Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread. Thanks.
111 thoughts to “Open Thread Non Petroleum, November 25, 2019”
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Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread. Thanks.
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Hmmm, another 4000 Gt of CO2 waiting to be released by the wise men. Will they do it? Will it be the replacement for oil and natural gas as they get difficult to produce? What happens if mining techniques improve while demand increases adding to the proven reserves?
No guarantees if the population and consumption stay high.
There are an estimated 1.1 trillion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us around 150 years at current rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 50 and 52 years at current production levels.
After centuries of mineral exploration, the location, size and characteristics of most countries’ coal resources are quite well known. What tends to vary much more than the assessed level of the resource – i.e. the potentially accessible coal in the ground – is the level classified as proved recoverable reserves.
https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-coal-found
Can we afford the future?
As a child of the 1950s I grew up immersed in a near-universal expectation of progress. Everybody expected a shiny new future; the only thing that might have prevented us from having it was nuclear war, and thankfully that hasn’t happened (so far). But, in the intervening decades, progress has begun to lose its luster. Official agencies still project economic growth as far as the eye can see, but those forecasts of a better future now ring hollow.
Why? It’s simple. We can’t afford it.
https://www.kcet.org/shows/earth-focus/can-we-afford-the-future
Not a mention of insulating buildings or about population.
Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit
This article gets only the half in my opinion.
A big thing is that the ease to invent things have already been build. For example a today thing:
Self driving cars.
In the 50th it was common sense they are no problem. In fact they are a precondition for robots doing all the dirty jobs. If you can’t build a self driving car, you can’t build a robot doing your laundry and grocery shopping. It would got lost in the city…
And now we know today computer tech is at the brink of being able doing all the calculations to capture the world, to differ an advertising ad from a traffic sign and a concrete poller.
In the 50th I think they thought take a few 1000 valves and some formulas and it’s done.
The same with flying – after inventing the jet engine things got fast first. But in the 60th they just hit the material limits. Going faster means higher temperatures, so just taking steel doesn’t do it anymore. Inventing some high tech materials being 10% better than steel alloys takes the 1000 times effort than just building the prototype of a jet engine out of steel.
And the next level is another big factor.
Imagine computers.
The first electronic computer could be build by a team of a few 100 people, building together vacuum valves from an ordinary radio factory.
Today computer chips need an industry of several million people spread out around the world. It goes from special optical machines, lots of special chemicals until last but not least the chip factory can be build. And you need sophisticated computer programs to build the computer chips.
So things are much more complex then they have been thougt to be.
I think in the 60th they still believed a chip with the power of an old Intel 80486 would be enough to power artificial intelligence. They where wrong.
The link assumes that flying cars and moonbases are something people actually want, or are willing to pay for. It’s a straight line projection of the technical advances in the two centuries leading up to 1960, but it is mostly irrelevant now.
Planes are slower now than in 1970 to save fuel and keep noise down, but boarding is quicker (no paper tickets!), and there are more direct flights. Hub and spoke is dying, so nobody wants jumbo jets anymore. So planes are getting smaller and slower because nobody wants the alternative.
Moving around cities fast ruins cities. It makes more sense to reduce travel time by reducing the need to travel long distances. America’s experiment with downtown interstates is a failure because it doesn’t create an attractive environment.
In his song “Rat Race”, Bob Marley sang “In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty”. Wanting to go faster and faster only makes sense if you have somewhere to go.
Another good example is the falling US birth rate.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/22/17376536/fertility-rate-united-states-births-women
It’s tempting to blame this on America’s healthcare and education, which make children unaffordable, but that problem does not exist in Scandinavia, where health care and education are cheap. Birth rates are even lower in Scandinavia, so economics is not the reason. The real reason is that when when women are empowered to make a choice, they tend to choose fewer children. They don’t want more children.
Ford and GM keep making bigger pickups in a bidding war, but RAM is stealing market share with a nicer interior and better electronics. Cadillac is abandoning its new V8 because nobody wants it.
We aren’t headed towards the future we envisioned in the 50s because nobody wants it.
Fossil fuels increasingly offer a poor return on energy investment
A new study, co-authored by scientists from the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, has calculated the EROI for fossil fuels over a 16 year period and found that at the finished fuel stage, the ratios are much closer to those of renewable energy sources — roughly 6:1, and potentially as low as 3:1 in the case of electricity.
The study, undertaken as part of the UK Energy Research Centre programme and published today in Nature Energy, warns that the increasing energy costs of extracting fossil fuels will cause the ratios to continue to decline
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190711114846.htm
Unlike some things, FF extraction does not seem to age well. But we keep spending lots of time, money and resources on it.
Global energy demand means the world will keep burning fossil fuels, International Energy Agency warns
The world may be shifting toward renewable energy, but the pace isn’t fast enough to offset the impacts of worldwide economic expansion and a growing population, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned.
In its World Energy Outlook 2019 report, released on Tuesday, the Paris-based policy adviser said that while the importance of transitioning to a carbon-neutral world is recognized, society is still heavily dependent on fossil fuels and it will remain that way unless major policy changes are made.
Under the stricter sustainable development scenario — which would require trillions in investments — energy demand would peak before 2040 thanks to a “relentless focus on improving efficiency.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/12/global-energy-demand-will-keep-world-burning-fossil-fuels-agency-says.html
Curiouser and curiouser.
Meanwhile, latest statistics show the equivalent of 55.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere last year as a result of burning fossil fuels and other human impacts on the planet, such as deforestation. That is up from 53.5 billion tonnes the previous year, despite increasing pressure on world leaders to act.
Those numbers are underestimates but still quite large.
Only need a couple of gigaton per year to push the climate.
Meanwhile we have the efficiency wars.
https://www.vox.com/2019/8/21/20826601/trump-auto-company-fuel-economy-california
“Those numbers are underestimates……….”
Probably true but my point is, while the renewables crowd are patting themselves on the back energy use from fossil fuels is still outpacing low-carbon sources. Even in relative green Norway, with all their EVs and hydro power, carbon emissions are up again. But no sweat, we’ve got a whole decade to set things right — they tell us!
Yes Doug, we have known that for a long time. No need to make that point. The journey is long, time is short, no ice cream at the end of the trip. The parents are psycho and headed toward a cliff at high speed. The kids hope the brakes get applied (renewable energy) fast enough that they survive. Too bad the situation is far more complex than that.
The likely way “renewable” energy will equal fossil energy is for the fossil energy system to collapse or demand to fall rapidly. There probably is not time for industrial growth of renewables to equal half of the energy used presently, nor is it necessary.
Maybe, as things get worse, we will use those great brains of ours to make better decisions.
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The Car Might Have Known I Didn’t Like It, Caelan MacIntyre Jokes”
“Global energy demand for ‘renewables’ and their ‘dependencies’ also means the world will keep burning fossil fuels, Caelan MacIntyre warns.
When pressed for details regarding said statement, a hurried Caelan MacIntyre mentioned, just before heading out on his bicycle, something about the logic of killing the planet in order to save it.
While cameras were still rolling, MacIntyre was seen to narrowly avoid a collision with a self-driving electric car that suddenly accellerated at the last minute toward him.”
>but my point is, while the renewables crowd are patting themselves on the back
It’s odd that you spend so much time thinking about imaginary people patting themselves on the back. It’s part of the tribal instinct that reformulates all policy questions into questions of us vs them. It’s irrelevant who is or isn’t patting themselves on the back. Why make a point of it?
Renewables are moving into niches, like all new new technologies do. As they spread, the price falls, increasing the number of niches that can b occupied. It is a self reinforcing process.
There is no reason to think renewables will solve all the world’s problems. That is a straw man argument.
Externalities are real, in real time, acting from the past and into the future. Yet they are so often ignored since they can reduce profit, slow “progress”, and cause enlightened thinking about the world to which we belong.
2011 : WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY’S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT?
Externalities loom large in the present era, when actions in one place can potentially affect others half a world away. When I manufacture widgets for you to buy, to make them I might, as a side effect of the process, produce waste that makes the people around my factory — and maybe around the world — worse off. As long as I don’t have to compensate anyone for polluting their water and air, it’s unlikely I’ll make much of an effort to stop doing it.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10248
Remember the clouds of pollution over American cities, the rivers running colors and sometimes burning, the trees dying from acid rain, the birds dying off from DDT, remember chlordane, the growth of industrial food products and the increase in cancer and heart attacks, dioxins, PCB’s, mutated embryo’s, agent orange, leaking sewage and rivers as waste dumps?
Well, the world has those problems still, even bigger and more drastic externalities than back in the twentieth century. The constant attack upon life on earth is ongoing and increasing. The cost is to all the species. Yet very little is paid by the producers and profiteers of such activities.
SLASH EMISSIONS NOW OR FACE CLIMATE DISASTER
Despite the need for urgent action, with global energy demand set to continue rising for years, the UN itself conceded Tuesday that “there is no sign of (greenhouse) gas emissions peaking in the next few years.” That peak should have come years ago, said Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We are not running out of time –- we are already out of time.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-slash-emissions-climate-disaster.html
But Trump says it’s all fake news and the Russian gas station is our friend. So nothing to see here except cattlegate made into hamburger southern fast food poverty for your children.
If they really think we are out of time, why hasn’t the “Union of Concerned Scientists” disbanded yet?
Because there is hope the hard landing can be ameliorated to some extent?
Perhaps their warnings are also aimed at individuals that they should prepare for a collapse. Assume the worst case and prepare for it.
Already happening, apparently!
APOCALYPSE-FEARING BILLIONAIRES ARE SHIPPING BUNKERS TO NEW ZEALAND
Made by Texas-based bunker manufacturer Rising S Company, the 150-ton bunkers are buried 13 feet underground. The company’s general manager describes New Zealand as the ideal location to ride out the apocalypse…
A number of companies around the world are meeting a growing demand for structures that protect from any risk, whether it’s a global pandemic, an asteroid, or World War III — while also delivering luxurious amenities. New Zealand is an enemy of no one. It’s not a nuclear target. It’s not a target for war. It’s a place where people seek refuge. BTW a top-of-the-range bunker, The Aristocrat, costs a mere $11.5 million excluding the installation fee.
https://nypost.com/2018/09/06/apocalypse-fearing-billionaires-are-shipping-bunkers-to-new-zealand/
“New Zealand is an enemy of no one. It’s not a nuclear target. It’s not a target for war. It’s a place where people seek refuge. BTW a top-of-the-range bunker,”
Only an idiot who has never read a history book could possibly imagine that except in the case of a pandemic that New Zealand is going to be a safe place to ride out an Apocalyptic Event.
There’s no way in hell the very fine people of New Zealand will be able to defend their little paradise of a country when the shit hits the fan, unless a coalition of western powers continues to exist to provide a military umbrella.
In that case, one would probably be about as well off in a good spot in the USA , Canada, or many other countries.
Agreed
However, NZ has better Fly Fishing.
As they say”Fly Fishing is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that”
LOL I have neighbours who would agree with this.
I’ve heard a similar thing said about beer-
“They say money can’t buy you happiness…,
but it can buy you beer,
And that is essentially the same thing!”
Apocalypse To Go
I wonder if NZ’s recent mosque shooting and this have anything to do with each other, like if it’s some kind of twisted ‘Do not come here too or else…’ message.
I also wonder if some of those in question fleeing to there might help tip a balance at some point of NZ as the country with the highest number of sociopaths, or something.
Or where those monied from places like MENA might also wish to go to ride out what they might also view as an impending apocalypse…
NZ?
Six Months In A Leaky Boat
Those graphs (https://phys.org/news/2019-11-slash-emissions-climate-disaster.html) of cutting emissions are descriptive of panic mode. Yet desperation and panic is not the case. Mild anxiety at best and not by all.
Do they even know what they are asking and what the ramifications would be?
Let’s fantasize for a moment and say that we decide globally to actually reduce carbon emissions at 7 percent per annum. What will do that?
Let’s say we can make all transport emission free by 2040. That would reduce emissions by 14% after 2040. That is assuming that the conversion emissions was equal to the emissions of producing and running ICE transport. Also that the whole transport sector is run by non-emitting renewable energy. Let’s say 0.5 percent reduction per year on average. But since PV and wind won’t be doing much see below.
Next we have electricity and heat production that causes about 25% of direct emissions. Replacing all that by 2040 with non-emitting renewable energy and storage would mean massive build out of PV, wind and some nuclear. Of course we can expect no help on emission reductions until after 2040 and the high speed of production/installation/ decommissioning/ rework of the transmission systems would cause an increase in emissions during the build out phase. So no help from renewable energy during the critical period and all to achieve a possible 25% reduction in GHG eventually.
In other words, all of those EV’s would, for all practical purposes, be mostly powered by fossil fuel generation until near the end of the buildout. Bummer. At least they would be more efficient.
How about nuclear energy? If fantastic developments occur such that they become cheaper and can use the stored uranium waste they might be of some help, though it would take too long to produce enough reactors to be of much help, there would not be enough water in many places to cool them and if the fantastic development did not occur, there is not enough uranium resource to produce enough reactors to make much of a difference. Plus, it’s just plain dangerous and stupid.
How about buildings? Let’s say we can retrofit all buildings that are worth keeping and replace old ones to the point of being carbon neutral. That means that by 2050 or so we are down 6% in GHG emissions, or 0.2% per year.
Now adding up all those we could achieve a 50% drop by 2050 or so. Not fast enough by far but still quite a bit of reduction in GHG.
How about industry, that’s 20%. Let’s say a lot of the processes could get their energy from electricity and others could be made more efficient. Probably would take 30 years to achieve a 15% drop and the other 5% might be sequestered (in an ideal world).
Now we are up to 70& drop by mid century.
How about agriculture at 24% of emissions? Get rid of most meat eating, electrify what can be and stop the deforestation. Probably could cut out another 15% from that over a generation or so.
The problem is that all this fast rebuild and transform will have to run on fossil fuels and some efficiency gains for the first 15 years or more. The huge amount of extra mining, building and running production facilities and distribution/installation will use up all the renewable energy and efficiency changes plus probably some more. There is no way to voluntarily reduce emissions at 7 or 8 percent per annum while performing an industrial energy transistion.
So where does the help come from now when we most need it? From us. Everyone needs to cut back as much as possible and more, reduce their energetic and material lifestyle, eat better and eliminate processed foods, downsize. Everyone in the developed world and many in the developing world. The transistion has to occur at home and work right now for any energy/material transistion to have a prayer of being effective. At the same time we need to seriously reduce population, permanently.
Sounds fantastic, horrifying to many, and impossible to many more. The ultra-industrial push this would mean (building out renewables, maintaining much of what we have now and keeping the fossil fuel burn going to support the build out and maintenance) would definitely cause an increase in the rate of biological and landbase destruction as well as keep the GHG fuming.
If successful, where would we be? In a new climate world over 2C (most like 3C as we clean the atmosphere) , headed naturally to +6C or higher but much slower. Maybe slow enough to eliminate many of the extinctions we now expect. Instead of a fast journey to 6C it could take 10,000 to 20,000 years, if we drastically reduce population/consumption and stop being a giant toxic waste stream of destruction.
Planting a lot of trees in the meantime will slow loss of water in many areas and within 20 years start to have a meaningful sequestering effect. Growing forests is better but people seem to need to be involved even it gives a stupid result.
Of course in the real world there is and will be a huge amount of pushback to such a path so it will not be followed and a more natural transistion will occur.
Next there is the whole area of CO2 drawdown. If we got really good at that (who knows how much energy that would take) we could quickly reduce the atmospheric CO2 (which would reduce oceanic CO2) and temperatures would eventually drop. Sound good? Sure, just one more big shock to the biosphere in the opposite direction. What would dropping a degree or two in a century do to the living part of the planet? We don’t know. Just one more shock and eventually headed into cold times again, but that could be a long time. We are just leaving an Ice Age, what is the cost of re-entry?
Ramification of keeping the population and consumption high is a dying world. So population/consumption needs to drop dramatically.
See, it could be done. Are you willing? Even if many are, many might not be wiling and then the transistion would be too slow, lopsided, mostly driven by nature. Nature is uncompromising, you go along with it or you are gone, along with your genetic offspring. Nature has lots of variation, often in the “wrong” direction. That could change water supply and agriculture in short order.
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A Texas-Sized Gas-for-Electricity Swap
Converting homes to all-electric heating would save money and slash emissions in the Lone Star State, a study finds.
Swapping out gas furnaces for electric heat pumps would make ERCOT a winter-peaking system.
What would happen if you converted all the single-family homes in Texas from natural gas to electric heating?
According to a paper from Pecan Street, an Austin-based energy research organization, the transition would reduce climate-warming pollution, save Texas households up to $452 annually on their utility bills, and flip the state from a summer-peaking to a winter-peaking system. And that winter peak would be “nothing the grid couldn’t evolve to handle,” according to co-author Joshua Rhodes.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-texas-sized-gas-for-electricity-swap
I can see heat pumps working for Texas. Wonder what the upfront cost of conversion will be. If it’s 5 grand, it may be 12 to 25 years payback, and then replace the unit every fifteen years, so no actual monetary gain. Maybe some pollution reduction as Texas goes for more wind and solar.
Be better to use more insulation and collect solar thermal (active and passive). They seem to get a lot of sun in Texas.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/11/25/if-solar-and-wind-are-so-cheap-why-are-their-haters-making-so-much-noise/
There’s no question in my mind, at all, that the global environmental situation is dire and getting worse, fast, but giving up is not going to help anything, except maybe our own individual peace of mind.
Some of us accept that we are going to die, lol, and get used to it, but others fight it until the last minute.
I’m one to fight to the last minute, because although the end might be the same, there are lots of little kids who can yet enjoy a few good years of life, maybe even a lot of years.
Maybe the cards will fall in such a way that it becomes obvious to ENOUGH people that we really are faced with a do or die situation, and that while it’s already so bad ( in my opinion and apparently the opinion of most of the regulars here) that a LOT of us are going to die hard and young, just maybe……. MAYBE…….
A good lot of us can pull thru, if we plan well and the cards fall in our favor.
I haven’t yet seen any evidence I find convincing to the effect that economic and ecological collapse will NECESSARILY be abrupt and global in extent.
I personally simply do NOT believe there IS any global industry that’s ESSENTIAL to the survival of industrial civilization in a country such as the USA, or in a region such as Western Europe.
We might really need some minerals from Africa, or Afghanistan, but that does not mean Africa or Afghanistan must be industrialized. It means only that the mines must be kept open and functioning, in terms of SURVIVAL.
If we get enough of my often mentioned Pearl Harbor Wake Up Bricks upside our collective head, we might just go proactive before it’s HOPELESS.
The Allies won WWII although they got a very late start, and the Axis powers got the jump and won the early stages of the war in very convincing fashion.
It’s altogether possible that we will still have PLENTY of resources, if we get enough bricks up side our head, to make a good fight of it.
Suppose we experience a super hurricane, and a super drought, and suppose Sky Daddy acts in his ever so famous mysterious way, and leads the Russians to cut off the export of oil and gas, and the long predicted peak production of oil in countries from Saudi Arabia to Mexico actually happens, all in the next three or four years.
We just MIGHT collectively decide it’s TIME to go proactive, and DO SOMETHING that might really help in terms of preserving our modern way of life.
I’m not holding my breath.
But I’m fixing up my place so it will be a GOOD place to for some lucky family to live for the next fifty years, unless the climate goes TOTALLY nuts. I’m thinking it won’t get any hotter here than it is already in places like Mississippi for at least that long.
OFM —
Here’s what the 1% are doing. What are your plans for dealing with a pandemic or nuclear war? Can you see the attraction of places like New Zealand?
BILLIONAIRE BUNKERS: HOW THE 1% ARE PREPARING FOR THE APOCALYPSE
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/doomsday-luxury-bunkers/index.html
Hi Doug,
Although I think New Zealand might be one of the very best places on Earth to ride out overshoot, in terms of the environment, I doubt the country will survive as such, in the event of an outright collapse. The odds seem rather high to me that this little jewel of a country will be overrun by some bigger country, unless maybe we Yanks and some of our friends, assuming we have any left after trump, are still around to provide a military umbrella.
My professional background includes the basics involved in dealing with pandemics and nuclear war.
The only real hope I have, since I’m too old to emigrate to a place such as New Zealand, in the case of a pandemic, is to close all hatches and bunker up. I’m positioned to do that about as well as anybody, even a rich man. I have a well, a septic system, and plenty of firewood, and I’m very well armed and have had serious talks with a few other old guys who have seen the elephant( been in combat) who are life long friends who will join me here if they can get here, in the event……..
I have what it takes in terms of skills and tools to live without the grid, and without buying anything at all, if necessary, for quite some time. A thousand gallons of diesel fuel and a few tons of fertilizer, some seed, etc, are on hand. Parts will NOT be a problem. The country side will be littered with tractors run dry of fuel, etc, if I last long enough that mine break down. Fifty gallons of diesel is plenty for a year’s worth of subsistence farming.
I am not stocked up on such items as nonperishable food, or first aid supplies, etc, but if I see the need for it, I’m prepared to be at the places such things are sold and buy up what I need by the truckload, BEFORE the crowds arrive. I keep a CLOSE eye on the news, lol.
Can I last out a nuclear war? I don’t know. I have a large masonry barn that can be converted into a reasonably decent fall out shelter in a week or two, with some help. There’s a full basement ninety percent under ground, and I can have well water piped into it and a way to get sewage out within a day or so, with a couple of helpers. I can berm up the rest in a day with my backhoe and put a foot of soil on the ground level floor to shield the basement from above.
Somebody, I have been unable to find out who, exactly, has built what can’t be anything OTHER than a multi million dollar bunker not too far from where I live. Some guys I know worked on the job.
It’s possible who ever owns it will make it there and that it’s well stocked, and that they can fort up for a few months, maybe even a year or two. It doubles up as a vacation home for them. They don’t have ANY friends here and aren’t at ALL interested in making any. That could turn out to be a really bad mistake, long term.
If the shit hits the fan in such a way that a few starving hillbillies are still around, they won’t live to leave the place. The first time they venture out, they will die, and whoever kills them will steal whatever is left.
In any case the odds are pretty high , in my estimation, that I will be dead of old age before the shit hits the fan in the USA in such a way that battening down and bunkering up is necessary.
It’s impossible for me to make more than a wild assed guess as to the odds , but that guess is that there’s maybe a two percent chance, annually, that life as we know it comes crashing down like an old dead tree in a high wind.
“I’m fixing up my place so it will be a GOOD place to for some lucky family to live for the next fifty years” ~ OFM
Sounds like you’re building a bit of a lifeboat package. What sort of preps are you prioritizing please?
Hi Survivalist,
I’m not thinking in lifeboat terms, but some of the things I’m doing fall into that category.
The farmer philosophy is to fix things so they stay fixed, and work as much as possible on useful projects that will last more or less indefinitely if not forever. So we have built with block and brick, and with metal roofing that can be painted every ten years, indefinitely.
We paid for wells and septic systems ONCE……. these being things that last more or less forever, in terms of human life spans. We bought land when it was cheap, even though we had little use for it, knowing it would be out of reach later.
It’s not how much you make, but how much you ACCUMULATE, how much you have at the end of the year, year after year, that counts, in terms of long term prosperity and security.
So now the idea is to do as many things as I can to continue to make the place a better place to be, indefinitely. I’m not making to do and not to do decisions based on near term considerations.
There’s no way I can justify building a lake in terms of getting any profitable return on the investment, personally, but the lake will be here for centuries, and when it finally fills up with sediments, it will be a superb garden spot, lol.
Drought has been the ONE BIG problem that’s wiped out the field crops from time to time.
So I’m fixing it so that irrigation of a few acres will be easy and free, indefinitely, by way of putting a berm around a river bottom field, so that flood irrigation is possible, if called for at some future time. The water will come from the adjacent stream, via grassed water way extending upstream far enough for the water to flow by gravity, no pumps of any sort at all needed. It will be possible to divert the water from the stream into the waterway with nothing more than a shovel in a couple of hours.
There will be a permanent woodlot to be harvested for firewood for heating and cooking UPHILL from the house, so that getting the wood TO the house will be easy, using nothing more than a wheel barrow, if nothing else is available. There will be a permanent well graveled road extending to all parts of the property.
Lots of fruit and nut trees.
BIG root cellar, excavated into a hill side, lined with stone and brick, with the roof supported by stainless steel beams I bought for scrap prices for this very use.
Gravity fed spring water to the house, with a large concrete reservoir at the spring, so that a thousand gallons of water will be available cost free a couple of times every day forever, unless the climate goes nuts, by just opening a faucet.
Permanent fire proof and rot proof weather tight secure storage near the house where stuff such as salt, non perishable foods, extra clothing, boots, paint, lubricants, hardware from nails to barbed wire can be stored indefinitely, at no cost.
This kind of storage pays for itself, because it enables you to buy anything that will keep good in bulk at a big discount off the usual retail price.
Barbed wire fences nailed into living trees, selected especially for the purpose so that there won’t be any need to replace fence posts, ever, except for one at a time. Some of the trees will be persimmon , hickory, walnut, pear, pecan, oak, mulberry, cherry,paw paw, etc, deliberately planted or transplanted, but a lot of them already there and mature.
Grass won’t grow very well within ten feet or so of the fence, but that’s OK, because if it’s needed, there will be at least a modest yield of nuts and fruit free for the gathering.
The long term plan has always been to make the place one where you can live well without necessarily having to have an off farm job to make ends meet. I’m just doing more of the same.
Call it a life boat plan if you like.
Assuming the people who live on the place in the future know how to maintain it, and how to farm, they will be able to live for quite some time without setting foot off the property,
If the climate turns deep south hot, they can raise rice in that stream side bermed field, lol, rather than corn or wheat.
What a great comment OFM!
Would you mind if I copied it and reposted it at a doomer/homesteader site?
El Niño Weather Events Are Looking Increasingly Dangerous as The Climate Changes
https://www.sciencealert.com/el-nino-and-la-nina-weather-events-look-increasingly-dangerous-with-climate-changes
Hint: This is not going to happen
World must cut carbon emissions by 7.6 percent every year for next decade to meet 1.5°C Paris target – “It is very disturbing that in spite of the many warnings, global emissions have continued to increase and do not seem to be likely to peak anytime soon”
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/11/world-must-cut-carbon-emissions-by-7-6-percent-every-year-for-next-decade-to-meet-1-5c-paris-target-it-is-very-disturbing-that-in-spite-of-the-many-warnings-global-emissions.html
Meanwhile we add 80 million plus souls to our blue dot every year.
It’s not the number that is added, it’s what they are taught after they are here.
AS TEMPERATURES RAISE HAS AIR CONDITIONING ENTERED (BECOME) A CLIMATE FEEDBACK LOOP?
AIR CONDITIONING USE EMERGES AS ONE OF THE KEY DRIVERS OF GLOBAL ELECTRICITY-DEMAND GROWTH
Globally, renewables made up roughly 24 percent of electricity generation (in 2014), much of it from hydropower (17 percent). Meanwhile, there are some 1.6 billion A.C. units worldwide, accounting for around 10 percent of the world’s electricity consumption. So, taking hydro out of the equation, at least in 2014 renewables didn’t even produce enough power to meet air conditioning requirements. Is growth in non-hydro going to meet the needs of air conditioning any time soon? BTW A 2015 survey found that nearly 90 percent of American households have air conditioning of some sort. And, before I retired I used to hate climatically controlled offices and hotels when you couldn’t even open any windows. On this theme:
“Growing electricity demand for air conditioning is one of the most critical blind spots in today’s energy debate,” according to Dr Fatih Birol, the Executive Director of the IEA. “With rising incomes, air conditioner ownership will skyrocket, especially in the emerging world. While this will bring extra comfort and improve daily lives, it is essential that efficiency performance for A.C.s be prioritized. STANDARDS FOR THE BULK OF THESE NEW A.C.s ARE MUCH LOWER THAN WHERE THEY SHOULD BE.”
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/may/air-conditioning-use-emerges-as-one-of-the-key-drivers-of-global-electricity-dema.html
AC use can be designed out of large buildings and most small buildings too.
However, consider the upcoming 11 trillion vehicle miles traveled per year by 2040 as the population grows and gets richer (yes, a fantasy stretch but good for a laugh),
At 0.3 kWh per mile that is 3.3 trillion kWh just to get around (if we go all electric). For comparison, the US produces 4.17 trillion kWh of electricity and the global consumption of electric power was 21.37 trillion kWh in 2017.
In just ten to fifteen years we could have enough PV installed to power the whole global transport system of 2040.
Of course that means that all new vehicles will have to be electric by the late 2020’s which is a huge jump of about 80 times the rate or a big drop in demand due to vehicles as a service.
Of course the big jump in aviation will take some of the load off land transport.
The plus side: traffic will be so slow near cities that EV’s will be operating at twice their rated efficiency or better.
BTW, those numbers do not consider the growing population and economy in Africa, so we might need a few more panels and vehicles by 2040 than previously thought.
Tulsi Gabbard claims a $6.4 trillion dollar cost for the war campaigns of the U.S. since 9/11.
By my math (always in need of double checking by a competent person, as I’m functionally innumerate), This could have bought us 1.8 tW of solar PV capacity at $3.50/watt, which at 20% capacity factor would produce 3.2 petawatts of power annually. Or, it could have bought 160 million people (but not Survivalist) a Tesla Model3 SR+.
Instead, Iraqi children get to enjoy their birth defects, and arms plutocrats their blood money.
ARE WE PASSING SOME KEY ‘TIPPING POINTS’?
“Politicians, economists and even some natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points in the Earth system such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet, are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes.”
Co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, says it is not only human pressures on Earth that continue rising to unprecedented levels. “It is also that as science advances, we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming. This is what we now start seeing, already at 1C global warming.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50578516?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science_and_environment&link_location=live-reporting-story
As a marketing guy, I have to smile at Tesla’s truck.
Seventy years of brainwashing have convinced Americans that it matters what their cars looks like. It’s amusing that people who pride themselves in being uncultured, totally pragmatic rednecks buy trucks by their look and their comfy seats.
The concept of the sitcom was created to sell cars, and the ads in the sitcoms taught you and your parents and grandparents to love fins and fancy grills and other stuff that the stamping process and the paint shop can produce. Your opinions of car “beauty”is a product of that TV campaign just as much as the grill shape you love is a product of the stamping process.
Pickups are supposed to be “tough”. Ford has been pounding that message into your brain for decades. You believe it. All that cheap recycled steel with fancy paint jobs and stamped curves are fragile and prone to rust. You’ve been had. Get over it.
Pickups aren’t tough. They aren’t close to efficient either. The are a triumph of marketing over engineering. Tesla designed a truck with no stamping and no paint shop. That’s most of the car factory gone. And they whacked it with a sledge hammer on stage, and threw cannonballs at it. They got with mixed results, but at least they tried. Also the thing uses much less energy than normal trucks and can probably outpull them.
Tesla was smart to attack the market from that angle. No idea if it will work, but it is funny. Car marketing guys all over the planet must be shitting their pants.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/537513d5-a067-420e-81e4-15dc48dfde9d
Yeah, I suppose it seems meaningless if you have never stopped to think about how things get sold to you or how your opinions are created for you.
Survivalist got sold a whole lot of Tervberg collapse a decade ago and sometimes gets up on the wrong side of logic in life’s adventures. Going back to hunting and gathering is not my first choice of planning for the future. Go easy on him.
Tervberg is a denialist/optimist.
I’m not a unknown in her world.
I have three stripes on my shoulder for being band.
She wasn’t big on ” Your wrong because…….”
I agree—-
A denialist.
three stripes on my shoulder
Military? I’m a UC graduate from the 60’s (most drafted class, 1966)
Not my cup of tea, and was deferred.
(I won’t mention anything else)
No, just young enough to miss the draft. Didn’t mean to give that impression.
I remember the nightly body count on the evening news.
Learned to sing a few bars from the Group W bench, in 5 part harmony…
Not a big fan of Gail T actually
Lmao!
The design is a hybrid of previous auto design, neatly used to provide some aerodynamics. It is 70’s wedge car mates with pickup truck.
The electric motive system will have it’s inherent characteristics, very high torque at low speeds, higher efficiency, long life with low maintenance.
It is not a coincidence that modern locomotives have similar electric motive systems.
Pre-orders have crossed 250K. Don’t worry Survivalist, I am sure Buffett will do something notable for you to talk about.
BYD too boring for you? It’s unfortunate that Americans can’t transition to EVs without getting wrapped up in the cult of CEO worship; embarrassing really.
It is without a doubt time to admit that your interest here is not to champion a transition to a fossil fuel free future, for if it was you’d likely be interested in EVs more generally, but is instead to be a shill for Musk.
Please, do let us know when Musk’s vanity project pays a dividend, or posts a TTM average P/E ratio greater than zero.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/pe-ratio
I have heard your act before. There are more important things than being immediately profitable. Eventually yes, immediately no. I have nothing against Buffett, unlike your feelings for Musk.
Even though we are too far into overshoot to survive, at least Musk has the singular goal of trying. Buffett is just making a buck. If you have paid any attention to my comments here you would notice I am pro-EV about anyone including Rivian, VW, and all of them. Much as Musk is, if you really cared to be honest about it, which you aren’t.
Your big other criticism is that no one here mentioned BYD before. You could have brought BYD up without attacking the other pro-EV people here…but again, you have your act.
To you anyone remotely positive on Tesla or Musk is a shill, a fan bois, in a cult or balls deep in their stock. Your ad homs mean nothing to anyone, especially me. So don’t bother.
“Musk has the singular goal of trying. Buffett is just making a buck” ~ Songster
Ah I get it now, you guys think Musk is morally virtuous and cares, because he’s trying, but Buffett is just in it for the money, and therefore lacks moral courage. Weak tea as usual from the cornucopian crowd.
Ad homs? Your understanding of logical fallacies is weak. Maybe read up.
“being an asshole is not a logical fallacy” ~Ben Burgis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQALEaSN658
My guess is the cornucopian gang starves out pretty early on.
I’m just thankful Musk didn’t get into the military robot business.
Weak tea as usual from the cornucopian crowd. Survivalist
So you really have no facts other than your emotions as to why you continue to attack Musk. You do have the unique position of using Buffett as a strawman as if it is some kind of a contest.
Since you are such a Buffett fan bois about his investment in a battery company, doesn’t that make you a cornucopian? You brand other pro-EV persons that way, including me. How about you?
Ad homs? Your understanding of logical fallacies is weak. Maybe read up. Survivalist
More you should read up on what an ad hom is. You use them regularly in your posts. I would expect you would know what they are.
Really, please tell me what it is about Musk and Tesla that you are so negative about. It can’t be that they make EV’s, your hero Buffett invests in that. So what is it? The lack of steady profits is all you have been able to spit out. That’s it?
I think you are really are just trying to spread FUD or maybe you are a dedicated Luddite. But who knows? It just seems that way.
I wouldn’t be surprised if BYD buys Tesla actually. It’s obvious that American capitalists won’t back a new manufacturer, but Chinese like manufacturing.
China’s Electric Vehicle Market: A Storm of Competition Is Coming
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/chinas-ev-market/
FACTBOX: The Asian companies dominating the global electric-battery market
https://europe.autonews.com/suppliers/factbox-asian-companies-dominating-global-electric-battery-market
Destruction of nature is as big a threat to humanity as climate change
We are destroying nature at an unprecedented rate, threatening the survival of a million species – and our own future, too. But it’s not too late to save them and us, says a major new report.
“The evidence is incontestable. Our destruction of biodiversity and ecosystem services has reached levels that threaten our well-being at least as much as human-induced climate change.”
With these words chair Robert Watson launched a meeting in Paris to agree the final text of a major UN report on the state of nature around the world – the biggest and most thorough assessment to date, put together by 150 scientists from 50 countries.
The report, released today, is mostly grim reading. We humans have already significantly altered three-quarters of all land and two-thirds of the oceans. More than a third of land and three-quarters of freshwater resources are devoted to crops or livestock.
Around 700 vertebrates have gone extinct in the past few centuries. Forty per cent of amphibians and a third of coral species, sharks and marine mammals look set to follow.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2201697-destruction-of-nature-is-as-big-a-threat-to-humanity-as-climate-change/
Food for thought.
I do not agree with all of the points this author makes, but the concepts are worth taking into account.
http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/
[not for GF. thank you]
Interesting article!
Question for you Survivalist- its about the topic of your handle.
How do you decide what kind of threat to prioritize?
If ‘order’ and stability broke down to the point of severe disarray, there are so many different ways that chaos could take you down. Some are pretty obvious like like mob violence (good luck with that unless your gang has bigger sticks), and loss of water or food.
But there are also less obvious ones, like medical care. Does one learn how to do their own appendectomy (which can come to kill on any day, to any one)?
Which natural disaster do you get ready for.
Whats your backup plan if your getaway has been taken by a local clan?
I’m wondering because I am not taking these kind of steps to any great extent. If the world gets that unstable, I’m thinking I don’t want to be hanging around to ‘enjoy’ it.
I’d prefer to migrate to greener pastures, or just say adios. Migrating often just takes money or gold bits. A ‘place of your own’ and ‘stuff’ often is just a roadblock to hitting the trail when the writing is on the wall.
It may turn out that having a well developed basic business like raising goats, being a plumber, or a midwife, or having your own power plant (big solar PV array, for example), could be your ticket to surviving a time of big economic chaos. In this kind of scenario, the closer to town the better. For example, any farmer who has to transport their products to market knows very well how important it is to be close in.
Sorry if this comes across as disjointed, but I’m curious to hear how others wrap their mind around these issues. I’d suggest that most steps people may take to ‘survive’ are not the ones which they will ever find useful.
“Sorry if this comes across as disjointed, but I’m curious to hear how others wrap their mind around these issues. I’d suggest that most steps people may take to ‘survive’ are not the ones which they will ever find useful.”
I’ve been living alone, off grid, in a cabin I built in an isolated area of the Ozark highlands for 8 years. I have neighbors that have skills in hunting, nursing, raising animals, and more. I have a large library of useful books, both physical and ebooks with several ereaders, I have a garden on untilled soil with the only amendments being leaves and dilute urine. I could live for a year just on the dried and canned food in storage. I raise fruit trees and bushes along with medicinal herbs and save seeds for annual crops. I could go on but that’s enough. I am not prepared for a meteor strike or being struck by lightening but I can’t cover everything. I’m enjoying this life and wish I had started sooner.
James.. I’m in Ar Ozarks. Send me a email at my handle at Gmail. Love to trade stories. Gallery. http://www.lowgap.net/Area
Hi Hick, My personal approach has been to work on a retreat that is proximal to a community that would be a reasonable candidate for being/becoming a successful ‘transition town’, without breaking too much porcelain, so to speak. In my case, the retreat is about 25 miles away from a small town with a small hospital (approx 5K pop.) , and 10 miles away from a village with a small health center. Both are reachable by road or boat. There are many nice people about living in the immediate area, proud gardeners/orchardists, local area workers, volunteer firefighters/ambulance types, retirees, and summer cabin folks. Community is important, so is networking.
I’ve been focused on making my retreat, raw forested land, into an orchard/garden/greenhouse production job (it’s great exercise), and a storage site for my preps, which mostly all kinds of tools I’ll need and plenty of food. This is because I prioritize famine secondary to the combined impacts of peak oil and climate change. The reason is ecological in nature and historical in precedent. I’m bullish on food.
My concept of operations will likely be to keep a low profile for a few years with some friends and family while the dust settles, and there’ll be a lot of dust, and work on the gardens/greenhouses, catch up on reading etc.
Security is an issue best dealt with by reasonable isolation from a large city, IMHO. Mountains favor the defender, the terrain tends to channel travelers down a terrain feature, thereby reducing the number of areas of vulnerability/avenues of approach. A few sentries, if needed, will usually do.
I’ve got family dabbling in chickens. As collapse proceeds I’ll likely scale up the chicken op and begin a meat and milk goat op. It never ends, preparing that is; not unlike constructing a military defensive position, the work is never truly done, there’s always more to do when the attack finally comes. But you do what you can before it does.
If BAU continues without collapse then I’ll retire to an orchard in the mountains, which will be quite nice I think, and leave it to someone who’ll need it after I’m fertilizer. If collapse does occur in my time then I’ll head for the retreat, crack into the preps, and expand the food production biz.
Good to hear of your work on these projects- James, Survivalist and OFM.
I hope you never need to make use of your preparations, and can just chalk it all up to useful time spent.
Hickory said
“[not for GF. thank you] ”
ROFL
Bring on the ever richer, increasing population. Let them grow fat, diseased, and entitled. Enjoy the surveillance, it’s only for a little while.
No matter what you look at, may it be deforestation, atmospheric carbon levels, species extinctions, polluted rivers, every aspect has gotten worse year after year. Governments doesn’t seem to be able to solve this crisis, and neither is the public. Recently the Global Carbon Project announced that, despite all the efforts and the fact that overall carbon emissions from fossil fuels and industry have experienced only “flat growth” over the last two years (a sign of hope for many), the carbon emissions will once again grow by 2% in 2017 — and the trend is expected to continue next year.
It seems like all our efforts are destined to fail.
Forests all over the world continue to be destroyed in the name of economic growth, progress and development, and we civilized humans set in motion what some call the Sixth Mass Extinction Event. In the past 40 years, we lost half of the world’s wildlife, and species extinctions proceed at an unprecedented rate — estimated at 10,000 species per year (WWF), or about one species per hour.
Simultaneously, the decrease of insect populations across Europe by over 70%, already bearing the label Insectageddon, is believed to have disastrous impacts on human crops and ecosystem stability in the coming decade.
We logged over 75% of all forests in the 10,000-year history of our culture, and logging continues at breathtaking speed (currently deforestation proceeds at a rate of 48 football fields per minute, while we concomitantly lose 30 football fields of topsoil per minute).
https://medium.com/@FeunFooPermaKra/the-collapse-of-global-civilization-has-begun-b527c649754c
I hear the bacteria are not worried about the first Mass Extermination Event
For once, human-induced climate change is not the most egregious cause of a slow-motion global catastrophe. The primary cause of accelerating species loss, according to the report, is rapid change in patterns of land and sea usage. Farming, fishing, logging, mining and other activities are changing — in many cases, deeply scarring — the natural world.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-killing-off-our-planet-and-our-enlightenment-may-come-too-late/2019/05/06/866d4620-7036-11e9-9f06-5fc2ee80027a_story.html
Accelerating greenhouse gas levels
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/11/accelerating-greenhouse-gas-levels.html?m=1
While nothing new to the people who peruse POB, this article nevertheless is a must-read. The almost-success of early electric vehicles, the destruction of public transport, motor industry propaganda–it has it all:
The Car Culture That’s Helping Destroy the Planet Was By No Means Inevitable
(By a strange irony, at the time I saw this article, I was listening to the Largo segment of Dvorak’s so-called New World Symphony, which I think of as “Requiem for a Lost World.” It makes me weep for what could have been.)
[And… a sincere American prayer to all of you abroad during this weird holiday of ours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSveRGmpIE&feature=emb_logo ]
This legend is from a map of Washington State I have hanging on the wall. Can you guess the year?
About 1910
That was my guess too.
exactly. right in that window of transition.
Well—-
All the Latin American correspondents are in Venezuela trying to find a Guiado supporter, so far, no luck.
Just thought we needed some news on Venezuela.
I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to the Peak Oil Barrel crew!
What is everyone here thankful for? Personally, I am thankful for the love of my life of the past 42 years, my wife. She has been by my side through both happy and trying times. Furthermore, I am thankful for all the freedoms we have in our country, including the freedom to celebrate Thanksgiving as we wish. I pray for the continued wisdom of our elected leaders to make proper decisions, including the ones needed to protect us from the world’s many dangers but keep all our freedoms alive for future generations. Lastly, I am thankful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for blessing myself and my family with another year of good health.
So once again, let me wish one and all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Now, let’s start carving up the turkey…
I’m thankful for my friends here who believe in science and not magical thinking
Well, to be fair, there is the alleged ‘EV’s will save us’ demographic rumored to abide here. 😉
Since I’m grinding down concrete in my basement today. I’m personally thankful for effective respirators and other P.P.E.
When the smartest thing you can think of saying is a stupid lie, you probably don’t have any smart things to say.
what did he say that was a lie?
No, it’s true. I really am thankful for P.P.E.
I’m envious and admiring of your linguistic facility, but I think something may have been lost in translation here.
A friend’s son in the Air Force is home from Afghanistan in time for the holiday. Very thankful for that.
As a Houstonian, I am forever thankful for fossil fuels. Happy Thanksgiving!
As a geologist, I can relate. I like what the Lt. Governor of Texas goes around saying that God deliberately chose Texas when distributing oil resources. lol
When I was in Saudi Arabia, back in the early 80’s, the government ran a documentary on Saudi Arabia. It was several episodes but at the end of the last one they said: “God gave the best land in the world to the best people in the world.” We all burst out laughing at that because we thought: “God must have thought the Saudis were crap because he gave them such a shitty piece of desert for land.”
Lol that is hilarious.
Rick, I’m surprised to hear that you think you’ve been saved.
Just look at how you voted,
the ‘saving’ wasn’t at all effective.
Maybe ask for a refund.
Well worth reading for insight
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-supporters-california-clinton-fake-news-vote-2020-a9214131.html?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral
Yep- Nails it well, OFM.
I know this offended you last time I brought up, but I still believe that a high percentage of Americans (from right left center or nowhere in particular), are unqualified to make any important decisions that affect other people, not to mention the country as a whole.
Whether its [apathy, spotty education, incomplete news, partisan brainwashing, conspiracy theory beliefs, intolerance, or intoxication] regardless of cause so many don’t have the mental acuity and judgement to participate in the democratic process in any productive way.
And so we wobble along like a broken down truck with just two tires, leaking fluids, sputtering and skirting along the edge a swamp or cliff.
Sure seems like failed democracy to me.
I’d prefer a minimum competency test to qualify for voting. Maybe even more than minimum.
Voter suppression is not the answer. Quality public education and a economy that works for all would solve a lot more problems. Facts and truth matter. Also something needs to be done about the American cancer called FoxNews.
That would be best HB, but the attempt has failed miserably.
Not to belabor a point but….
CLIMATE TIPPING POINTS ARE CLOSER THAN WE THINK
“What we’re talking about is a point of no return, when we might actually lose control of this system, and there is a significant risk that we’re going to do this,” according to Will Steffen, a climate researcher with the Australian National University and co-author of the commentary. “It’s not going to be the same conditions with just a bit more heat or a bit more rainfall. It’s a cascading process that gets out of control.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27112019/climate-tipping-points-permafrost-forests-ice-antarctica-greenland-amazon-nature
Today’s the day to partake in Black Friday shopping events and help the economy prosper, not sit at home thinking paranoid climate change thoughts.
Leo Halstead,
Why “paranoid”?
Purchasing more Chinese plastic gunk to fill America’s landfills 6 months from now is not an economic plan. It’s more of the same short sighted and quick gratification debt tendencies that has undermined past prosperity.
You give new meaning to saying “shop until you drop”
I’m kinda the frugal minimalist type, except for my preps- my preps are lit, so Black Friday ain’t really my thing.
I thought he was going to say something we all didn’t know already-
“Navy Secretary Richard Spencer on Wednesday sharply criticized President Donald Trump for intervening in the case of a Navy SEAL charged with war crimes. Trump “has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices,”
He had a sore foot—-
Couldn’t go into the Military.
Was pro Vietnam though.
They called these people Chicken Hawks.
His father bribed the doctor. Now his doctor says he could live to the age of 200 if he would loose a few pounds.
“The Complete Guide to Drilling” is an article at OilPrice today. It may be of interest to some here.
Some people want to ramp up nuclear power.
Aside from cost, this problem needs to be dealt with first,
whether or not nuclear is ramped up or down.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/30/europe/germany-nuclear-waste-grm-intl/index.html
Bit of trivia for islandboy,
Energy demand for space cooling in buildings in the People’s Republic of China is rising rapidly, placing strains on the electricity system and contributing to local air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. China saw the fastest growth worldwide in energy demand for space cooling in buildings over the last two decades, increasing at 13% PER YEAR since 2000 and reaching nearly 400 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity consumption in 2017. As a result, space cooling accounted for more than 10% of total electricity growth in China since 2010 and around 16% of peak electricity load in 2017. That share can reach as much as 50% of peak electricity demand on extremely hot days, as seen in recent summers. Cooling-related CO2 emissions from electricity consumption consequently increased fivefold between 2000 and 2017, given the strong reliance on coal-fired power generation in China.
https://www.iea.org/publications/reports/TheFutureofCoolinginChina/
Just got off the phone with my niece who tries to keep me up to speed on Norway news. This from the (lovely) horse’s mouth: Johan Sverdrup oil output surges — 660,000 barrels per day daily production expected in Phase 2 (after 2022)
At peak, Johan Sverdrup located 150km off the coast of Stavanger, will account for roughly one third of all oil production in Norway. It has recoverable reserves of 2.7 billion barrels oil equivalent. Powered with electricity from shore, the field has CO2 emissions of well-below one kilogram per barrel, about 25 times below the world average; the break-even price for the full-field development is less than $20 per barrel. After reaching plateau for the first phase, anticipated during the summer of 2020, expected operating costs are below $2 per barrel. The operator Equinor AS expects cash flow from operations of around $50 per barrel in 2020, based on a real oil price of $70 per barrel, partly as a result of the phasing of tax payments in the ramp-up phase.
It’s interesting that Norway, if you have a small enough window, is a country who’s citizens are benefiting financially from oil.
Is this cultural? Seems rare, if one looks elsewhere.
“Is this cultural?”
I’m not competent to answer your question but I’d say, to a large degree, yes. There is much in common between the Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden). Typically they have considerably less income and wealth inequality than most other countries; Norway’s growing oil wealth, currently exceeding one trillion dollars US, has been invested for future generations.
Two new Posts
http://peakoilbarrel.com/is-us-oil-production-growth-slowing/
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-december-1-2019/