89 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, November 20, 2024”

      1. Loasofoil:
        “In Chinese zodiac, the snake is associated with wisdom, charm, elegance, and transformation. People born in the Year of the Snake are believed to be intuitive, strategic, and intelligent.”
        I didn’t notice Hightrekker making a comparison, or even a complaint. I took it as a question as to how humanity is to deal with a new administration.
        Are you being defensive of the new administration or trying to change the subject?

        1. Jjhman

          I am not being defensive. I simply don’t think Trump is much better or worse then the rest of them, so I don’t think the new administration needs to be dealt with.

          Obama for instance had America men and women bomb several countries. One such country was Libya, the resultant destruction of the government led to powerful armed groups fighting for the riches of the country. ISIS who could it function there before were able to build up a power base to lunch several attacks across the region. Funny how many left winger think it’s OK to drop bombs on women and children.

          Biden ordered the unseemly and hastily evacuation of Afghanistan, making the U.S. military look weak and chaotic. Afghanistan is now worse of then ever.

          When Trump acts as those two I will be equally critical of him.

          1. LoadsOfBullshitAndIgnorance- “Biden ordered the unseemly and hastily evacuation of Afghanistan, making the U.S. military look weak and chaotic” “When Trump acts as those two I will be equally critical of him.” “I simply don’t think Trump is much better or worse then the rest of them”

            “U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

            This document outlines the key decisions and challenges surrounding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

            When he came into office, President Biden believed the right thing for the country was to end the longest war in American history and bring American troops home. As he laidout to the American people, after twenty years, the United States had accomplished its mission in Afghanistan: to remove from the battlefield the terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11, including Osama bin Laden, and degrade the terrorist threat to the United States. Over two decades, the United States had also—along with our NATO allies and partners—spent hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and supporting successive Afghan governments. At the outset, America’s goal was never to nation-build. But, over time, this is what America drifted into doing. Two decades after the war had started, America had become bogged down in a war in Afghanistan with unclear objectives and no end in sight and was underinvesting in today’s and tomorrow’s national security challenges.

            President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor. When President Trump took office in 2017, there were more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Eighteen months later, after introducing more than 3,000 additional troops just to maintain the stalemate, President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table. In September 2019, President Trump embolded the Taliban by publicly considering inviting
            them to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban reached a deal, known as the Doha Agreement, under which the United States agreed to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the Taliban agreed to participate in a peace process and refrain from attacking U.S. troops and threatening Afghanistan’s major cities—but only as long as the United States remained committed to withdraw by the agreement’s deadline. As part of the deal, President Trump also pressured the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, including senior war commanders, without securing the release of the only American hostage known to be held by the Taliban.

            Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later, President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date. During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the 2 outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just over three months away.

            As a result, when President Biden took office on January 20, 2021, the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country. At the same time, the United States had only 2,500 troops on the ground—the lowest number of troops in Afghanistan since 2001—and President Biden was facing President Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on U.S. and allied troops. Secretary of Defense Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “the intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces.”

            https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf

            1. Nice summary Huntington Beach. I am always stunned when Biden is given all the blame for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. I have no doubt that Trump intended to make Biden look bad by weakening the US forces in the country below critical mass and breaking the morale of the Afghan resistance to the Taliban.
              He really is that low. Perhaps it was to gain personal favor with Putin.
              No one with a functioning brain cell thinks that the Obama administration was faultless but to compare any recent presidency to what we legitimately can fear from a second Trump run is to be either naive or in denial.
              As far as what to expect in the coming administration I will use Trump’s own words. He is planning an administration from “central casting.” I interpret that to mean a bunch of people that look like the roles they are supposed to play but basically only know how to say what they have been told to say.
              Why be concerned?
              -He does not care about the country or anyone in it but himself.
              -He couldn’t govern well if he wanted to because he doesn’t understand the concept.
              -His idea of the presidency is to stroke his ego and enrich himself.
              -His models of leadership are Putin, Orban, Erdogan and Kim although the best he has been able to demonstrate so far is a weak parody of Mussolini.
              -He is a pathological liar.
              -His outlook hardly spans past his immediate environs in geography and his next hamburger in time.
              -He distains expertise of any kind, believes his “gut” is more to be trusted, probably because he is the least intelligent and least knowledgeable president since at least Warren G. Harding.
              -His associates are largely other felons, disgraced attorneys, yes-men, or schemers who reasonably expect to enrich themselves during the Trump presidency just as he himself does.
              Only his proven incompetence stands between us and serious problems.

            2. *untingtonbeach

              You obviously are not able to remember what happened in Afghanistan at the beginning. The United States bombed and bombed the country and invaded it. Supposedly to get rid of the terror regime. The United States should have put in whatever resources needed to finish the job. They have thrown the good element of the Afghanistan people to the wolves and caused a massive refugee problem.

              In Libya the country was stable until the United States destroyed the government and order structure. Look what you left.

              https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/18/war-in-libya-how-did-it-start-what-happens-next

            3. loadsofoil,

              Who was in office when the War in Afghanistan commenced? Don’t blame Obama and Biden for a war started by Bush in 2001.

            4. Yes Huntington Beach- you have it spot on.
              Yet inconvenient facts don’t play well with the 49% of the voting population who chose Trump to be 47th.

            5. Yes Hickory I know and the fact you get it too. I’m expecting the shit show to come hard and fast after the January 20th. The public and media will be overwhelmed and 90 percent of the incoming will not get realized until it’s to late. The right wing media will spin it into bumper sticker prosperity and the America we grew up knowing will be dead if it’s not already. The next four years will be interesting times. And when the 49% get what they deserve. Well, they will blame it on someone else. We were the lucky generation and had front row seats.

            6. The saddest thing about all this is how low the bar has become on acceptable behavior in public life- re-electing a president who required supreme court ruling of immunity from prosecution of criminal acts against the state/people, and the complete surrender of attempt to find and respect truth. The bullies and car salesmen have been elevated to the top tier of the society.
              I don’t see how any of this loss of standards of normal behavior get put back in the box.
              Pillow guy for Supreme Court!

            7. I hear Hulk Hogan is in talks for a cabinet position. Maybe he should run the Defense Department. We need a tough guy to run the military.

            8. The real problem with the American occupation of Afghanistan was the complete cluelessness of the occupier.

              That’s what Colin Powell was pointing out when he said when you break it you own it. He told insane lies to justify invading Iraq, but at least he saw what was coming.

              America had literally nothing to offer the people of Afghanistan. Reagan got the Saudis to fund the Islamic crazies. They were high-fiving each other in Washington when the university of Kabul was being bombed and terrorized. The Pentagon blathered on about “good guys” and “bad guys” like primary school children. The media spread stupid lies about how the country was ungovernable and a desert although the opposite is the case. Nobody involved even bothered to ask themselves what the Afghans wanted.

            1. Klim

              Let’s have your take on Libya, can we.

              Is this report wrong?

              https://www.e-ir.info/2019/02/06/to-what-extent-was-the-nato-intervention-in-libya-a-humanitarian-intervention/

              Are the reports that groups armed by the U.S. are now involved in people smuggling and torture.

              I usually find people who call other ignorant are the most ignorant.

              I am tempted to remind you that the U.S. armed the taliban, but you probably can’t cope with two arguments in the same post

            2. The Taliban was mostly armed by the Reagan and Bush administrations to fight the Soviet Union.

  2. On the brighter side, McDonald’s has announced the McRib will be returning to the US on December 3.

    However before then on November 25 they will literally be selling jugs of McRib sauce for an extremely limited time for $19.99!

    Everything really is looking up in this country again.

      1. “I’m not taking the vaccine cuz I don’t know what’s in it” starter pack.

        1. I bet it’s molded with only the finest pork products……

      1. Yeah, it’s basically just sugar water.

        I actually tried McD’s brand ketchup a few years ago. It was sweet. That’s about it. Then my wife bought some supermarket own-label organic ketchup. I laughed till I tasted it. I thought ketchup was all created equal, but that stuff is really delicious.

    1. The Russian rubles exchange rate (USD/RUB)is sitting at 103.60 today. That is a problem. Their central bank has already previously jacked their benchmark interest rate to 21% and other measures were implemented to try to keep the currency rate at or below 100.00

      I seen a graph the other day where Russia has an estimated $75 Trillion in natural resource reserves.
      Yet they have very little control of the value of their currency.

      Having natural resources won’t prevent hyperinflation of their currency. Once their intervention measures have proven to fail this will go down hill fast. Which is why the exchange rate breaking through to the upside of 100.00 is a big deal at the moment.

      Notice they don’t jack rates up in response to what a ruble buys internally in Russia. Only in response to the exchange rate. Which makes sense when your economy revolves around exports/imports. Exports become cheaper, imports more expensive. The purchasing power of the income you receive from exports falls.

      The price of oil doesn’t matter nearly as much as the purchasing power from the income you receive from selling your oil. Selling oil in Chinese yuan hasn’t increased the purchasing power of your oil exports. The opposite is true.

        1. Also Russia annexed large areas of the Qing / Manchurian Empire in the 19th century and the present rulers of China consider themselves legitimate heirs.

          1. Both China and Russia have very long memories about any land they ever occupied.

        1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14132641/Putin-orders-gigantic-Satan-II-nukes-ready-combat-duty-soon-possible-Kremlin-warns-insane-idea-arming-Ukraine-nukes-push-world-brink-catastrophe.html

          Putin orders Satan II ICBM Nukes combat ready.

          As the Ukraine exposed Russia’s inability from drones striking inside Russia at oil infrastructure that might not be able to be rebuilt.

          The USA allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia with much more effective USA ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles…..

          Russia knows can’t stop this….what else can they do?

          1. Russia can stop it immediately simply by withdrawing their troops from Ukraine.

            1. But how will the daily mail get their daily articles on the topic?

              lol. really good point.

            2. Never thought I would see Ukraine striking inside Russia.

              Russia sees their borders combined with demographics (They don’t have many 20 – 30, year old men, now they have less and less). as an existential threat.

              The former soviet states are buffers against an invasion that they can’t stop without starting a nuclear war.

              I also am certain Putin is aware of Peak Oil, knows his adversaries are Oil Importers (NATO) and USA Shale is what is holding the ship up.

  4. In order to stop the collapse of the global ecosystem a rapid change of direction is required.
    For several hundreds of years humans have been taking and destroying. Killing Elephants, Rhinos, Tigers, Whales for money. Humans have extracted oil, gas, coal other minerals and left poisoned land everywhere.

    Deforestation for profit with little money spent ensuring the resources will be replenished.

    Soil erosion is caused by single crop farming as crop rotation costs money. Depletion of aquifers around the world is due to water being too cheap or free. All these things need to change. The estimated cost to fix these problems is around £1.5 trillion each year. COP29 are arguing about £200 billion. There is no chance this amount of money will stop any of the main problems facing the world.

      1. “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”
        – Former Vice President Dick Cheney

    2. Sad, but so true. And again, the money system runs against the physical limits.
      Not sure what can save humanity in the framework of the financial plexus?

  5. https://mishtalk.com/economics/chinas-puts-export-curbs-on-minerals-us-needs-for-weapons-and-technology/

    Trade War Showdown

    Mish has been warning about this for years

    ”
    China controls more than 80% of the world’s supply of tungsten and about 90% of global magnesium production

    China has an effective monopoly over processing major heavy rare earths – Dysprosium (Dy) and Terbium (Tb), and Light Rare Earths – Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr).

    If Trump increases tariffs on China by 60 percent, China could easily shut down rare earth exports.

    It takes decades to get a mine up in the US and mining is one thing. Processing is the second. China controls about 90% of global rare earth process.

    No other county has the technology.”

      1. And Australians are training on USA Nuclear Submarines…

        Between the 2 countries are 40% of the worlds coal reserves not to mention the ultimate Testicle clamp on China.

        coincidence?

  7. I did a little digging into the Saudi/ Russian bond sell. The dollar bond issuance was just listed in Saudi Arabia. Not much different than deciding where to list a stock. Like when the Saudi’s wanted to list on the NY stock exchange.

    From a Saudi point of view it makes sense to do it because it will help them become more a financial center as they try to diversify from oil and gas.

    A lot of the buyers were actually Chinese entities that had some spare dollars to lend.

    Beyond that though in the 3rd quarter 2024 both China and Japan sold record amounts of US treasuries. China sold $51.4 billion while Japan sold $61.9 billion. And they both also sold agency debt $9.9 billion and $18.6 billion respectively.

    You’ll hear all kinds of nonsense narratives about why they are selling. Be it de-dollarization or Trump or the writing is on the wall get out of US bonds or whatever.

    They sell reserve assets to get dollars in times that the dollars are scarce and expensive to get. Japan in particular was intervening in the currency markets to stop the yen’s slide. Which is a stupid way to use up your reserve assets. It only bought them a few months before the exchange rate goes right back where it was before they decided to intervene.

    When dollars are plentiful because the risk of lending is lower there are plenty of US dollars, abundant US dollars. When there are plenty of dollars both China and Japan are adding US treasuries as reserve assets.

    You don’t see any narrative being pushed when dollars are abundant and they are buying US treasuries.

    How many dollars/ treasuries does Russia have to use to defend their currency exchange rate. Oh, that’s right they sold all the reserves assets they had years ago.

    One other thing. The Cayman Islands. Thier treasuries holding increased by $100 billion during 3rd Qty 2024.

    1. HHH:
      “as they try to diversify from oil and gas.”
      Shades of Twilight in the Dessert, Matt Simmons’ 2005 book about the imminent death of Ghawar. I lost faith in peak oil over a decade ago but if SA is seriously planning to diversify, what is their timeline?

      1. I don’t know when their exports hit zero. Or when those exports will be cut in half. What I do know is they are trying to become a tourist destination.

        Professional golf, professional racing, building futuristic cities, changing laws that allow activities that western society like to indulge themselves in order to make it tourist friendly. They are definitely trying to diversify.

        It’s not really going to work though because when oil exports start disappearing the rest of the world will become poorer and won’t have the money or time to go visit Saudi Arabia on vacation.

        1. What’s that old alleged Saudi saying?: “Our grandfathers rode camels, and our grandchildren will again, ride camels.”

    2. The thing about the Cayman Islands is a lot of bank entities reside there. What appears to be happening and I’ll admit this is somewhat educated speculation.

      But what appears to be happened is collateral got moved to the banks in the Cayman Islands because of carry trade unwinding due to the intervention in Japan’s currency. Basically some margin calls were issued because of the intervention and collateral had to be moved.

      When you see the quantity of treasuries explode higher in banking centers like the Cayman Islands or Luxembourg it’s bad sign for what is going on globally in the monetary system.

      1. One other thing that I failed to touch on is these Chinese US dollar bonds are in no way shape or form competing with US treasury bonds.

        These bonds don’t have the same utility where you can go into REPO anywhere around the globe and repost them as collateral.

        Also when you borrow in dollars you need the dollar to fall against your home currency. With the prospects of 60% or even 100% tariffs in play the Chinese currency will likely fall against the dollar

        The situation is set up for the Chinese currency to fall hard against the dollar. Yet at same time the Russian currency falls hard against the Chinese currency.

        Russia purchasing power is going to take a hit like it’s never seen before.

        1. Just for safekeeping I recorded Usdebtclock turning over to 36 Trillions a couple of days ago on a local device for future safekeeping. So probably the dirtiest shirt by any reference by far.
          Btw, I don´t think the average Joe/Jane are aware he/she is 650000+ in debt, besides all else owed.
          https://usdebtclock.org/

          1. Is it really even debt if you have no plans whatsoever to pay it down? When the only plan you have is to expand the so called debt is it even really debt? Debt to me implies one day you will be paying the debt back.

            You do realize any attempt to shrink the national “debt “ will shrink the money supply right? Payoff $5 trillion and $5 trillion disappears from the money supply. Not only that but $5 trillion in collateral that is used to create even more loans via REPO transactions disappears.

            Again if there is never any intentions to do anything but expand the so called debt is it even really debt?

            And because this so called debt is used as collateral to create leverage to pump the price of absolutely everything under the sun there will absolutely be demand for this so called debt. Endless demand.

            It goes further than that though. The primary collateral used to create dollar liquidity so the rest of the world outside the US can conduct trade with each other is also our so called debt. If we are selfish and pay down our debt the world doesn’t have the needed collateral to function.

            My $25 call on oil prices is a bet on dollars not circulating properly through out the global economy. Everyone assumes 2008 can’t happen again. Everybody assumes that the central banks are all powerful and were what fixed 2008.

            Bank reserves aren’t used in the global monetary system and bank reserves are all the central banks have.

            Wherever you reside on this earth go to local bank and ask them for some bank reserves. Go to your nearest central bank and ask them for some bank reserves. Then pretend you got your hands on some bank reserves.

            Then go into the REPO market and try posting those bank reserves as collateral for a loan so you can go buy oil futures or bitcoin or gold or S&P 500 shares or real estate. You will get told no because you need treasury debt as collateral for a loan.

            If you are a bank and you go into a REPO transaction with another bank you better have some treasuries because bank reserves aren’t accepted as collateral. You can even borrow the treasuries needed to do the transaction from another bank or a dealer bank. But those bank reserves are no good as collateral.

            Did you know that Italian debt is used as collateral to create dollar denominated loans that are use in global trade? Bank reserves created by the ECB European Central Bank aren’t used as collateral by the banks to create dollar liquidity.

            Ditto with Japanese debt.

            The point I’m making is. Central banks can create all the bank reserves they want. But it’s up to commercial banks to create the actual liquidity that makes the world turn.

            1. Bravo HHH
              That is precisely correct we could add that debt private when there’s enough energy to drive industry and the debt is public when there isn’t enough energy. government borrowing is evidence of an energetic decline. That’s already hitting us hard.

            2. Interesting, so US dollars are more like tokens/monopoly money, or Bitcoins in a way, with absolutely no connection to anything real? (not anything new really)
              Personally I would like it to be connected to something tangiable, like firewood, 30-06 ammo or, heaven forbid, gold…But I´m a bit old fashioned.
              I just hope the rest of the world are in on, and/or understands this. Recent developments suggests they are quite a bit concerned.

            3. Laplander,

              The US dollar is a medium of exchange. Always has been. Even before the FED was created and there was actually a gold standard. The amount of dollar credit was never. I repeat never tied to the amount of gold on hand.

              Commercial banks have never needed gold or bank reserves on hand to make loans.

              All commercial banks need to make a loan is some sort of collateral and a low risk environment. US T-bill being the best of the best collateral. But obviously other forms of collateral are used depending on what type of loan we are talking about.

              Risk can go way up and collateral can lose not only nominal value. But some forms of collateral can be outright rejected or can become cost prohibiting.

              Like we will accept your French or Italian bonds or bills for this loan but since we view these as more risky now than before we are going to charge you a lot more to make this loan. This is where we are currently at. Dollar liquidity becoming more expensive to obtain.

              As the global energy situation continues to deteriorate. And we start seeing actual shortages. Be it brownouts in electricity or however else it manifests itself. De-industrializing in some places. You’ll see it in the trade data. But as the situation deteriorates the commercial banks that create all the loans and liquidity that drive the global economy. They will become extremely risk averse and choose not to make loans.

              Let’s just pretend that the bank reserves on the FEDs balance sheet actually mattered. And they jumped in and created $10 trillion in bank reserves. Ok, well the Eurodollar market just contracted by $30 trillion . Does it even matter what the FED does?

              Even if you believe the Fed matters which they don’t. They are absolutely dwarfed by the Euro dollar market. And like I said above their bank reserves aren’t used in the Eurodollar market.

              There is no money printer of last resort when all else has failed and SHTF. There is no actual backstop. The amount of dollars in the system can contract violently. And there isn’t a damn thing the FED or other central banks can do about it.

  9. Peak coal you say.

    RISING COAL CONSUMPTION MAY BOLSTER US THERMAL COAL MARKETS IN 2025

    “Demand for thermal coal continues to grow, and this growth is Asia centric,” Peabody Chief Marketing Officer Malcolm Roberts said in Peabody’s third quarter earnings call. Asia has boosted thermal coal imports compared with last year with India imports rising by 12% and China by 8%. Global coal demand is expected to persist through the coming years, even amid energy transition. The International Energy Agency recently revised its 2030 global coal consumption forecast upwards by 6%. “To put this into perspective, the 2024 increase on forecast demand is comparable to the total coal consumption of Japan.”

    https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/coal/111524-rising-coal-consumption-may-bolster-us-thermal-coal-markets-in-2025

    3. Yeah, the demand for oil is the real problem. The solution is simple: Tax it at the pump. Charge $10 a gallon and demand would decrease.

      1. Watching the rant, there’s a lot of reading between the lines. The character played by Billy Bob states that we are essentially running out of oil (which is definitionally true once the first oil well started producing), but much of the rest can be taken as to trust the oilman to do what’s right for the country.

        Billy Bob’s character could just as well be based on Oily Stuff blog’s Mike, laying down some hard truths.

    4. Paul, I’ve been reading your comments for years but I often find them cryptic. For example are you pro-renewables or is that just a feel-good fantasy, just tilting at windmills? You’ve worked with Dennis on oil depletion curves. Are you worried about peak oil? You think net-zero is a mirage? I want to put you in a box but you escape definition 🙂

      1. John, My box is that the state of Earth sciences is lacking. The consensus is broadly right about certain things such as climate change, but so many of the details they seem to get wrong, or at best don’t fully explore. That may explain why I give the impression of being counter to that of the scientific consensus.

        This guy died several years ago, but take a look at the writings of David MacKay
        https://www.withouthotair.com/
        He was in a similar box, and made lots of progress because he was just that much better at math and physics than the typical Earth scientist.

        1. Paul, thanks for replying. I did read McKay’s book back in the day and always felt he was over-pessimistic and that he didn’t cover recent developments. I will grant you his observation that switching off your mobile phone charger is not going to save the planet 🙂

        2. I met and spoke to David MacKay at length, 12 years ago. He drastically underestimated the potential of wind turbines in the UK. He was a brilliant scientist and a hopeless engineer who believed in standard economic theory and expected to see electricity demand rise exponentially indefinitely. UK electricity production from wind is now 3 times larger than David concluded was the maximum possible in the UK. Output is expected to double again in the next decade.

            1. MacKay did not talk about fossil fuel depletion enough. No one really does. On Bluesky, I mentioned that a large conference such as the annual American Geophysics Union (AGU) meeting doesn’t even have any oil & gas sessions. That’s like 25,000 attendees and no one talking about oil depletion, but lots on climate science. One geophysicist replied:

              “Why is this a surprise ? There are always plenty of oil company folks attending sessions on basic tectonics etc. There are specialist industry focused meeting all over the place. Not to mention the fact that oil industry orchestrated campaigns against individual AGU members over decades.

              It was a conscious and popular decision to distance the AGU from oil / gas and to decline their sponsorship.”

              This does not make sense to not allow climate scientists to understand the factors to go into projections because …. of some grudge?

  13. USD/RUB is at 111.80 this morning. As they failed to hold the line at 100.00 it’s now accelerating. Where oh where does it ultimately end up?

    200.00, 300.00 maybe 1000.00

    1. Thanks Andre, fascinating. But we’re still waiting for the results, or at least what the results mean?

  15. Yet another problem comes to light!

    CAR TIRES SHED A QUARTER OF ALL MICROPLASTICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT.

    Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tons of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine samples. We know that heavier vehicles, including electric cars (which have very heavy batteries), wear down their tires faster and generate more microplastic particles. Car industry experts Nick Molden and Felix Leach say that, as weight is so crucial to a vehicle’s environmental impact, manufacturers should be targeted with weight-based taxes under a “polluter pays” principle. This could encourage lighter vehicle designs while motivating consumers to make greener choices.

    With more than 2 billion tires produced each year to fit ever-heavier and more numerous cars, the problem is set to escalate. The environmental toll will only increase unless we recognize and target the specific problem. Measures like weight-based taxation and eco-friendly tire innovations would not only reduce tire pollution but also pave the way for more sustainable transportation systems. The question isn’t whether we can afford to act. It’s whether we can afford not to.

    https://phys.org/news/2024-11-car-quarter-microplastics-environment-urgent.html

    1. “Europe’s luxury cruise ships emit as much toxic sulphur as 1bn cars”

    2. Roads are getting destroyed by heavier car also. A 2 tonne SUV causes 16 times more damage than a 1tonne car. A Tesla causes 12 times as much damage as a medium sized car.

      https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/opinion/opinion-cars-have-a-weight-problem-and-its-damaging-more-than-the-environment/

      At the moment many electric cars pay no road tax while a small petrol car which hardly damages the road pays hundreds of pounds a year in tax and petrol duty. Fewer cars are paying any tax, it is no wonder the roads are falling to pieces.

      All cars should be taxed on their weight and therefore reflect the damage they do to the roads.

      1. Doug Leighton,
        Thanks for the link. Very interesting.

        Loadsofoil,
        Good citation and fair point as far as it goes, but I’m always wary of articles like the one you cite which seem to try to demonize EVs due to weight (disclaimer, I don’t own an EV). The tone of some of your comments also seem to have a similar bit of bias.

        First, “roads” is an overly broad term. The research you cite looked at the two types of pavement (flexible and rigid) and a few types of bridges. It did not look at buried structures like culverts which represent a large fraction of critical links on roadway corridors. The research identified a large number of variables driving deterioration. There is a lot of detail there that we can ignore for now and paint with a broad brush to help see the big picture as it relates to infrastructure ‘damage’.

        The 4th power relationship between ‘damage’ and axle weight is mostly true for one type of pavements, flexible. This is not one of the primary drivers of bridge deterioration in much of the world, and some of the conclusions from the original research are essentially no longer valid. For example, fatigue prone details for steel bridges have been known for decades and these details are simply no longer used by any capable engineer.

        Now let’s do some simple math with rough numbers to look at some representative vehicles axle weights for smaller cars, EVs, SUVs and trucks.

        Toyota Corolla, 1500#. Use this as the 1.0 reference point.

        Tesla Y, 2200#, or 4.6 times as much damage to flexible pavement as a single Corolla axle weight

        Toyota Rav4, 1750#, or 1.9 times the damage

        HS20 standard design truck, 32,000# or almost 21,000 times the damage (!)

        Next would be to take a look at some representative highway corridors and look at the relative mix of trucks and cars. There is a wide range out there. Here in the NE US, the nearby interstate carries 25%+ truck traffic, middle volume two lanes perhaps 5-10% and the little local collectors less than that. Let’s arbitrarily pick 5% trucks for the example. That still leaves the heavy trucks as pushing 10,000 times as much damage to flexible pavements as cars. We could go even further and look at what actual truck axle weight are out there on the roads……

        Regardless, I guess my point is that within the context of infrastructure damage that you raise, cars are only a (small) part of the picture.

        2. T Hill

          You are correct that at the moment cars are a smallish part of the damage caused to roads.
          Trucks cause most of the damage and that is why I think it is a tragedy that extensive rail freight was not developed in most countries.

          I am not anti electric vehicle that is why the first line I wrote quoted SUV’s.

          You decided to take a slightly heavier car than 1 tonne which has distorted the original data. Thinking about many small roads which very rarely see trucks on them but are in poor condition. Currently they would need resurfacing every 10 years to be of a reasonable standard to be safe to drive on. If all the cars were Tesla’s the roads would have to be resurfaced every 3 years. The cost will be horrendous. When we then add in electric trucks which carry less cargo, we are faced with many more trucks doing many more miles. Obviously goods in the shops will cost more and more taxes will be extracted from already struggling people.
          Looks like we try and fix one problem and cause another.

          1. Not sure where you live but here in the US many states are levying extra fees on EV registration to address a lack of fuel tax revenue. Actually gov’t policy has resulted in undertaxing fuel over a few decades and using deficit spending to make up the difference so who knows maybe EVs are paying more than their share. But as you acknowledge heavy trucks do most of the damage with a 1000 lb difference between similar sized vehicles being irrelevant when a 20,000lb to 80,000 lb truck drives by. I live in a rural area where maybe 30 cars and pickups drive by in a day. About once a month a loaded logging truck goes by which causes more road wear in two trips than all those cars do in a year.

          2. Loadsofoil,

            First, I’ll repeat the suggestion for clarity regarding what you are talking about. You note that you see “…many small roads which rarely see trucks on them but are in poor condition.” Your implication is that you are talking about flexible pavement. “Roads” can mean many things beyond this. Aside from the fact that one large truck can overwhelm the impacts on such assets from tens of thousands of small cars, there are many other deterioration mechanisms which play a role. For example, drainage and it’s impact on subgrade stiffness. That one large truck can have dramatically different impacts depending on time of year and climate.

            You then suggest highway safety is a function of flexible pavement condition. Not true. Your desired travel speed or damage to your vehicle may be correlated with condition, but not so much safety. It sounds like your personal experience is black asphalt pavement. You should also be thinking about rigid pavements and simple dirt roads.

            The problem with infrastructure deterioration is already there. Entropy is not new. EV vehicle weight may give the dial a nudge, but not much of one overall.

            While you suggest that you may not be anti-EV, that tone is still coming across. I’m not trying to defend EVs, just correct some flawed analysis of their impacts on the built environment they use.

    3. Perhaps it would be possible to make the tires of something else, like steel or so? Then you could also make the road from some sort of steel bars or such, reducing both friction and wear? You might not even need fossil fuels for propulsion.
      Oh, wait, I think that´s already invented… /s

      But on a serious note, a legitimate problem that really needs addressing,

  16. .’I did very, very poorly in school, until I started doing narcotics’
    —Kennedy

    1. Until my caretakers, seeing that I was a hopeless junky, started paying people to take exams for me

  17. Donald Trump has nominated the head of a private investment firm to lead the Navy.

    That should be “interesting”

    1. Putin will be pleased to see the Navy crippled. Trump is Putin’s bitch.

Comments are closed.