying to drive home his point. Fossil fuels are unsustainable and electric propulsion is just plainly superior.
Edison was right, just ahead of his time.
Like Malthus. Who will be proven correct first? EVs for everybody or lack of sufficient resources?
Like Malthus.
Malthus has been proved wrong. His primary argument was that human fertility could not (should not – he believed contraception was immoral!) be limited. And…most of the world has proved that wrong.
“Thomas Malthus | Biography | Britannica.com
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus
Thomas Malthus: English economist known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply.”
Malthus has been wrong so far, as food supply has outrun population growth, but it is unclear what will happen in the end. Many here believe the world is or will be in a not very distant future in overshooting. That would prove Malthus was ultimately correct, just did not consider the ability of human ingenuity to delay the inevitable.
There is more to overshoot than just the human food supply. All the world’s megafauna is dying off, save one great ape that is raping the world.
If you were a member of any other species of megafauna you would say that the world is collapsing. But because you are a member of the species that is killing off all the others, you think we are winning this battle.
We are a plague species that is killing the world.
Anyone paying even minor attention, and of at least moderate intelligence, can see we are in a situation of mass ecocide, population overshoot, runaway climate change, and collapsing ecosystems.
And I could go on—-
This is not a battle and there is no way of winning, Ron. It is not only the megafauna, but the entire biosphere that is being very seriously affected, with a few species taking advantage while most are being negatively affected. Amphibians are probably the worst affected, but even insects are taking a serious hit. And ecosystems are interconnected networks. Once some species are hit enough the entire ecosystem moves to a new equilibrium that is simpler, poorer, and less productive, and there is no way to restore it by adding one or a few species back. Only a very long time will allow the increase in lost complexity.
And quite frankly, I don’t think there is a way out of the situation. If we stop growing our economy will collapse, and then our civilization will collapse, and then tens of billions of hungry people will fall on what is left of our natural spaces trying to feed, get energy, and clothing, from them and destroying most of what is left.
For the time being the most important thing we can do is to try to preserve and expand natural spaces and wildlife populations, and put them above any other consideration. We should stop appropriating more of the planet from the rest of species.
Javier, I have been studying the planet’s collapse due to massive human overshoot for many years. So I am well aware of the fact that it is not just megafauna that is being affected.
And no, this is not a problem that can be fixed. It is a predicament that must be dealt with. It is inevitable, civilization as we know it will collapse. There is no way to avoid that fact.
Water tables are still dropping. Rivers are still going dry. Deserts are still expanding. Forests are still disappearing. Animal species are still going extinct. Ocean fisheries are still disappearing. Air pollution is still getting worse. And the world’s climate is still getting warmer.
These things are happening but at such a slow pace few are getting alarmed. We live on a day to day basis, or even a year to year basis. Things are changing so slowly that it is easy for most people to deny they are happening. Some even calculate that in a couple of hundred years or so, the population will level out and even start dropping. I am sure that will happen but not for the reasons they believe.
Worldwide famine will only accelerate the destruction of our ecosystem. We will eat the songbirds out of the trees.
We will eat the songbirds out of the trees.
Will?! whaddaya mean WILL?!
You don’t think that is already happening?
Just look at this plate of yummy little boids!
.
Ron, I do remember how the world was in the 1970’s, just over 4 decades ago, and while humans are on average better, the rest of the planet is much worse. Some species that we declared protected in the first world have very much improved their situation, and this points to the only hope we have. We must protect not species but entire ecosystems in natural preserves both on land and sea, that we should expand over time, not reduce. A quarter of the planet (every biome) should be protected from human exploitation, and international export of junk and residues ought to be banned. International regulation of residues should be passed as a condition to participate in international trade.
These are the real priorities of the planet, and I don’t see the world leaders and leading nations making any effort in the right direction.
The only way that might be true is if you misrepresent Malthus as a metaphor for overshoot.
Again – Malthus argued that fertility could not, should not be limited, and therefore population would always outrun food supplies.
And that’s clearly not the case. A majority of the world has reduced fertility to replacement, and most of the rest have fertility rates that are dropping pretty fast.
Malthus was dead wrong.
Malthus argued that fertility could not, should not be limited, and therefore population would always outrun xxxx supplies.
Remove the word “food” from that phrase and it is clearly correct. Well, that is if you remove the words “should not” as well. Malthus was a religious nut and did not believe in birth control.
That being said, however, we are clearly destroying the planet’s ability to feed its 7.5 billion people. Topsoil is being destroyed, washed and blown away. Water tables are dropping and rivers are drying up. The Yellow River in China is a prime example. Over-irrigation is drying the Yellow River as well as other rivers, not just in China but in many other countries.
Human Activities Contribute to Drying Up of Major River Headwaters
There is no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that Malthus will be proven correct. The world’s agricultural system will soon be unable to feed its teeming masses.
Remove the word “food” from that phrase and it is clearly correct. Well, that is if you remove the words “should not” as well
Again, Malthus’ emphasis was on fertility, not food production. Whatever happened with food production, he argued that population would outstrip it.
Malthus has been proven wrong on fertility.
It’s also worth noting that this argument wasn’t even his primary point: his primary point was that poverty and starvation were inevitable, and therefore it was pointless to try to help the poor.
Malthus was the Trump of his time.
Malthus’ emphasis was on fertility, not food production.
That is clearly incorrect. Malthus’ emphasis was clearly on both, fertility and food production.
As a side note, World population when Malthus published his essay, was .9 billion. It has since increased over 8 fold.
Malthus could never have anticipated the industrial revolution, or the medical revolution allowing for a much longer lifespan. And he sure as hell could have never anticipated the green revolution.
Trashing Malthus is a favorite pastime of those with 20-20 hindsight. And it is especially a favorite pastime for those who are incapable of understanding just how desperately overpopulated the world actually is.
Malthus was a cleric with only a moderate income. He was about as far removed from a narcissistic con-artist billionaire as one could possibly get.
Perhaps it’s unreasonable to criticize Malthus for being wrong. He seems mighty disagreeable to me – I don’t know why anyone would defend him.
But he was still wrong. Fertility has dropped dramatically, and food production has more than kept pace (not only are people eating more than they need on average, by quite a distance, but they’re eating a lot more meat – food production has expanded faster than population). Perhaps he will be proven right in the future…but not on the fertility side, that’s for sure.
He was dead wrong on fertility, right?
(not only are people eating more than they need on average, by quite a distance, but they’re eating a lot more meat –
Yes, they are eating a lot of meat… bushmeat to be exact. Africa’s hungry hoards are driving all their wildlife into extinction. Africa is desperately overpopulated.
Is Africa’s wildlife being eaten to extinction?
Yes, food production in Africa is keeping pace with population growth. Well, that is if you count monkeys, chimps and other African wildlife as food.
Yep, parts of Africa have serious problems, no doubt about it. But that’s not really a serious answer to this debate about Malthus.
If you want to have a debate about wildlife, we can. That’s a different debate, but we can switch topics.
Okay. Switching to wildlife.
How long did the buffalo or the Passenger Pigeon survive the arrival of Europeans? How long did wolves survive in the Eastern US, or the Western US, for that matter?
What was the population of England when the last major predators were wiped out?
Yes, humans are wiping out wild megafauna, but not because of over population. It’s because humans currently don’t really think wild megafauna are good to have around, and have used powerful weapons to eliminate them ASAP. There’s plenty of good habitat available in the US for wolves, for instance – not only are there good parks and countryside , but the suburbs are perfect. But, any wolves get shot mighty quick outside of Yellowstone.
On the other hand, there’s plenty of domesticated megafauna. Dogs, cats, cows, horses – the numbers are quite large. But…they’re not wild.
It’s not primarily because humans are genetically predisposed to fear predators (though I think they are). Ron, ask yourself: are you different genetically from the rest of humanity, even though you like wildlife? I don’t think so.
Human society simply hasn’t matured to the point of welcoming wildlife. Let’s hope it does before wildlife is completely wiped out.
Yes, humans are wiping out wild megafauna, but not because of over population. It’s because humans currently don’t really think wild megafauna are good to have around,…
Huh?
There’s plenty of good habitat available in the US for wolves, for instance – not only are there good parks and countryside , but the suburbs are perfect.
This is a joke… Right? No one could possibly be that stupid. There is plenty of space for wolves in the parks and suburbs? Really?
On the other hand, there’s plenty of domesticated megafauna. Dogs, cats, cows, horses – the numbers are quite large.
Oh yeah, what we lose in wild megafauna we can simply make up with increasing the population of our domestic megafauna. One elephant can simply be replaced by about 20 cows. No problem, we can easily do that.
I am sorry Nick, but I don’t think I will ever respond to one of your posts again. Good God in Heaven, after this post, I would not dare.
I hope you have a good life. But until now I had no idea what we were up against in trying to explain the very serious ecological crisis we face to the uninformed. The uninformed like Nick, which is likely about 95% of the population. But now I realize, the situation is hopeless. We are fucking doomed.
Well, of course I’m joking. Kind’ve.
I’m trying to give you a different perspective, which is that wildlife extinction, and habitat loss, aren’t accidents. They’re mostly deliberate.
I think that on some level you’re giving humanity the benefit of the doubt, and saying that wildlife extinction is an accidental byproduct of overpopulation, rather than deliberate ecocide.
And, in a way, I agree with you – I think people don’t realize what they’re doing. They don’t realize the value of wildlife. And, they can be educated, and do things differently.
I think that on some level you’re giving humanity the benefit of the doubt, and saying that wildlife extinction is an accidental byproduct of overpopulation, rather than deliberate ecocide.
Deliberate? By whom? All humanity?
Really Nick, your naivety here is astounding. If we take over their territory to support our ever-growing population numbers, this is deliberate ecocide? No, human beings have a natural desire to survive. They simply want to live. If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do. The extinction of the species they displace is just an unfortunate consequence of their/our ever growing population numbers.
Your desire to blame someone else for the natural consequences of population growth is understandable, but just dead wrong. No one is to blame. It is just human nature.
If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do.
That’s a big IF. Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? Did anybody’s survival depend on eliminating buffalo and Passenger Pigeons?
I wrote: “If their survival depends on taking over the habitat of other species, that is exactly what they will do.”
You replied: Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? Did anybody’s survival depend on eliminating buffalo and Passenger Pigeons?
Jesus H. Fucing Christ. You have to be joking. It is very obvious that you have not a fucking clue as to what is happening to the world’s wild species.
Species began their sixth extinction, not in recent years but at least four hundred years ago when the human population started its recent expansion. The dodo disappeared from the island of Martius in around 1650 about half a century after humans first arrived on the island. And it has been downhill ever since.
I am not saying that human survival depended on the destruction of much of the wildlife in their path, but it was just natural for them to destroy it. That is just what we do. If it is not necessary for our survival, we will destroy it. That is just what we do. It is just human nature.
But you are dead wrong when you say: Why were megafauna in most of the world largely extinguished when population numbers were much, much lower? No, the very large extinction of megafauna species began only about 100 to 50 or so years ago. Though the actual extinction, at a slower rate, began several hundred years earlier.
As I have said in earlier post, the long-term carrying capacity of a human being on the earth is likely around 2 billion people. But now I think that is way too high. Perhaps it is one billion or less. At any rate, the mass destruction of our megafauna began well before we were at one billion people.
All that being said, it is just common sense that as the human population expanded, and began taking over more and more of the other megafauna’s former territory, their numbers would decrease. Jesus H. fucking Christ, how could it possibly otherwise?
Is there a name for the folks that believe that the human population explosion is not a problem? A name for those who believe that we are God’s chosen to dominate the earth and fuck all the other species? If so, what is the name for those folks? And just when did they stop using common sense?
This is not correct, Ron.
“Earth’s most recent major extinction episode, the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction, claimed two-thirds of mammal genera and one-half of species that weighed >44 kg between ~50,000 and 3,000 years ago.”
It included our Neanderthal cousins.
Megafauna biomass tradeoff as a driver of Quaternary and future extinctions
Anthony D. Barnosky PNAS 2008.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/Supplement_1/11543.full
I am not saying that human survival depended on the destruction of much of the wildlife in their path, but it was just natural for them to destroy it. That is just what we do. If it is not necessary for our survival, we will destroy it. That is just what we do. It is just human nature.
If it was up to you, we wouldn’t do that. You would make different choices. So would the majority of people on this forum, and many, many people in the wide world.
Are you genetically different from other people? Are environmentalists different genetically? No. Environmental destruction is not written in our genes.
You’ve learned better. Many people would, and that’s a cultural thing, which can spread. Our world can be very different, and that could happen faster than one could imagine. Change can happen fast…
Will we do so in time? Who knows. But it’s possible, and many people are working to make it happen. Even you, in your own way….
Are you genetically different from other people? Are environmentalists different genetically? No. Environmental destruction is not written in our genes.
No, it is not. But neither is environmental preservation. What is written in our genes is survival and reproduction. And we will survive and reproduce to the limits of our ability.
Nick, one thing you simply don’t seem to understand. The main reason species are going extinct is habitat loss. The prime reason the human population has been able to explode is habitat gain. We had to take over the habitat of other species to build our cities, to graze our domestic animals and to grow the crops required to feed those expanding masses.
Therefore the inescapable conclusion is that human population increase is the prime reason other species are going extinct.
What is written in our genes is survival and reproduction. And we will survive and reproduce to the limits of our ability.
That might have been a reasonable argument 40 years ago. Not now. Look at Japan, which not only has a fertility rate well below replacement, but it’s absolute population has started to fall. Look at the UK, where Malthus was writing. The Total Fertility Rate is 1.83, well below replacement of roughly 2.10.
We can see that people are not just naked apes. They actually can use their prefrontal cortex, and make recognizably smart decisions.
The main reason species are going extinct is habitat loss
Well, if you define habitat loss as the area where humans don’t tolerate wild animals, then yeah. But humans can coexist with wildlife. More importantly, humans can choose to live in smaller areas (look at the population density of Singapore), and farm a relatively small percentage of overall land area (some crops use less land, and greatly reducing meat production would cut land requirements by much more than 50%).
Here’s the key question: if everyone in the world valued wildlife as much as you (or, if you were the absolute ruler of the world!), couldn’t they choose to preserve wildlife? You would. If everyone thought like you, they would too. And, if they chose to do it, they could succeed in doing it. Right?
Nick, I will respond to this post at a later date on another thread.
Take care,
Ron
The current average population increase is estimated at 83 million people per year, globally .
We are not reducing population.
Out of the 7.5 billion, 6.5 billion are alive only because of the Haber-Bosch process.
It takes 10 calories of hydrocarbons to produce 1 calorie of food.
17th century
1627 – The last known aurochs died in Poland. This large wild cattle formerly inhabited much of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, central Asia, and India.[23]
c. 1645 – Finsch’s duck survived in New Zealand until around this time.[3]
c. 1660 – The giant vampire bat survived in Argentina until about this time.[3]
1662 – The last definite sighting of a Mauritius dodo was made.[14] The extinction was due to hunting, but also by the pigs, rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by settlers. The species has become an iconic symbol of animal extinction.[24]
The moa was one of the largest birds that ever existed.
The elephant bird Aepyornis maximus was last recorded around the end of the 17th century.[22]
18th century[edit]
1768 – Steller’s sea cow became extinct due to overhunting for meat and leather.[3][25]
1773 – The Tahiti sandpiper died out after rats were introduced to its habitat in the Society Islands.[26]
1774 – The Sardinian pika became extinct due to invasive species (foxes, cats, etc.) that were introduced to Sardinia and Corsica.[27]
1777 – The Society parakeet population dies out on the Society Islands after vessels released pests.[28]
1790 – The Lord Howe swamphen, also known as the white gallinule, becomes extinct.[29]
19th century[edit]
1800 – The last known bluebuck was shot, making the species the first African antelope to be hunted to extinction by European settlers.[30]
1825 – The mysterious starling died out.[31]
1826 – The Mauritius blue pigeon becomes extinct due to excessive hunting.[32]
1827 – The Tonga ground skink dies out from its only home in the Tongan Islands.[33]
Quagga
1852 – The last sighting of a great auk was made off the coast of Newfoundland. The bird was driven to extinction by hunting for its fat, feathers, meat, and oil.[14][34]
1860 – The string tree from the island of St Helena becomes extinct because of habitat destruction.[35]
1860 – The sea mink becomes extinct because of hunting for its fur.[36]
1875 – The broad-faced potoroo was last recorded.[3]
1876 – The Falkland Islands wolf became extinct.[3]
1878 – Labrador duck declared extinct after last appearances in Long Island three years earlier.[37]
c. 1879 – The last known Atlas bear, Africa’s only native bear, is killed by hunters in Morocco. The bear was heavily hunted and used for sport in the Roman Empire.[38]
1880 – The eastern elk, a subspecies of elk in the US and Canada, is declared extinct.[39]
1883 – The Quagga, a sub-species of the plains zebra, goes extinct.[40]
1886 – The red alga known as Bennett’s seaweed from Australia disappears because of the massive human activities.[41]
1889 – The last Hokkaido wolf dies from poisoning campaign.[42]
1890 – The eastern hare-wallaby was last recorded.[3]
20th century[edit]
1900s[edit]
1902 – The last known specimens of the Rocky Mountain locust are collected near Brandon, Manitoba.[43]
1905 – The last known Honshū wolf of Japan dies in Nara Prefecture.[44]
1907 – The huia, a native bird of New Zealand, is last seen. Habitat loss, hunting, and disease all played a role in its extinction.[45]
1909 – The last known tarpan, a Polish wild horse, died in captivity.[46]
1910s[edit]
1911 – The last Newfoundland wolf was shot.[42]
1914 – The last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. Excessive hunting contributed to its extinction; it was formerly one of the world’s most abundant birds.[47]
1918 – The last Carolina parakeet died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. The bird, formerly inhabiting the southeastern United States, was driven to extinction by exploitation, deforestation, and competition with introduced bees.[48]
1920s[edit]
1924 – The California grizzly bear is sighted for the last time.[49]
1925 – The Kenai Peninsula wolf was driven to extinction.[42]
1929 – Acalypha wilderi was last seen in the wild. This species may be synonymous with A. raivavensis and A. tubuaiensis, which would mean it is in fact not extinct globally. [50]
1930s[edit]
1930 – Darwin’s rice rat was last recorded in the Galápagos Islands. Its extinction was probably caused by the introduction of black rats.[51]
1932 – “Booming Ben”, the last known heath hen was seen on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.[52][53]
1933 – The cry pansy from Europe becomes extinct due to habitat loss and overcollection in the only place where it grew, France.[54]
1934 – The indefatigable Galapagos mouse was last recorded. Its extinction was probably caused by the introduction of black rats.[55]
1935 – The desert rat-kangaroo was last recorded.[3]
1935 – The Mogollon mountain wolf and the Southern Rocky Mountains wolf were hunted to extinction.[42]
1936 – The last thylacine died in captivity. Hunting, habitat loss, disease, and competition from domestic dogs all may have contributed to the extinction of the species.[56]
c. 1937 – The Bali tiger was last definitively seen around this time, but likely persisted into the 1940’s or possibly even the early 1950’s.[57]
1939 – The toolache wallaby was last recorded.[3]
The great auk was hunted for its down until its extinction around 1844.
The thylacine was exterminated into extinction.
1940s[edit]
1940 – The Cascade mountain wolf was hunted to extinction.[42]
1942 – The Texas wolf was purposefully driven to extinction.[42]
1942 – The last confirmed sighting of the Barbary lion, although unconfirmed reports surfaced until 1970.[58]
1950s[edit]
1952 – Last reliable report of the Caribbean monk seal.[59]
1952 – The Bernard’s wolf was hunted to extinction.[42]
1956 – The crescent nail-tail wallaby and imperial woodpecker were last recorded.[3]
1957 – The Scioto madtom, a species of fish, is last collected.[60]
1960s[edit]
c. 1960 – The Mexican grizzly bear was exterminated around this time.[61]
1962 – The red-bellied gracile opossum was last recorded in Argentina.[3]
1964 – The Hawaii chaff flower of the Hawaiian islands becomes extinct because of habitat loss.[62]
1965 – Last sighting of the turgid-blossom pearly mussel, an American mussel.[63]
1966 – The last Arabian ostrich died around this time.[64]
1970s[edit]
c. 1970 – The Caspian tiger becomes extinct primarily due to habitat loss, hunting, and loss of prey.[65]
1972 – The endemic to Jamaica Mason River myrtle becomes extinct.[66]
1974 – The last known Japanese sea lion is captured off the coast of Rebun Island, Hokkaido.[67]
c. 1976 – Last sightings of the Javan tiger.[68]
1980s[edit]
1981 – The Puhielelu hibiscadelphus becomes extinct.[69]
1981 – Last sighting of the green-blossom pearly mussel, an American mussel.[70]
1981 – The Southern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus) became extinct probably due to habitat destruction and disease.[71]
1983 – Last unconfirmed spotting of the kouprey (Bos sauveli),[72] last absolute confirmed spotting was in 1969/70.[73] Declared as “most likely to be extinct” by the IUCN.[73]
1983-84 – The 24-rayed sunstar (Heliaster solaris), the Galapagos black-spotted damselfish and the Galapagos stringweed likely become extinct due to climate change.[74]
1985 – The Northern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus vitellinus) became extinct probably due to habitat destruction and disease.[75]
1987 – The last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō (Moho braccatus), a male, is recorded singing a mating call. The species was never heard from again and was declared extinct.[76]
1989 – The golden toad of Costa Rica becomes extinct, perhaps because of climate change.[77]
1990s[edit]
1990 – The dusky seaside sparrow was officially declared extinct in December 1990. The last definite known individual died on 17 June 1987.[78]
1994 – Saint Croix racer, a snake native to the Virgin Islands, declared extinct.[79]
1994 – Levuana moth from Hawaii goes extinct.[80]
1997 – The Hainan ormosia (a species of legume) which was native to China is no longer seen.[81]
3rd millennium CE[edit]
See also: List of recently extinct species
21st century[edit]
2000s[edit]
2000 – “Celia”, the last Pyrenean ibex, was found dead in 2000. However, in 2003, a female was cloned back into existence, but died shortly after birth due to defects in the lungs.[82][83]
2003 – The last individual from the St. Helena olive, which was grown in cultivation, dies off. The last plant in the wild had died in 1994.[84]
2006 – A technologically sophisticated survey of the Yangtze River failed to find specimens of the baiji dolphin, prompting scientists to declare it functionally extinct.[85]
2010s[edit]
2011 – The Eastern cougar was declared extinct. Last known individual was trapped and killed in 1938.[86][87]
2011 – The western black rhinoceros was declared extinct.[88]
2012 – The Japanese river otter (Lutra lutra whiteneyi) declared extinct by the country’s Ministry of the Environment, after not being seen for more than 30 years.[89]
2012 – “Lonesome George”, the last known specimen of the Pinta Island tortoise, died on 24 June 2012.[90]
2013 – The Cape Verde giant skink was declared extinct.[91]
2013 – The Formosan clouded leopard, previously endemic to the island of Taiwan, is officially declared extinct.[92]
2014 – The Bermuda saw-whet owl was declared extinct after being described from fossils in 2012.[93]
2016 – The Bramble Cay melomys was declared extinct.[94]
Everybody expects pioneers to fail occasionally but this guy has a great track record.
Yep! But it really doesn’t matter even if he fails in a most spectacular way. I mean it would certainly be bad for him personally. One thing is for sure, if it wasn’t for Elon Musk not a single one of the major auto manufacturers would have a serious EV contender in the works. Not to mention all the other startups around the world. He has single handedly already changed the paradigm. I sometimes get a kick out of watching the Tesla racing channel where a stock Tesla 100 PSD takes down smoke belching muscle car after smoke belching muscle car in quarter mile drag racing. Some of the drivers actually get upset… Tough shit!
Wow…. OFM was right about the range.
They didn’t mention the battery capacity in watt hours, but at 2kwh/mile and 500 miles that comes to 1MWh or 10 times the size of the largest model S battery. To charge that to 80% in 30 minutes (400 miles added) requires 2 mega watts of power! At 0.07 cents per kwh it’s only $70 to add that 400 miles of range.
Seems more modest if you think of it as only 5 roadster batteries. 🙂
Lets see how fast these are going into actual use.
I would not hold your breath.
Short range EV delivery vehicles seem a perfect fit first.
I’m really wondering how Musk is planning on talking utilities into running enough new transmission lines to charge up three or four of these trucks at the same time, even if the chargers are a few miles apart on the same branch line.
I foresee some major demand spike problems, if the owners try to run these trucks on the open road.
Using them one or two shifts a day locally won’t be that big a deal. Most utilities have a lot of spare capacity overnight, except during extremely cold weather.
I’m blown away by the range claimed, but I did say earlier that there’s plenty of room for batteries under the rails, and between them, where the engine and transmission used to go, and also under or even in the trailer that actually hauls the cargo.
And between them, Tesla and Panasonic may have some new battery tech in the pipeline that will result in substantially more kWh per unit size and weight of the batteries.
Note that the pictures provided obviously show a trailer precisely shaped to match the shape of the cab, so as to achieve that awesomely low drag coefficient.
Now since I’m more interested in the truth than in playing advocate in any situation, and in provoking lots of comments, especially ones that indicate my own blind spots, I will point out that there’s little or nothing to prevent any old line truck manufacturer from building a truck with a similar coefficient of drag, and likewise nothing from preventing the use of any new light weight materials and design features the Tesla truck will incorporate, excepting any that might be patented.
With drag reduced that much, a conventional truck would get almost twice the miles per gallon, and it might be a little premature to write the epitaph of conventional trucks.
Now if it were to come to pass that Uncle Sam, and John Bull, and the other powers that be in the world decide for some reason to REALLY push the adoption of electric trucks, and provide low interest loans to buy them, or simply subsidize the price of them, they may well sell as fast as they can be built.
Conventional trucks are almost entirely modular, in terms of all the things that make a truck a TRUCK.
Excepting the cab which in practical matters doesn’t do anything except keep the weather off the running gear and provide a perch and nest for the driver, just about every part of a truck that is EXPECTED to fail at some point is standardized so that it can be very easily replaced, even if the original manufacturer of a given part or assembly has gone out of business. You can bolt just about any make of engine built for use in big trucks in just about any big truck, and there are at least three or four makes of transmissions, and a dozen models of transmissions, that will bolt to any of these engines, ditto the front and rear axle assemblies, etc etc.
Things worked out this way not because the manufacturers wanted it this way, but because their CUSTOMERS sought out the makes and models that they believed would be the most economical to own and operate, and believe me………
You DON’T want to have to go to a new truck dealer and pay a thousand bucks for an alternator, when you can get a new one from a different manufacturer that wires up and bolts up the same way for half that. I sometimes pay as much as five or six times for dealer only parts for both cars and trucks, as well as farm machinery, as I pay for excellent quality similar aftermarket parts……. when aftermarket parts are available.
My point is that with the exception of the motors and batteries, there’s not much going to be different from one make to the next, once electric trucks get to be popular.
The trucking industry will probably have political clout plus buying power enough to FORCE electric truck manufacturers to standardize nearly all of the parts that will ever need to be replaced.
Elon said that the megachargers will be solar powered with power wall backup for peaks and nights. Tesla will only be charging 7 cents per kwh – you can’t do that and use grid power in places like California with high electricity rates. Elon also promised a million miles without a breakdown.
How far can a driver, realistically, drive in a day accounting for rest breaks and hours limits? I suspect it must be close to the range limit on this truck.
NAOM
NOAM,
Currently in the US a driver is limited to 11 hours driving time daily, unless it’s changed since I quit in ’09. So that’s roughly 500 or 600 miles. Majority of drivers are company drivers and pretty much have to adhere to the rules, especially since electronic logging is being mandated. When I was driving, being an independent owner/operator, using paper logs, I might not have always observed that part of the rules. I’ve been a workaholic for most of my adult life, and never really saw the need for someone else to tell me when I was through for the day or night. It’s easy enough to find all kinds of folks screaming about how unsafe it might be to do something they know not a goddamn thing about, so I just tried to avoid them. Which could have possibly meant fudging some things just a bit.
Those who scream about big trucks being dangerous usually ignore the data which shows that in truck/auto accidents, the driver of the car is at fault in something like 80% or 90% of the cases. Can’t remember the exact number.
The safety folks dislike for big trucks is one of the reasons it catches my attention when people start talking about AV trucks, convoys, multiple trailers, and such.
Stan
Well the specs are published for the Tesla Semi:
Stats sourced from cleantechnica.com
20% cheaper than a diesel truck. Diesel truck = $1.51/mile. Tesla Semi = $1.26/mile all-in.
Drag coefficient = .36
500 mile range at GVW & highway speed.
65 mph up 5% grade.
0–60 in 5 seconds unloaded.
0–60 in 20 seconds with 80,000 lb load
Charging: 400 miles of range in 30 minutes at “Megachargers.” at $0.07/kWh guaranteed price.
1 million miles drivetrain guarantee
Production begins in 2019
Automatic lane tracking.
Automatic emergency braking.
And Ol’ Musky said that due to braking regen, you will never have to replace the brake pads.
And don’t forget the nuclear bomb proof windshield. Musk said the windshield will survive a nuclear blast or they will replace it for free!
Yes, But I think the small print says you have to return the old one…
I’ve looked around the web a bit, but haven’t found any info on the weight of the truck Tesla showed with the 500 mile range. Anybody else know? Looks like the batteries are all on the truck, which I expected. They did say 80k GVW, but that doesn’t tell me how much of that is payload.
I’d like some of that $0.07 kwh juice here at home too, thanks.
I still think Musk is targeting the wrong segment of the freight business. Why not start with local pick-up/delivery, so you can always recharge at home terminal at night? Especially since that could build customer acceptance while the charger network has time to expand.
Not that it matters, but Goddamn that thing is UGLY! I’m sure my perspective on that has something to do with the fact that I got lots of buddy-seat time as a kid in a B-model Mack, a GMC crackerbox, IH Emeryville, GMC Astro, and later in my own 1952 Peterbilt. Dammit I’m just gettin’ older all the time!
Stan
“I still think Musk is targeting the wrong segment of the freight business. Why not start with local pick-up/delivery…?”
Musk seems to make things that he personally wants.
My guess is Tesla wants their own fleet of these for transporting battery packs from Reno to Hawthorne. Might be handy for mobile service centers too.
There are a lot of local delivery vehicles coming on the market, now. Why take time developing something that will come on line after the rest. Go for the next level. As for ugly, I remember the adverts trashing the Ford Sierra as a jelly mould when other cars were collections of boxes on wheels. Now all cars are streamlined, well, apart from the big American gas guzzlers.
NAOM
Local pickup/delivery is the perfect EV application.
I don’t see any comments about the second vehicle Musk showed with the semi. The one that had the pickup in the back of it. It looked like the little brother to the semi. Was that the same vehicle without a trailer? I finally found some mention from Musk in April of 2017 about a pickup reveal in 24 months or so. But that “little semi” sure looked like a pickup.
Songster,
I’ve only seen a couple pics, probably the same ones you saw, of the pickup. Looks to me like just another of Musk’s toys for rich boys, certainly nothing addressed to the serious job of using less resources in an effort to mitigate our species raping of the earth, of which I and probably all of us here, have done our part.
I’m not quite as impressed with his big-rig as others seem to be, in no small part because of his acting as if he doesn’t live in the real world. The hype before the unveiling promised to “blow your mind clear out of your skull……”. Then when showing the truck he didn’t seem to think it was important to mention a pricetag or the weight of the truck? Bullshit! I don’t like bullshit, or hype of ’bout any kind, I just think the facts are enough. Guess that’s one of the reasons I don’t watch much TV, and most of the things that seem important to lots of folks just don’t interest me.
Looking about the web, I can’t find a lot of reports about the folks who actually use big trucks, the ones who I would have thought Musk’s truck would have targeted, being overly impressed and signing up to pre-order a few thousand of these things. Maybe something to do with not being in a hurry to send a truckload of freight out 500 miles on the hope that there will be a charging station waiting there.
I think lots of folks who think this is the next big thing are not considering that it has to enter a very competitive market, and make financial sense. Now, I do understand that we will soon (within a couple years to a decade?) run into declining fuel availability and/or very high fuel prices, which will severely impact the movement of freight over long distances. But that does not mean that we will have the resources to build a whole new infrastructure to support another way of doing it.
We’ll see.
Stan
It was only a rendering, not a prototype, and seemed to be intended as comic relief.
When designers work on designs like this truck, which probably is intended to allow for a sleeper version and for things like rolling chassis for making wreckers and dump trucks, they do renderings of variations: I think one of the designers has a sense of humor.
-Lloyd
Tesla Is Reviving the Roadster and It Looks Spectacular
Musk promises insane specs from this new sports car. Zero to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, quicker than the average Formula 1 car. A quarter mile in 8.9 seconds, in a world where “10-second cars” are coveted. Top speed somewhere north of 250 mph, putting it in the realm of the fastest production cars on the planet, like the Bugatti Chiron and Koenigsegg Agera. And to go with it, four seats (if you’re traveling with two small people), decent cargo room, and 620 miles of range, thanks to a 200-kilowatt hour battery pack, about double what you get in the most capable Model S. Also, it’s a convertible.
No surprise the base price will be $200,000, and reserving your spot on the list will cost you $50,000. Considering that Bugatti is a seven-figure car, it’s a pretty good deal.1
The Tesla CEO has long said he doesn’t want to make the best electric cars around, but the best cars, period. Introducing this new wonderbeast, he took on a bolder tone. “The point of this is to give the hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars.” He also said it’ll make driving a gas car feel like piloting a steam engine with a side of quiche. When you make cars this outrageous, you get to make up your own metaphors, apparently.
Bold mine. It has always been my impression that this guy wants to relegate the infernal combustion engine to the dustbins of history! Even though there were no signs of it watching the videos of the event, I hope Musk is employing a secret service style security detail to watch his back. He is ruffling some serious feathers. On second thought, it must be very hard to get anywhere close to him since he is a serious workaholic.
This is another high end car for the rich. He knows what market to go for without having to try very hard.
The big market, the world changer, will be like the Model T was back in the 1920’s. It will be a tough, practical, efficient, low cost everyman car. Range around 300 miles and cost around $20,000 to $25,000. Versions directly competitive with the Corolla and Camry.
Those will sell by the 100 million.
Next will be the EV pickup truck. Keep the base price below $40,000, the range long and away they will roll.
The real market killers are not invented yet. Maybe soon.
US Corolla sales were 384,000 in 2016, worldwide in 2015 there were 1.34 million Corollas sold. I think the Model 3 (base price 35k) will sell 1 million/year by 2021, also by 2025 the fall in battery cost will lead to a 300 mile range at about 25k.
I agree the Model 3 is the car that matters, pretty similar in size to a Corolla.
Interesting cost for 3 truck convoy which Musk claims matches the cost of rail.
Supposedly 8.5 cents per mile for fully loaded (80,000 lbs GVW) convoy of 3 trucks with first truck driven by a person and two trucks following on autopilot.
For a single truck the cost is 20% lower than a diesel assuming $2.50/gallon diesel and guaranteed cost of 7 cents per kWhr at megachargers (400 miles per 30 minute charge).
The thing that bugs me about a convoy is cars cutting in between and forcing them apart. People will know that the AI will avoid an accident and give way. Alternatively there is the scenario of trying to pass the convoy and discovering there isn’t enough free road to do it.
NAOM
Pretty sure that the convoys would only be practical on divided limited-access highways. And they’re essentially illegal at the moment anyway- laws would have to change.
-Lloyd
The latest numbers don’t tell the story because of lots of competition in the lower cost region. Look at the earlier numbers. I was talking about early market penetration and how EV’s can’t compete in a large segment of the market in the developed world.
300 mile range at 25K would do it, but there will be a lot more competition by then. The Ioniq is so much more efficient than the Model 3 and will be in the right price and mile range in a few years. The Chinese are busting out with lower priced electrics right now.
By 2025 oil will be peaked so the EV market will go crazy after that.
Chevy’s new cheap battery will make a dent for a while. But their Bolt car design is a bit clunky looking. Still quite practical. Ford needs to get it’s act together. Otherwise Tesla and the foreign producers will romp all over the space.
Dennis, could you be slightly biased toward Tesla? 🙂
But they are still just cars. Might knock 10 percent off fossil fuels at best. It’s going to be the combination of solar/wind and EV’s that make a larger dent.
As the air gets cleaned up everything changes. IPCC lists aerosols at about 1.4 w/m2 negative, so we will have to deal with that surge as FF goes by the wayside. Industry and building heating still use a lot of FF, so that will have to be innovated as well. Air conditioning and refrigeration are a big global region for energy use that will build fast in the huge developing nations and Africa.
Lots of work to do.
Personally I think getting rid of roads altogether would be a great idea. Trails and personal VTOL aircraft or VTOL taxis/buses should do, along with railroads and larger VTOL for moving big stuff. We should be able to make insect-like personal carriers that can handle most terrain features, making roads unnecessary.
People tend to look at cutting fossil fuel as a one horse show to say it won’t work. Switching to electric cars won’t do it, solar won’t do it, efficiency won’t do it etc. It is not just each item, it is the combination of all the methods that will bring the change.
NAOM
Change will come. Just not what you, or I, or most people expect.
Hi Javier,
On that I agree.
Hi notanoilman,
I agree EVs, wind, solar, geothermal, heatpumps, ridesharing, sealing homes, more passive solar, thermal storage, and all the other stuff I missed. Will enable the transition to occur.
A big one often missed is that the efficiency of fossil fuels in producing electricity is about 38% on average. If we convert to mostly electric power produced by wind, solar, and hydro we immediately reduce overall energy needs by a factor of 2.6.
For heating where fossil fuel efficiency might be 95%, a heat pump gives about 2.5 units of heat energy for every unit of electrical energy (air source), for ground source heat pumps it is about 4.5 units of heat per unit of electrical energy, we will call it 3.5 on average, so a factor of 3.68 less energy use for heat pumps vs 95% efficient heating system. For car transport there is probably about a factor of 3 improvement in energy use for EV vs ICE.
Overall total energy use could be cut to about one third for the same work and useful heat provided.
Those who think it cannot be done may not have considered the thermodynamics of the entire economic system.
In addition, energy production will cease to be a profitable line of business. That will lead people to look for more efficiency as quickly as the look for more energy.
For example, I remember in 1973 oil prices spiked, and everyone talked about an “energy crisis”. It was just as much an efficiency crisis. Countries with no oil lobby — like Western Europe and Japan — responded by driving for more efficiency.
Hi Gone fishing,
I am in the US, don’t like Chevy’s (bad experience in 80s) and right now the Tesla is the only game in town, the low range vehicles won’t cut it where I live and for where I travel.
The Chinese cars are great, but buying one of those would not be practical for me.
Agree this is a small piece of the puzzle. A lot of space and water heat can be converted to heat pumps (both air and ground source depending on climate), wind and solar expansion ASAP is important and EVs, rail, and public transport as well as ride sharing to reduce transport use.
For those like me not familiar with VTOL, I won’t comment as I don’t know anything about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTOL
The new Nissan Leaf looks pretty good. Yes, the range is still a little low at 150 miles but that’s not really all that bad. Plus they have pro-pilot driving assistance all for around 30K list, so only 20K with incentives. They say a 200 mile version will be out in 2019.
Plus it looks a lot better….
Hi Dennis, I never personally had many problems with GM cars, but my brother had a Vega that being a POS would be an understatement. But, I leased a Volt in 2013 and found it to be of very high quality and I never had one problem with it. Sometimes when you have too good a memory it may do you a dis-service. 🙂
Electric cars are better quality by design, because they don’t have so many moving parts.
Yeah, Consumer Reports says that US cars have improved dramatically in the last 30 years. Still a small notch behind Japanese cars, but easily equal to European cars.
Hi Gonefishing,
The wheel seems a pretty good invention, we could go to dirt roads, I guess, it would slow things down, for now EVs will work, though they need to be designed for recycling, especially batteries.
There’s an aphorism, I think.
EV’s and renewables are a good first step toward a sustainable and sane civilization. But only a first step away from a disastrous route.
Yup, EV and cel phones are really great, but:
CHILD MINERS AGED FOUR LIVING A HELL ON EARTH SO YOU CAN DRIVE AN ELECTRIC CAR
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764208/Child-miners-aged-four-living-hell-Earth.html
And, though I haven’t seen the African cobalt mines I have been to the highly radioactive REE deposits in China where conditions are far worse than reported by the media. For example,
RARE EARTH MINING IN CHINA: THE BLEAK SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS
Most of the rare earths processed by Baotou are extracted in Bayan Obo, a mining district in the Gobi desert 120km north of the city. Its largest open-pit mine is 1,000 metres deep and spans 48 sq. km; in satellite images by Nasa released in 2012, it appears as one of many massive black craters dwarfing a sprawl of apartment blocks directly to their south. Baotou Steel, lacks a proper lining and for the past 20 years its toxic contents have been seeping into groundwater, according to villagers and state media reports. It is trickling towards the nearby Yellow River, a major drinking water source for much of northern China, at a rate of 20 to 30 metres a year.
“You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals. These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs. In 2009 China produced 95% of the world’s supply of these elements, and it’s estimated that the Bayan Obo mines just north of Baotou contain 70% of the world’s reserves. But, as we would discover, at what cost?
Technology companies continually urge us to upgrade; to buy the newest tablet or phone. But I cannot forget that it all begins in a place like Bautou, and a terrible toxic lake that stretches to the horizon.”
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
I have the same mobile phone for four years, the same computer for 10 years, and the same car for 12 years. A lot of people say they are very worried about the environment, but keep producing toxic waste at an alarming rate by constantly upgrading their gadgets and cars that still are in perfect use, and living a consumerist life. I am with Caelan on this. If we worry about the planet we need to demonstrate it with actions, not words.
Now an easy question. What is more environmentally friendly, to keep your old ICE car still working fine or to replace it with a new EV?
Doug,
A lot of African and Chinese mining and manufacturing is really, really dirty.
Here’s the key question: is that essential, or is it just a bit cheaper than more ethical mining and manufacturing? The answer is very clear: it’s not essential. There are many sources of rare earths, cobalt, lithium, etc – Chinese and Africa sources are used because they’re slightly cheaper, and China and African countries have chosen to ignore pollution and child labor.
Unethical mining and manufacturing in developing countries are absolutely not essential to consumer consumption in developed countries.
You should replace your used ICE with a used EV.
Easy.
Sounds like the US at various times and somewhat today.
BTW Doug, EV’s have gotten away from rare earth magnets. Also PV does not use any either. Cell phones use a little.
So most of the rare earth use is in the electronics, which is ubiquitous.
Using children for mining is a societal issue that needs to addressed.
Well yeah but:
An estimated 1 kg of rare earth elements can be found inside a typical hybrid automobile.
http://www.namibiarareearths.com/rare-earths-industry.asp
And,
Currently, the primary of consumption and application of cobalt involves battery materials.
http://www.samaterials.com/
Rare Earths are not needed for magnets. Two different technologies have been developed, recently, that do not use them and can make better magnets at the same time. One is a ferrite while the other is iron based.
NAOM
Details would help: ferrites (magnetic oxides) have been around since before the birth of Christ man. And remember crystal radio coil winding when you were a kid? — 100 turns wound around a ferrite rod. 🙂
@Doug
Sorry, I just remember the details in passing but I think it was Toyota that was doing the ferrites and was as good as REs. Yep, I remember those rods, broke sooo easily, now I want a couple I can’t find them. The Iron one I can’t remember but I think it was an iron/nitrogen thing and out performed REs plus being a lot cheaper. Sorry I can’t be more specific but if I see them again I will try and remember to post them.
NAOM
Appears that 25% of cobalt is used for batteries and another 25% for alloys, leaving 50% across a wide variety of applications including color, tools and catalysts.
Why not recycle cobalt and other rare earth materials?
Better yet, lets look at the fact that China has 30 percent of the worlds rare earth reserves and produces 97% of world consumption. That implies that most of the reserves are untouched.
Or we can just give up and go back to the stone age.
Sorry Doug, I really have to question your choice of “news” sources. I am inclined to believe that your cited source may be taking money from the Koch brothers funded anti-EV campaign. See :
http://www.google.com/search?q=koch+brothers+funded+anti+ev+campaign
British actor Robert Llewellyn, most recognized for his role in the UK tv series Red Dwarf, who produces a video blog, Fully Charged, has a rant about The Daily Mail in his latest video (as of 7:22 am EST Nov 20, 2017) at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELyGrIQTqjw
For more on the video which was the basis of the article you cited, see:
https://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brother-electric-vehicles-2462683886.html
You are way too smart to be suckered into the misinformation campaigns of these vested interests. I am very suspicious of articles taking strong opposition to stuff that would appear to be harmless or even beneficial on the face of it, especially if said stuff poses an existential threat to some large, powerful, profitable industry. I prefer to get my propaganda from sources that are very open about their biases as opposed to those that hide behind a veil of impartiality.
islandboy,
As usual, you’re right: getting sloppy in my old age. 🙂
Mind you, I’m not saying that child labour is not being used to mine rare earth minerals or whatever else in Africa. My main purpose is to point out that the purpose of this particular hit piece is, to associate EVs with the abuse of child labour in Africa in the minds of readers and thus create negative feelings about EVs in particular as opposed to anything else that these materials are used to make.
If you include the tax credits the base model 3 is pretty close to that 25k price. After the credits run out next year, hopefully the costs will fall fast enough to keep it in the same ballpark.
Hi Preston,
Only the first 500,000 (or possibly much less) cars or so will get any credit at all, and probably less than 150,000 will get the full $7500 credit.
For most it will be $35k (220 mile range) until battery costs fall, and the longer range (330 miles) model will be $49k.
There are additional credits in some states like California. California is looking at a new program to help make up for the dropping federal credit. If the Trump middle class tax increase passes and removes the credit for 2018 then it’s likely California would act immediately to bump up their credit. Canada, Norway, China, etc all have very large incentives.
I’d say most buyers will get a pretty large incentive, at least for 2018. If I were Tesla, I wouldn’t drop the price until I was out of backlog, but certainly by 2020.
Hi Preston,
Only Federal incentive where I live. I don’t know the rules in every state.
The real market killers are not invented yet. Maybe soon.
Depends on which market you’re looking at. Watch the market for high end, two door, performance supercars with internal combustion engines, dry up and blow away in three, two, one …… Poof! (years that is). Ferrari is famous for saying they will never abandon internal combustion and go electric. Never say never. It will be go electric or die! These performance figures are for an early prototype. By the time it enters production in three years time, who knows what advances will have been made to make it lighter, more powerful and faster? Even then there is no production automobile on the planet that can match it, period. Tesla is putting an end to the debate. Electric is better.
On another point, Musk has always said that he intends to follow the cell phone/laptop model and make early adopters pay for the early advances that will eventually trickle down to the mass market. IMO he has been more successful with that approach than Nissan has been with their mass market first approach. At least in the USA according to the pie chart “Market Share Among Plug-In Automakers in USA” at the following link:
http://www.casteyanqui.com/ev/usa_sales/index.html
According to that chart, Tesla has sold a total of 148,757 to Nissan’s 114,550 with the minimum purchase price for any Tesla being about double the price of the Nissan Leaf. Globally, if you add the sales of the Renault Zoe then the Renault/Nissan alliance is probably ahead.
Below is a Youtube video from “Brooks from DragTimes”, a guy who regularly post videos of drag races featuring his Tesla vs, some high end ICE cars. He was among a throng of Tesla fans that paid a $50,000 deposit on a car they won’t get until 2020 and after his test ride his reaction was “I’m so glad I put my money down on this car!” That has planted the seed for some serious EVangelism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izhYXO9wKz0
So what portion of the global car market is the high end $70,000 and up region? 148,757 cars is less than a drop in the bucket of global sales. People are not lining up to buy them. I have seen two.
Tesla is not competing against EV’s, Tesla is competing against all vehicles. That is why they are producing the Model 3. More market in lower end. They also know the mindset of their customers. Which makes me wonder why they are so early in developing an EV pickup.
Patience my good friend. Twas not so long ago ( 2007) solar only contributed 0.01% of US electricity generation. This year it’s looking like about 2%, 200 times as much as 2007!
Maybe they are not as early in the development of a pick-up as last night’s presentation might suggest. The rendering they showed was a vehicle, based on the semi, much more akin to a F-450 Super Duty, which carries a MSRP of over 100 grand. Nobody had a clue about the Roadster, caught everybody completely by surprise. Maybe Tesla has a few more surprises up their sleeve.
If (when) Tesla sort out their production issues with the Model 3, they will leapfrog everybody by quite a margin, making 20,000+ cars a month. That should almost double the current plug-in (not just EV) market share. That should also trigger the rest of the manufacturers to raise their ambitions as well.
I hear that traffic cops are selling off their cruisers and looking to buy surplus Air Force A10s.
Just a rumor 😉
My old computer died, and I dragged out another.
So……. Something’s not quite right.
A lot of comments are showing a red ignored in a box to the right, although I can read them.
How do I get rid of these “ignored ” notices.
Keep in mind I’m the forum idiot when it comes to computers, politics, and several other topics, lol, and use kindergarden level language, and thanks in advance.
I don’ ignore anybody.
Hi OFM,
Try a reboot or clearing your cookies in your browser, maybe update your system using windows update (last resort as this may cause more problems than it solves).
A simple solution is to ignore the “ignored” marker.
Ignores are stored in the cookies. I suggest Cookies Manager+ as a useful tool on Firefox.
NAOM
Hi OFM, if, for example, it says Javier[X] ignored, just hit the X and he will be un-ignored.
Thanks, running internet explorer, there are red boxes but no x to clear.
Switched to chrome and it’s fine, and working much faster as well.
Time for a new computer .
Tell anybody who may be using an old computer that got a free upgrade to TEN that if they wipe it, you will NOT be allowed to reinstall TEN without paying for it.
People still use Internet Exploiter?
What’s that and for that matter what is Ten? 😉
One of the local cybers left the IE logos but linked them to Firefox, I wonder if anyone noticed or just thought it had been improved.
NAOM
M$$T always takes their pound of flesh.
Apple is not much better.
“People still use internet explorer? ”
It still works on this antique. I suppose it still works on a lot of older machines if you just want to cruise the news and read whatever’s free on the net.
It was the only browser on it when I dug it out of the closet.
But it didn’t take me long to try it with Chrome, and it runs Chrome ok. Runs it fine for blogging here, reading the news, etc.
Waste not, want not, but I may buy a new computer anyway. Black Friday sales are on.
Hi GF,
Doug posted some stuff a few days back about volcanoes. Links there, if you look back maybe a week.
There’s serious talk about actually tapping Yellowstone not to get power ,but rather to allow it to cool down and thus avoid a catastrophic eruption. Using the energy drained off to generate electricity would help pay for the job.
In my estimation, this might be within the realm of the possible, from an engineering stand point, but from a political stand point, my guess is the probability of it being tried approaches zero, at least for the next few decades.
On the other hand, I have been VERY surprised at the speed with which some things have changed on the political stage, and if the cards fall in favor, the public might be willing to buy it.
Suppose for instance that sea levels do rise two or three feet within the working lives of kids in school today, just about all of whom are at least HEARING something about forced climate change, even if it’s not being taught.
With such an example in mind, they might heed the warning of the science establishment, assuming the establishment comes out in favor.
PS I don’t know why this comment is so far away from the place it was intended to go.
Yes. thanks, I recall that earlier Yellowstone discussion.
Sure anxiety and panic will set in as the things that were predicted decades ago start to come true. Who knows what people will try? Most really don’t seem to mind screwing up the whole planet so little things like Yellowstone geothermal, methane hydrate mining, Arctic Ocean drilling should hardly cause them to blink. Most are idiots or purposely ignore facts, until reality hits them in the face, then they spin it and do something stupid.
We live in a world of high tech, vast knowledge and most people don’t know fertilizer.
Our only real hope may be that SKY Daddy, or MOMMY, or random chance, take your choice, slaps us upside our collective head quite often from here on out with a figurative mugger’s broken brick, in the form of some sort of natural or man made disaster.
These disasters will have to be bad enough to REALLY get our attention, collectively, but NOT bad enough to cripple us economically and technically so that we can’t start doing some things proactively about our environmental problems.
I refer to these figurative muggers bricks as Pearl Harbor WAKE UP Events. I suppose I should be paying more attention to not insulting anybody, but I can’t think of any other historical event even half so suitable for getting the point across.
Fuck it.
Most of the people who rant about insulting ANYBODY seem to being prone to making ONE major exception. It’s ok to make fun of poor hard up Christians , so long as they live in the south, and they are males.
I’ve noticed that they never make fun of my hard up ill educated black folk neighbors and fellow Christians who are actually more likely to be in church on Sunday’s than my redneck white neighbors, lol.
I’m only nominally a Christian, personally, but sometimes I fantasize about smacking people who make fun of people such as my dear departed Momma and my soon to be departed Daddy, lol.
Ah well, hypocrisy, cynicism, lies big and little, these things are all part and parcel of Mother Nature’s tool box, and we shouldn’t expect anything different. I once tried to catch a quail hen when I was a kid. She fooled me with her broken wing act, lol.
Some time back , maybe a couple of years ago, I stirred up a fuss here in this forum about what GOVERNMENTS can do, when things once get bad enough that government gets it’s ass in gear.
I’m talking about MILITARY government, authoritarian government,LEVIATHAN awakened , which can actually work wonders if it is put into place voluntarily by a country such as the USA, with the people in INITIALLY put into positions of power being reasonably well vetted for honesty and competence.
Under something approaching martial law , we could cut back on our use of oil here in the USA by a third within a few months, and by two thirds within a year or two, without anybody starving or dying of exposure as a consequence of doing so.
We could put a million construction guys to work upgrading the energy efficiency of old houses. We could outlaw the sale of new seven thousand pound beer fetchers within a few months. There are more than enough around already to meet the needs of tradesmen for at least a decade, and the USE of them could be outlawed except for actual necessary work.
Now could we stop athe climate from running into the red, or sea level from rising?
I don’t think so. Rising temperatures and rising seas are already baked in.
But I think maybe we can survive, most of us anyway, in countries such as the USA, depending on what sort of leadership we have, when the shit hits the fan.
Maybe.
The shit IS going to hit hard, sometime within the next few decades, barring miraculous good luck.
We are a very unique animal, yet still just an animal. It is not surprising for successful animals to overrun their food supply and have population collapse. Why should we be excluded from that universal principle? Due to our unique qualities it just takes longer and a lot more, which means just that much farther and a more dramatic fall.
If Mother Nature had a newspaper, it would be filled with examples of this and lately examples of extinction plus editorials about humans. We will be just one headline in the long chain of headlines, when we crash.
My neighbor puts it more succinctly “There will be blood in the streets.”
But on the other side of the coin, the more we do right now to lessen future impacts the more we can increase the odds of life surviving on this planet.
OFM,
I’ve seen you mention the scenario above several times, where the US gov could do this and that, force all these efficiency moves etc., and I do understand what you’re saying. Now tell me, what do you think the chances of that happening really are?
I guess I’m a true pessimist at heart, because I just don’t see that happening. I think the interests of the elite will be served well enough even with the great majority of the country starving, so they (elite) will have no real reason to try and force such a comprehensive game. Besides, the ability of people in general to fuck up such an undertaking would be hard to control.
I’ve read quite a bit about how this country’s manufacturing and production system was pressed into service in WW2, and I think that is in keeping with what you’re talking about, but I think there are some important differences between then and now.
One is the political leadership in this country, and the general population’s respect, or rather lack of respect for it. Partly due to the ease of getting info, whether correct or not, we see the warts and downright sleaziness of our great leaders.
“Authoritarian gov, put in place voluntarily” with “leaders vetted for honesty and competence”? Just where in hell is that going to happen, and where in hell are those leaders?
I might understand the need for such, but my weak mind just doesn’t see it happening. It could be that I’ve just become all too cynical in my expectations from my fellow humans, but I really don’t think I see FDR’s equivalent and the accompanying programs happening again here.
Two, December 7, 1941, was a pretty big brick upside the head, as you say. I don’t think there were many deniers in the US. Not so for our creeping predicaments.
Seriously, I’d like your thoughts on how likely it is that we could see that scenario.
Stan
I guess old HB must be sick or on vacation or something. He ‘s not doing much to help me point out how rotten the Trump administration is.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-panama/
Great, what next?
GROUNDWATER DEPLETION COULD BE SIGNIFICANT SOURCE OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE
“Humans may be adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by using groundwater faster than it is replenished, according to new research. This process, known as groundwater depletion, releases a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that has until now been overlooked by scientists in calculating carbon sources, according to the new study.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171116132655.htm
Causality–
You can’t get away from it.
Lesson to be learned: we really do not understand our world
Next lesson: when the water runs out this century (less than 50 years)
Drying times: Could the rapidly depleting Ogallala Aquifer run dry?
45 years of well data show near 100-foot declines in some counties …
http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2014-08-09/drying-times-could-rapidly-depleting-ogallala-aquifer-run-dry
South Dakota claims it lost 19 inches of topsoil between 1960 and 2014, according to this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfTZ0rnowcc&t=153s
That topsoil was probably 8% organic matter. Multiply 19 inches by the area of SD, and you’ve got a lot of carbon.
I tell ya folks, hypocrisy doesn’t pay. Not long term.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abuse-allegations-have-revived-scrutiny-of-bill-clinton–and-divided-democrats/2017/11/17/3d1711c8-cba4-11e7-b244-2d22ac912500_story.html?utm_term=.8f48f6c5a0f5
Get out here in the boonies where Trump is STILL popular among less intellectually gifted voters , and you will hear quick that ” them there dimmerkrats er the biggest goddamn hiperkrits I ever heard of” or something to that effect.
These voters are pretty goddamned quick to point out that while at least some big name Republicans republicans have roundly condemned Trump , Moore, and their kind, but when it was the top dog D in the spotlight, you could search high and low for a big D Democrat of any sort that had anything to say about Bill’s habits, and Hill’s “bimbo squad”.
NAH, there’s no culture war, that’s all a figment of my imagination.
Republicans who defend R’s predatory sexual behavior are called idiots, stupid, perverted, naive, you name it.
When they have pointed out, up until NOW, that Bill and Hill worked as a team, with him committing the crimes and Hill covering up for him, the D’s just repeated the ” Great Right Wing Conspiracy” mantra.
A lot of them believed and still believe in that mantra, just as a lot of simple minded R voters still believe in Trump and Moore. Some unknown fraction of people on both sides of the political fence knew or know better, but they played the game anyway. All of this kind are cynics and hypocrites , all of them, regardless of which side they are on.
I have a hard time understanding why anybody would think backwoods grade school dropouts should be condemned for defending Trump and Moore and their kind, when countless university educated D’s just as adamantly defended Bill and Hill.
I’m hoping for a couple of sarcastic replies.
Facing Public Outrage, Trump Puts Elephant Trophy Decision ‘On Hold’
Earlier this week, the administration lifted a ban on the import of elephant parts from two African nations.
In the face of widespread public backlash, President Donald Trump announced late Friday that he has suspended — at least for now — his own administration’s decision to reverse an Obama-era ban
When I look at that picture, words fail me! My primitive brain stem, cerebellum, and basal ganglia take over and and all I can muster are howls of pure unadulterated rage! What a pathetic little POS!
Why can’t Junior just shoot them with a camera or play a video game ? Mental illness ? Insecure penis size ? Raised by a narcissist ?
All three, I’m betting.
Get out here in the boonies where Trump is STILL popular among less intellectually gifted voters , and you will hear quick that ” them there dimmerkrats er the biggest goddamn hiperkrits I ever heard of” or something to that effect.
…I’m hoping for a couple of sarcastic replies.
First, a political affiliation disclaimer: I think the Remocrats and Depublicans are two sides of the same wooden nickel! They are just as obsolete and useless as all the ideologies, religions, economic theories and isms of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Not that that makes any difference as to finding a way out of our current predicaments.
For what it’s worth, I don’t hate yeast or cyanobacteria either. We just happen to be living at the dawn of the Anthropocene. Humans, who collectively are not much smarter than yeast, are changing the ecosphere, we are well into ecological overshoot and have for all intents and purposes initiated the sixth mass extinction event. C’est la vie, as Louie Pasteur might have exclaimed!
While I do upon occasion still enjoy a nice ice cold artisanal pale ale or two, I tend not to spend too much time engaged in intellectual discussion about topics such as population dynamics or atmospheric chemistry with large fermenting vats containing Saccharomyces cerevisiae… When encountering such vats, I have found that dancing semi naked around them and mumbling incoherently to the beer gods while raising a mug or two in their honor, is a rather more satisfactory and productive use of my time. 😉
/sarc
Cheers!
Well said, Sir Fred!
If you were the court jester, and I the king, I would reward you with something a LOT better than a wooden nickel, lol.
All the best ale you could handle for the remainder of the evening, and something moderately hard and yellow and shiny, and even more to be desired than the Nectar of the Gods.
I totally agree with you about Dim rats and repugiclans, so long as we remember to point out the D’s are a light year ahead on environment.
We share the conviction that Mother Nature values turkey buzzards, pubic lice and men in tuxes equally. Many years ago I realized that that hating my enemies is a waste of time and energy. It’s much better to stay cool and THINK about the best ways to manage them. ( One good way, sometimes, is to use the hatred of others as a tool to further my own ends. )
I just LOVE to poke sharp sticks into the eyes of hypocrites, no matter who they are, or where I encounter them.
If you ever find yourself up around Northwest NC, look me up. I don’t know anybody local that’s making really good home brewed beer these days, but methinks maybe I could put my paws on some REAL artisanal brandy, so long as old HB promises not to call the law on me for soliciting the sale thereof.
That would be wrong, as Tricky Dick, said, and truly, in this case, because I would be supplying it as a GIFT.
Be forewarned, the local culture judges the quality of such brandy by how bad it burns, going down, and if the guy making it knows you’ll be sampling it for the first time, he ‘ll run it thru twice so that it will bite as hard as onefiftyone rum.
I once took a jug down to my flat country inlaws, and my old pappy in law fell asleep in his rocker after every body had a nip or two of it, celebrating family and holiday.
He woke up an hour or two later, and looked around, and said “I guess old Skipper’s dead now. He took a big drink of that stuff.”
Every body laughed so hard that some of them spilled their drinks and a couple of others choked almost strangled themselves on half chewed food.
Now times have come such that we’re ALL up shit creek without a paddle, before too much longer, unless we listen to those who counsel us to set aside our differences and work together.
Said Jessie Jackson, paraphrased:
We didn’t all come over in the same boat, but we’re all in the same boat now.
“I totally agree with you about Dim rats and repugiclans, so long as we remember to point out the D’s are a light year ahead on environment”
And on Noverber 8, 2016 OldMacDonald aka KGB Trumpster punted on the environment, when he had a chance to do something about it.
HB
You’re still as dumb as a fence post. Virginia was perfectly safe for HRC, and everybody knew it.
So I was free to vote my conscience, and voted green.
HRC’s problem is or was that she’s about as stupid as you are, lol, when it comes to UNDERSTANDING the mood of the country, the things that lead people to decide to vote one way, or the other, what it means to be scared for one’s job and future, etc.
I would have stayed home before I would have voted for either of the cretins running.
“It soon becomes clear that the means of obtaining such material is more significant than what it discloses. Why, after all, bother about the awe inspiring deficiencies of the Democratic campaign, with its tarnished leader?”
OFM, you remind me of the village women. They were always hunting for any kind of gossip and spreading dissension and ignorance as fast as possible. Gossip is gossip, even if it’s about presidents and nameless people defaming the ignorant. At least the women gave names and details.
I know of one guy who made the mistake of listening to that gossip and saying some of it to the parties involved. He ended up being badly injured. Men should stay out of that game. There are consequences.
I mean really, don’t you see what is actually going on? Or are you just part of the problem?
Divided we fall.
Agree, last night on this year’s closing Bill Maher show. A guest pointed out how in 1980 the Democrats divided themselves between a conservative Carter(that’s a laugh) and liberal Kennedy. Only to end up with a Ronny Ray Gun and a real conservative movement. One can always find some kind of fault and in today’s world the media spin will do it for you.
Hi GF,
It’s perfectly ok to make fun of white males, especially Christian white males. I nominally fit that description, but my hide is thick, and I’m deliberately out to draw fire.
But ya better watch out making fun of women, or they may take their figurative scissors to ya someday. Hardly any of the younger ones seem to have a sense of humor when it comes to being insulted simply because they ARE women.
Now it’s my intention to get the attention of every possible person who is willing to think just a LITTLE, when it comes to PRACTICAL politics, and I do that as best I can, by various means.
Pointing out the self serving hypocrisy and cynicism of people who pretended for partisan ends that they never believed a word spoken by any of the women who accused BC of molesting them, or worse, is one great way of getting it done.
You’re obviously quite knowledgeable, especially so in respect to ecology, environment, and so forth. I will never question your intelligence or intellect, since you have obviously demonstrated that your are well above average in that department.
But methinks you are not so well informed outside your professional specialty, and I’m ready, willing, and eager to play hardball or soft with you when it comes to politics and human nature and a general knowledge of the social and behavioral specialties.
I can post links all night to sites such as the Mayo Clinic, if I so desire, supporting my arguments in these areas.
Have you ever heard of “defining deviancy down”?
This would be a great jumping off point.
Almost all the more liberal women I knew at the time,the Clinton years, and virtually all the women in academia, were perfectly willing to pretend Bill was a gentleman, and that Hillary was an honorable woman with self respect.
Maybe so. Or maybe they were willing to PRETEND, so as to maintain and maybe gain some short term political advantage.
I can’t prove they pretended, and that most D inclined men pretended along with them. You can’t prove they didn’t.
You can scream at the top of your lungs GREAT RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY, if you want.
I can say that SINCE THEN some liberal and liberated women of my own acquaintance have discussed this subject within my hearing, and a lot of them said in essence that they had nothing but the utmost contempt for HRC, for putting up with Bill, hanging in for the sake of her political ambitions.
Now whether they were in the right, or wrong, matters NOT A WHIT, within the context of MY ARGUMENTS.
What I’m saying is that she managed to lose to DT, and that took some fucking DOING. Some of the young women I heard say such things said them in the community college cafeteria nearest me. I was taking a couple of courses at the time trying to keep up with the electronics revolution happening under car hoods, and sat in on political discussions whenever possible. I heard more say basically the same thing at Sanders events.
There’s no point in trying to convince any body who can’t step back and look at the election objectively that she was a rotten candidate for lots of reasons.
But there are always a few people around who are willing to look at the elephant from various points of view.
I’m telling anybody who is willing to listen with an open mind WHY HRC lost, WHY half of the country loathed her, and WHY some life long D voters either stayed home, or actually voted R for the first time ever.
So let’s mix it up a little.
Let’s talk about the hypocrisy, and the crooked campaigning, which SOME big D Democrats are now acknowledging, and how such cynicism and hypocrisy can and does spread right thru the body politic.
A lot of rather pious old women on the R oriented side of the political fence decided that although they would not ordinarily even consider voting for a person like Trump, on the basis of his PERSONAL history, they had little choice but to fight fire WITH fire, so to speak. They voted for Trump, so as to vote against HRC. These particular women wouldn’t have voted for Trump, if they had known him well, or better.
You can piss and moan and cast blame and call them ignorant Bible thumpers, call them deplorables, call them kids living in their mom’s basement, whatever you like. That will undoubtedly make you feel better, lol.
But it won’t help you come to grips with the fact that the D’s ran their weakest candidate all the way back to the McGovern candidacy, as indicated by the various polls conducted before and during the campaign. Half the country, more or less, clearly had a very low opinion of her, and there’s simply no way you can deny that.
My game is to talk like a coach, and convince as many people as possible that you don’t run somebody who is arrogant, condescending, wooden, elitist, and utterly lacking in the common touch department, a BAU candidate at a time the country is BOILING with the desire for change.
A candidate stupid enough to use a home brewed email system, which OBVIOUSLY had to be common knowledge in the upper reaches of the Obama administration, one stupid enough to think she could accept over a hundred million dollars from shady characters with business with Uncle Sam in general and the State Dept in particular, and still get elected…….. well, she almost did, but she dragged down the D party with her.
Making fun of the people who voted for Trump is NOT going to incline them to vote for a D next time around, no siree.
The gossiping little old ladies were numerous enough to put Trump in office, IF they had voted for her. The university educated young people characterized as spoiled brats living with their parents were enough to have put her IN office, but she stuck her foot in her mouth to such an extent that ENOUGH of them stayed home. The normally reliable D voters in the Rust Belt states would have put her in office……. If she hadn’t done all she could to piss them off and scare and insult them, all the while taking them for granted, talking about them like peasants on her lordly estate, while hobnobbing with banksters, oh my OH MY.
Bottom line, a lot of people believe in principles first, politics second, and that sort of people will not vote for such candidates as HRC or Trump…….. IF they actually know that candidate’s history.
Trump had the advantage of HRC in this respect, because the D’s didn’t have history all the way back to Arkansas days on their side to help them with tarring and feathering Trump. He’s a scumbag that makes HRC look like a girl scout, but the public is slow to come to understanding such things.
A year or so is not long enough, because the R wing /conservative oriented media was able to cover for Trump well enough for that length of time for him to run a successful campaign.
It’s a cliche in every profession that deals with mental health that the first and most critical step on the patient’s part in achieving a cure or at least relief is that the patient must come to UNDERSTAND and ACCEPT that he or she HAS A PROBLEM.
See, you and HB haven’t yet accepted that you had a PROBLEM, which is now water under the bridge, in terms of the LAST election.
If you don’t come to accept that you had a PROBLEM, you are going into the next election cycle, and maybe the next ones after that, at high risk of making the same mistake as the last time………. running a candidate who is detested by half the electorate before even the first primary date.
I’m willing to bet I have posted more dirt on the Trump crowd here and elsewhere than all the other regulars in this forum COMBINED, unless the others use different handles in other forums, as I often do.
I’m not a partisan foot soldier.
I was not making fun of anyone.
I see you have switched personas again. That was one crazy rant. Didn’t see any relevance or logic to most of it, but definitely crazy.
I can set him off again. Do I need to prove it to you ? I didn’t think so. It’s what I do best
Didn’t mean to get in between you two. Although you should pay more attention to him.
“but lately this negative political agenda of yours seems to have taken you to a low point”
I believe OldFarmerMac does more damage to the Democrat party than good and he doesn’t understand the damage he does. He is the gift that just keeps on giving for the Republicans. For the 6 months running up to the election, he keep running his Republican talking points of 25 years all over this blog. I’m going to take credit for OFM low point. It’s been my only goal with him for the last year. Attacking him in the same manner and play book the GOP has used on HRC for the last 25 years. Far more Democrats choose HRC than Sanders. OFM opinion doesn’t over ride the party. The 6 months leading up to the election, OFM needed to hold his nose and shut up. But he didn’t and actions like his has given us the most damaging leader to this country and the world in history.
“you should pay more attention to him”
GF, you do this a lot, half a thought. For months now I have only been attacking OFM when he calls me out. Communicating with him is pretty much like talking to a block wall. Do you want me to attack him more often or do you think I should listen to him for my own enlightenment ? I am not the HRC supporter OFM makes me out to be. On the other hand I don’t believe all the Republican talking point he falls for about her. Besides, is there anyone here who reads all his dribble. I can’t. He has no focus in his rants except to attack HRC. I just scan them and attack the first stupid thing he writes. He always supplies plenty of material.
It’s a beautiful day here. So I’m out of here GoneBiking. Later
BS, it was HRC and you that did the damage to the democratic party, not people speaking out like OFM.
Maybe you should of supported a candidate that wasn’t so corrupt, or one that wasn’t a Henry Kissinger loving warmonger, or one that would actually campaign in Wisconsin. HRC currently has a lower aproval rating than Trump. She was a terrible candidate and the dems have no one but themselves to blame for Trump.
YEP–
And when we look a Honduras, Libya, Nato, etc. we have one of the most War Centric Secretaries of State in quite a while, especially for a Dim.
Haha you are a GRU asset, and you don’t even know it.
It’s funny how Republicans like you trumpeted Reagan’s famous victory over the Russians for decades, and now are just Putin’s bitch. Because it feels good, right?
Funny, I thought the McCarthy era ended long ago.
Please pardon me for thinking you were making fun of me by lumping me in with gossiping village women. I apologize!
But ya better watch out, or the PC establishment will be on you like stink on shit. The ONLY allowable out group consists of White Christian males only, lol. Everybody else is IN. 😉
It’s my PLAN to keep this general discussion going, because I believe it is contributing a little to helping anybody interested in winning elections ( rather than crowing and preening about their intellectual and moral superiority) come to a better understanding of the day to day realities of practical politicing.
Now every once in a while I use a screw driver as a chisel or crowbar, if I don’t have the right tool available.
HRC was the wrong tool, for lots of reasons.
Once that sinks in, and it IS sinking in, then the D party will be in better shape, less under the influence of the old time machine style politics of by gone times, as exemplified by the HRC machine recently.
The party will be a lot less likely no nominate another loser.
Children blame their losses on the playing field on the opposition. Adults accept the blame by accepting that they didn’t play well enough.
It’s more fun for me to do this when I have HB and or anybody else to joust with. I can’t lose, because I’m not here to win. I’m here to provoke some thinking on the part of D voters.
Incidentally I voted a straight D ticket a few days back, lol.
It wasn’t making fun, it was constructive criticism. Spreading dissension and gossip is not a good way to get any serious person to listen. Only the morally and ethically bankrupt listen to that twaddle.
You might want to cut down on the machine gun blame and finger pointing game too. Might want to eliminate some of the rabbit trails also.
My experience is that if a person is running down other people consistently they are doing the same to about everyone, so are not trustworthy or worthy of being heard. Much like our furious leader.
Take this any way you want, I like a lot of your ideas but lately this negative political agenda of yours seems to have taken you to a low point, IMHO.
COAL BACK AS FLASHPOINT IN CLIMATE-CHANGE FIGHT
“Coal emerged as the surprise winner from two weeks of international climate talks in Germany, with leaders of the host country and neighboring Poland joining Donald Trump in support of the dirtiest fossil fuel.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-18/coal-returns-as-flashpoint-in-global-climate-change-fight
It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.
— Pierre Trudeau
Meanwhile,
SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES DRILLING IN ALASKAN WILDLIFE REFUGE
“The Senate Energy panel approved legislation Wednesday allowing for oil and gas drilling in a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. The legislation is highly controversial, with Democrats and environmentalists slamming Senate Republicans for mandating new revenue from Arctic drilling as part of their tax-reform push. But GOP supporters of the legislation said Wednesday the drilling proposal is good for both Alaska, an energy-dependent state, and the federal government. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has long made ANWR drilling one of her top legislative priorities, said oil development won’t impact the refuge as much as opponents of the plan warn it will.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/360492-senate-committee-approves-bill-allowing-drilling-in-alaskan-arctic
This marks the beginning of the end.
Yes it does mark the beginning of the end for the weak economic situation in Alaska. Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.
Sure it will. I doubt if there is much real interest by oil companies. Just one more source of oil to depress oil prices again. Good plan.
You are being suckered by a Republican need to have virtual money fill the huge gap in their income tax plan so it can pass. It’s an accounting magic trick. Mere political magic. The don’t care if a dollar of profit is made up there.
Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.
Ok! Let’s for a moment pretend that is true. It isn’t, but we are only playing make believe here… Then what? What’s plan B?
Unless there were a plan B, which there isn’t, you’d be back at square one again and at that point, truly up shit’s creek without a paddle.
Decades of prosperity from oil and gas in ANWR is a pipe dream, pun intended!
And the pipes have been having some problems lately, even when not dreaming.
ANWR is plan B, labeled last ditch effort. Plan C is abandon ship, but to where?
“Opening up ANWR places the state firmly on a glide path to decades of sustainable prosperity.”
You don’t seem to know a lot about the exploration business. Canada’s Beaufort Sea was explored with great fan fair, lots of targets identified, oil = zip. ANWR could easily turn out the same way: all gas, no oil.
Glide paths always hit hard ground.
NAOM
Coal? More coal? Keep burning coal?
We are taking the atmosphere and the planet back into the distant past. Why not keep civilization in the Victorian era? Shiny Teslas, windmills and silicon will not save us from the medieval mind.
Fish — A few days ago, I had a long talk with my niece, Nicole (known to one and all as Nicki). She’s a young Petroleum Engineer who works for Statoil. As I’m sure you (all) know, Statoil is a multinational oil and gas company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway; it is a fully integrated petroleum company with operations in thirty-six countries. Nicki is a keen environmentalist, a workaholic, super intelligent (as was my wife) and she drives an EV. She enjoys her job which involves a lot of time on the North Sea rigs but would be equally happy with a new profession and has talked about teaching. In other words, a pretty balanced kid. The point of this is that she insists, absolutely, that every barrel of oil in Norwegian waters that can be reached with current technology will be extracted. I wish it were otherwise, she wishes it were otherwise, because if anyone has to ability to painlessly abandon this oil and gas play it’s Norway. Norwegians are well educated, environmentally aware and exceedingly wealthy BUT the momentum (if that’s the right word) of the industry is simply too great to stop. That’s the opinion of an expert, like it or not.
Norwegians are well educated, environmentally aware and exceedingly wealthy BUT the momentum (if that’s the right word) of the industry is simply too great to stop. That’s the opinion of an expert, like it or not.
OHHKAY! 😉
On the other, hand apparently the Norway Wealth Fund, seems to be at least thinking about divesting from oil stocks. I guess they don’t want all their eggs in the same basket given that there seems to be more and more risk in that sector.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/big-oil-shares-drop-as-norway-wealth-fund-plans-to-exit-sector
Big Oil Shares Drop After Norway Wealth Fund Plans to Exit Sector
Norway will be “less vulnerable” to a drop in oil prices by not being invested in stocks of companies in the industry, the Oslo-based fund said in a statement on Thursday. The Finance Ministry, and potentially even parliament, will make the final decision on whether to go ahead with the plan.
While the fund says the decision isn’t based on any future view on the industry, it will likely add pressure on oil producers, already struggling in a world where crude prices have slumped and renewable energy is gaining sway.
I think that what Norway is saying to big oil is: “We’ve had a great run together, but maybe it’s time for us to go our separate ways…”
I think that Norway will strive for an amicable divorce but I have a hunch that even your niece will be working in some other industry before too long!
Fred – I’m certainly no expert but my understanding of Norway’s state fund debate about dropping oil and gas investments is about making the country “less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices” and doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with saving the planet: currently, roughly 6% of the fund is invested in oil and gas stocks. In other words, any decision will be based on financial arguments and analyses of the government’s total oil and gas exposure.
Fred – I’m certainly no expert but my understanding of Norway’s state fund debate about dropping oil and gas investments is about making the country “less vulnerable to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices”
Yes, that is exactly as I understood it as well.
Which also leads me to wonder how economically viable extracting oil and gas will be in the future and if they might not become stranded assets as demand continues to drop and costs of extraction continue to rise. Especially as renewables and alternative energy become ever more competitive.
Add to that new technologies such as local manufacturing of products via 3D printing that have the potential to disrupt the entire global shipping paradigm. In my view the fossil fuel industry is going to die by a thousand tiny cuts, some that are already quite evident and some that are not on our radars as of yet.
Suffice it to say, that despite the prevailing general view that we will continue to depend on extracting fossil fuels to run much of our industrial civilization and global transport systems, I don’t see a rosy future for the big oil and gas companies. Especially as the economy becomes more and more decentralized and local.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Zt8X18M9E
Additive Manufacturing, What Is It and How Is It Changing Our Future?
The Additive Manufacturing technologies are reaching their tipping point with the potential to revolutionize how we design and manufacture products; in almost any industrial sector. The consequences of the general adoption of these advanced manufacturing technologies will disrupt entire supply chains and the human work. Possible changes can influence how we use energy and raw materials; perform harsh and hazardous processes; design product life-cycles and manage waste.
All the advanced manufacturing technologies can redefine business models based on the economy of scale and mass production. They will redefine decentralization and the roles of human workers.
Doug, I already know and have said as much in some previous comments. I know I do not live in a sensible and rational world (the human side) but also live in a very sensible world (nature). It’s schizophrenic.
However, despite the apparent futility of the situation I still do my best to not attend the mad hatter party.
I also have minimized my use of fossil fuels and materials despite knowing that it will do little good overall. It is a matter of following my personal beliefs and the knowledge I have acquired over the years. We all make choices, justifying them does not change them.
I realize that most people chose to not help themselves or change their actions.
But when I look outside and see a squirrel, I see that nature has a way of making things work without even having a large brain. Watching that squirrel grab a nut, make a small hole in the ground, plant the nut then carefully cover it up shows how a whole system of positive reinforcement sustains both squirrels and trees, each helping the other (and probably many more creatures too). There is a system at work that is beyond thought unless thought goes right down to the cellular level and below.
Why mankind seems bent on destructive actions is not known. It makes no sense, is not a survival mechanism and will (already is) end badly. Maybe there is truly something wrong with us. Maybe what we think of as understanding is just the opposite. humans, the only creature that did not fail when it wandered outside of the natural order, or more likely the only creature that took a long time to fail when it wandered outside the natural way.
We are apparently capable of anything except changing our ways in a positive fashion.
But until we fail, we will keep ignoring or band-aiding our mistakes and compounding our errors. But we all know where compounding leads.
Hi GF,
I don’t recall you saying so in so many words, but my guess is that you ARE a biologist of one sort or another, in the usual sense……. meaning you have a degree in the field. If not , you sure as hell know a lot for an amateur, and have managed to enjoy a career doing the work of a biologist, degree in the field or no.
But you say:
“Why mankind seems bent on destructive actions is not known. It makes no sense, is not a survival mechanism and will (already is) end badly. Maybe there is truly something wrong with us. Maybe what we think of as understanding is just the opposite. humans, the only creature that did not fail when it wandered outside of the natural order, or more likely the only creature that took a long time to fail when it wandered outside the natural way.
We are apparently capable of anything except changing our ways in a positive fashion.”
I’m only an AMATEUR, with a lot of courses in the general field, but I do know enough to know that you are displaying a less than stellar understanding of human behavior, which is entirely or almost entirely explainable in terms of evolutionary psychology.
Maybe my years of living in the woods while engaged on a random walk thru the literature of the world has paid off.
I know why we behave the way we do, lol. LOTS of people know.
I suggest you read some evolutionary psychology books, as well as some basic texts on evolution.
It took me a year to get thru Gould’s self described “monstergraph” titled The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, an evening or two a week, but I’ve never regretted putting the effort into it. It IS sort of involved, and it’s as thick as four or five typical books, lol.
It’s a nice day out , and I’m going to enjoy spending it outside, but I’ll be thinking about how I can reduce what’s known about our behavior, in terms of evolutionary theory, down to a bare essence that will make sense. I’ll try to post that essence later today.
So you disagree with the concept that we are on a destructive path and argue that it is sensible? Interesting. I can’t wait to hear you make sense of what has been going on, especially lately when we supposedly know better. I especially want to know the why, not the how or the observations but why we are blatantly self and world destructive.
Remember this must make sense in the natural scheme of things which is what I base my premise upon. If you can figure out why us you get a brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster.
BTW, I am a professional physics/chemistry person, not biology. Although I have studied the subject widely in both text and field, I am more of a naturalist than a biologist. Meaning I never got paid for the nature parts.
Like you, I can weld, build a house, fix a car, do plumbing, electrical and other trade type endeavors. I have worked professionally in the trades and as a state certified guide.
But more importantly, I learned long ago how to walk in the world and how to respect nature.
If you can figure out why we are the way we are (not how) then you get a brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels.
I especially want to know the why, not the how or the observations but why we are blatantly self and world destructive.
Remember this must make sense in the natural scheme of things which is what I base my premise upon.
My own take is that humans are actually following all the natural laws and are simply behaving according to their evolutionary programing.
I think all of us, myself included, often tend to fall into the trap of thinking that we are somehow endowed with this higher level power of reasoning and rationality. We talk about being self aware and having a quality we define as consciousness. While that may be true on an individual level it doesn’t tell the full story.
There is no doubt we are an extremely clever species, our large brains and tool making capabilities have certainly given us a leg up in terms of evolutionary fitness. This has allowed us to suceed in spreading into just about every ecosystem niche on the planet. Though at the end of the day we are still only highly social great apes evolved to live in relatively small tribes of at most a few hundred individuals.
We most certainly did not biologically evolve to live in an interconnected global industrial civilization consisting of 7.5 billion individuals.
My favorite all time biologist and naturalist, E.O. Wilson, who specialized and spent a lifetime studying social, or more correctly eusocial insects such as bees, ants, termites and some wasps, argues the we humans are now on the verge of evolving into an truly eusocial species. However we are encumbered with a lot of evolutionary tribal ape baggage that we are still lugging around with us.
How 7.5 billion humans following their evolutionary programing collectively affect the biosphere is not very different
than what cyanobacteria did to change the atmospheric chemistry of the planet 3.8 billion years ago by introducing what to the anaerobes would have been a toxic and deadly gas, namely O2. This despite the fact that we have a tiny minority of individuals like yourself who who are able to connect the dots. and understand the consequences of our activities.
This doesn’t mean that humans are incapable of changing course from our self destructive, but for most, still a totally unconscious path.
Clearly, we are at an evolutionary inflection point and the Fat Lady has yet to sing.
IMHO, we might want to start by getting rid of people in power who’s offspring are still engaged in cutting off elephant’s tails with knives.
Anyways, just my two cents here!
So where do I apply for my brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels
😉
No figlagee for you, just a fig newton. When you earn one it will be delivered.
E for effort though Fred. I did not read anything that explained the how, let alone the why.
Up until about 10 or 12,000 years ago we were a dangerous pest species, capable of doing a lot of damage but still only edging off the typical ways of nature. At that time we had all the tools needed to move outside the box but had not developed the understanding needed to go far off the edge, though we kept trying. Soon though we developed agriculture, metallurgy, geometry, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. Bang, like an explosion we started the systems that would launch us into a global techno civilization capable of flight, ocean travel (sub and surface), use of the full EM spectrum, machines, even space travel and on and on.
I am looking at why nature produced such a beast. One that could despoil the system and not be erased quickly by natural checks and balances.
If I can’t get a why answer, which may be too difficult or impossible, at least an answer as to what happened to us long ago that changed our brains so dramatically. Turned us into imagination fiends. What evolutionary cause forced the change or was it just some revolutionary accident? I don’t think we are any smarter than those ancient Egyptians or Greeks, so the change happened well before that time.
It is a serious mistake to think we are like the rest of the animals. Except for our brains and hands we are really a weak and slow creature for our size. with limited senses. But we managed to slip the noose of nature for a long time now and not come to a screeching halt or get diminished by more fitting portions of our breed.
I can understand how most creatures fit into the pattern of life, but why such a not-work creature? Why produce something so uncontrollable and unstoppable that it takes practical destruction of the whole ecosystem and planetary changes to stop it. Everything else seems to have limits and follows an order. We try to create new orders and push back all the limits.
From what I see of this, I wonder how we ever made it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLTDY9yZDRM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3x28YZYwnA
Why produce something so uncontrollable and unstoppable that it takes practical destruction of the whole ecosystem and planetary changes to stop it.
Sounds to me as if you are asking for a purpose to the universe.
There isn’t any! It just is. There is no answer to the why question and it is pointless to ask it. Evolution has no definable goal.
As for the how did we get here question? Absolutely, that is what all of our sciences, i.e. biology, evolution, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology etc… have been designed to answer.
I highly recommend the following three ASU Origins Project debates and panel discussions to get a good feel for the big picture. It might take up a good four hours or so of your time. This isn’t something suitable for sound bites. It involes a lot of in depth cross disciplinary knowledge.
https://origins.asu.edu/events/great-debate-transcending-our-origins-violence-humanity-and-future
Great Debate: Transcending Our Origins – Violence, Humanity, and the Future
https://origins.asu.edu/events/great-debate-extinctions-tragedy-opportunity
Great Debate: Extinctions – Tragedy to Opportunity
https://origins.asu.edu/events/conversation-inconvenient-truths-love-extinctions
Conversation: Inconvenient Truths – From Love to Extinctions
If you listen to only one speaker from this final group then check out Curtis Marean’s talk at the end of Inconvenient Truths – From Love to Extinctions
Marean is a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the associate director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. He is interested in the relation between climate and environmental change and human evolution, both for its significance as a force driving past human evolution, and as a challenge to be faced in the near future. Curtis has focused his career on developing field and laboratory teams and methods that tap the synergy between the disciplines to bring new insights to old scientific problems. He has spent over 20 years doing fieldwork in Africa, and conducting laboratory work on the field-collected materials, with the goal of illuminating the final stages of human evolution – how modern humans became modern.
The other speaker I would listen to is Sarah Mathew,
In the Transcending Our Origins – Violence, Humanity, and the Future debate/
Sarah Mathew
I study the evolution of human ultra-sociality and the role of culture in enabling it. I am especially interested in how humans evolved the capacity to cooperate with millions of genetically unrelated individuals, and how this links to the origins of moral sentiments, prosocial behavior, norms, and large-scale warfare. To address these issues, I combine formal modeling of the evolution of cooperation with fieldwork among the Turkana. The Turkana are an egalitarian pastoral society in East Africa who cooperate, including in costly inter-ethnic raids, with hundreds of other Turkana who are not kin nor close friends. Through systematic empirical studies in this unique ethnographic context, my research project here aims to provide a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underpinning cooperation and moral origins.
To paraphrase Richard Feynman, if you don’t like the way this universe is, tough noogies! Go find yourself another one.
Cheers!
P.S.
And I still want my brass figlagee with bronze oak leaf cluster hand delivered by angels 😉
No, not asking for the purpose of the universe. Merely looking at a much smaller segment, the natural system on planet Earth and how that operates at a general level. There is a purpose and intent at the molecular level, which means it is everywhere.
However, due to your annoying the angels with your claim of no meaning, I can merely only send you an image of the brass figlagee. See down near the bottom of the comments.
There is a purpose and intent at the molecular level, which means it is everywhere.
Could you expand on that?
What is the ability, purpose and intent of say DNA or other cellular molecules?
Well, her perspective is certainly helpful, and she may be right. On the other hand, a perspective from inside an industry can be limited.
General Motors was the largest car company in the world for a very long time. It seemed to be a Master of the Universe. No one inside the company believed that it could ever go bankrupt. No one. We saw the same thing with Hillary in 2016. And, coming back to oil, we saw the same thing with LTO and KSA.
Overconfidence can destroy you.
Hi Doug,
Luckily there is not a lot of oil there. I tend to agree with your niece. The best we can do is transition to EVs etc as fast as possible (as far as oil) and wind, and solar widely interconnected to replace most natural gas use (passive solar, thermal, storage, and heat pumps would also help).
As oil and natural gas deplete and become more expensive, it will help drive the transition, this may gain enough momentum that demand for oil and natural gas will fall enough to drive prices down to the point where further extraction from high cost resources is no longer profitable.
At that point much of the resource gets left in the ground, but we are unlikely to reach this point before 2045, at that point Norway’s oil may be gone, but there may be a lot of OPEC, Russian, Canadian, Brazilian and Venezuelan oil that never gets produced because it will not be profitable to do so.
Shiny Teslas, windmills and silicon will not save us from the medieval mind.
It’s not the medieval mind I worry about, it’s the OS!
“we are running a 21st century digital economy on a 13th Century printing-press era operating system.”
Douglas Rushkoff, In Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus
It’s getting close to five o’clock somewhere. Don’t forget to punch that time clock on your way out.
Fred said”It’s not the medieval mind I worry about, it’s the OS!”
The operating system?
You are afraid of nature?
You are afraid of nature?
Nah, I’m down with nature, she always tends to trump whatever economic system is in vogue…
But nature is the operating system, despite all the hoopla otherwise. No need to worry about nature.
Hey, in case anyone is interested in getting their hands on their very own grenade launcher, you’re in luck!
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/might-be-your-only-chance-get-colt-m203-grenade-launcher-23245
Have you ever daydreamed of blowing the feet out from under a gaggle of drug-smuggling goons like Thomas Jane in The Punisher? Or watched Predator with envy as Arnold Schwarzenegger lit up the Central American jungle? If so, you’re in luck: Colt Defense is rolling out a handful of genuine mil-spec, production-standard M203 under-barrel grenade launchers to the civilian market for the first time ever.
Colt has produced a limited run of M203s that are legal for civilian ownership, offered through ArmsUnlimited, one of the company’s major law enforcement distributors, starting on Nov. 15.
And another feedback to worry about… but don’t be alarmed!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01774-z
Abstract:
Land-atmosphere exchanges influence atmospheric CO2. Emphasis has been on describing photosynthetic CO2 uptake, but less on respiration losses. New global datasets describe upper canopy dark respiration (Rd) and temperature dependencies. This allows characterisation of baseline Rd, instantaneous temperature responses and longer-term thermal acclimation effects. Here we show the global implications of these parameterisations with a global gridded land model. This model aggregates Rd to whole-plant respiration Rp, driven with meteorological forcings spanning uncertainty across climate change models. For pre-industrial estimates, new baseline Rd increases Rp and especially in the tropics. Compared to new baseline, revised instantaneous response decreases Rp for mid-latitudes, while acclimation lowers this for the tropics with increases elsewhere. Under global warming, new Rd estimates amplify modelled respiration increases, although partially lowered by acclimation. Future measurements will refine how Rd aggregates to whole-plant respiration. Our analysis suggests Rp could be around 30% higher than existing estimates.
Trump, breaking with precedent, will not meet with American Nobel recipients
Not all the honorees are disappointed.
Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president.
“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, Pence, or Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank said. “I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.”
https://www.statnews.com/2017/11/13/white-house-nobel-ceremony/
I wonder if it is the bad air, or the smell?
Fish and Nick G – From above. To begin with, three countries have almost all the rare earth reserves: China, Brazil and Russia: 44 million MT; 22 million MT; 18 million MT respectively. Second, and this is key, the rare earth market is basically made up of just four (or five) distinct “critical rare earths.” Even with new mine supply and refining capacity coming on-line, these elements will remain in short supply. For at least half of the REEs, production and usage are tiny and there is no “market” to speak of.
Dysprosium is where its at and dysprosium is going be in short supply for some time and China has almost all the dysprosium. Forget all those light REEs. For example, Molycorp’s much talked about Mountain Pass deposit, contains light REEs and has little economic value. Put another way, there are heavy rare earths and light rare earths, the latter having very little value. I’ve worked on a number of REE deposits and know the situation well. I don’t know squat about cobalt, or no more than anyone else with an internet connection. Interesting applicable article: THE ONLY FIVE RARE EARTH ELEMENTS THAT MATTER
“For many REEs, production exceeds demand and will for the foreseeable future. Cerium is a good example of the fact that not all rare earth demand is equivalent. When you produce dysprosium, you are always producing much more cerium than dysprosium. That doesn’t mean that there is a market for cerium. In fact, it is more correct to say that some cerium/lanthanum/neodymium deposits contain recoverable dysprosium. Saying it this way really defines the problem.”
http://www.mining.com/the-only-five-rare-earth-elements-that-matter/
No problem, EV motors are fast getting away from rare earth magnets and I hear that will happen in wind turbines also.
Tesla is way ahead of the game using no magnets whatsoever in it’s induction motor design. Renault has achieved similar success with a wound rotor motor design. Others are designing to use less rare earth materials.
The newer Chevy Volt uses less rare earth in it’s motors by eliminating it altogether from one motor.
“In the first-generation Volt, both motors used the rare-earth metal neodymium in their magnets. In the new Volt, Motor A substitutes a ferrite magnet, reducing its cost, while Motor B continues to use neodymium.”
More info from a few years ago about the situation.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993715000032
Well, that seems to suggest that the US and EU may be dependent on imports of certain REEs. Most mineral reserve estimates are not really comprehensive (they’re very limited geographically, limited to a short time window and by narrow definitions of “economic” reserves) – are we sure about REE resource surveys?
But…more importantly, your original point was about pollution and child labor. Is there any reason to believe that REEs couldn’t be mined ethically, that is to say without child labor and pools of toxic pollution?
“Is there any reason to believe that REEs couldn’t be mined ethically, that is to say without child labor and pools of toxic pollution?”
Of course not, and it’s a sickening sight. I just think when you’ve actually seen it up close you have a duty to report the knowledge, just like any other injustice, and not pretend it isn’t happening.
Well, sure.
On the other hand, you don’t want to fall into a climate denier talking point about how EVs and renewables can be criticized for such things.
It’s like the whole thing about Al Gore not being allowed to fly, because he advocates reductions in carbon emissions.
I don’t think I’m falling into any traps. I simply wonder why people need to replace their cel phones every eighteen months, or whatever the average is, and by doing trashing an irreplaceable resource — mined by children or not.
Actually, they don’t.
Cell phones are just like cars – cars get resold as used about every 3 years, but they’re still in use. Cell phones get recycled as used phones to someone else, and get used for a very long time.
If you say so. Most people I know are on two-year contract and replace their phones every 24 months (without a penalty) and the “old” phone winds up in a drawer. Maybe they’re not average people.
And, according to Wikipedia: “Humans toss millions of cell phones each year in favor of newer technology—and all those discarded phones may be taking a toll on the environment. Electronic scrap accounts for 70% of the overall toxic waste currently found in landfills in the U.S.A. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 141 million mobile phones were discarded in 2009 and only 12 million of those were collected for recycling.” Is it any better now?
“smartphones and feature phones have the shortest life expectancy at 4.7 years.”
https://www.cta.tech/News/Blog/Articles/2014/September/The-Life-Expectancy-of-Electronics.aspx
And that’s out of date:
” smartphone buyers across America and Europe are holding onto their phones longer.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-people-wait-to-upgrade-phones-chart-2017-3
Cell phones have been sold for what, 20 years? Even if cell phones lasted 15 years, you would still see a significant volume going to landfills or recycling. So, statistics on the volume of discards aren’t very useful unless you compare them very carefully to both new sales data and actual data on what happens to them after they’re turned in.
Some people put their old phones in a drawer (which is similar to cars, which often are owned for a very long time, but with sharply reduced actual usage – if you don’t consider something at all useful, you don’t keep it in a drawer, you toss it in the garbage or drop it in the Best Buy recycling bin), but most people trade them in on a new phone. That old phone gets re-used. The majority of smart phones ever sold are still in use, somewhere…maybe China.
In 2014, approximately 41.8 million tons of e-waste was generated worldwide. The quantity included 12.8 million tons of small equipment, 11.8 million tons of large equipment, 7.0 million tons of temperature exchange equipment (freezing and cooling equipment), 6.3 million tons of screens and monitors, 3.0 million tons of Small IT and 1.0 million tons of lamps. The amount of worldwide e-waste generation is expected to be 49.8 million tons in 2018 with an annual 4-5 percent growth. Currently, only 15-20 percent of all e-waste is recycled. Each year, globally, around 1 billion cell phones and 300 million computers are put into production. The amount of global e-waste is expected to grow by 8 percent per year.
https://www.thebalance.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189
That is about 12 pounds per person globally per annum. Of course that includes all business and government uses. Not much compared to the over 16oo pounds of trash per person per annum created in the USA.
Is it the amount or the handling of the amount? I don’t know about the rest of the world but here we have laws making it illegal to put e-waste in the trash stream. We have to dispose of it at special recycling centers or at the county hazardous waste disposal unit. Luckily they provide a couple of “free” collection days, otherwise one pays for disposal.
If longevity is the problem, that can be addressed on the manufacturing end. If disposal and recycling is the problem, that can be addresses at the government and manufacturing end.
My dead laser printer cartridge is right now packaged up ready to go back to the manufacturer as an example.
Because the US has not ratified the Basel Convention or its Ban Amendment, and has few domestic federal laws forbidding the export of toxic waste, the Basel Action Network estimates that about 80% of the electronic waste directed to recycling in the US does not get recycled there at all, but is put on container ships and sent to countries such as China.
China no longer accepts foreign e-waste.
My daughter sells her old phones. Big market for them. If people are not selling them, they can have hundreds of dollars sitting in their drawers for no good reason.
I mostly have purchased refurbished used phones except for my current one.
Backpfeifengesicht
German
Noun
(colloquial) a face in need of a slap
How about this one?
.
He sure does look like a preacher’s boy to me, the kind I would rather stomp than see screwing a daughter of my own. Daughters WILL screw, it comes naturally and preserves the species, lol, but when they do it with the wrong guy, well then they are simply getting fucked.
And anybody who knows anything about preachers knows about their boys, lol.
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6/d/6d69f200-c605-4424-87ac-7158b8ea161d/939EC01CF7731069B466775F920174C9.kushner-letter.pdf
Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion Already Exists, Watergate Prosecutors Say
Mueller Subpoenaed Trump Campaign for More Documents
I could go on all day.
It’s amusing to see how seriously D’s take the responsibility of the law enforcement community when R’s are the subject of investigations, and how they demonize that same law enforcement community when it’s investigating pet D’s.
It’s amusing to see how seriously D’s take the responsibility of the law enforcement community when R’s are the subject of investigations, and how they demonize that same law enforcement community when it’s investigating pet D’s.
Bullshit! I know Democrats demonize the republicans call to investigate the past Democratic administration. And it should be demonized. Jailing your past political opponent is something that happens in dictatorships or banana republics. It is not something that happens in civilized societies.
But demonizing law enforcement is something altogether different from demonizing ignorant politicians. Democrats do not demonize law enforcement and it is a goddamn lie to say they do.
Jeff Sessions, to his credit, is ignoring the ignorant calls to investigate the past Obama or Clinton Administrations.
Hi Ron,
You are displaying your usual partisan colors, nice and bright.
If you can’t remember what the D establishment had to say about HRC and her secret email system and the law enforcement community, around and about the time of the last election, you’re slipping even worse than I am.
Are you telling me that you believe the accusations against Moore, but that you disbelieve essentially similar accusations made against Bill Clinton? Have you ever made a public comment to the effect that you believe Bill Clinton is a predatory man?
I believe both men are as guilty as guilty can be, although Bill did stick to WOMEN, as opposed to girls. Gotta give him credit for that.
My memory isn’t what it used to be. I have to make lists these days to remember half the things I go to town to buy.
Maybe your’s is even worse.
I agree that Sessions is at least halfway competent and ethical, which makes him an exception to the rule in the Trump administration.
My guess is that the only reason Trump hasn’t fired him is that Trump’s afraid the resulting backlash would finish him off. He’s probably thinking he has a better shot at weathering the special prosecutor’s investigation than trying the firing route.
Hopefully Mueller and his team will dig out enough hard proof of Trump and company’s dirty dealings that the public will vote in enough Democrats to impeach his sorry ass, November next.
I’ll be blogging for D’s in general, and providing rides to the local polling station, for D’s, lol. I may help man a phone bank.
BUT I WILL NOT PRETEND TO BELIEVE IN PARTISAN BULLSHIT, D or R oriented.
I’m grinning at the prospect of a Trump impeachment, and I’m thinking that a LOT of Trump associates are trembling and shaking like the proverbial hound shitting cockleburs.
The odds appear to be pretty good that at least a handful of Trump associates are going to court and some of that handful will be convicted.
Now HERE’S the difference between a partisan and a realist.
A partisan never or ALMOST NEVER has anything critical to say about his own party.
The one major exception to this observation is that partisans often admit that while their own party has some problems, they also say in the same breath that their’s is the angel team, while the other party is the devil team.
It’s ok to sacrifice a pawn to capture a more powerful piece, lol.
You’re a partisan, as evidenced by your failure to seriously criticize anything having to do with the D party.
I’m a realist, and I give both sides hell, while frequently stating that the D’s are right, or CLOSER TO RIGHT, about a number of super critical issues, especially the environmental issue, the health care issue, etc.
I don’t say much in favor of the R party, but I do agree with a few R positions, such as that we should bust up the teacher’s monopoly, and that we should be doing some things to make sure we don’t export any more industries, especially the ones that provide employment to the many millions of people in this country that lack education enough to find employment in high tech fields.
There are many reasons Trump is president these days. The election was close enough that any one of these reasons, everything else held equal, could be THE reason he won and HRC lost.
ONE of them is the voter backlash brought on by offshoring so much of our industrial base.
If I’ve ever heard a goddamned STUPID argument, it’s the one about unfettered international trade NECESSARILY being good for the people of this country. I know all the arguments, lol, both sides.
If you ( rhetorical ) stick to ACADEMIC arguments, of the sort made by professional economists, it looks GREAT.
But if you consider the BIG PICTURE, you just MIGHT come to some different conclusions.
If you (again rhetorical) are stupid enough to campaign on this academic argument, when many tens of millions of people are pissed off and scared and worried sick because they know people who HAVE LOST their jobs, and fear they may lose their own, well……….
You just might lose. People vote based on their fears and beliefs and their hopes and dreams,rather than on what they are told by professional economists.
This COUNTRY just might lose, long term. We Yankees haven’t exactly SUFFERED over the last hundred years or so because we were the leading industrial power of the entire world, now, HAVE WE?
Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout. But Trump the AMATEUR politician made a fool out of her, his first time out as a politician. Well, actually it’s far more accurate to say that HRC made a fool out of herself.
I’m talking like a COACH.
We need a general housecleaning , politically, both sides of the aisle.
My personal opinion is that our best hope of getting it is to overthrow the D party establishment which has gotten to be altogether too cozy with the big business big banking establishment, and return control of the D party to it’s real roots.
“I agree that Sessions is at least halfway competent and ethical”
Clearly you didn’t watch Session lie to congress last week with his “I don’t recall” crap covering his ass. Oh that’s right, you’re still living in the 40’s without a TV.
“I’m talking like a COACH”
From his daddy’s basement and broke.
“People vote based on their fears and beliefs and their hopes and dreams,rather than on what they are told by professional economists”
The faith based religious knuckle daggers continue to reject science for ignorance.
OFM(hypocrisy) says-
“partisans often admit that while their own party has some problems, they also say in the same breath that their’s is the angel team”
“Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout”
“Incidentally I voted a straight D ticket a few days back, lol”
Are you telling me that you believe the accusations against Moore, but that you disbelieve essentially similar accusations made against Bill Clinton? Have you ever made a public comment to the effect that you believe Bill Clinton is a predatory man?
Goddammit Mac, please get real. The call by those House Republicans was to go after the Obama administration and Hillary in particular while she was Secretary of State. They wanted Obama and Hillary prosecuted for the Uranium deal.
That was what it was all about Mac.
Again, trying to prosecute and jail your former political opponents is something that dictators do. It is something you would expect from a banana republic, not the United States of America.
So don’t give me this shit about me slipping in my old age. If you fail to see what this call to prosecute Hillary and/or Obama was all about then you are definitely slipping. On the other hand, you are probably not slipping at all. You probably think it is a great thing for newly elected presidents to try to jail their former political opponents. I think you have not a clue as to how dictators behave and think that would be a great idea.
Oh, one more thing, going after Bill Clinton almost two decades after he was out of Office is even more stupid than trying to jail Hillary for something she had absolutely nothing to do with. The President signed off on the Uranium deal, the Secretary of State had nothing to do with it.
Sometimes you absolutely amaze me Mac.
I wonder if German has a word for ‘a face in need of a curb stomping’?
This one’s for Doug in particular, since he’s probably better able to answer it than anybody else.
The rotation of the Earth is known to speed up and slow down, only a very little of course, a few milliseconds per day at the most.
It has been discovered or observed that there is a strong correlation between powerful earthquakes and this periodic change.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/18/2018-set-to-be-year-of-big-earthquakes
I didn’t go very far in physics, because ag guys don’t need a lot of physics……. well, back in my day we didn’t, anyway.
I do know know about the conservation of rotational momentum, and that if a spinning ice skater pulls in her arms she speeds up spinning, and if she extends her arms, she slows down, etc.
What I’m hoping to hear is a simple answer in simple English to this question.
WHY does the Earth’s rotation periodically speed up and slow down ?
It’s easy enough intuitively accept the proposition that when the Earth slows down and speeds up , the stresses along various fault lines increase and decrease to some extent, enough to cause more or fewer earthquakes.
If you put a few nuts or other small objects inside a tubeless tire / wheel assembly and spin it on it’s axle, centrifugal forces hold the nuts stationary if you spin it fast enough. It’s when you allow it to slow down that they start moving, and you can hear them start tumbling around in the wheel.
WHY does the Earth’s rotation periodically speed up and slow down ?
I really get a kick out of typing other people’s questions into Google, just to see what pops up… 😉
The periodic effects result from seasonal changes such as snow and ice building up in the Northern hemisphere during the winter and melting during spring/summer. This reduces the Earth’s moment of inertia tensor during Northern hemisphere winter and increases it during summer. Since the Northern hemisphere is mostly land and the Southern mostly water, it is the seasons in the Northern hemisphere that drive these changes.
Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-spin-of-earth-constant.314096/
I’m sure that Doug can also chime in to add his two cents worth….
Cheers!
Thanks Fred. The only thing I’ll add is the speed of rotation of Earth is decreasing due to revolution of the Moon (due to a transfer of Earth’s rotational momentum to the Moon’s orbital momentum as tidal friction). The days are getting longer due to motion of moon around the Earth causing the day length to get longer: by 1.7 milliseconds per 100 years. 🙂
Hi Fred,
I do occasionally refer to myself as the resident forum idiot, token conservative, Trumpster, Proud Putineer, etc, etc, but I’m not QUITE so helpless that I can’t google such questions. 😉
From my link:
“Bilham and Bendick found that there had been periods of around five years when Earth’s rotation slowed by such an amount several times over the past century and a half. Crucially, these periods were followed by periods when the numbers of intense earthquakes increased.
“It is straightforward,” said Bilham. “The Earth is offering us a five-year heads-up on future earthquakes.”
This link is particularly important because Earth’s rotation began one of its periodic slowdowns more than four years ago. “The inference is clear,” said Bilham. “Next year we should see a significant increase in numbers of severe earthquakes. We have had it easy this year. So far we have only had about six severe earthquakes. We could easily have 20 a year starting in 2018.”
I’m presuming that these periodic day length variations they are talking about are REAL. If so, it’s extremely unlikely that they are driven by the annual weather cycle.
Nor can the well known fact that the Earth is sacrificing some angular momentum to the moon explain the repeating five year cycle observed, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge of physics.
Of course I should have made it clear I was referring to FIVE YEAR cycles, rather than annual cycles.
IF these five year cycles aren’t real, basic probability theory leads to the conclusion that some other natural cycle, as yet unknown, must be influencing this observed well established cyclical pattern of earth quakes.
but I’m not QUITE so helpless that I can’t google such questions.
To be clear, I wasn’t implying that you were.
BTW there is some discussion at the link I provided that also addresses what Doug said about the influence of the moon and even some mention of the relationship to earthquakes.
I think I’d probably stay away from places like California and Japan next year…
We have water shifting from the poles toward the equator from ice melt, causing changes in rotation rate.
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/rising-sea-levels-shown-actually-slow-down-earths-rotation-0/
Changes in the Earth’s rotation are in the wind
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0210rotation.html
Hi GF
Thanks for these links. The arguments in them are obviously sound, and easily understood in terms of ABC level physics, which is about as far as my knowledge extends in physics.
But do they throw any light on possible five year cycles?
Other than the so called Nino Nina events, no they do not involve five year cycles as far as I know.
The core wave harmonic (sloshing) or more likely viscous slipping between the core and the mantel is an intriguing idea. With the core acting somewhat independently to the mantel and crust, gravitational perturbations from within the solar system could set up a torque within the earth. The frequency could be more related to the viscous nature of the core and it’s interaction with the mantel rather than the actual perturbation ( the frequency of pendulum is related to the length not the original force that perturbed it).
It could be from gravitational perturbations or merely the leftover changes from the last retreat of the ice sheets and redistribution of mass on the planet. Or both.
If the effect is diminishing then it might be from a past event, if it is stable or increasing, look elsewhere.
Since the inner solid core rotates at a different rate than the liquid outer core and the earth itself, the dynamic interactions with perturbations are probably very complex. There is also material change, temperature change, and density changes as one crosses the cores to inner and outer mantle to crust. Throw in the somewhat decadal variation in the magnetic field and go figure what external perturbations on these various spinning systems will produce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOno4RWAvkg
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110311140706.htm
Something to do with the earths liquid core, but I don’t think they’ve figured out what causes it – could be external such as intensity of cosmic particles impacting the magnetic field, or could be self generating oscillation, or other.
Interesting case study of an EV car sharing business startup in Munich. Instead of batteries they are using hydrogen fuel cells for electricity storage. It had been a while since hydrogen fuel cells have been on my radar. It seems the technology has matured a bit since I last took a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5cxZZH-iVw
Imagine a world where you produce hydrogen with excess wind and solar energy; then you fuel an electric car with this ‘green’ and very energy-rich fuel within 3 minutes only. The car then goes 500 km with absolute zero emissions. Imagine that, and you envision a world with electric mobility that works also for millions of people at the same time, and a world where renewable energy is highly profitable. Join this session to hear more about the world’s first car sharing with hydrogen turning this vision into a reality.
JAPAN IS BETTING FUTURE CARS WILL USE HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
“Honda and Toyota think the technology’s superior energy density will triumph over batteries. Japan wants the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 to run on hydrogen. Planners envisage fleets of hydrogen-fuelled cars whisking athletes from the village to the venues. They are even pondering the practicalities of a hydrogen-burning Olympic flame to promote one of Japan Inc’s boldest gambles: that hydrogen, not batteries, will become the automotive power source of the future.”
https://www.ft.com/content/98080634-a1d6-11e7-8d56-98a09be71849
I think having a portion of cars as being hydrogen powered would be a good thing. It would take some pressure off the battery situation and blend in with renewable power storage systems.
The funny thing is that H2 vehicles ARE electric vehicles. They’re very similar to gas-electric hybrids – they use electric motors for propulsion, and batteries for storage of some power, and for braking regeneration.
Given the inefficiency of the H2 powercycle, and the cost of the fuel cell stack, the optimal design (in any place where simple, low voltage charging is available) currently would have an electric plug, a medium-large battery and a small fuel cell, making it very similar to a plug-in ICE like the Chevy Volt.
H2 vehicles can work. The real question is whether they can catch up to the economy of scale of ICE plugins or pure EVs, and whether it will be possible to justify the infrastructure investment.
SMALL STEPS FORWARD AS UN CLIMATE TALKS END IN BONN
“UN climate talks in Bonn have concluded with progress on technical issues, but with bigger questions about cutting carbon unresolved.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42032229
Life has to feel very good when you are important enough to be able to jet set around the world on the taxpayer’s dime in order to tell others they need to clean up their pollution and change their ways of life. I guess things could be different if only there were some kind of technology allowing people to remotely communicate with one another.
So, you no longer fly?
No longer? I’ve never flown regularly ever. I’ve been on a round trip flight five times in my six decades on this earth but none in over a decade.
Many (not all) of the posters here seem to be trust fund babes or upper middle class retired. To them they can’t fathom not flying to exotic locations at least once a year, not having family scattered across Europe, or needing to live paycheck to paycheck your whole working life. Old Farmer Mac is one of the few I’ve seen that is understanding of how the majority of working Americans see things.
Hmmm? If “the majority of working Americans” are so badly off that they can’t fly “to exotic locations at least once a year”, why on earth would they throw their support behind a party and a president that is intent on giving tax cuts to wealthy corporations and families, with only crumbs if any going to “the majority of working Americans”? Why do they support a party that desperately wants to eliminate the death tax, a tax only paid if the estate is worth five million or more?
I’d love to know what would lead “”the majority of working Americans” to believe that their interests are aligned with those of the likes of the Koch brothers? Please enlighten me.
Dems are baby killers thru refusing to ban the sin of abortion. The day Roe vs. Wade happened was the day evil within America’s borders was exposed and it was exposed to be the left side of the scales. Combined with wanting to eliminate the 2nd Amendment, redefine marriage to be something its not and create illegal sanctuary cities, Dems are completely unelectable on God’s Laws no matter what opinion is on the other matters. Anyway now that I said my beliefs I won’t be arguing anymore because your questions made me have to bring up abortion in order to give you an honest answer even though we are not suppose to discuss abortion here.
Who said we can’t discuss abortion on an open thread? That’s news to me!
Ahh, so it’s not economics but, politics and Christian principles that are guiding “the majority of working Americans” then? Do the Christian principles condone the election of a confessed sexual predator (“When you’re famous, they let you do anything! You can grab em by the p*#$y!”) or support for a pedophile once they say they want to ban the sin of abortion, support the right to bear arms of any type and define marriage to be between a man and a woman?
I grew up attending the Quaker Church, where I was taught that certain things are wrong. I’m a little confused here!
By the way I’m with you on the gay thing. If gay’s want to get married in a church, they should first establish a gay religion, with a gay deity and a gay friendly “bible” outlining gay commandments and principles. That way, they can do like the Jews and the Muslims and tell us Christians that were not worshiping the right God. 😉 Why not? Isn’t freedom of religion written in the US constitution?
“Hmmm? If “the majority of working Americans” are so badly off that they can’t fly “to exotic locations at least once a year”, why on earth would they throw their support behind a party and a president that is intent on giving tax cuts to wealthy corporations and families, with only crumbs if any going to “the majority of working Americans”?”
Answer- Because they’re against abortion I guess. These dipshits are sucked in by politicians who appeal to their values but act contrary to their interests. Stupid as fuck.
Beavers slapping tails on far-north waters
(they are expanding into the Arctic)
https://blogs.agu.org/thefield/2017/11/17/beavers-slapping-tails-far-north-waters/
Global warming worsening Earth’s overpopulation problem.
Study: Cold kills 20 times more people than heat
Cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather, and it’s not the extreme low or high temperatures that cause the most deaths, according to a study published Wednesday.
The study found the majority of deaths occurred on moderately hot and moderately cold days instead of during extreme temperatures.
“Although the risk of mortality due to extremely cold or hot days is actually higher, they are less frequent,” said lead author Antonio Gasparrini of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The study — published in the British journal The Lancet — analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 13 countries between 1985 and 2012. Of those, 5.4 million deaths were related to cold, while 311,000 were related to heat.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/05/20/cold-weather-deaths/27657269/
Reducing temperatures to pre-industrial levels should restore this natural population control mechanism.
Motor Mouth: The inconvenient truth about Tesla’s truck
(So, what math is right? Inquiring minds want to know)
http://driving.ca/tesla/auto-news/news/motor-mouth-the-inconvenient-truth-about-teslas-truck
Evaluating the Potential of Platooning in Lowering the Required Performance Metrics of Li-Ion Batteries to Enable Practical Electric Semi-Trucks
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b01022
Trekker,
Thanks. Maybe that’s why Musk’s presentation was lite on the specifics that will determine whether or not his truck is going anywhere.
The second link had math that a simpleton like myself never learned, hence doesn’t understand. But this same simpleton did notice that the platooning idea, which will presently get you some pretty stiff fines from the hi-po, and screams of rage from the safety folks and car-drivers (and rightly so, IMO), was only applied to the electric trucks and not the diesel trucks. I would hazard a guess that aerodynamics applies equally well to all vehicles, not just the ones being proposed.
It is really no new knowledge that close spacing decreases drag on the overall pack. Ever watched the Nascar guys race? It’s not been at all unheard of for truck-drivers to use the same tactics occasionally in the past. Very noticeable effect. Kind of spooky for the rear driver, and I wouldn’t trust just anyone in the lead either.
Stan
Kind of spooky for the rear driver, and I wouldn’t trust just anyone in the lead either.
Which would suggest that autonomous highway driving might be a good solution. Is Musk arguing that his semi, which includes highway autonomy, is better suited to platooning?
Nick,
No. That reply was addressing the second link in Trekker’s post. Which was a study showing the aerodynamic gains of platooning up to 7 trucks and applying it to electric trucks, using that to show how much cheaper they operate compared to the operating cost of diesel.
Stan
“Musk’s presentation was lite on the specifics”
I’ve never seen him give one that wasn’t.
Hi Trekker
Your two links do a good job of explaining the difficulties of EV cross country highway tractors. I would think the logical entire to the market place would be a 100 to 150 mpd bobtails or city tractors. That returns home every night to recharge.
I agree.
Seems like the perfect fit for now.
OFM – Just for you.
THE STORY THAT HIGHLIGHTS AN UGLY AMERICAN TRIBALISM
“And Jerry Pow, the Republican chairman of Bibb County, Alabama, told a reporter he’d vote for Roy Moore even if the allegations are true, and he did commit a sex crime against a teenager. Take a breath and let that sink in for a moment – it’s 2017 and an Alabama Republican official says he’d vote for a paedophile. What’s so revealing in the context of tribalism is Mr Pow’s reasoning. He’d vote for Moore, he says, because he can’t bring himself to vote for the Democrat in the race.”
PS: Please reply in 100 words or less. 🙂
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42031670
>>… American evangelicals have long since decided that the only way to win the culture war is to have their churches permanently uncouple from character and moral accountability. If a candidate supports the gun lobby and says gays will burn in hell and that Democrats murder babies- that’s good enough, no matter what else he does to a child or woman, let alone to the poor, or children needing healthcare. <<
From: Roy Moore’s Wife’s Defense Of Roy Moore And The New Improved Evangelical Moral Relativism
https://frankschaefferblog.com/2017/11/roy-moores-wifes-defense-roy-moore-new-improved-evangelical-moral-relativism/
See also:
Roy Moore’s Alleged Child Rape Is Not An Abusive Anomaly, He’s The Patriarchal Norm
– https://frankschaefferblog.com/2017/11/roy-moores-alleged-child-rape-not-abusive-anomaly-hes-patriarchal-norm/
JN2
In reply to your four o nine comment,
I beat you to it, up thread, saying that everybody knows preachers kids are the worst ones, the kind you DON’T want your daughters dating.
Your problem, and the blogger you quote, is that you are out to make purely partisan hay, when you make such comments, because you don’t make them except when the target is a conservative or religious person, these two types not necessarily being one and the same.
I’m NOT a partisan, and point out the ugly truths that D partisans hide and deny, right along with the ugly truths that R partisans hide and deny.
Tell us, please, I BEG YOU, what do you think of Bill Clinton, in respect to abusing women? I beg you!
Tell us what you think of HRC for sticking by him and running her bimbo squad operation to cover for him.
Now tell me you don’t believe he abused women, and that you don’t believe Hill covered up for him, and anybody who is NOT a blind partisan dingaling true believer will KNOW you are either a lying cynical hypocrite or else as stupid as a fence post.
I’m STILL WAITING for any identifiable liberal in this forum , other than a possible RADICAL or maybe two who seem to be way to the left of the D establishment, to say what they believe about Bill and Hill when it comes to the abuse of women.
Silence can be louder than screams.
OFM, we liberals find it hard to understand how evangelicals can support misogynists such as Trump and Moore. I guess your point is that evangelicals find it hard to understand liberals’ condoning of Bill Clinton’s behaviour.
My defence of Clinton would be along the lines of “consenting adults”. To the extent there was no consent but coercion, that would be rape.
I value your take on your local evangelical culture, especially the despair of seeing jobs disappearing. You write in the spirit of Joe Bageant, who I also admire.
Hi OFM,
Most people consider sexual harrassmant or “misconduct” with a minor to be something different than with an adult.
So if accusations against both Clinton and Moore are true, I would condemn both.
The accusations of sexual contact with a minor are far more serious in my opinion.
Isn’t that the case even in rural Virginia?
“>>… American evangelicals have long since decided that the only way to win the culture war is to have their churches permanently uncouple from character and moral accountability”
Some evangelicals are guilty as charged, no question. But by and large this accusation is a crock of shit, for several reasons.
First off, I know a ton of evangelicals, and while most of them do support our constitutional rights, lol, not very many of them, excepting the ones out in the boonies, really care very much one way or the other about gun rights.
What they ARE doing is making common cause with the gun rights faction against their perceived common enemy. This sort of alliance is as common as dirt, and happens all the time among all political factions, when it suits a couple of factions to combine arms.
Now the VAST majority of people,INCLUDING nose in the air liberals believe THEY are in sole possession of moral truth, and that they are therefore entitled to tell other people what they must think and believe.
I am personally a little smarter than that, and definitely not so arrogant.
Whether a yet to be born baby ,or fetus, take your choice, is a human being, or no, is a question that simply cannot be answered on objective grounds.
I can’t remember any body on the left side of this issue objecting to charging a person who shoots and kills a pregnant woman with murdering TWICE, although I’m sure I could turn up a case or two, lol.
It’s a matter of opinion.
Are you so arrogant that you believe you have the right to tell other people what they should and must believe?
Various people in times past have made such arguments. Slave owners told abolitionists to mind their own fucking business, that black slaves weren’t humans, here in the USA, not that long ago. I remember talking to one of my own great grandfathers who KNEW people who owned slaves prior to the Civil War, but sometime later of course. He wasn’t yet born himself at that time.
I have a sister who is an ICU nurse with every possible bit of training that can be had in looking after prematurely born BABIES. She’s a professor at a med school. Every year, she contributes something to saving preemies a few days younger than the year before.
Incidentally she believes in abortion…….. in some situations. So do I.
But I’m not so arrogant that I believe I am entitled to tell other people what they must believe, when I understand that there are no objective grounds for doing so.
Morality is not subject to determination of “truth” in the sense that we can determine truth in chemistry or physics by running experiments in laboratories.
It seems to be impossible for some boneheaded liberal types to deal with certain facts.
One such fact is that tens of millions of people believe that abortion IS murder, and another is that making fun of them energizes them to get out and vote for the opposition at election time.
Keep it in mind that the people who are WITH you, politically, in this case are already on board, and hardly any of them will ever even CONSIDER voting R.
So as a PRACTICAL matter, you should think about badmouthing the opposition, because the opposition has the power to elect Trumps, when fired up sufficiently.
You want to win elections, or preen your SUPPOSED superior morality ?
OFM, I totally accept that tens of millions believe that abortion is murder. And that gays should be outlawed if not hung (Roy Moore again). And that gun ownership is sacrosanct.
The religious right has a very clear morality, one which I personally find both sad, intolerant and offensive. I get that it goes both ways…
Now the VAST majority of people,INCLUDING nose in the air liberals believe THEY are in sole possession of moral truth, and that they are therefore entitled to tell other people what they must think and believe.
Mac, that is just about the silliest thing I have ever read. We are a nation of laws. Our laws tell people how they must behave, not what they must believe.
I have known people who have told people what they must believe. They were to the man, or to the woman, right-wing Republican Bible-thumping Christians. And virtually all of them tell you what you must believe Mac. You must believe what they say is truth or else you are doomed to hell forever.
I have never known a liberal, not even one, who has ever told anyone what they must believe. They simply say you must obey the law.
How about two hundred or so ?
Speaking PERSONALLY,
Roy Moore ought to be tarred and feathered and rode to the courthouse on a rail, convicted, and put in with the general population in the toughest penitentiary in Alabama.
Speaking as a scientifically literate individual, pundit, and rabble rouser, Roy Moore did pretty much the same thing millions of other men are doing right this MINUTE… all over the world, all over America, regardless of their political affiliations, or their economic status, or their educational achievements. Men, and women too, tend to do whatever they want, quite a lot of the time, when they think they will get away with the doing of it.
I ENJOY poking sharp sticks in the eyes of the countless Democrats who are now ( justifiably! ) foaming at the mouth about Moore’s sins and crimes, whereas they pretended that Bill Clinton didn’t do the same basic things, or worse, although the record does indicate he stuck to abusing WOMEN, as opposed to GIRLS.
You may have noticed that I enjoy poking sticks in the eyes of Republicans equally well, lol.
I go wherever the facts lead. I want change, everybody except the dug in elite wants change, and more of the same isn’t going to solve our problems.
We need a general political housecleaning, BOTH sides of the aisle.
Arctic sea ice extent currently in 3rd lowest position.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/blog/polview.html
On the Possible Contribution of Natural Climatic Fluctuations to the Global Warming of the Last 135 Years
Maxim Ogurtsov, Markus Lindholm, Risto Jalkanen
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Vol.07 No.03 (2017)
http://file.scirp.org/Html/2-4700558_77406.htm
“ABSTRACT
A number of numerical experiments with artificial random signals (the second order autoregressive processes), which have important statistical properties similar to that of the observed instrumental temperature (1850-2015), were carried out. The results show that in frame of the selected mathematical model the return period of climatic events, analogous to the current global warming (linear increase of temperature for 0.95˚C during the last 135 years) is 2849-5180 years (one event per 2849-5180 years). This means that global warming (GW) of the last 135 years can unlikely be fully explained by inherent oscillations of the climatic system. It was found however, that natural fluctuations of climate may appreciably contribute to the GW. The return period of climatic episodes with 0.5˚C warming during the 135 years (half of the observed GW) was less than 500 years. The result testifies that the role of external factors (emission of greenhouse gases, solar activity etc.) in the GW could be less than often presumed.”
Presented to Fred M. for showing fantastic intent with some result in life and still breathing.
TKS! ROTFLMAO!
BTW, the fact that I’m still breathing must have something to do with that molecular intent you were referring to, eh?
You betcha!
http://247wallst.com/energy-economy/2017/11/19/why-does-the-iea-always-underestimate-solar-energys-rapid-growth/
Why Does the IEA Always Underestimate Solar Energy’s Rapid Growth?
Baseball philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” That doesn’t stop people from making them, mostly because predictions going out years or decades are long forgotten when the predicted time arrives.
A research engineer at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Hague, Auke Hoekstra, decided to check up on the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its predictions for the rise in solar photovoltaic (PV) installation.
Um, is anyone here surprised that the IEA has consistently underestimated the growth of solar?!
Hey Fred, Boomer II brought this up back in May, see:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-31-2017/#comment-604653
Auke Hoekstra’s twitter feed is at:
https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra
Below is his latest graph including the IEA’s latest new and improved projections. Note how the EIA projects that after doubling in less than three years, it is going to take more than ten years to double again. Why on earth would that be the case? See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#Worldwide_annual_deployment
for a history of global deployments to date, including estimates for 2017. The IEA couldn’t even get this year’s estimate right, the year in which the “new and improved” forecasts were produced! How embarrassing. On second thought, after 15 years of hopelessly wrong projections, they are probably quite proud of their new, less embarrassing work. Whatever!
Hi islandboy,
Using BP stats, World solar consumption in TW-hours grew at 42.7% per year from 2005 to 2016. See chart below. If we assume World electricity generation grows at 5% per year from 2017 to 2040 and solar consumption grows at 30% per year until all electricity needs are met by solar (ignoring wind, hydro, and nuclear for simplicity), then this point is reached by 2037. It is clear to me that such a scenario is likely to be too optimistic. An alternative scenario has solar growing by only 17% per year (probably too conservative) after 2024 and 25% per year from 2017 to 2024 would meet 83% of all electricity generation by 2050 (assumed to grow by 5% per year on average from 2017 to 2050). The balance could easily be met by wind growing at 8% per year and nuclear and hydro combined growing at 2%/year.
In any case my opinion is that the IEA is likely far too conservative and much of World electricity generation may be solar by 2050 and possibly as soon as 2027. Probably 2040 is a reasonable guess.
Hi Dennis, I’m coming to the conclusion that the IEA (and the EIA) are staffed and run by people who do not readily grasp the concept of disruption involving exponentially growing technologies. I see them as classic examples of “experts and insiders” that Tony Seba talks about in his presentations based on his book “Clean Disruption”.
I bring up Seba again here because in his projections, he outlines how the growth if both solar and EVs will confound the experts . In the case of solar, recent projections are that capacity growth for 2017 will be somewhere between 95 and 100GW, following about 75 GW in 2016 and roughly 50 GW in 2015. If you follow the trade press for solar it would appear that manufacturing capacity additions are out-pacing retirements so the manufacturing capacity is likely to be in excess of 100 GW in 2018 and increase some more in 2019. It would behoove these forecasting agencies to focus on that figure (module manufacturing capacity) since virtually all the solar that is manufactured in a given year is sold, delivered to customers within say, 12 months. I have seen no news of any stockpiles of solar panels being built up anywhere in the world. Until I see evidence of the kind of forecasting done by the solar trade associations coming from the EIA and IEA, I expect their projections to continue to be badly off the mark.
As far as EVs go, Seba does not address this directly but, last weeks reveal of what can only be described as a supercar from Tesla motors could be classified as disruption from above. In this model of disruption expensive, niche products are disrupted by new technology that offers superior performance at a competitive price. This superior performance then trickles down to the mass market. There are supercars on the market now that cost between a few hundred thousand dollars to over two million dollars. The car that Tesla revealed on Thursday night, can out accelerate every single other car on the market bar none, at a price between $200,000 and $250,000. For all the other supercars, it’s game over. They have until 2020 to try and respond. They will most likely not have an adequate response so it will be bye bye Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bugatti and all the rest. In their market acceleration and speed rule.
The mass market will eventually be overwhelmed by EVs as well. Maybe not as fast as Seba projects, maybe faster?
I’ll have to disagree about it being game over for all the ICE supercars. Admitting up front that I’m offering my opinion about a market that I have never and will never be a part of. Not even close. But I do know a little bit about gearheads and their love of machinery. This is a small niche market, very small. And I don’t think absolute top speed and acceleration are all that matter to those guys. If it were, there would only be one car in the market at any time, and that would be the top dog. Performance car lovers enjoy the engineering and the workings of the vehicle more than just having the very top car in the world. Sure, it’s an ego boost to outrun the competition, but that’s just a small part of the game.
I know that some folks may think it’s low-class, stupid, or whatever to enjoy mechanical apparatus, but that’s okay by me, keeps them out of my way. I’ve been having fun bringing a 1950 Buick straight-8 engine back to life, just for the hell of it. Spent probably a day’s time polishing the brass tanks on a 1955 IH truck radiator to put in front for cooling. Not worth a tinker’s dam to most folks, but it keeps me off the streets. Also love hearing an old supercharged NHRS Cummins clatter in an old Autocar.
Ahh, ’nuff of my foolishness! Back out to the chainsaw, wind got part of a tree, I’m getting the rest of it down.
Stan
As I said it’ll be game over in 2020. Who’s gonna want to spend $2.5 million on the ultimate ride, only to have some punk in a Tesla Roadster, that cost one tenth of the price, show them their tail lights all the time. It’s about bragging rights and Tesla has raised the stakes to a point where internal combustion makes no sense.
The romance with the old, relatively complex technology, with multiple possible points of failure is going to grow old fast. Below is a picture of the incredibly complex W16 multi-turbo motor from the $2.9 million Bugatti Chiron. I wouldn’t even want to think about the possibility of something going wrong with that machine!
I guess you didn’t understand my point that it’s not all about the absolute top performer for the gearheads.
Hell, if that’s all that matters, all those super-rich boys could just sign up to ride Elon’s rocket. I don’t know it’s top speed and acceleration spec’s, but I’ll bet it’s faster than his supercar.
Sounds like you’re not acquainted with the hotrod car culture, especially the racing part. A major part of that activity involves going to the track on the weekend and blowing something apart, going back home to rebuild it, hopefully stronger this time, and doing it again. I’ve never played in that field myself either, as I never had the money to waste and don’t really like breaking my stuff, but I know plenty of guys who have.
It’s less than 3 years till 2020, so I could live to see if it’s game over for the high-performance ICE cars. Maybe I will be able to pick up one of their throw-aways cheaply. I do love a bargain.
Stan
“I guess you didn’t understand my point that it’s not all about the absolute top performer for the gearheads. “
I think I do understand your point about being the absolute top performer for the gearheads but, the point is, supercars are rarely owned by gearheads. IMO you have to be obscenely wealthy to spend $2.9 million on a car that really isn’t suitable as a “daily driver”. To put it another way, many supercars cost as much as the entire annual income of the lower end of the top one percent of US income earners. That means if you barely manage to make it in to the one percenter club a supercar could well cost more than one year’s income. I don’t think that income bracket is made up primarily of gearheads. These are CEOs, pop stars, movie stars, sports stars etc., not gear heads.
These cars are status symbols and exclusivity is an important part of their allure. Apart from their cost, extreme performance is part of that exclusivity and before Tesla, extreme performance usually carried a very hefty price tag. Part of Seba’s presentation is about the traditional relationship between extreme performance and price. This latest move by Tesla has produced a vehicle with performance that exceeds that of very expensive supercars at a much more reasonable price. They have significantly reduced the price of admission to what was previously a very exclusive club.
The ICE supercar is going to be replaced by the likes of the Concept 1 and Concept S from Rimac (pictured below). Only 8 Concept 1s were made and they cost like a million dollars. Even then, the newer Concept S cannot match the 2020 Tesla in acceleration or top speed. Rimac will probably outdo Tesla by 2020 but, nothing with an ICE is likely to be able to do it.
Hot rodding is another ball game altogether and I rent some storage space next to a guy that works on turbo charged cars sort of as a hobby. He took his own 13 second, street legal (barely) Toyota Starlet to the local drag races this past Sunday and I was too busy to troll him on Saturday while he was prepping his car but, I get the feeling he has heard about the new Tesla and is avoiding me. He hates when I talk about EVs but, has acknowledged that they are hard to beat on the drag strip. For an idea of what gearheads think about the new Tesla you can have a look at the following two youtube videos
The Tesla Roadster is DESTROYING the Car Community! Here’s Why…
Why Car Guys HATE The Tesla Roadster
You just helped make my point. Exclusivity appeals to the rich. Those 2mil+ pricetags will keep 99.9% of the population out of the top end of the ICE supercar niche. The rich guys will still want them. I’m sure you’re right that most of them don’t turn wrenches, but they don’t really race either. Stoplight to stoplight a couple times on the weekend is all they need to satisfy their need for speed.
The guys like your acquaintance with the turbo cars will just keep right on doing what they’re doing now. And yeah, it hurts the current top-speed guys feelings a bit to get beat, but that’s always the case. One winner, everybody else loses. But they keep right on playing, ’cause they love doing it.
Some of the environmentally aware groups like to protest against the car folks hobby, but they don’t bother mentioning their own consumption.
Oh well, only 3 years or less and our little debate will be answered, right? I’ve noticed that 3 years seems to slip away quickly……….
Stan
“Oh well, only 3 years or less and our little debate will be answered, right? I’ve noticed that 3 years seems to slip away quickly.”
Yup! Right about the three years thing as well. Do you ever visit https://insideevs.com/ ? The debate is raging over there in the comments section of articles like:
Supercars Beware: New Tesla Roadster Compared To Bugatti Chiron
My other point was that the exclusive side of the market is probably going to be dominated by newcomers like Rimac. They only made eight Concept Ones and one of them was totaled during the filming of an episode of a tv series.
For an interesting take on the Rimac, here is an article on the opinion of one of the other co-hosts of the tv show in question:
Jeremy Clarkson on Rimac Concept One: There is No Other Word – Brilliant.
If you are familiar with the BBC series Top Gear or Clarkson, you will know that this is almost unbelievable!
Not familiar with the TV shows, so I know nothing about that part.
I read the links you posted, except one of them kept giving me an error when trying to read the full article.
Read most of the comment section on the Rimac. Seems to be fairly evenly divided between your view and mine on whether the big-buck ICE’s will be killed off by the faster EV’s.
A somewhat funny thought occurred to me as I read that long list of comments, some of them somewhat vehemently pressing their argument. I suspect that most of them are about as likely as I am to be able to buy any of the cars they were supporting or trashing. Guess that’s about the same thing as old fat fuckers arguing about football teams, and who’s got the best quarterback. Couldn’t roll out of the recliner fast enough to catch a biscuit thrown from the kitchen, but “we’re gonna whip some ass next saddidy.
Later,
Stan
Yair . . . .
“an old supercharged NHRS Cummins clatter in an old Autocar.”
Nah, a tweaked 6-71 Jimmy was more my kinda thing. (grins)
With maybe brown-tag 70 injectors…..nah, I know nothing ’bout them screaming green leakers.
Last trip I got to make with my Dad was in about a ’70 model Astro with a 318 and 13-speed OD. Hauled a 7000 gallon tank on a dropdeck out to west Texas. Bucking a headwind it wouldn’t quite pull top gear, and Dad never was one to lug an engine. My first time to Texas and when we got out to fuel it seemed the wind was whistling in my ears, no matter which direction I faced.
Ahhhhh, the good days are gone! Guess I’ll just dig out my half-dozen Slim Dusty CD’s and pretend I’m in your part of the world way back when.
Yair . . . .
Bloody hell! I had “Lights on the Hill” playing as I read your post.
Go well my friend.
If we assume World electricity generation grows at 5% per year from 2017 to 2040
That seems a little high. My guess is that growth will slow down soon, as China matures. My very rough in-the-head estimate is that 5% per year for 23 years would bring average world consumption to around the level of the EU. That would be pretty amazing.
Hi Nick,
Perhaps you are correct, I was using the growth rate for the most recent 5 years and simply extrapolating.
Note that the rate of growth from 1985 to 2016 (all the data in the BP stats for electricity generation) for electricity generation at the world level is 9.23% per year. For the past 5 years the growth rate has slowed to 4.85% per year.
Also note that as EVs replace ICE vehicles there may be an increase in the rate of growth of electricity consumption, rather than a decrease.
I just picked a round number based on the past 5 years.
If the rate of growth is slower, then solar can replace other forms of energy more quickly, for example in my “conservative” scenario above for renewables growth and 3%/year increase in world electricity consumption, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear combined provide 100% of electricity needs by 2044.
An assumption of zero growth in electricity consumption after 2016 would have renewables plus nuclear provide all electricity by 2036 (for the conservative renewables growth scenario. A faster growth of solar (30%/year), no growth in total electricity consumption and other assumptions for growth of wind, nuclear and hydro left unchanged leads to all electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2031.
Feel free to create your own scenarios.
Hi Dennis, the world electricity generation was 9866 TWH in 1985 and 24816 TWH in 2016, so the average annual growth rate is (24816/9866)^(1/31)-1 = 3.0%
The average annual growth rate between 2011 and 2016 is 2.2%
I wonder when you calculate the average growth rate, if you mistakenly used arithmetic (rather than geometric) growth rate
That’s a relief. 9.2% growth for 30 years seemed way too high: that would mean four doublings, which would be quite amazing.
But, I didn’t have time to dig out the BP data and redo the calculations. Thanks.
Hi Political economist,
Yes you are correct 3% electricity growth 1985-2015.
I made a mistake on the spreadsheet.
For 2010-2016 the growth rate in electricity consumption is about 2.3%/year.
“Why Does the IEA Always Underestimate Solar Energy’s Rapid Growth?”
The best answer I have seen was published this morning (Monday morning in Australia, late Sunday in the Americas) at RenewEconomy.com.au with the original from November 17th at Energy Post
How the International Energy Agency is steering the world to climate disaster
“Who really governs the IEA?
Why then does the IEA do this? It is supposed to be an advisory body to its 30 member countries, all of whom signed the Paris Agreement, committing to keep warming well below 2°C, and to pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5°C. The IEA ought to be showing them how with its climate scenario. It ought to be helping them do so by making climate the main focus guiding decision-makers.
The reason is that the IEA’s real masters appear to be the fossil fuel companies. Last week, when ministers of member governments held their two-yearly meeting, they were joined by the IEA’s Energy Business Council, made up of energy companies, 89% of which produce, consume, service, finance, or lobby for fossil fuels.”
The reason is that the IEA’s real masters appear to be the fossil fuel companies. Last week, when ministers of member governments held their two-yearly meeting, they were joined by the IEA’s Energy Business Council, made up of energy companies, 89% of which produce, consume, service, finance, or lobby for fossil fuels.”
Yeah, I knew that! 😉
More Greenland glaciers threatened by climate change than previously thought
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074954/abstract?campaign=wolacceptedarticle
In the 1100’s a.d. as Europe was in the Dark Age, the Vikings were at their most successful point in colonizing Greenland thanks to the land being free of ice completely. There was a reason why Greenland was named Greenland after all.
During the Viking age, a SMALL PART of Greenland was ice free during the summer months. Almost all of Greenland was then and is now covered with an icecap.
Joe, you’re in over your head.
Greenland is 836,000 square miles and the ice cap is 660,000 square miles in area. That gives 78 percent ice covered.
Not really. The name Greenland was a publicity stunt to fool viking colonists into thinking it was a better place than Iceland, when it was much worse. The interior of Greenland has been covered by a massive ice sheet for the past 125,000 years, only the southern coast was livable to the Vikings, and only during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), when they etched a precarious existence by combining limited and hazardous farming with sheep raising, fishing, and marine mammal hunting. The Inuit, who arrived at the area at about the same time, were better adapted to the colder conditions that would become prevalent after the MWP ended. The Vikings could not learn from the Inuit and adapt in part because they considered themselves far superior to the Inuit.
Arctic sea ice extent currently in 2nd lowest position.
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/blog/polview.html
Whatever our other differences may be, we seem to have one thing at least in common, that being that we are older folk.
This is worthy of serious thought.
https://ideapod.com/harvard-study-shows-impact-intermittent-fasting-aging-process/
https://youtu.be/4UkZAwKoCP8
I’ve been following this topic since I learned about the effects of calorie restriction on lab animals in controlled trials back in undergrad days.
Calorie restriction works wonders in mice, in terms of lifespan, and appears to work in people as well.
This stuff is not quackery.
Fasting may literally add years to our lives.
Mac,
Have you tried calorie restriction, or fasting?
I think I’m going to give the 16 hour thing a bit of a try…
Hi Nick,
My neocortex tells me what I OUGHT to do, but my midbrain is my REAL boss, as is the case with with about ninety nine. nine percent of all of us, lol.
But I have in changed my ways a couple of times over the years, due to scaring myself silly, and lucking out. I gave up motorcycles after having a couple of REALLY close calls, etc.
Life got too easy sitting around the house mostly, playing nurse, not HAVING to work physically, and not having motivation enough to EXERCISE as such, rather than doing the outside things I used to do for recreation, such as hunting and fishing in the mountains on foot. I got fat.
And so a few years back I HAD to face up to the fact that it was nearly impossible to walk up a hill without a couple of rest stops that I used to top without even noticing it.
So I went on a calories restricted diet and lost forty pounds and feel ten years years younger, at least, and I have kept the weight off.
And now I’m trying to get myself hyped up to get back to into the same sized clothing I wore as a farm kid. That’s another thirty pounds. The hard part is not eating at night. I can handle it fine all day so long as I can stay busy.I am seldom to never HUNGRY, physically, eating the way I do now, but I still have a powerful urge to eat, partly because it’s pleasure able, partly because eating was a form of self medication I used to deal with being stressed out.
Maybe I WANT to eat MOSTLY because I am PROGRAMMED to eat so as to store to store up fat, in case of famine, lol.
Anybody who doesn’t understand this last point is not very well informed in respect to the physiology of species that normally depend on seasonal food surpluses stored as fat to help survive seasonal shortages. Fair skinned red haired white guys descended from Scots Irish ancestors with some Viking/ Norman blood are especially likely to be programmed this way. Food can get to be pretty damned scare during the winter months right thru spring for hunter gatherers, and even for subsistence farmers.
We are NOT physiologically adapted to our current lifestyles, lol.
We’re killing ourselves by way of over eating and under exercising to the tune of a decade or two on average, maybe longer. Pollution is robbing us on average of a few years too, on average, but teasing out actual numbers is tough, and the estimates of various professionals are all over the map.
The thing that’s worked for me is a high protein high fat diet consisting of a little red meat, chicken, fish, beans, a little peanut butter,olive oil, etc, and LOTS of fruit and veggies. Near zero junk food, no dairy other than a little cheese and cream for coffee, a little butter on veggies, only a LITTLE little bread or other carbs , zero sugar water. No more than one beer , two at the most, once a week.
If I could get motivated to do it, I would get down to the point my ribs stick out, because I don’t believe in an afterlife.
It’s impossible to say for sure, but everything I have read so far indicates that being super skinny is very likely to add some years, maybe as many as ten to twenty, everything else held equal.
Arctic sea ice nearly the same as 2007, 2013, 2014, and 2015, and higher than 2012 and 2016.
European Meteorological Satellite (EUMETSAT) Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility (OSI SAF)
http://osisaf.met.no/p/new_ice_extent_graphs.php
There’s an excellent chance that the supposedly ignorant and evil voters in Alabama will send Moore home with his tail between his legs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/could-roy-moore-flip-deep-red-alabama-blue-n822191
It’s less than street smart to accuse the majority of people in the state of being ignorant, stupid, ethically challenged, etc etc. This sort of talk motivates LOTS of people who would otherwise be thinking about and sometimes voting D from actually doing so.
Anybody with a lick of sense should be able to see this instantly.
A man who is to about ready to swap sides in a dispute of any sort is FAR MORE apt to stick to his old usual position if you gratuitously jump in his shit.
Read this link, and you will see that a LOT of voters in Alabama crossed party lines in recent elections to vote against Moore while voting for Romney for instance.
At least one or two regulars here have made blanket accusations to the effect that the people of Virginia support Trump and Republicans like mindless sheep, but the real situation is more that Virginians are not all that happy, as a GROUP, with the overall liberal/ D party agenda.
Virginia went NUTS for the D’s a few weeks back, winning by runaway margins, statewide, mopping the floor with the R’s, picking up fifteen seats in the state legislature.
Now according to some people here Va is a redneck place that they wouldn’t even consider as a home.
Well, we’re not QUITE as stupid as certain folks think. A hell of a lot of Virginians voted for Trump in order to vote against HRC, it’s true. But of all the ones I know personally who voted for Trump, at least half of them will vote against him if he runs again.
These particular Trump voters would have voted against him almost to a man if they had really known just what sort of man he is. They have found out since, lol. They had less than a year to learn about Trump, whereas they had DECADES to learn about HRC.
OFM says about Trump -“if they had really known just what sort of man he is”
OFM says – “Trump’s a world class scumbag , and by comparison, HRC’s an amateur, even a girl scout”
And yet the self claimed “COACH” from Virginia(Trumpster aka KGB) spent all his energy condemning HRC prior to the election( and after)
*****
OFM says:
11/10/2017 AT 10:38 PM
“Old Judge Roy was just doing what comes naturally to men who think they can get away with it”
Lonely Trumpster, are you still defending your Republican friend “Old Judge Roy” ? OFM, what would you do if you could “get away with it” ? Be a man ?
Thank you HB,
I see you are STILL reading my comments, and I appreciate all the help you give me helping me stay motivated.
About Trump’s incompetence and lack of ethics…….. There was no need for me to do more than say “Trump’s worse” back then, because you and everybody else in this forum who comments on politics took care of THAT chore.
About HRC………. I mostly said that I thought she would win, but at times I also said she might lose, due to her countless shortcomings.
AS a matter of PRINCIPLE, I believe in rooting out incompetence and corruption wherever I encounter it, and if HRC demonstrates ANYTHING in spades, other than the ability to climb the political ladder on the coattails of her husband, it’s incompetence and corruption.
IF you read my response to Doug’s question about Moore, you know my personal opinion of Moore is that he should be tarred, feathered, convicted, and imprisoned in the general population of Alabama’s toughest prison. You would also know that speaking as a knowledgeable person, one with a broad basic knowledge of human nature, scientifically based, that I said he did basically the same thing as Bill Clinton, except Clinton did WORSE, actual forcible rape, according to HIS accusers, iirc, but I gave him grudging credit for sticking to women as opposed to girls as victims.
Now YOU, you slimy little partisan, YOU TELL US, what do you believe about Bill Clinton?
I can’t recall you making a single comment pointing out the shortcomings of HRC and her hypocrisy, or the hypocrisy or failings of the D party establishment in general.
My basic argument is that we need a general housecleaning on both sides of the aisle, and that the most practical route to that housecleaning is via the Sanders wing of the D party.
A lot of people, including some very high ranking members of the D party agree with me, and more are coming to agree with me from one month to the next. ( HOW’S THAT FOR ARROGANCE, they are coming to agree with ME? Lol , I was just in a position to say what they believed all along, but felt constrained from saying until recently.)
Now I’m waiting for you ,WORMTONGUE, to answer my question, and I have ten bucks and will prove it by posting a picture of the money order here for your favorite charity, if you answer without dodging. What’s your opinion of Bill Clinton in respect to abusing women?
What’s your opinion of HRC in respect to sticking with him and covering up for him??
Now as to what I have done with women?
I was always lucky, in every respect that counted, and never had any NEED to abuse a woman or girl, although I slept with some that were legally underage when I was also underage myself, or just barely over that age.
My luck was based on the fact that I was ( BACK THEN! ) quite physically attractive, muscular, and well liked by most of the other kids, excepting those who were the children of the local elite. I didn’t have enough money to run with the country club crowd.
But I had enough to manage fine with the other kids. When I went away to U, it didn’t hurt that the girls soon discovered that I lived on a super scenic farm within an easy walk of a national park in a resort like area, and that I had free access to half a dozen pretty quarter horses, although I owned only ONE of them> Little hidden private lake, IDEAL for skinny dipping, lol, right on the place.
I fell in love ( mutual!) with a knock out “TEN” girl who was almost seventeen when I was a couple of months past eighteen, and we fucked like mink from our fourth date on at every possible opportunity for the next four years and we got married a few days after graduation.
If you are physically and intellectually attractive, and I was, back then( purely a matter of luck in the lottery of life of course, no credit to me ) there will always be at least one girl or woman around who will make it clear that she’s willing.
When my first marriage failed, and it was mostly my fault that it did, I got an apartment in the Richmond version of Greenwich Village, and made myself at home in the U district for a long time. A lot of newly “liberated” women actually chased men in that environment, lol.
It wasn’t too long before my Big Apple princess decided she wanted me, and that long term affair and marriage lasted into my middle age. Since then I haven’t met the RIGHT woman, and I doubt I ever will. I know some, but they don’t turn me on, either physically or intellectually, and I’m satisfied with things as they are.Physical sex is still a possibility, but most definitely not a priority at my age, and not having a woman around means I have total control of my time and resources, once I’m finished with one last piece of family business….. my old Daddy won’t live forever, but I’m beginning to think he’s going to pass the century mark pulling away. There are no less than six living or dead members on his side of the family known to me personally that have lived past a hundred, and half a dozen more within easy striking distance.
Now I’m old, and a little fat, and my hair is white, and I couldn’t get a date with a physically attractive woman in a whore house with a roll of hundred dollar bills.
Now tell us what you think of Bill Clinton, and women, and HRC sticking by him instead of using her scissors on him, or at least busting a lamp over his head instead of just busting the lamp, and leaving him.
She had no excuse in terms of being NEEDY and thus having to stick around to feed her one child, considering her connections and her education, etc.
Black Friday is coming:
Simply stand in the isle of a corporate, Big Box chain store or in the parking lot of a strip mall that squats, hideous, on some soul-defying, U.S. Interstate highway and allow yourself to feel the emptiness and desperation extant. The tormented landscape, besieged by an ad hoc assemblage of late capitalist structures, emporiums of usurped longing, reflects the desperate, rapacious nature of late capitalist imperium.
Ye olde hardware store, lighting store, clothes store, town drug store could never handle the size of the herd we have today. The olde curmudgeon needs to update his story a bit. It’s not the good olde days again in small town America, it’s been overrun long ago. Get over it HK, those things have been around for six decades now.
The mall where I live is like a mausoleum. Sears, the main anchor went tits up. People overwhelmingly prefer the “old town” where they can wander with their dog (same dog welcome in most stores), where all the better stores operate: best restaurants, as well as a good selection of book stores, clothing stores, bakeries, grocery & drug stores, etc. Almost like Europe but maybe that’s why this olde curmudgeon lives where he does. And, perhaps I’m not alone:
BY 2022, ANALYSTS ESTIMATE THAT 1 OUT OF EVERY 4 MALLS IN THE U.S. COULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS.
http://time.com/4865957/death-and-life-shopping-mall/
Watch a few of the videos from this playlist…
This is Dan Bell.
Published on Jun 10, 2017
Dead Mall Series : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Apparently it is often cheaper to build a whole new strip mall than to renovate an old one. So stores are playing musical mall, leaving one and sitting down in another.
http://nj1015.com/why-are-new-strip-malls-are-being-built-all-over-new-jersey/
And here comes the American Dream Megamall:
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2017/08/here_are_all_the_businesses_coming_to_the_american.html
Dead and dying malls of upper New York State.
http://www.newyorkupstate.com/news/2016/10/dead_dying_malls_upstate_ny.html
I occasionally shop at a Mall (there are no indoor ones where I live, but groups of Midsize Corporate Players).
But all the kool kids are downtown, where it is culturally vibrant, and diverse.
Frackville, Pa? That whole region has been failing economically for a long time now, old anthracite coal country and railroading. You can drive on a main route for 30 miles through several towns and not find a place to eat. Frackville is the largest town in the area and not very big. I can totally understand the closing of the mall there, depressed region.
My reason for going to Frackville was to visit and walk the Mahanoy Plane, an old gravity railroad site steadily going back to nature.
But besides some areas becoming economically depressed over the years, I think there are just too many stores. We are starting to see the shakedown in retail space, pushed on by the internet and overexpansion.
“But besides some areas becoming economically depressed over the years, I think there are just too many stores. We are starting to see the shakedown in retail space, pushed on by the internet and overexpansion.”
Dead on.
The people with purchasing power have moved farther out and away, and new malls have sprung up closer to where they live NOW. The older ones are harder to get too, more miles to drive, more traffic lights, and poorer and fewer customers for the ones that are still open.
I used to stop at a particular McDonald’s location, many years ago, when the customers were typically clean, odor free, and reasonably polite and spoke using words you can repeat in polite company.
That Mc D is still open, and the customers these days are reasonably polite, if you don’t act uppity with them, but nobody who dresses well and bathes regularly and refrains from saying motherfucker every third word stops there more than once, if his business takes him into that part of town.
Ditto the old malls, between the longer drive in worse traffic on older streets with more lights and the loss of the more respectable and more prosperous customers, they’re done for.
I pay double for a cup of coffee and a pastry when I go to town these days so as to enjoy it in more enjoyable surroundings, although I can and do fit right in with the people on the bottom rungs of society when it suits me to do so.
Put on clean but not flashy jeans and shirt and you’re fine in both situations so long as you act right.
There is always a flip side to the equation.
https://www.thebalance.com/us-retail-and-restaurant-chain-expansion-2892736
Basically the Baby Boomer generation grew up in the suburbs, creating the demand for large self-contained malls back then. When they had kids, the Millennials, their kids moved into cities for college, but unlike their parents, they never quite got as good paying jobs out of school due to the crushing taxes and entitlements the democrats came up with in the time between the separate generations. So instead of settling down, having kids and buying a house in the suburbs, their American Dream is to stay in the city meaning all these suburban malls are now dying out.
Twenty countries join global alliance to phase out coal by 2030
https://www.untvweb.com/news/twenty-countries-join-global-alliance-phase-coal-2030/
Get excited everyone — the South Pacific Island of Niue, with a population of 1,625 people has vowed not to build a coal plant. The nation is so small it is not even a member of the UN. This champion of the move away from coal is 98% powered by diesel. Everybody Cheer!
Powering Past Coal Alliance: 20 countries sign up to phase out coal power by 2030
Twenty countries including Britain, Canada and New Zealand have joined an international alliance to phase out coal from power generation before 2030.
The list includes none of the top 15 coal producers in the world. It’s non-binding. Nearly all the countries that have signed up to “Power Past Coal” are already powered by hydro, gas, nuclear or some combination of renewables (with interconnector back up). The Marshall Islands are powered by almost 100% diesel, with a hint of coconut oil. Luxembourg barely even generates electricity — importing 98% from other countries. And 68% of the people in Angola don’t even have access to electricity.
Is anybody fooled by this?
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/11/not-powering-past-coal-20-countries-that-didnt-use-much-coal-agree-to-not-use-much-coal/
Let the Rape and Scrape continue—–
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pipeline-keystone/nebraska-regulators-approve-keystone-xl-pipeline-route-in-win-for-trump-idUSKBN1DK177?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
HYDROGEN CARS FOR THE MASSES ONE STEP CLOSER TO REALITY, THANKS TO INVENTION
A new device that can inexpensively and efficiently create and store energy and create hydrogen fuel, and that needs only sunlight to operate, has now been developed by researchers. The device could make hydrogen cars affordable for many more consumers because it produces hydrogen using nickel, iron and cobalt — elements that are much more abundant and less expensive than the platinum and other precious metals that are currently used to produce hydrogen fuel.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171120093718.htm
What with Nissan and Toyota putting emphasis on Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars rather than battery vehicles and Toyota, the world’s largest purveyor of hybrids, are we now poised to leapfrog pure EVs altogether to pursue what might be the next big breakthrough: pollution and petroleum-free fuel-cell cars that convert hydrogen to electricity? Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, the “father of the Prius” who helped put hybrids on the map, has said he believes fuel-cell vehicles hold far more promise than battery electric cars.
How puzzling. Fuel cells are still much more expensive than EVs with comparable range; use either fossil fuel H2 or twice as much electricity per mile (if you use wind/solar power); and require far more expensive new infrastructure compared to EVs. As I noted above, fuel cell vehicles are hybrid-electrics. If you’re concerned about range, or the time required to refuel for long trips, it makes far more sense to use a plug-in ICE hybrid, which eliminates 90% of fuel consumption (in theory, the other 10% could be ethanol, if desired). Given that most H2 these days comes from fossils, a plug-in ICE hybrid would be far cleaner and environmentally conscious – most early adopters who might consider such vehicles would know this.
Many observers are baffled by the intransigence of Japanese car companies. One theory is that they are extracting as much value as they can from their ICE and hybrid investments, while quietly developing pure EVs (which really aren’t technically that different from hybrids). I believe Japanese companies are now reluctantly shifting to pure EVs to satisfy China’s demands.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d like H2 to work, but I suspect that it makes sense more for stationary applications like seasonal grid backup, where efficiency isn’t important, you don’t need fuel cells, and you don’t need new distribution infrastructure.
“Don’t get me wrong – I’d like H2 to work, but I suspect that it makes sense more for stationary applications like seasonal grid backup, where efficiency isn’t important, you don’t need fuel cells, and you don’t need new distribution infrastructure.”
DEAD ON.
There are still tons of problems with fuel cells, and with the manufacture of hydrogen storage tanks suitable for use in cars and trucks.
There’s no real reason to my knowledge for betting that the combined costs of small portable fuel cells, hydrogen separation, distribution and storage in small tanks on or in cars will ever be less than the cost of pure electric propulsion using batteries.
Having said this much, hydrogen might eventually serve well as internal combustion engine fuel or with fuel cells in heavy trucks and other machinery, if the on board tanks can be built at reasonable cost. It would be easy to build a truck engine that can run on hydrogen, compressed natural gas, OR diesel fuel or any combination thereof, but the doing of it would add maybe ten thousand dollars to the cost of a truck equipped to run on all three fuels.
The tech is off the shelf except that suitable tanks for the on board storage of natural gas and or hydrogen are still super expensive and lacking in sufficient capacity. But fueling big trucks with hydrogen could be easily accomplished with just one or two locations per hundred miles of major highway. Truck stops that sell diesel aren’t usually much closer to each other than that in most places, except right around cities.
Wang, J., et al. (2017). The implications of fossil fuel supply constraints on climate change projections: A supply-side analysis. Futures, 86, 58-72.
“Climate projections are based on emission scenarios. The emission scenarios used by the IPCC and by mainstream climate scientists are largely derived from the predicted demand for fossil fuels, and in our view take insufficient consideration of the constrained emissions that are likely due to the depletion of these fuels. This paper, by contrast, takes a supply- side view of CO2 emission, and generates two supply-driven emission scenarios based on a comprehensive investigation of likely long-term pathways of fossil fuel production drawn from peer-reviewed literature published since 2000. The potential rapid increases in the supply of the non-conventional fossil fuels are also investigated. Climate projections calculated in this paper indicate that the future atmospheric CO2 concentration will not exceed 610 ppm in this century; and that the increase in global surface temperature will be lower than 2.6 °C compared to pre-industrial level even if there is a significant increase in the production of non-conventional fossil fuels. Our results indicate therefore that the IPCC’s climate projections overestimate the upper-bound of climate change. Furthermore, this paper shows that different production pathways of fossil fuels use, and different climate models, are the two main reasons for the significant differences in current literature on the topic.”
http://web.cup.edu.cn/peakoil/docs/20170101165044105159.pdf
Both Dennis and Fernando Leanme have supported that from the supply side it is unrealistic to think emissions necessary to surpass 610 ppm atmospheric CO₂ could be produced this century. It is illogical to believe in Peak Oil and at the same time believe in IPCC RCP 8.5 or 6 worst case climate scenarios.
Figure 1 from the paper eve looks quite optimistic regarding non-conventional fossil fuels in my opinion.
Yep. It’s time to transition away from fossil fuels ASAP.
On that I agree, but we should do it wisely. Renewables have serious problems and are unlikely to constitute a solution. At present nuclear looks like our best option. France is an example. France produces affordable electricity, exports electricity, and produces less CO₂ from fossil fuels that its neighbors in doing so. Curiously their current government talks about changing their superior model for an inferior one based on renewables. We lack an example of a country that produces electricity at the level of France with renewables and the reason is clear, it can’t be done with present technology. Only countries with plenty of hydro can approach that, like Portugal or Norway. And not only their model cannot be replicated elsewhere, but it runs a very serious risk if a long dry period takes place.
Nuclear certainly could be made to work, but at present it’s more expensive and riskier than renewables.
Nuclear used to be the best alternative, but tech and engineering have changed, and nuclear is losing ground every day.
Wind and solar are cheaper, and come in far smaller modules which are financially far less risky.
Wind and solar are only less reliable is you impose the unreasonable requirement that in each country (and in the US in each state) that all grid generation shall be 100% domestically sourced with no fuel imports: we don’t impose that requirement on nuclear, coal or gas generation.
I don’t know about the riskier part. In Spain far more people from wind turbine maintenance crews have died in the last 10 years than from nuclear industry in 40. They are considered a significant work hazard.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2015/06/09/wind-turbine-hazards-multiply.aspx
Regarding price Russians, Chinese, and Koreans seem to know how to build them cheaper. How come Spain could afford to build a bunch of them in the 1960’s when it was a much poorer country and now they are unaffordable?
Wind and solar have two outstanding problems. The low energy density requires to dedicate significant land. If scaled to provide the energy we need, the ecological impact is huge. And if nuclear plants killed a fraction of the birds wind turbines kill there would be an uproar demanding their immediate closure.
The second problem is that they are not dispatchable. When there is no wind and sun you need to get all your energy from some other source. This forces you to have a duplicate system in place that you seldom get to use, and this is hugely expensive and wasteful. But it has been shown that there are times in the winter when an anticyclone over Western Europe causes a wind lull for days. With so little sun at that time, where are we going to get our electricity? From Mongolia? Will they overbuild hugely to curtail most of the electricity only to have available when we lack?
It simply won’t work. You can extrapolate those graphs of increasing energy from wind and solar all you want. Once a country reaches a certain penetrance it nearly stops installing because it creates more problems that it solves.
Germany is without government for the ridiculous exigences of the greens to phase out coal and ICE cars when Merkel’s CDU and the FDP know perfectly well the German energy system cannot take it.
The renewable energy dream could easily turn into a nightmare. Small nuclear, Thorium reactors, and other advances taking place in the nuclear field are probably the way forward.
Nuclear energy is not a bad idea (other than the 24,000 year half life on the waste, that is sitting in cooling ponds all over the planet).
However, humans design, build, and maintain them.
You are going to lose—
(uranium-235 has a half life about 700 million years, in case you think it is a better option)
Thorium?
We have been waiting on that one forever– it is a constant like the speed of light– no matter when observed, 1955 or 2017, it is always 5 years away.
Are there any commercial Thorium Reactors producing electricity in a market based world?
‘Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.’
(The world’s only operating thorium reactor – India’s Kakrapar-1 – is actually a converted PWR)
Javier,
Once again I see why people get so angry at your comments. This one has so many unrealistic claims that its makes me tired thinking about responding to it. A quick answer to the only point that begins to be interesting:
they are not dispatchable
You’re concerned about rare, seasonal lulls. They can be handled well by a range of strategies, but perhaps the most relevant is cheap “wind-gas”: H2 or methane generated using surplus power, stored cheaply in utility underground storage and used in cheap generators (not fuel cells).
Another imaginary solution to a real problem. Where is that being done economically?
There are some small and medium size projects, but there are two relevant facts:
1) all of the components are old, tested tech and engineering which have been tested at scale: H2 electrolysis; H2 underground storage; cheap non-fuel cell H2 generation.
2) “wind-gas” simply isn’t needed yet at large scale. There are some decent-sized projects in development, including injection of H2 into natural gas storage, but there’s no reason to invest in it yet in very large systems.
Here’s an analogy: we could get rid of all landline phones tomorrow, if we chose to and if it were desirable for some reason. Why do most people still have them? Because they still have some utility, and there’s no need to get rid of them. You can’t point to any large countries which have done so. But if we needed to, we could. And, we probably will, especially for residential use. But…not tomorrow, or the day after.
IF and this is a mighty big IF, we were to settle on a standardized design for new nukes,and build a lot of them, it could be that they might be cost effective.
Whether they can be made safe, or not, is an open question,and depends on the definition of safe employed by the various factions arguing pro and con.
I don’t personally see any reason why the spent fuel problem can’t be effectively solved, except for the one reason has so far proven itself eternal and insoluble… human stupidity.
Technically it looks simple enough for me. Pulverize the hot waste, and pump it down ten thousand feet, highly diluted, into an exhausted oil field where in the geology is exceedingly well known due to hundreds of wells having been drilled. There must be plenty of oil fields in places geologists believe are and will be stable for millions of years.
So far the only replies I have ever gotten in response to this possibility is that people occasionally call me an idiot for mentioning it. Nobody has had anything to say about why it wouldn’t WORK.
The most of these french nuclear plants are somewhat old now, so in the Fukushima age. Sometimes they have a little bit of problems, but luckily they manged somehow no one exploded yet. There have been a lot of “almosts”.
They have to rebuild all of them – and that’s somewhat expensive since new models don’t come cheap since they are a lot more safe – what is a good thing.
Precisely that they are old means that they are long lived, even when built by 1960’s standards. With luck wind and solar might last one third, so will need to be replaced twice just to last as long.
With luck wind and solar might last one third
That’s unrealistic. Try to resist the impulse to make stuff up.
I never make stuff up.
Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard after 23 years
http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/oldest-commercial-wind-farm-in-canada-headed-for-scrapyard-after-23-years
And solar panel degradation alone can take out 20% of electricity production in 25 years. Not counting that some weather phenomena can damage the panels.
The first generation of automobiles lasted on average of about five thousand miles, according to my reading, and it took until the fifties for the industry to build cars good enough to reliably last fifty to one hundred thousand miles without need of MAJOR refurbishment and repair work.
It’s rather likely that the wind farm that is being SCRAPPED was poorly designed and poorly sited, IF it is actually being scrapped.
If the site is a decent one, then a sustantial part of the expense of building a new wind farm from scratch can be avoided by building a new one on the same site….. The permitting, the roads, the transmission lines, most likely the foundations of the towers, most likely the towers themselves, and most of the wiring , will be good to go for another twenty five years.. The site itself is already graded as necessary. That work, the surveying work, the political work, etc, will never have to be done again.
A new wind farm the same size on the same spot will probably produce fifty percent more electricity, on average, at substantially lower cost in constant money.
Even Javier understands that oil and gas come out of holes in the ground and won’t last forever, but I don’t expect him to point out this obvious truth, because it doesn’t jibe with his agenda. .
As of Dec. ’16, wind generating capacity was 11.898 gigawatts, providing about 6% of Canada’s electricity demand. The Canadian Wind Energy Assn. has outlined a future strategy for wind energy that would reach a capacity of 55 GW by 2025, meeting 20% of the country’s energy needs. Pretty darn good I’d say.
I never make stuff up….Oldest commercial wind farm in Canada headed for scrapyard
Using one anecdotal example, that doesn’t even support the claim (claim of roughly 9 year life, vs actual example of 23 year life). That’s makin’ stuff up.
One could point to nuclear plants that were scrapped in their first year of operation, if one wanted to play that game.
23 years is right between the 20-25 years that the industry and governments use for their calculations. And there are reports that indicate that real life performance could be worse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windpower/9770837/Wind-farm-turbines-wear-sooner-than-expected-says-study.html
Nuclear plants in Spain were commissioned for 40 years but their life has been extended in most cases and could easily reach 60 years. 20 years versus 60 years is one third.
Nuclear our best option? What could go wrong!
Only took 6 years to find a bit of hot fuel that got away.
http://peakoil.com/enviroment/six-years-after-fukushima-robots-finally-find-reactors-melted-uranium-fuel
We just have to do better. There’s only been two level 7 accidents in many decades, and most countries have a very good record.
If nothing goes wrong we get the energy, and if something goes wrong then there is a new natural preserve and wildlife flourishes. It is a win-win situation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/wildlife-returns-to-radioactive-wasteland-of-chernobyl/
After 30 years the exclusion zone of Chernobyl is one of Europe’s biggest wildlife preserves. All animals are doing much better, including wolves, lynx, moose, deer, bison, even Przewalski’s horses and for the first time in over a century they got brown bears in the area. Hopefully the radioactivity there won’t go below safe levels any time soon.
“win-win situation” ? Goddammit man you must be delusional!
Get some professional help, it’s out there. Or just shoot your fukin’ self!
Delusional?
Delusion and ignorance are a badge of honor among Javier’s tribe.
Or just shoot your fukin’ self!
LOL! That made me curious enough to unblock Javier long enough to read that one comment of his.
Basically if we were to follow his logic we should nuke half the planet so we can turn it into a nature preserve.
Yes, it does seem that radiation is somewhat less harmful to wildlife than humans. However it in no way follows that it is GOOD for wildlife.
As usual Javier is either unaware of the scientific research that has studied the negative effects of radiation on wildlife around Chernobyl or he is cherry picking only the results he likes or whatever suits his personal agenda.
An honest scientist would dig a lot deeper into the data and peer reviewed papers. Especially a scientist with a background in the biosciences. One can do a search on Google Scholar to find plenty of information that debunks Javier’s rosy view of this topic!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ieam.238/full
Invited Commentary
Effects of ionizing radiation on wildlife: What knowledge have we gained between the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents?
Authors
Nicholas A Beresford,
David Copplestone
First published: 20 June 2011Full publication history
DOI: 10.1002/ieam.238 View/save citation
Cited by (CrossRef): 19 articles Check for updates
LONG-TERM CHRONIC EXPOSURE OF WILDLIFE IN THE AREA AROUND THE CHERNOBYL NPP
Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl accident, there is no consensus on the impact of the chronic exposure to radiation on wildlife in the area around the NPP from which people were evacuated in 1986 and which remains largely uninhabited. This area is commonly referred to as the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Some have suggested that the removal of humans, and cessation of associated activities, has led to the Chernobyl exclusion zone becoming a thriving and biologically diverse environment with many protected species (IAEA 2006). However, such observations can be criticized as being based largely on anecdotal evidence and not rigorous scientific study.
Although the removal of human inhabitants can be viewed as having had a positive net ecological consequence, there may still be detrimental consequences of radiation exposure. For instance, populations may be abundant, but do those in more contaminated areas have the same age structure and reproductive success as those less exposed to radiation? In some areas of the exclusion zone, organisms receive chronic dose rates above those expected to, for instance, impair reproductive success (Chesser et al. 2000). Authors describing the diversity in the exclusion zone recognize the potential for detrimental effects of chronic radiation exposure and recommend long-term studies.
Now back to ignoring Javier!
It turns out I know a little bit more than you think about long term effects of low levels of radiation on wildlife.
The commentary you link and quote by Beresford and Copplestone relies for its analysis on long term effects mainly on a single group’s work:
“Conversely, a group of workers has reported a variety of effects in a range of organisms at comparatively low dose rates within the exclusion zone (Mousseau and Møller 2011). Møller and Mousseau (2009) reported reduced numbers of aboveground invertebrates with increasing dose rate “around Chernobyl” in 2006 to 2008.
Other observations by Møller, Mousseau, and coworkers include: reduced diversity and abundance of “forest” birds in areas with dose rates in excess of 1 mGy d−1 (Møller and Mousseau 2007) and germline mutations, increased sperm deformities, reduced egg viability, albinistic or deformed feathers, and reduced survival rates (determined from annual return to nesting sites) in barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) (Mousseau and Møller 2011).”
So who are these people on whose research your commentary is based? Wikipedia tells us:
“The two primary individuals involved with the attempt to suggest that the mutation rate amongst animals was, and continues to be, higher in the Chernobyl zone, are the Anders Moller and Timothy Mousseau group.[174][175][176][165] Apart from continuing to publish experimentally unrepeatable and discredited papers, Mousseau routinely gives talks at the Helen Caldicott organized “Physicians for Social Responsibility” (PSR) symposiums, an ultra anti-nuclear group, devoted to bring about a “nuclear free planet”.[177] Moreover, in years past Moller was previously caught and reprimanded for publishing papers that crossed the scientific “misconduct”/”fraud” line.[178] The duo have more recently attempted to publish meta-analyses in which the primary references they weigh-up, analyze and draw their conclusions from is their own prior papers along with the discredited book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.[179]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Difficulties_in_assessment.2C_media_hysteria_and_unscientific_claims
As usual when you attack and try to discredit me, you are the ill-informed one. Your criticism is based on the discredited propaganda of rabid anti-nuclear activists.
The evidence in this case is indisputable. The flourishing of wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. All those animals wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the radioactivity. They would have been shot and killed or wouldn’t have found enough resources if humans have remained there. And that’s a fact.
It is a pristine example that if we leave Nature alone it will recover.
Yep, gathering round the snake oil salesman was entertainment back in the old days when entertainment was scarce. A bad way to waste time. There were always a desperate few who would put aside any sense of reality and make a purchase.
Now it’s just pathetic, annoying and destructive.
Best to keep snake oil garbage out of one’s brain.
Fred, it’s generally good to be able to see!
Fitness costs of increased cataract frequency and cumulative radiation dose in natural mammalian populations from Chernobyl
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep19974
Didn’t you read my comment above, GoneFishing, or haven’t you read that the last two authors of that article are Timothy A. Mousseau & Anders P. Møller?
That’s another article by fraudster Anders Møller, of whom:
“A Danish government committee has ruled that one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists, Anders Pape Møller, is responsible for data fabricated in connection with an article that he co-authored in 1998 and subsequently retracted.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2004/01/ecologists-rocked-misconduct-finding
Any research by that duo in connection to Chernobyl is severely tainted. They are activists that do not stop at fabricating data. It has been demonstrated.
Fred, it’s probably best to have normal sized brains too.
Chernobyl Birds Have Smaller Brains
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3033907/
More suspicious research by the Møller Mousseau team.
On further thought, maybe you’re right. This little “Chernobyl experiment” does make a pretty good case for Ron’s post elsewhere on this blog about too many humans means less, or no, wildlife. Conversely, no humans means more wildlife.
Maybe it will all work out to give us E. O. Wilson’s “Half Earth” scenario, although he didn’t specifically advocate the use of nuclear meltdowns as a preferred means to that end.
Stan
I am not advocating the use of nuclear contamination to clear lands for wildlife. I just say that regarding nuclear, everything is exaggerated, including risks and long term consequences of accidents. To me the current level of safety is enough to make it our energy of choice. To other people no level of safety would be enough and rather have no reliable energy.
Hi Javier,
It will depend on prices, there is a lot of the unconventional resources, whether they will be cheaper than alternatives is unknown, hopefully not.
I agree that after about 2060 the non-conventional is likely to be too optimistic. Probably less than 1400 Pg carbon emissions from 1750 to 2200 from fossil fuel. Emissions from melting permafrost and other Earth system changes are difficult to forecast.
Here is another one for the Uh-Oh squad.
The world’s tropical forests are so degraded they have become a source rather than a sink of carbon emissions, according to a new study that highlights the urgent need to protect and restore the Amazon and similar regions.
Researchers found that forest areas in South America, Africa and Asia – which have until recently played a key role in absorbing greenhouse gases – are now releasing 425 teragrams of carbon annually, which is more than all the traffic in the United States.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/28/alarm-as-study-reveals-worlds-tropical-forests-are-huge-carbon-emission-source
Of course our in house expert will disagree with these findings but,
ARCTIC CLIMATE CHANGE BEING FELT FARTHER SOUTH, SCIENTISTS SAY
An international summary of five year’s worth of research on Arctic climate change concludes the top of the world is getting warmer faster than anyone thought. The report completed for the Arctic Council, the group of eight countries that ring the North Pole, was released last week. It represents the work of 90 scientists from around the world and summarizes the most recent research from 2010 to 2016. “Cumulative global impacts related to Arctic change are expected to be large,” the document said. “Adaptation costs and economic opportunities are estimated in the tens of trillions of U.S. dollars.” The report concludes the Arctic continues to warm at twice the pace of mid-latitudes and is likely to see warming of up to 5 C as early as 2040.
Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can’t be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040. “We should have started 20 years ago,” Barber said. “We didn’t get our act together and we’re still dicking around trying to figure out how to price carbon. “These things are costing us. And they’re costing the stability of our planet.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-arctic-felt-south-1.4410138
“But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040. “
Hogwash.
I agree. There’s not a snowball’s hope in hell things will stabilize “some time around 2040”, Paris agreement notwithstanding. We’re in a mess and nobody knows how it will play out.
Maybe us big brained mammal apes will start a new age of the dinosaurs. Wouldn’t that be ironic deja vu all over again?
The Arctic is getting warmer winters and cooler summers, like this year. In the dark, cold Arctic winter the ocean is under a thick insulating layer of ice. The very dry air can change temperatures easily with less energy. The warmer more humid air is coming from the South. The humidity precipitates as snow, as more snow is falling on Greenland these latest years. The resulting dryer air is warmer than average, but still many degrees below freezing point. Most of that energy is lost to space through IR radiation in the dark winter.
The Arctic is venting more heat to space, and in doing so Arctic sea ice is barely affected. It appears an auto-regulatory mechanism. Not worrying in the least.
Graph 1: The temperature evidence.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Graph 2: The snow evidence. Surface mass balance over Greenland.
https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
Graph 3 from
http://polarportal.dk/en/groenlands-indlandsis/nbsp/total-masseaendring/
The curve illustrates the total mass change month by month measured in gigatonnes (1 Gt is 1 billion tonnes or 1 km3 of water.) The left axis on the graph shows how this ice mass loss corresponds to sea level rise contribution. 100 Gt corresponds to 0.28 mm global sea level.
…
Overall, the Greenland Ice Sheet has during 2003-2011 on average seen a net annual ice loss corresponding to 234 km3 of water. Or approximately 0.65 mm in average annual contribution to global sea level rise (Barletta et al. 2013).
This is well known.
“Over the year, it snows more than it melts, but calving of icebergs also adds to the total mass budget of the ice sheet. Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.”
https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
But this has nothing to do with what I was saying. More warm humid air is making it North these past years causing increased snowing over Greenland and increased temperatures in the Arctic. That is what the data indicates. The interpretation is just the opposite than is being given. More heat is leaving the planet through the Arctic and Greenland ice sheet is losing less mass and contributing less to sea level rise.
Since February 2016 the planet is cooling. We are observing the changes that this produces. Some people want to get alarmed no matter what.
Also, in the 2016-17 season, Greenland gained 550 Gt of water at its surface instead of the average 350 Gt. So in that year probably Greenland ice sheet was in balance and did not contribute towards sea level rise.
That’s called weather. It changes day to day and year to year, didn’t think it needed pointing out. 🙂
I never disagree with findings. Just with the alarmist spin that is given to them.
The Arctic is warmer in the winter and not melting in the summer. This is one of the ways the planet has of cooling after the big 2014-16 El Niño. How do you think the decrease in temperatures since February 2016 is being achieved?
Yep! I posted this link up thread a couple days ago…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01774-z
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill
Texas Tea or London Coffee? Let’s make havoc on Modern Diesel Engines by
Burning trash ladened fuels. Bloody Smashing! Coffee/Diesel blended fumes a better way to choke?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/europe/london-coffee-buses.html
In terms of the big picture, it’s generally a really serious mistake, ecologically and economically as well in terms of the health of the OVERALL economy, to use the materials most commonly used to make liquid biofuels for that purpose. Used cooking oil can be better utilized as an ingredient in animal rations for instance, unless we decide we’re going to give up meat and dairy.
Otherwise, we farmers will be burning more petroleum to produce livestock feed than is saved by feeding used cooking oil into diesel engines.
Coffee grounds are almost dead sure better utilized by mixing them with other food wastes, sterilization ( effectively accomplished by composting as a rule ) and returning them to the soil, even if the soil is English soil.
Improving efficiency is the thing we should be working on.
Now if Londoners have figured out how to run a city bus on only thirty to thirty five gallons of diesel PER WEEK, as indicated in the linked article, they know something we Yankees don’t……… unless they’re running these buses only a few hours a day and only M to F.
ADDED ARCTIC DATA SHOWS GLOBAL WARMING DIDN’T PAUSE
Improved datasets show that Arctic warmed six times faster than the global average during ‘global warming hiatus’. Gaps in Arctic temperature data caused a misperception that global warming slowed from 1998 to 2012, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The Earth’s average global temperatures have been rising over the past century and accelerating as more human produced carbon dioxide enters and lingers in the atmosphere, which is why the idea of “global warming hiatus” seemed baffling to some scientists. But the new data set and resulting estimates show conclusively that the warming didn’t pause.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171120111343.htm
Since congress is about to pass tax cuts which will force scientists to pay their fair share and fund their own way from now on that isn’t much of a surprise at all that they would decide to redefine the temperature record to make climate change look worse. Soon they will need massive private donations in order to pay for grad school tuition and economically harmful research, except first they need to find good material to interest the potential donors.
One of the main researchers was Chinese, what tripe can your demented, bigoted pea brain come up to explain his behaviour?
They are Chinese but work in Alaska so probably an H1B visa thing where they take jobs away from Americans and depress wages for everyone else. Like I said they’ll be paying their fair share in taxes soon enough with all the tax reform.
You are a moronic prick, try fucking reading before commenting.
Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, said he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.
They are Chinese but work in Alaska so probably an H1B visa thing where they take jobs away from Americans and depress wages for everyone else.
Fuck off. you dumb ass Nationalist Troll!
Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, said >he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.
Beat you – just.
When you lose your job to a person from a foreign land with no local connections, limited language skills and limited experience then you probably don’t have much going for you. Try upgrading your high school.
Adam – When a Chinese scientist gets his (or her) PhD from MIT, Stanford or Berkeley or Oxford, do you still reject their work because they’re Chinese? Just wondering.
The issue there isn’t that they are Chinese or whatever else. Instead this is about how almost all scientists these days take money out of the taxpayer’s pocket when they get all their research grants and then they double dip on already unfair advantages by not claiming grad school tuition waivers as taxable income. Well this unfairness is about to come to an end with the tax reform.
So you agree there was no pause and climate change is a major issue – there’s no issue there as you say – next time you should start your own thread abut the subject you think is important, i.e. that all scientists should do their work for about half the going rate (seems a bit socialist though), if I understand you correctly, instead of trying to hijack something against which you don’t have an argument.
Instead this is about how almost all scientists these days take money out of the taxpayer’s pocket
I think you are confusing scientists with politicians! The real unfairness is all the tax breaks to the ultra rich 1%. Apparently they pay you well to post this bullshit here!
Maybe you should look a map of the globe. The American taxpayer does not pay for all the scientific research done in other countries around the world!
So who pays for your trolling here? Is it Putin or the Koch brothers!
Adam,
Would you by any chance be from Mississippi?
Just wondering……………
And hoping……….
Stan
I am from California, Stan.
Good, Adam.
Last year I drove up part of the coast along the southern part of that state, then back to the eastern part, through the beautiful big trees, then up through the central valley where lots of this country’s fruits and nuts are grown. I love farm country, even though it’s not anything like nature itself. If it weren’t for farm country we wouldn’t have all the fruits and nuts.
The planet gains energy in the tropical area and loses it in the poles. That during the Pause the poles had more energy is just logical. The Arctic needs to have more energy to lose more energy. That’s how the Pause was achieved, as the incoming energy from the Sun is unlikely to have changed much. This is evidence of the Pause, not the opposite.
Some of those scientists probably know this. They are just not telling because it is inconvenient to the state of fear being promoted. They don’t lie. They just let the media and the people make the incorrect interpretation from the observations.
This pause does it still continue?
Javier has already made up his mind what the answer is so he is unable to process new information. Try reading original papers and making your own mind up instead of finding someone to confirm your preferred answer.
“Javier has already made up his mind what the answer is so he is unable to process new information.” Exactly, the antithesis of a true scientist which is why I keep him Xed out. That plus the fact he seems to think he knows more about climate science than the climate scientists do.
Poster Child for the :
In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude.
Without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.
Yup, fits Javier to a T.
It’s quite common to hear an older country guy say “he’s so dumb he don’t even know it” in reference to some particularly stupid mistake made by somebody who really should have known better.
It would be a long one if somebody were to work up a a list of all the people who are credited with discovering such things as the Dunning Kruger effect….. things well known to playwrights and story tellers back as far as we have written records.
Does anybody know of such a list?
Anybody here think this could be part of the trump problem? I’m serious. Didn’t he say such shit as, paraphrasing, ’cause I don’t want to take time to look it up, “I know lots of words, I know the best words”. That kind of speech would have given my high-school English teacher a shit-fit. And I attended, and managed to graduate a high-school in what is commonly thought to be poor, stupid Alabama. Goddammit man! Learn to speak if you’re gonna be out in public. Or do as I do, and keep your goddam ignorance to yourself!
Stan
We don’t really know. The Pause was an unexpected period of lower rate of warming. The rate of warming increased a lot from 2014 to 2016, but this coincided with a very strong El Niño and now we are having the usual cooling that takes place after a strong El Niño. Since El Niño is not considered climate change but a weather phenomenon we need to wait a few years to see what happens.
If part of El Niño warming is retained long term, then the Pause did end in 2014.
If global temperature returns to levels close to pre-El Niño temperature, then the Pause continues and El Niño was just a temporary weather interruption.
This information is not exactly carved in a stone tablet and hidden on the dark side of the moon. You gotta be a fucking idiot not to get it.
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/customize.html
“Sciencedaily.com” is yet another science website that doesn’t have comment sections.
Bro. Jimmy,
What’s the problem with that?
Stan
The politics associated with oil may be as important or more important than the actual burning of oil, depending on how the cards fall over the next few decades.
This article throws some light into corners that few people know about, even some such people as hang out in forums such as this one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-saudis-are-pinning-their-future-on-giant-oil-ipo-quicktake/2017/11/20/d3923018-ce5d-11e7-a87b-47f14b73162a_story.html?utm_term=.0852aee7d6d4
Asian glaciers melting less than previously believed and contributing less to sea level rise.
Brun, Fanny, et al. “A spatially resolved estimate of High Mountain Asia glacier mass balances from 2000 to 2016.” Nature Geoscience 10.9 (2017): 668-673.
“High Mountain Asia hosts the largest glacier concentration outside the polar regions. These glaciers are important contributors to streamflow in one of the most populated areas of the world. Past studies have used methods that can provide only regionally averaged glacier mass balances to assess the glacier contribution to rivers and sea level rise. Here we compute the mass balance for about 92% of the glacierized area of High Mountain Asia using time series of digital elevation models derived from satellite stereo-imagery. We calculate a total mass change of −16.3 ± 3.5 Gt yr−1 (−0.18 ± 0.04 m w.e. yr−1) between 2000 and 2016, which is less negative than most previous estimates. Region-wide mass balances vary from −4.0 ± 1.5 Gt yr−1 (−0.62 ± 0.23 m w.e. yr−1) in Nyainqentanglha to +1.4 ± 0.8 Gt yr−1 (+0.14 ± 0.08 m w.e. yr−1) in Kunlun, with large intra-regional variability of individual glacier mass balances (standard deviation within a region ∼0.20 m w.e. yr−1). Specifically, our results shed light on the Nyainqentanglha and Pamir glacier mass changes, for which contradictory estimates exist in the literature. They provide crucial information for the calibration of the models used for projecting glacier response to climatic change, as these models do not capture the pattern, magnitude and intra-regional variability of glacier changes at present.”
“This estimate is in marked disagreement with the total estimate of −46 ± 15 Gt yr−1 from Cogley, 2009 and Marzeion et al., 2015 commonly used in the sea level budget studies.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2999
The calculated melting is only one third of previous estimates. Shame on the IPCC that in 2007 IPCC AR4 said “there is a very high likelihood that Himalayan glaciers will disappear by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate”. IPCC AR4 WG2
2017 Northern Hemisphere hurricane season totally normal
Philip Lotzbach of Colorado State University has tweeted a chart of the 2017 hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere. The numbers in parenthesis are the historical average. Overall for the northern hemisphere this has been an average year.
https://twitter.com/philklotzbach
Now why are we being told that this year hurricane season represents a worsening situation due to increased CO₂ in the atmosphere, and a prelude of worse things to come? Beware of fake climate news. They are everywhere.
Will Anyone Actually Buy the Tesla Semi or any Other Class 8 Electric Truck
“scientists can work backwards to figure out many kWh the battery would need to be to go 300 to 500 miles, what it would weigh, and the cost for a truck at the maximum road limit of 80,000 pounds.”
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/will-anyone-actually-buy-the-tesla-semi-or-any-other-class-8-electric-truck/
Musk is a mountebank.
I looked a bit – an european truck (they are limited to 38 tons) needs 100-150 KW to roll without hills – so a 1000 kwh battery is a good guess for the Tesla, . This would be 6 tons in today tech – the engine will weight less than the big block engines of fuel trucks, additional the 1 ton fuel tank.
So it’s round about 4 tons more – most truck deliveries are volume restricted, the weight restricted companies can drive their Diesels a few years more.
They wrote about less than 2 kwh/mile at 60 mph full load, so this hints at about 1000 kwh, too.
Thanks for posting that. I didn’t find it when I was looking for sensible responses to Musk’s bs.
The more I read, the more this sounds like the truck-building industry’s equivalent to the oil industry’s shale patch.
Stan
Energy skeptic (Alice Friedemann?) is blowing a lot of hot air on this subject, more of an entertainment piece than anything else. Making up numbers on a specific product that has not been released yet is just imagination. Wait until they are on the road to say why they won’t work, much less embarrassing.
I doubt if Tesla would not know what market it was after, they are good at that.
https://electrek.co/2017/11/17/tesla-semi-electric-truck-specs-cost/
GF,
That link had more hype and cheerleading than real information. Didn’t impress me at all. Taking Musk’s vague promises at face value is no more useful than listening to the ignorant holy-roller preachers’ promises of “pie in the sky, bye and bye” that I grew up hearing.
Please excuse the loss of my usual restraint here,
maybe I’ll just take another sip,
Happy hour,
Stan
Okay, ignore the reality of his many successes from electronic banking, to the first successful and practical electric cars, rocketry, solar, and power storage. Musk and Tesla have a proven track record even though they are pioneering a whole new way of transport. I think I will believe him over some curmudgeonly naysayer who has no real facts or vision (not you).
This particular truck will fit a niche market. I surmise that Tesla is not out to take over the market yet, just prove the system and get the ball rolling.
Stan, if we don’t change the system will come to a grinding horrible halt which will be devastating. Better to accept and embrace the change than be part of the destruction as fuels run out and pollution reaches a peak.
But that is your choice.
BTW, your reference to pie in the sky is so appropriate considering the amazing successes of Musk’s Space-X.
amazing successes of Musk’s Space-X.
As long as you have the Russians to bail them out when they fail.
It is often best to let the pro’s do the hard work.
Yes, amazing successes, some well beyond what the Russians can do after over 6 decades of experience and lots of government funding.
SpaceX’s achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008);[9] the first privately funded company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010); the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012);[10] the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015); and the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017). As of March 2017, SpaceX has since flown ten missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under a cargo resupply contract.[11] NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon, which would be used to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth.[12]
All in a decade my negative friend.
GF,
I fully agree that the present fossil-fueled system is coming to a halt, and with possibly devastating consequences. I just dislike hype and bullshit, and was expecting more in the way of solid numbers. For the buyers of a truck, that will most definitely include the weight of the truck with batteries for a given range. Also price at same. Subsidizing fuel costs for how long?
Since he doesn’t have a truck to sell yet, I guess that doesn’t matter, presently.
It will matter before any real money changes hands, as there are others already addressing the issue.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/11/18/byd-opening-electric-truck-factory-canada-cites-friendlier-environment-evs-us/
https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/29/cummins-electric-semi-truck/
https://www.daimler.com/products/trucks/mercedes-benz/mercedes-benz-electric-truck.html
Dammit, that MB is ugly! Why did they do that? LOL
Just for a bit of history of truck-builders trying something different:
http://www.tenfourmagazine.com/OldTimeTrucks/2006/10.html
I also agree that we had damn well better prepare for times of less fossil fuels.
That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t get back into trucking after the half-priced car-hauling slump in 2008-09 caused me to park my rig. Also why I now live in a very low-energy, low-maintenance dwelling that I designed with those purposes in mind.
As for SpaceX, yes they’ve done great work thus far. Manned flight is a bit more involved, we’ll soon see how that goes. They didn’t have much competition to have to beat though. I used to be a big NASA fan, now not so sure they could shoot a bottle-rocket up their own ass. I’ve done machine-work for NASA in the past, and hated to see their failures. They did contribute a lot to materials science. Kept developing alloys that we could hardly cut, and wanting them cut!
BTW, I also did work for a guy who, if I remember right, was a propulsion engineer, who later went to work in Utah for SpaceX. He didn’t last long there though, he seemed to be a bit full of himself. But I did see a picture of his daughter riding a rocket-powered bicycle that he built! Nothing like raising your own test subjects.
Later,
Stan
So far Tesla and Musk have not been the Wizard of Oz, more like the wizard of Menlo Park.
Just enough info to wet the curiosity and enough left out so they can look even better when the product arrives. That truck has a Cd of a Toyota Sienna, that is impressive. With battery costs falling below $100/kwh it should be an interesting run. The limiting factor will be the charging systems, something Tesla is good at implementing.
So down one for the good ole days then down another for the future.
A real-time Global Warming Index
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14828-5
Current Global Warming Index
Current GWI: +1.019400395 °C
on Tues, Nov 21
http://www.globalwarmingindex.org/
Do you have Grandkids (just in time for Christmas). Should go with the cloud chamber you’ve already built for him/her. You have done the cloud chamber thing haven’t you?
PHYSICISTS DESIGN $100 HANDHELD MUON DETECTOR
“Physicists have designed a pocket-sized cosmic ray muon detector to track these ghostly particles. The detector can be made with common electrical parts, and when turned on, it lights up and counts each time a muon passes through. The relatively simple device costs just $100 to build, making it the most affordable muon detector available today.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171120174502.htm
Another great one for the Grandkids (too advanced for Javier)
NASA MAP OF EARTH’S SEASONS OVER 20 YEARS HIGHLIGHTS CLIMATE CHANGE
“Werdell said the visualization shows spring coming earlier and autumn lasting longer in the Northern Hemisphere. Also noticeable to him is the Arctic ice caps receding over time – and, though less obvious, the Antarctic, too.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/nov/18/nasa-map-of-earths-seasons-over-20-years-highlights-climate-change
Not new, but sad and true:
AMERICANS ‘UNDER SIEGE’ FROM CLIMATE DISINFORMATION – FORMER NASA CHIEF SCIENTIST
Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/08/americans-under-siege-from-climate-disinformation-former-nasa-chief-scientist
“All 7 billion of us owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains; 6 billion of us also owe our existence to nitrogen created by Haber-Bosch from natural gas.”
People need simple stories just to deal with the groundless world we inhabit.
And there are plenty of Simpletons and Charlatans to give them comfort.
OFM, BRACE YOURSELF 🙂
SCIENTISTS ARE ABOUT TO TEST A DEVASTATING HYPOTHESIS: 2018 WILL SUFFER A LOT OF BIG EARTHQUAKES
“Though Bilham and Bendick don’t know for sure, they believe that every so often the Earth’s mantle might stick a little more to the crust. That could change how the liquid outer core flows. And because it’s all metal down there, the change in flow will affect planet’s magnetic field, which would ever so slightly affect the Earth’s rotation and thus change the length of the day by milliseconds. The Earth’s rotation has been slowing down for the past four years.”
https://qz.com/1133304/as-earths-rotation-slows-2018-could-see-a-spike-in-large-earthquakes/
Will that be before or after Yellowstone blows?
Doug,
Thanks. Doesn’t that mean longer days, as in slower flips of the daily calendar? I sure as hell hope so, ’cause time seems to be slipping away faster and faster these last few years. Maybe I’ll be able to squeeze in another trip or two before time to clock out.
Stan
Thanks, Doug
I was just about dead sure that since you’re a geologist, the question would be of considerable interest to you, 😉 and that you would look into it.
Very few people outside the science and history communities are aware of it, but there’s a real possibility of a very powerful earthquake hitting in my general area. It’s happened before, but there were very few of us Euro types around then, and almost nothing in the way of infrastructure beyond a few crudely built barns and houses.
I’m guessing that the annual odds of another big one close enough by to maybe knock my wood stove over and burn down my house are about one half to one percent, but I’ve never seen any estimates made by geologists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1811%E2%80%9312_New_Madrid_earthquakes
Another thing that IS happening, or is at least very likely to happen soon, is that an offshore wind farm will be built just offshore from CLEVELAND, about seven miles out into Lake Erie.
This link is a must read for those of us interested in renewable energy.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/man-dead-set-on-building-offshore-wind-farm-lake-erie-180967200/
From THE HILL:
Ex-RNC chair: Trump’s comments on Roy Moore ‘beyond stupid’
© Getty
A former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) said Wednesday that President Trump’s comments dismissing GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore’s accusers were “beyond stupid” and that he doesn’t care about his own party.
“This is beyond stupid. And there’s irreparable harm that’s being done to this party and to this country. someone needs to take control here and it’s certainly not the president,” Michael Steele told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews.
I have often pointed out that while a lot of R types are happy with Trump and his agenda, the R establishment hates his guts, and was afraid of him before the election.
Trump obviously doesn’t give a damn about the country, or the R party, or the people. All he cares about is his own ego, and the people who are ( for now) his “friends” , but a friendly relationship with Trump lasts only so long as it benefits Trump. He has allies, rather than friends.
Hi all,
A new Open Thread Non-Petroleum is up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-november-22-2017/
and a post on Texas
http://peakoilbarrel.com/texas-update-november-2017/